Day 1

1 August 2011

Today was the last day the sky would fall.

We had been told for months that there would be a meteor shower coming, that for a whole week, a whole asteroid field's worth of space debris would be raining down on us.
The public was assured that nothing landing would be larger than an inch or two in diameter. Still, that is an inch or two of something that could potentially be moving at around 64 kilometers per second, I don't care if it's only anything across, that's going to hurt like hell.
When the sky began to fall a week ago, I started to wear a helmet. My friends actually thought it was a good idea.
That was a first.
We all went down to the local army surplus store and shopped around.
Kevlar, steel, all worked just fine for our cause, although some people had issues with fitting.
Catherine is but 13, tiny head, and we weren't going to make her go around with a bicycle helmet, that would be boring.
Instead we bought foam from a store across the street and lined it enough that she wore a genuine Gulf War helmet fashionably.
While in the store, we conversed about the coming meteor shower, and I presented the point once more that an object only weighing five grams will have 489,612.88 ft-lbs of energy as it strikes the ground.
Before you ask, I have had this number in my head for a while now, ever since the first warning of a possible
Someone actually asked what that meant, and I explained that a .357 magnum bullet weighs around 125 grain, which is roughly 8 grams. That moves at 1450 fps, yielding around 538 ft-lbs of energy.
The young girl and her boyfriend gaped at me, hearing the initial amount of energy of a meteor of the same weight. They also bought helmets.
That was six days ago.
Yesterday I came back to the store for fun camp supplies like strike anywhere matches, rope, extra water containers, flares and fire extinguishers for when we played with the flares.
As I entered the shop, the old man that owns the place smiled at me and gave me an oddly warm welcome.
It's you, he declared with much fervor.
I wasn't sure how to take this; the first thing that came to mind was actually running out of the store. He was smiling though, and I REALLY wanted to play with some flares on this trip, so I stepped forward, grinned back and greeted him.
Apparently he's sold every helmet and piece of body armor he owned since I talked to that couple. People were coming in, asking for multiple pieces to the point where he had to pull stock from other stores just to keep up with the demand.
Fear is good for businesses like yours, I told him.
He then told me that after the first day he raised all the prices of the helmets and armor to reflect the demand and supply and he was giving me five percent of those sales.
I was not about to disagree with this, especially when it paid for everything I wanted to get and left me enough to go buy lunch afterwards.
Before leaving for home, I sent a text out to the troops together to get everyone to meet up at my house so that I could be driven to the RV place and then we could shove off.
Technology is quite useful, getting ten people together with a single message. Some days I wonder how difficult it would be if I couldn't reach my friends instantly.
Eh.
Everyone was promptly on time, some people there before me.
Jon and his little sister Nym sat atop his jeep when I drove up. They were always early, which also makes sense, since they did live next door to me.
In the back of Jon's jeep seem to be a large chest and then nylon bag after nylon bag. Tent, their clothes, I believe he even packed his hunting gear in nylon bags.
It's August and we're heading for the desert; there's no reason for everything to be waterproof. Jon was always the cautious one though, and I can appreciate that.
Nym…well, Nym likes bags.
I could tell which bags were hers because they were a bit more…lumpy. I could see which duffle also held her binoculars and which bag held her bow. These bags were the ones that looked as if they were hastily thrown together five minutes before they were shoved into the back of the jeep. While Jon's were placed neatly and some held down with netting, Nym's bags were…I think they were bound by bungee cables.
I hopped out of the car and greeted them. Jon, stoic as ever, shook my hand and nodded. Nym jumped at me and gave me something more akin to a wrestling move than it was a greeting. I barely was able to gasp the words you're killing me before I am pretty sure I blacked out for a second as my brain shut down from oxygen depravation.