Countdown to Armageddon (7 page)

     “Oh, crap. You had your mind made up to buy it before we even met.”

     “True. Guilty as charged, your honor.”

     “I got the check a couple of days ago, and I’ve been wondering what to do with it. I mean, it’s enough to pay off my mortgage, with enough left over to expand my kitchen and install a Jacuzzi on my back deck.

     “But, if what you say is true about the power going out, I’m thinking the smart move might be to use it to prepare for the inevitable. Any thoughts?”

     Scott took a sip of his tea and chose his words carefully.

     “I hate being in debt to a bank or anybody else. I’ve always been a guy who paid cash when I could. But these are special circumstances, and yes, I am certain this thing is going to happen. I just don’t know when.

     “Paying off your mortgage would be a very good thing. Ordinarily I’d recommend it. But here’s the thing. When the blackout happens, everybody is going to pretty much own their houses anyway. I mean, not technically. But all of their mortgage records are going to be tied up on bank computers that can never be retrieved.

     “And even if they could be retrieved, it wouldn’t matter. Nobody will be going to work anymore. What would they do? Walk from their homes to blacked out offices where the machines no longer worked, and just sit and look at each other? Are the banks going to evict every one of their mortgage holders?

     “No, when the shit hits the fan, the whole world is going to be so focused on survival that the last thing they’ll worry about is making a mortgage payment. So any money you spend paying off your mortgage will be money down the drain.

     “And that brings up something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

     Her eyebrows went up. She said, “Yes?”

     “I don’t want to pressure you. And I don’t want to mislead you. After all, there’s a chance that I’m just totally crazy and this whole solar storm and EMP blackout will never happen. I’d feel terrible if I twisted your arm to do something and you came to regret it later on.”

     He paused for a moment and she said, “Go on…”

     “Instead, I’ll just tell you what I would do in your situation. I wouldn’t worry about paying off my mortgage. If I’m right, property rights and deeds won’t be worth the paper they’re written on in a couple of years anyway. If it were me, I’d take that money and use it for something more substantial. Something that would help ensure my survival in the years ahead. Food stores. Seed stores. Equipment like generators. Materials to build
Faraday cages to protect essential electronics. That kind of thing.”

     She looked at him and said, “If I were to invest the money in all of that kind of stuff, where would I put it?”

     They both knew the answer, but she ached to hear him say the words anyway.

     “Here. You can make plans to come into the compound with us. I know you have no children or siblings. I never asked if your parents were still alive. But you can bring them in too.”

     “Are you asking me just because you need someone to help with the chores? Or is there another reason?”

     Scott was afraid she was going to ask that question. He wasn’t even sure he had an answer for her. But she’d backed him into a corner now. He had to answer.

     “Joyce, I… I don’t know what I feel, but I feel… something. I’ve been accused of letting my crotch do my thinking in the past, and I’ve probably been guilty. But this is more than a physical attraction. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s because I feel a certain kinship to you because you can understand where I’m coming from on this whole thing. Or if something deep inside me wants to see if there’s enough feeling there to make a relationship work.

     “I know that’s a non-answer. But this whole thing has my head spinning, and I’m very confused. And there’s another factor involved too.”

     “Go on…”

     “I’ve invited Linda, the boys’ mother, to join us as well. I wouldn’t feel right not offering her a chance to survive.”

     “I see. Is Linda married?”

     “No. She has a boyfriend. But he’s a dirt bag. I’m not sure she’d bring him along.”

     “Do you and Linda still have feelings for one another?”

     “No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, we have a history, sure. But on my part I consider her just a good friend and nothing more.”

     “And on her part?”

     “I think she would bend over backwards to make a relationship work if I offered her the chance. But I have no intention of offering her one.”

     Joyce put down her tea glass and said, “No. They’re both dead. My parents, I mean. It’s just me and my two cats. Dusty and Daisy. I used to have an old hound dog named Roy, but he was always chewing on my shoes. Every time I’d get dressed to go somewhere nice, I’d have to go looking for my shoes and hope they weren’t in pieces. Roy died a year ago, bless his heart. I was going to get another puppy. But I didn’t have enough shoes left to feed him. Besides, cats are much more suited to country living, I think. Plenty of mice and birds for them to chase and eat.”

     “Does that mean you’ll join us?”

     “How can I resist such a warm and heartfelt invitation?”

     Scott turned red.

     “I know I’m not the best at explaining myself. But I really think we’d make a good team. And there’s so much to do that I don’t think I can get it all done alone.”

     “You don’t have to explain, Scott. I’m not a timid woman who will be scared off just because there’s another female in the picture. And it just so happens that I’m between men right now, so I’m available to just throw caution to the wind and join you on your little project. Under one condition.”

     “And what is that?”

     “If Linda feels threatened by me, if she doesn’t want me around because she wants you all to herself, or feels intimidated by me…”

     She looked him in the eyes.

     “If that happens, you have to promise not to give in to her and try to kick me out of here. If I commit to this, and put my own money into it, then it’ll be my home as well as yours. I will not have you show me the door based on the whims of an insecure woman.”

     “You have my word. And you don’t know me enough to know this. Not yet. But someday you’ll understand that my word is my bond. I’ve never broken a promise in my life. And I have no intention of starting.”

