How I Spent the Apocalypse (26 page)

Lucy walked up and took my ungloved hand in hers. “This is great.”

It is pretty, snow was mostly blocking the sun from coming through the windows in the dome, but some light was still getting through.

“Give me a second.” I put my gloves back on and popped my goggles and mask back into place. I got the snow shovel out of the trailer and started clearing the windows even though Billy and Jimmy had cleaned it twice and I’d cleaned it once already it still took me most of thirty minutes and by the time I got done I was freezing but it was worth it when I walked back inside and Lucy was just staring at the ceiling, a huge smile on her face.

“It’s beautiful. Is it what I think it is?”

“Yes, this is the barn that poverty built. Instead of two-foot thick aquarium glass and fibered reinforced cement the walls are just two regular concrete domes a foot apart and the windows are made of bottles with the necks pointed into the void.”

How’d I do the domes? Wet sand—lots and lots of wet sand. I built the side walls and then I just filled the whole thing with sand, domed the top, and poured six inches of concrete on top of it. When it dried I took the sand from inside and spread it a foot deep over the whole thing and covered the sand with another layer of concrete. Where I wanted windows—in all my structures—I made boxes. When the second layer of concrete dried I took out the boxes and put in the windows.

I’d made four “windows,” each four-foot across and each a different pattern using different colored bottles. One is a four-leaf clover, one a star, a yin and yang, and a double helix.

The deer looked up at us each with a mouth full of hay and Lucy chuckled. “I feel like Snow White.” That was a picture… Lucy running around singing, little animals dressing her waiting for all the little men to come home… But of course they’d all died in the apocalypse. “It’s like they’re saying thanks.”

“Well sure they are. Come on we better get back to the house.”

Lucy seemed reluctant to go but geared up and followed me anyway.

The ride back to the house was easier because we had just been out and of course using the same tracks we used before we were making a sort of road in the snow.

By the time we got back to the house we were both freezing our asses off and nearly raced each other to get to the fire to start stripping gear.

“How’s the birdhouse?” Jimmy asked before I had even gotten my coveralls half way down. Jimmy loved the birdhouse and converting the old barn into wild animal habitat had been the one project that we’d done that he’d been passionate about.

“Fine. We have deer now—three does and a buck. Tame, too. Followed me in the building to eat. They’ve been there for awhile, so I imagine the four wheeler scares them and they run off,” I told him.

“That’s way cool. How are the coons?”

“Counted five so they’re all still with us,” I said. “Jimmy has them all named,” I told Lucy.

Jimmy would have made a great field biologist, and that’s probably what he would have eventually become after he grew up if the world hadn’t mostly blown up and the need for such things with it.

I went back to the bedroom to finish stripping because all my underclothes were sweaty. Lucy followed me in and then mostly just stood there and watched me strip, which made me feel really uncomfortable actually because well as I’ve said before she has a really great body and me… not so much. “Ah Lucy, do you mind?”

“Oh Christ,” she sighed, disgusted like. But she turned her head away. See we’d already had this argument at least once. “We do it all the time, I’ve seen you naked dozens of times.” Alright so we’re still having this argument.

I put on a robe. “Alright,” I said. She turned back around and just sort of made this face which was a cross between a smile and a thought, the thought being I was sure at the time, What the hell is my fine ass doing with you, oh it’s the whole end of the world and you being the last dyke around thing. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“The stupid thing is that I like your body, dumb ass.”

I just shrugged. “I’m going to get a shower.”

Which I did and when I came back to our room to get dressed Lucy was just laying across our bed still half dressed, just staring at the ceiling and looking close to tears. I sighed and then asked what I guess I should have made her tell me that morning. “So… What’s actually wrong?”

“Nothing.” She forced a quick smile that just looked like she had no acting skill at all, which I knew she did ’cause I’d seen her use it already.

“Fuck that, Lucy. Like you said, who else are you going to talk to? Now what the fuck’s wrong? If it’s something I did then I need to know or I’ll most likely do it again, probably twice. Of course I’ll probably do it again any way ’cause I’m a dumbass, but I’d at least try not to… for awhile.”

Have I mentioned I’m really too honest for relationships with… well anyone?

“You didn’t do anything,” she said and then she sat up on the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine just tired.” And then her eyes started to fill with tears.

I walked up to stand in front of her and looked down at her. “Listen… I know I’m not the most lyrical speaker and I just sort of bumble through the whole comforting thing not really knowing how to do it, but I really care about you, Lucy, and I can’t stand to see you so unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy Kay, and I’m certainly not unhappy with you. It’s just…” she wrapped her arms around my neck and lay her head on my shoulder—yes the bed is that far off the floor—“Today is my mother’s birthday, or at least it would have been her birthday if she were alive.”

“Oh baby, I’m sorry,” I said, and patted her back. See what I mean? That’s about as good as I get with the comforting.

“She’s just dead, Kay. They’re all dead and I don’t know how. I could have talked to her one last time and I called the fucking network instead. I was really close to my mother. I loved her. I could tell her anything. Anything. And now I have no one to talk to.”

