Meteor (3 page)

“Oh, that’s real low, Mary. You are blaming me for all of these things? I am the only one around here who seems to be making Brandon feel better about who he is, which by the way I am willing to accept. I am not so sure about you. Jesus, Mary, we are living in the twenty first century. It’s time for you to get rid of those small-minded values that dictate how every child should grow up.”

“I just don’t want him to struggle through his life!” she was now fully weeping. “Is it so wrong to wish that your child was normal so that he can have a happy existence?”

“He will be happy when he can be around people who aren’t so narrow minded. In the meantime, we need to help him accept who he is,” said Troy.

Mary didn’t say anything in response to this. She just stood at the sink, weeping to herself. Troy thought about coming up behind and putting his arms around her to comfort her, but he thought better of it. After all, why did she deserve to be comforted if she was sleeping around with his friend?

Troy left her standing there, went over to the refrigerator, grabbed a beer and walked outside. He walked around the back of the house towards the shelter, listening to the chorus of whippoorwills and owls that had started up in the woods all around him. He took a fold out chair and sat it in front of the shelter. He took a deep drink of his Budweiser and looked up at the stars.

“I know that I’m doing this for a good reason,” he said out loud, as if to reassure himself and the universe at large about his plans.

Then he began to think about the provisions that he had stocked. Would they be enough in case of some kind of catastrophic event? Did he have enough water and oxygen stashed away? He went back over the plans in his mind, again and again.

Something inside of himself told him that the matter was urgent. He needed to finish up the shelter and do it relatively quickly. In two weeks, he planned to have it completely stocked and ready.

Then, he could begin making his family do safety drills so that they could get inside of the bunker as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency. He was already picturing all of the eye rolling that would result from these drills, but he knew deep down that it was necessary. Despite the grief that his family gave him, he would make sure that they were safe, for he still loved each one of them greatly.

After a couple of weeks, the shelter was nearing completion. Troy, with the help of his friend, Ken, put together the incinerator and did a few test runs with it. At first, it burned part of the front of the bunker, so one wall had to be replaced and reinforced with fireproof netting. Troy was proud of his shelter and knew deep down inside that there was a good reason that he had built it.

The next morning after the shelter had been all but finished, Troy had the dream again. This time he saw a crowd of people in the streets looting and burning up buildings. Troy was trying to make his way home and get his family members to follow him. He shut the door just as a horrible, disfigured man tried to gain access. Then, Troy awoke suddenly and sat up, covered in sweat again.

“Another bad dream?” Mary asked as he sat up in bed.

“Yes, but it ended about as well as could be expected,” he answered.

“Maybe you should see someone about that. You’re starting to have those dreams more and more often.”

There must be a reason for that, Troy thought to himself as he got out of bed and dressed for work.

As Troy arrived at the factory, he saw that Hank and Wayne had the television on in the small break room.

“What do you guys think you’re doing? We have a shipment due to go out in two hours and these boxes are nowhere near ready!” Troy shouted as he looked at the empty pile of boxes in the corner of the adjacent warehouse.

“Sorry boss, but there’s some big shit going down,” Wayne explained as he pointed at the television, which appeared to be on a news channel.

“What is it?” Troy asked as he came over to the small break room area and sat down at the table with the two men.

Wayne's eyes were still glued to the screen. “Huge meteor is approaching.”

“I know about that already, they said that it is not going to collide with Earth,” Troy said reassuringly.

“That’s not what they’re saying now,” Hank told him. “Now they are starting to say that it is on a collision course with us. They think that it will make landfall sometime tonight, around Africa.”

“What? You’re kidding me. That’s a major disaster waiting to happen. Any idea what occurred the last time a heavenly body this size collided with Earth?” Troy asked the two workers. They both looked at each other blankly and then back at Troy.

“No idea, boss,” Hank admitted.

“It resulted in the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. When the meteor struck Earth in southern Mexico, it threw up a debris cloud that blocked out the sun and created a massive change in global weather patterns. That ultimately led to the extinction of much of life on Earth,” Troy said, shaking his head. He read all this stuff on Wikipedia, usually when he was supposed to be working.

Hank and Wayne again looked at each other with a dumbfounded expression.

“Seriously?” Wayne said.

“Yes. Seriously.”

