“Sha-sure, sure. See you soon. Be careful!”

“Careful? Of what? Nah, I get it; I will be. Love-ya-bye!”

“Love-ya-bye!” Trisha responded as Bill hung up the phone. That phrase had been one of their standbys for years and saying it added some normality to her life as she uttered those three little words.

Bill sped along at five miles an hour over the speed limit, not wanting to get stopped for a ticket, especially if the world was ending. ‘The flu’, he thought, ‘That has to be it, some goddamn extremist unleashed biologicals on us and it finally spread to Des Moines. God damn it! I knew I shoulda bought those cases of military rations off of ebay!'

He pulled into the gas station to fill up his truck before heading to the grocery store, for good measure he also filled up both gas cans he kept in the pickup bed too. The town only had a small grocery store simply called ‘The Market’. It was not officially open until seven am, but the owner typically opened it up a half hour early. Bill was pleased to see that was the case today and he grabbed a cart on his way in.

“’Morning Earl!” Bill called out as he passed the register, “You hear there’s trouble? No one is supposed to go to work in Des Moines today?”

“Yeah, I heard.” responded the sixty year old owner of the Market, “You gonna stock up then? Clean me out?”

“If you don’t mind, better safe than sorry.”

Earl waved a withered hand, “No I don’t mind money in my pocket and your family will eat the food anyway. This’ll might end up being good for business.”

Bill went up and down the aisle, first loading his cart up with canned goods, all the soups, beans and fruits it would hold, it totaled two hundred and twelve dollars. While Bill was ferrying his first load out to the truck three more cars pulled up. He stashed the bags in his extended cab and went in for a second load, five more cars pulled up before he made it into the store.