Meteor

by Brad Knight

  At the start, Troy had rented a bulldozer and dug a huge hole in the side of the forested hill, just behind the main house. Now, Troy had gotten to the point that the shipping containers were inside the large hole, stacked on top of one another so that the shelter would have two floors. He had cut a hole out of both of them and put a small staircase in to connect the floors together.

  Each of the floors had been partitioned into several rooms, including a large living room-type space on the bottom floor, a kitchen, and a storeroom in the back. The upstairs has been partitioned into two bedrooms, one for Troy and his wife, a bedroom for his two children, and finally one bathroom in the back.

  That day, he and Ken began carrying oxygen tanks into the back storeroom on the bottom floor. After they finished carrying in the tanks, Ken helped him install the air filtration system throughout both of the levels of the shelter. Troy had already spent close to thirty thousand dollars, and he still wasn’t nearly finished with the project. He had also begun to store hundred of dollars worth of canned goods and other items in the storeroom. He estimated that he had enough food for at least four to five months by now.

  Mary walked outside and watched the two men install the ducts for the air filtration system in the side of the hill. She crossed her arms and shook her head in disapproval. As soon as Troy walked out of the shelter, Mary began to berate him.

  “You know we have several unfinished projects in our actual house, don’t you?”

  “I will get to them, I promise,” Troy said.

  “Let’s start with the plumbing issues in the kids’ bathroom. Do you want Cordelia hogging our bathroom for the foreseeable future?” Mary asked.

  “Of course, I don’t, Mary. Look, it won’t be long now until the shelter is all but finished. I hope there never comes a day when we will need it, but if that day comes, we will be prepared while others are wishing that they had,” he said.

  Mary just rolled her eyes and walked back into the house.

  Troy set his sights on the shelter again. Once he and Ken had finished with the air filtration system, he was ready to put in the beds and finish the plumbing so that the kitchen and bathroom would be fully functional. He had ordered all of the necessary parts and they were due to come in the following week, along with the incinerator. As Ken and Troy began to put in the screens on the air purifier, Ken began to speak.

  “Man I know lots of people think you’re crazy for building this thing, but I want you to know that I don’t,” Ken said, as he hammered the screen into place.

  “Thanks buddy, that really means a lot.”

  “I know where I’m going to head when the shit hits the fan.”

  “Well, I guess I need to add one addition for your family, too,” Troy joked as the two continued to work.

  Finally, as it got to be about eight in the evening, the air filtration system was in place, fully installed. Troy and Ken high-fived each other as they looked around at the work that they had done. They came out of the steel-reinforced door that was the only thing you could see in the side of the hill and sealed up the shelter.

  “Dinner is ready!” Mary yelled out of the door curtly as Ken turned to leave.

  “Hey buddy, good luck, with everything,” Ken said as he turned to go.

  “Thanks, I certainly have my hands full around here, don’t I?”

  Ken climbed in his truck. “Hey, sometimes crazy shit happens to good people. I’m sure that you can handle it if anyone can.”

  “Thanks man, I don’t know what I’d do without your help.” Troy watched his friend back out of the driveway.

  Troy prepared himself for the uncomfortable encounter that he would have almost every night with his family at dinner. As he sat down at the table, he noticed that Brandon was looking at the ground, as if in a deep depression, and Cordelia was nowhere to be seen.

  Mary came over to the table and put down a container full of fried chicken, and then went over to get the vegetables and sides to go with it. She didn’t bother to ask Troy how his day was or anything of that nature. Unfortunately, that had begun to be the norm each evening.

  “Cordelia!” Mary shouted as she walked back in the kitchen. “Cordelia, you come down here right now and have dinner with your family!” A long silence followed and Cordelia still didn’t come down.

  “I’ll go check on her.” Troy got up from the table. “When I get back, I want to know what’s on your mind, son.”

  Even though his family wasn’t showing him the love he felt he deserved, he wanted to continue to be the caring person in the family that could hold them all together.

  Troy ran up the stairs and pounded on the door. Then he heard Cordelia and another voice, whispering to each other.

  “Cordelia, open this door, RIGHT NOW! That boyfriend of yours better not be in there.” He heard more scuffling and decided to go ahead and open the door. As he did so, he noticed that Cordelia was on the bed, fastening her bra. Her bedroom window was open and her clothes were scattered all over.

  “Dad, get out of my room!” she screamed as she quickly put on a shirt.

  “Where is he?” Troy yelled as he went and looked out of the window. Sure enough, her boyfriend, Henry, was underneath, climbing down the trunk of a large oak tree.

  “Henry, do not come back to this house again. You and Cordelia are no longer allowed to see each other!” he shouted out of the window as Cordelia began to cry and run down the stairs.

  “Mom, dad barged into my room!” Cordelia announced as she came down the stairs.

  “Well, you wouldn’t open the door,” Mary responded.

  Troy came back down the stairs and sat down at the table, shaking his head. Cordelia wouldn’t look at him. She just kept sobbing softly to herself.

  “What's the matter, dear?” Mary said, again being the parent that would give in to her little girl.

