The Abandon Series | Book 2 | These Times of Retribution

by Schow, Ryan

  “Yesterday morning,” Remy said.

  “Same here,” Booger answered. “I’m gonna hit the crystal if anyone wants to join me.”

  “Why would we do that?” Keaton asked.

  “You know, bro.”

  The EMP.

  They went outside, lit the Weber barbecue, but instead of charcoal, they put a small log on it and sat outside on the porch, half the guys hitting the pipe while Trixie and Keaton smoked the rest of the Ghost Train Haze.

  “Dance for us,” Remy said to Trixie.

  “You don’t get to ask her that,” Keaton growled, territorial of his woman. Then, to Trixie, he said, “Baby, dance for us.”

  She stood and started to dance for them, and after that, it was all a haze of laughter, some sex, him crawling through some crazy dreams.

  Halfway through the night, Keaton wandered to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, guzzled it deep, then started rooting through the cupboard, trying to find something to eat.

  He began opening packages, feeling the food, trying to figure out what was what. He finally found a pack of graham crackers, which to him was Valhalla. He gobbled them down, then felt someone reach a hand around and grab his business.

  “That better be Trixie, or that hand’s getting chopped off.”

  “Does this feel like a man’s hand to you?” Trixie asked.

  “Are you still high?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Feel how hard my nipples are.”

  “I’m not in the mood,” Keaton said. “I mean, I am, but it’s not the drugs, it’s just so damn cold.”

  “Feel them,” she said. “Seriously.”

  “Your hand is cold enough.”

  “Just do it.”

  He turned around in the pitch black and felt her nude body. She reached for the food in his hand.

  “Stop,” he said, pulling away. “Get your own food.”

  “I’m so hungry, though.”

  She went for his cracker again, so he hit her. She hit him back and he shoved her into what was either the table or the side of the counter. She cried out, cursed him, then stumbled around and finally fell down. A moment later, she started crying.

  “Did anyone ever tell you not to touch other people’s food?”

  “Good God, Keaton,” Remy said.

  Keaton couldn’t see the man, but he knew Remy had a soft spot for Trixie. “Mind your own business, Remington. And quit sneaking around like a freaking pervert.”

  “What are we going to do for heat?” he asked. “It’s like an icebox in my bedroom. I can’t even feel my toes.”

  Outside, the winds were blowing and the rain tapped the windows like little water darts. Keaton walked outside, stood in the storm, and listened.

  Up the hill, it sounded like a small motor was running.

  “I’m sorry, Keaton,” Trixie said, stepping outside. He saw a shadow of her, felt the goosebumps on her skin, on her butt cheeks.

  “Go back inside or you’re going to catch your death.”

  “I shouldn’t have tried—”

  “Shhh,” he said. “Do you know what that is?” They waited in silence. “I think it’s a generator. Go get my clothes and my jacket.”

  She returned a few minutes later with the clothes he requested. When he was dressed, he turned to Trixie, ran his hand over her breasts then said, “If you would have told me you had all these goosebumps, I would have let you have my cracker earlier.”

  She leaned into his touch, pressing her chest out, her only asset in her mind.

  “Still amazing,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “If I’m not back in twenty-minutes, tell the guys to arm up and come get me.”

  “Be careful.”

  He walked out into the driving rain, then up the hill. He had zeroed in on the generator, the sound of it his beacon. So, the McDaniel family prepared for power outages. That was good. He didn’t. But why prepare when you could just steal from those who did?

  When he reached the house, he heard the generator loud and clear. But it wasn’t powering the house, it was running power to the barn. He moved through the cover of darkness, found the cord running inside the barn, followed it to a fifties-style horizontal freezer.

  He put his hand on the metal surface, felt the chill. Reaching around back, he unplugged the extension cord and looped it around his arm as he walked back to the generator. He found the generator’s off switch, killed the power, then picked it up and walked it down the hill, across the street, and onto his front porch.

