Nine Meals
Mike Kilroy
Author Bio
Since he wrote his first book at a young age about THE VENUSIANS for a school project, Mike Kilroy has been hooked on writing. An award-winning journalist for more than two decades, NINE MEALS is his first foray into fiction since his very early work as a boy growing up in a small Ohio town.
The author’s idea for “Nine Meals” was hatched during a power outage that lasted three days. He saw how quickly tempers flared and how, after just 72 hours without electricity, the mood of his town and neighborhood changed. The personalities and morals of people who he had known well for years began to skew.
Kilroy is an avid fan of science fiction writing and his idols in the genre are Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clark. He enjoys books that stick with the reader long after the final page and strives to deliver that kind of experience in his works.
A 1994 graduate of Kent State University with a degree in journalism, Kilroy now lives in a Pittsburgh suburb. The author has many more stories bouncing around in his head that he wishes to tell. NINE MEALS was the first one to escape.
Description
Cheese Ravioli, Beefaroni or SpaghettiOs? That is the big decision that Billy Shepard has to make on this day – one that is quickly going to turn his sheltered life upside down.
Shep, as his friends call him, has carved out quite a nice, peaceful life for himself in a world devoid of electricity and the trappings of pre-disaster life. The end has come, not from war or pestilence, but from the sun in the form of a Coronal Mass Ejection that has destroyed the power grid – and society right along with it.
He saw the collapse first hand and was shocked by how quickly it happened. It took just three days, or nine missed meals, for anarchy to set in and tear down what took generations to built.
While he sees suffering around him, Shep is shielded from the chaos. Food and water is hard to come by in these grim times, but not for Shep, who prepared for the worst by hoarding canned goods in his underground disaster shelter. SpaghettiOs are his favorite.
His pampered post-apocalyptic life is forever changed when a couple, with a teenage girl in tow, wanders onto his property. Shep rescues the girl, Antigone, from her captors and sets in motion events that will forever change both of their lives.
Despite his comfortable life, the disaster has scarred Shep. Events of his life before the “Ejection,” as the retched masses have come to call the CME, have scarred him even more. He can be cold and calculating, as he is when he rescues Antigone. His actions have dire consequences.
Shep and Antigone are forced to flee the shelter because of the sins of Shep’s past. A man he has wronged pursues them, motivated by nothing more than vengeance. They march across the unyielding landscape that is fraught with danger toward the one place rumored to be unsullied by the disaster. Along the way, they face perils from the world and from the desperate people who are trying to live in it. The biggest obstacles, they find on their arduous journey, comes from within each of them.
Book excerpt
The light from the fire lit up her face. It was such a pretty face. It was a young face, a face that should have been full of glee and wonder, a face that should fall in love with a handsome boy, a face that should be wet with happy tears as she said “I do,” in her white dress with a long train flowing down over marble steps, a face that should have babies with faces a lot like hers.
None of that was going to happen. Well, at least it was very unlikely to happen, not as long as she stuck around with him.
They were a good five football fields away from the burning house, yet he could still hear the cracking of the wood and see the embers zip off into the night sky like tiny shooting stars.
Antigone tugged on his shirt. “We better get going. He may still be around.”
Shep just watched the fire. He always liked the way the flames flickered and changed shape. He always liked the way they licked at the darkness.
Suddenly a ball of fire rose and the ground shook with a rumble. That was the demolition charges going.
“There’s an abandoned trailer about a mile into the woods. We can stay there tonight.” He could barely squeeze the words from his lips. His head throbbed. His eyes watered from the smoke and from the pain coming from his knees and hips and, well, everywhere.
He began to walk, pushing through the branches of the tree line. He shuffled very much like Frail Man did when he stumbled away from Shep’s home that day with an arrow sticking out of his hand.
Antigone followed beside him. He would catch her stealing concerned glances at him from time to time as they slowly made their way through the thick brush.
The trailer sat in a small clearing. The light from the setting moon glistened off the metallic roof and made a perfect outline of the rickety structure. He thought a large sneeze would surely knock it to the ground.
He pushed the door open and heard the sound of mice feet scurrying across the floor. The stench of animal urine was strong. It’s going to be a long night.
He slumped onto the floor, resting his back against an old bookcase that was left behind, and Antigone sat across from him and folded her legs under her. He heard her rustling in the bug-out bag and then saw a beam of light shine at his face.
“That cut on your nose is pretty deep.”
He put his arm up to shield his eyes. “Don’t waste the batteries. I’ll be fine.”
The light went out and he could hear her rummaging through the bag again. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see her move closer to him and could smell alcohol.
She removed his glasses and dabbed what felt to him like a piece of cloth on his cut. It stung deeply. He would have flinched and pulled away if he weren’t so exhausted.
“That’s better,” she said as she slid back across the floor and sat, legs tucked under her again.
In the silence he tried not to think about what was to become of them. This was not the plan. The plan was to live in that house and in that shelter indefinitely, until either things in the outside world got much better or until things in the outside world got so much worse it would purge anything that could possibly threaten him.
That was Plan A. He didn’t have a Plan B.
They were going to be fine for a night, maybe a week. Then, well, then things were going to change. They would be no better off than Frail Man and his wife.
“I miss …” Antigone broke the silence with a peppy voice. “music. I miss Lady Gaga.”
He surely would have snickered if he didn’t hurt so much. He was sure that was what she was trying to coax out of him, but he was in no giggling mood.
How can she be so flippant? She was acting as if she were at a slumber party with a girlfriend, swapping stories about boys and what color short shorts they should buy at the mall the next day. Maybe she didn’t understand the trouble they were in now. No. That wasn’t it. He was sure she knew. Maybe she was stronger than he. Maybe he could learn something from her.
He lay down in the fetal position, propping his head up under his clasped hands. He couldn’t see her eyes, just the faint outline of her head in the near pitch-black darkness, but he could feel them drilling into him.
“I don’t miss her meat dress,” he groused. She cackled loudly. He thought he may have even heard a snort. “I miss the Beatles,” he said softly before falling asleep.
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