How I Spent the Apocalypse (38 page)

Wow! Permission to have a meltdown. Is it any wonder I was crazy about Lucy Powers? “Actually, honey, I think I’m more upset that I’m not more upset,” I said. As if it made sense.

Lucy nodded like she understood that, even though I was pretty sure she didn’t. In that moment I was pretty sure that Lucy was perfect in every way.

Chapter 16

Don’t Do Anything Stupid

***

When the sun finally comes out
and the snow starts to melt you’re going to think the worst is over and want to just relax. There will be no time for that unless you’re well away from any lake, river, stream, or even a wet-weather wash.

Don’t do anything stupid. Rushing water and extreme cold are two things that will kill you quick. Use caution in all things you do; you can’t just run to the hospital if you get hurt.

It’s going to be a lot of water. An incredible amount of snowfall means an incredible amount of water crowding frozen rivers and streams which are probably already full to capacity.

All that snow melts and the world will turn to mud. Don’t try to plant in mud. You will have to wait till the ground is dryer and remember—whatever the time of year—that what you are dealing with is early spring. So plant only crops that do well in early spring—greens peas, beets, carrots and such.

Keep rationing your fuel; it could still get ugly cold at night.

As soon as it is safe to do so, start trolling your area for everything you can scavenge. Take everything you find because you’ll find a use for it later and if you don’t it still didn’t hurt anything to take it. Do NOT try to take stuff from another survivor. If they have something you want, see if they will trade for something you have. If not, then move on. This will be an odd time in which wars could start over a shovelhead.

Here’s a good and inexpensive way to hedge your bets to make sure you have stuff to trade that will be really needed. Start hitting yard sales, flea markets, second hand stores, and buy any hand tools you find even if they don’t have handles. Handles can always be fashioned from sticks if nothing else, but metal working… Well it might be awhile before some areas can get something like that going and some never will, so those things will be the gold of the future.

***

The rain started falling hard and warm
one afternoon and you could almost see the snow melting. It fell for just three hours but when it finished we only had about a foot of snow left. I wasn’t too surprised when I got the panicked call from Roy telling me that the creek was almost to the top of the levies. It was a lot of water, but it shouldn’t have done that—not this quick. I knew what that meant. An ice dam had formed somewhere downstream.

See, the river was frozen solid and then as things start to melt those giant sheets of ice start to break free, float on the water, shift and then they float away… Till one of them get’s caught on something and then others back up behind it and it forms a dam. Then the water starts to back up, too.

There were lots of things to impede the flow of the river. Trees were down everywhere, hell most of the bridges were out. The Rudy Bridge was down and I imagined that was where this problem originated.

I was wrong, of course. The Rudy Bridge had already been washed completely out of the creek by the force of the water. There was so much water in fact that I could barely make out Roy and some of the other people on the other side of the creek. Roy had his walkie-talkie.

“We’re screwed, huh?” he asked. Because he was right. If they had to run from the water at this point, they’d have to bug out in a couple of hours, on foot and without most of their supplies and no real destination in mind.

“Look, if you have to bugger out bundle up good and just head for All ‘n More. You know there is plenty of shelter, food, and everything else there. It’s a long hike, but you can make it,” I told him. “I’m going to ride down the creek and see if I can find the ice dam.”

And by me I meant me and Lucy and Billy and Jimmy. The going was rough because the snow that was left was wet and super slick. I wished a couple of times that Lucy wasn’t on the four wheeler with me because I would have taken a lot more risks if she hadn’t been. Which of course was probably her reason for always wanting to go everywhere with me.

We were riding along the top of the ridge looking down towards the creek. Since Lucy was the only one not trying to drive through the torturous shit, it’s not too surprising that she was the one who spotted the ice dam. In a narrow spot in the creek a big tree had gone down. It had lodged side ways and the water hadn’t budged it. Now about forty bazillion pounds of ice had built up behind it. And millions of gallons of water.

We stopped the ATVs, got off and huddled together.

“We found it; now what we going to do about it, mama?” Jimmy asked.

It was insane, what I was thinking I mean, but really the only way I could think of to do it. I looked at the huge ice dam and scratched my head trying to think of some better way and didn’t come up with one. I went to the toolbox on my four-wheeler and opened it.

“Kay… What are you doing?” Lucy asked carefully.

“I gottah blow it up.”

“They could just evacuate…”

“Not really. I told them that because it’s better than nothing, but that five miles might as well be twenty in the dark with kids. This shit is slicker than it was before it started melting. They couldn’t make it before dark and the temperature is going to drop again.”

What I said got punctuated by the sound of another huge piece of ice crashing into the dam of ice already there, making an ear-pounding noise and piling the dam even bigger. We were running out of time.

I took three sticks of dynamite and a lighter and headed for the ice dam. Lucy stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

“What the hell are you doing, Kay?” she demanded.

