How I Spent the Apocalypse (45 page)

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, t
anning 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.

“This is seriously your decision?” Samantha asked in a defeated tone of voice.

“Yes,” Lucy said simply.

“I could hardly sweat you for twice a month. She says twice a day.” And of course that would be the one thing of everything I’d said and done to the little bitch that got right under her skin.

Lucy smiled at me, “She does this thing.”

“What’s that?”

Lucy looked at Samantha, smiled smugly and said, “She loves me.”

“So what happens to me now?” Samantha asked. Because let’s face it with people like her it always comes down to them.

“There’s a group in Fort Smith. They’ve decided to scavenge instead of farm right away. They could probably use a pilot to scout things out for them,” I said.

She nodded. “You going to take me to my plane or make me walk?”

“Geez it’s only a couple of miles,” I said.

“Come on, Kay,” Lucy said standing up.

“Well fuck.” I got up to go pull on my boots and grab my keys. I was damned if I was getting dressed again. Lucy and I had a lot of catching up to do.

“Will you at least come and say good bye?” I heard Samantha ask Lucy.

“We can say good bye here. I think Kay has put up with enough shit, and frankly I’m done with you. I’m sorry, but I was done with you years ago. I just didn’t know how to let go. The truth is I don’t believe it’s fate that you’re here; I just think it’s a pain in the ass. So good bye, Sam.” As they say, hell has no fury like a woman scorned.

As I walked back into the room she turned on her heel and started for our room. She stopped, leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I’m going to take a little nap. I’ll be here when you get home.”

“Come on, chick, let’s go. Places to go and Lucy to do,” I said, shoving her towards the door.

Chapter 18

Your Survival Kit

***

Regardless of whether you think I’m
completely out of my bird or not, would it really hurt you to be better prepared? People die all the time in minor things like power outages, snowstorms and heat waves.