dozens of people parked and trying to get into the little store. Still everyone was accommodating and polite, ‘This won’t last much longer.' Bill mused as he put the truck in gear and headed home.

He hit his garage door opener and was greeted by his wife and four of his five kids, who he set to bringing in all the groceries.

“How much?” his wife asked as she surveyed all the food.

“A little over five hundred.” Bill answered.

Trisha sighed visibly, “I hope this ain’t a drill, because we are going to bounce our car payment this month.”

Bill pulled her close and kissed her, “No honey, something is wrong, something strange is going on. Can you get this? I want to bring your car in and top it off, plus fill anything else I can with gas as well.”

As he pulled more groceries out of the truck Bill’s oldest son John said, “We got that barrel out back, want me to get it?”

“Oh yeah, sure, good idea.”

The ‘barrel’ was a fifty five gallon heavy duty plastic barrel from a place Bill used to work over a decade before; it used to hold soap for cleaning the machinery at his job. Bill always thought it would make an excellent place to store a keg, cut off the top and throw in the keg and some ice and you had a tail gator’s dream. Only the dream was never realized. He had contemplated tossing it several times, but in the end it just sat in the sun outside whatever house he lived at and slowly turned from black to a gray with the passing of the years. It was clean and had two stoppers which could be removed. This meant Bill had to take the truck in, instead of the car, but he doubted he could afford fifty five gallons of gas anyway, still the station had taken his check before, so he would fill it as high as he could.

His son Will rode with him the two miles back into town and the gas station was not too busy yet, apparently Bill was staying just one step ahead of the rest of the people getting supplies. He put fifty gallons of gas into the barrel and paid with another check that was sure to bounce. ‘Well’ he thought, ‘either way we will use the gas, I guess.’

When he got back home Trisha was in the car with John. John had Bill's shotgun in the front seat with them. Trisha rolled down her window, getting ready to pull out of the garage as Bill pulled in. Her eyes were red and watery, as if she had been crying.

“I called Marcy up in Boone, the Wal-mart and grocery stores are still open up there. I am going with John to get what we can. I'm taking the college money, you better go watch the news, I can't talk about it right now.”

Bill looked over to John and said, “Was it your idea to bring the gun?”

He nodded.

“Good call. You should bring a pistol too, I don't think anybody is going to get mean yet, but it won't be long.” Bill laughed when John raised his shirt up to show the butt of a pistol. To Trisha he said, “Buy everything you can get especially the stuff no one else is buying. And fill up the car too. I'll have Claire and Will help me with this. Where's Max?”

Trisha sniffed, “Still in bed, don't forget to give Trudy something to do. Don't leave her out.” This had been an ongoing argument lately, that Bill left the girls out of all his planning. He nodded his assent and Trisha left without another word.

“Good luck.” he called after the car, hoping everything would be okay. His remaining older children were standing in the garage, waiting for him.

Looking to Will he asked, “What's mom upset for?”

His daughter answered him, “They nuked Denver, two days ago from what the news says, and several cities on both coasts, New York, San Fransisco. The news says, well the news says they nuked Mexico City too, says the Mexicans asked us to.”

“What?! Hol-ee-shit! This isn't a drill: the shit really has hit the fan, somebody get Max up.” Thinking back to what his wife said, he pointed to Trudy, “Can you get Max up and make us breakfast?”

“I can only cook eggs. And coffee.”

“What's wrong with eggs and coffee?”

She nodded and headed into the house.

“Alright you two we gotta get this barrel off of the truck and it is heavy, we cannot, I repeat, cannot afford to have anyone injured now. So what do you two think? How should be do it?”

An hour later they were eating cold eggs, warm toast and drinking hot coffee. The barrel of fuel was stowed in the attached garage and they were making plans to put anything useful from the outer storage shed into the garage and move all non-essential stuff into the shed. Protecting the 'good stuff' was Bill's primary goal.

“After this we get the shed rearranged and then get the guns laid out and cleaned. I am going to cut blocks for all the doors and seal over the basement windows with plywood, We need to fill everything we can find with water too and make sure all the camping gear is cleaned and ready to go. After that…fishing? We could see what we can catch to eat fresh.”

“Eww!” said Max, “I hate catfish!”

“You hate all fish, but you'll like it just fine if it is all we have to eat. Better than mice anyway.” Bill said.

“Mice? We won't have to eat mice dad!” said Trudy.

“Well maybe not right away, there isn't enough meat on their little bones to do much with anyway is there? Say Will, do you think the Olson's still have any of those mutt pups left that they were trying to get rid of? I think an extra dog around here would be a good idea.”

“I can bike over there after we get done with the shed.” Will answered.

“Well I was thinking maybe Max could go, maybe with Trudy? While we were doing the shed stuff.” The older two kids knew this was a way to get the younger kids out of the way, three people should be able to handle the shed reshuffling easily enough.

Will nodded his agreement to the plan then asked, “Dad, when will mom be home?”

“It depends on the deals she finds, I hope she is home soon. She's got your college money though, so maybe she will be awhile. Geez I hope they emptied the trunk out before they left.” Trisha was notorious for using the trunk as an enlarged purse, cramming it full of junk unless it was needed for something else.

“She did.” said Trudy, “We helped her while John was getting the guns.”

“Okay then let's get started. Good breakfast by the way Trudy. And you two wear your bike helmets and don't go taking the runt of the litter from the Olson's either! No matter how cute it is.”

Chapter 3

Hopping out of the van Max scanned the road side for danger for the tenth time. He could not see anything moving aside from his group, the place was like a tomb, with none of the normal noise in the air, as if the very earth had swallowed up all those troublesome noisemakers, like cars, people and birds. Their proximity to the crest of the hill bothered Max, any place where zombies could rush them without being seen first bothered him. He was bothered a lot lately.

From this side of the hill the highway looked normal, except for the broken glass. The road was split with a wide median in between the two sections of road. There were no wrecks or even indications of a wreck on this side of the hill, but the glass had to come from somewhere.

“Hey Amelia, why don't you keep the van running and ready to go. Just in case. Nick you and Cory get out the brooms and sweep some of this glass up with Erin. Jess you stay in the van and keep lookout, scream if you see anything moving. Scream twice as loud if its a zombie.”

The kids got to work, there was no bellyaching or complaining these days. The three older kids hopped out and Erin, the tallest, pulled brooms out from under the sides of the roof rack where they kept them between uses. The brooms had saved a lot of time for them so far. Max liked to think they saved the tires too. Plus it kept the kids

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