Victuallage

            The hen house, painted a bright red with white trim several decades ago, was peeling to reveal it’s rusted nails and dirt brown interior. One would think that it wouldn’t be able to hold any food source, since its decaying body was withering away to termite dust by the week, but somehow the Vindell’s had managed to store enough supplies and food to keep from starving in case the world went to shit.

            It wasn’t like they were expecting anything drastic to happen, it had started off as a school project for Mindy, the youngest daughter. She needed to save up as much canned goods as possible for a school fundraiser, the child who donated the most would receive free lunch for six months. That was enough money to buy two cases of candy bars, something Mindy had an addiction to.

            After the hen house had been packed to the brim, the family realized that they could dig under the hen house to save more food, which, after awhile, the realized they could dig a tunnel from the basement to the hen house and make a sort of make-shift tunnel system. Steven, the father, was a contractor who was on the verge of being let go from work, so the idea of building something helped him take his mind off of the threat of being sent back out to the ocean to swim around in hopes of finding a new reef.

            Once word reached the town that the Vindell’s were building something underground, the Vindell’s were marked as weirdoes. Doomsday Prepers, and religious wackjobs were two of the things that the Vindell’s heard spoken of them behind their backs when they went through town, but that didn’t stop them from storing as much food as they could for Mindy, who every once in awhile would tell her parents that they could stop saving if people were going to make fun of them for it. At this, her parents told her that this was just a part of life that she should face now, instead of later, so that she would be prepared to face it head on when they were no longer around.

            None of this mattered however, because a tornado hit, striking the town in a whir and flash that left the whole town homeless and without food. Body counts rose as soon as a scrap of wood was lifted, or a car pulled from a field.

            Luckily, the small shaft the Vindell’s had created had saved their lives, as well as stored some food and supplies, which they had shared with the town survivors who had once criticized them.