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

by L. L. Akers

  It had.

  The road wasn’t clear.

  A wall of stalled and wrecked vehicles blocked it.

  She slammed on her brakes, and veered right toward the low concrete wall. She could barely see the river at the bottom of a huge drop-off. She’d never make that fall. She jerked the wheel to the left, all while in a long, screaming slide, and then realized there was nothing to keep her from falling off that side either. She corrected and watched the wall of metal quickly approaching her windshield as she steered right into it, standing on her brakes.

  Omigod. Stop Stop Stop

  Her prayer went unanswered as metal connected with metal. Everything slowed down. Graysie felt her seatbelt cut into her as her hair flew past her face, long tendrils reaching desperately toward the windshield. Out of the corner of her eye and through the red veil of hair, she saw her gun slide into the floor in slow motion. The sound was deafening; the loudest thing she’d heard in days. It seemed to go on and on as she wondered if that was her…her car, making that sound. She felt as though her heart had stopped, along with time, as she waited an eternity to come full stop, anticipating a head-on collision of her face with the steering wheel. Seconds seemed like minutes…

  Her head was thrown forward, but then jerked backward as she finally roared to a noisy stop followed by dead silence—other than a strange hissing noise.

  Thank you, seatbelt.

  Her vision was a blur of white. The sudden stop was punctuated with a crash of something falling onto the pavement beneath her car, probably something under the hood that was now kissing the back of a very tired and abandoned Volvo, and the loud pop of her airbag. She rested her head against the bag that saved her, breathing hard.

  The bag deflated on it’s own, laying limp against the steering wheel. After reassuring herself she was okay, other than probably two black eyes and a few bruises, she put her car in reverse and tried to back up.

  It wasn’t going anywhere.

  The car door squealed in fury as she pushed it open. She got out and stood still a moment, waiting for the pain to come. When none did, she stretched her arms and legs, and wiggled her fingers. She was okay—but she knew major pain would come later. She walked to the front. The collision had married her Mustang to the Volvo. It would take a tow truck, at least, to separate them. Maybe even the Jaws of Life.

  The sun was slipping away. It’d be dark within minutes. A small crowd of figures were making their way up the bridge now. Maybe someone to walk with?

  In her head, she heard her father’s voice contradicting her own.

  No.

  Run.

  She reached into the car, and grabbed her gun and her bag, furiously digging around until she found the hat her father had packed her. She twisted her long red hair and pulled it up, shoving the hat on top of it, and started walking at as fast a pace as the heavy backpack would allow. There was no time to unpack it now and leave anything behind. Besides, she wasn’t sure what she might need later.

  Much later—Graysie had no concept of time and didn’t have a watch—after miles of walking, she could see the sign for her exit. Feeling a rush of gratitude, she found the energy to run again at a slow pace, with her heavy backpack trying to drag her down with every step. She wore out quicker than she thought she would’ve and within minutes was huffing and puffing, her shoulders screaming in agony from the extra weight. She should have listened to her dad when in his note he said to empty the bag of anything she wouldn’t need.

  But again, how was she to know what wasn’t needed? He’d always said better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

  The road off the interstate seemed darker. Everything looked different—unfamiliar—on foot. A cloud of smoke hung in the air. Creepy. The best she could figure, home was at least an hour’s walk through the country. She needed to rest, if only for a little while.

  She came around a bend and saw a somewhat familiar barn. Probably familiar because the last two she’d passed looked just like it in the dark. A farmhouse was farther down the dirt road and she couldn’t see or hear anyone. It seemed to be the perfect place to rest up and if she wasn’t mistaken about where she was, she could cut across the fields and through the woods, and she thought it would put her out on her father’s land and trim at least five miles off her journey, but it would be a hike.

  And it would be darker and scarier.

  Her pulse had been going way too strong for the past hour. She gripped her gun tightly in her hand. She’d let her fear of the dark get to her and build and build until it was nearly unmanageable. This was the closest to a panic attack she’d had since the day her mother drowned years ago in the aftermath of a hurricane, when she’d sacrificed herself for her daughter.

