Fight Like a Man: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SHTF Series Book 1)

by L. L. Akers

  Nick sighed and Jake felt bad for the lie.

  “Look, if there’s room for y’all, we’ll find a way to get back to you and tell you. Maybe you can load up what you got and come out there. But don’t come unless one of us comes to get you. Might not be room enough for y’all and those cops are trigger nervous. That work?”

  Nick looked relieved at the possibility. “Yeah. You tell Grayson we’ll pull our weight and then some. We’ll be ready to go once all this gas is gone.” He waved at the gas tanks lined up behind him. “And I don’t think that’ll take more than a day or so.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Jake gave him a nod and turned to go.

  “Hey, Jake,” Nick said, “What color is your Chevy?”

  “Red. Ruby red. Why?”

  Nick shook his head. “I thought so. We had a group of bikers in here yesterday looking for bike parts. One of them saw this box and asked about it and asked where you live. He was looking for a red one. I know you work on it out at Grayson’s but I told him I didn’t know where you lived.”

  “You tell him the color?”

  Nick scoffed. “Yeah, I did. But I told him it was yellow. I’m not stupid.”

  “Thanks, man. Why was he asking?”

  “State-wide Biker-Scavenger hunt. Those things are big deals for bikers and it was on their list. You should have seen that convoy. Beat all I ever saw. One biker had a pig—a live pig in a purple skirt—strapped to the back of his bike.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah, apparently a red ’57 Chevy was on the list too. But they moved on, headed south toward the beach.”

  Jake’s blood ran cold. “You know which beach?”

  Nick shook his head. “I wasn’t asking any questions. That crew wasn’t too friendly. I gave them all the bike parts I had on the house and sent them on their way. I was just glad I didn’t have all this food and stuff sitting out here when they came through. They’re part of the baddest biker gang in the Carolinas. Looking for trouble. You be careful out there, you hear?”

  “Will do,” Jake answered. “And you might want to stack that stuff in the back until you get it hauled out of here.”

  Nick stepped forward and shook his hand. He glanced around, giving the area outside the gate where Jake was parked a once-over, nodded a final goodbye and turned to head back into the shop.

  Jake looked around him for any signs of trouble. All was quiet next door at the shopping strip mall and drugstore. But for the first time he noticed the windows of all those businesses had been broken out and the drugstore was now boarded up and closed for business.

  His heart fell. That was his next stop, and the most important.

  Loose items littered the parking lot; clothes, empty boxes, bits and pieces of something or the other. They were probably cleaned out before they were boarded up. Other than the part for Ruby, this was a wasted run and wasted gas.

  On the other side of the shopping strip was a run-down residential property that was well-known to be frequented by drunks and rednecks squatting there for days on end. Piles of beer cans littered the yard most Mondays when he passed by on his way to work.

  Lots of activity over there. It was a small crowd of probably ten or fifteen people and Jake could hear them yelling, although he couldn’t make out the words. Probably just drunk and rowdy.

  He shoved the part for Ruby into the saddle-bag on the back and climbed onto the 4-wheeler feeling nervous about the ride to Grayson’s. He fired up the engine, getting the attention of the crowd.

  “Hey!” someone yelled. Two men broke away from the group and walked toward him. Jake squinted, trying to determine if he knew the men. It’d be nice to talk to someone. Trade information at the very least, maybe find out what anyone was saying about the power being out.

  Jake threw his hand up in a friendly wave. “Hey.”

  One of the men shoved the other, viciously pushing him to the ground and broke into a brisk run. “I saw it first!” he yelled.

  The 4-wheeler. They want it.

  A handful of others split from the crowd and ran toward Jake, mere seconds behind the first two. Soon, they’d all be on him.

  He quickly put the ATV in reverse.

  The engine died.

  He tried to start it again.

  It turned over, over, and over…but didn’t fire.

  Oh shit. Jake had no idea how old the battery was. Hell, where’s a mechanic when you need one, he thought in panic, looking up to see if Nick had heard the problem and come back out—hopefully carrying his gun.

