Dusty's Diary 2: One Frustrated Man's Apocalypse Story
Page 8
Don’t buy the shit like we did.
Do life the hard way. The right way. The good is never easy, and it’s never cheap.
December 23
Another morning.
I was awake early, staring at the bunk above in the glow of my nightlight bulbs, thinking.
I’m no Buddha, no Marcus Aurelius. My thoughts don’t run that deep, but you know that. You’ve read the shit I write. I’m just a simple man. But all the bullshit swirling in my head has finally convinced me of one thing, and it all turned crystal clear.
I rolled out of bed before my morning timer lit Bunker Stink in sync with the rising sun. I sweated through my workout, scarfed some of Punchy Bryan’s swamp-mud-flavored oatmeal, and climbed out into the world, eagerly hurrying up to my roof to watch the dawn spread over the world through the winter-bare trees.
The birds too lazy to fly south made a racket, and the fucking blabbermouth squirrels chattered across the street.
Off in the distance, a Shroomhead howled, maybe sharing his morning wood with his ugly girlfriend, and feeling the joy of being alive even if he can’t form a thought more than two syllables long.
But that’s life, I guess.
It’s what you make it.
Last night in the dark, I decided to stop wallowing. At least to try and stop it. Some habits die hard. I have a to-do list and a ball sack to catch.
December 25, Christmas
Fucking Christmas.
My cards are on the table. I’m taking my chance today on hope.
If it turns to shit. If Amelia doesn’t show, then so be it. I’d love it if she would come and visit me on this glorious day, but one thing I know for certain now is that I’m not the only person left on the planet. I’m one of many, and I’ve decided it’s my job to rebuild.
I’m starting this morning with hope that I can put together one relationship and do it right.
Yesterday, I caught the ball sack—the raccoon. I don’t think he was diseased, certainly not with the Cordyceps. That only infects humans, as far as I know. I think the raccoon was just old, really old. Maybe. Either way, he’s on my smoker. He’s been out there since last night with a beer can stuffed up his ass, God’s golden nectar evaporating and keeping the meat moist while the smoke cooks him ever so slowly.
I don’t know what raccoon tastes like—probably chicken, everything tastes like chicken—but he smells delicious.
I dug into the stash of apples that I found on a tree when I first came out of the bunker a few months back. Apples don’t typically do well growing in Texas. They tend to be tough and not very sweet. I was hoping these might turn that way if I let them sit in my pantry for a few months. Now, they’re in a pie tin swimming in a sugary cinnamon sauce in a crust I made myself. I followed my grandma’s apple pie recipe. The only wildcard is the smoker. The only oven I have down here in Bunker Stink is the microwave. So, I had to bake the pie up top. I figure, another forty-five minutes before it’s done.
As for the ball sack, I can probably take him off anytime. He’s done, but I’m waiting until Amelia arrives. Or until dark, whichever comes first.
I have some instant mashed potatoes, still in the box, ready to mix up. I’m going to round out the meal with some canned green beans and cranberry sauce. Who knows, cranberry sauce on raccoon might taste pretty good.
Punchy Bryan wasn’t invited.
I ransacked one of the houses down the street for a frilly Christmas-pattern china set. The table is draped with a cloth I found in the same house. I had to wash it several times to get the mold stains out, mostly. I have a vase. No flowers, but I have some pine branches stuffed in with a few red ornaments dangling.
Linus would be proud.
To top it all off, I strung some Christmas lights and gave the bunker a scrubbing to clear out the last vestiges of man-stink.
Maybe the biggest thing I did, the most important thing I thought to do, was I took that 1860 Model Colt Army I found down in Plinko Ranch, and I cleaned it up and ran a test fire on it. Damn thing works as well as the day it was made. It’ll be a big gun for Amelia but if she walks down the street with that sexy beast in a holster on her hip, nobody will fuck with her. It’s wrapped with a few boxes of slugs in some shiny foil paper I found when I was scrounging through a craft store over off Fry Road.
It looks like Christmas in Bunker Stink, like real Christmas.
I figure I’ll finish cooking everything after Amelia arrives, and then I’ll give her the gift while we’re making small talk and trying to figure out how to speak to a real person again, and maybe contemplating how to be happy in a world that has changed so much.
December 25, 2 nd entry
The first time I realized I was obsessing over my watch, it was just past noon, and I’d run out of preparations. My anxiousness was getting the best of me, so I sat down at my control center and watched my monitors. On a last-minute inspiration, I thought to put an old Christmas CD on the sound system, and I hit the repeat button.
That made things perfect.
I watched the monitors, mostly keeping an eye on the community pool camera. That’s where the local Shroomheads were congregating again, trying to figure out the yummy smoke thing. Across the floodway, the neighboring clan was out, sniffing the air, and wanting to cross the territorial border, but not daring to.
Hoping to see Amelia down there as she started to make her way toward my place, I was taken by surprise when the metallic sound of something banging my utility box up top startled me so hard I nearly jumped out of my chair.
Turning to look at the camera facing my backyard, I saw Amelia’s familiar poncho lingering outside.
She’d snuck up on me. She was better at being out in the world than I was, that was for sure.
I laughed and rushed to the ladder.
I climbed the steps in a flash, opened the hatch, crawled through, and swung the utility box door open from the inside. “Merry Christmas, Amelia. I’m so glad you made it.”
She smiled, and handed me a small gift-wrapped box. “Merry Christmas, Dusty.”
Wearing the sudden grin of a ten-year-old on Santa’s lap, I accepted it, and she followed me inside.
Dusty will return.
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Text copyright © 2017, Bobby L. Adair & Beezle Media, LLC
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.