“I’m just going to light them and toss them on the middle, towards the bottom of the back side of the dam. You guys take the four wheelers and go higher.”

“So we’ll be safe while you do this stupid-assed thing. I don’t think so.” Lucy shook her head no, and the boys who had moved in behind her were doing the same thing.

“I’ll do it. I have a better throwing arm,” Billy said.

“No. I’ll do it, dumb ass. You’re going to be a father,” Jimmy said.

“Neither one of you dumbasses know anything about TNT. I do.” Cause… Well remember my job with the road crew? Well I knew all about how to blow stuff up.

“No, Kay. No. It’s too dangerous; it’s crazy,” Lucy said. “At least think of a safer way to do it.”

But there really wasn’t a safer way. The right way to do it would have been to go to the bottom of the ice dam on the back side, pack a charge in just the right spot, and then set it off with a detonator. But that would take hours to rig up and, well it would actually in a lot of ways be more dangerous.

“Look we’re wasting time and we’re running out of daylight.” As if to prove my point another huge chunk of ice slammed into the dam. “Now take the four wheelers and head for higher ground.”

“Mom I don’t think…”

“Then don’t!” I told Billy.

“I’m going with you,” Lucy said.

“No you’re not,” I said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Well here’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” She tried to do an imitation of me that was just too cute. “I’m just going to get really close to all that crashing, crunching, ice shit and slush and then throw dynamite at it till it goes away.”

I laughed, which just really pissed her off.

“Dammit, Kay, if you do this and you don’t get your stupid ass killed I’m going to cut you off.”

But she must have decided there was no sense in really fighting with me because she got on the four-wheeler and headed up the hill. The boys must have decided that if she had given up there was no reason for them to even try because they got on their four wheelers and followed her.

I walked over to a ledge that sort of jutted out over the creek. I wrapped the three sticks together with tape then wrapped the wicks together. I found the spot at the foot of the dam I wanted to hit, figured out which direction I was going to run after I threw the thing, then I lit it, gave it a toss, saw it land damn near right where I wanted it to, and then I took off running uphill. Of course like I said the ground was slicker than shit. I hadn’t run four maybe five feet when my steel-cleated boots slipped on the shit and I fell sliding downhill about three feet. I covered my head with my arms, lay prone and braced for impact. There was a huge
Kaboom!
and then small pieces of ice, water and tree rained down on me. Fortunately, nothing was big enough to hurt me, so I just lay there and waited for everything to quit moving and shaking. I heard the water release as the ice dam disintegrated into the shards of ice that covered me. The earth didn’t quit shaking so I just lay there face down in the snow waiting till I thought it was safe to move. That was when someone flipped me over and started smacking me in the face hard, and I was glad for my ice mask.

“Kay, Kay, can you hear me? Are you alright?”

I grabbed her hands. “I was till you started hitting me.”

She started crying then and she didn’t get up from where she was sitting on my hips. “I thought you were dead. God, Kay! You were there and then you were gone and there was the explosion and…” Her words got drowned out by her tears and she threw herself down on me and was hugging my neck so tight I thought she might do damage, so I knew there was no way she was actually going to cut me off. Finally Billy and Jimmy were helping both of us up and I was just watching the water rush by feeling pretty proud of myself.

“Damn, Mama, you scared the shit out of me,” Billy said.

“You know, Mama, I thought I could run. But Lucy… Well she was down here before I could get off my ride.” Jimmy and Billy both just looked at Lucy with amazement and any animosity they’d been harboring against her because she wasn’t their mama just vanished in that instant.

“I popped my mask and got on the radio. “Roy, you there?”

“Yeah, heard the boom. You guys alright? Water’s already going down and quick. Thanks, Kay.”

“We’re fine and you’re welcome.”

Lucy was still crying. She’d popped her mask and her goggles so I reached up and dried her tears with my gloved hand.

“It’s alright, baby. Now calm down; you’re going to freeze.”

Just because it was warm enough to melt the snow didn’t mean it was really warm. Forty-five feels balmy for a little while when you’ve been dealing with sub-zero weather, but it isn’t warm by any long stretch of the imagination. I kissed her gently on the mouth.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You’re such a crazy piece of shit, Kay,” She cried. “I love you, and you’re not going to be happy till you get yourself killed doing some stupid butch-ass shit.”

Billy laughed and I turned on him. “What’s so damned funny?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged, but when I looked at his brother he was smiling, too.

“What?” I demanded.

“Mother told her the same thing,” Jimmy said to Lucy, not to me.

“That was like twenty years ago and she ain’t dead yet,” Billy said. He patted Lucy on the back.

On the ride home Lucy suddenly started pointing to my right, making gestures, so I pulled over. I popped my mask as the boys pulled in beside me.