How I Spent the Apocalypse (31 page)

And it’s not just the winter you have to get through but the growing season, too. Then you have to hope the crops are going to come in good enough to feed everyone. I was thinking we’d see thawing and the sun by June at the latest, but even with all the imaging equipment I had and all the different weather machines and bullshit I don’t even know the proper names for, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that we weren’t in for a three-year winter. I was damned if me and mine were going to starve along with those dumbasses who… Well, do I have to remind you that they all thought I was a nut job because I kept saying the end was near?

But I couldn’t just not feed them because that made me like the hard-core survivalists that are sometimes called military survivalists even though most of them had never really served in any military and were about as disciplined as cats. These guys thought the end was going to be a liberal, communist-backed government coming after them to take their guns. As such they were armed out the ass and ready for a full-fledge attack—or at least they thought they were. They were most of them like the Burkholder boys, dumbasses whose biggest fear had been losing their right to bear arms, which they of course thought would lead to the end of everything. They hadn’t counted at all on what happened. You know, the Middle East going nuke crazy, setting up a chain reaction with Mother Nature just kicking our asses, and I doubt they were ready for it. Must have been a huge let down for them not to get to use all those weapons, and that’s why I was always worried about them.

Truth was I had no idea how these guys were doing because none of them had ever tried to contact me either before or after the apocalypse.

Anyway… I didn’t want to be like them and worry about me and mine and screw everyone else. I mean I did, but I didn’t.

There had been a railroad damage and overstock store up on the highway called All ’n More, and that was about true. They had a little bit of everything including tons of food items, and here’s the thing—in this cold nothing was going to go bad, it was just going to freeze.

It was only about two, maybe three, miles from the town’s center, but in this crap we had no idea what might lie between us and them. Then Matt remembered that ole man Kent had a D-6 bulldozer and he always kept a couple of tanks of diesel. Also, there had to be a tank of diesel at the new truck plaza on the way to All ’n More.

It was February sixth and there was a break in the weather—a window that was going to last about three days and bring us high temperatures of a whole thirty-two degrees. There wasn’t much could tear up a D-6 dozer, so Lucy and Billy and I geared up that first “warm” day, grabbed a bunch of tools, and headed over to the old man’s place.

It took us about an hour just to get there and considering it was less than a half-mile away that lets you know just how much damage there was. There were trees down everywhere. They weren’t just snapped through, either, here most of them had been pulled up and were just thrown around, root ball and all. Because of the snow you couldn’t really be sure what you were driving on, so you just avoided mounds that were probably downed trees and hoped for the best and that the holes they left weren’t big enough to swallow you four wheeler and all.

Old man Kent’s place was gone; just a pile of snow on what was left of the foundation. But as expected there was a dozer-shaped mound of snow right in the middle of what used to be the guy’s farm. Lucy and I started shoveling the snow off the bulldozer as Billy grabbed the engine blanket, started the generator, and wrapped the bulldozer engine in it. You see in that cold you aren’t going to start a diesel motor until you can warm it up. Hell, in that cold you couldn’t start anything unless it was warmed up. When Lucy and I had removed all the snow I thought was necessary from the dozer we went off—wearing snow shoes now because the snow was too deep to do more than walk a few feet without them—to look for the old man’s diesel tanks.

Problem was they had been on stilts, and those were obviously gone. We stomped around for the better part of an hour, occasionally telling each other how fucking cold thirty-two degrees still was. It was the wind chill off all the ice and snow that was the killer. We didn’t talk too much because bundled up like that you just can’t and… Well, walking around in that much snow in the cold even with state-of-the-art snow shoes will just wear you right completely out. Even if we were all working out for at least thirty minutes a day, stuck inside it’s just not the same as really working all the time. I have to admit I was a little out of shape.

By the time we found one of the tanks half way down a small hill a good two-hundred feet from where it had been and found that it had been crushed and was empty, I was ready to just scrap the whole idea. After all without enough fuel to at least get us to the truck plaza—or rather what was left of it—we weren’t going to be able to do what we planned anyway, so what was the point? Then Lucy spotted a similar tank-looking bump in the snow about fifty feet away, and that one was intact and full. Now I’m not stupid. You don’t want to run back and forth back and forth in the cold, so I’d brought five five-gallon gas containers and a hose with me. I siphoned the fuel into the containers—yes of course I got a mouth full of diesel which is the nastiest shit on earth and of course—after she found out it wasn’t going to kill me—Lucy laughed every time I spit and cussed for the next thirty minutes.

Now I’m not lugging five-gallon containers of diesel some two-hundred feet uphill in the snow. I tied a rope to three of the containers, ran up the hill—alright in snow shoes you don’t run anywhere and certainly not uphill—got my four-wheeler as close as I could, pulled the winch line out as far as it would go, and I had just enough rope to tie on to. I switched the winch on and walked along behind the sliding containers making sure they didn’t get stuck on branches or rocks. No, it wasn’t easy. Lucy didn’t get the winch turned off in time once and the rope got snagged in the reel. I had to cut it and then fiddle around for ten minutes. Without gloves on because you can’t do things like tie or untie knots with battery-operated heated gloves on and here’s the thing you gottah love the damn things and how warm they keep your hands no matter how damn cold it is, but then when you have to take them off that just makes it seem that much colder.

Anyway, eventually we got the fuel into the dozer with five gallons to spare, and we got it started. Billy has always been very mechanical. In fact, if it has a motor Billy can make it run and drive it. Hell before the apocalypse Billy used to drive heavy equipment for a living.

