Six Bullets Read Free Page A

I could accept the
death of Leanne and her family, or at least rationalize it. People died, loved
ones died, that was life. But I couldn’t accept or rationalize an asteroid the
size of Mount Everest careening into the planet. It was like trying to
visualize what existed before the Big Bang. It was beyond my comprehension.
    I felt despair. I felt denial. I felt an irreversible sense
of loss.
    I wasn’t grieving for a single family. I was grieving for
the entire human race.
    Our time was up. We were done. Given our humble beginnings
in the trees of Africa, we had a good go, we made something of our species, we
almost really made something of our species, we were on the verge of
greatness, perhaps godliness in another century or two, but like they say, “All
good things come to an end.”
    My hand is tiring—I’m not used to using pencils—so I’m going
to take a break.
     
    ••••••
     
    I just performed an inventory of the
fallout shelter with my hand-cranked flashlight. Still have plenty of the
basics such as sugar and salt and oil, but down to about half my stock of
canned and freeze-dried goods. I have plenty of heirloom seeds, which are disease-resistant
crops that continue to produce seeds season after season. But without sunlight
they’re about as useless as an ejection seat in a helicopter.
    Water, thankfully, is not a problem. I haven’t had to open
any of the five-gallon bottles. We’ve been drinking the water from the
freshwater tank. It’s not fresh anymore; it’s filled with acid rain. But one
gallon of liquid chlorine bleach disinfects three thousand gallons of water,
killing all the pollutants and pathogens that might be bathing in it.
    Walter and I had soup and crackers for dinner. Sully made an
appearance, but only to take his bowl into his room.
    I still have no idea what he does in there. He doesn’t let
me in. But he never used to be an indoors kid, never read books or magazines,
so he doesn’t have any of that stuff in there. Most weekdays you would find him
at the skateboard park with his mates. On weekends he played rugby and
basketball. He has the body of an athlete. He’s only sixteen but six feet tall,
lean, with broad shoulders. He probably would have made a good rower—well, if
he hadn’t grown up in the middle of the Outback, that is.
    He’s a handsome kid too. Dark shaggy hair, dark eyebrows and
eyes. He definitely got his looks from his mom. She was something, Suz. I fell
for her back in high school. It took me weeks to work up the nerve to ask her
out. She said no. But I was persistent, and I finally got her to go with me to
the movies. That was the year I dropped out of school, started in the mines—and
started making money. I was the first one of my mates to own a car, which
probably helped me win her over. Not to mention all the gifts I used to buy
her. Mostly jewelry and shit but I also got her
    This is stupid. This diary. Why the fuck am I writing about
the Suz? Fuck Suz. Who the fuck cares about her? I’m going to throw the fucking
thing out.
     
    ••••••
     
    Been three days since I last wrote
in the diary. I’m reneging. I don’t think I’m going to throw it out. I was
watching Walter sitting in his crib earlier. He was in one of his happy moods,
smiling and sucking on everything, and I had a terrible premonition I’m not
going to see him grow up. Actually, I don’t know if that’s a premonition, or
simply common sense given the state of affairs of the planet. But if something
happens to me before the sky clears and some sort of order reasserts itself,
and if Sully gets his shit together enough to raise Walter on his own, then the
diary might be the only thing the boy has to remember his old man by.
     
    ••••••
     
    I’m on the roof. The sky’s the usual
otherworldly gray, turbulent and rumbling. My face is numb from the cold. I’ve
just rubbed some warmth back into my hands so I can pick up the pencil.
    Where was I before