How I Spent the Apocalypse by Selina Rosen Read Free Book Online Page B

economic depression which only effects what used to be the middle class and isn’t any more.
    “Stealing freedom, starting wars that can’t be won, stirring up the entire Middle East, all those dominos were already lined up. Then they put that asshole in charge of what was at the time the strongest nation in the world and that was when the dominos started tipping. At first they tipped slowly, but they gained momentum as they fell. Everyone is driving a car that burns enough gas to run a city, building houses so big fifteen families could live in them, burning copious amounts of energy. Energy that they are getting from the freaking Middle East! Using more and more, and wasting more and more. And then the Muslims want a holy war and the Christians just want the world to end so that their god can be right, and the Jews want the West Bank at any cost, on and on and on and... Katrina hits and no one really takes notice and snow storms get worse, and tornados are stronger and there are more of them, and there are more forest fires, and the Santa Anna winds just keep burning Southern California, on and on and… A million indicators that there is global warming and that we’re at least helping and no one will stop all their bullshit to even try to slow it down. Not if it means they might have to go without even one of the useless things they think they must have or life just won’t be worth living. And all the time people just keep popping out more kids, covering more ground with big-ass houses, and there is bird flu and monkey pox and AIDS, and all these indicators that there are just too damn many of us, but no one does anything. They just keep setting up the dominos.
    “Then Pakistan falls into the hands of a fundamentalist Muslim group and within months they make a nuclear strike against India. India makes a strike against them. Next thing you know both countries are smoking holes. This starts those dominos falling hard and fast. The bombs aggravate the fault line that runs through both countries as well as Turkey. Massive earthquakes and after shocks aggravate a volcano which blows and erupts. The lava runs into the sea, super heating it. Massive fish kill and typhoon hits the coast of Egypt. Between the bombs and the volcano they spew thousands of pounds of dust into the atmosphere. This cools the planet as quick cold-fronts hit a planet that’s been too hot for years. It spawns tornados in record numbers and ferocity, hurricanes, gale force winds, and blizzards—lots and lots of blizzards.
    “There is a storm coming down from the north right now. An arctic blast, a strong one. It’s dumping snow, lots of it, everywhere and causing record cold temperatures. When it hits us I expect we will have the worst winter we have ever had, but it will be bearable if you have shelter and food. I’m not so sure about the northern states.
    “But the world will right itself eventually. Could be weeks, most likely months, and maybe years. After that humans will have to dig themselves out and go on. There may be fighting, maybe even wars over food and land to grow crops. That depends on how many people actually come through this, and what sort of people survive.”
    “I can never go home,” Lucy said in a hollow voice. I hadn’t come right out and said it, but she’d guessed.
    Just then I heard the alarm on the front gate. My boys were finally home.
         

 
     
    Chapter 3
    Please Don’t Flush
                ***
     
    Don’t flush the commode! Water will be precious in the post-apocalyptic world. Every time you flush you are wasting vast amounts of water. Have a bucket on hand and learn to use it. Or if you’re able to go outside build yourself an outhouse. Just dig a hole, put a shelter over it, shit in the hole and cover it with dirt. It ain’t rocket science.
    Keep the shit away from the general population. Urine smells bad when it ferments but is mostly sterile; the problem is the shit. So take it as far