Tales of the Derry Plague , Anselmo, Ray [fun to read txt] 📗

ocean. She didn’t take a full bath this time, but did shampoo and condition her hair in addition to scrubbing her linens and sleepwear. She hoped she wasn’t poisoning fish with all the surfactants she was using, but didn’t see any dead ones washing up. And the blood in the water didn’t attract any sharks.

Back home, she broke out some twine, rigged up a couple of clotheslines in the backyard, then went searching for clothespins and couldn’t spot any. Oh. The sheets, she could just throw half over the line and they’d stay put, but her PJs and underwear … hmmm. She checked Saul’s office and, sure enough, entire boxes of binder clips in various sizes. She pinned up the rest, glad she hadn’t been forced to use the potato chip bag clips.

With that behind her, she thought about breakfast, decided she didn’t want any – cramps and big meals never mixed for her – then remembered the dehydrators and sprinted for her car. Crud, she hoped the generator hadn’t run dry …

It hadn’t, but it was a near-run thing. She switched it off and went to check the cheese, which was an interesting experience. It certainly looked nothing like the freeze-dried cheese balls she’d tried a couple of times. She found a couple of lint-free towels and wiped the grease off the slices, chunks and disks as she bagged them up. “Disks” were the Babybels, and the blocks of cream cheese which had melted into plate-size rounds that she had to break apart. But the parchment paper had reduced the mess. She looked at yesterday’s list and made an addition:

Today’s work:

Bathe

Breakfast

Check store – what else to do?

Find good flashlight/batteries

Prep Alvarez basement for root cellar

Move food into root cellar

Siphon more gas?

Read LaSheba’s journal?

Scrub down dehydrators

Then she thought about last night and added one more:

Find SOMETHING for personal defense - ?

She still didn’t think a gun would be a good idea, but faced with aggressive predators, she might not have a better one. Needs must.

The store was the next stop. She loaded the potatoes, carrots and cabbage into the Hyundai with the dried cheese, then searched for a flashlight. But all they sold were cheaper plastic ones. What she really wanted was one of those big heavy ones police used, heavy enough to double as a truncheon with a light that could bleach your skin. For now she settled for two of the larger ones on the shelf and every pack of batteries in the place.

As she got ready to go home again, she wondered if she should move the rest of the store’s usable inventory as well. It would be more convenient to have it at home or next door, but it would be a lot of work and she might not have room … no, room was no issue. She had the whole town for storage. But it might be better to keep things in multiple spots in case of a roof leak or wildfire or unexpected disaster …

She decided to table that idea and deal with what was in front of her. Get the Alvarez hobby room fixed up, move most of the dried food there and find a weapon. If she still had time today once those were taken care of, she’d come back to that and other possibilities.

A night’s rest, however fitful, a morning of low-stress work and a snack of cheese and toast set her up with enough energy to complete the “renovation” of the woodworking room. With all the equipment shoved against one wall, that left over half the room clear, not counting shelf space and the flat surfaces of the work tables, cabinets and table saw. Cleaning off the shelves and emptying the larger cabinets, stuffing the contents in between the larger items, gave her more room still.

She swept the floor again, getting what she missed previously, then went to her place and stopped. How much of the food should she move over? Once again, she had to weigh the factors of space, convenience and work required. She mentally kicked herself for not working that out earlier, but she had been busy. If anything, now that she’d done all the urgent labor regarding body disposal and food stockpiling, she should either start scheduling rest days or limiting how much she did each day …

… mmph. Too many thoughts, too many ideas. She needed to focus. She sat at the dining table with her to-do list and a pen to get things out of her head:

Today’s work:

Bathe

Breakfast

Check store – what else to do? Pick stuff to take home

Find good flashlight/batteries

Prep Alvarez basement for root cellar

Move food into root cellar – leave enough in kitchen for 7 days’ eating

– Label bags

Siphon more gas?

Read LaSheba’s journal?

Scrub down dehydrators

Find SOMETHING for personal defense - ?

Figure out rest days/less stressful schedule

Okay, that looked good. Labeling would be easy – she knew Saul kept old boxes of printer labels in his office – but while she could start that, it would take more time than she had left today to finish it. Unless … yes, do the labeling now in the comfort of her own home (yes, the Matchicks’ home, but it was hers until they showed up to reclaim it, she figured) and then move what she could before sunset. Going out after sunset wasn’t such a good idea, not with what happened –

– hold it. She scanned the list again until she reached Find SOMETHING for personal defense - ?

Taking into account last night’s gritty reboot of I Love Dogs (less Wes Anderson and more James Wan), would it not be worth considering that the current top priority? “Yes. Yes, it would. Living in fear is not healthy.” She circled the line and stood. Everything else would wait –