Shoot Like a Girl: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SHTF Series Book 2) Page 23

  Gabby’s heart thundered in her chest as her mind raced. She had to warn the guys, especially whomever was awake and walking around with that light, before the men outside stormed the house.

  She wished they’d planned a warning system. Three blinks of a flashlight, the clanging of a dinner bell…anything. In trying to hurry hurry hurry and get water and food lined up, they’d not given security procedures serious thought yet. Being way out in the country, they’d all felt safe-ish so far.

  Right now, that looked like a deadly oversight.

  The beam of light flickered through the house again. Someone was walking toward the kitchen. “Gabby—” Olivia whispered, her words trailing off when she turned her head to find Gabby missing.

  She whipped around. Her mouth fell open in shock. “What are you doing?” she whispered loudly, her eyes round.

  Gabby was pulling off her shoes and socks. She shimmied out of her pants. “I’m going to run up as fast as I can directly to those men,” she answered.

  “No, you’re not! They’ll shoot you! And for god’s sake, why are you taking off your clothes?”

  Gabby stripped off her shirt and her bra, dropping them on the ground to Olivia’s disbelief and Graysie’s amusement. She cupped her breasts and shook them, waggling her eyebrows at her twin sister. “Shooting me will be the last thing on their mind. There’s nothing more terrifying and confusing to a man than an angry, crazy woman screaming her fool head off and running at him stark-naked.”

  Graysie approved. “Good plan, Aunt Gabby,” she whispered and gawked. “If you got it, work it!” She gave her a thumbs up, not at all embarrassed to see her aunt in all her glory.

  “Good. I’m glad you agree, because you’re covering me.” Gabby now stood almost naked; wearing only a pair of silk red panties. “I’ll take the big guy first. If I don’t take them both down, and you can get off a good, clear shot without them seeing you first, you take the other one.”

  Gabby took a deep breath. The words in for a penny, in for a pound popped into her head, as though an echo of a conversation she’d heard lately. She shrugged and dropped her panties too, kicking them off into the underbrush.

  Olivia stuttered, horrified at her twin sister’s vulnerable exposure of even her lady bits. “That… no…Omigod, at least keep your panties on.”

  Graysie held her gun ready in her right hand, with her shirt and bra hanging over her arm, to look as though she’d just picked up her clothes and ran, but really to hide the gun. She tied the bra underneath to keep it secure. The rest of her was naked as a jaybird.

  She took a deep breath and answered her sister. “Look, Olivia. You can hide behind your bush… and I’ll hide behind mine.”

  And she ran.

  50

  Grayson’s Group

  Gabby ran screaming like a banshee out of the woods and across the yard, running like the hounds of hell were chasing her. She frantically stole fake-terrified glances over her shoulder as though someone was after her, and loped across the grass in long, frantically fast strides.

  Her bare bosom bounced wildly, and she did nothing to contain it. Her arms pumped back and forth, one hand empty, the other holding a gun, with her clothes hanging over it.

  Adrenaline spiked her heartbeat, and it pounded like a jackhammer as she tried to envision what she wanted to happen. She’d run straight up to the men, as though needing their help—damsel in distress—and just before falling into their arms, she’d shoot them both.

  Her vision kept trying to take a left turn and insert her taking a bullet instead, falling at their feet, bloody and embarrassingly naked, but she squashed that image and re-focused.

  Smalls and Backfire whipped around, looking for the source of the scream. When their eyes landed on Gabby, headed straight for them, both of their mouths dropped open.

  Her plan was working! She pushed harder, crying out in fear, as she made a beeline right for them.

  Gabby was no slouch, and with her long locks of dark, wavy hair streaming behind her in the moonlight, her breasts bouncing, and her slender legs pumping, the men couldn’t look away.

  They stood stock-still, mesmerized—

  —suddenly glass shattered over them from above, breaking Gabby’s spell.

  Jake’s head, held by his hair in the grip of a large hand, lurched out the window face down. He reared up, seeing his naked wife running toward him. For a split second, their eyes met. He screamed and bucked backward wildly, disappearing from view again, locked into the fight of his life. The sound of the kitchen being destroyed roared from the window.

