Apocalypse Snow Part One

The end of the world didn’t start with terrorists and it wasn’t nations going to war until things went nuclear it happened simply with a space rock.

We’re not even sure of where it came from but like it was said in that doomsday movie Armageddon “It’s a big assed sky.”

We had two days.

I was fourteen when it happened and I can remember hearing my buddy Derek’s parents having a complex freak out when it came on the news as we were playing Dungeons and Dragons.

They freaked out.

Everyone freaked out.

People ran for the cities, ran to where there would be shelters and services and all of these things.

It was the last time that I’d see my friends from back then.

Except my grandfather and the neighbors.

Grandpa was my dad’s dad and he had lived through the great depression as a kid younger than me and the Second World War and he’d even been in it. Lost a hand over in France as a young man and came back and had a hook instead of whatever we’d have done now.

Well would have done if well you know.

Point is he wasn’t scared, well he was but he just looked at it as we could do nothing but get ready to survive.

So when everyone I knew was leaving and taking off and going nuts on supplies and stuff grandpa and the neighbors who were like in our little cluster of houses all old folks like him started getting to work.

Now Brookdale’s a small town, actually a village really since we barely had over a two thousand people and a lot of those folks left or were leaving trying for safer and better.

And we would have but grandpa talked dad into staying but mom well she wouldn’t listen and she wasn’t going to be “Stuck in the middle of nowhere at the end of the world.”

So the first day we argued and fought mom left with her sister and others and the world ground to a halt.

And dad and grandpa and I went out getting supplies from place that were abandoned, and some that were abandoned long before this was coming.

People don’t live in small towns any more.

There were a lot of farms and places foreclosed on before all of this and since they were in the middle of nowhere no one had been in a big hurry to do anything with the places other than sell off the obvious stuff.

Lots of farms were bought up by the Irving family who ran this kinda sort of oil, gas, lumber and per empire. So we went and took stuff…all day long we took stuff home to our little farm seven miles from Brookdale.

Over and over we made trips taking up fences and old bags of feed and grain hay bales left in fields…loose tools and preserves and pretty much anything from working freezers, aging farm tools and equipment hunting gear and to old bikes to wind up clocks. Actually grandfather was super keen on getting wind up anything since the power was going to go out.

He was right too it did.

9:34 AM.

And for us it was the government that did it turning off power from places that weren’t central so it would be best used in emergencies.

No computer, no social media...and all the rest of the people that I used to talk to.

Not that I was popular I was a sort of chubby teen geek with a geek circle of friends.

But with all the kids that lived close to me gone too.

I would have gone nuts if it wasn’t for the end of the world and my family making me way too busy to think about how alone I was.

Dad and grandpa spent all day gathering stuff and Jerry Miller our next door neighbor had solar and wind on his farm and he came over to our house and he helped get us a pedal genny built and a windmill too that he and grandpa contrived in that old timer make do kind of way that made power but also could be hooked up to a water line from our well.

And the rest of the night was in semi-darkness as we set up things working until I couldn’t work anymore.

While I was out they set up the Honda generator in the garage and dad had stolen a diesel big old welder that had a whole bank of plug ins for tools from the CN railway yard and they turned the garage all super organized for things.

Even wiped out I didn’t sleep well.

And when the end of the world came it was stunningly disappointing.

We had earthquakes here…mind you we’re in the middle of the county and land locked to boot so there was all that…things jumped and crashed and broke and fell and it did that for like ten minutes and then there were aftershocks that just kept coming.

The meteor hit just on the United States edge of The Great Lakes and I don’t know if anything was left from the impact or any of the science behind it but the impact was so strong it set off the planet.

I mean we had C.B. working and Grandfather had an old time war radio he had dug out of the basement and got working sort of…we just got snippets for a while before the radios went silent.

But basically the planet was hit so hard that the force set off like massive quakes in North America and anything that was even like fairly stable just couldn’t help but get set off…and the quakes messed with the earth so much that it set off all the volcanic stuff and that made everything worse…we figured Yellowstone went up, we figure it all went up like literally the thingy of fire out in like Asia Pacific and just well all of it.

Albert Bacon who lived at the bottom of the hill said he saw the river have a tidal bore and reverse flooding and we’re…we were about an hour’s drive from the beach.

But yeah…A big shake, a really big shake and like aftershocks for days.

I’m not even sure how long because things got even busier for me and well the rest of us too as we started to take in everything we could from all around us.

The grand dads had a meeting and they figured out as the sky got darker and darker that “Nuclear Winter” was setting in.

And that help from the government out here was likely never going to come.

And Canada…given the strike point there was nothing in southern Ontario left anyways hell there might not be an Ontario and well Southern Quebec would have at least massively flooded and just well everything was gone in that regard.

And then came the talk about how people were assholes.

So then I spent the day with others helping build fences. And not little ones either but chain link ones we drove into town and literally pulled out from places.

God it was empty.

I mean there were folks that had stayed I guess and there might have been a few hold outs at the time. But there was no power here in town either and no power for most people meant no water or refrigeration.

Once we got the chain link fencing we made it as high as we could ours was fairly easy since we had our main plot of land edged by old spruce trees so we set things up there and got things pretty high and Jerry Miller used the auger on the back of his tractor to drill post holes and we made our main yard and back field with the garden our fenced in bit and made it really unfriendly as possible with signs and lots and lots of barbed wire.

Then we did everyone else’s as best as we could.

That took all day.

Then the next day we went into town looking for things, all sorts of things.

The two grocery stores were hit pretty hard with things and Dad and I ended up in the Save-Easy picking through what was left.

Which wasn’t much…but there was some things and there was some things in the big walk in freezers that were still frozen and too hard to use and too big for some folks to carry.

And cardboard boxes and things that we could use like cleaning supplies.

Soap is soap when it comes to keeping things clean.

It took all day to do all of that and Albert and Grandpa had made smokers from spare stuff like fridges and a couple of deep freezer that didn’t work and they had drove down to Dixon’s egg farm and they had bartered for chickens in exchange for helping them to build up their fence and we had some that were getting smoked and dried and some that grandma was putting down into canning jars as just the meat in herbs and broth or like as in just canned with salt and skin and bone and all of it to some with veggies.

It kept getting darker and darker and colder as the days went on.

As we cleaned out places of anything that we could find in houses like drugs and medicines to alcohols and well just everything even with it okay that I ended up with all the books we could take from our little library and from people’s houses and comics and magazines dvd’s and videotapes and video games too all would be stuff we could read to keep from going crazy once we were snowed in.

We were going to get snowed in.

Woodstoves were something we actually had salvaged with some of those homes that had them had no water running and…well one was just bad…I didn’t know the man but Dad did and he had killed himself but not after killing his wife and kids.

That was really messed up.

Fuel was actually not a problem.

People left, took off and we weren’t seeing much of anyone around at all in town or on the roads either. With no power there was no gas pumps and a whole lot of folks that were travelling through had taken stuff from the gas station but had no idea how to get at the gas or diesel.

We took everything we could to store as much as we could and used an old hand pump with a garden hose to pull it from the tanks and took stuff like antifreeze and oil. And there were still the places with their own tanks too like the police station and the fire department all empty now pulled out with the rest of the folks headed to the bigger cities but they all had in ground tanks.

And then there was all the propane tanks and we took those too and then we all as a group of families started building more and more and cutting wood and trucking as much as we could from McKinnon’s mill including all the lumber they had cut before everything had stopped because of there being no power.

We took baby barns and filled them with wood and we literally pulled them from yards and put them on towing trailers and even used them as windbreaks or what would be windbreaks.

We worked long days and it was all of us as grandma and the other old ladies around picked and dried everything they could or pickled it or just froze it. Berries, flowers you could eat, dandelions became something grandma took up whole because you could use the whole plant.

And then before we were ready it started.

It got really, really dark and it started to snow.

Grey and dirty snow at that.

And in that first night we got six inches.

And then it just kept coming.

And then it got cold.

My last run to town had been on skis and towing an aluminum toboggan and I went looking for things.

My things....

See I was born Josh Hunter but that wasn’t really me.

Inside where no one had known except for a few people online was that I was really Holly.

So I went looking for clothes, underwear, and pills…I knew what to look for I’d known a long time what I was going to try to do…transition and I was planning on taking off to do it before the end of the world.

And I knew, I knew that there would be this whole argument about me meeting some girl and having kids and all of that repopulate the earth sort of thing.

But I had to.

There was no other chance.

So birth control pills and HRT meds and most of those were from prescriptions that other people had and all of the stuff I could get from the clinic in town that had been plundered and that we had salvaged things from afterwards and there was a lot in the pharmacy too.

I mean people had taken all sorts of stuff and all but birth control and hormones were pretty much left behind as everyone looted the drugs as much as they could and all the over the counter stuff and again we all had salvaged out what we could there too.

I took a few too before I headed for home and while dad and them were curious sort of they thought that I went for clothes for an “In case I meet a girl.” And other stuff like porn.

Yeah it was a good cover and dad and the menfolk were busy rebuilding two of the town’s Backhoes for use to use to move snow all day.

I took my treasure to my room and I hid the hormones in my wall as I was winterizing it even more by stapling some pretty new carpet I had taken to the walls.

Yeah I felt guilty for lying and not telling people but I was not, not going to die as Josh.

It was the longest time it seemed before I noticed a difference and hid it under layers of clothes for the most part.

And time slowed to a crawl.

Dad played guitar, he was actually re-teaching himself from books and he was teaching me as well since we had lots of instruments and the grandparents spent time reading and grandma sewed a lot while grandfather tinkers with things in their porch with things from all of the spare parts from clocks, wind-up toys and small engines and the like.

And it snowed and it snowed.

And we shoveled and used snow blowers to move it away as much as we could and plowed it in other places away from our houses and down our little bit of road so we could get to each other’s houses in our little block of folks and in between everything we packed it to block wind and make things more sheltered and used snowshoes to tramp and pack things down.

I kept sane by music and comics and books…but also by having this little bit of my secret hope of transitioning.

Albert Bacon was the first one to go.

He lived alone and just at the bottom of the hill and he was in his sixties and we were pretty sure that he died of a heart attack.

Rush his German Shepherd came to us and was freaked out and dad and I went down and found him dead and on his way to being frozen covered by six inches of snow.

We used some of his firewood and oil and made him a funeral pyre and burned him until there was nothing left. Seems fitting due to the cold.

We all split up his reserves of food and stuff and his belongings too and we cleared everything out that we could and ended up cutting firewood and string it inside his place and kept things running with the furnace and power long enough to have the wet wood we filled the house with dry out.

My grandmother was next and we think she had a stroke and that was a huge blow and grandpa wasn’t the same after that and dad well he wasn’t either.

The Jerry died catching pneumonia a few months later and we had to deal with that and his poor widow and the fact that she refused to move out of their house.

