Chapter 4
663 Words
The second the warehouse door swung open, the sheer mountain of supplies stacked inside dazzled me.
Cans lined every inch of the walls, plus crackers, bottled water, freeze-dried vegetables, vacuum-sealed fresh meat, diesel generators, space heaters, barrels of fuel, solar panels, small wind turbines—all stacked neatly and in order...
Scott wasn't lying about this. He really had bet everything he had. Sold his car, mortgaged his house, borrowed from every loan shark in town.
And all the while, he thought he'd swindled every last cent out of me. What's more, he'd mortgaged my apartment too, right under my nose when I was "unaware"...
He'd cashed out everything we both owned to pile up this mountain of supplies right in front of me—and none of it was meant for me.
So I showed up myself.
Now here I stood, running my palm over the top of each box, until my hand suddenly froze atop a case of chocolate.
In my past life, after we'd burned through every last scrap of food, Scott always told me to go to bed early.
"You won't feel hungry if you're asleep." That's what he said.
What I didn't know back then was that every time I drifted off, he'd pull out the chocolate he'd stashed away for himself. I never would have found out either, if I hadn't caught him packing all his supplies the day he sold me to the gang.
This time, he'd gotten a whole case of the exact same brand.
'Man, he really is a creature of habit.'
I smiled, waved my hand over my shoulder, and called out, "Let's get started."
Seven movers from the moving company filed into the warehouse and started counting through every last item.
The stockpile was so massive that just counting everything took them a full two hours.
The truck driver I'd hired stood right beside me, stared at all the goods, and furrowed his brow.
"You're gonna need to hire two more trucks, ma'am," he said, "otherwise it'll take me all day to haul this."
I grinned at him. "They're already here and ready to go."
A handful of forklifts came rumbling through the door, and the workers sprang into action, hauling everything out one crate at a time.
Food, drinking water, power generators, heating gear...
There were even two whole projectors tucked in here.
I watched the workers hustle back and forth, hauling out supply after supply. Every single item they hauled away was Scott's carefully planned future in the ice apocalypse.
If I hadn't shown up here today, in a few days, when the frozen hell broke loose, he'd be sipping warm coffee, curled up under toasty blankets, browsing through movie options to pick one, then lazing his days away in total comfort.
Me? I'd be out in the blizzard, starving and freezing, dropping dead in some forgotten corner.
But now...
One by one, all the actual supplies got hauled out, and one by one, empty boxes of the exact same size got carried back in. The workers fit the empty cardboard crates right back into the exact spots the full ones had occupied. Even the packing tape they used to seal them up was the exact same brand Scott had used originally.
By the time the last empty crate slid into place, the clock had already ticked past midnight.
I stuck a sticky note to the shelf at the very back of the warehouse, holding my flashlight to write: Thanks for the surprise. I drew a smiley face right next to the words.
I stepped out of the warehouse door and tilted my head up.
A single glistening snowflake twirled right through the spotlight's glow, twinkling once right in front of my face before it was gone.
This was the first snowflake ever to fall on this southern coastal city, a place that had never seen snow in its entire history.
The apocalyptic deep freeze had arrived right on schedule.
- Writer
