What Would You Do?

In King's story, there were probably about one million survivors in the USA, but Boulder only had a few thousand people by the time the winter snow came. Las Vegas was implied to have a similar number of people. The survivors of the plague certainly had ample time to make their way there, the pandemic hit in summer, not late autumn. Yet only a tiny portion of the population ended up in those places. That implies to me that most of the population either did not feel the call of the two psychic magnets, Flagg and Mother Abagail, or did feel the call yet reasoned, to hell with it, let other people fight it out.

I think I'd stay put, right where I am. Rural Kentucky has some good farm land, and unlike Boulder we get plenty of rain here, about 45 inches in an average year. Long ago my grandmother told me that while some around here had problems during the Great Depression, for her and others like her it wasn't that difficult -- she and my grandfather didn't have large preexisting debt and they owned a small farm and some livestock. There wasn't as much money for new clothes and such, but there was never any danger of going hungry or becoming homeless. On the other hand, those who lived in the cities could find themselves in dire straits.

I don't know much about farming, though. I suppose that as a practical matter I'd find some farmer around here who had survived the pandemic and offer my services as a hired hand. I wouldn't know how to do it on my own.

Well, actually that's hypothetical, as if I were younger. I'm well past fifty and not in the best of health. I'd make a pretty poor laborer. If a big superflu type event happened I might simply be screwed.