  Gabby screamed—for real this time—and lost her footing.

  She slid across the grass with one leg in front of her.

  The shirt and bra slipped off her arm. Her gun was in plain view.

  Graysie darted out across the other end of the yard, moving out of the line of fire behind Gabby, and turned and ran straight for the men too. She was a blur of long red hair; just a streak in the night. She held her gun out with both hands, running as fast as she ever had to get close enough to the men that were now raising their guns against her Aunt Gabby.

  The two women screamed in unison, one in mid-flight, and one sliding on the ground.

  The crash of glass above the men startled them and Smalls ducked, looking up and behind him, but seeing nothing but a broken window. His eyes flashed back to the yard, seeing Graysie now running at them, too, from a different angle. He took aim, and paused, rapidly blinking at the girl, but then lowered his gun, his eyes quickly roving back to Gabby…then to Backfire.

  Backfire’s gun raised and Gabby watched it in slow motion, scrambling back up to her feet.

  Smalls watched his finger move into the trigger guard…

  Gabby fired—

  —Smalls watched Backfire’s finger squeeze…and fast as a rattle snake, shoved him to the ground with one meaty arm, throwing off his aim and knocking his gun out of his hand. Then Smalls jerked backward, holding his hand against a plume of scarlet that burst on his own chest.

  Backfire climbed to his hands and knees, and spared Smalls a glance. He was furious with him. “You’re killing me here, Smalls,” he said, sarcastically, inching toward his gun.

  Smalls slumped against the house, clutching at his shirt with one hand. He dropped his gun.

  —Jake and Trunk flew out the dining room window, just yards away from Backfire. The ground shook. They were tangled together, pounding and grunting; a blur of fists, elbows and legs within a tsunami of glass and wood. They rolled across the grass together, locked up tight.

  Backfire reached his gun, grabbing it and struggling to his knees. He lifted it and looked around with eyes full of madness for his target, finding her standing directly in front of him.

  —BANG

  The sound sliced through the night, echoing again and again.

  Bang!

  Bang!

  Everyone stilled; frozen in place.

  It wasn’t an echo…

  51

  Grayson’s Group

  Grayson stumbled barefoot out the back door, the screen door slamming behind him, clad only in a pair of sweat pants. He hurried off the porch and swung his rifle around, pointing it from dead body to another, trying to make sense of everything. His face was even more swollen than before. “What in holy hell happened here?” he yelled.

  Bloodshot eyes moved in astonishment from his daughter standing in front of one dead man, to Jake laying beneath another, while a third man leaned bloody and broken against the wall.

  Olivia slowly crept in from the back of the yard, looking shell-shocked.

  But the most shocking thing of all was his sister-in-law standing buck naked under a full moon, with one arm over her chest, and one hand over her—

  Jake shoved Trunk’s limp body off of him and hurried to Gabby, holding her tight against his chest, and running his hand over her hair. “You okay?” he panted.

  Olivia burst into tears and ran the rest of the wa
y in, grabbing her step-daughter in a tight hug. Graysie swallowed hard, and lowered her gun.

  Grayson’s heart fell. Graysie hadn’t yet got over shooting Puck…and now she had actually killed? He moved to stand in front of her. “It’s okay, Graysie, looks like you had to do it,” he reassured her.

  Graysie shrugged. “I would have—and I was going to… but it wasn’t me.”

  “It was me,” a quiet voice came from the darkened window.

  All eyes turned.

  Puck squatted down, carefully placing his gun on the floor in the dining room, just inside the broken window. He looked up at Grayson, beaming proudly. “Look at me, GrayMan. I shot like a girl.”

  Epilogue

  The farm hummed with activity.

  Gabby and Olivia were washing the laundry in a pot of hot water. Graysie was running them through the wringer attached to a bucket, and then hanging them up to dry on the clothes-line that the guys had rigged up.

