Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse

by Williams, Beverly

  I told him, “It’s just plain vinegar. I’ll make a run to collect more spray bottles. We’ll make sure everybody gets one.”

  “I’ll send Andrew and John out to Costco for vinegar,” Jeff asserted excitedly.

  Thom returned and Jeff hugged him as well. Thom accepted it better than I had, but gave me a long-suffering look as he waited to be released. I stifled a giggle.

  Jeff thanked us repeatedly, still crying. He didn’t even think to ask us how we stumbled onto this solution. Thom gave the bottle to Jeff.

  “How about you head back now?” Thom gently prodded him.

  Jeff nodded. Then he held a finger to one of his nostrils and blew out a snot rocket. Eww. He wiped more snot on his sleeve while strolling away. It struck me as funny, being grossed out by Jeff’s snot when our clothes tended to get bloody so often. I never minded the blood. The snot I minded.

  “What are you thinking?” Thom inquired.

  “I think snot rockets are disgusting.”

  He laughed. “Me too.”

  “Thom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Gotta go to the store for spray bottles. Want to come with?”

  “Sure, you know me. Shopaholic,” he deadpanned.

  I hadn’t taken him flying before, but Eric recently mentioned that Thom had wanted to go for a long time. “Let’s head this way,” I pointed northeast. “A couple miles.”

  He didn’t know I was steering us to the airport, or that his long-awaited flight had been added to the day’s schedule.

  “Got to get the plane ready,” I said.

  Thom’s mood soared higher. He smiled brighter than I’d ever seen before. I aimed to keep him upbeat—he seemed to be getting over the news about Sarah quickly. In any case, I wasn’t going to remind him of it.

  “Race you!” I called out, breaking into a run. It hurt, but being able to move like that again felt good.

  At the airport, I opened the hangar while Thom caught his breath.

  “I don’t know,” he panted, “how you can run so fast on such short legs!”

  I kicked him gently on the shin. “They’re not that short.”

  “You’re short.”

  I’m not that short.

  “Where are we going?” Thom asked.

  “There’s a Home Depot up the way a bit. We’ll be able to land in the parking lot. There’s a station with avgas where we can refuel nearby as well. We should take care of that first, in case we need to leave in a hurry,” I said.

  Thom followed me around the plane to observe while I checked it over. “Avgas?”

  “Aviation gasoline. Might as well use up the gas before it all goes bad,” I commented.

  Thom looked alarmed. “How long? Before it goes bad?”

  I shrugged. “No way to know until it starts to. We’ve been using additives to extend fuel life, but that won’t fix everything. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Thom hadn’t known about this issue, apparently. It was completely off his radar. He switched to his neutral face.

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Worrying. We’ve got solutions for it already. Matthew and I have this under control. We’ll still have vehicles. We should still be able to fly, even. Now, do you want the tedious details, or would you like to save your brainpower for making the battery project even more awesome?”

  The battery project had expanded greatly under Thom’s direction. He wanted to make sure our power needs would not only be met but would allow for camp expansion, and he’d cobbled together an impressive solar array along with a sizable battery bank. It was funny, though: the rest of the camp would certainly disagree, but neither the brothers nor I wanted to restore electricity to what we’d had Before. In spite of irritations like the lack of indoor plumbing, we’d grown to like camp life. There was an independence to it, free from the ever-more-strict schedules people had tried to live by Before. We had time to think, observe, commune, and just be, which were activities that didn’t always get accomplished in the stressful rush of civilization as it had been. Thom’s project was there to provide power for things we’d determined to be necessities, not conveniences like coffee grinders or hair dryers. (Well, maybe a certain MP3 player, and a computer to store additional music and burn CDs… We still filed those under “necessities,” though.)

  “Ugh, no! I’ll stop!” Thom exclaimed. “You’re sure we’ll still be able to fly?”

  “Yes, we know how to convert this plane to keep us in the air long after the current fuel supply spoils. Hopefully you’ll want to. Keep flying, I mean. Hop in.”

  I primed the prop, and we were ready to go.