Troy turned up the sound on the news segment:

“This is Steve Peterson for CNN Headline News. Ever since we have gotten the confirmed report that the meteor is in fact headed right for Earth, a sense of panic has started to erupt in many parts of the globe. Shoppers are clearing out the grocery stores as they stock up on provisions. Officials say they still believe that it is nothing to be alarmed about despite the massive size of the meteor. The hope is that it may be headed for the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa, but scientists cannot yet predict exactly where it will land. We will have more news for you as it becomes available.”

Troy turned down the volume and got up from the break room table. “How can they be telling people that it is nothing to be alarmed about? That meteor is at least as big as the one that collided with Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period. It’s time to make preparations.”

“Where are you going, boss? Don’t we have a shipment that we have to get out this morning?” asked Hank.

“I’m taking the day off,” Troy informed them. “I have to make sure that I have all of the provisions that we need. My shelter is finished but I need to check we have enough food and water. I’m off to the store and I recommend you do the same.” He headed for the door.

“Won’t Gary be upset that we didn’t get the order out?” Wayne asked him.

Troy answered over his shoulder. “Do you see Gary here? He didn’t even bother to turn up today or give anyone an explanation for his absence. My guess is that he’s already at the store stocking up.”

Troy left the warehouse and jumped in his truck. He practically peeled out the parking lot he was in such a hurry to get to the Safeway, which was the closest grocery store.

When he drove up he noticed that the parking lot was nearly full, which was unusual for that time of day. He hurried in, unfolding the list of items that he still needed to stock up on, with water being one of the main things.

As he entered the grocery store, he could feel the panic in the air. People were lined up at the checkout area with baskets piled high. Many of them had all sorts of groceries, much of which wouldn’t last very long.

“Fools,” said Troy under his breath as he realized that most of these people had no idea what they could be facing. If they had to hole up for months at a time they needed canned goods and tons of water.

Troy was relieved to find that there was still some bottled water, but only a few more twelve packs. Troy filled his shopping cart full of the blue liquid and was about to get the last two when a woman suddenly came up and grabbed a twelve pack just as Troy was putting his hands on it.

“Unhand it, mister,” the woman said, panicked and angry.

“It’s all yours.” Troy gave up the water to the woman and tried to put some distance between she and him. He went over to the canned goods aisle. Troy wasn’t into food that was full of artificial ingredients, so he still found plenty of the types of foods he was looking for, including organic black beans, corn, and other vegetables. He went to grab another loaf of bread but a man grabbed it right out from under him.

“You know I was going to get that bread,” Troy said to the man who was already walking away.

“Too bad,” the man sneered and was off to another aisle. Troy shook his head and checked his shopping list. Luckily, he had gotten there early enough to get just about everything. As he stood in the grocery line, he could sense the feeling of panic starting to rise as people’s impatience grew.

“What’s going on up there, can’t you people checkout any faster?” asked an overweight man in a baseball cap.

Troy did his best not to get caught up in the panic that was beginning to ensue. Troy saw more and more people coming into the grocery store and expressing their frustration at the lack of items remaining on the aisles.

As soon as he had checked out and got into the parking lot, he noticed a couple of young men trying to rob an old lady of her supplies that she was about to load into her car. Troy remembered the small handgun that he kept under the seat of his pick up. He went and grabbed it, pointing it at the two young men who had just stolen the elderly lady’s grocery cart.

“You’ll want to be unhanding that,” Troy said as a young man in a blue hoodie turned around.

“Hey, we don’t want no trouble, mister,” the man said as he put his hands up.

“Then I want to see you give those groceries back, IMMEDITATELY!” Troy said as he waved the gun at them. They reluctantly rolled the cart back over to the lady and walked back to their truck. Troy did not put the gun down until the young men had driven away.

“Thank you so much,” the elderly woman said to Troy. He walked over to her and helped her load the groceries in her car.

“It was nothing. You need to go straight home and lock all of your doors once you’re inside,” Troy said with urgency.

“Is it really going to be that bad?” the lady asked him, betraying the worry in her voice.

“I’m afraid so,” Troy said as he headed back over to his own truck.

There was now a line headed out the door and wrapped around the corner of the grocery store. Troy shook his head, thinking of all of the people that waited too late to prepare for this disaster.

