CHAPTER THREE
Pike sat for a moment after hanging up with Sayer. Sayer had been right about the ambivalence of American. The United States had adopted a culture of entitlement, and very few people knew how to take care of themselves any longer. Even fewer knew how to grow their own food. He knew he himself was woefully ignorant, but he meant to teach himself as fast as he could. He had so much to learn. He wanted to be able to take care of himself.
He chuckled quietly to himself; he really should have thought of that. He was a realtor, after all. He was used to talking to people about relocating. Too close to see the forest, he guessed, and shook his head, snickering.
He dialed up Margo. When she picked up, he smiled. He could feel his mood lightening. Her dog, one of those yappy things, was making a noise in the background. She hushed it, and it did; now that was impressive.
“Hey Pike, how are you?” she asked, her voice light and sweet.
He could feel the heat begin in his chest and bubble up pleasantly into his heart. His hand went to his hair and he grinned. “Good. I just got off the phone with my prepper friend. I sent him the information you’d sent me.”
“Oh good. So, what did he have to say?” she asked.
“He was pretty shaken up about it. I think it scared him too. But he did have a good idea. He said I should move away from the coast. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. I feel like a double dumbass.” He laughed self-deprecatingly, shaking his head.
“You know, the forest. I didn’t really think about it either.” She laughed, and his heart rate went up.
“Yeah. I guess when you’re in mild panic mode, it is tough to see the bigger picture. He has a point, though. Now all I have to do is figure out where is the best place to go,” Pike said.
“Why don’t you come here?” Margo asked.
Pike almost fell of the couch. He dropped the phone. He picked it up quickly and, clearing his throat, tried to sound normal. “That’s a good idea! You’re about in the middle of the country, miles and miles from either coastline,” he said, swallowing hard, his face on fire.
“Sure. You can come here and get your realtor’s license, or get another job if you don’t want to do that anymore. And we can start working on a plan together.”
His heart leaped up in his throat. She had said we and together.
He tried not to read too much into it. Easy boy, easy, he told himself. You might be like a brother to her, the kiss of a thousand deaths. Oh, hell no, not the friend zone. Never that.
“You know what? I’ll do it. Come Monday, I’ll go to work and start the process. I’ll also start looking for a place there,” he said, excitement filling his voice. The prospect of seeing Margo after all these years thrilled him beyond belief. He wanted to just jump up now and run to her.
“There are loads of apartments around here. The tourists usually stay in hotels or bungalow rentals. Once you get here, we’ll get together and start our plan,” Margo said cheerfully. She laughed, the sound like music to Pike.
We’ll get together. He shook off the thought. “Okay. I’ll keep in contact until I’m on my way, keep you updated. Oh, and you might want to think about building a new profile. Sayer said you don’t want people knowing who and where you are. I’d not thought about that,” Pike said, shrugging helplessly.
“Oh crap, you’re probably right. I’ll get on that and delete all the prepper crap and the POSEIDON article off my page. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. I’ll keep looking for any more articles too. Let me know when you are on your way. Take care,” she said, and hung up.
Pike let out a long breath. He was going to see her. He was going to live near her. His heart raced at the thought and he wanted to shout with joy. He wanted to run outside and throw his junk into his truck and peel out of there now and drive straight to her. He felt as though he were going to jump out of his skin.
He took deep breaths to calm himself. The adrenaline was pumping through him, and it had absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons and everything to do with Margo. He felt as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning. It took considerable effort to bring himself down from off the ceiling.
He was getting way ahead of himself. The friend zone came to mind once more. He cringed. That crashed him neatly back down to Earth. He had to plan carefully for this move. He didn’t want to waste a minute floundering. He needed to pull his shit together for both their sakes.
He also needed to put his romantic inclinations on the backburner. Or at least try to put them out of the picture. That would be difficult, he knew. Keep your eye on the prize, keep your crap in one sock, buddy, he told himself.
Pike headed back to his desk. He’d just given his two-week notice to headquarters and the front office. He was now going to start looking for something decent in Maryville, MO. What that would be, he wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling they were going to need something more than an apartment if the shit really did hit the fan. “Plan for the worse, hope for the best,” his grandfather used to tell him. In this case it was certainly true. And it would be expensive to try to move residences more than once.
He wanted to work smarter, not harder, and not waste his hard-earned, hard-saved money. With all the things they would need to purchase to set themselves up, throwing money out the window wasn’t an option.
There was a small part of him that wondered if he weren’t going over the deep end. Was he panicking over an imaginary threat? He was literally changing his life, pulling up roots, for a supposed threat.
He came to a stop in the hallway. Was he being foolish? Was he only motivated by the thought of seeing Margo? A wave of uncertainty washed over him. He leaned against the wall, the air knocked out of him. He’d seen lots of articles and news about North Korea and their threats, yet none of those had hit him so viscerally. What was it about POSEIDON that scared the living shit out of him? Was it the fact that Russia had made the weapon specifically for the U.S. coastline? Perhaps that was it. Maybe the threat felt real because his coastline was the target.
If he’d been living in Kansas or someplace in the Midwest, he doubted he’d have even turned a hair. But here on the coast, it felt personal, this idea of Russia to send a nuclear weapon to their coast. Who the hell does that? Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his runaway heartbeat. He wiped his and across his face and closed his eyes. Get a grip man.
When he got to his desk, there was a small paper Russian flag. It looked like they had printed it out and cut it to size, and placed it by his computer. He looked over to Johnny, who busted out laughing. “Why Comrade, do you not recognize our flag? You look so surprise, but as I understand it, you are head of propaganda division, no?” Johnny said, smiling from ear to ear, in a heavy fake-Russian accent, his face a bright red glowing ember of jocularity.
“Da, you shtoopid, you must give the proper salute. You must bow and scrape to our Fatherland, or we put you in the gulag.” Beverly laughed in a falsetto Russian accent, bits of doughnut flying out of her open mouth. She picked the crumbs off her heavy bosom and stuck them in her mouth, her watery blue eyes disappearing into the folds of her face. Her heavily dyed hair was an unnatural red and piled high on her head, but it tilted sideways as she rocked with laughter.