Lena’s phone rang while she was carrying a bucket of eggs toward the farmhouse.
She almost ignored it.
Her phone had become less a communication device and more a machine people used to assign her additional problems.
Then she saw the screen.
MOM
Lena stopped.
Oh.
When had she last called her?
She genuinely couldn’t remember.
That was probably bad.
“Hi, Mom.”
“She’s alive.”
Lena smiled despite herself and continued toward the house.
“Last I checked.”
“I wouldn’t know.
Apparently my daughter is too busy becoming an agricultural tycoon to call her mother.”
“That’s not fair.”
“How many chickens do you have?”
Lena looked down at the eggs.
“Thirty-two.”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“I was making a point.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you have thirty-two chickens?”
“Eggs.”
“I know what chickens do, Lena.”
“Some are for meat.”
“That did not improve the answer.”
Lena laughed.
It felt strangely good.
She’d spent days talking about feed reserves, breeding populations, irrigation redundancy and greenhouse construction.
Everyone wanted to know what Redtail could produce, store or survive.
Her mother wanted to know why she owned thirty-two chickens.
“I have goats too.”
Another silence.
“How many goats?”
Lena considered the question.
“Does it matter?”
“That is not a reassuring response.”
Lena laughed again.
She climbed the porch steps and set the eggs on the outdoor table.
From here she could see most of Redtail.
Or what Redtail was becoming.
Fresh tire tracks cut across ground that had been empty when she arrived.
Stacks of lumber and pipe waited beside the barn.
Machinery moved around the greenhouse site, its low mechanical rumble mixing with hammering, chickens and the occasional indignant goat.
The last of the hay had arrived that morning.
The ninety-day feed reserve was complete.
There was still an obscene amount left to do.
“How are you?” her mother asked.
“Good.”
“Lena.”
“What?”
“How are you?”
Lena leaned against the railing.
There it was.
The difference between her mother and everyone else.
Nobody at Redtail asked that without meaning How is the project?
“I’m tired.”
“I figured.”
“Really tired.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Some.”
“Eating?”
“Yes.”
That one she could answer confidently.
There was absolutely no shortage of food.
“Are you scared?”
Lena’s eyes moved automatically to the countdown.
“Yes.”
Her mother was quiet.
Lena watched two workers carry pipe toward the greenhouse foundations.
Then her mother asked, “How scared am I supposed to be?”
That was harder.
“Enough to listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me what’s happening.”
Lena rubbed her thumb against the weathered porch rail.
She’d warned her family after the asteroid.
She’d told them she thought something bigger was happening.
She’d told them she was preparing.
She had never told them everything.
“I will,” Lena said.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“That’s not an answer.”
A flash of silver on the road caught Lena’s attention.
Something enormous was coming around the bend.
She straightened.
At first she thought it was another delivery truck, but the shape was wrong.
Too sleek.
Too polished.
Sunlight flashed across a massive windshield as a black-and-silver motorcoach rolled slowly down the road.
Lena stepped off the porch.
“What the hell?”
“What?”
The motorcoach passed Redtail without slowing, an SUV towing behind it.
It was enormous.
Not RV enormous.
Tour-bus enormous.
The kind of thing that probably had heated floors and cost more than Redtail.
Then its turn signal came on.
Lena frowned.
There wasn’t anything-
The motorcoach turned.
Lena stared.
It disappeared onto the narrow road leading into the old campground next door.
“What the fuck?”
“Lena?”
“Hold on.”
She stepped farther into the yard as if another ten feet would somehow let her see through the trees.
Nothing.
The campground had been abandoned.
Or close enough to abandoned that Lena had mentally filed it under not my problem when she’d bought Redtail.
Apparently someone had neglected to inform the enormous luxury bus.
“Okay,” Lena muttered.
“What?”
“Apparently my neighbors have arrived.”
“You have neighbors?”
“I didn’t think I did.”