“I guess they won’t think I’m so crazy after all,” he said out loud as he headed for Dickson High School. He wanted to pick his children up and make sure that his entire family was secure, well before the meteor was due to make its impact.

When he got to the school office, he found the room crammed full of parents who were trying to check their children from school. Troy took his place in the line and waited patiently. He looked at the clock - it was now eleven thirty. The meteor was expected to make its impact around four or five that afternoon. He called Mary to make sure that she was at home.

After a few minutes of scuffling noises, he heard his wife’s voice on the phone.

“Hello?” she said, and Troy swore he could hear the faint sound of a male voice in the background.

“Are you at home, Mary?”

“Yes of course, what is it?”

“I want you to pack up whatever provisions and groceries we have left in the house and put them in the shelter,” Troy informed her. “I’m at the school now, and when I get home, I’ll help you finish, but I need you to get started on this.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit, Troy? I mean, they are telling people on the news that there is no reason to panic.”

“Dammit Mary, I am not overreacting. This is precisely the kind of situation that I have been preparing for all of this time. Trust me, there is plenty reason to take action. I’m not panicking, I’m being proactive,” he said. “Also, you can tell Steve he isn’t welcome in the shelter, and he will have to find some other place to stay,” Troy finished angrily.

“But…” Mary began to answer but Troy had already hung up the phone.

Mary, who was laying naked in the bed next to Steve, looked over at him.

“You had better leave. Troy will be home soon and he is in full doomsday mode,” she said.

Steve pulled her hair back out of her eyes and gave her a kiss.

“I don’t want to leave,” he said as he attempted to pull back the sheets that Mary had covered herself with.

“No, Steve, we don’t have time for that. I want you to leave,” she said emphatically.

“Hey that’s not very nice, baby,” Steve said as he began to get dressed.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“Was it something I said?” Steve asked, somewhat sarcastically. “Hey, don’t worry, I have plenty of women who would be glad for me to stop by and see them.” He put on his shirt. “Do you think you’re the only piece of ass in town?”

“So that’s all I was to you, a piece of ass?”

“A hot piece of ass. You like that better?”

Mary got out of bed. “I honestly don’t know what I ever saw in you.”

Steve did not answer, but left the house quickly and sped off down the road.

Troy waited in the school office as Brandon, then Cordelia appeared to meet him.

“What are you doing here so early, dad?” Cordelia asked him.

“Sweetie, I don’t want you to get upset, but this whole meteor scare is a lot more serious than the media is letting on. We need to get home and get into the shelter as soon as we can. People are already starting to panic and clear the shelves at the grocery stores. Soon there will probably be riots, looting, and all sorts of unlawful behavior. It may even get to the point where it’s not safe to be outside, but we are going to be alright.”

Cordelia didn't look convinced. Brandon nodded his head bravely and Troy put his arm around his son.

“Come on, let’s get you two out of here.”

More and more cars were beginning to pull in to the school as parents came to get their children home to perceived safety.

Troy stepped on the gas as he hurried to get back to his house.

“Dad, slow down, you’re scaring me,” Cordelia said, as her younger brother tried to comfort her.

“Sorry, honey, I just need to get us to our shelter. You have to trust your old man on this one.”

“How dangerous do you think this situation is, dad?” Brandon asked him in a worried voice.

“Pretty bad if the meteor is as large as they say it is. I think they are trying to downplay the danger to try and keep people from panicking and causing riots.”

“I guess that makes sense. So what do we need to do now to get ready for it?” Brandon was anxious to help his old man and demonstrate his braveness.

“I need you to get everything that you hold dear out of the house and into your bedroom in the shelter. As you know, there is one large bedroom that you and Cordelia will share. Both of you need to get only the things that are necessary. Cordelia, you won’t be able to take all of your clothes, so take only the most practical things that you need.”

“So I’m going to have to share a room with him.” Cordelia shot her brother a glare.

“Cordelia, this is a time that we will have to pull together. I don’t know how long we will have to stay in the shelter but I want you both to be prepared to stay there a while. We don’t have time to worry about whether or not you have your own bedroom.”

Cordelia turned her head and looked out of the window. Her angry glare was now replaced with a look of worry. Her thoughts drifted off to her boyfriend. She wondered when she would get to see him again.