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

  6

  Grayson

  Grayson swung the axe too hard again, getting it stuck. Just a few days without power or communications and his nerves were shot. He could barely focus on anything without worries intruding of his wife, Olivia, stranded out of town with her sisters; not to mention his daughter a hundred miles away at college. He wanted to drop everything and go after them. Bring them all home. But he couldn’t. He was stuck, too.

  Yesterday—when the power still hadn’t come back on—he’d driven into town. His fears were confirmed. He found two stations that still had gas and a generator to pump it, but to get it you’d need to wait in line two to four hours and pay a hundred bucks a gallon. Not many people carried that kind of cash around and they couldn’t get it from the ATM; those weren’t working and the banks were closed. Not a good time to close the banks when nearly everyone was demanding cash only.

  In the short time he’d trolled the different stations, he’d witnessed a dozen fights amongst the angry, scared people. At the first sign of guns being flashed, he’d hauled ass. He had fuel prepped at home, with enough in the tank to get back there, so he wasn’t going to waste his time sitting in line, hoping they didn’t run out by the time his turn rolled around. He’d gone on to the grocery store.

  It was packed.

  With people—not food.

  The shelves were nearly empty. The cold items were totally gone. The registers all had lines a mile long and people were arguing with the cashiers over their SNAP welfare cards and debit and credit cards not working. While he wandered around looking for anything to add to his preps, panic built in the waiting crowd. The cashiers were frustrated with adding up totals on paper with calculators, and their progress was constantly thwarted by not knowing the price of most items or by the non-cash paying customers. The two cashiers that had stuck it out were near tears. Another small crowd had formed around the store manager, who finally relented. He announced he’d allow thirty dollars’ worth of merchandise for anyone who had at least two forms of picture identification as well as their cards, and that it would be a slow process, as he had to write down all the information so that he could run the cards later, when the power came back on.

  Grayson doubted that would ever happen.

  He heard people talking, too. Rumors were flying; blue-collar workers from the power company were sent home. Nothing they could do to get power going again from outside the main office; this was internal. Verizon and other cell phone service offices locked their doors and hung signs out: Cell Service out until Further Notice. Prices were already being gouged at the gas stations, both for the limited gas, and the meager remains of food and drink supplies inside. All government offices were closed.

  He passed a group of men furiously kicking an ATM machine. At another bank, he saw an out of control man had run his car into the front door and was forcing his way over the hood and broken glass to get in.

  Wouldn’t do him any good. Any money there would be in a tightly locked vault.

  He’d driven through town, only making the one stop at the grocery store, and saw nary a cop. Not one. This piqued his interest so he drove by his brother’s house. Dusty was a city cop. He wasn’t home. Wherever he was, Rickey surely was too. He was too young to be on his own, and the schools were closed. Dusty’s truck wasn’t there, so he hoped they were on their way to the homestead.

  He’d hurried back to meet them, only to arrive at an empty house.

  The rest of the day was spent waiting on Dusty, Rickey and Jake to arrive, and wondering if he should forfeit ‘the plan’ and go after the women at the beach. The risk was that they were already on their way back home and they wouldn’t cross paths. No telling which way they’d drive home—if they drove. His wife, Olivia, had driven up there, and she was notorious for running her tank to empty before filling up. He hoped and prayed that wasn’t the case this time.

  After hours of beating away the loneliness and panic, he’d made his mind up. He was going to get the girls. He had gas. The tank behind the barn held plenty of gas, and the rule was if you used it, replace it. But it rarely got used, so since Jake was the mechanic in the family, Grayson had assigned him the task of keeping it treated with stabilizer when needed to keep it from going bad.

  He should have done the job himself.

  After he’d pulled his truck around back to fill up the tank, he’d taken a big whiff only to find it smelled rancid. He’d poured some out to double-check and sure enough, the color was off. Jake hadn’t treated the gas preps.

  He’d swarped and cussed up a storm.

  He was housebound. He didn’t even have enough gas to get back and forth to town again. With no way to communicate with them, he had to hope for the best for Olivia, Gabby and Emma. And especially Graysie. They were on their way. They had to be.

  At least that’s what he kept telling himself to keep his own panic at bay.

  Not to waste a day, he decided to stick to his own plan. Getting the house ready. First necessity was water. If the power came back on, well then, it was good practice.

  He hunted through his shipping container several times but couldn’t find his hand-pump. They’d be needing that to use the well. He remembered paying somewhere in the area of $700 bucks for the damn thing. He knew he had it, but it wasn’t there, in his shipping container he kept behind the barn, where he’d put it.