“That’s generally something you know.”
“So you’d think.”
Lena stared at the road.
Then another vehicle appeared.
A black SUV.
It slowed.
Turned into the same road.
Lena’s eyes narrowed.
That was interesting.
“Tonight,” she said.
“I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Lena-”
“I mean it.
I need more than five minutes to explain this, and I want to tell you properly.”
Her mother was quiet.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Tonight.
But you’re actually calling.”
“I am.”
“And you’re going to tell me why you suddenly own a farm.”
“Yes.”
“Why you have thirty-two chickens.”
“That’s really not one of the complicated parts.”
“And why I should apparently be scared.”
Lena’s amusement faded.
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
This one wasn’t playful.
“All right.”
Lena could hear the worry now.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.
Call me tonight.”
“I will.”
Lena lasted four hours.
That was respectable.
She processed two deliveries.
Checked the animals.
Went over the feed inventory with Ruth.
Walked the greenhouse site.
Stored another deeply unreasonable quantity of supplies.
And absolutely did not keep looking toward the trees across the road.
Except when another SUV went past.
And a pickup.
And a utility truck.
By five, Lena had spent enough time pretending she wasn’t curious.
She grabbed her keys.
The campground had looked nearly abandoned the last time she’d seen it.
It didn’t anymore.
Lena slowed almost immediately after turning onto the access road.
“What the fuck?”
Fresh tire tracks crisscrossed the gravel.
Survey stakes dotted the open ground between the trees, bright flags marking out lines and rectangles she couldn’t interpret.
Trucks were parked near the old campground building.
People moved between them carrying tablets, equipment and rolled plans.
Someone was examining the utility hookups.
Another group stood around what looked suspiciously like surveying equipment.
There were stacks of materials beneath tarps.
None of this had been here before.
Or, if it had, Lena had somehow missed an entire construction operation happening practically next door.
She drove farther in.
Then she saw the motorcoach.
The enormous black-and-silver vehicle sat in a clearing beneath the trees, looking wildly out of place among weathered picnic tables and old campground signs.
Up close, it was even more ridiculous.
Lena parked beside it.
A lower storage compartment stood open.
And Adrian Vale was crouched beside it.
Lena stopped.
Oh.
Of course.
Adrian looked up.
His expression didn’t change.
“Lena.”
She pointed at the motorcoach.
“Is that your apocalypse RV?”
Adrian glanced at the forty-something-foot luxury vehicle behind him.
“I don’t believe anyone has ever called it a apocalypse RV.”
“They have now.”
He stood and closed the compartment.
Lena looked around.
At the trucks.
The survey stakes.
The people.
The equipment.
Then back at him.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Could you be more specific?”
She gestured broadly.
“All of this.”
“I bought the property.”
Lena stared at him.
“You bought the campground.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
“Recently when?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I live next door!”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that you bought the property next door?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Lena stared at him.
Adrian waited.
“That is an incredibly annoying answer.”
“I assumed so.”
Her eyes moved back to the motorcoach.
“You live in that?”
“For the moment.”
Lena looked at it.
Then at him.
Then back at it.
“Can I see inside?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Excellent.
The inside looked less like an RV and more like someone had taken an expensive apartment and stretched it into a rectangle.
Dark wood cabinetry lined the walls.
Cream upholstery.
Stone counters.
Recessed lighting.
A refrigerator that had absolutely no business being that large inside a vehicle.
Lena ran her hand over the kitchen counter.
“This is nicer than my house.”
“Parts of it.”
“You’ve seen my kitchen.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know it’s nicer than my house.”
Adrian conceded the point with a slight tilt of his head.
There was a bedroom in the back.
A full bathroom.
A washer and dryer.
Storage everywhere.
Then Lena found the office.
She stopped in the doorway.
Of course.
A desk had been built beneath the window, complete with monitors, communications equipment and enough electronics to run a small command center.
