How I Spent the Apocalypse

by Selina Rosen

  “I’m sorry, Sam, but… If it wasn’t for Kay I’d be dead. We’ve been through a lot together and I have a real connection with her. I love her.”

  So that made me feel some better.

  “What about me?” Sam asked. Her voice was choked. “What about me? Did you even think about me when you were fucking her? You thought I was dead, but did you even wait for my body to cool off before you started banging her? I’ve been fighting for my life out there and you’ve been here in basically the only truly safe place in the world and did you think about me even once?”

  “Of course I did, all the time at first, Sam. But I learned that you just can’t dwell on what’s gone.” She stopped then no doubt listening to see if I was on the radio, which I wasn’t. “Kay, are you listening outside the door?”

  I stepped out of my hiding place, walked into the kitchen and just started cooking again. Sam glared at me and I glared right back, daring her to start something I knew I could finish.

  It was a crappy situation for everyone involved. I know that now, but at the time I didn’t even care how Lucy felt about it; I only cared how it made me feel. You know like everything that came out of Samantha’s mouth was correct and that Lucy was only ever with me because she was extremely horny, I was there, and there weren’t any options. Now that there were options I couldn’t hope that Lucy would choose me unless I killed Samantha and then… Well then Lucy was just going to be pissed off for the rest of our natural lives and she’d never forgive me.

  So the way I saw it I was just screwed.

  They kept whispering to each other at the table the whole time I was cooking and I could only make about half of it out but they were mostly fighting the way a married couple did and that certainly wasn’t doing anything to make me feel better about what I was more sure by the minute was just going to be me alone for the rest of the ABS.

  Then I was eating my dinner the way you do when you’re angry and sad at the same time. You know, picking at my food for a few minutes not wanting to eat anything, and then just stuffing food in my mouth as hard and fast as I could hardly chewing it and mostly swallowing it whole just because I wanted everyone at the table to know I was mad.

  Maybe that’s just me.

  It was pretty quiet and then Lucy just had to ask the dwarf, “So, where were you when the worst of it hit. How did you make it?”

  “I was in the basement of my apartment building doing laundry when it hit. I grabbed a blanket, covered myself up, and just lay in the floor under the table. I heard it tearing the building apart and I could hear transformers blowing up and everything was… It was so dark. I’d never seen dark like that before. I just lay there trying to call people but my phone didn’t work.”

  “But you had a satellite phone,” Lucy said. She sounded a little confused since some of the satellite phones we had worked for weeks after the BS. Frankly, everything the girl said from that point on just made me even more certain that she was full of shit.

  “Don’t know what to tell you; it wasn’t working.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t see or hear anyone or anything. So I just lay there till the sun came up in the morning and then I got to work. I turned a dryer into a wood stove using duct work for a chimney. I crawled out the window because the stairs were covered in debris and I started dragging everything I could find down in there with me. Wood for the fire, food, bottles and bottles of water, blankets, clothes, a bed and then…” She pretended to choke on a sob and no, I’m not just being a cynic now. It was fake; I could tell it was fake. “I had a radio and when I heard you were alive then I knew I just had to live.”

  “What a bunch of crap.” I said. Then I got up and rinsed my plate.

  “Kay, come on,” Lucy said.

  I nodded and sat down again.

  The show wasn’t for me. It was all for Lucy, so Samantha just kept going on and on and on building a web of crap so thick my fat ass could have danced on it. How she’d tune the radio to my station every single day for just the few minutes of battery that she could spare to try and just hear Lucy’s voice. How she’d had to ration her candles and how dark and lonely her days had been. How she’d dug her way out at the end of the longest winter ever and immediately gone in search of a plane she could fly with one goal in mind—to reunite with Lucy. How she had struggled and worked to get the plane running and then had to keep stopping to find fuel.

  On and on and fucking on telling this bullshit story which was punctuated every few minutes by how she’d done it all for Lucy. How much she loved Lucy.

  You know like I wasn’t even there. And Lucy, well she was eating that shit up like a chemical toilet.

  I finally left them alone and went to take care of the animals. I don’t think either of them had noticed I’d gone.

  The goats could tell there was something wrong and seemed very sympathetic, so I told them all my troubles.

  The rest of the evening I just did my chores and talked on the radio, giving out the weather reports, answering people’s questions, and all basically knowing just exactly where Lucy and Samantha were and what they were doing at any given moment but ignoring them at the same time—which wasn’t easy.

  While talking to the goats I’d realized that nothing I was going to say about all the lies Samantha was telling was actually going to help me. I loved Lucy; I wanted her to be happy. That being the case I had to let her make whatever decision she was going to make on her own. She’d been going with this girl for years. She knew her, and by now she knew me.

  Samantha was lying out her ass. Lucy wasn’t stupid, so if I gave the bitch enough rope she’d hang herself. I was sure of that.

  I was going to work at being rational and fair and letting this whole thing be truly Lucy’s choice.

  Of course you can want to act like a grown up and be sure that you’re going to and then. Well the minute Lucy walked into the office and closed the door behind her to indicate that she wanted to be alone with me the first words out of my mouth were, “You were really with that dwarf?”

