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with our food.”
    “He could get shot.”
    “He won’t.”
    She watched as he bent over and tied his boots. He had changed in the last few months. Her husband, whom she had believed was handsome before, had grown more attractive as the harsh sun and backbreaking labor did its work on him. She wished it had done the same for her, but she was a mess. She’d had to let her brown hair grow out, since she couldn’t style it without electricity, and the sun had deepened her wrinkles. No amount of moisturizer would be able to erase the damage.
    Finally, Doug straightened. “Look, there’s no point in losing it before we know the situation. If he doesn’t come back soon, then we’ll panic. For now, let’s just have faith that God is taking care of him.”
    She lay back flat on the bed and threw her arm over her eyes. “I’m tired, Doug. I try to be tough, but sometimes I just have to explode.”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    She moved her arm and looked at him. “So what do you think about this pulsar, or whatever it is?”
    He thought for a moment. “It makes sense. I’m gonna swing by the library as soon as I get a minute and read up on it.”
    “Do you think she’s right about the radiation not getting stronger? What if it moves closer to us? It started suddenly. Couldn’t it suddenly get worse?”
    He stared at the floor, shaking his head. “I honestly don’t know. But there’s no use borrowing trouble. For now, we should probably just be thankful to be alive.” Patting her leg, he got up and started to the door. “I’m going to work at the well. Send Logan to get me as soon as Jeff gets home.”
    Kay sat up and took a deep breath. She’d pull herself together and stay busy until Jeff got home.
    Only then would she fall apart.

seven
    D OUG HAD DRAFTED THE WORK SCHEDULE FOR THE WELL AND lectured the neighborhood men about the importance of showing up, so he couldn’t very well skip out himself. The plan was to keep the digging going every daylight hour, and the ones on the shift before him couldn’t leave until he got there. They had limited patience when someone was late.
    He and Jeff were digging partners, but since Jeff had gone chasing after thieves, Doug had asked his next-door neighbor Brad to fill in. Jeff could take Brad’s shift later. Working outside the hole were Mark Green and Zach Emory, charged with mixing the mortar and lowering the bricks for the walls of the well. Judith and Brad’s oldest child, Jeremy, had the job of raising the buckets of dirt out when they were full, dumping them, then lowering them again.
    They’d dug the well in a square shape, eight feet by eight feet, but it was tight quarters for him and Brad down in the hole. They’d had to make it wide enough that two men could work side by side with a pick, a shovel, and a long steel rod used to break up rock, but the work was filthy and backbreaking. It would be worth it, though, when they finally struck water. Everyone working at the hole knew that it could literally be months before they dug deep enough through the soil, limestone, sandstone, and shale to hit the water table. The Pulses might very well end before they ever finished the task. But whether the Pulses lasted for months or years, the well would make their lives easier for the duration. That was why it was so important to keep the digging going every hour of daylight. There was no time to waste.
    The well-digging was going slowly. Doug and the other men in the neighborhood — those who’d agreed to a cooperative work schedule to get this done — had been digging for almost a month. They’d only made it fifteen feet down, since digging wasn’t the only component of this monumental job. As they dug, they had to reinforce the walls with bricks to prevent a cave-in. The process was laborious — dig two feet down, stop, brick the walls, then dig some more. And it wasn’t like they could make a run to Home Depot for the bricks, since the home improvement store had