  “I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.” John Gillespie Magee, Jr., “High Flight”

  Soon, we took off into the calm, clear sky. We could’ve just taken the truck to Lowe’s, but I liked having an excuse to be up in the air. Thom seemed to as well.

  Excitement filled his voice and his voice filled my headset. “This is amazing!” He went on to describe how he felt about everything he saw below. His brothers were going to be in for an earful.

  “Wanna float?” I asked.

  He tapped his headset and shook his head—he couldn’t hear me. Our headset batteries were dying out. We had some new ones with us, but it wasn’t important. I pulled my headset off, and Thom followed suit.

  I yelled the question to him, but he still looked like I’d asked in a foreign language, so I repeated it, signing “F-L-O-A-T” with my hand while I said it. He held up his hands to indicate he had no idea what I was trying to tell him. I made a note to myself to teach him the alphabet, at least, in sign language. I wrote the question down in the back of the airplane’s log book. He still looked perplexed.

  Finally, I pulled back on the plane’s controls and she climbed. I pushed the controls forward and gravity released its grip on our bodies as the plane descended slightly. We floated up off the airplane’s seats, our bodies pulling the seat belts tighter around us. Thom gave me the sweetest look, squeezing his eyes closed slowly and opening them again, like a very satisfied cat. Squeezy Eyes.

  “Again?” he called out, loosening his seat belt. I did the same to mine.

  We repeated the maneuver with one difference: I put my hands over his on his controls, and guided him into making the plane float us. I let go, and he did it one more time, on his own. He gave me Squeezy Eyes again. He looked so happy, like the shackles that bound him when we were on the ground had fallen away. I started taking Thom up with me fairly often thereafter.

  When we got to Home Depot, a few rotters were lurching around the store in the dim light. Their once-bright orange aprons were tattered and stained. They’d been closed up a long time, and what remained of their bodies was weak and slow. Easy pickings.

  We collected a bunch of spray bottles and filled the rest of our cart with random items: some hooks to hang our clothes on in the lean-to, contractor bags, shower heads to make more camp showers from. Stuff like that. I found a Hershey bar under a candy display and tucked it in my pants’ ankle pocket for Sandy-Sandra. I liked having a present for her. A small, rectangular thank-you gift for bringing me to the camp. I dwelled on that too long, thinking about the life I might not be living. I might not be living.

  “Tonight,” Thom said, “I have a surprise. Something I’ve been saving. We’re going to have a party. A celebration just for the Lean-To Crew.”

  I enjoyed this little teaser. I threw a knife into a rotter employee’s head and retrieved it.

  Lean-To Crew.

  “The L2C!” I voiced, and he grinned. We high-fived.

  “Team Us! Lean-To Crew for Life!” (Later, he carved “L2C4L!” on the back wall of our home.)

  We loaded a few more things into the cart and I wondered how much of it would fit in the plane. Weight would not be the issue today.

  It was a day of good fortune all around, though. Everything fit—barely—
and we flew back to the airfield. We piled our goods into contractor bags and walked home.

  Thom wasn’t kidding about the party. He had more than one surprise in store for us. First, he had food. Not nasty canned crap, not bug-infested box mixes, not MREs, and not freeze-dried camping food. Real food. Flavorful vegetables from a greenhouse garden that weren’t just salad basics like the camp had been growing. Onions! Potatoes! Garlic scapes! He had eggs, too!

  “Where’d you get all this?” I asked.

  Thom said self-consciously, “Out a bit past the shack, I have my own greenhouse. And some silky chickens. And a goose. To protect the hens. This was my first harvest.”

  “Cool! How come you never told me about it before?”

  “I never told anyone, even Mattie or Eric. The rest of the camp I didn’t tell because I didn’t want them fucking it all up by trying to ‘help’ me with it. I’ll share some of the food with everyone once there’s enough, but you know what it’s like when Jeff tries to lighten our load by assigning people to assist us with stuff.”

  “It’s herding cats,” I agreed.

  “And I never told you guys because I wanted to be able to have this special surprise night once I had enough veggies.”