And when the snowjackers came they killed her outright.

She was shot dead in her yard on her way to her garage barn to check on her chickens.

Snowjackers.

It was what some of those distant voices on The C.B. where calling them.

Assholes with snowmobiles and pretty much thought life had become Mad Max.

Without any law around people can and do become savage a whole lot of the time.

These guys were pretty much the lowest common denominator of criminal with snow rides that figured out robbing folks was easier than hard work.

There were eight of them and that’s more than enough when they’re armed with rifles and hunting gear.

They killed grandpa when he went to look after hearing the shot.

Dad saw him go down.

And then we were under siege.

Dad came in running and got his 30-08 and he took out the 30-06 and passed it to me.

“Dad?”

“Snowjackers Josh, they’re killing everyone.”

I don’t know why I nodded and took the gun other than in a messed up way it didn’t make a difference.

Because it was the end of the world.

And if I died then it was sort of one of those didn’t really matter moments.

And if Dad died because I didn’t fight then it would really not matter.

I can remember all of it like it was in slow-motion.

How we ran for high places and then starting to take each one down as they came.

And they didn’t come fast either, they used cover when they could and looked for us and took shots.

I fired back.

Crack...pop...crack...pop...sounds that were so small then but are locked down in my head forever.

I hit one and he stopped moving.

Dad shot two of them.

The other’s died in a shootout across the road from us at Percy Johnston’s house. He and his wife fought and killed three of them but Aggie went down with a heart attack in the fight and Percy was killed going to save her by the last Snowjacker at their place.

And Dad shot him.

But one of them was hidden close to us and he shot Dad.

And then I was alone.

Everyone was dead but me.

And he was aiming at me when Rush came out of nowhere and bit him in one of his arms and I think that I went crazy because I fired a shot and missed and then I was sliding off the roof down to the snow as he clubbed Rush away from him with the butt of his rifle then shot at me missing.

Once I was down I shot at him too and missed.

He fired at me and missed too.

I think he was freaked out by me firing and being so close.

I kept walking towards him too and fired again this time I didn’t miss.

And there’s something that really lands, digs, buries itself into you when you’re twenty feet away from someone and you kill them.

It’s way closer than twenty feet sounds.

And then it was done.

And I was alone.

I know I freaked out even though that was just in flashes to me with me holding dad and trying to wake him up. Screaming at him, screaming for help, for anybody…then just screaming in rage and loss and hating the universe.

And I stayed there for I don’t know how long before I felt Rush standing on my lap and whining as he licked my face.

It was getting dark and it was snowing again.

I moved slowly and in shock.

Built fires for everyone I knew and the Snowjackers… I ended up taking everything they had with them even their clothes and then I tied ropes to and used their snowmobiles and hauled them miles and miles away to the river and left them in the open for the scavengers and they coyotes and birds.

Their machines went into the garage and their stuff too for later.

Then I went back home and got a bottle of booze and got really, really drunk as I pulled out my stash of hormones and took like four pills and changed into dry clothes and stayed outside until grandpa and dad’s fires burned out.

Then I saved some of the ashes and went into the house.

Popped one of grandma’s frozen pot pies in the oven and staggered to the stereo in the living room and went through the CD’s that were there until I found what I wanted.

And sat on the floor drinking peach schnapps as REM was blasting *It’s The End of The World as We Know It.*

That's great, it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane, Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs
Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt, no, strength, no
Ladder, structure clatter with fear of height, down height
Wire in a fire, represent the seven games
In a government for hire and a combat site
Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies
Breathing down your neck
Team by team, reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop
Look at that low plane, fine then
Uh oh, overflow, population, common group
But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine
Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch a heel crush, crush, uh oh, this means no fear
Cavalier, renegade and steer clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine, I feel fine
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine
The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide
Mount St. Edelite, Leonard Bernstein
Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right? Right
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (it's time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine

**Apocalypse Snow Part Two**

As they say life goes on.

Well as much as can go on in the end of the world and in what’s pretty much nuclear winter.

I guess it took a few weeks for it to get through my brain that I was really all alone and I finally stopped talking to people that weren’t there anymore and started talking to myself.

And the animals of course but yeah definitely talking to myself.

And it was actually pretty good.

No like I know people talk about going crazy and I’m not sure that I’m not at least a little touched but I’m talking about my girl voice.

And not just the literal physical thing.

But being actually free enough to talk in the voice I’ve wanted, the tones I wanted to say the stuff that I’d been censoring out for as long as I can remember.

That, that at least was bliss.

There was a lot of hard work too in getting stuff situated after everyone had died and there were all of the empty houses in our little cluster and I had to close up what I could. I went through things and took what I wanted or needed and the rest I sort of moved to other rooms and everything else went to sort of making mass to block against the cold creeping into the parts of each house that I wanted to keep functional.

The pipes were the hardest I mess up twice and had to read and learn how to solder things together. And I got really wet but things are set so the pipes don’t freeze and the plumbing is dry for future use.

Then Jerry Miller’s house became my fuel depot. I filled everything I could going to town with gas containers and the like and stored it all in his garage and filled his house with branches for firewood.

And the next thing I did was try and to get safe.

It was The Johnston’s farm that had what I wanted and needed and that was snare wire and other odds and ends that I used to go around my area and not just my place but around my area and set up places that were full of empty cans made into noisemakers and here and there I dropped trees against other trees to block ways off or make them a lot harder to get through.

Barbed wire here and there.

Signs that I make.

NO TRESPASSING

NO SNOWJACKERS

I KILL SNOWJACKERS

RAIDERS WILL BE SHOT AND RECYCLED

And others and I end up climbing sometimes to get them up high so they won’t get snowed under.

Some are mobiles hanging from trees with all the danger and toxic signs I could make or peel from containers.

The only contact I had outside was The Dixons and they were pretty far away now with the snow down as much as it was and we talked some on the C.B. but living took up a lot of time and there were some days that the signals just didn’t get through.

Those further voices stopped on the C.B.

I hunted and it wasn’t much just my snares for squirrel or whatever else I could get and took as much care with the animals that were here as I could. The dogs and cats and I were okay and could sort of share and there were the few chickens and goats we had or well everyone had and the pigs we didn’t have a whole lot of animals just enough for our barn really. The hay was doled out really sparingly and I we have lots of grain and feed since no one took it from the farm store in town when everyone left.

And my grandparents when this was going on kept everything that you could imagine from the woods and garden even the peelings of stuff for us were tossed into the dehydrators and dried for the animals.

But everything is sparing handfuls.

Inside the house, inside my house things change.

I mean it’s my house now so keeping busy and that’s setting up rooms. The living room I fit with some of the wall hangings from the Johnston’s farm and I get the TV out of there and just get the stereo set up there and couches along the walls and in the corners I have some bookshelves that I made myself. There’s a large coffee table in the middle of things that’s really heavy and is like a full slice off of a huge tree bottom and had all of the rings and I have a platter that I glued broken bits of mirrors to and in the center of that I have a fish bowl that I burn candles in. It works fine too and helps save light.

Mirrors are your friend with light.

And I’m getting better at looking at me.

I’m changing and that’s all good things.

The stuff I’m taking is working and while there’s some fine beardy stuff trying to form on my face I’m kind of ahead of it I guess so it’s not so bad after the occasional shave and I made a shocker thingy out of a hot glue gun and copper wire and it doesn’t heat so much as make a connection to the power. And well the power I use for it is run off of those big six volt batteries it seems to sort of work and it hurt a lot.

It’s all a work in progress.

And I shave myself in other places and I know it makes no survival sense but I never could before and when I’m sleeping in bed I can feel it this whole sensory thing and besides I have layers of nylons and tights that I wear under everything else outside.

The kitchen I have organized as best as I can it’s all pretty normal I guess except for I use the woodstove more than the gas stove. That actually has a shut off valve in the house that Dad made so we don’t burn fuel for the pilot lights.

But our wood stove is one of the old kitchen ones made of good steel with the warming top cabinet and the hot water tank/reservoir and I usually cook on that. I do a lot of soups because we have so much dried stuff and thinks in packages. You add a little fat/oil/grease to even one of those sauce packs or marinades all that stuff in the packet section of the grocery store and add water and boil it you have a soup that will help keep you alive. I use those some or a stock cube or a packet and some dried herbs and toss in a handful of s few things.

One of my favorites is a beef stock cube in a gallon of water and I’ll drop in a smoked dried bit of deer meat from the stores and add in a shake of steak spice or two because it’s got so much stuff in it and some dried lentil or chickpeas or beans or sometimes a little of all three. Sometimes I’ll add other things to jazz it up like some soya sauce or steak sauce or Worcestershire sauce or tabasco.

And my dogs and cats will eat/lick up the broth and there’s not too much in there that’ll hurt them I don’t think.

Once a week I make something sort of big or different.

I took over the main bedroom and worked at getting that the way I want it. The big bed and it’s in the corner and I made a makeshift canopy with just screws and sewing up old curtains. I think in the olden days it was actually more for keeping heat in rather than privacy.

I have all the clothes I like for my own use in one place and the clothes for everyday stuff in another and I set myself up a large dressing table and mirror from one of the other houses and all my salvaged jewelry and make-up and things are all set up here.

And yes I get cleaned up and dressed up and use some of these things even if not that often.

A few other trips to town over the last few weeks literally landed me all I’d ever want because people just didn’t pack those things or loot them.

Yeah town’s deep in snow most of it was second story access to things.

I seen a few cat prints and other things here and there but people have been pretty much erased from town.

I still took my rifle and a shotgun with me…just because no one’s here now it doesn’t mean that they won’t be.

The rest of the house is pretty much my TV and video game room with all of that stuff and another room I converted from the dining room to my study because there were good windows and my laptop is there.

Yes I still use it even though I can’t do anything online since it doesn’t exist anymore. But I have all my downloads and I use it to write with. Poems and journaling mostly and a few stories. I try and take the time to do it, to just have one more thing to keep sane.

Three months in and the snows were letting up more but it was getting colder…the nights, the dark getting longer and the winds were howling pretty hard.

I was just settling in after locking everything down and getting ready for supper and some music and a book when I hear the C.B. go off.

“Josh, Josh are you there?”

I frown; part of me doesn’t want to answer.

But it’s human contact.

It’s Oliver Dixon the Dixon’s youngest son.

“High Ollie what’s up?”

“Nothing, literally nothing I was wondering if I could come over?”

“Uhm….”

“What’s wrong do you have someone over there?”

“No it’s just me.”

“Then what?”

I swallow and take a drink of my tea. “Ollie you know what a trans girl is?”

“Uhm yeah kinda.”

“I’m one, my name’s actually Holly.”

I hear him let out a breath almost a ragged one. “My parents, my grandparents sure won’t get that but it doesn’t matter. I mean I really don’t care Holly.”

