Free Apocalypse by Nancy Springer

was in the time when medical science had used wonderful new treatments for the skin, such as X-rays for acne—Gladys still remembered the grip of her well-meaning parents restraining her during the painful radium applications. Some of them had burned, leaving her arm with white marks and scar tissue she still carried. And of course her body cells still carried the potential of her own destruction. Every time she saw the boy with the dreadful birthmark on his face, Berry Beal, she thought of telling him how lucky he was that he had not been cured to death.
    She had told Cally, “I believe I got more parts missing than left.”
    Like a tough old tree, lopsided, hollow, rotting inside, half the branches dead and falling, but still the roots deep and stubborn, still that touch of green at the top. And still rough of bark and hard as iron.
    She had said, “Every time I went in that damn hospital and the doctors took another piece off me, I promised myself something to make up for it. And then I wouldn’t take no for an answer. One good thing about cancer is, makes everybody around you feel guilty for not having it. And that’s how I got my first horse, and that’s how I sold him and got Snake Oil.”
    The appaloosa was beautiful in body but not in color. Snake Oil was the mottled, nondescript roan of a dirt road in midsummer, tan with dust and speckled gravel-white. It did not matter. Gigi adored the gelding. He had cost Homer a great deal of money.
    And that is the way things are . Gigi thought, facing Homer across the late supper in the little house on Railroad Street, Hoadley, where they had lived since they were married. Things are the way they are, and the way things are right now is peculiar .
    She said, “Homer, the cicadas are out. But they shouldn’t be.”
    Homer merely grunted over macaroni and cheese. He sure would have liked some good homemade macaroni and cheese once, not this damn stuff out of a box. All his life he had worked hard in the steel mill, double and sometimes triple shifts to put three kids through college, and all he’d ever wanted of his wife was that she’d mind the house and kids and fix him good meals. She was trained a practical nurse, because that’s what her parents had made her do, but he knew she hated it, and he’d never made her work at it. Now he’d finally got to retirement—and he’d only just reached retirement age before the mills were closed for good—and there he was, like the laid-off, unemployed younger men, hanging around the house with nothing to do but go fishing, could have spent some time with her, and she had him playing second fiddle to a goddamn horse. It had choked him up once to think he might lose her—the first few times she had gone in hospital, it had about killed him—but it sure didn’t choke him up any more. And he sure didn’t want to hear her news from the stable.
    â€œAnd Shirley said something strange happened to her. She bought herself one of those barn signs, thought it was a distelfink, and when she got it home here it had turned into a blasted locust. And now it’s turned back again. She says she feels like she’s losing her mind.”
    â€œWouldn’t surprise me none,” Homer grumbled. Even though he had never met her, he had a low opinion of Shirley. Gigi ignored him.
    â€œAnd she said Cally came in from riding looking like she’d seen a ghost. And then there’s that woman just rode down Main Street—”
    Homer interrupted. He had already heard enough and far too much about the woman who had ridden through Hoadley. “I guess a person can dress up like Robin Hood and ride a horse down Main Street if they want to,” he complained. Homer played the role of civil libertarian only if he didn’t want to hear any more about someone.
    â€œIt wasn’t like Robin Hood. She wore a gown. And that’s not the point, Homer. The