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

  Fight Like a Man

  The SHTF Series, Book One

  L.L. Akers

  Scorched Earth Publishing, LLC

  Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  The Shit (hit the fan) List

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Connect with Preppers

  About the Author

  To my prepping partner.

  When the poop hits the fan, I’ll be your huckleberry.

  “Hello Darkness, my old friend

  I've come to talk with you again

  Because a vision softly creeping

  Left its seeds while I was sleeping

  And the vision that was planted in my brain

  Still remains

  Within the sound of silence…”

  ~ Simon & Garfunkel

  Foreword

  As warned by scientists, the Department of defense—and even the 2017 United States presidential candidates—Ted Koppel and countless others, the world as we know it is going dark. It’s not a matter of if, but when. It could be terrorists and/or foreign enemies inflicting a cyber-attack by hacking into our systems, or an EMP/nuclear weapon, or even a natural, but unexpected, solar flare.

  The lights are going out.

  It is a ‘coming, one way or the other.

  When it does, the real fear will be that of the predatory darkness found within our fellow human beings. There will be no power. No water. No fuel. No readily available food source. Limited medical services. Possibly no transportation. Communications will go down. Systems will catastrophically fail.

  Society will collapse.

  Until America recovers, police officers, military personnel, firefighters, and other emergency service personnel will have to make a choice between doing their appointed duties—of which they may not be paid—or protecting their own families. Which would you choose?

  We all know the answer to that. And without proper ongoing services, there will be predators. These animals—humans, in fact—will prey on the weak, the unprotected, and the unprepared. Previous friends, neighbors, and business acquaintances too will turn on you when they’re desperate. The bad people will come. They will come in force, and they will dominate the masses. This apocalyptic event won’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor; black or white; male or female. You and yours will be affected.

  I hope you’re prepared.

  Prologue

  Three Months after the Event

  Grayson dropped into a squat and glared at the mound of freshly turned dirt. He tossed one lone magnolia flower onto the grave; she had loved that sweet scent. He stood to pace back and forth between the two rows of hand-made wooden crosses—already leaning and showing wear and tear from the weather—but still standing guard like tired soldiers over those he had tried to protect.

  He’d failed.

  He looked over his shoulder. No one else was coming?

  Piss poor excuse for a funeral.

  He kicked a rock, sending it flying into the air, where it pinged against the small cross on the one shortened grave at the end of the row. His lips tightened as his throat knotted up. His eyes were wet. He swiped at them with the back of his hand.

  Grayson hadn’t asked for this; to be a leader…to be in charge. He’d married Olivia for a wife and got a family; that part he didn’t regret. But the pressure of taking care of Olivia and her sisters, Gabby and Emma, and everyone else was too much. This wasn’t some fictional story, where the reluctant hero finally steps up to accept his place. He didn’t want to be in charge anymore. He wasn’t a hero; far from it. He wasn’t a soldier, either. None of them were. He was just a guy. A middle-aged man with a wife and kid who only wanted them all to be able to live in peace with full bellies and a good night’s sleep every night, safe in their beds without fear.

  They shouldn’t have to fight for every morsel or sip; every breath of air. Every minute of rest. How had it all gone so bad, so quick? Where was the real help from the government? Couldn’t any of those ABC agencies do something for the American people?

  America just had to go sticking their nose in where it didn’t belong. Or did it? At this point, he didn’t even know who their adversary was. Who had attacked the United States with a blow so quiet and deadly that they didn’t even need to put boots on the ground?

  North Korea was the most likely suspect, but they couldn’t have done this. Not alone. Who was the Judas? Russia? China? Which had the most to gain by crippling America? Who had turned on them?

  Someone had.

  And whoever was responsible was the master of surprise.

  They’d never seen it coming. While America was scrambling to point military reinforcements to foreign lands, they’d left their own back yard wide open for a blow that had hobbled the country.

  It was over before it began.

  Over without the enemy shedding a single drop of blood.

  This wasn’t even a war; it was a massacre, fought in a flash with no flesh and blood foe invading their lands. No fair fight. Their enemy had struck fast and furious at America using no guns or nukes at all. So much for fire and fury, as the president had promised.

  As far as he knew, there was no fight. This battle hadn’t been fought with bullets and bombs.

  The only guns being used were against each other in a fight for survival.

  So where were the real soldiers?

  He needed help. They all needed help.

  In the meantime, how to take care of his family? They shouldn’t have to suffer. They weren’t like the horde of sheeple who’d spent their lives never preparing, thinking something like this could never happen here. Those people had thought the United States was a super power that couldn’t ever be taken down.