Wow…he got my name in one.

And there’s something in his voice. “You alright?”

“No, I’m going stir crazy over here and there’s only so many hours and repeats of the family stories that I can take.”

I get that.

Well sort of I was getting some of that here from my family but yeah I’m lonely.

“Sure come over I’ll set up some lights.”

“Thanks I’ll likely need them.”

“Did you eat?”

“Nope, trying not to I’m really, really sick of chicken something or other or egg something or other.”

“I’ll cook.”

“Really, like something not chicken or eggs?”

“Liver actually.”

“I don’t care, serious I don’t like liver that much but at this rate I really don’t care.”

I laugh, okay he sounds desperate.

“I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Yeah definitely.”

“How are you getting here?”

“Skiing.”

“Okay, I’ll definitely keep an eye out.”

Then he’s gone and I go to the cupboards and take out some things for us. A box of Dainty brand canned beef fried rice and then I get the liver out from the sink and I get two slices of bacon from the freezer of the refrigerator.

Yeah I keep it going for leftovers and things.

The bacon’s rationed in bags of two slices each from grandma doing that and I chop it up and start it frying on the stove in the pan and I add some saved bacon fat too the pan and then while that’s frying I take the beef liver and I roll it in a little flour and some of the seasoning mix from the rice some steak spice and some black pepper and once the bits of bacon are crispy I take them out and toss a few little sparing bits to the dogs and the cats and then put the liver in the pan and get it frying.

I get the rice ready to go and a couple of cups of frozen veggies out.

The liver comes out and I cover it in a bowl and put it in the warmer so it stays warm and doesn’t dry out or get tough and then I use the pan and the fat and all the browning to make the rice. Just add the rice and water and scrape off the pan’s bottom and once it’s nearly done I add the seasoning pouch and then the veggies and the liver which I cut up into long thin strips and bury it under the rice and put the pan covered into the warmer.

Then dessert…yeah I’m trying sort of to impress maybe but it’s company.

I make a fast biscuit dough and get a baking dish and a freezer bag of frozen rhubarb and mix it with some strawberry boxed jello because it’ll thicken and it has sugar in it and I put the dough over that and pop it into the wood oven.

I dig out a can of canned milk and some fresh tea bags and put grandpa’s metal tea pot of the stove to heat.

That didn’t take as much time as I thought it would.

I clean up a little and bank the fires up some more and then I go and take a sponge bath and use some of the nice women’s soap and deodorant.

Then I get dressed and I head outside with Rush and the other dogs to wait for Ollie to show up and make a barrel fire outside the walled off area. It might sound scary but I’m looking for him through the scope on my rifle but life is what it is now.

It took a while before I see him and he has a lantern on a sled he’s towing and he has a shotgun over one shoulder but I recognize him and his clothes because of the light circle from the lantern and yet.

When he gets close. “Take off your parka hood and scarf and let me see your face!”

He stops and looks and he can see me with the rifle.

He moves slowly and he does it and I sigh with relief and I still take a quick look around and behind him just in case of whatever.

It’s clear.

Another sigh.

“Come on over Ollie!”

“Thanks!”

He skis up to me and he looks at me and he smiles. He had a beard now which is to be expected I guess but I’ve never seen him with one before everything changed and it actually looks good and kept up at least and he looks at me as I shoulder the rifle and put a metal lid over my fire.

“Can’t be too careful these days right?”

I nod. “I’m just starting to live Ollie, even though it’s the end of the world. I want my time.”

He just nods. “I don’t really get it Holly but I’ll listen.”

I lead the way to the gate. “Come on let’s get inside, the wind’s picking up and it’s going to get pretty cold I think.”

We head into my place and I latch and lock everything while he takes off his skis and we head to the house together.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Three**

I can feel Ollie looking at me even sort of staring at me as we walk and it’s like he’s trying to see under the clothes I’m wearing to the me that’s underneath and we get everything settled out back at the back porch and he comes with me as we go and do a once around of things and he’s been here before but I just like to take a look at everything before I end up settling down again for any long period of time.

Then we’re back at the house and he’s bringing in packages.

“For trade?”

“Sure, but it was gifts.”

“Gifts?”

“Chickens, it was mom’s idea.”

“I’ll have to give you all something in trade then.”

“Holly you don’t have to……” He stops talking as I get down to my me layer of clothes.

I blush. “Yeah, I should have warned you or something.”

He actually is nodding. “I knew you’d be different like weird different but this is…”

“Really weird different?”

He nods. “You don’t look like you.”

I look at him. “Yeah actually I think that I do it’s just you only knew Josh and not the real me.”

He shakes his head to clear it. “Sorry, I guess I messed up or something.”

“It’s cool, seriously you could have reacted a lot worse.”

He’s looking at me and I’m reminded just how small town we were before everything. I mean we had like a literal handful of colored folks and less than that of out gay folks. Trans was very much a thing on the ads on the backs of porn books and online stuff.

I say. “There was a lot of violence against people like me before the end of everything.”

He nods. “Well I think it’s like weird but I’m not you and I’m just glad to get out of our place before they drove me wacky with the endless repeats of everything.”

“That bad?”

“Grandfather has this thing about always doing something, and that all the stuff I want to do to distress and keep my mind off the winter and the end of stuff is lazy and useless and boring.”

I tilt my head.

He says. “Videogames, comics, movies that don’t fit the old style way he likes stuff. Unless it’s an actual book he gets all old timery self-righteous about things.”

“I can lend you more books I have plenty of books, likely more than I’ll ever finish.”

His eyes light up and I take the chickens to the cold storage freezer space except for one that I’ll thaw out.

We’re inside after that and he does a really big inhale. “Oh hell that smells good.”

“Beef fried rice with liver.”

“I don’t care if it’s liver it smells amazing.” Oliver does another big inhale. “Dessert too?”

I grin and nod. “Again not much but you’re company and I wanted to set a good table.”

I’m definitely self-conscious with Ollie really being the first person to really see the real me so I’m not as smooth in setting things out on the table as I had played out in my head and he’s watching me through most of it. Turns out I am way more nervous that I should be as I set things out and Ollie is looking at me.

I take a deep breath. “Okay say it.”

He blinks. “Say what?”

“Whatever you’re going to say.”

He’s looking at me. “Seriously? Okay can we eat and watch a movie?”

I stare at him for a bit and I was so kind of working myself up.

“Sorry, yeah sure we can watch anything it might help.”

He actually laughs some. “Yeah you’re pretty nervous.”

“Ollie I’m literally coming out. I mean you’re the first person that’s seen me since everything happened and I was finally free enough to start being the real me.”

He’s looking at me. “Damn and you were like not out at all huh?”

I look at him and cross my arms. “Really? Here? In our little town? Seriously Ollie they’d have kicked my ass look what they did to Shaun.”

Shaun Simmons was a few years older that Ollie and me and we really only got like part of the story but basically he was caught being gay. Someone seen him with one of the roadies that travelled with the carnival rides that used to come with the exhibition and word spread fast and a whole bunch of folks just were complete assholes.

I mean I never heard of like lynching violence or stuff like that with him but even as young as we knew it was bad, and that it was bad enough Shaun left. And there were lots of rumors for years until he died in Halifax. And like we never knew how or why some folks said he was beat to death for being gay or it was drugs because all LGBT people are addicts right…no seriously that was the attitude then and then there were the AIDS rumors.

He looks at me. “Yeah sorry.”

Then he takes a longer look and it’s a roving look over all of me. “You do look good though.”

“Ollie…” I’m blushing.

“You do and sorry but not sorry, trans or not you’re a live girl that’s not my family.”

I’m blushing more but definitely smiling.

“Thanks for the girl bit.”

“Hey I might not know a lot of stuff Holly but I am seeing a girl in front of me and still one that was like one of my friends.”

I can’t help it but this is making me happy, like really happy. And I know I’m working on it and I’m happy finally being me and all but hearing it from someone else is really feeling powerful for me.

“We should eat.” I say.

“Definitely.”

Supper was really good and I know it’s having company too that’s just making the food taste better and everything but Ollie seemed to enjoy it all even if it was liver.

And there’s no leftovers as we ate together on the couch and watched movies.

Actually we watched the Police Academy movies like all of them and it’s really old stuff but that doesn’t matter because there’s not likely to be any more stuff made ever.

It’s the end of the world remember.

We ate dessert together while watching Chip and Dale on VHS and it’s from those old TV spots that had the real Walt Disney actually on TV narrating and talking to us and the stuff’s old but new to us.

It’s all salvaged tapes from others homes and all but it’s way outside of our generation.

And I wasn’t meaning to do it but with the food and the company and the blankets and the animals with me and Ollie we fell asleep together.

I woke up with the dogs wanting out and I was in Ollie’s arms and we were really comfortable.

And he was hard.

I got flustered and took them out and got dressed and went and did my rounds and checked everything and then went back inside.

Ollie was up and he had some tea going on the stove and had re-banked the fires and was dragging the ashes out of the bottom and into the ash pans when I came in.

“Where do these go?”

“I have a place, out in the compost.”

“You have compost?”

“Yep you want to see?”

We get all the ashes done and into the wheelbarrow and out to the compost which isn’t actually outside but in one of the sheds and it sort of smells and it sort of doesn’t at the same time but it is doing what it’s supposed to do and that’s making its own heat since the shed is like super insulated now.

I show him some of the rest of things and then we head back inside. “When do you have to go home?”

Ollie shrugs. “Whenever really they need me they’ll call on the radio. Right now it’s a needing space thing.”

I nod. “Well it’s cool you’re here.”

He’s looking at me as I’m undressed again and down to my me layer of things. “That’s really cool of you Holly.”

He’s smiling and blushing because I think he was staring at my small breasts and I’m blushing at getting stared at. “I should make breakfast.”

He says really fast. “No eggs please?”

I laugh. “Eggs are good and I like them but no, not this morning no eggs. How about pancakes?”

He literally whined at the mention of them and I laughed some more.

God that feels good to laugh.

Pancakes are pretty easy and really basic. I have flour, actually lots of it since people literally left and didn’t take stuff like that with them. Too heavy, too much work and all sorts of likely other reasons.

Flour, water, two eggs, a little pinch of salt and a tablespoon of sugar and some baking powder.

Then it’s in a non-stick pan I use just for pancakes because it’s stoneware and I barely have to use anything to cook them.

Though I have lots of things to put on them and I cook and eat pancakes with Ollie for like close to an entire hour before he’s so full he can barely move.

I take one of the chicken’s he brought and I rub it down with a packet of ketchup and then gently shake some chili powder over it and I pop it into the oven of the woodstove.

Then we go outside and do all of the other chores and things for here and all of the other places all of the animals in tow with us as they’re still excited that he’s here too and he’s impressed at how much I do.

“That’s a lot of work for one person.”

