Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (19 page)

 

The texts from Mom continued to come in. I cringed at the feminine hygiene request but realized I didn’t want to go through the Yellowblown future without supplies. I’d have to try to buy those on the down low.

Boone drove slowly off campus for our shopping trip, among students moving out
in a complete reverse of the excitement of August. Instead of hot sun the sky offered gloomy gray. Parents looked harried instead of proud. All the head casers were grim about getting kicked to the curb.

“Did you
store Twyla’s stuff?”

“Yeah. She’s got too much, especially considering th
e tiny foreign car she drives.”

I wondered if he’d feel the same way about me, since I didn’t have a car at all but plann
ed to fill his truck with Mom’s wish list items.

We pulled in to a wood-sided store with a high front porch displaying an array of brightly colored kayaks and canoes, all chained together. A sign out front encouraged the early purchase of deer licenses. A telephone pole
randomly planted in the parking lot sported several seats at various heights with flimsy ladders hanging from them.

Boone circled to my side of the car.

“So, this gun of yours, the one you’re stocking up for…is it in Nebraska?” I asked as I stepped down.

“Nope,” he said. He reached in to pat the hatch of the
glove box.

My eyes went wide. “A little gun fits in there? Is that legal?”

“It’s called a handgun, and I have concealed weapons permits for Nebraska and Pennsylvania, and the campus police know.”

“You drive around with a loaded gun?” I’d always told myself I liked bad boys. I’d been coming to terms with the fact that, if I liked Boone, I didn’t
really
like bad boys ’cuz he made Clark Kent look rebellious. Yet I’d had a gun hovering over my knees every time I rode in his truck.

“It’s not loaded
, and don’t ask me where I keep the ammo.” He swung the heavy door closed behind me.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to shoot me if you ever get mad.”

A bearded man dressed in camo cargo pants held the door open
for us. The message on his T-shirt said, “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands.” A serenade from a deep-voiced country singer perfectly embellished the redneck vibe.

“I meant
, why do you need a gun?”

He shrugged. “Nebraska cattle ranching is different than selling dental supplies. We’ve got cattle rustlers, snakes, coyotes. At home
, I carry a shotgun in the truck, too.”

“Oh, that reminds me
. Dad said something about shells for one of those.” I dug my hand in the back pocket of my skinny jeans to retrieve a list of an alarming length. I pointed to the section allocated to crazy crap I never in a million years thought I’d buy.

Boone nodded as if
it all made perfect sense.

We
approached a glass display counter full of knives, ranging from tiny multi-tools to the nastiest serrated blade I’d ever seen. Boone nodded at the man behind it. “We need five boxes each of 22 and 308, both Remington, and three boxes each of target load birdshot for a 12 gauge.” He looked over at me with a frown. “Throw in two boxes of slug cartridges, too.”

For some reason I expected the clerk to laugh and tell us to go home to play, but he start
ed pulling brown and green cardboard boxes off the shelf. Boone perused the rest of my list. “We can find some of these here, too,” he said, pointing to
drinking water purification kit
and
five-gallon water carriers
. “They’ll be a little pricier but other stores might be sold out.”

The clerk pointed to the camping section of the store
. After a brief but promising recon mission, I decided if I saw an item, I’d buy it so we didn’t have to circle back for anything. On my way to get a cart I heard Boone ordering 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson bullets.

“Good thing you came in when you did,
buddy. That’s the last of those,” the clerk said.

Boone ask
ed about a different size of bullet as I navigated past a round rack filled with fleece hoodies in every pattern of camo imaginable. He mentioned the number 40. My legs went wobbly as I loaded the cart. The guns and survival gear made this global catastrophe gig super-real. It was wigging me out.

When Boone add
ed a few boxes of the same size cartridges I’d listed, I stopped to look across the store at his broad shoulders. His hair was cropped tight on the back of his head. The cords in his neck stood out as he searched the shelves behind the clerk’s back. A housewife might peruse the cereal aisle in the same way to avoid forgetting somebody’s favorite breakfast. But, these were bullets.

He felt my stare
and turned to find me, his expression both protective and curious. I failed to play it cool.

“This is nuts,” I said across the store.

“Yep.” He thanked the clerk and hoisted a cardboard box under each arm, two cornucopias of ammunition.

M
y share rattled like a deadly tambourine when he stowed it on top of my tidy stack of tarps. For some reason the movie line
I’ll bust a cap in your ass
skittered through my head.