  But he had thought it—or something like it—could happen. And he had prepared. As had his family. They’d ignored the jabs and rolling eyes of their friends when they’d tried to bring up ‘prepping’ to warn others. They’d been laughed at and ridiculed. Made to look crazy. But they’d done it anyway.

  They’d worn the silly ‘prepper’ moniker despite the ridicule.

  They’d stocked up with bullets, beans, and Band-Aids; and a thousand other things.

  But it hadn’t been enough.

  It was a hard lesson, but he’d learned you cannot prepare for everything.

  A sadness washed over him as he stared at the small grave. How many more would there be?

  Now that clean water was limited, people were thirsty, dehydrated, and desperate, which made them stupid and lazy. They wouldn’t always take the time to do what was necessary to make the water safe, and now those same people were paying t
heir dues in sickness, diarrhea and sometimes a never-ending nap. But that wasn’t the only thing killing them.

  Food was also in high demand.

  His stomach growled thinking of the meager supper of rice and beans he’d been lucky to eat today. Who knew what tomorrow would—or wouldn’t—bring.

  To add to the death toll, bloodthirsty men—fellow Americans—with no conscious or morals had stepped out of the dark to take over, forcibly stealing anything and everything they wanted: food, gas, water, medication, and even women.

  The real war was now being raged amongst themselves.

  If these men took from you, the only way to get it back was to pay, and the price was exorbitant. The only currencies good in this day and time were ammo, liquor, drugs, cigarettes, gas and flesh.

  Or blood.

  Grayson stood and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He shook off his sorrow and grit his teeth against the pain, pulling up the anger he’d tried so hard to keep tapped back. He’d had his pity party. Today marked the loss of one too many.

  To hell with it.

  He was done paying.

  1

  Grayson – The morning after the event

  The sound of silence spread over Grayson like a heavy blanket, nudging him awake.

  All was quiet—too quiet. The first peek of sunrise squinted through the blinds, but the room was still dark enough to sleep for a while longer. He rolled over to put his arm around Olivia, expecting to find his wife still snuggled in beside him.

  Instead, his hand brushed hair, where there shouldn’t have been hair. Lots of it. And not silky soft like his wife’s.

  Coarse and dirty-feeling hair.

  He jerked his hand back, but not before waking Ozzie. Too late, he attempted to cover his face for the attack he knew was coming.

  Damn dog.

  Ozzie was on him in a flash, licking his face to beg for breakfast.

  “Get down, Ozzie!”

  The dog whined.

  “No, it’s not time. It’s too early.”

  Grayson rolled over, giving him his back. He’d lay still a few minutes more, remembering that Olivia was gone on a trip to the beach with her sisters—and he was stuck home with her dog.

  He sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to getting up to no wife again. Although he’d never admit it to Olivia, no wife meant no life for him.

  He’d been in a funk since she’d been gone. Not only did he have a toothache and had to face the dentist later today, but he was dragging ass, feeling lazy and grouchy in general since Olivia had left. It wasn’t that he didn’t have projects he could do. And she’d left him her own honey-do list in case he got bored. He’d gruffly accepted it and shoved it into a pocket, acting as though he didn’t need it. He’d had plenty to do. Didn’t want her worrying about him.

  Truth was, he’d finished the honey-do list the first day she was gone. And he’d been moping around since then. He’d bribed Ozzie into hanging out with him on the couch, binge-watching Netflix with cold beer and hot chili—and beef jerky and chips for the mutt; dog-farts be damned.

  She’d be pissed if she knew he wasn’t taking care of himself—or Ozzie—and keeping busy.

  His stomach rumbled thinking of all the good food he wasn’t eating. While he did most of the cooking for them, Olivia usually took care of breakfast. With her gone, he’d been getting his coffee and breakfast-sandwich from the local service station. He hadn’t felt like cooking for only himself. His stomach rumbled again and he vowed to get up and cook real food today. Maybe some bacon biscuits. Definitely coffee. No more canned food and junk.

  But first, just one more hour of sleep.

  He closed his eyes and lay still, trying to recapture his slumber, when he realized it was too quiet. That had to be what had awoken him.

  The sound of silence.

  What happened to the fan? He was sure it’d been on when he’d gone to bed last night. It irked him that he’d become such a creature of habit that he couldn’t sleep well without the low murmur of the white noise.