“Sort of, some of it’s just to keep things useable and to keep things going but there’s some of it that keeps me going, keeps me sane.”

He’s nodding. “Has to be really hard just by yourself?”

“I’m lonely Ollie, lonely and scared a lot but I’m also free, free to be me and that’s a big thing too.”

We get everything done and come home to the smell of BBQ like chicken. It’s not done but it smells good.

“Okay, we don’t have half those spices and things anymore and this smells really good I might actually enjoy eating this.”

“Make a list of things that you’re really out with and we can trade. I owe you all for the chickens.”

He looks at me. “Holly they’re gifts.”

“Then let me gift you all back.”

He holds his hands up. “Okay, okay deal.”

I pour us both some tea. “Now what?”

“Movies? Videogames?”

We end up playing videogames I have all sorts of consoles and all sorts of games and that keeps us busy all day while supper roasts.

At one point I lift the bird out and I make some noodles. Literally make some noodles which is the spiced fat from the bird in egg and flour and I add some onion powder and some dried chives for effect and taste and make spaetzle.

That’s where the dough is gooey and you sort of pass it over boiling water through a cheese grater. Well that’s what I’m doing and then I stir fry all the noodles in the rest of the pan drippings from the roaster.

Another evening of eating supper together and tea and just cuddling and watching Indiana Jones.

There’s leftovers this time.

And…and I wasn’t expecting to cuddle, it just sort of happened in getting comfortable and it just felt really right.

It was after The Last Crusade when it sort of hit and everything and I looked up from where I had had my head on his shoulder and Ollie looked down at me and it just…it just clicked and he leaned down and he kissed me.

And his hands touched my breasts and made me shiver in the best of ways and I reached down and felt his bulge so hard and I’m scared and he looks nervous too.

“Ollie…we do this and it’ll change everything.”

“Holly I want something in my life to look forward to, I like you, I want this to be us.”

“I’ve never done anything with anyone.”

“Neither have I.”

“Your family though…?”

He looks at me. “It’s the end of the world already Holly, it’s not like we’re going to bring down the wrath of God.”

I don’t know…I don’t know but his hands are so hot and they feel so good and I’m so fucking lonely and getting so turned on.

I nod…I look at him and it was small but I nod and then he kisses me again and carries me off to my bedroom.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Four**

Okay sex is not what I thought it would be.

The very first thing that I found…we found was that animals followed us into the bedroom.

Which required herding cats.

Have you ever tried herding cats?

And then there was closing the door.

And the scratching and claws and paws under the doors.

Which meant we needed music to drown it all out.

Which was outside in the main part of the house.

And then I really, really wanted to get cleaned up.

I’ll forgo most of that stuff because it’s pretty much a cross between eew and freaky.

There’s realities to sex like you don’t ever read about.

But other than that I spent some time getting a bath and getting cleaned up with my hair washes and the rest of me as smooth as possible and even using some lotion too so that I smelled good.

I’m not going to pretend that my heart wasn’t in my throat or that I wasn’t scared and not just the about to have sex part but it was me…me really undressed more than I’ve ever been around someone.

Ollie doesn’t disappoint he has his clothes off and the bed’s made and he looks good. I mean I think that he looks good but I’m really just running on fantasy and the girl hormones racing through my system.

He’s staring at me though and he opens his arms and I step into them and then before I know it we’re…

We’re dancing.

That act, instead of just going and getting right into the sex stuff means the whole world to me right then and we slow dance. I get to actually dance with a boy as a girl for the first time in my life and it’s just amazing.

I mean it’s really more than the little fantasies in my head you know?

And I’ve had hundreds if not thousands of fantasies from books and novels and movies where I’m the girl and that I’m actually at a dance, or at a party or even dancing at the beach to the radio lit up by the moon and the lights of some guy and his car.

This is much, much better because it’s real.

And he smells good too. He got cleaned up likely in the kitchen while I was getting ready so he’s freshly washed and he even brushed his teeth.

Seriously that’s actually a huge plus in my head as he kisses me.

The actual sex was incredibly awkward.

The foreplay was really good and I really loved his kisses and his touch and his hot mouth on my skin, on my breasts and suckling my nipples.

But touching him well things sort of exploded getting the condom on.

And then it was me giving most likely the world’s most awkward blowjob on the planet.

There were literally thousands of spirits of women watching us and seeing me and slapping their collective palms to their faces.

But in the end we did do it.

And we had condoms, we had lube and it still hurt…well sort of hurt.

Ollie got off at least and he really awkwardly used his hand on me until I sort of did.

I mean I did, I popped but for me popping is more like this tiny little furious bang and very little actual anything fires out. There’s like a little stuff and it’s more like the yay…spent release of after the pop lasts for a while.

The sleep though…the intimacy with that afterwards and the cuddling was amazing.

I mean as bad as it sort of was, we were together, Oliver was inside of me and I did things for him, to him that made him feel good and at least he’s very good about returning that in afterwards affection.

And the morning was well…Well it was better.

I mean we slept really good and waking in the morning I felt him as hard as he was last night and he was awake and he was smelling my skin, smelling my neck and I rolled over and we kissed.

And we kissed and that led to more foreplay and that led to us getting another condom and Ollie sinking inside of me all over again but this time face to face.

A lot slower, and foreplay between it and kissing and this time I enjoyed it more.

It was still nothing at all like the dirty stories that I had read.

We spent the day together again and doing the chores spending time with looking out every so often.

I do that, I actually try and to keep a watch at least during the daytime.

I mean the skies are grey and crappy as always these days but it is warmer usually and the temperature drops at night so much that I’ve been going under the assumptions that if there’s anyone out there they hunker down in any way that they can.

He stays the third night and we have leftovers and some canned peaches.

And we play Mario kart most of the night.

At least until it’s time to go to bed and we make love again.

Still really awkward and everything but I think I did better giving him a blowjob.

And the rest was as good as this morning.

I’m going to have to say I was happy. I mean not just like sexually satisfied but happy, not so lonely and I was getting to feel like I was loved.

But in the morning after he helped me with the chores and things he headed for home.

I mean I was definitely going to miss him.

But it had been three days and I ended up talking to his mother on the radio as he called home.

That…that was awkward.

She knew me but she didn’t know Holly.

And explaining that was.

Awkward.

And tense, even over the crappy reception we had for each other it was tense.

I sent Ollie home though with some salt and some of my spices that I measured out and I added in some of my canned goods too a few cans of cream of celery soup and some canned pears and some fruit cocktail with cherries in it.

I watched him leave on his skis and towing his sled and after everything was done for my day and the sun had gone down I made chicken carcass soup with a pack of ramen added into it and I sat with the blankets and animals around me and watched Notting Hill and I cried pretty hard that night as the loneliness just jumped up and swallowed me.

It was another three days before I heard from Ollie again.

Three miserable fucking days really.

My brain going long and far past overdrive as to what must have happened when he got home and what might have been said and I invented a thousand horrible scenarios.

And then one morning his voice came over the C.B.

“Hey Holly are you there?”

I literally ran to the base station. “Holly here Oliver is that you?”

“It is, sorry I didn’t call before this…things were pretty bad.”

I swallowed. “How bad?”

“Oh according to my dad we’re both going to hell. It was a whole big fucking thing.”

My stomach sank.

“And now?”

“Now it’s sort of settled.”

“Sort of?”

“It’s settled but he’s not happy about it.”

“Oh…and your mom?”

“She gets it sort of, she’s a little wigged out that we’re having sex but she’s firmly sticking to it being none of her business.”

“And your grandfather?”

He actually laughed. “He just tuned it all out I think.”

“Oh…”

“So can I come over?”

I really wanted to at least hem and haw and sort of seem like I wanted to think about it but I just wasn’t that strong. And there was a part of me that was very much fuck them, they know and I’m out now.

All of those sides of me won out with a gigantic shove from lonely me and literally snowplowed any modest resistance I had going on and wanting to see well like a modest girl should because who knew who was listening on his end of things.

“Yes, yes definitely come over.”

“Thank you, thank you so much Holly.”

“I’ll start supper.”

“That sounds good already…uhm…”

I laugh. “No chicken, sure.”

He laughs back then this really thick with emotion voice he says. “I’ll see you soon.”

He signs off and I actually do a happy dance.

And it’s cute as heck but my animals sort of do their thing too pulling in on my excitement.

And the day’s chores are really a whole lot faster to do with me looking forward to Ollie showing up.

Then I’m home and I’m going through my stores and I’m taking out a deer roast and finding some of the potatoes that we froze too. Grandma lived as a kid in WW2 and they ate everything and anything and even when they got freezers and stuff they all had these big post war families so stuff was scarce.

So while we were putting things down she introduced us all too creamed potatoes. It’s just as it sounds cooked potatoes in a cream sauce that’s just a milk based white gravy and with extra butter added to it. She made batch after batch and poured them almost room temperature into freezer bags and then bagged them again.

I just have to heat them in a pot of water.

So that and a can of mixed vegetables and I open a jar of mustard pickles to have with it all and when the roast is partly thawed enough to unwrap it I salt that whole thing down and I slather it with some whole brain mustard too on the outside of it and then coat it with a dusting of flour and lemon pepper and some onion salt and I put it in the roaster with just enough water to not have it burn and I move some of the coals to one side of the wood stove and I put it in the oven to slowly roast.

I spend the next few hours actually cleaning up the house as best as I can and then take a bath and get myself pretty…I hope it’s pretty.

Smelling good at least, and some make-up and then I get dressed to go back out into the cold to look out for Ollie with my rifle just to be safe.

That was a long wait.

Like one of those teenager and waiting for something and time slows down waits.

Thinking too hard and with baited breath waits and I sigh a huge sigh of relief when I see him and he waves and there’s a sled behind him and he gets close enough to let me really see it’s him and then I come down from my perch to meet him.

Oh…Oh fucking hell.

He’s still got his wraps off when I get down to him and he’s been in a fight. His face is tinted with purple blue in places and especially around his eyes where his nose has been broken.

I know a broken nose when I see one being from a town where the two sports we really had going for us were basketball and hockey.

“Oh shit Ollie…”

He actually smiles through the obvious pain at me. “It’s okay, it’s settled.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He looks at me and he reaches over and pulls the hood of my parka down and unwraps my scarf and then he takes my face in his hands and he kisses me.

“It’s okay Holly, You are worth it.”

Okay…that’s when for the first time in my life I cried great big fat heart unbroken by something in life tears.

We kissed and kissed and tears flowed from us both as we did that and they got a little too close to freezing on our faces and then we took off his skis and held hands as we towed in his sled to my place.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Five**

Life is weird and life is chaotic even when things are settled.

I think that’s part of being human.

Because Ollie is all beat up from the fight.

And there was a fight over me.

Over Holly me.

And it really sucks that this happened, I can only really guess at the things said and what I must have been called.

I hate that part, I hate that Ollie’s hurt.