  Graysie held up Gabby’s silky red panties, doing a little dance. “How long did it take you to find these in the woods, Aunt Gabby?”

  Gabby blushed. “I didn’t. Jake did. Those are his favorite.”

  Olivia clucked her tongue and waved her hand at Graysie. “Stop playing, and work.”

  At the very back of Grayson’s land, Jake was scooping the last few shovels of dirt onto the two graves, still arguing with Grayson over letting Smalls go.

  “He probably didn’t get far, Grayson. The man was bleeding like a sieve. All I gave him was a reprieve. What’d you want me to do, shoot a cop?”

  Grayson’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “Yeah, Jake. That’s exactly what I wanted you to do. He came here slinging guns first. And he wasn’t a cop.” Grayson rolled his eyes in disbelief at Jake’s bleeding heart.

  Jake stopped shoveling, and leaned on the shovel. “I already told you, and Gabby told you too. He spared her life. If he hadn’t of shoved the other guy, she’d be dead right now. And Graysie said he had a bead on he, too. But he didn’t take the shot. That man wasn’t a killer,” Jake insisted.

  Grayson spit on Trunk’s grave. “They were all killers,” he muttered.

  Jake blew out a breath through his nose. He was frustrated. Grayson just wouldn’t stop. “I don’t care if you don’t believe his story about being in deep cover. I do. If he truly was with the ATF Bureau, he had to play along with some bad stuff… that’s what bad biker gangs like that do. But he drew the line at killing. Gabby and Graysie can attest to that. He spared their life… so I spared his. That man was not a killer.”

  “Tell that to him,” Grayson snapped, and pointed at Elmer. “I think he’d paint them all with the same brush after the shape he found his wife in.”

  Elmer sat off in a chair, alone, facing the woods, distractedly petting Ozzie, who sat in front of him, his head on the old man’s lap. Jake watched him awkwardly light a cigarette.

  Elmer had arrived at sunrise, having driven here as fast as he could in an old Cavalier. He’d tried to warn them that Trunk and his boys were coming, but was delayed when he ran out of gas and had to find something to siphon from, and then walk back to the car.

  The old man was glad everyone was okay, but the sad tale he told of Edith tore everyone up. He hadn’t said much since then, other than to tell them Emma was only a few hours from the island and he’d made her go on. He kept her story of shooting the man on the road to himself. That was her tale to tell, if she ever wanted to.

  Jake shook his head. “Don’t put that on me. Smalls said he never signed up to do any killing. Edith shot first. The other guy shot back before Smalls could stop him. He tried, even with Edith’s bullet in his arm. He did what he could.”

  Grayson ran his hands through his hair and then rubbed his still swollen jaw. “Unreal, Jake. You’re really buying that bullshit? This ain’t no movie, brother. You got suckered.”

  Jake bit his tongue and scooped up another load of dirt, tossing it over Trunk’s grave. “Maybe so. But, he couldn’t have got far on foot with nothing but a bottle of water, and a small bag of food. And Olivia’s no doctor. She did the best she could, but he’s probably dead now anyway. So, it doesn’t matter.”

  He gave Grayson a thin smile, nodded firmly, and turned away from him to smooth out the graves with the shovel head. He was eager to be done with this conversation… and done with death and burying.

  Jake just wanted everybody to get along, with no more bullets and bloodshed. But one thing did still bug him… how’d Trunk and his boys find Olivia and Gabby way out here in the country? It wasn’t like they could use Google or anything.

  That was a mystery worth looking into. He intended to start with Tucker at Tullymore, as soon as he could get back that way.

  Tina and Tarra were in the woods again. Ozzie had chased the wild boar for over an hour the night before, and the ladies had chased Ozzie, longing for a piece of smoky, sizzling bacon. Finally, the wild animal got away, leaving all three exhausted. By the time they’d trudged home, all the action was over.

  However, the morning was looking up when Elmer arrived with a baby pig—and some chickens—in tow. But within moments after Grayson had laid claim to the pig that Elmer had already named, Graysie had roared her protest. Bacon Bit would be her pet, she’d said. Hands off, she’d said… Lesson to teach Elmer later: never name your food around here.