“You can talk to me, Lucy.”

“I can’t talk to you about you.”

“You could but I’d probably get pissed off.”

She laughed “I don’t want to say bad things about you. I’d love to be able to tell her about you, about us, all I’ve been through. I miss her.” She started to cry and I just held her and rocked her and let her say incoherent things against my shoulder till she was finished.

Chapter 12

Keep the Calendar Updated

***

I can’t express enough how important it is
not to lose track of the hours and the days. Even if all you can do is take a crayon and make a mark on the wall, keep track of the passage of time. Knowing that a new season is coming up and maybe a break in the weather—whatever the weather might be. Knowing that a loved holiday, a birthday or anniversary, is coming up will give you the heart to go on. This is especially important to kids. Knowing when it’s day time or night time will be all-important if you’re stuck somewhere there is little or no light. You need to keep these simple rituals going, keep the clock or watch wound, mark the days off that calendar. If you have lights and can afford to use the energy, turn them on during what would be day light hours, and turn them off at night. This will help your internal clock keep on track.

Know when it’s your birthday, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza—whatever you celebrate—and do something different that day even if it’s as simple as hanging pieces of aluminum foil on a piece of firewood or sticking a candle on a can of spam.

We mark the seasons and the time and have holidays for a reason, it’s these things that make life worth living. In the post-apocalyptic world it will be more important than ever to celebrate these special events.

There is a reason why there are so many holidays in December. It’s because this is when the nights are the longest, when it’s coldest, when everyone was huddled into too=small spaces and were forced to stay indoors.

There will likely be more than one month of this sort of crap so maybe we should all make up even more winter holidays.

***

We dug a downed Cedar tree out of the snow
—still all green—knocked the snow off of it, pulled it into the greenhouse and decorated it. It looked more or less like our tree did every year because… Well I was still in my house and I still had all our old family decorations—the ones we’d had all the boy’s lives. I even had them hang their “baby’s first Christmas ornaments” on the tree the way they always had—a tradition Cindy had started not me.

Yep, except for the nearly four feet of snow outside and all of the animals being stuck in the barn my life really hadn’t changed much. In fact, let me be honest. My life was better than it had been in years, maybe ever. For years… hell all my life, I’d done nothing but obsess about what was going to happen. I’d spent my whole life worrying and preparing for the worst while people ridiculed me and my own kids thought I was a nut job. Now I didn’t have to worry about dumb fucks tearing up the world anymore; it had already happened. So far it was nothing I wasn’t fully prepared for.

In addition, both my sons were back home and one of them was as good as married to someone I actually liked, and I had a gorgeous woman who—since there was really not much else to do—was fucking me rotten at least twice a day.

I still have a little guilt because the apocalypse has been so good for me.

We each had a gift under the tree wrapped in bright paper. As was our tradition, the gifts had to be hand made, which was just as well since there were no stores. Of course I had plenty of crap out in the shed and I had made the trip out there to get some decent clothes—you know that would actually fit them—and arctic gear for the girls and had wrapped them.

Lucy, Evelyn and Cherry had all complained that me and the boys had an advantage since we all knew how to use tools. But let’s face it, there really wasn’t a choice and I was more than happy with the gifts Lucy was giving me every day—most times twice.

Between what we’d made for the kids in Rudy proper and what we’d made for each other and the girls, me and the boys had spent most of two days in the shop with the tools just a-going, the methane generator running on high, the wood stove blazing, and I think we all had fun playing Santa’s elves. It was nice not to be in the house or the barn and to have something to do besides cook, clean house or mess with the garden and the animals. It wasn’t as good as sex but you can’t just do that all the time and working with wood has always been a pleasure of mine.

Of course none of us were really surprised by what we got because we’d all been working in the same shop at the same time, but it was still nice to sit and open the gifts.

Evelyn still didn’t talk much. Still weak and overwhelmed I guessed. I had no idea what a blessing that was till it was over, but I’ll talk about that later.

Cherry talked constantly, but not ever really to me. In fact when I think back on it now, everyone but Lucy seemed to avoid talking to me as much as possible. I won’t pretend to know why, though Lucy has said more than once and the boys agree that I’m more than a little intimidating.

Which, duh! I’m crazy. That is a little off-putting for most people I suppose.

Lucy told me that Cherry told her that Evelyn was really depressed and couldn’t quit talking about her family and friends all being dead. Of course I never heard Evelyn say this. If I had I’d have told her to shut up.

Does that sound like I’m harsh and unfeeling and just a total bitch? Let me tell you something, if you dwell on something you can’t do anything about… Well that’s one of the things that made me crazy. If you choose—and it is a choice not like sexual orientation which isn’t—to just think about everything you’ve lost you will never get over it. People need time to grieve, that’s true. But wallowing is a whole different story and making your friends listen to you go on and on about everyone you’ve lost when they’ve lost just as many people if not more than you have? Well that’s just selfish.