But part of me is weirdly ecstatic that he chose me.

The real me.

And that I was worth it, that I was worth fighting for.

It’s so weird being this happy over this kind of thing and it is a bad thing.

None of us should be fighting.

And I shouldn’t be happy either that it happened.

Once everything is done we get inside and I heat some water and while he’s being greeted by the animals I get things ready to clean him up.

I sit with him at the table and pull my chair close to him and dip the face cloth into the hot water and soap from the basin and I start to dap gently at things.

“Was it bad?”

Ollie just looks at me and he has some tears in his eyes.

I lean over and gentle kiss him. “You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“I did Holly, I did.”

I kiss him lightly again and start to do more. I mean it’s mostly bruises and things but I’m being careful because who knows what will lead to infections and that’s drastically changed these days.

Plus I want to be soothing.

I really need to be soothing.

Part of my heart is really hammering out that I need to do this to prove that I’m worth all of this.

Worth the blood and sweat and the tears.

Which is a pretty big deal considering that I never felt that way when no one knew who I was, when I was in the closet.

There were more than enough folks ready to tell me and anyone like me that I wasn’t worth a little bit of anything.

We’re spending a lot of time just looking in each other’s eyes too while we’re doing this and there’s some looking away too. I mean it’s shy and intense, we’ve been lovers and we are friends but this, this is taking it again into something new and into a whole new level of intimacy.

And sure it could be still being young and it could be the hormones and things talking too but I feel like inside of me is just freaking out but in good ways?

Have you ever felt and started to have this thing between you and someone else starting that’s so good and so intensely good that it feels like it’s breaking you?

That’s what it feels like here and now.

Not one part of me was ready or expecting any of this at all.

And I have no idea how I’m staying calm and dabbing and washing away some of the blood and just some of the soreness out of his bruises but I am.

He goes from one of the intense embarrassed looking away moments to looking at me. “I missed you Holly.”

“Me too.”

“No, I missed you so bad it hurt.”

“Ollie.”

I have this really hard lump in my throat.

He reaches out and takes my face in his hand and he just touches my face and looks at me like…like I’ve only ever read about or seen on TV and I can feel each stroke of the back of his fingers on my face searing with feeling and just so much that it’s being permanently seared into my soul.

If I started to cry I’d end up bawling.

He stares at me and there’s all these feeling there in his eyes.

“Holly, I want this, I want us and I think…I think I’m in love with you.”

“Ollie…” And it’s really hard to swallow and I have to twice before saying. “You know only me.”

He nods. “Yeah but really only a little.”

“What if you meet someone?”

He laughs. “Where!? Jesus Christ Holly who’s left? We don’t know that there’s anyone left and I’m tired, I’m tired of being alone with my family, I’m tired of not having someone when I know that you’re here and that you’re real.”

“Am I real though?” Okay now the damned tears are starting.

“You are to me.”

“But I’m just here, I’m just the only one Ollie…I don’t want to be a consolation prize because of the end of the world.”

I get up and I’m pacing.

He stands up and he’s looking at me and he’s angry, he did all of this and we’re fighting…

“You’re not a goddamned consolation prize Holly!” He says it pretty loud and angry.

I yell-cry. “How do I know that Oliver, How do I know that there’s literally no one else!?”

He yells back. “Because I’m fucking saying that! I’m saying that I love you because of you and not because of the fucking circumstances!”

“You love me, you don’t know me Oliver you just said it yourself!”

He steps away from the table and leaves the kitchen and paces through the living room…I’m that messed up I follow him.

No I don’t get why.

He turns and he was running his fingers through his hair with both hands before sort of flinging them down in a gesture of frustration and he yells at me. “Why Holly, why is it so fucking hard to believe that I think that you’re worth it that I might have actually fallen in love with you!?”

I yell back at him frustrated too and just…crying and things are just tumbling out of me. “Why because I’m the only one here, because all my life there’s never been anything for me Oliver not even a life!”

“I’m offering you a life!”

“Why!?”

“Because I’m falling for you…argh…FUCKING WOMEN!!!”

He boots over the coffee table and my brain hitches up on the effing women part because when you’re trans stuff like getting mentally fetched up on stuff like that happens and I end up cracking and laugh-sobbing like I’m crazy.

Oliver looks at me and he is crying too, I mean I can see the tears there and I’m cracking up inside and not in a good way because I did that I hurt him and I made him cry after everything that he just went through.

He storms over and he wraps me up in his arms so hard that it hurts and makes me almost creak with it.

“Why Holly, Why are we doing this? Why are we fighting?”

(Sniffle-sob.) “I’m scared Ollie, I’m scared I don’t know how to do any of this…”

“Neither do I Love, neither do I.”

Him calling me love flips the switch to make me start sobbing.

(Sniffle-sob.) “I’m sorry, I’m sorry….I don’t…I don’t know how to do this.”

“Just let it be Holly, just let you love me.”

(Sniffle-sob.) “How? I don’t know even how to love myself…”

It was either his legs or mine that gave but either way we sank to the floor in the living room and he stops holding me so tightly and turns me on his lap to face him and he’s staring at me with teary red rimmed eyes and he really looks like hell right now.

“Like this Holly, like this…”

He leans in and he kisses me and it’s a really good kiss, probably one of the most stunning things to ever happen to me. I mean it’s the kiss and it’s the situation and the emotions and being stripped so emotionally bare with this whole thing and the fight and the fact he just came from a fight over me.

And that kiss led to another.

And it led to another.

And more and we hit this really great sort of point where the adrenaline wears off and it’s meeting the endorphins from the fight and the ones from making out and falling in love or whatever and all that’s actually combining with our bodies literally warming up from him coming over and me waiting outside for him.

God it feels like having this moment where my heart is finally daring to beat hard enough to have someone else hear it.

I don’t know how long that we kissed but it ended up with us half sitting up curled together on the floor in the middle of the living room with his arms around my waist and my arms around his neck and shoulders and we even stopped kissing and we were just doing this forehead to forehead thing and staring into each other’s eyes.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Six**

Looking back that was when it all changed for Oliver and me.

We recovered enough to eat supper and after doing all the checks and putting away the leftovers and things we didn’t even make love that night.

We were just too spent and we ended up watching this old DVD called *An Officer and a Gentleman* which was this love story and I cried a little watching it and Ollie held me tighter whenever it got to this whole point of like when it was emotional for him after we were done he carried me to bed like the girl Paula from the movie and that was more than enough as we settled in after kissing for a long, long time.

And well the next morning was a different story.

With all of my chores I’m used to waking up pretty early and I woke to his morning wood.

Thankfully I didn’t really have that as a thing very much after all the hormones even without blockers.

And to be honest I didn’t get them a whole lot before everything either.

So yeah I woke Ollie up with a blowjob.

Which was I guess the start of a great day.

And we slowly went from there.

It was a huge life changing thing not being alone.

Sleeping with someone, waking to arms around you.

Just having fingers reach out and touch you to like make sure that you’re there or even just to touch you.

And there’s little things that are awesome too like half the work.

That changed things too.

It let me actually explore the feminine me a lot more than I had the energy to before.

I mean I actually had a reason to dig into all the stuff that I had within all the girly stuff that I had and teach myself more and to do things.

Seriously…like sneaking time to learn how to walk with a book on my head around the house and dodging animal’s under feet and going up and down stairs.

Making myself wear a corset.

Yes I have them, some of the clothes that I’ve salvaged they were in them and now I wear them.

And Ollie was sweet in telling me I didn’t have to or that I didn’t have to shave and that he loved me anyway.

I’m not sure what he thought of me zapping my face with my home-made electrolysis deal but that was definitely something that I pushed myself with early on.

Actually I think it freaked him out some that I wanted it that bad I had some burns.

Not bad but still.

And then there were the squats.

I read in several magazines that squats were good for your buns and that there were leg side lifts that were good to firm your hips too or add muscle as curve to them.

Which I tried and did and I guess it did work but pretty slowly.

I gained weight which likely helped more.

There’s something about having someone to cook for and someone to eat with too that changes things.

I know there’s some folks that used to like eat emotionally but that wasn’t me. I lived off soups a lot before me and Ollie and while we still ate soup as it was my go to leftover use meal. I ate more.

And then there was the other stuff with Ollie.

Not the sex.

But me cleaning him up too.

Sitting in the kitchen listening to tunes with him and having scissors and a comb and a razor and cutting his hair and shaving him.

And not short hair either just like trimming it and trimming his beard and trying different things too like braiding. And yeah we braided both things too he had these side braids we did that went down his whole sideburn area and he’d use them to actually tie back the rest of the hair he had when he needed to do some work and he really looked either like a character from a fantasy story or a biker.

Either way I liked it.

And he did trim other things too that he did for me as something I liked like keeping his guy thatch cleared to a decent lawn downstairs and he trimmed his pitt hair too so it wasn’t like just too hairy everywhere.

Brushed his teeth regularly, bathed regularly…actually pretty basic but kind things given it’s the end of the world.

And he did more chores too just to work out with shoveling and clearing snow and moving the snow to places where we want it and packing it all down too.

He took over carrying all the wood too.

He also took over the garage and had started literally working like it was a job in trying to build a better antenna system and a better radio setup.

I mean it wasn’t like my grandpa and the others didn’t have the parts or the books to try.

And when he’d get frustrated Ollie would punch and kick this old mattress that he tied around one of the posts with bungee cords and then later duct tape to make something like a punching bag and he dug out my dad’s old free weights out of the basement.

Well I wasn’t going to use them.

I wanted nothing doing with muscle mass even though it was kind of stupid for me not to try and keep in shape.

There was a lot of things I did that were sort of survival stupid like that.

End of the world, and I was going to die as close to me as I could ever get.

Anyways…yeah we were having a life.

Or we were living anyway.

And yeah there was sex.

Not like fuck it all and we’re going to fuck through the end of the world sex or like even sexy porn story sex.

This, this was better.

This was relationship sex.

And yeah I know that for some folks is like an oxymoron but for Ollie and me it was good.

Slowing learning our bodies, him learning mine, me learning mine…what feels good, how hard how soft…where to touch as well.

Much more than pokey in the yay places too.

Turning minutes of sex into longer.

Taking the time to learn how to be sexual.

I mean there’s things that were definitely yay and like sexy like me and blowjobs.

Seriously when you slow the heck down and learn every vein and bulge and curve of him and how he responds to everything it’s really a big deal for a guy.

And while Ollie never returned that favor he sure as hell learned about breasts or mine.

Which were getting actually really decent in size.

I was thrilled by both the feelings and getting to the point of a decent B cup.

But some of my favorite things had to be like listening to music and something soft and romantic while being on top and sinking onto him as he moved up and inside of me and I had my arms around his neck and shoulders which gave him this great access to my breasts and we could look at each other and kiss.

