did like to drop into those stores unannounced and stir things up a bit to keep his managers on their toes.
His stores would suffer during this crisis, as would all commerce, but when it was over he’d rebuild. He’d get by. He was a survivor, and he’d take care of Meredith.
They had enough supplies on hand to get by for a short time. Everything else he might need was located in the valley below. All he had to do was take control of it. All he had to do was stir things up a bit.
Chapter Five
Olivia burst into the kitchen where Sela, Carol, and Barb were still preparing and canning as much food as they could. While the power was still on, the work couldn’t let up. “I heard from Josh!” she said, waving her phone at them, then burst into tears.
“Oh, honey.” Carol dried her hands and went to Olivia, put her arms around her. “That’s such a relief. How is he? Is he still on base?”
Olivia wiped her eyes and showed the text message to Carol.
“‘I’m good,’” Carol read aloud. “‘We’re prepared, have backup systems. I won’t be able 2’—he used the number two instead of the word to, I taught him better than that—‘get leave for a long time, so take care of yourself. Tell Gran I said hi, & love U both.’”
Carol wiped her own eyes. “What a load off my mind. I figured the military would be fine, but hearing him say it makes me feel better.” She gave Olivia another squeeze, then rejoined the food prep.
Sela glanced at the clock, did some calculations. “Olivia, if you’ll shell the last of those peas, we’ll have time to get them in the pressure cooker before time runs out.”
Olivia made a face, because she’d already discovered she hated shelling peas—and shucking corn—but she sat down without protest and picked up a pod. They didn’t have a lot of peas left, maybe enough to fill five or six pints. Barb had made some fresh bread in her bread-making machine, and Sela had baked a couple of dozen corn bread muffins. They’d get stale, but they’d last longer than soft bread.
They’d done what they could. They had just a few more hours before the CME hit. Sela wished someone could tell them the exact time, but a solar storm didn’t obey anyone’s schedule. Nature was awe-inspiring and powerful, and nothing on Earth was more powerful than the sun.
She was so proud of Olivia, who had pitched in with the food prep but gladly escaped when she could, and they’d let her because sometimes the kitchen got too crowded with all of them working their butts off. Olivia had taken the warning about unplugging everything to heart, not only seeing to the chore in their houses, but warning neighbors. The only things plugged in now were what they were actively using, which were all in the kitchen. Olivia had continued to text her friends, but the topic of conversation seemed to be all about the CME, and texts were already sporadic. At Sela’s suggestion, Olivia had also gone back and forth between Carol’s house and Sela’s, getting all the laundry done. Any crisis was better faced with clean clothes.
Carol’s satellite TV was already out, but she had a backup antenna that picked up the local channels from Knoxville, and the small TV in the kitchen was on. Though there was some interference, the occasional static or blip or both, they were able to watch the wall-to-wall local news coverage while they worked. News anchors were trained to inject all the drama they could into any news event, but now they all looked genuinely scared. It was definitely time to worry.
Sela kept an eye on the clock, and when she judged it was time she said, “Olivia, you should go take a shower and wash your hair while we still have hot water. All of us need to do that, so wash as fast as you can.”
Olivia raced up the stairs, and was back down in ten minutes with her long hair wet and slicked back. “You go next,” Carol firmly told Sela. “Your hair is longer than mine and Barb’s, and you’ll need time to dry it. We’re almost finished here, anyway.”
That wasn’t quite true; there was still cleaning to be done. But it was also true that Sela’s hair was thick and heavy, and wouldn’t dry before bedtime unless she used a blow-dryer on it. Something else to plan