  She couldn’t go there. She had to stop her mind from rolling into that.

  Pull yourself together, Graysie, she told herself. Again, she jerked on the straps of her backpack, hopping a little to try to re-situate the heavy bag. Her back and shoulders were begging for a rest.

  She decided to stop in the shelter of the barn, if it was empty, and rest. Then she’d be ready to walk home. She’d be in her own bed tonight, safe under her dad’s roof.

  24

  Grayson

  Puck arrived bright and early, knocking on Grayson’s door.

  “Mr. Gray Man!”

  Ozzie jumped off the bed, barking with delight, and scratched at the door.

  Grayson stumbled around trying to get his pants on and led Ozzie out. He rubbed his eyes and blinked in the bright sunlight. Trying not to sound too irritated in spite of another nearly sleepless night worrying about his family, he asked. “What are you doing here so early, Puck?”

  “I wanted to see if Ozzie could come out and play,” Puck muttered in a small voice, and then dropped his head. He blindly held a can up in the air. “And I brought breakfast if you can open it.”

  Grayson took in a deep breath, and then sighed it out. He’d forgotten to show the boy how to use a can opener. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.” He left Ozzie out to play with the kid.

  Half an hour and half a pot of coffee later, Grayson emerged outside with a better attitude. At least the boy would keep his mind off of Olivia and Graysie, and he could do with a little help around the homestead, too.

  Ignoring Puck’s contribution to breakfast, he fried them some Spam and eggs using a cast iron skillet on the grill. He watched with wonder and a little bit of disgust as Puck nearly inhaled everything in two minutes flat. At one point, he thought he’d have to interfene when Puck eyeballed Ozzie eating his own breakfast.

  After eating, Grayson called Puck over to the porch. He held up a spoon and the can of ravioli that Puck had brought with him. “Okay. I’m going to show you how use a spoon to open this can, and then you can help me out around here a bit and earn that breakfast. Okay?”

  Puck solemnly nodded.

  After thinking about it, he realized someone may have already tried to teach Puck how to open a can with a handheld can opener. While most people thought it was simple, he had seen other adults in his life that just couldn’t get the hang of it, and kids definitely had trouble with. Kids couldn’t open a can to save their life. He wasn’t surprised Puck wasn’t able to figure it out. But with the boy’s strength, there was no way he wouldn’t be able to do the spoon-trick he was about to show him, and as long as Puck could find a spoon, he’d always have way to open cans in an emergency.

  He held up the spoon. “So, you grip the spoon real tight in the palm of one hand, with about half of the round end sticking out. Then you hold the can tight with your other hand, and start sawing back and forth with your spoon around the top edge. It’ll soften the metal. The longer you saw back and forth, the easier it will be to open.” Grayson sawed with the spoon back and forth until his spoon pierced through the lid with a half-inch long crack.

  He showed Puck the top of the can. “See that crack? You’re in. Now you can either keep sawing around the whole
circle of the can if you want to remove the entire lid, or you can poke your spoon through and sort of cut the top open. See there?” Grayson sawed at the hole, making it longer while Puck watched wide eyed.

  “Then you can bend the top up and get to your food. But be careful, that jagged edge can give you a mean cut. It might be best for you to pour the food into a bowl or something. Don’t ever eat out of the can, okay?” A cut from a can could get nasty, and without medical services running, or any hospitals open, it’d be best to avoid any injuries.

  Puck nodded and took off at a run toward the picnic table where they’d eaten breakfast. He grabbed his dirty paper plate and ran back, holding it out to Grayson.

  Grayson laughed. “You want to eat this? Now? You’re still hungry?” He hoped Mama Dee had lots of cans in her pantry…

  Puck dropped down on the ground beside Ozzie, reminding Grayson of when Graysie sat crisscross applesauce in kindergarten, and shoved the square raviolis into his mouth with his hands. He’d eat one, and then give Ozzie one, sharing until they were all gone. He wiped the red messy sauce on his pant legs. Olivia would have had a heart attack.