I’m actually a little convinced that this being one of our favorite go to things for our regular like soft love making was at least partly responsible for my hips becoming wider in that whole straddling him like a horse thing.

And yeah I’m convince of other stuff too like doggy style makes your butt bigger from like all the thump-thump and blood flow to like specific areas.

And my boobs too, the more they got played with I think the more they got fed or something.

And it got better and better as outside slowly got colder and colder and darker and darker out.

And that was really scary too.

Especially those nights when it didn’t snow and it didn’t blow and everything was till and black out.

I mean those nights we didn’t sleep, the animals didn’t sleep and everything just sort of had that sick aura that we were dying.

And that there was danger out there.

I don’t know if things happened or passed us by in the nights but it was a thing a very real thing that abysmal black.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Seven**

It was just over eight months before we heard from his parents.

After month six I started cajoling him to radio home.

I think that we got to the point of where I was concerned more for him and them than being scared of what contact would mean for our relationship.

And it started with a few short sentences every few days and only Margaret his mother would talk to me and she did call me Holly.

Really it was like pulling teeth.

Which was what really got the talking really going and that was me frustrated after Ollie’s dad misgendered me one call and Ollie got pissed off and dropped off the call and went out to the garage.

I took up the mic and pressed the button against my head.

“Jesus men are so fucking stubborn.”

I heard this smile in Margaret’s voice. “Copy that, at least you’re not outnumbered.”

And that started us talking.

Mostly bitching sessions which actually I think were good for both of us sanity wise.

And there were some trading recipes back and forth.

Eventually that led Ollie and his dad to have it out sort of and that happened more and more with Margaret pushing Arthur from her end until they were actually talking.

And that changed life some more for us.

We started using it more too with us talking in the morning unless something happened to have us talking before that and then there was talking after supper for even longer.

And after a while we’d do reports of our doing our lookout shifts or patrols too.

It was the anniversary of the end of the world that sort of brought us together.

We were all doing fine until Ollie’s grandfather mentioned it once.

“Nine days until it’s been a year.”

And no one really needed to ask what he had been talking about and it literally shut all of us up and shut us down for a day.

I have no idea where it came from but I came up with things on the next evening's C.B. session.

“We should do something; we should have a get together for Survivors Day.”

“Survivor’s day?” Margaret asked.

“Well we did, we are.”

Ollie’s looked at me smiling and brought me a tea...Hot water and a slice or two of balsam fir bark and spruce needles. Things are in the supply that they are and right now, for now there’s still evergreens.

He kissed me. “I like that beautiful.”

Margaret says overhearing on the radio. “Copy that.”

And I’m blushing seriously but happily so.

Margaret and I talk for awhile longer and about that we should do as something to keep the family spirits all up and to celebrate being survivors.

We even talk about maybe making something special for like to eat and Ollie and us coming over to their place.

I could have invited them over but they literally have more going on with keeping as many of their animals alive as possible through all of this.

Once I’m off the C.B. I make supper and that’s a can of fake spam cut into cubes and lightly fried and kraft dinner or kraft mac and cheese for some folks. It’s not as good as it could be with all of the fixings but the real trick is to boil the noodles and drain them and to keep about a third of that pasta water and then boil it and add a teaspoon of fat or oil and I’m using fat and getting it well and mixed into the water and a little tiny bit of mustard.

I know it sounds nuts but mustard is used to bind salad dressing together and it works for this and then I add the noodles and then the powder.

It’s not the same thing with margarine or butter and butter but those are things I’m seriously rationing.

Actually I might take a can of milk over to Ollie’s parents house or two for Salvation day. They have eggs and I have some sweetening things and vanilla so we might just be able to make a pudding or custard or something.

Yes I have a goat but most of her milk is actually going to my...our pigs, grandpa’s idea and in the long run it’ll be more worth it than not.

After that we actually fall into the same old routine but it’s still not ever routine for me.

I’m in a relationship.

We’re living together, being lovers and we’re in that whole unexpected territory of it all being new while it’s all happening.

And we’re learning spacing things too.

We take day's trading the chores and patrolling look outs.

When we’re not doing that we’re reading and learning stuff….I’m trying new languages from the book hoard and using a tape recorder to listen to myself.

Ollie’s actually working more on the radio and stuff my father and grandfather were doing trying to get the old school second world war era stuff up and running. He spends time going from building plans for his antennae and working on the actual electronics.

Kind of beyond me but we do take a day and leave the house on snowmobiles with sleds and head to town.

Oh fucking hell.

The snow’s covered anything that’s a story and a half...the town’s just mostly gone.

It took us awhile to dig into places where we thought things might be and places where things I or my family had marked.

We took our rifles in case of trouble or Snowjackers even though we haven’t seen anyone else for a long time and we’re pretty remote.

We did get some more salvage, he got a lot of salvage of things to use or to try hitting up the fire department and the RCMP station for their gear and then I spent time finding and marking where the fuel stores were at from before and making a map of landmarks using the church steeple which hopefully won’t vanish for a long, long time under the storms and snow using a compass.

And I manage to see a few tracks too of animals smaller ones and things in the attics or made dens in some of the houses...mice or voles...maybe a rabbit or two...others nothing big or human.

That trip led to another and that was just to get fuel.

And fuel brought out Ollie’s family and for two days we all worked together filling everything we had all over again and all of our stores and that had us working together and talking and laughing and smiling.

Ollie’s grandfather brought his twenty two rifle and he couldn’t shovel or lug things so he wandered around on one of the snowmobiles and snowshoes and bagged us all some rabbits that were pretty scrawny looking and a fat porcupine.

Porcupine that was going to be Survivor’s day supper the day after tomorrow.

The game actually made the day and we went back to Ollie’s parents place after we stopped by home and I grabbed a few things including a change of clothes as the others were storing all the extra fuel and I checked on the animals and made sure things were fed and watered and cared for.

My heart was in my throat once we got there and Margaret and I took the rabbits and some of the parts from the Porky once the unloading was done and the men started to butcher things.

Okay Ollie’s grandfather had a well ordered butchery place and things for the chickens and I saw them very carefully bleeding everything into a big bowl that he was dumping those microwave oatmeal packets into and some of those cheap spices from the dollar store that use to be two for a dollar and they’re making blood sausage I think.

I changed from working clothes and the winter survival stuff into a dress.

It’s not really, really fancy or anything but it’s a thick strap low cut number that’s sort of for summer with flower print and all but I’m wearing a nightshirt tee shirt underneath it all that’s a nice pink and I put on some white/tope stockings and some stretch on pull on flats.

Washed up and wearing some fresh secret body spray and I even did my make-up a little.

Coming almost literally out to Margaret was scary.

When she saw me she stared and her eyes teared up and she hugged me and I shook a lot.

“Oh my god you look amazing.”

“I do?”

She nodded. “Arthur’s going to be floored.”

“Or mad…”

She looked at me. “You’re a pretty young girl and Oliver needed to meet someone, sometime, somehow or things were going to get either ugly or very weird.”

Okay that had made me laugh.

Supper was the rabbits and seasonings that we stewed in a mixture of tea off the stove of two different kinds and a tablespoon of seasoning from a packet of beef marinade and some of the blood that Arthur brought in.

He stared at me and stared at me...stared at my legs and at my breasts...and for a little longer than he should have then he set the mason jar of blood down and a bowl of organs and went and got a jug?

He nodded at us. “Ladies.”

That actually set off off and giggling.

Then Ollie’s Nan showed up and she was just awesome treating me just like she knew me as Holly the entire time.

Then it got just so...right?

Us cutting the organs up and washing out some things that I was being shown like how to prepare lung and stomach and me adding some of my grandmothers dried veggies she had done to cook and simmer long and slow and us breaking the rabbit bones to let out the marrow better and frozen baggies of chicken organs and parts to add to it and cook down and then it was us making noodles from flour but like one of those specialty flours like rice flour but with eggs and chicken fat to give it body and some different seasoning than the rabbits.

If you asked me if I could have dreamt of any of this I’d say no.

If I was happy?

Yeah.

I’m actually happy.

I’m alive, I’m me, I’m in love and loved.

It’s honestly more that I ever thought I’d ever have.

It doesn’t take too long before the men are all done and the porky is hanging and they’re in getting cleaned up.

Margaret puts on some music that they have and it’s country which I don’t mind really and we have everything cooking and we even make dessert that’s a cake mix with eggs in it and the fruit and the liquid from canned peaches and some brown sugar in that sort of pineapple upside-down cake sort of thing.

My big contribution is my can of milk for the really big pot of tea we will have with dessert. Canned milk in your teas is a luxury and Ollie’s nan is pleased as punch telling us about how sometimes back during WW2 things got like this, rare and rationed.

We all gather together and we have grace and they we dig in and at first there’s just that first sounds of quiet Mmms as we’re savoring the rich broth we made and then all the other parts.

Y’know I miss going to the store for a ton of things but I don’t miss the way that we didn’t use everything because we really just got too fussy and pampered over our food. We should always respect and use everything.

Then we start talking, really talking and it’s about the things we’re going to need to do to survive in the future with our resources and me talking about the places of the neighbors that I’m still sort of using and upkeeping and then there’s talk of the radio system Ollie’s building or building better and that gets really technical and enjoyable.

I mean Ollie’s into it so he talks about it a lot and that makes this important to him and it’s important to me too.

So I have sort of kept up.

Not like him but it’s not like I’m lost either.

Then we ladies are getting dessert out and serving that up with a big pot of tea...three regular tea bags and one Earl grey and a bit pot and yeah we boiled it to death and let it steep and lie broke all of those rules.

Coal miner...fisherman’s...loggers tea.

And it’s strong but that works well with the canned milk and then the peach bottomed cake and we all end up taking our second mugs of tea into their living room as we watch some old, old movies on remastered and recolored VHS with Elvis in them.

It’s so strange me fitting in now like this.

And I can tell it’s strange for them too with this still so very new for them too and people are trying.

Then there’s the fact we still go out and do our look outs for there between movies.

It’s simply that we don’t know, that we can’t know who’s out there.

Ollie and I end up going home even though we might have stayed. I still have my place...our place and the animals there too and then there’s the fact that I don’t want to leave things too long.

We do a patrol around on the way home and once we’re sure things are clear we go inside once we’re back and we hunker down for the night.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Eight**

Ollie’s up early with his Dad coming over and they spend most of the day doing things on the radio set up and that’s good as it’s a lot of building for the tower that he want’s and the transmitter stuff.

Salvation day’s today/tonight and I’m going through things in the house and my stores getting things that i know that i can spare for something like this.

Well spare’s a tight word for this it’s more like wanting to use the things because it’s a pretty important day.

I mean we lived right?

I have the canned milk and I set out four cans of that to take over and I have some sugar too that is in the little old restaurant packets. I have regular sugar but I found these so I’m taking these and then there’s some other odds and ends too I’m digging out of the deep freezers and from grandmothers nooks and crannies like candied fruits and things for making fruitcakes.