  “It’s a spectacular surprise! Can I see your greenhouse? Maybe actually help some?”

  “I’d like that.”

  We cooked out on the granite ledge by our lean-to, far away from the communal eating area. The L2C wasn’t sharing with other campers tonight.

  I helped Thom prepare the feast, starting by chopping vegetables. He broke the eggs one at a time into a small Pyrex bowl, pouring them into a larger bowl after he’d determined they were good as well as shell-free, and then he whisked them so they were well-mixed. I browned potatoes and onions in a cast iron skillet with an extra helping of oil. The scapes were chopped and dumped in the egg mixture. I added salt and pepper to the eggs and tended to the vegetables. I cut up a package of bacon Thom had hidden away, from when I found all those packages at Walmart. I sprinkled it into the eggs. “Egg bake” is what he called the dish.

  While I attended to the food, Thom set up our camp stove. This was different from what I was cooking on. I had Renee’s beer can burner. Well, a few of them, with hers included. We’d used it as a template to make more. What he was preparing to use was a small, old-fashioned tin oven, just big enough to fit the skillet into. It sat on a disposable charcoal grill that was heating up to bake our meal. When the veggies were done, we poured the eggs into the skillet with them. We left it in the oven until it had turned brown all the way around.

  “This is so fucking good,” Matthew said. “Do you know how long it’s been since we had this?”

  Eric nodded vigorously, his mouth full.

  “Mmm!” I enthused, with my mouth full, too.

  They hadn’t had egg bake since before they’d met me, though I got the sense it was a Thom supper specialty, Before. I didn’t usually enjoy feeding time, but this was exceptional.

  Eric started chuckling. He nudged his brothers and pointed my way with his fork. “She’s chipmunking it!”

  They howled with laughter.

  I’d stuffed extra food in my cheeks while eating, not wanting my mouth empty of it for even a second.

  Thom’s next surprise was sensational as well. A different kind of pill from what he and Eric had previously provided.

  “I’m the Designated Driver,” Thom announced, holding up a joint. I was glad to see he wouldn’t miss out on a fun time just because he was in charge.

  He doled out the pills. I looked up at Thom, a question on my lips. He answered before I even took a breath to speak.

  “Hallucinogenic.”

  I considered this. If my trip went bad, Thom would be around to contain me. It didn’t seem like this situation would catalyze a bad trip, though. We’d had such a beautimous day, I was in the company of beloveds, my belly was full of good food.

  I looked at the pills in my hand, considering for a moment longer. I’d never had hallucinogens.

  Thom moved to my side. “If you don’t want to…” he said.

  “I want to. I was just…”

  “Wondering whether there would be an issue?” he finally finished for me.

  “Kinda. I don’t think there will be, though.”

  “Don’t worry, Thom makes the best shit,” Matthew said on his way by. “Those star pills rocked!”

  “Wait, you’re out of those already?” Eric asked him.

  Matthew cackled. “Been out for a long time!” he called back over his shoulder as he walked off toward the outhouses.

  “I’ll be here,” Thom promised. And then he held up a prescription bottle filled to the brim. Ambien. He must’ve been collecting them for months. “So will these. If things start taking a scary turn for you, these’ll knock you right out.”

  “Thanks, Thom,” I said, head-butting his shoulder. I put my share of hallucinogens in my mouth and chased them down with a bit of water, and felt safe.

  Thom wrapped his arm around me. Being near him always felt different from being near Eric. Still, nice.

  “Thanks for taking me up today,” Thom said. “I know driving to Lowe’s would’ve been easier, but that was super cool.”

  “Come along again soon?”

  “Definitely,” he responded, and we hugged.

  We cleaned up our camp area together before the pills took hold, then clambered into the lean-to. These pills took longer to kick in than the chalky star pills; they had a coating which took several minutes to dissolve. Thom took a drag on his joint. In our small home, we’d be having a clambake shortly. Seeing me eyeing the joint, he grinned and bashfully said, “Yeah, I’ve got some of this growing, too.” For people who communicated so well and so much, my guys sure could keep secrets! He shared a hit with me. I struggled to not cough and we both laughed and coughed.