  No sign of Nick.

  One more time, he tried it, chanting ‘please’ under his breath and hoping he wasn’t flooding it with too much gas. He looked over his shoulder. Two of the men had put some distance in front of the others. They were close. He studied their desperate faces for a second. He didn’t know either of them and they certainly weren’t running to help.

  Jake’s heart raced.

  He could hear his blood rushing through his ears.

  Panic settled over him in a cold sweat. He couldn’t hold off a crowd of five men alone.

  He looked for Nick; he wasn’t there.

  Then, another glance over his shoulder.

  Two of the men were fifty feet away and gaining fast. They looked like a couple of thugs.

  Could this get violent? Over a 4-wheeler? Had life gone from normal to this in two days?

  Finally, the engine turned over. He shifted into reverse and whipped the 4-wheeler around, nearly running over the first of the men to reach him.

  Suddenly, Jake was whipped off the ATV with an elbow around his neck and thrown to the ground. He hit the pavement hard enough to rattle his teeth, landing on his ass. Tucker would kill him if his 4-wheeler was stolen. He came off the ground in a crouch spewing a burst of obscenities and lunging forward in a rush of adrenaline.

  His attacker threw a leg over and landed precariously, barely on the seat, but frantically turned the handlebars to make his getaway.

  Before Jake could take the four steps back to the ATV, his attacker was thrown off and landed at Jake’s feet. The second thug was on the bike now.

  Jake and his attacker both leapt in tandem to reach the second man who was seconds away from gone, knocking him off the bike in a jumble of fists.

  A sharp elbow cracked Jake in the forehead, knocking him back down and stunning him a second. He shook it off and sprung to his feet, and pitched forward to catch the 4-wheeler by the back rack; it was rolling away.

  His hand was nearly jerked off the bike as another attack had him on his back foot, being pulled from behind. He tried to hold his ground but the ferocity of the assault was intense; he fought to pull forward but it wasn’t long before he took one step back, then another. He let go, made a sudden turn and swung behind him. The heel of his hand caught the man on the chin with the force of his body behind the blow. Jake heard something snap and the hoodlum hit the ground, only replaced by the other attacker, who took Jake down with one sweep of his foot and hopped on the bike like a cowboy at a rodeo, hooting his success.

  Jake cursed his bad leg and reached behind him, pulling out the pistol he had tucked into the back of his pants, drawing it as he fell, thinking this can’t be happening. He hadn’t been in a fist fight since eighth grade, and he remembered why; it hurt like hell. He couldn’t think straight; fear and confusion clouded his mind.

  What was he doing pulling a gun?

  How had things ratcheted up to this level?

  His finger found the trigger as his body smacked the pavement, jarring his spine.

  A loud boom cracked through the air and Jake watched the thug fall from the bike in slow motion, hit the ground and lay still, while the other hooligan froze and then ran the opposite way.

  17

  The Ladies

  “You two go first,” Gabby offered.

  Olivia and Emma squatted while Gabby watched out for them, hopping from one foot to the other and constantly looking from the large grou
p of people on one end of the rest area to Larry on the other end, hoping he wouldn’t leave them.

  They were stupid. One of them should’ve stayed with Larry and the car. It wasn’t like he had any morals or ethics, at least as far as she could see. Gabby didn’t doubt for one second he’d leave them, if he could part Olivia from her watch first, and he still had their T-shirt bags full of stuff.

  Emma jumped and pulled her pants up. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Gabby asked. She and Olivia cocked their heads, listening.

  Olivia stood and jerked her pants up too, nodding with wide eyes. “I hear it.”

  Farther into the woods, behind them, a small sound carried on the wind.

  Gabby couldn’t wait any longer. She squatted. “Just a minute. I can’t wait. One of you watch that way and the other watch the rest area. Make sure those guys stay on their side and Larry doesn’t leave us.”

  She hurried to take care of her business and then stood too, ready to go. “Come on.”