  “Dad told me I can’t see Henry anymore,” she said through her tears. Mary looked at Troy and raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Yeah, she forgot to mention the part where she was getting dressed just after her boyfriend climbed out of the window,” Troy said.

  Cordelia would not look either one of her parents in the eye.

  “Is that true?” Mary asked, knowing it was when Cordelia responded the way she did.

  “I’m really sorry, guys.” Cordelia put on her soft voice, the way she did when she was determined to get her way.

  “It’s alright, Cordelia, just don’t let it happen again,” Mary said, as Troy let out a sigh showing his disapproval of the way his wife handled the situation.

  Troy turned to his son, Brandon, who still hadn't bothered to look up from his feet.

  “Son, what’s bothering you today?” Troy asked him, prompting Brandon to look up at his father.

  “Oh, nothing, just another day of being called faggot and getting thrown against the lockers,” he said.

  “What? Who did that to you?” Troy asked with a look of concern.

  “This boy, Douglas, and his friends. They came up to me when I was at my locker and said, ‘Hey, we heard that you like it when boys touch you.’ I didn’t respond, but then Douglas said, ‘So I guess, you will like this…’ Then he threw me against the locker until I dropped all of my books. I tried to get them off of me just as the principal came walking up.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He took me to the office and told me that I didn’t need to send ‘signals’ to the other students that would make them want to pick on me,” Brandon answered.

  “He did what?” Troy said in an outraged voice.

  “What about the other boys, did they get into trouble?” Mary asked her son.

  “No, they got a warning. He didn’t even bring them into the office.”

  “That is not okay, son. I will go up there as soon as I get a chance and have a nice little chat with that principal of yours,” Troy said with determination. “He can’t go around blaming the victims for incidents like that at the school. Y
ou have every right to be who you are, and no one is going to tell a son of mine otherwise.”

  Cordelia looked up at her father and gave him a partial smile. Despite her disobedience, she loved her father and always liked it when he stood up for Brandon.

  “I agree with your father,” Mary said, making Brandon smile finally.

  “I’m going to go right up to Douglas tomorrow and kick him in the nuts!” Cordelia made Brandon laugh.

  “No dear, you will do no such thing,” Mary corrected her.

  After dinner, Troy helped his wife clean up the dishes. He tried to make small talk with her but she was having none of it. She was clearly still upset about the amount of money that her husband was spending on the bunker. After the kids had gone up to their rooms, she confronted him about it again.

  “So how much of our savings are you planning on spending on this shelter?” Mary said as soon as the couple was alone.

  “As much as it takes to get it right,” Troy replied. “Don’t worry, I already have money set aside for the kids’ college funds and for retirement.”

  “And what about a vacation? We haven’t taken one in the past year or two and the kids and I would really love to go to Florida this summer.”

  “We will have to see about that,” Troy said, as his mind went back to the bunker and how much the incinerator was going to cost.

  “No, Troy!” she snapped back, angrily. “You need to start making this family your first priority, and not your little survivalist project. Ever since we moved here you have become possessed with that thing,” she said accusingly.

  “Well, I have to do something to pass the time now that my wife seems to show very little interest in me,” he tried to turn things around on her.

  She went silent for a moment and then finally spoke again,

  “Maybe it’s you who first stopped showing an interest in me?” A slight whimper showed up in her voice. He could see that a tear was forming in her eye, but Troy didn’t feel sorry for her. In fact, he grew even more angry.

  “Don't give me that crap, Mary. Everything that I have done, I have done for this family and what thanks do I get? I get to watch you act awkward around my friend Steve, who by the way, I’m about to start calling an ex-friend. Why is Steve always around here when I’m gone, and then he wants to leave as soon as I show up?”

  Mary grew quiet and focused on cleaning the kitchen.

  “So what if you have caught him here a couple of times, that doesn’t prove that we’re having an affair,” she retorted.

  “Well, you still aren’t denying it, are you?”

  “Don’t try and change the subject on me, Troy. Maybe if you had paid more attention to your family, our sixteen year old daughter wouldn’t be sexually active, and your son wouldn’t be thinking he was gay.”

  “Oh, that’s real low, Mary. You are blaming me for all of these things? I am the only one around here who seems to be making Brandon feel better about who he is, which by the way I am willing to accept. I am not so sure about you. Jesus, Mary, we are living in the twenty first century. It’s time for you to get rid of those small-minded values that dictate how every child should grow up.”

  “I just don’t want him to struggle through his life!” she was now fully weeping. “Is it so wrong to wish that your child was normal so that he can have a happy existence?”

  “He will be happy when he can be around people who aren’t so narrow minded. In the meantime, we need to help him accept who he is,” said Troy.

  Mary didn’t say anything in response to this. She just stood at the sink, weeping to herself. Troy thought about coming up behind and putting his arms around her to comfort her, but he thought better of it. After all, why did she deserve to be comforted if she was sleeping around with his friend?

  Troy left her standing there, went over to the refrigerator, grabbed a beer and walked outside. He walked around the back of the house towards the shelter, listening to the chorus of whippoorwills and owls that had started up in the woods all around him. He took a fold out chair and sat it in front of the shelter. He took a deep drink of his Budweiser and looked up at the stars.

