2
”We’ll have to eat the cereal dry since you forgot to get milk the last time you went shopping."
Nancy stared at Eddie. “How long you think it’ll last us?"
“We can live a couple months on what’s in there if we ration it right.
“What are we going to do for water?"
“We can melt the ice out of the freezer for water until we can find something else. We’ll have to eat what’s in the fridge and freezer first. Have to think of a way to eat the stuff without cooking it. Without a fire. The smell of anything cooking is going to draw people in."
“We could thaw the meat and dry it, you know, make pemmican the way the Indians did."
“You know how to dry meat?"
Nancy thought for a minute and then shook her head.
“To dry the meat we’d have to get some smoke going. If we start a fire somebody’s going to know we’re here and they’ll try to come and take our food."
“We can take turns standing guard," Nancy said as she watched a trickle of blood come from under the door. “We’re going to have to move Dorian or the flies are going to take over. Especially in this heat."
“I shot her. You can move her."
“You shot her. You should move her."
Eddie glared at Nancy.
“I know what you’re thinking," Nancy said.
Eddie lifted the gun and shot once. Nancy clutched her chest but uttered no words as she fell in a heap on the floor. With Nancy gone there would be more food for him as long as he could find a place to hunker down out of sight from looters now that some strange thing had happened in the world, shut down the power, rendered all their vehicles useless. Eddie had deduced it had something to do with a solar flare that melted anything electronic. And that meant everything electronic. He poked at Nancy’s foot with his toe and nodded his head when she didn’t move.
Eddie wandered over to the kitchen sink and turned the handle before he remembered no water would come out of the faucet. That was the worst. No water.
He laid the gun on the counter as he gazed out the window. Arthur Dempsey’s fallout shelter crossed his mind. Eddie had played there when he was a kid and old man Arthur had died ten years ago. Not too many people knew about the shelter.
“What’s left in the cupboard?" a voice called from the living room.
Eddie picked up his gun, stopped at the kitchen drawer and dug out some bullets and slammed them into the cylinder of the revolver. He strode into the living room and stared at the window.
“I know what you’re thinking," the voice said.
Eddie raised the gun. He pulled the trigger and green, blue and yellow feathers exploded in a puff and floated to the floor.
Nancy’s parrot wobbled for a second and the last words from his hooked beak were, “What’s mine is yours."