  “No, Gabby. Listen. It sounds like a kitten,” Olivia whispered. “Or a baby…”

  They stood very still. There it was again, but this time over the wood-bugs and birds chirping and chipping, they also heard a grunting noise. “Sounds like a wild pig,” Emma whispered. “And a kitten.”

  Gabby grabbed Emma and Olivia’s arms and squeezed. “Wild pigs will attack you. They have tusks. They’re very dangerous,” she whispered. “Let’s go back to the car.”

  “No. We have to go look,” Olivia whispered. She pushed the branches apart and stepped further into the woods, with Emma following closely behind.

  Gabby threw her hands up into the air. “If it’s a pig, you better be able to climb a tree fast or back up and sneak away. Seriously, it can kill you…”

  Emma and Olivia weren’t listening to her. They were too intent on their crusade to worry about their own fates. “Sure, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Larry,” Gabby whispered sarcastically to herself.

  When the brush thinned, Olivia and Emma stepped through a near wall of Live Oaks and straight into a scene torn from a horror movie.

  Or Mad Max.

  Olivia gasped and Emma threw out an arm, trying to stop her sister from walking too far in and getting discovered. But it was too late; no going back.

  Strapped to the back of a motorcycle, furiously wiggling to trying to free itself from the tight straps, was a small white pig, barely more than a piglet. It gave one last weak grunt and then dropped its head in exhaustion, now laying limp across the leather seat.

  It was wearing a purple ruffled tutu.

  But on the ground, in a far worse position, a young Asian woman lay on her stomach hugging the earth, with one biker hovering over the top of her. His pants were pulled down below his knees. Two other rough-looking men stood next to them, watching. Or waiting their turn?

  The man froze for a moment, but then with a grin at Olivia and Emma, he continued his rutting into the woman, whose body trembled, but otherwise stayed still. The fight was out of her. She was outnumbered and outmuscled—and she was handicapped.

  One arm ended in a delicate stump at the wrist. It wasn’t a new injury, not like the burning, curling skin on the shoulder of that same arm. The woman lay very still as though waiting for it to be over. She stared at Emma and Olivia with startling almond-shaped blue eyes that contrasted against her shiny, straight, long black hair. She whimpered; a small sound as though a mewling kitten was huddled within her ripped-open shirt. Her small breasts were bared, her short skirt pulled up.

  Time seemed to almost stop.

  Almost.

  In slow motion, as Emma and Olivia stood in open-mouthed shock, he thrust once more with a groan and then stood and tugged his faded jeans up and buckled a heavy black belt, not bothering to hide his manhood as he did. He smiled at Olivia and Emma.

  The man had no shame. He jerked on the bottom edges of his patch-filled leather vest covering his rippled, tattooed chest as though to straighten it and gave a proud nod with his chin.

  His crew laughed in approval.

  A long-handled branding iron lay against a tree, still pink with heat, like the bubbled and ripped flesh on the woman’s arm. She’d been branded with an oversized number “2”.

  Olivia sniffed. The smell of recently burnt human skin wafted in the air. It preceded a buzzing that filled Olivia’s head; a sound so strong it blocked out the image in front of her. She found herself not in the woods with a trio of bikers and the woman on the ground, but back in the basement of a house, where she herself had nearly been raped a few years ago. Grayson had tried to find her to save her but he was almost too late—she’d had to save herself. She shook off a shiver and tamped down the terrifying memory.

  In a quiet voice, she mumbled, “Fight,” the same word she’d heard in her own head in her dead mother’s voice that night.

  The girl looked straight at her, seeing her word. It seemed no one else was making a sound; or somehow, she and Olivia had forged a connection. “How? They’re men,” she mumbled back.

  Or did she?

  “Fight like a man,” Olivia answered. Words she’d heard her husband say to his daughter.

  But the woman had no fight left in her.

  “Get up,” Olivia screamed.

  The biker looked at his crew and shrugged with a smile. “Next!”

  The Asian woman didn’t move. Resigned to her fate, she didn’t cover herself either.

  Emma grabbed Olivia’s arm. “Let’s go, Olivia.”

