The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [59]
"We've had a call from head office telling us not to accept credit cards or cheques," she said to me as we squeezed into the packed shop.
Deftly dancing around the suffocating aisles, I managed to extricate half-a-dozen microwave Chinese meals, a bottle of milk, some whisky and a packet of bourbon creams. At the till it was like a rugby scrum. One man had pretty much the entire contents of the meat cabinet in two big trolleys, and he was waving his Barclaycard at them.
"No plastic!" shouted the woman behind the till. "I've told you, cash only!"
The queue snaked around the shop. I waved my purchases at the girl who I'd seen putting the notice on the door, and gave her a twenty pound note. She cast a glance over my basket, nodded, and stuffed the twenty in her pocket. "Do you mind if I take the basket?" I asked.
She shrugged. "You can have it for a fiver."
I only had a ten so I gave her that and picked up a copy of "Country Living" from the cardboard display bin that had been knocked over near the tills.
As I left the shop, glad for a bit of fresh air, a big 4x4 squealed to a halt just in front of me. There were four men wearing balaclavas and carrying baseball bats. One of them looked at me as they climbed out. "Give us your stuff!" he snarled.
One of the others pulled him away by his jacket. "Leave him. We'll get what's inside." He paused, as if re-considering, then held up his baseball bat. "Give us your money, though."
I fished in my pocket and pulled out another tenner. He snatched it off me and shoved it into his jeans. "Right, inside. Tinned stuff, bottled water, powdered milk. Twat anyone who gets in your way."
I hurried back towards home. The main road was now choked with traffic, cars inching along and beeping their horns. I spotted Bob and his wife, their Rover loaded up with stuff. Bob wound down the window.
"Off on your hols?" I said.
"We're getting out," he shouted. "I'd do the same if I was you."
"Where are you going to go?" I said, looking at the long line of traffic stretching off out of sight.
"The Lakes, probably. Bit of high ground. Clean water."
I nodded. Bob's wife slapped him and pointed forward, where the car in front had moved ahead three or four centimetres. Bob waved and began to wind up the window, then stopped and brought it down again. He rummaged in his jacket and tossed a set of keys at me. "If you're staying here anyway, you wouldn't do us a favour and turn the engine over on the MG, would you? It's murder if it doesn't get a few revs every couple of days."
I picked up the keys and waved as the Rover jerked fonvard again. I wondered if I'd be able to sneak Bob's MG out for a spin while they were away. A lovely little car it was. British Racing Green. They don't make them like that any more.
I got home just in time to watch the space shuttle taking off from Cape Kennedy.
On the fifth day before the end, most of southern Japan was destroyed in a nuclear conflagration. I had to admit, things were starting to look a bit bleak. I'd had another largely sleepless night, mainly due to the traffic on the main road, a constant stream of cars and vans crawling along with bad-tempered honks. I wondered how far Bob had got.
Apparently a bit of sponge or foam had fallen off one of the space shuttle's engines as it orbited the earth, waiting for the asteroid to come into range. This had played havoc with the steering and the computers had gone all bonkers, plunging the shuttle back into sub-orbital space and sending it spinning down towards Japan. It had hit the ground and the nukes had gone up, several miles south of Osaka. The city and most of the surrounding area had gone.
The Russians said not to worry, they were sending a rocket full of nukes up as well.