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said.  “I need to rest.”
    They proceeded to the checkout, where Ellen was a little self-conscious about the quantities they were buying.  However, this was Wal-Mart and they were used to seeing everything.  The three carts didn't even raise an eyebrow.   Ellen was able to pay with her debit card, preserving the cash.  Once she had her two-foot-long receipt tucked into her purse, they struggled out the door, across the parking lot, to their vehicle.
    Ellen looked around the nearly-empty parking lot and felt like it was reasonably safe. “You guys unload this,” Ellen said.  “It will be faster if I go run back in now while you two are taking care of this.”
    Ariel groaned again and rolled her eyes, but Pete took charge and they had a system going by the time Ellen turned her back and began walking back to the store.  She got another cart and headed for the pharmacy section of the store.  Despite knowing that Jim already had much of this stuff, she followed his instructions to the letter and purchased more peroxide, alcohol, antibiotic ointment, bandages, and over-the-counter medications for everything from colds to diarrhea.  She bought hand sanitizer, soap, large bottles of shampoo, and deodorant.  Realizing she'd missed a few things, she ran back to the grocery aisle and bought three large bottles of bleach.  She had to make a trip to the automotive department to pick up fuel stabilizer for all the gas they'd purchased.  A few more small items and she was done.
    Checking out, she was again self-conscious, especially since she was in the same line she'd been in earlier with the same checkout girl.  However, there was perhaps no employee anywhere in the working world more jaded than a Wal-Mart checkout girl, and not an eyebrow was raised, not a question asked.
    “I'll need three propane cylinders for the grill,” she told the girl.
    Ellen left the store, waiting by the propane rack.  Before long, a sales associate with a ring of keys came out, unlocked the cage, and removed the cylinders.  Noticing that her cart was full, the boy offered to carry them for her.  He made a big show of picking them up, but she could see that he was struggling the entire way to the car.  Once they got there, he set them down by the back of the vehicle.
    “Thanks,” she said.  “I can take it from here.”
    “You're welcome,” he said, rubbing his forearms.
    When he left, Ellen opened the back door of the vehicle and called inside, “Pete, come back here and put these in the truck.”
    He did as he was told, struggling slightly with the heavy cylinders, then got back in the vehicle.  Ellen finished unloading her purchases, then got in the car too.  Both kids were settled in their seats, sprawled out in apparent exhaustion.
    “Too much work, too early,” Pete groaned.
    “Can I go back to bed when we get home?” Ariel asked.
    “Absolutely not,” Ellen said.  “Someone has to help me unload all this stuff and put it away.”
    “Awwww,” they moaned in unison.
    “We all have to help out while your dad is gone.”
    “I hate the apocalypse,” Ariel muttered, scowling and crossing her arms.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    I don’t know what Lois and Alice did in their car, but we spent the beginning of our drive from Richmond doing something I hadn’t done in a long time – listening to AM radio.  Ever since I'd reached my teenage years and began listening to the FM album rock stations of the 1970s, where they’d play an entire LP of Dire Straits, Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, or whoever, at a time, I'd avoided AM entirely.  It was the strictly the realm of fast-talking deejays, talk radio nutcases, and preachers.  But FM signals travel shorter distances and we couldn’t pick up a single station on that band.  When we switched to AM, there were fewer stations broadcasting than you would normally find but there were some.  Several were just looping the same Emergency Broadcast System message that I’d heard