  Olivia jerked her arm away. “If another one of you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

  The other two bikers stopped in their tracks, and then laughed out loud. Neither Olivia nor Emma held a weapon, nor were they a match for even one of the bikers, no less three.

  The biker who had just finished with the woman—the obvious leader of the group—stepped forward. He was a giant of a man with a short gray high-and-tight haircut that looked more fitting for a military man than a biker. Engraved on his vest was his name: “Trunk,” and on his bicep, was the word “TWO.”

  He bowed and mockingly waved an enormous arm pulsing with bulging veins and covered in ink toward the little clearing where the woman still lay. “Welcome ladies. You can join the party. It’s not how it looks. She agreed to it,” he nodded toward the Asian woman, “or you can get the hell out.”

  “Yeah, looks like she’s really into it,” Olivia muttered.

  Emma shushed her and squeezed her arm. They both shook with fear, trembling against each other, shoulder to shoulder. “Then we can leave… with her?” Emma asked in a quiet voice.

  Trunk smirked. “You ladies can leave, but not her. You can even take the other two sniveling bitches waiting out in the rest area. Don’t need ‘em. Done had ‘em.”

  He looked back to the woman on the ground. “But this one’s my new Old Lady. An Asian with blue eyes and a missing paw—believe it or not, that’s on the list—she’s worth three-hundred points on the scavenger hunt,” he finished, looking at his buddies and winking. “As you can see, we take our scavenger hunts very seriously.” He pointed to the pig and laughed. “She’s definitely riding out of here with me and the pig.”

  “You can’t just take someone,” Emma snapped in false bravado.

  The smile slid off Trunk’s face. “Nobody’s taking anything here. This bitch is giving it away—for food and water. Just like the other two who just left here,” he spit out between gritted teeth. “She ain’t no princess. She was a lot lizard before the grid went down. This is a promotion.”

  He and his buddies loudly laughed and bumped fists.

  Olivia squatted down so she could be level to the Asian woman. “We’ve got food and water where we’re going.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Get up and come with us,” Olivia pleaded. The woman continued to lay still at Trunk’s feet, not willing to provoke him.

  Emma tried to negotiate. “What would you trade for her?”

  Trunk’s
voice roared, “I said no. She stays. Now get the fuck out of here before you two are staying with her.” He snarled at them, knotting his fists into two huge balls, scaring them both to their core as he stood his ground over the woman.

  Olivia gazed around at the three men and their campsite. Other than three nearly naked motorcycles—none of them sporting saddlebags—they had very little gear. A small campfire held a pot. Several empty beer bottles and food cans lay discarded beside a clear sack filled with water bottles. As far as she could see, they didn’t have weapons either. The other two bikers look amused and not prepared for anything other than complete obedience to their leader.

  She looked again at the woman on the ground and thought she saw a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes as she stared back at Olivia, so she stood and took a deep breath and squeezed Emma’s hand, and whispered almost silently, hoping Emma could hear her, “Fight like a man, little sister.”

  She turned and put her hands up to cup her mouth. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Gabby! It’s a pig! Come shoot it! Hurry!”

  18

  Jake

  Jake looked up in shock at Nick who had appeared out of thin air, standing tall and ready with his rifle pointed at the man on the ground. The other two mechanics ran up and slid to a stop, staring with wide eyes at the mayhem that had landed at their gate.

  “Hurry up and get out of here,” Nick yelled at Jake. “We got ya covered.”

  Jake lay on his back propped up with one elbow. He stared at his other hand which held a gun; a gun he couldn’t even remember pulling out. Snapshots of his life with Gabby flashed through his mind. He’d screwed it up. In one moment, he’d killed their life together. Nothing would ever be the same again. Gabby would be devastated.

  “I shot him,” he mumbled.

  His hand trembled and his nervous system took over, producing a wave of shakes that made it impossible for him to hold the gun. He carefully laid it down and looked up at Nick.

  “I shot a man, Nick,” he mumbled again through the fog in his head.