  Thom lit an oil lamp and placed it in the middle of the floor on a crate. I sat in front of it, watching the flame lick at the wick. Matthew sat on the other side, next to Thom. They were watching the fire as well.

  Eric scooted up behind me, wrapping both arms around my abdomen and spreading his fingers. He stroked the scar from the appendix incident. I already felt adhesions growing there, where the scar tissue joined organs together and they tugged around, making my insides ache. But I had adhesions from my other surgeries as well. The new ones were a reminder to be grateful for my guys, and an affirmation of how much they cared about me.

  I intertwined my fingers with Eric’s and pulled his arms tighter, turning my head to kiss him.

  And then it happened. My first hallucination. I had my eyes closed, and I’d expected to experience visions, but it was sounds. I heard music. I opened my eyes, looked around, and confirmed the music was registering in my ears alone.

  A moment later, Matthew held his fingers up in the air. He peered through them. “Tiny shooting stars,” he murmured. “These little lights. Glittering glints of sunlight shining on the water, only floating in the air. And tinier. So… tinier.”

  I wondered if they looked like the floating lights I sometimes saw.

  I turned to look into Eric’s eyes.

  “Whole worlds… no, galaxies… in there,” he said breathlessly, staring into my too-big irises.

  “They pulse with other lights!” Matthew exclaimed.

  “The other lights pulse with them!” Eric abruptly corrected his brother while monitoring me for signs of my next plans. He knew what was going to happen a split second before I did. I started to turn my face away, but he brought his hand up to my cheek in a flash.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I felt especially defective regarding my eyes. I’d never discussed it with him before.

  “My eyes are creepy,” I mumbled. “Too big. Like a lurid old doll. You know, the kind with crazing, cracked skin and—and chewed feet and…”

  He stopped me. “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

>   “You’re high.”

  “No. Yes. Yes, but no. I mean, I’ve always thought it.”

  Matthew and Thom made noises of agreement.

  “And the colors… your eyes…” He thesaurusized, “Vivid, voluminous, variegated. Like someone took pixels of peacock feathers and mixed the colors together, but didn’t mix them all the way.”

  I could hear Thom laughing as Eric rambled on.

  “What’s so funny?” Matthew asked Thom. “He’s totally right. They’re fantastically huge. Those little metallic flecks? And the colors!”

  This made Thom laugh more. He nudged my foot with his. “Prismatic Princess,” he said.

  “Yeah!” Eric pronounced.

  “Yup!” Matthew agreed with him, and Thom laughed a bit more.

  I shook my head and leaned back against Eric, and then I realized there were visual hallucinations after all. Colors swirling, flashing, kaleidoscoping in fractal patterns. There were views of Eric and me with our limbs intertwined. Matthew and I were fighting and laughing in the rain, and every droplet was made of music. Thom held the guitar, and they both glowed, and the world shimmered when he looked over at me. I saw myself flying the red-and-white Cessna over a vast ocean while the horizon melted into the water. I listened to everyone’s heart and watched them all beat, pulsing brilliant flashes of light. And I heard the ghostly music that surrounded us and also wasn’t there. At the moment, it felt familiar enough that I was able to hum along with it.

  (I didn’t notice Thom scribbling in his notebook, making notations to mark the sounds of the song. When he played it for me on his guitar the next day, the music felt as foreign as Cyrillic text. Thom named it “Hauntingly Beautiful Melody,” a placeholder until we knew what it should be called. He nailed the piece of notebook paper up in the lean-to as a reminder to keep working on the song.)

  We stayed awake, enjoying our well-earned Fluffy Cloud Time, until long after the late hours of night had passed. We finally tucked ourselves into bed as the day’s dimmer knob slid slightly brighter and birds began singing greet-the-day melodies. By the time I awoke, Eric had left to work on his chores. I was snuggled up with Thom in a blanket, and I felt tremendously grateful for his warmth.