Which gave me the idea to go through the house and look for fruitcakes.

That took a while but sure enough grandma had several wrapped up in waxed paper then time foil and placed in those old tins that candy or cookies used to come in and they were in the attic.

I take two of those with the oldest dates on them down and one I keep in the house for here and one I’ll take over with us.

Actually the one that I have for here I slice into and make like fingers of that and put it out on a plate for Ollie and his dad along with sandwiches that I make from fried eggs and some soaked out onion flakes added to it and topped off with a little mustard and green tomato chow-chow pickle and I take it to the shop for them with spruce tea.

The rest of the day is just the usual with taking care of the animals, reading and going out on look out.

It’s mid-afternoon when Ollie comes in and turns the radio on the stereo and then leaves and a few minutes later on 95.5 FM I hear him and his dad talking and then there’s some music playing over the radio.

I ran to the porch door and I shout out. “I can hear it! I can hear you guys!”

The next three hours is running the wiring to Grandpa’s radios stuff in the house and testing it out.

Ollie and his day get one of the old portable radios like just one of the ones that we used to play CD’s with and they get new batteries in it and take off with the snowmobile to check the range.

They asked me to talk and play things.

I dug out some of my old burned CD’s and got started.

“Check-Check...Check-Check….Uhm Hey is there anyone out there? I’m Holly and I’m reaching out to whoever might be listening with us just getting the system here up and running.”

“Well today’s what we’re calling Salvation Day and that’s because we’re still here after a year, we’re still here...something saved us whether luck or faith or just being stubborn but yeah for those of us still around today’s the day it all changed, today’s the day that the world as we all knew it came to a screaming halt.”

“Look I know, I know that this was awful, that we could wallow in things just falling apart but I just want to put this out there.”

“We’re still here...some of us are still here...and we really should be grateful. So I don’t know about all of you but today’s going to be a little bit like Thanksgiving but like a new one, one for us survivors.”

“Well I’m going to let you all have a listen for while since if you’re hearing me odds are you haven’t heard music in a long time other than what you might have with you.”

I hit the buttons for my CD mix to start playing and I go and hang out near the C.B. waiting to hear from Ollie or his dad.

Margaret calls up on the C.B. saying she can hear us on the stereo.

We talk for awhile back and forth while waiting for the guys to call and they do and it’s short just places that we know of at landmarks.

“We’re all the way out to Cornerville and we’re still hearing you. We’re going to turn back now.”

Cornerville isn’t a town but it’s more like a junction, it used to be out the old, old way that would lead you toward Sussex but it is still pretty far, like half an hour by car sort of far.

I have no clue if anyone’s even out there to listen but it’s very cool.

We still listen and stuff on the C.B for them coming back and we do hear after a time them getting closer and closer as they pull into home on the snowmobiles.

I went out on lookout once I heard them reach a certain point on the C.B. and I’m out there to greet them when I’m sure it’s them pulling in.

Ollie’s pulling his hood back and scarves off early. “We got news babe.”

“News?”

“We found grass, like a field and there were deer and tracks everywhere.”

I had to ask. “How?” I thought that it was too deep?”

His dad says. “The wind...it’s really open there I think old pastureland and the snow’s been blown pretty clear there’s maybe a foot to half a foot of snow there and it looks like they’ve been digging up the grass and vegetation, sheltering in the stands of trees there’s a lot of evergreens like that.”

“That mean we can hunt right?”

They’re both grinning and nodding. “It does but that means there’s other areas too and as thin as the deer are and as frozen as the snow is they can travel and find other places like this.” Ollie’s dad says.

Ollie says. “That means other’s that made it might have chances too.”

We’re grinning and we’re kissing then I’m getting our things and I take care of the animals and make double sure of things and then we head to his parents house.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Nine**

The house smells amazing after we did a patrol and look around before settling in.

Margaret and Nan have the porky in the over with salt and pepper and onion powder and there was paprika on there too. Five pretty rare slices of bacon have been laid over top him and frozen apples and carrots and squash and pumpkin are all in the roaster with him.

And there’s things to do still.

I get cleaned up and changed and I took my time doing it too. One of my nicest bras that really gives me a good line and nice underpants that are comfy but I’m bathed, shaved and freshly shampooed and after that and I slide into dark leggings for extra warmth and a cute dress I had been saving that is one of those cotton short sleeved dresses with the scoop neck on it that shows off my boobs really well and a bottom that fits in that pencil skirt way and it’s this warm deep chocolate brown.

It’s a special occasion so I do my make-up and my hair too as best as I can...eyes with mascara and shadow, foundation and I make my hair loose today and tie it back from under to up with that bow made with a ribbon.

Then I’m in the kitchen with the ladies as the guys are cleaning up.

Getting complimented for looking cute just sort of was the topper for the day.

And we’re all dressed up too which is just nice.

Nan says that this reminds her when folks used to get together with the cooking and getting dressed up and cleaned up way back when she was a kid and her parents and grandparents did that kind of thing all the time.

So while the guys are getting cleaned up we go find some older music that sort of feeds the mood.

It’s all stuff converted from records and other stuff Nan has on her MP-3 player.

It’s still kind of strange for me to be using computer stuff without the internet.

But it’s all good as I’m dance swaying back and forth to *Honky Tonkin*

Old twangy country’s more than fine actually I like some of that joyful stuff that they did and I can remember my grandparents listening to this stuff and Nan loves Hank Williams.

And as we’re baking she’s teaching me dance steps of her generation in turns with dancing with Margaret.

The food gets made of course and other than the Porky and the roast veggies there’s creamed potatoes that Nan put down and we made rice pudding with the canned milk and a really carefully made custard that was really rich with yolks and Nan had steeped the yolks overnight after whisking with the brown sugar she added and the pumpkin pie spices she still had and we still had the fruitcake too which Nan cut into cubes to serve and conserve.

Oddly enough as supper went fruitcake was the topic of conversation.

Ollie brought up. “You know no one used to like it.”

His grandfather gave him this look. “Speak for yourself sonny, I grew up eating it.”

“All the time?”

“Nope too expensive usually but it was a serious gift back in the day, expensive but it lasted I can remember my dad taking it in the woods.”

Pop’s dad was a logger.

Yes Pop’s he told me to call him Pop’s.

Arthur chimes in with. “Back then it was the really old school energy bar.”

Margaret nods. “Dense carbs, nuts for protein, there’s vitamins in the fruit and really well preserved if booze soaked.”

These were definitely filled with the aroma of rum, even if I didn’t drink much before that I knew that smell just from x-mas baking.

My contribution was. “There was fruitcakes in these sci-fi book by Elizabeth Moon that folks took on space journeys, always made sense to me.”

Which actually had me talking about her work and Vatta’s war and the Esmay Suiza books that followed and with things being as they are everyone was actually interested.

All that revolved around cleaning up at that point and the guys cleared things in the living room and there was some better dancing music played and the six of us danced away a good bit of the night.

Nan even brought out some of Pop’s homemade drink and chokecherry wine’s pretty godawful but with a mix of tonic water it’s drinkable and tastes like cranberries or close enough to it.

I’m a lightweight but instead of getting drunk I’m really buzzed and we leave for home after Ollie and I got kissy and that might have freaked Arthur and Pop’s out.

We get a couple cans of mix and a bottle to go and we pack up some leftovers and go home.

Ollie gets the fires banked and does look out and I pay attention to the animals and check on some of the others.

A little bit of fruitcake to the goat, pigs and chickens for Salvation day, loose bits of porky for the cats and dogs.

Then some more music and Ollie and I dance some more, drink some more with music we like and then we make love and it might have been the drinks or the reminder of the day but we were a little desperate, moving with a little more purpose, life...almost a unified act of love and defiance.

Ollie was sleeping the sleep only a well laid man has and I took a bath getting cleaned up and then made a last drink and in warm pj’s and a blanket I went to the radio room and turned things on.

“Hey y’all it’s Holly again and I just wanted to reach out and talk again.”

And I talk sitting there covered up a few of the animals with me in the room lit by the console lights I talk.

Talk about when it fell.

About what happened with us, with me...how I felt and then some about tonight and how good that was.

“I know the sky’s fallen, I know we all lost so much everyone but if you’re out there and able to hear and listen just keep going folks, keep the faith folks. “

“Remember, What we lose in the fire we’ll find in the ashes.”

“October 7th.”

“And with that I’m going to leave you all with what I’m feeling is a good song for all of us considering today.”

“The day after when we all survived.”

I switch it over so my downloaded music starts playing and I sit back and just listen as *Hallelujah* being sung by Leonard Cohen starts playing.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

**Apocalypse Snow Part Ten**

I’m at the radio a lot.

It’s just an outlet at first and then a habit.

It’s been about a month since Salvation Day and I’ve been using it as an outlet.

Everyday with the music.

I give the date several times a day and the hour...because when you don’t know it’s one of those things that just doesn’t make things better or easier.

I try for songs without overlapping things.

Ollie goes on sometimes with survival tips and how to build things like wire coat hanger backpacks and other things. Though once he got into duct tape he started with his “Handyman’s corner.” like from Red/Green...that’s an old but great comedy show.

Arthur stops in to talk some too with how to get power running, how to use what you got to get a crank or pedal or windmill going. “Power hour.”

I start talking about survival cooking.

“Ramen talk.” That’s all about cooking ramen and all the different things you can do and might have.

“Pork ramen goes incredible with fish and actually better than shrimp flavors do with canned fish, though if you do have canned fish then if you can find them then you have to find kippers to go with kimchi flavored noodles...and oh holy moley if you have a can of tomatoes you’re like just set for a good couple of days.”

I’m planning more...I’m not sure why.
I’m...we’re not sure if anyone’s out there.

With necessity being the mother of invention we end up going out.

Try the hunting at those fields the boys saw.

They’re thin, but not gaunt and there’s a dozen or so I guess and we do drop one.

It took three days to do it they’re hyper aware and skittish something’s been hunting them and Pops is pretty sure it’s coyotes. They were around quite a bit before all of this and they’re likely thinned out and adapted to things now too.

Pops is pretty sure the deer will come back because they’ll have to.

And again we’re butchering like in the old days.

Well Arthur and Pops

Maggie...yep that happened too me calling her that and Ollie and I headed out to Cornerville.

We find it easy enough and we’re armed and we’re being careful but it’s the same as Brookdale small town and now a ghost town.

We’re all snowed in here as much as anywhere and after scouting things out we find the places we’re looking for. The local grocery store, they have an Irving gas station and a Giant Tiger store...that’s sort of a crappy version of Wal Mart.

It takes awhile to get to things and ropes and to get to the plate glass windows and we get through those one at a time and we’re sort of sliding down and into these places.

