Daphne Lamb: The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse

He shrugged looked around. “No one’s wearing anything skimpy. Thought maybe you guys wanted to get some aggression out, but I see you’ve put a stop to that. ”

His voice just sort of trailed off. I rolled my eyes.

“No one’s going to make you stay.”

“Fine,” he said heavily. “That Costco’s a dump, everyone left and I lost everything, including my risk management book, so might as well. Get me out of this.”

He held up his wrists. Begrudgingly, I picked up a nearby pair of scissors and cut him out of it. He put his hands in his pockets and took everything in.

“You guys renting this place or…”

“Let me show you where your room is,” I said.

I took him to my bedroom and gestured to a blanket on the floor and his little makeshift desk.

“As of right now, you work for me,” I said. “And we have work to do.”

“I need guidance from somewhere,” he said weakly. “I feel lost without the guidance of my book.”

He stared off into the landscape which was dusty and barren. His face had changed so much from when all of this started. He had aged but his mouth trembled like a scared little boy.

“You don’t need that book,” I said, tenderly touching his arm, at a loss for how distraught and helpless he looked. “You have the answers now. So now you can help guide us.”

He processed what I said and it seemed to give him a license to some joy. He then took in the cracked and crumbling walls, the burned carpet and my sadly dirty yet superior bed to his own.

“My wives left me,” he said. “Rebecca ran away with that girl who had a baby and said something about how the world doesn’t need men anymore. They called themselves Women Who Run With The Wolves or something like that.”

“And do what?”

He shrugged. “Interior design maybe? I don’t know.”

He sat on my bed. “I don’t know where they’re going to get the start up. It’s a down market for home improvement, I think.”

He cleared his throat. “So what’s on the list of things to do?”

“We’re going to go out and find our families,” I said confidently, thinking he’d respond to the humanity of it.

Instead he shrugged. “I was hoping you were going to say pillow fights or mud wrestling.”

I withdrew, annoyed.

“Really?”

His face brightened up. “Kidding. Honestly. I’m looking forwards to knowing what priorities actually are.”

I stared down at him, his sadness and loneliness practically sliding off his dirty clothes and onto my rumpled bed.

“Robert,” I said.

He held up his hand. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll work for you, but no overtime, and if you think I’m going to bring you guys lunch, you can just forget it.”

I sat on a cinder block across from him.

“I’m going to interview you,” I said. “Now, where do you see yourself in five years?”

“That’s funny.” He smiled. I handed him some paper.

“So you want to know how to find people?” he said. “Fight weird losers who worship cartoon characters?”

“Not exactly,” I said, brushing off the comment. “We’re writing a survival guide.”

He looked at the paper and frowned. “ The Girls Guide to the Apocalypse ?” he asked. “What about my needs? Where’s the guide being marketed to my demographic?”

“We’ll add a chapter about strip club management if you want,” I said. “But for now, just write down what I say.”

He shrugged and held the pen over paper. I saw Rachel and Brittany hovering nearby, peeking through the doorway. I cleared my throat. Brittany scampered away like a skittish deer but Rachel leaned herself up against the doorframe.

“Chapter one,” I said. “I think we should talk about finding a water source. Remember how important that was at that one house?”

He squinted his eyes. I could see he was thinking hard. “Was it? I seem to remember finally having to use those conflict resolution skills HR was always bugging me about.”

I thought back to everything that had happened and didn’t know how we were going to fit everything in all at once.

He shook his head. “Nope, I’ve got it,” he said. “Being flexible to change. That’s what you should start with.”

I nodded, and he happily scribbled it down. Rachel gave me a thumbs-up as I cleared my throat and started to dictate.

“Chapter one,” I said.

Robert wrote a few letters and sighed. “Oh, that reminds me. You wouldn’t happen to know a Marilyn Sonobe, would you?”

I froze at the sound of my mother’s name. “What about her?”

He shrugged casually. “She came in looking for work, but I didn’t have anything. So I sent her out north where they’ve got that Sam’s Club being run by that group that calls themselves Soldiers of Anthrax.”

I stood up, fear and horror washing over me.

“Sonobe,” he said. “Not a common name. I immediately thought of you.”

I ripped the paper out of his hands. “We have to go. Right now.”

He folded his arms. “We write your guide,” he said defiantly. “Then we go.”

I shoved the paper at him. “Write fast, you jerk.”

Thanks go to my Mom. Not only has she been a source of encouragement and support, but she’s the one who instilled my love of story and writing to begin with.

Thanks to those of my closest friends who are always willing to listen, give notes and patiently nod to every story idea I have – no matter how bonkers or ill advised it may seem.

Finally, thanks to my wonderful team at Booktrope, Kellie, Briana, Marisa and Greg. Without them, this book would probably be sitting in a dark drawer somewhere.

Daphne Lamb was raised in Colorado but now calls Los Angeles home where she writes and performs comedy. She lives in an apartment building that also houses a few D-list celebrities who will not allow her to hang out with them. She loves bad movies, science fiction and looks forwards to someday owning a cat.

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Copyright 2015 Daphne Lamb