WILLA, стр. 3

Shaking my head, I went into the kitchen. I’d made us sandwiches. One of the websites I’d visited that day said to eat perishable items first because if the power went out, those items would ruin—that made sense. The canned soup that I’d looked at in our cabinet didn’t expire for six months or longer, and some of the vegetables would last a year.

I made us large glasses of chocolate milk and cut up fruit to go with the sandwiches. I ate my food in the kitchen. I couldn’t listen to the television or my mother’s muttering any longer. While I ate, I let my eyes wander around the room, and I made a mental list of what we had.

Mom ate like a bird. She was tall and thin. I wasn’t fat, but I was shorter and thicker than her. We’d have enough food to last the two of us a while if Dad waited out the zombies wherever he was. I hated thinking that about my dad, but he usually ate a fair bit more than Mom and I. He wasn’t morbidly obese. Like Mom, he was tall, and he weighed about two-thirty, and not much of that was muscle.

We’ll only have enough if someone doesn’t rob us, I thought.

As soon as the grocery stores run out, desperate people will start taking what others have. That was a fact of nature. I’d seen examples of it on the news during past events and while watching any number of apocalyptic movies or TV shows.

Mom and I didn’t have enough of any one thing to be able to share, not if we wanted to make it the month or so that I hoped it would take the military to get the situation under control.

After I’d finished eating, I took Mom her food. I sat it right in front of her on the coffee table, but she didn’t notice.

Next, I walked the house, thinking of where I could hide our stuff and how I was going to protect it. As I did so, I attempted to call my father for the millionth time. After that, I tried my uncles. They could give me advice, even if they couldn’t help me. They had their families to care for, and they wouldn’t come here to take our supplies. It didn’t matter what they would or wouldn’t do because they never answered their phones.

A narrow passage that led to the attic stairs sat in the back of the upstairs hall closet. Mom did some half-hearted research when we first moved in to try to find out why the entrance to the attic was in such a strange place, but she never found an answer.

I removed the panel that led to that creepy hallway and went upstairs. The attic was large and dirty. I swear things crawled around in the dust. With all my soul, I didn’t want to spend a second in the room, but I also knew it would be the perfect place to hide our things.

With an idea in mind, I went to Mom for help, but she took no notice of me. I would have to do something soon to get her to snap out of it. For the time being, I would let her have her freak out. In her current frame of mind, she wouldn’t be of any help to me anyway.

I found a few plastic totes in our closets. They were full of junk, so I had to dump out their contents, but they worked perfectly for what I needed. I crammed as much stuff as I possibly could in each and stored them in the attic. All of our toilet paper but one roll, all medicines except what we would need for the next few days, all but the minimal amount of first aid supplies, all flashlights, candles, matches, blankets, towels, etc., went into the attic. After that, I started on cleaning products and food. I only kept out the bare minimum of what we might need for the night and next day.

I had a plan that each day, I would retrieve what we needed. I left the jewelry and money lying about, but credit cards and checkbooks, I hid. We might need the cash and gold later, but at that moment, necessities and food were my priority.

The sun had long since set by the time I’d finished. Even with me working around her, Mom hadn’t moved or touched her food. I went to look out the living room window. My neighborhood seemed quiet. A few lights were on, but no one was outside. Only every fifteen to thirty minutes a car would pass.

Behind me, the television showed a different world. People across the continent were freaking out, looting, killing anyone who remotely acted strangely, and trying to go into hiding. The army was bombing cities. The National Guard was working to secure towns and government buildings. Not since 9-11 had there been so much chaos on American soil.

I hadn’t been alive back then, but I’d heard people talk. I’d seen video footage of the attack. In the aftermath of the events, we’d come together as a people, though. Judging by what the reporter was saying, we weren’t now. Our country was in a free for all.

Despite the news reports, and because I was tired from lugging stuff upstairs, I didn’t barricade my doors and windows. Yeah, I made sure they were locked. I even moved some furniture around to make it hard for someone to break in and to give Mom and me enough time to escape if that happened. Other than that, I did nothing else to protect us. I didn’t even carry a knife with me to bed after I’d cleaned up that night.

We didn’t own a firearm of any kind. Mom wouldn’t allow one in the house. I don’t think Dad had an opinion on them either way, but my uncles were