“Are we gonna end up in some kind of militia or something?” I asked, eyeing his
box of 9-millimeters and 40-whatevers.

“You aren’t
.” He indicated my box with his chin. “Those are all hunting loads.”

“And yours?”

He shrugged. “Some hunting. Some self-defense.” I blinked, speechless. He shifted the apparently heavy box to his other arm. “Violet, you can’t tell me the farm boys in your town aren’t carrying. Guys who drive rusty pickups in Indiana can’t be that different.”

“I don’t know,” I said
. I couldn’t imagine Parker with a pistol in the glove box of his classic truck. If he’d had one, it was only because the lead singer of The Blue Canoes carried the same kind.

“
I’ll get another cart,” he said.

He grabbed one of the water purification kits, some
bungee cords, dehydrated meal packets, and four five-gallon gas cans. He carried those straight to the checkout, big hands wrapped around two handles each. As a finishing touch, he balanced a heavy wire platform to mount in his rear hitch over the top of the loaded cart.

At the register, I stared
in shock at the line of green digital numbers showing my total due then handed over the only-use-this-in-emergencies-or-we-will-close-the-account credit card Dad entrusted to me the first day of my freshman year.

Boone waited his turn behind me
, humming along with the country music. I remembered him at the door of the dorm that day, his welcoming all-American face, his easy way of greeting everyone. Who would have guessed he had a concealed weapons permit, the gun to go with it, and the confidence to say he was buying ammunition for self-defense?

Had I
inadvertently caught the attention of a bad boy masquerading as a good boy? The possibility brought on a rash of goose bumps and, oddly, calmed my shaky nerves.

The cashier returned my card.
“We’re all end-of-days preppers now, aren’t we, hon?” A yellow pencil stuck out of her vigorously teased, unnaturally brunette hair. She winked at me. “At least us smart ones are.”

 

Mia and I stayed up late on Wednesday night, two sad sacks in a room full of packed bags and boxes, most of them mine. Mia’s Army duffel and a wicked heavy backpack rested by the door.

We no longer pretend
ed our chosen lives weren’t ending before they had begun. We faced each other on my bed, the last of our junk food stash arrayed amid the eerie silence of the practically empty dorm. We weren’t college sophomores anymore. I suddenly realized how selfish I’d been, worrying about my cushy ride home and gathering all my outdoorsy supplies while Mia packed her comforter and Converse sneakers for a Greyhound trip back to the ’hood.

“What’s it going to be like at home for you?” I asked
as I settled Gloria in my lap.

“Camden in the autumn,” she said in her best British accent. “
My favorite locale for an extended house party.”

“Hey, if you don’t think you’ll be safe there, you should come home with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

“Wish I could. Bu-u-t,” she dragged the word out for emphasis, “Gram’s ancient and, if crack is as scarce as every other vegetable product, my mom’s probably going through withdrawal.” She wiped her greasy fingers on a paper towel. “I especially can’t leave Tony there on his own. He’s only sixteen.”

“I hate this,” I said,
taking her cheese curl stained hand in mine. “I’ve dreaded saying goodbye. I’m gonna be so worried about you.”

“I’ll be worried about me, too,” she
said. “I’m street-smart and everything, but my neighbors don’t need much excuse to go off the chain. I think a global disaster might make things kind of interesting on my block.”

She usually joked about home. Her admitting she had any concerns at all
spiked my heart rate. “Oh, no, Mia. Are you sure you can’t come to Indiana?”

“I’m sure.”

I sniffled and forced myself to tell her what I might never have the chance to say face-to-face again. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

She gulped.

“If you ever need anything…if you need me to come rescue you, call me. Okay?”

H
er bleak eyes flooded, like mine. “You’re my best friend, too. Believe me, there’s nobody like you at home. Nobody has a goal without a prison sentence attached. Nobody thinks I can be normal.”

We shared a damp hug.
“I’m being serious,” I insisted. “I love you like a sister, you know?”

“I know,” she said.
She trembled like a dry leaf on a tree branch, primed to tumble down from its secure height. A few hiccupping sobs escaped her restraint. “Oh, you are such a bitch for making me do this.” She pulled away first and carefully ran an orange finger under her lower lashes. “What if we can’t text, or anything?”

“I know. I might murder my mom
if I can’t complain to you. God knows I have enough bullets to do it.”