     Joyce smiled.

     “Okay, then, cowboy, I just have one more question.”

     “Yes?”

     “When I pulled in I saw about a hundred uprooted trees laying on their sides and lined up in a pretty row a quarter mile long. What’s that all about?”

     He laughed and said, “Come on. Let’s take a walk around
our
new home. I’ll show you what I’ve been up to for the last few weeks.”

-11-

     Joyce continued to work two days a week, just to keep her hands in the pot in case Scott’s theory was all fantasy. But most of her days were spent preparing for the end of civilization as she knew it.

     Scott was right. There were a thousand and one things that needed to be done. Much too much for one person to handle.

     She settled into a routine. Each morning she didn’t go to the office, she’d arise about six, shower and have breakfast, and feed her cats. Then she’d make a trip to her local Walmart to shop.

     Joyce didn’t shop the way most people do, though. She took the rear seats out of her Honda CRV and left them in her garage. When she pulled into the Walmart parking lot she had the intention of filling every square inch.

     Her first few visits were hit and miss until she developed a system. Then she got it down to a science.

     The first two trips in and out of the store were for canned goods. She’d determined that two full carts of canned goods did a pretty good job of covering the floor space of her vehicle.

     Then she went back inside for two more carts full of other foods that had a very long shelf life. Dry beans and pasta, rice and spaghetti, Ramen noodles. Some canned goods, like Vienna sausages and canned ham, had shelf lives of four years. So did the canned spaghetti sauce, and it was high in calories, which was another plus. She also stocked up on sugar and flour and baking goods, and dry milk and seasonings.

     These goods went on top of the canned goods. If there was still space, she went back in for more supplies. Bags of charcoal, pillows and blankets, coats and linens. And whatever else she thought they’d need for the long term.

     She was always cautious not to buy anything which had to be refrigerated. That would come later. The first project on her list of things to do was to build a food supply at the compound, that would get them through their first few months if the EMPs hit in the fall. They reasoned that if the power went out in the late summer or fall, it would be April before they could plant subsistence crops. And late the following summer before they could be harvested. The Walmart food was to keep them alive in the interim.

     And if they had time to grow their crops and put them aside before the power went out? Well, that was okay too. As Joyce told Scott, having too much food was much better than not having enough. If they didn’t need the Walmart food initially, they could eat it later on before it expired, canning their home grown crops for later use.

     After two months of shopping at Walmart, Joyce had filled up one of the extra bedrooms with canned and dry foods, sorted and marked with their expiration dates. They were arranged so that the items expiring first were located on the top and front of each stack. That would ensure nothing spoiled before it was eaten.

     Once the dry stock was assembled, Joyce went on to her second project. She’d helped her grandmother and then her mother can fruits and vegetables when she was a little girl growing up in
Lubbock. She remembered it as being fun.

     She found out that from an adult’s perspective, especially when canning on a large scale, it was actually a lot of work.

     But she still enjoyed it.

     And she learned that she could can not just fruits and vegetables, but also cooked meats and boiled eggs as well. So for an additional three months, she continued her frequent visits to Walmart. Only this time the back of her SUV held eight large coolers. She filled some of them with whole chickens, prime ribs, beef and pork roasts, and various sausages. Others were filled with a wide variety of fresh produce.

     She went to Walmart twice a week now, and two days a week she spent at the compound, baking and canning her haul from the previous day. After three months she had literally hundreds of quart jars of anything and everything. When the space she’d set aside in the basement was finally full, she said she’d  finally  had  enough  and vowed never to can anything again.

     Of course she knew better. If Scott was right about the solar storms and the EMPs, she’d spend the rest of her life in the compound. During the warm weather months they’d be growing and harvesting crops. And she’d be canning a good portion of the crops for the winter months. But for now she was just tired of it.

     Her third project wasn’t quite as much work. She visited Walmart again, to buy two hundred one pound blocks of cheese. Not all from one store, of course. She was considerate of others and only took about half of what each store had on the shelves. Then she’d move down the road to the next Walmart and do the same thing. She didn’t think it proper, after all, to inconvenience other shoppers who might also need cheese.

     After she got all her cheese and packed it in a side by side refrigerator at the compound, she spent four days melting red cheese wax in a pot on the stove. Once melted, she dipped each block of cheese in the wax, wrapped it in cheesecloth and then put it aside on waxed paper to cool and dry.

     She put four coats of wax on each block of cheese and then wrapped each in waxed paper. Then she lined them up on top of boxes of supplies that were in the basement storage room. The cheese would keep unrefrigerated for many years.

     In her prepper days Joyce had learned that eggs will keep unrefrigerated for up to a year if they’re coated in mineral oil.  Scott had planned to purchase chickens and roosters and to build a chicken coop in the back of the compound. He didn’t bother to tell Joyce, though, until after she’d purchased fifty dozen eggs, treated them and stacked them neatly in the same back bedroom as the dry goods.

     “I’m sorry, Sugar,” Scott said. “I should have told you before you went through all that trouble.”

     She countered, “Oh, it’s no problem. I hope you like eggs, because that’s what you’re getting for breakfast every morning for the next year.”