  He crawled out of the bed and stumbled to the dresser. He turned the knob of the fan to the right, and then to the left.

  Nothing.

  Maybe it got unplugged somehow, he thought. Probably the dog…

  He flicked on the lamp to give him some light.

  Nothing.

  What the—

  He looked for the familiar green glow of the alarm clock. It should be beside the fan. Olivia kept moving it away from the bed because he had a tendency to slap the snooze button too much. It annoyed her to hear the alarm go off every seven minutes for an hour.

  She gets annoyed too easy.

  In the dim light, he found the clock and picked it up. No glowing numbers. It was off. He didn’t even know there was a way to turn it off. He’d never seen it not lit up before, unless it was unplugged. He pressed the buttons on the top, not sure of what he was pressing. He ran his hand down the power cord all the way to the wall. It was plugged in.

  Power must be out.

  Now he’d have to get up and find out how long it was going to be out for. It couldn’t be a weather thing; the weather in the Carolinas had been beautiful this May. Either the power company was screwing around updating this or that, or someone had hit a pole, knocking out a transformer.

  Too bad he was too far from his nearest neighbor to see if their power was out too. Crossing to the window, he raised the blinds to let in as much light as possible and picked up his cell phone to call it in to the power company; maybe if he called early enough, he’d get higher up on the list.

  The cell phone lit up and he sighed in relief. He scrolled through his contacts, finding the number for the power company and dialed.

  It didn’t ring.

  No service.

  Odd.

  A scary thought slid into his mind and he pushed it back out. Can’t be. No way.

  He hurried out of the bedroom, stalking through the house. Every room…no power. No little glowing lights on the TV system. No time showing on the microwave or stove. No hum of a refrigerator. Nothing.

  He waved off his silly thoughts. Plenty of times that cell phone had failed him. Phone service was spotty at best way out here in the country.

  He’d just use the iPad—or PooPad, as Olivia called it, since he took it with him to the bathroom every morning to read the news.

  Time management, he’d told her a thousand times.

  Sometimes it was easier to get online than it was to make a call. At least that’s what Olivia had always said. She was able to get on the internet with that new-fangled 3G or 4G or something, even when they had no power; as long as the tablet was charged.

  The power company had an online-reporting site where he could be sure to get on the list for repair service, or maybe see if any news was posted as to why it was out.

  Returning to the living room where he’d left the iPad, he told Ozzie to back off, he’d feed him in a minute. The dog was literally right on his heels. With the heavy curtains pulled closed, Grayson could barely see. The coffee table creeped up on him and he stubbed his toe.

  The little one.

  “Stupid son of a—” he screamed, sending Ozzie scurrying away in fright.

  Forget it. That shit hurt like hell, but swarping and cussing didn’t have the same affect when he was alone; it wouldn’t make his toe feel better at all, and it just scared the dog. He hated doing that. Ozzie was his only company; he didn’t want him to be afraid. He clenched his teeth against the throbbing, and blew out his breath through his nose.

  He’d be glad when Olivia came home.

  “It’s alright, boy,” he said as he hopped the few steps to the couch, flopped down and grabbed the iPad from the coffee table. Ozzie returned, wagging his tail, always quick to forgive. He gave him a quick pat on the head and jabbed a finger on the home button of the iPad, expecting to feel silly when it lit up.

  He was right.

  It lit right up.

 
He sighed in relief.

  Tapping the internet icon, his mind wandered. How long had the power been out? He’d gone to bed early so in all reality, it could’ve been off all night. He’d need to check to be sure their food wasn’t unthawed or warm. No telling how long it would be before the power company got to him, he might not have power all day and night.

  He jumped up, and hurried to the kitchen and opened the freezer door.

  An unspoken swear word exploded in his mind.

  His penny was sitting in the bottom of a glass of water. A trick he’d learned a long time ago was to fill up a glass of water and freeze it, and then lay a penny atop the ice. If the power ever went out, you could estimate how long it’d been out by how much of the ice had melted and how far the penny had fallen. It was at the bottom. The power must’ve been out all night.

  The meat still felt somewhat cool, and while the cardboard of the frozen boxes of food were soggy, the contents were still cool to the touch as well. But, he’d have to cook everything right away.

  His shoulders slumped on the way back to the living room. He was going to have a long day.

  And he could forget a shower. Without power, he didn’t have water either. At least not good, clean water readily available, unless he wanted to raid his preps. But one way or the other though, he’d have to at least figure out how to get some coffee going. Quick, too. His head was pounding already.