6:00 Hours: A Dystopian Novel by Chad Evercroft

They stood breathing heavily, disheveled, and red-faced.
    “You expect Danny to know what the weather is going to be?” Frank said, his eyes fiery. “If there was a drought, you’d be singing a different tune. Same with a hard winter. Or a million other scenarios.”
    “Yeah, except this one,” the tall man countered.
    “Oh, yeah, so Danny should apologize for the tornado, okay, that makes sense,” Frank scoffed. “It’s a waste of time talking to you.”
    The two men looked at each other. No one around them was on their side; they were met by disgusted expressions and shaking heads. Sheepish, the two just muttered and walked away to stew in silence. People’s anger after a disaster was rarely logical. It was hard to be angry at a combination of humidity and air, or even God, if one believed in him. Neither could be grasped or struck, like the face of another human could be. Being angry at another person was just easier.
     

4.
    The scuffle drew the attention of Marty, who had been camped out at the opposite side of the gym. He knew Frank, and they greeted each other warmly. Frank, like Danny, had dropped out of school to pursue different dreams and had been working on building a woodworking shop in his garage.
    “That’s all gone now,” he said, his voice cracking. He cleared it aggressively. “I got the house from a foreclosure, so it wasn’t a ton of money, but it was pretty much all I had. Not sure what I’ll do now. Maybe go back home with my tail between my legs.”
    Hunter widened his eyes and looked at Danny with a confused expression.
    “It’s just a saying,” Danny whispered. “He doesn’t actually have a tail.”
    “What are you folks going to do?” Frank asked, glad to change the subject away from himself.
    “We don’t know,” Miranda replied. “We...haven’t really thought about it.”
    It wasn’t like Danny had never thought about starting over. He had a plan for if the power grid went down permanently, or if a new and dangerous disease began sweeping the country. Miranda would get out the face masks and they would barricade themselves in their house. Danny had designs for all kinds of booby traps and security measures to keep looters out. Bugging out had never been in the cards; Danny calculated that the risks were just too high with two young children and besides, bugging out was really the best option for people who lived in crowded areas where rioting and violence was a real concern. Stoneholt was a tight-knit community that had a history of self-sacrifice and banding together. What Danny had not considered was what would happen if he had to start over unwillingly. In retrospect, that was stupid. People’s lives were routinely destroyed on the coast, and tornadoes and fires took out whatever was in between. Danny had just always assumed that somehow, he would be spared.
    Three hours after the tornado had ripped through town, everyone who had any food gathered what they had and offered it to the church to cook for the gym as a group. Canned peas, corn, salmon, juice, and beans were collected along with the pasta and spaghetti sauce the church had on hand. Plates were handed out soup kitchen-style and kids were given glasses of milk mixed with chocolate syrup for dessert. Hunter and Jesse drank their milk very slowly, side by side, watching everyone eat in silence around them.
    “You should try to call your family,” Miranda whispered to Danny. “They’re probably worried sick.”
    Miranda had no family; she was an only child and her parents had died years before of what was now known as climate-related illnesses: Lyme disease due to the expansion of the territory where ticks could breed and lung cancer from air pollutants. Their illnesses had been drawn-out and painful, and when they passed on, it was more a relief than anything else. That was all a while before Danny had even met Miranda. His family became her family.
    Danny gingerly picked his way through the gym in search