  Booger was outside, sitting there in a haze. Keaton handed him the cord and said, “Go plug the wall heater into this.”

  By this time, Trixie was dressed. “Are we getting our heat back?”

  “Yes, we are,” Keaton said. Outside, he used the pull-start to fire up the generator.

  “It’s not working,” Booger said from inside.

  “Try the fridge,” he said, thinking the EMP did more damage than he imagined. If they had power, but the circuitry was fried, would they even have heat?

  A few minutes later, Booger announced, “It’s not working either.”

  “What’s happening?” Remy asked.

  “You know what’s happening, moron. The freaking EMP.”

  “I thought that was like, a myth or something, like maybe it was to hype us up,” Booger said. In the darkness, Keaton quietly shook his head.

  Trixie said, “I’m going back to bed. Let’s deal with this when the sun is up and we can see.”

  “I don’t remember you being the shot caller,” Keaton barked.

  “I’m just cold.”

  “We’re all cold!” Keaton shouted, his hair wet, his skin clammy.

  “Sorry, Keaton.”

  “Sorry, Keaton,” he mocked, the same way he’d seen Diesel’s mother mock him.

  A moment later, he listened as Booger and Remy made their way back to their rooms. He went to bed as well, tried to curl up to Trixie. She scooted away from him. He didn’t need her as much as he needed her body heat. He was freezing! When she had moved as far away from him as she could without falling off the bed, he scooted in and spooned her. Unfortunately, as warm as she was, he found himself unable to sleep.

  “You awake?” he asked Trixie. She didn’t answer. He shoved the back of her head and waited. “Trixie, are you awake?”

  “I am now,” she mumbled.

  “I need a blowjob. I have to get to sleep somehow and this isn’t working.”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “You were earlier when you wanted me to feel your tits.”

  “I’m warmer now. No goosebumps.”

  “I’m not asking,” he snapped.

  He felt her turn over in bed, then move down on him. He laid back in the bed, felt himself finally relaxing. When she was done, he said, “I don’t know what happened to you, but that was terrible.”

  He heard her spit on the floor, then settle into sleep. Twenty minutes later, when he still couldn’t sleep, he punched her in the back and listened to her cry. Somehow, that sound seemed to soothe him.

  “When I was a baby, my mother said I used to cry all the time,” he told her. “She said I’d cry myself to sleep. I’m so glad I have you to cry me to sleep now.”

  Within a few minutes, he was out cold, sleeping long enough for someone to wake him the next morning. That someone was pounding on the front door. He opened his eyes, winced at the light outside, then heard the heavy rains.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  The pounding continued. He got up, walked to the door where Remy was standing.

  “You going to answer it?” he asked.

  “It’s the guy from up the hill.”

  Keaton opened the door and saw Colt McDaniel standing there. Ever since Diesel told him to keep an eye on Colt, he didn’t know what was so special about the guy.

  “What do you want?” Keaton asked, yawning.

  “You took my generator.”

  “That’s mine. An
d last I checked, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

  “Not today it’s not,” Colt said.

  “It doesn’t work anyway, so maybe for a few bucks, I’ll let you buy it from me.”

  “You’re not even running anything, but you ran the gas out of it.”

  Keaton poked his head outside, saw it was not even plugged into the main unit all the way. He gave a little laugh, like the sight of it was pathetic.

  “My mother said I wasn’t good with tools. She said I’d need instructions to use a hammer.”

  “I feel sorry for the woman,” Colt said. “Next time you’re on my property, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Why do you feel bad for my mother?”

  “Because she had to push a piece of shit like you out of her most sacred orifice. If you were my kid, I would’ve drowned you in a toilet.”

  He laughed, because it was kind of funny, then he said, “Leave me a ten spot and you can have the generator.”

  Colt bowed up, took a step toward him. “You’re like a tick, Keaton. Pretty soon I’m going burn you out.”

  “Don’t make me take your hat again.”