Carefully.

There always needs to be careful.

I’m frankly there for hormones and birth control packs.

Maggie gets other stuff but I see her getting a couple of pregnancy kits.

Oh...yeah I suppose her and Arthur are doing it.

There’s lots of things that we take, and Ollie true to his radio show makes out sleds better literally by taking the shopping carts from Giant Tiger and using them to increase how much the sleds can haul with of course duct tape.

I do find the things I’m looking for, no one thought of hormones as a survival thing when it happened.

There’s lots that we load and take from all those stores and it’s full carts and under the carts and bags tied to the carts and the back of our snowmobiles packed.

Giant Tiger had more junk food than people could take now all ours and stuff that just lasts forever. Chips, candies, popcorn, canned meats and fish. Seriously people didn’t barely touch the sardines or kippers and in the back there were boxes of more stuff corned beef and ramen and well everything.

Much to Albert’s pain we used his car garage and moved out his old GTO and parked it outside and used it as a storehouse and every bit of space that we had to take everything we could hold.

When we’re done for the night I catch everyone up on the radio.

Remembrance Day I start with talking about that...the wars but also now about those we all lost, about how many people in our forces must have fought getting or trying to get people to safety and aren’t with us anymore.

“If you’re hearing this and you’re in our forces thank you. I know somewhere somehow you survived. That you have survivors with you.”

“And if you’re somewhere warm, safe because of our forces thank them. Jesus please thank them because they lost everything too and odds are they’re still going. Still keeping on keeping on folks.”

I leave it at that and have a playlist that I made up for today and I head out with the music starting to play. *Brothers in Arms* By Dire Straits

These mist-covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged high
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

There’s a lot of other stuff but it’s pretty much stuff like the The Top Gun soundtrack, *Paint it black* by The Rolling Stones a bunch of CCR and *Simple man* By Lynyrd Skynrd.

It’s surreal listening to it on a portable radio in the barns.

It took a week to get everything ready that we could take and load and store away then hit our fuel depot and top that off too.

The last thing I do before we settle in for our second winter one that might get worse is get the mail.

Ever Canada Post has a flag pole.

And yeah it was a trip all on it’s own and I’m straight up stealing from the movie The Postman with Kevin Costner but I get all the letters I can get and we get packages as well finding various things but several things of candy and fudge and four bottles of whiskey.

I start mornings and later in the evenings reading the mail out over the radio.

Just before lunch I read some from children’s books and stories.

Just after supper we play a movie.

I spend time actually describing the scenes like trying for that story radio thing.

That starts to become my thing.

Ollie does his bit too but this is sort of mine.

Talking out in the dark or out in that ever white and grey difference.

Apocalypse Snow Part Eleven

November 22nd they came.

It was before dawn and the animals heard it all happening first.

Snowmobiles...lots of them and Ollie and I raced to the C.B. I get the shells and the guns and I’m already hearing shots.

Bullets hitting the house, my house...our house.

“We’ve got raiders, raiders keep an eye out! Snowjackers!”

There’s really no recourse but fight.

Our place is built up but it’s not a fortress at all, if they wanted to they could get through,

It’s.

It’s as bad as before.

Worse.

They’re really pretty feral looking and it’s still dark out and they have torches, headlights with red plastic over them.

Screaming, screaming and howling to scare us.

Well it’s working and I’m plenty scared.

I still raise my rifle to my shoulder and sight in and fire killing someone.

Crack-pop...crack-pop...snow spattering with misses wood splintering around me.

Ollie shooting dropping some.

It’s all hunting rifles but still utterly terrifying.

I scream. “Get out of here!”

I hear some of them. “That’s her! That’s the voice!”

Another one yells out deep voiced. “Hand over the girl! We came for the woman hand over the girl!”

Another crazy sounding voice shouted. “Giv er, giv her t’us y’doan deserve her!”

They’re here for me?

I do a quick look of the ones I can see.

All men.

All dirty, and just…

“Oh hell no you assholes!” I say firing back and I’m crazy grinning.

I’m trans, I don’t hide that on my broadcasts either. “Hey where’s your girls!?”

Crazy voice gets ranty crazier. “Ded...all ded fucking goddamned bitches wouldn’t suck me...wouldn’t touch me...last three kilt themselves! An here’s you...here soundin sweet sexy evert night and I...I’M GONNA RAPE YOU SO MUCH YOU’LL BREAK AN LUV ME F’EVER!”

I know where he is now out there I think and I fire two fast shots and I see him move.

He’s in enough light now and he fire’s back and I duck.

He screams out this “Yeeeeee-heeee!”

I take the shot and as chancy as it is I shoot him in the crotch.

Fucking rapist.

He screams, he screams…. “My dick, my dick!” he does this two times before I shoot him down.

Three rush us on the snowmobiles and try ram through.

It fucking worked too, there’s stuff welded on the front of these things.

All three are shooting at Ollie.

I see him go down.

I freak and start firing faster and I end up empty.

They rush me and knock me down and start over powering my and I’m screaming as they’re ripping at my clothes.

Greasy stained hands grabbing my breasts so hard that they’re bruising.

I’m screaming. “NO!, NO! I’ll die first!”

One’s on top of my punching me until I see stars...kissing me with rot that I can taste.

I hear growls and Rush is on one biting and snarling.

I’m trying to reach my rifle...I can’t and my knife’s on my other side of me and that arm’s pinned.

I reach for anything….

My fingers find my ammo pouch and I grip a 30.08 shell the primer side against my palm and swing it at his head like a spike stabbing him over and over.

He screams and we fight, rolling over the snow.

He’s stronger than me.

I drive the shell into his ear the softest spot I can reach and he shrieks.

I see Ollie back up and driving his hatchet into the skull of one of the the three and Rush and the other dogs are tearing into the other one and mine lunges for me pulling a combat knife trying to kill me.

I take the blow...I never intended to I was just covering myself up when the blade goes through my forearm.

Then we’re rolling.

And I roll him desperately until I get one of their torches.

I plant it against his face and I didn’t plan any of it but the torch, the fire sets off the shell and his head explodes.

I can remember Ollie getting to me.

Then snippets.

Ollie and my arm.

Maggie...Pops...Arthur...Nan.

I think I seen my dad too.

I think I seen him saying good girl to me.

Deep down I know I bawled, cried over him, the others...my lost ones, me killing people.

**Apocalypse Snow Part Twelve**

I was down for a week.

They saved me, they saved my arm but was so hurt.

The arm, cracked ribs, I lost a tooth...cracked when I was eating and Pops pulled it.

So many bruises.

I cried a lot then.

And I cried on air.

I talked it out of me there, gave it all out to the airwaves.

I don’t know if Ollie and the others listened but I had to get it out of me.

It was Christmas eve when I was strong enough inside myself to be intimate with Ollie again.

Christmas.

I thought a lot about it until Christmas Eve day then I put up every Christmas song I could find.

Reached out again over the airwaves. “Merry Christmas Survivors.”

“We missed the last one here with all the stuff going on with the end of the world and things and considering that we here survived that attack in November I need this. I need this and maybe y’all do too.”

“Don’t give up, please, please for the love of our lost ones don’t give in.”

“It’s Christmas folks, peace on earth, goodwill towards men.”

“Show yourself some goodwill.”

“I’m setting up a happy playlist folks and heading over to Ollie’s folks place we’re having fried chicken as there’s no turkey to be had.”

“Be safe, love yourself, love those around you...hang on.”

I leave heading out to Maggie and Arthur’s place to cook and eat and have an actual Christmas.

They had a tree...an artificial one but a tree and there was presents.

Then Ollie stunned me.

Utterly, utterly and wonderfully.

I was drinking hot chocolate Maggie and I made with chocolate bars when he passed me a present from him.

It was an actual engagement ring.

“I couldn’t buy one Holly, there just wasn’t a place I could find one. I made this…”

He knelt in front of me, in front of everyone, grunting through the pain...he’d been shot in the shoulder and was still healing.

“Holly Hunter will you marry me?”

I bawled...full on happy crying. “Y..yy..yes, oh god Ollie yes!”

Maggie gave me her wedding dress.

Pops married us...I don’t care how official it was or not.

We weren’t wasting time.

We all almost died.

We had a good bit of a party after that.

And that night after everything I was able to be with him again once we got home.

Christmas day…

I’m making coffee and I hear Maggie softly over the C.B.

“Holly?”

“Holly here what’s up?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Oh...oh wow congratulations!”

“I need to ask you something, something big.”

“Okay?”

“Arthur and I want you and Ollie to raise the baby.”

“Maggie….I…”

“Just listen...I’m nearly forty four. This pregnancy isn't going to be easy and I might not make it. I want you to raise my baby Holly, you and Ollie are young enough…”

“I...I have to talk to Oliver… (sniffle)...I’ll let you know Maggie.”

I signed off and I looked up seeing Ollie there and he came over and hugged me tight.

“What do you think Hon?” He asks quietly.

(Sniffle.) “It’s her baby, I don’t want to take that from her.”

“I know, I’m freaked too.”

“But god damn it Ollie I want this...I’ve wanted this all my life. I’ve always, always wanted to be a mommy.”

He kisses the top of my head. “You’d be a great mom.”

“Would I?”

“Definitely, you’re amazing Holly, I fall in love with you deeper and in so many deeper ways all the time.”

I snuggle deeper and he holds me and dance-rocks me softly. “I want to do this...are you sure we can do this?”

“Positive. And Mom’s scared, worried this is as dangerous as she thinks Holly. Dad was never really hands on and Pop and Nan are too old. She needs this too babe, she needs to see that the baby and we have a future.”

I nod and sniffle. “Okay...okay…”

I’m going to be a mommy.

I’m a wife, I’m loved, cared for...and now I’m going to be a mother.

It’s the end of the world and when we should be losing hope we’re still here...still fighting, living, loving...fighting.

I reach for the C.B. and there’s this sound over our broadcast system like static but too regular for static, that’s repeating and Ollie goes to the radio room and I follow. He fiddles around with the scanner and we start hearing.

“This is CAFB Debert Nova Scotia with a crew of civilian survivors...is there anyone really out there? We just got this stuff working. Holly Hunter are you out there? Are you really real?”

I get on our broadcast channel. “It’s Holly Dixon now Debert but I’m definitely here Debert and we can hear you.”

I’m bawling and smiling so huge right now as I can hear cheers on the other channel, cheers and crying happy cheers, happy sobbing.

“Merry Christmas Debert.”

I can hear the girl on the other side. “Oh Thank God!” I can hear her crying now too and her voice thick with emotion says.

“Merry Christmas Holly, Merry Christmas and just…”

“I know...I’m crying too….Hope’s a pretty good present right?”

She’s crying and laughing and I’m close to doing that too. “Best present.”

(Sniffle.) “So Debert any requests?”

*** Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Holidays. ***

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