  Instead of getting up, he laid down with the dog, snuggling him close.

  Grayson stood over him scratching his head. Weird time for a lay-down.

  Suddenly he stood up like a jack-in-the-box. “Can I have some more water, Mr. Gray Man?”

  “It’s Grayson. But yeah, sure, kid.”

  The boy ran back to the table and turned up the half-full gallon of water Grayson had set out for their lunch, ignoring the paper cup he’d previously been using, drinking straight from the jug. Another cringe-worthy moment.

  “Uh, you can just take that with you when you go home,” Grayson said. He had a phobia about drinking after anyone other than his wife, Olivia.

  Puck’s eyes lit up. “Thank you!”

  “How you doing on water at your house anyway?”

  It hadn’t even occurred to Grayson to ask before. It was hard for him to remember most people didn’t put back water for just in case or emergencies. And with Puck’s mom having been gone when the power went off, he seriously doubted the boy would have known to fill up any containers with the last of the water in the pipes. But maybe Jenny had a few more crayons to Puck’s half-empty box.

  “Almost out. Mama Dee had some jugs, but Jenny drinks a lot of water.”

  Guess not.

  “Come on, then. This is a good time to show you how to get water from a well.”

  Grayson went into the barn and came back with a cylinder-shaped tube, a handful of tools, and a thick coil of rope wrapped around his shoulder. The silver cylinder was three and half inches in diameter and 52 inches long. It was made from galvanized stove pipe by an Amish man.

  “Is that a rocket?” Puck asked with big, hopeful eyes.

  “No. It’s an Amish water bucket. Anyone can use this on nearly any well and get fresh drinking water. You don’t have to boil it or treat it. Straight from Mother Earth.”

  “That doesn’t look like a bucket. It’s too skinny.”

  “That’s because nowadays, wells are thin.” Grayson turned the bucket upside down and held it out to Puck. “See here, this end has a rubber valve fastened to a shaft that runs the full length of the bucket. It opens to let water enter the bucket, and then it closes when the bucket is lifted.”

  Puck looked thoroughly confused. Grayson was used to that. He’d received the same look when he’d shown the bucket to Olivia. When people thought about wells and buckets, they typically imagined what they’d seen on television on old shows like Lassie; stone wells that were waist-high, set up off the ground, around a deep hole with a bucket tied to a rope and crank.

  Those were a thing of the past.

  “Come on, I’ll show you how it works.” As he walked to the back yard, he kept talking, “I bought this one online from Lehman’s, but you could make your own out of PVC pipe, if you could figure out how to do the valve on the bottom. It was less than a hundred bucks, so not worth the headache for me. And anyone could do this, even my wife, Olivia. It’s simple.”

  Well, maybe not Olivia, but he’d bet her sister, Gabby, could figure it out. Olivia would think it was too hard and probably wouldn’t even try, unless he made her.

  “You could also use a hand pump to get water out of your well much faster than this bucket. This one only pulls up two gallons at a time. A hand pump would be much more efficient. But I can’t find mine. Luckily, I have this, too.”

  As they walked, he stole a glance at Puck to be sure he was paying attention; he may as well try to teach the boy something if he was going to hang around. “Well it wasn’t actually luck, Puck. See, when you prepare for emergencies, one is none and two is one.”

  Now Puck looked even more thoroughly confused; if that was possible.

  “What I mean is, if I hadn’t prepared with two different plans to get water out of my well, I wouldn’t be able to get any. Because apparently, someone stole my hand pump which was my number one plan,” he said angrily.

  “Wasn’t me.”

  Grayson laughed. “I know it wasn’t you. You’ve never even been here before I found you in that tree and brought you home.”

  Puck stopped walking and dropped his head, looking at the ground, still as a statue.

  “What are you doing?” It was as though someone had pulled his plug. Grayson stopped to wait up for him. “Come on, Puck.”

  Puck didn’t move.

  Grayson walked back to him. “What’s the matter, boy?”

  Puck took a deep breath and spoke, without looking at Grayson. “I was here, Mister Gray Man. I took those veggies from your garden, for Jenny.”