  “I know that I’m doing this for a good reason,” he said out loud, as if to reassure himself and the universe at large about his plans.

  Then he began to think about the provisions that he had stocked. Would they be enough in case of some kind of catastrophic event? Did he have enough water and oxygen stashed away? He went back over the plans in his mind, again and again.

  Something inside of himself told him that the matter was urgent. He needed to finish up the shelter and do it relatively quickly. In two weeks, he planned to have it completely stocked and ready.

  Then, he could begin making his family do safety drills so that they could get inside of the bunker as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency. He was already picturing all of the eye rolling that would result from these drills, but he knew deep down that it was necessary. Despite the grief that his family gave him, he would make sure that they were safe, for he still loved each one of them greatly.

  Chapter 3

  After a couple of weeks, the shelter was nearing completion. Troy, with the help of his friend, Ken, put together the incinerator and did a few test runs with it. At first, it burned part of the front of the bunker, so one wall had to be replaced and reinforced with fireproof netting. Troy was proud of his shelter and knew deep down inside that there was a good reason that he had built it.

  The next morning after the shelter had been all but finished, Troy had the dream again. This time he saw a crowd of people in the streets looting and burning up buildings. Troy was trying to make his way home and get his family members to follow him. He shut the door just as a horrible, disfigured man tried to gain access. Then, Troy awoke suddenly and sat up, covered in sweat again.

  “Another bad dream?” Mary asked as he sat up in bed.

  “Yes, but it ended about as well as could be expected,” he answered.

  “Maybe you should see someone about that. You’re starting to have those dreams more and more often.”

  There must be a reason for that, Troy thought to himself as he got out of bed and dressed for work.

  As Troy arrived at the factory, he saw that Hank and Wayne had the television on in the small break room.

  “What do you guys think you’re doing? We have a shipment due to go out in two hours and these boxes are nowhere near ready!” Troy shouted as he looked at the empty pile of boxes in the corner of the adjacent warehouse.

  “Sorry boss, but there’s some big shit going down,” Wayne explained as he pointed at the television, which appeared to be on a news channel.

  “What is it?” Troy asked as he came over to the small break room area and sat down at the table with the two men.

  Wayne's eyes were still glued to the screen. “Huge meteor is approaching.”

  “I know about that already, they said that it is not going to collide with Earth,” Troy said reassuringly.

  “That’s not what they’re saying now,” Hank told him. “Now they are starting to say that it is on a collision course with us. They think that it will make landfall sometime tonight, around Africa.”

  “What? You’re kidding me. That’s a major disaster waiting to happen. Any idea what occurred the last time a heavenly body this size collided with Earth?” Troy asked the two workers. They both looked at each other blankly and then back at Troy.

  “No idea, boss,” Hank admitted.

  “It resulted in the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. When the meteor struck Earth in southern Mexico, it threw up a debris cloud that blocked out the sun and created a massive change in global weather patterns. That ultimately led to the extinction of much of life on Earth,” Troy said, shaking his head. He read all this stuff on Wikipedia, usually when he was supposed to be working.

  Hank and Wayne again looked at each other with a dumbfounded expression.

  “Seriously?” Wayne said.
/>   “Yes. Seriously.”

  Troy turned up the sound on the news segment:

  “This is Steve Peterson for CNN Headline News. Ever since we have gotten the confirmed report that the meteor is in fact headed right for Earth, a sense of panic has started to erupt in many parts of the globe. Shoppers are clearing out the grocery stores as they stock up on provisions. Officials say they still believe that it is nothing to be alarmed about despite the massive size of the meteor. The hope is that it may be headed for the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa, but scientists cannot yet predict exactly where it will land. We will have more news for you as it becomes available.”

  Troy turned down the volume and got up from the break room table. “How can they be telling people that it is nothing to be alarmed about? That meteor is at least as big as the one that collided with Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period. It’s time to make preparations.”

  “Where are you going, boss? Don’t we have a shipment that we have to get out this morning?” asked Hank.

  “I’m taking the day off,” Troy informed them. “I have to make sure that I have all of the provisions that we need. My shelter is finished but I need to check we have enough food and water. I’m off to the store and I recommend you do the same.” He headed for the door.

  “Won’t Gary be upset that we didn’t get the order out?” Wayne asked him.

  Troy answered over his shoulder. “Do you see Gary here? He didn’t even bother to turn up today or give anyone an explanation for his absence. My guess is that he’s already at the store stocking up.”

  Troy left the warehouse and jumped in his truck. He practically peeled out the parking lot he was in such a hurry to get to the Safeway, which was the closest grocery store.

  When he drove up he noticed that the parking lot was nearly full, which was unusual for that time of day. He hurried in, unfolding the list of items that he still needed to stock up on, with water being one of the main things.

  As he entered the grocery store, he could feel the panic in the air. People were lined up at the checkout area with baskets piled high. Many of them had all sorts of groceries, much of which wouldn’t last very long.