Worm

28

Holed up in the O’Connor house were all the survivors of Pine Street: Fern and Marv O’Connor, the twins—Kassie and Kalie—and Tony Albert, Donna Peppek and Bertie Kalishek. As far as they knew, there was no one else. The mud sea outside was rising and soon it would be completely impassable. Marv figured if the goddamn National Guard didn’t arrive real soon, things were not only going to get desperate but downright ugly.

But as Fern had said, they were together and they were alive.

That was true, he figured. Unlike the other houses on Pine, he knew his was much older and had actually been a farmhouse back when there were no other houses on the street (which was then just a dirt drive). The point being, it was solid brick and it had weathered a lot of years. So far, it was weathering the mud sea, too, unlike a lot of the other prefabs that had nearly completely collapsed. He figured they were safe. And Fern, God bless her, kept a very well-stocked pantry, so nobody would go hungry.

Donna Peppek was doing her best to keep Bertie Kalishek under control and Fern had engaged the twins in a game of Crazy Eights. This by candlelight, of course, now that the power was out. Something which made little sense, because the lights were on across the street. Go figure.

Marv went down into the basement with Tony and grabbed the lanterns from the camping equipment. They were battery powered, but that was no problem because like food and toilet paper, Fern had stockpiled them. When they had the living room lit up nicely, they went into Marv’s little den at the back of the house and unlocked the gun cabinet. He had three weapons: a Mossberg four-ten, a bolt-action Remington 30-06 with a scope, and a .38 Special that had belonged to his dad. There was no ammo for the .38, but there were fifteen rounds for the Mossberg bird gun and ten for the Remington deer rifle.

They had food.

They had lights.

They had arms.

They were safe.

“I got this bad feeling things are going to heat up out there,” Tony said as he loaded the four-ten.

Marv nodded. “Me, too. If it was just me, I wouldn’t be too worried… but with Fern and the girls. I don’t know. I’m scared.”

“Let’s go make sure nothing happens to them,” Tony said.