  Grayson stared at the kid long and hard, ready to give him a piece of his mind.

  The boy began to tremble.

  “Hey, hey… don’t. Don’t do that.”

  He put his hand on Puck’s shoulder and Puck flinched and backed up.

  Shocked by his response, Grayson stepped back and dropped his hand. Someone had been mean to this kid, and Grayson couldn’t stand to see the boy so full of fear. “Whoa. I’m not gonna hit you. Ever. It’s okay. But listen, Puck. If you really need something, you need to ask first. There’s nothing on this earth worse than a thief or a liar. Or a murderer. You hear me? Just don’t do it again.”

  “I’m sorry.” Puck stuck his lip out and let his head hang.

  “S’kay. Let’s get this project going.”

  Grayson walked on ahead just as Ozzie ran over and dropped his ball at Puck’s feet. That changed his mood in an instant. As though it’d never happened, he laughed and grabbed the ball, throwing it far enough to earn a home run. Out of the park—or backyard anyway.

  Would’ve made a great baseball player.

  Ozzie took off to retrieve it and Puck caught up with Grayson just after he’d tipped over the old fake doghouse that covered the well-head and pulled the well-cap off. Then he pulled out the drop-pipe that housed the submersible pump motor, handing the end of it to Puck and telling him to walk it back as he pulled.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s what the well-pump is attached to. It doesn’t work without power, but when it does, the pump shoots the water through this drop-pipe. We have to take it out so that we can get our bucket down to the water in the actual well.”

  He came to the end of the pipe, and gently pulled out his pump, hoping it wouldn’t give him any trouble if the power came back on and he had to re-install it. He laid that aside and picked up the well-bucket, running his rope through the large metal ring on the top and tying a tight knot.

  He handed it to Puck.

  “Okay, now you just carefully feed this well-bucket into the well. When it gets to the water, it’ll stop dropping so easily, and you’ll want to wait a minute or so to let it fill up, then pull it back out, and boom… we’ll have fresh, clean drinking water.”

  Puck was excited to help. He carefully took the well bucket from Grayson and i
nserted it into the well, looking down his nose with big eyes at the dark hole into which he was dropping it.

  “That’s it, lower it down easy…” Grayson instructed him.

  The pile of rope on the ground was getting smaller and smaller. Grayson had no idea how much rope he actually had, but so far, the hole had eaten a good bit of it. A smarter man would’ve stretched the rope out beside the drop-pipe he’d just pulled out to see if he had enough to reach the water before attempting it.

  Too late for that.

  Puck was working very slowly, dropping it inch by inch. He’d told the boy to go easy, but this was killing him. He stood up and put his hands on his back, leaning backward to stretch just as Ozzie came flying in with his ball, dropping it at Puck’s feet.

  Delighted, Puck let go of the rope and grabbed the ball, throwing it again.

  Grayson lunged and missed, landing in the grass with his fingers clutching at air. He threw himself to his feet and cussed up a storm as he watched the end of his rope disappear deep into the dark chasm.

  “We’re back to one is none, Puck.”

  25

  The Ladies

  Gabby bolted upright in the bed; a strange bed. She gaped around at the unfamiliar room.

  Two twin beds, one of which she was in, were covered in tattered but comfy quilts. A simple four-drawer dresser sat between the beds, holding a huge white pitcher next to a matching over-sized bowl. A stack of wash clothes and a tiny tower of Dixie paper cups were neatly stacked beside the oversized water pitcher.

  A hand-made tapestry on the wall quoted The Lord’s Prayer, hanging directly over a messy pile of pillows and blankets on the carpeted floor, big enough to accommodate two. Her backpack leaned against the corner, next to Olivia’s beat-up, duct-taped flip-flops.

  Remembering where they were, and that they were safe, Gabby dropped back down on a flattened feather pillow in relief. In the bed opposite her, Mei turned over and slowly forced her blood-red eyes open. She stared at Gabby, blinking several times, and then gave up and closed them again, rolling over to face the wall.