Edge of Madness (Edge of Collapse, #2)

by Kyla Stone

“Courage is not having the strength to go on, it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” Theodore Roosevelt

Gran was out behind the shed, working on the winter garden where she grew hardy vegetables like turnips, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, garlic, and Swiss chard. She grew everything in cold frames—portable wooden frames with clear, rigid polycarbonate covers.

“A coronal mass ejection,” Jamal corrected. “A CME happens when plasma, which is a super-heated and ionized gas, is expelled from the surface of the Sun. It produces a magnetic shockwave that extends billions of miles into space. If Earth is in the path of that shockwave, our electrical systems become overloaded. It mainly affects the power grid by destroying transformers and long power lines. In this case, because most vehicles, computers, and phones aren’t functional, we can surmise that this is a nuclear EMP event.”

“The federal EMP commission predicted up to 90 percent of the population would die off within a year.”

“Do you have a terracotta flowerpot and small candles, like tea lights? Steel washers and bolts? You can make a small heater with that.”

“So some people claim it can heat a small room, but it can’t. It’ll only give off as much heat as the candle gives off, but with the flowerpot, you catch the heat instead of letting it float up to the ceiling, where it won’t do you any good. Basically, you use a set of nesting clay pots, separated by and attached to a central steel bolt, with steel washers spaced in between the pots to form a heat exchanger thing. “Then you flip it over and support it on a few bricks to position the center bolt directly above a small candle or three. The flame heats the steel bolt directly, causing it to heat the clay pots and trap the hot air rising from the flame. The clay radiates heat. You’ll have to huddle close to it or use it in a small space, though. You can also use a couple of Sterno cans and a larger pot to get even more heat.”

“Snow is fine.” Gran clucked her tongue. “If those folks drink dirty or contaminated water, they could get diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, typhoid. Water-related diseases still kill over three million people a year around the world.”

“It’s a waste of precious fuel to boil so much water. All you need is ordinary Clorox bleach. A three-quart bottle of six-percent sodium hypochlorite costs about two dollars, and will treat nearly forty-eight hundred gallons of clear water. A drop per pint is the recipe.”

“Remember, that’s clear water. For cloudy river water, tell ’em to filter it through a clean cloth like a T-shirt first and double the bleach. Then let it sit for an hour or so.

“They can build an Amish bucket—a manual, hand-operated well bucket—out of four-foot-long by four- or five-inch wide PVC piping with a check valve cap on the bottom. Use a rope to drop it down and haul it up, and it’ll bring up about a gallon each haul.”

Why did anyone need to believe in a devil when humans were evil enough?

“Keep your eyes open, my friend. The devil is a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And he is not always who you think.”