  Lucy smiled at me, no doubt because she’d already figured out that I was easily defused by her smile. “She’s the same height as I am.”

  “That’s different, you’re a girl.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You’re so weird.” She walked over sat on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. I held her because well the truth was I didn’t think I’d be able to hold her much longer.

  “I love you, Lucy.” That was all I could get out with out crying, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be crying with Samantha in the house even if I’d wanted to cry in front of Lucy, which I didn’t.

  “I love you, Kay. I just… I have to figure this thing out. I have to see what it means.”

  “It means she came looking for you. That’s all.”

  “But why is she alive, Kay? How? Billions dead and…”

  “She’s here to screw up my life, Lucy. That’s why she’s here. Just send her away.”

  See all my very good intentions just gone.

  “I can’t, Kay, any more than I can just walk away from you. I have to know.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t want you to find out that you love her more than you love me.”

  “I could never love anyone the way I love you, Kay.” And then she was kissing me and I was kissing her and then she broke down crying on my shoulder. The gist of it all was that she had put Samantha in Jimmy’s room and she was going to sleep in Billy’s and I was going to be sleeping in my room alone because apparently she needed to think and if she was in bed with me we’d have sex and then she couldn’t think. Which would have worked for me, but wouldn’t work for her at all.

  My bed felt way too big and too lonely and I figured I’d better get used to it because this was probably how it was going to be for the rest of my life. I got really depressed and fell asleep and had a nightmare that I was living in a basement knee deep in water and floating ice and Samantha and Lucy were living in my house. Of course they wer
e fucking and I could see it all on the big screen TV in my basement.

  Dreams are weird.

  When I woke up in the morning I immediately jumped out of bed to make sure Lucy was in one room and Samantha was in the other.

  They were both still asleep, so being crazy I screamed at the top of my lungs, “This is completely fucked up!”

  Which it was.

  Everyone loved Samantha. She was pretty and bright and out going and not crazy and she taught the kids in town to play some stupid-assed game with the playground equipment. It was obvious to me that Lucy was really having trouble deciding between us and even more obvious that everyone who should have been rooting for me since I had saved their sorry butts all thought Lucy should be with Samantha because she was pretty and fun and I wasn’t.

  Samantha spent a lot of her time down in Rudy she said she was working on her plane but I was pretty sure she was spending all her time turning the town’s people against me just like she was trying to turn Lucy against me.

  She contradicted her story at least twice but it was in small ways. Lucy didn’t seem to notice, and I would have just looked like a shmuck if I’d pointed it out, so I didn’t. I just kept working at being a grown up and letting it be Lucy’s decision. Which was getting increasingly harder to do because I hadn’t had sex in a week and I hadn’t had any real sleep because I was too busy sleeping with one eye open trying to make sure Lucy didn’t sleep with Samantha which I was more or less sure would seal the deal and make Lucy leave with Samantha. Because I meant what I said and there was no way she could stay anywhere near me and be with Samantha.

  I was cultivating my garden when Samantha came up to me. I was minding my own business, way busy, and so I was immediately pissed off. I killed the engine on the tiller knowing it was time for some sort of show down which by the way had happened almost daily for that whole week she’d been there ruining my life.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Look Kate…

  “My name isn’t Kate, it’s Katy. You can call me shithead, but don’t call me Kate again or I’ll rip your head off and shit in the hole,” I hissed at her. See, my dad used to call me Kate when he was drunk and pissed off just before he beat the dog shit out of me, so it was a trigger for me.

  “Look, I’m not here just to rain on your parade.”

  “Bullshit. That’s exactly why you’re here. Save your bullshit for Lucy.” I laughed at her then. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Bitch I’m the queen of the Apocalypse and the shit that spews forth from your mouth about how you lived? Hell, most of it’s right out of one of the survivor’s mouths. It’s not even funny.”

  You guys remember Tom, the guy who made the soup from complimentary pizza parlor packets? Well that’s about the only part of his story she didn’t use.

  “You see those folks in Rudy? According to what you’ve told us you lived a whole lot worse than they did, and there isn’t one of them that didn’t lose too much weight over the winter. They still don’t have any color to speak of. You’re tan and you weigh exactly what you did when it all started, I heard you tell Lucy so. And… Well you’re not fucking crazy, so if you’d really lived through what you say you’ve lived through you would be shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds. And let’s just take a second to wrap our brains around this—you can find and fix a plane but you couldn’t find or operate a radio—which would have been a hell of a lot easier to find—to try to contact Lucy. Idiots in Uganda with a can and a string I can hear, but from you not a peep. Nope, not a peep. Even when you’re getting ready to land you don’t bother to tell us what’s going on.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Because you’ve been using every time Lucy’s left town for the last few years to go get you a piece of strange.”

  I smiled at the shocked look on her face. I held the rest of my cards to play later if I needed them and just said, “I told you, I’m the queen of the apocalypse.”