  “Take it now, Keaton.”

  The man was clearly enraged, which had Keaton narrowing his eyes. With a smirk he knew would drive people nuts, he said, “Had you have shown this much gumption when you were doing your wife’s shopping at the Kroger, maybe you wouldn’t have had to clean the ground off your face.”

  Colt advanced on him, but Remy had the gun out in no time flat.

  Keaton tsk-tsk-tsked him. “All that attitude, but such a poor planner. You armed, Colt?”

  The man looked at him, unblinking, then he grinned and there was a sudden emptiness in his eyes that Keaton understood. He’d seen it in his guys when they let go of their inhibitions. They emptied their eyes out like that when they burned, stole, or killed.

  “You got it in you, don’t you?” Keaton said, low, interested. Colt said nothing. “Yeah, you ain’t no pansy. This one’s got a spine, Remy. If he does anything other than get his ass off this porch in the next ten seconds, put a round in his head.”

  He said this while looking right at Colt. The man didn’t flinch. Colt waited the ten seconds, then turned and grabbed the generator and left.

  “I’m going to report this theft to the sheriff,” Keaton snickered.

  Colt turned to him. “Where’d you bury the guys he killed?”

  “There’s room for you if that’s what you mean.”

  “Save yourself a plot, maggot.”

  Keaton watched him walk up the driveway, cross the road, then head up his own driveway.

  “I really don’t like that guy,” Keaton said. Trixie finally walked outside to catch a breath of fresh air. Keaton wasn’t having it. “Get me some coffee.”

  “Nothing works,” Trixie said, her hair a mess.

  “WELL, FIGURE IT OUT!” he turned and roared, slapping the flat of the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gator

  It was just another morning for Gator, but it wasn’t a regular morning. He didn’t figure out that an EMP had been set off in the atmosphere until he’d headed down the hill. On his way into town, he saw a good-looking woman walking down the street. She had a cup of something in her hands. Coffee, maybe? Tea? Either way, she was an unusual sight.

  He pulled the truck over to the side of the road, leaned over, and rolled down the window. “Get in, I’ll give you a ride.” She looked cold and wet. “Wherever you’re going, I can take you. C’mon, get out of the rain.”

  He had set out for ammo and a burrito and found himself a girl instead.

  “Thank you,” she said, getting in the truck.

  “You’re aware it’s raining, right?”

  “It started on the way back,” she said. “At least it’s not too cold.”

  She was a strawberry blond with tattoos up her neck, and tattoos that ran down her arms and reached her hands. She had dull eyes, a look of extreme fatigue, and she smelled like pot. There was something sad and broken in her, which he found curious, and a bit alluring.

  “Why are you out here walking in this?”

  “The power’s out, and I needed to get coffee for my friend.”

  He shook his head, then looked down at her feet. She was in flip-flops, the edges worn down, her heels bloody.

  She glanced over at him and smiled. “What are you, a weight lifter or something?” She reached out and touched his biceps.

  “I stay in shape.”

  “And this?” She stroked his beard. “I’m not hitting on you or anything, but that’s some beard. And this whole look…it works.”

  “Thanks, but it’s a look of necessity. I’d rather be a hundred-and-seventy-pound male model.”

  “Really?” she laughed.

  “Hell no!” he joked. “I worked my ass off to look like this. Tell me where we’re going, because we can’t just sit in the middle of the road chatting.”

  “Flip a U-turn then. I’m off Watts Mill Road, which is down Sugar Creek Pike.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Yeah, really,” she said, moving her wet hair out of her face. “We just moved in. My boyfriend and I are renting the place with a few friends.”

  She finally turned and looked at him, meeting his eyes for the first time.

  “What’s with the bruises?” he asked.

  Whatever makeup she managed to put together that morning had worn off in the elements. She pulled down the sun visor, looked at herself in the affixed mirror, then said, “Yeah, I guess you can see those.”

  “They’re kind of obvious.”