Lucy drove his four wheeler and I followed her because she still wasn’t really comfortable driving it. Though following the bull dozer even as slow as it was going—because he had the blade down and was clearing the road—it still didn’t take us as long to get out of old man Kent’s place as it had to get to it. We went straight over to Matt’s, but by the time we got his big hay trailer hitched to the back of the dozer we all decided there was no way we could get to All ‘n More and back before nightfall. So we covered the bull dozer’s motor with an old hay tarp Matt had laying around and secured it hoping it would keep the engine warm enough that it would start easier the next day and we went on home. I was exhausted and I know Billy and Lucy were as well.

When we walked into the greenhouse from the hall Cherry was waiting for us. She hugged Billy and then started helping him out of his gear. I guess Lucy was the first to realize that something was up because the minute she pulled off her facemask she asked Cherry, “What’s wrong?” And let’s face it, right after the apocalypse if anyone acted the least bit different or if they wanted to tell you anything you just naturally assumed it wasn’t going to be good.

“Nothing’s wrong it’s just… Well, weird.” She looked from Lucy to me then said, “Jimmy’s been on the radio most of the day with someone who is claiming that he’s the President of the United States and demanding that he be rescued.”

“Well fuck that shit. I’m king of the world. You don’t demand anything from the king of the world,” I said with a laugh, and finished stripping my gear.

“Jimmy thinks the guy’s for real. Stupid, but for real,” Cherry said.

“Doesn’t really matter,” I said. I shrugged as I headed for the wood stove to warm up my face and my ass, which were still freezing. No matter what I wore that winter my face and my ass were cold when I’d been outside for any length of time. I would strip my gear and my face warmed up fairly quickly, but it could take my ass hours to warm up. Jimmy said it was because my ass was so big it took it hours to get cold and even longer to get warm.

What a smart ass.

Anyway that’s why I call it the cold-assed winter.

“He says he needs access to all of your equipment so that he can run the country,” Cherry said.

I just kept warming myself by the stove, unconcerned with what this so-called “president” wanted. In a country where I’d been a second-class citizen without any rights just because I didn’t want to sleep with men, I hardly thought I was the one anyone should assume wanted to save the president so we could preserve the American way.

“He’s on the radio again,” Evelyn said, running into the room.

I could tell by how excited these girls were that I wasn’t going to get any peace till I told the “president” to fuck right off. So I pulled my still-frozen ass away from the stove and headed for my office. Lucy was right behind me but she wasn’t excited about talking to the president, no, she was grumbling about being cold and just wanting to warm up, and what the fuck did he think he was president of anyway, and such sweet things as that. Yep, the more she was around me the worse her mouth got. Of course I had no idea why she thought she had to leave the warm stove to follow me except that in those days we both sort of acted like we were joined at the hip.

“My mama’s here now,” Jimmy said. As I walked in he looked at me and rolled his eyes. He got out of my chair and I sat down. I patted my legs and Lucy smiled, walked over and sat in my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I felt warmer instantly.

“What you want, Mr. President?” I asked, just a tinge of laughter to my voice.

“Look, Kate, you have…”

“Folks call me Katy, my woman calls me Kay, but no one who wants to live calls me Kate. Also, I don’t have to do anything ’cept die ’cause there ain’t no taxes no more. Just who the hell are you anyway because last I heard DC got ate by a hurricane and no one could get in touch with you…”

“I’m speaker of the house, Tip Waverly…”

“You ain’t speaker of nothin’ any more, and you sure as hell ain’t president.” Because of course the madder I get the thicker my Southern drawl gets.

This was when the “president” lost his cool. “Listen you, every grade-school child knows the chain of succession is President, Vice president, Speaker of the House…”

“Well, shucks, Mr. President, ain’t no one here so smart on stuff like that. We been way too busy buildin’ bunkers and storin’ food in case there comed a ’popacolypse. Weren’t none of you fellows ready up north with all your fancy book learnin’?”

Lucy laughed. Probably more because until then I hadn’t taken out my good-ole-boy Southern accent for her to hear than at what I was saying.

You could hear him expel a big batch of air that said he knew he’d gone too far. “Katy, I know you aren’t stupid. I’m sorry, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I am the President of the United States, and this country has got to get it’s government up and going if we’re going to survive this catastrophe.”

I laughed loudly, looked at Lucy and rolled my eyes before addressing the
president
. “Only a dork like you would want to be president of an arctic waste land. And only a total idiot would think that he could vote for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and then ask the dyke—who for all intents and purposes is the only authority anyone is listening to anymore—to help
him
be president. Look, buddy, the last thing I want right now is any kind of government, much less one run by your right-winged, ultra-conservative ass…”

“We… We’re running out of supplies…”

“You’re all holed up in some government-made bunker somewhere, right?” I asked, thinking he was full of crap.

“We’re in Nevada. There are forty-three of us…”

“And it took you all this time to get a radio working?” I asked. From the look on Lucy’s face it didn’t make much sense to her, either.

“We… We didn’t want people to know our location.”

Of course not, because they’d been sure they had enough supplies to last them till this blew over and if they’d radioed out where they were and what was going on then people might find them and try to take their supplies, want to share their shelter. Then I started thinking—the president and vice president bite the big one, then what this guy flies out to some secret bunker in Nevada… Why hadn’t there been enough food there for thousands of people to live for fifty years?