  There are very few people out there who lived who I hadn’t talked to because let’s face it anyone smart enough to live through the end of the world was also smart enough to figure out radio communication. Certainly anyone who could fly a fucking plane and had access to the communications in a plane could have contacted me at any time. So I listened to her little story, took into account how good she looked, figured out which group she’d been stuck with, and asked their leader some questions.

  Remember I told you that one of my biggest supporters was a lesbian couple that owned a very successful bed and breakfast in the foot hills of Kentucky? They believed me and they’d gotten ready for the BS in a big way. Underground bunker with enough food for twenty people for two years, pool, hot tub, tanning bed, all powered by their own personal natural gas well… Which was of course how the bitches got so rich in the first place. At any rate they had six lesbian couples staying with them when the BS went down and they all went into the underground equivalent of the Ritz and spent it there. One of those lesbian “couples” was Samantha and some blond-headed bimbo my friends had nicknamed Tramp Stamp. In short, Samantha started trying to make time with everyone else’s woman and she’d been voted out of the tribe.

  So the little shit head had Lucy thinking that she wanted to commit and that the only reason they hadn’t been together BBS was because Lucy wouldn’t come out of the closet, while all the time she’d been playing around having Lucy and whoever else she wanted. That didn’t sit well with me.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this; we could share her,” Samantha said.

  I made a face. “No we couldn’t. I mean she’d probably love that because she’s such a horny little shit, but I ain’t sharing.”

  Samantha looked at me like I was crazy. “Horny? What’s wrong, old woman? Two times a month too much for you?”

  I laughed then. “Oh, dude, we couldn’t be talking about the same woman. ’Cause Lucy acts like she’s afraid it might close up if she doesn’t get it at least twice a day.”

  That bugged all shit out of her. I could tell from the look on her face.

  “Look, can we at least agree that it needs to be Lucy’s decision?” she said.

  “If it’s going to be Lucy’s decision then you at least ought to tell her the fucking truth, you lying little shit. She ought to know just exactly what she’s getting if she chooses you,” I hissed.

  “I need to spend a little time with her alone, just to talk. Is that really too much to ask?”

  No I guess it really wasn’t. I smiled. “Tell you what, Jack. You go down to the pond by the gazebo and I’ll go get Lucy and send her down to you. You have your talk and then I want an answer. One way or the other it’s over today.”

  She nodded that she understood and headed for the pond. I left the garden and headed for where my truck was parked.

  Son Su once said, “If you wait by the river long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by. Me, well I’ve never been that fucking patient. I grabbed my thirty/thirty off the gun rack and walked to the end of the chicken run where I had a clear shot at the gazebo and the dumb-assed dwarf who stood in it. I took aim and then I heard someone clear their throat at my shoulder.

  “Kay, what the hell are you doing?” Lucy asked calmly.

  I didn’t lower my gun. In fact, I went ahead and lined up my shot. “I’m going to keep the woman I love no matter how mad it makes her.”

  She grabbed the barrel of my gun and pushed it down. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not going anywhere.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Remember when we first got together I told you that I’d decided that even if she was alive I’d still want to be with you? Well she is and it turns out that it’s true.”

  “Oh you’re just saying that to keep me from killing her,” I said.

  “No, Kay, I’m not. The truth is I don’t want you to kill her, but even if you did I don’t think it would change the way I feel about you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You know I never
realized what a lying little shit she was.”

  I looked at her in shock.

  “Oh come on, Kay. She couldn’t have called? She can fix a plane but she can’t figure out how to use a radio? And she just kept changing her story. What’s she doing down there?” Lucy asked.

  “I told her I’d send you to talk to her.”

  “Well then she’s going to have quite a wait.” She took my rifle away and took my hand. I was pretty sure I knew what she was after and I was game but...

  “Honey, I’m all slimy and…”

  She grinned at me seductively. “Then we’re going to have to give you a bath.”

  Which she did.

  We’d made love for a little over an hour and Lucy was just lying all over me the way she normally did. She moved a little and kissed me gently on the lips. “You had to know it was always going to be you, Kay.”

  I grinned no doubt like an idiot. “What about fate Lucy? I mean what are the odds…”

  “You know what, Kay? You’re right about fate; it’s a crock. She was out of town because I was out of town. She was there because it was a lesbian bed and breakfast just far enough out of town that she wouldn’t get caught. Then when they kicked her out where else would she go? I mean everyone knows right where I am.”

  “You… How did you know?”

  “I overheard you telling the goats yesterday morning. But you know what, Kay? I’d already made up my mind. I don’t think there was ever any doubt in my mind I just… God I missed you, Kay.”

  And then she was all over me again and I know what you’re thinking—wasn’t I glad I didn’t kill that girl? But seriously to this day I still sort of wish I had, just on principle.

  Samantha gave up waiting at some point and came up to the house. Lucy and I were drinking wine. I was in boxers and a tank top and she was wearing nothing but one of my old flannel shirts and sitting in my lap watching some movie. We’d completely forgotten about Samantha. That must have been obvious to her, and the look on the bitch’s face was just priceless.