Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon by Darrell Maloney

by the look on his face that he was up to something. She giggled. “Okay, but don’t take too long.”
         Mark climbed back onto the RV, put in a CD he’d hidden under the driver’s seat, and cranked up the volume.
         The music of Anne Murray singing “May I Have This Dance” wafted through the mine.
         He returned to sweet Hannah, took her hand, and waltzed with her. It was only a few nights before that they had finally finished the last of their ballroom dance classes, and it was quickly becoming a passion for both of them.
         Hannah’s favorite, one she couldn’t get enough of, was the foxtrot. But Mark liked the closeness of the waltz. He liked the feel of Hannah’s body ag ainst his own, and each waltz reminded him how incredibly beautiful this woman was, and how lucky he was to have her in his life.
         Anne Murray was followed by Henry Mancini’s “ Moon River” and Johnny Mathis singing “Foolish.”
         By the end of the third dance, Mark could no longer contain himself.
         “Hone y, I have something else for you, but I need your promise that you won’t say no.”
         “I know what you have for me, sailor. I felt it several minutes ago when you were holding me close. I just made you wait because the dancing was so much fun.”
         Mark laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, yes, that’s for you too. But that’ll have to wait because there’s something else first.”
         Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red box marked Jared in gold letters.
         He went down to one knee. And looked up into the beautiful and rapidly moistening eyes of the love of his life.
         “I wish the circumstances were different.” Mark said. “I wish we could take our money and buy an island somewhere, and spend the rest of our lives sitting on a beach and skinny dipping in the ocean and sipping pina coladas, instead of preparing for the end of the world.
         “But whether we’re dodging jellyfish or dodging meteorites, whether we have seven years left or seventy, the fact is that you are the one woman in this world that I could never live without. Will you marry me and be my wife?”
         Hannah was seldom tongue-tied, but she was on this occasion. It was all she could do to muster two words: “Sure, sailor.”
         They sealed the occasion with a kiss. And for a long time they stood holding each other in the middle of Bay 1, surrounded by all the trappings of a pending disaster, and saw only hope and happiness. The next few years would be hard on them and everyone they loved. But as long as they were together, as long as they had each other, they would survive.
     
     
     
    -22-
     
         Now that Hannah had finished her midwifery courses and had gotten her certification, she had most of her evenings to herself.
         She spent the majority of them at the computer, keeping Amazon.com and UPS in business. Mark placed large orders to Symco Foods every Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights, for delivery to the feed store on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
         But there were a lot of products that Symco just didn’t carry. So any time something would get rejected from Symco with the annotation “Do Not Stock,” he had a bad habit of just dropping it in Hannah’s lap.
         She didn’t mind. He was working as hard as anyone to ensure their survival, and she was more than willing to help. Besides, this was the man she loved, and who would someday be the father of her children. They would grow old together, and she’d be holding his hand when he drew his last breath. Or vice-versa.
         So tonight, it was no problem, really, to order Pampers and baby bottles.
         He left no quantities, of course. He left it up to her to do some math, and try to calculate how many of each they’d need.
         Again, no problem. Hannah was better at math than Mark was anyway. And