  Tarra and Tina wouldn’t give up on their bacon, though. They grabbed some spare wire fencing laying behind the barn in a heap and dragged it behind them out into the forest.

  Where there was a will, there was a way. But hopefully, their plan wouldn’t end up with one of them gored first.

  Puck sat at the patio table, all alone, drawing a picture and smiling happily.

  His really bad headache was fading away with each line he drew.

  Jenny grazed near him out in the grass, and every once in a while, she looked up at him with her big brown eyes and he could ‘a swore she smiled.

  He was happy Jenny wasn’t mad at him anymore. She loved their new home, and she loved the big red barn. She loved Puck, too. He was sure of it. He grinned at her. “I bet we get to stay here, Jenny. Mr. GrayMan likes me all the time now.”

  He patted his side, where his brand-new-to-him holster and pistol hung. It was a gift from GrayMan, given to him because Puck had proven he was a man, now. He promised GrayMan he wouldn’t take the gun out of the holster until Tina and Tarra gave him some lessons. They were going to do that starting tomorrow.

  Mr. GrayMan had been so happy that he’d shot the two bad men and saved the girls, that he’d also given Puck a real tight hug, too. He liked that even more than the pistol. That hug made Puck forget all about his hurt arm and his bee stings. It made him feel all warm inside, like his heart was smiling. He had also said Puck was a H-E-Double-Toothpicks of a shooter. Puck wasn’t going to repeat that word—Mama Dee might find out.

  Now, Puck was almost finished with the picture that wouldn’t stop bugging him until it had been drawn. As soon as he finished, he was going to go out and work with the men.

  Just a few more minutes…

  There.

  Done.

  Puck stood up and carried his picture into the house, sticking it on the refrigerator with a magnet. He stood back and stared at it, sighing in relief. Finally, his headache that had popped up earlier was gone. This one had really bugged him a lot. Creeping into his head and picking at his brain nonstop; keeping him from focusing on much of anything. Now, he could almost think clearly again.

  He stood back and stared at it, somewhat confused by what he was seeing. He shrugged, and gave it his nod of approval anyway.

  The drawing was several small square buildings, surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. Angry men with guns stood in a tower looking over a crowd of people—just stick-figures in his drawing—while the really skinny people were hunched over working on the ground.

  He knew the people in his head were sad or hurting, and that they were very hungry.
That was hard to draw, so he drew tears falling from them onto the ground instead. There was a sign there on a tall pole, and it was hard to draw, too. But he’d done his best to copy the eagle as he saw it in his head, gripping piles of sticks in its claws, with a circle around it.

  There was also a big long truck in the picture, with a tall green tarp over the back. The letters he’d wanted to draw didn’t make sense to him though. It seemed he needed more than the four letters to be spelled right, and he didn’t know that word.

  He didn’t want to look stupid, so he didn’t write the F-E-M. Instead, he just drew a squiggly line ending in the “A.”

  The Shit (hit the fan) List

  To get on my Shit List, where you’ll hear about the next new release (Book 3 of The SHTF Series), and get inside information on other post-apoc books, preps or tips, take thirty seconds to sign up here for my monthly newsletter. I don’t need your name, you’ll never be spammed or shared, and you can easily unsubscribe at any time with one click.

  Coming soon: Run Like the Wind, Book 3 of The SHTF Series. Sign up to be notified.

  THANK YOU!

  Thank you so much for reading Shoot Like a Girl, book two of The SHTF Series. If you enjoyed this book, please consider saying so in a review here. Be sure to tell me who your favorite character is so I’ll be sure to include them in the next book.

  Acknowledgments

  Every writer needs a few good people to knock around a story with. I am blessed to have my husband, who is willing to repeatedly talk over lots of scenarios, or listen to me grieve over what’s happening with my characters as though they were real people—and they are… to me. He’s a man of many talents, and knows at least a little bit about a lot, which is hugely beneficial when writing in this genre.