“You have a fucking office.”
“Yes.”
“In your bus.”
“Motorcoach.” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Your apocalypse bus has an office.”
“I work.”
Lena laughed.
Through the windows, she could see people crossing the campground in the distance.
Someone drove another truck through the entrance.
She looked at Adrian.
“What are you doing here?”
“Preparing.”
“For what?”
His eyes met hers.
Lena immediately realized that had been a stupid question.
“Right.
Obviously.”
“What specifically are you doing?”
“Assessing what can be made operational before the Transition.”
Lena looked outside again.
“And you bought an entire campground to do it.”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
“Water?”
“Sure.”
He handed her a bottle from the refrigerator.
Then, somehow, there were sandwiches.
Lena hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she was halfway through one.
They sat across from each other at the small dining table, surrounded by the quiet hum of climate control and the occasional muffled sound of activity outside.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
It was unexpectedly normal.
Outside, Lena was preparing for the end of the world.
Inside, she was eating turkey and cheese in a billionaire’s apocalypse RV.
She thought about her conversation with her mom earlier.
She looked across the table.
“Are you scared?”
Adrian didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
That surprised her more than the answer should have.
“You don’t seem scared.”
“Neither do you.”
Lena opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Fair.
She looked down at her sandwich.
“What do you do when you’re scared?”
“I make plans.”
Lena slowly looked around the motorcoach.
The office.
The communications equipment.
The crews outside.
The campground he’d apparently purchased without bothering to mention it.
“Apparently.”
“And you?”
She thought about Costco.
Redtail.
Thirty-two chickens.
Goats.
Pigs.
Feed.
Seeds.
Tools.
Generators.
Medical supplies.
And an ever-growing mountain of things sitting safely outside time.
“Buy things, apparently.”
“An extraordinary number of things.”
“Fuck you.”
A small smile appeared on his face.
Lena smiled too.
Then Adrian asked, “Who were you talking to when I arrived?”
“My mom.”
“Does she know?”
Lena’s smile disappeared.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
She picked at the edge of her bread.
“Because telling strangers I predicted an asteroid was one thing.”
Adrian waited.
“Telling my mom that the world as she knows it is going to end feels different.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Lena looked up.
“Have you told everyone you’re bringing?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
“Why not?”
A pause.
“For much the same reason.”
Oh.
Lena sat back.
That made her feel strangely better.
Not because Adrian was avoiding it too.
Because apparently there wasn’t a correct way to tell someone the world was ending.
Money didn’t fix it.
Planning didn’t fix it.
Knowing didn’t make the words easier to say.
“We should probably stop doing that,” Lena said.
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I liked you better when you were just paying for my goats.”
“I still pay for your goats.”
“Good.”
It was nearly dark when Lena returned to Redtail.
The crews were gone.
The farm had settled into evening.
Warm light spilled from the farmhouse windows.
Chickens rustled quietly in the coop.
Somewhere beyond the barn, one of the goats called once and went silent.
Across the road, lights glowed between the trees.
Yesterday, there had been nothing there.
Now Adrian Vale apparently owned the campground.
For the first time, Redtail didn’t feel quite so isolated.
Lena sat on the porch.
Then she called her mother.
She answered on the first ring.
“You remembered.”
“I said I would.”
“You did.”
Lena tucked one leg beneath herself.
“Okay.”
The countdown hovered quietly at the edge of her vision.
“I’m going to tell you something, and it’s going to sound completely insane.”
Her mother sighed.
“Lena, you bought a farm and thirty-two chickens in less than two weeks.
My standards have changed.”
Lena laughed.
Then she looked out over Redtail.
“I’m serious, Mom.”
“I know.”
Lena took a breath.
There were probably better ways to do this.
She hadn’t found one.
Lena looked at the countdown.
17 DAYS : 04 HOURS : 37 MINUTES
Then out at everything it had made her build.
And this time…
she started at Costco.