S Ison - Russian Doomsday

She’d feel better once Pike arrived, though she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though he could stop this from happening any more than she could. Yet the thought of having him around calmed her better than anything else.

She smiled. He’d had a crush on her for years. Back in school, he’d been such a geeky kid, tall, gangly and skinny. So thin, she’d thought he had some kind of eating disorder. Yet she’d seen him devoured four sandwiches he’d brought to lunch. A bottomless pit, a walking empty gut. Her mother had called it a hollow leg syndrome.

She’d broken his heart when she left Georgia with Bobby. It had been written all over his thin face, his eyes looking like a kicked puppy’s. He’d been too young for her, and she’d only considered him a friend.

She laughed out loud as she remembered how he’d tried to sound sad about her divorce. Binx, her mini-pinscher, looked up at her from his bed. He wagged his stump of a tail and laid his head back down. His brows moved up and down questioningly as he watched her.

She’d been stepping up her gathering , as she called it. Small purchases here and there. She got up and went into the spare bedroom, and hauled out the box she’d been putting the items into. Inside were several rolls of duct tape; apparently all preppers said it was a must-have. She mentally shrugged. So she’d gotten it. There were a couple bundles of paracord, and lighters instead of matches.

The first aid kit was comprised of several tubes of antibacterial ointment and a box of Band-Aids. A roll of plastic sheeting… what she would do with that, she had no idea. It was a sad box. Most of the things seemed, to her, useless. She certainly wasn’t going to MacGyver anything from them. She let out a huff, blowing a curl from her forehead. Sometimes she felt foolish. Then, at other times, she felt relieved.

She’d ordered a few solar-powered lanterns. They worked great, thank you Amazon. She bought most of her things from there or other online stores. She was trying to keep the purchases she made in town low-keyed.

People from small towns were inherently nosy, especially about outsiders, and she’d noticed that some of the older women watched what she put in her cart. “What on earth are you going to do with all that tape, young lady?” one had asked when she bought the duct tape. She’d been stunned that the old thing would even ask. “Oh, my fender’s kind of hanging, and I was told that this stuff would hold it in place until I could get it fixed,” she’d lied. The old bat had responded, “I say spend a little extra money and go to the repair man. That stuff will ruin the finish.” Margo had stared at her. “Well, if you’re offering to pay for it?” The woman had looked shocked and rolled her cart away, muttering to herself.

Margo laughed at the remembrance. “Old biddy,” she mumbled, looking down at the duct tape. She had also acquired a few packets of screws, nails, and a staple gun with staples. She sat down on the floor and looked around the room. A couple more medium-sized boxes held the rest of her prepping things. There was a Swiss Army Knife in one of them, she knew.

Perhaps, once Pike arrived, they could go and meet Sayer, go shopping in Lincoln. It was only a little over one hundred miles away. They could really do some damage in the stores there among strangers. Except, of course, Sayer.

Margo wondered how the next few months would go. She and Pike hadn’t really talked too much over the phone. She kind of felt shy about it. She figured they have plenty of time to chat once he arrived. He could help her get more things and become better organized.

Sayer was Pike’s friend, but she knew she would be meeting him soon as well. She was very interested to meet him. She’d never met a hard-core prepper. Sure, she’d seen the TV series, but his page didn’t give her that crazy-in-the-head impression. Just common-sense stuff.

If she were honest, she felt trapped. Her small apartment only had so much storage space, and there was really no defense. Anyone could kick in her door; it wasn’t even real wood. She’d started watching more videos, and learned that if there wasn’t a metal casement around the door, even if you had a steel door, people could kick it in. Her door was made out of that particle board crap, and she’d checked the door casement. It was wood. People could get in, kill her and take all she had easily, and she could do nothing to stop them.

And what if there was a massive explosion and she survived? Would she survive the radiation? And if she survived the radiation, would she survive disease and starvation? How long could she survive on what she had in her cupboard?

These questions nagged at her day and night, driving her to distraction. It was like she was becoming obsessed with this POSEIDON business, and she didn’t even know why it scared her so badly.

The United States was always being threatened with something, be it bombs or cyber-attacks. What had made this article scare her so damn much? What was it about the Russians that made her wake up at night in a cold sweat? She didn’t know, but she did know that she was very afraid. Sayer was too, and he was a seasoned prepper. Pike had mention that Sayer had been shaken up by the articles. She tried to tell herself she was just scaring herself… well, she was, but it was more than that.

She got up off the floor, went to the kitchen and began opening her cupboard doors. Looking at the contents, she became angry. At herself this time. She had maybe a month’s worth of canned food, ten pounds of pasta, a fifteen-pound bag of rice... If she stretched it out, her food would last maybe two months.

How the hell am I supposed to cook this stuff? I have an electric stove . She then counted her water bottles, just twenty-two. That wouldn’t last a month. How the hell would she get water if the power were gone? In the apartment it came from the tap, but where did that come from? If she needed to heat it, how? They had the pool, but Christ, would she want to drink that? Kids pee in the pool, eww . She could boil it, but still, eewww . But boiling it required a place to build a fire, and firewood. She didn’t have firewood. There was the lake, but she’d have to walk a long way, six miles or better, to get there.

She turned around and around in her small kitchen, despair freezing her mind, then went to the table. Pulling out a chair, she sat down, put her head in her hands and wept. Here she’d thought she was getting prepared, but she’d just been fooling herself. She wasn’t anywhere close to being prepared. If the SHTF today, she’d be dead within a month, just like everyone else. She’d live beyond that, but it would be a slow agonizing death from starvation.

She had fooled herself into thinking she was really prepared to meet whatever came. She wasn’t even close. She’d missed the friggin’ mark by a mile. Fear, grief, rage, and anger fought for supremacy. She’d been wasting time, self-delusional. She’d never lied to herself before, or rather, usually tried never to lie to herself.

She sat back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling, as though the answers were written there. Of course, they weren’t. Once Pike got there, she promised herself, she would kick her ass into the prepping game. She wouldn’t be one of those millions dropping dead. She’d be damned if she’d let this beat her. Her jaw firmed up and she reached for a tissue to blow her nose. She would just pull up her big-girl flowered panties and kick some ass.

Pike pull into the apartment complex, parked, and turned the truck off. His heart was beating fast now. He could feel it in his fingertips and his ears. He was moments away from seeing Margo. It was eight long years since he’d last seen her in person. He’d grown up a lot since then, but he was still young, and felt inexperienced when he compared himself to her. She had a marriage under her belt and had been on her own for nine years.