  “I’ve been bruised in one capacity or another for so long, it’s become a burden trying to hide them.”

  He looked down at her flip flops. “You’re new to Kentucky, aren’t you?”

  “Kinda,” she said.

  “How long did it take you to get to town?”

  “I went to the church up the street. They had hot coffee.”

  “The Methodist Church?”

  “Yeah, Roberts something or other. To answer your question, I guess I’ve been walking maybe an hour or two?” she said, as if it were more of a question than an answer. “I don’t know. It could be more. I just like these times to myself. Even if…you know.” She showed him a cracked and bleeding heel, then smiled like it was just another day in paradise.

  “What brought all that on?” he asked, referring to her face. “The walking in flip flops, the bruising…”

  “Apparently, I’m neither a good listener nor a good girlfriend. My name’s Trixie, by the way. What’s yours?”

  “Gator,” he said.

  “Is that short for Alligator?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yeah, that’s the name on my birth certificate. Alligator. No last name.”

  “Really, what is it?”

  “Don’t laugh,” he said.

  She smiled and asked, “Am I going to want to?”

  “Everyone else does, but I can slug them when they do.”

  “Okay, I won’t laugh.”

  “My given name is Bartholomew.”

  She burst out laughing, then clipped the laugh by clamping a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled through her fingers, “but you don’t look like a Bartholomew, or even a Bart.”

  “Right?”

  “You say Bart, I think fart.”

  Now he started laughing. “How are those feet?”

  “Great, why?”

  “Keep this up and you’ll be walking home on them.”

  Now she said, “Okay, Alligator, no more jokes from the cheap seats.”

  “I like your laugh,” he said.

  “Bartholomew’s a pretty cool name, though. It’s eccentric and sophisticated, yet it can be short and punchy.” In an animated voice, she said, “The name’s Bartholomew, but if we’re friends, I’ll let you call me Bart.”

  He smiled at her sense of humor. “Like I said.”

 
“I know, you like my laugh. There’s a lot about me to like, but I’m off the market, so…”

  “I guess I’m off the market, too. I prefer my solitude. But then I meet someone like you and think the Alligator needs to get out more.”

  She guided him down Sugar Creek Pike, had him turn on an unmarked road he knew well. They made a half loop through a grove of winter-barren trees, then took another turn down another unmarked road.

  “I hope you can find your way back,” she said.

  “I’m familiar with the area,” he said. “I live nearby, but I have friends here, too.”

  She took him to the house, which was situated directly across the street from Colt’s place. He came to suspect Trixie lived with the guy who took Colt’s hat, but Gator didn’t want to let on that he knew. He was the kind of guy who played his cards close to the vest.

  Trixie thanked him, got out, then said, “Another time and another place and maybe we could have been friends.”

  “Perhaps one day,” he said.

  He waited until she got into the house, then he drove up Colt’s driveway, parking behind the quaint barn Colt had recently converted to a man-cave.

  There was a generator running, with a line into the barn, but no one was inside. He hoped his friend wasn’t rucking. When he knocked on the door, Faith opened it with a gun in hand.

  “Gator,” she said, setting the gun on the table beside the front door.

  “Good morning, Faith,” he said. “Should I be worried that you’re answering the door fully armed?”

  Colt appeared, hat pulled low over his eyes, a little steam in his aura.

  “That Muppet across the street stole my generator sometime this morning. I went down there to get it and the idiot had run it out of gas with nothing plugged in.”

  “He just ran out the gas?”

  “He had the audacity to try to sell it to me, and then he said he was going to report it to the sheriff, saying I stole it. Can you believe the nerve of that guy?”

  “Then one of his little friends pulled a gun on Colt,” Faith said.

  Colt nodded his head, then said, “He told his buddy if I didn’t get off the porch in ten seconds, he was to put a round in my skull.”

  “And?” Gator asked.

  “I waited ten seconds, and then I took my generator and left.”