  He was reaching the point of exhaustion. It’d now been two days since the power and communications went out and he’d been keeping himself in high gear waiting for his family to return while preparing to bunker down with no power for a while. He planned to build a wooden tower to elevate a 275 gallon, caged IBC water tote onto. He would run the gutters from all around the house for rain water to run into it, and let simple gravity drop it into the bathroom for a working toilet, and easy access to water for bathing or cooking. That of course would require rain, but the upcoming months were notorious for showers and thunderstorms in their area—if the outage lasted that long. But for that project, he needed some help.

  At least he still had fuel in his tractor.

  He also had another trick up his sleeve to easily get water out of the well with no power. It wasn’t as good as the pump, but it’d get them unlimited fresh water with a very limited amount of labor. For that, he’d need to find the Amish well bucket he’d bought. It too was somewhere out in that mess of a container. It was a long skinny galvanized bucket that looked nothing like a bucket; more like a pipe. For less than a hundred bucks, it would be a life saver. A little over four-foot-long and four inches in diameter, he could pop the pressure switch off the top of his well-head, pull the pipe out and drop the long bucket in. It had a valve that opened at the bottom to let the water in, and then closed when it was full. Then he only had to pull it up. That bucket and one long rope would let them keep using their well, even if they were only able to get two gallons of water per scoop. He might even build a tripod over the well head to hook the bucket to, and add a pulley and crank handle. It would make it much easier to pull up the amount of rope that it would need to drop to the actual water in the ground, and make it convenient to let the bucket hang when not in use.

  But that was going on the back burner for now. He didn’t want to start that project and take apart his well until he was sure the power wasn’t coming back on—or when he ran out of available prep water, whichever came first.

  The 2-liter soda bottles he kept filled with water, lining the bottom of his deep freezer had worked well enough to keep things somewhat solid until he’d rolled out the old refrigerator/freezer from the storage container and got it hooked up to the propane tank. Propane-run fridges weren’t common and he’d been lucky to come across one on Craigslist that he’d put back for just this sort of occasion. It wasn’t pretty; Olivia would have a fit when she came home and saw it in all its retro-green glory sitting cock-eyed in her kitchen. It wasn’t nearly as large as the electric fridge in the house, but it worked. He’d transferred nearly everyth
ing over, buying more time to work on other things instead of having to cook all his food at once.

  At least his oversized tank of propane was still good, unlike the gasoline.

  He’d nearly killed himself lugging the old refrigerator in by himself, too. He’d wait for Jake or Dusty to get here before moving out the other one.

  Getting water running and chopping and splitting firewood were priority on the list, and since he’d not been successful so far at the water, he’d spent most of his time with the wood.

  He took a break from swinging the axe to wipe his face with his T-shirt. Hotter than Hades out here. He shook his head in frustration, not able to stop thinking about his water pump.

  It was a damn shame that someone had taken it. And he had no idea who either. Few people knew that shipping container was even back there. Hidden from the front side by a two-story, old red barn, and from the back side by woods, it wasn’t easy to see, especially since Dusty and Grayson had used leaves and limbs as templates and painted the entire thing camouflage.

  The shipping container was his full-size faraday cage and he’d made sure it was grounded for an EMP—not that this was an EMP, but who knew what was next. The container housed things he’d been collecting for years; things that might be useful in a grid-down situation. It also held a Mule 4x4, which was nearly buried in the back. He’d have to dig it out later if he could find a way to use it. It also needed gas to run.

  Dammit.

  Of course, Dusty and Jake knew that pump was out there. But hell, they wouldn’t take it. It was partly for them and theirs. He’d originally bought the farm for himself and his daughter, Graysie, but he’d soon married Olivia, and they all made one big family. What was his was now all of theirs. They knew that. They’d helped him work the garden, reaping the benefits right along with him when they harvested fresh fruits and vegetables.

  His eyes wandered to the gardens. His veggie garden was framed on each side with raised beds that Olivia had planted. She called them her herb hills—and she wrongly pronounced herb with the ‘h’ like a man’s name.

  He felt his heart tug. She’d never been into prepping—or preparing. But she’d done a little bit of research and took the initiative to help out where she could; to be a small part of it and support him. She’d planted her very own little patch of stuff, and in typical-Olivia-needing-to-take-care-of-everyone fashion, she’d thought ahead to what she and her sisters would most want if ever the grid went down.

  One bed was her hygiene garden. It covered soap, toothpaste and deodorant. She planted soapwort, licorice and sage in it. She said the soapwort could be used for body soap, shampoo and laundry. While she hadn’t put it into practice yet, she claimed the leaves and roots could be dried and put up, and would still lather later.

  The Licorice Root was a transplant. She’d bought a year-old starter because it took a few years to mature enough for use. It was ready now. She’d made him test it. He’d thought it pretty cool that not only did it taste okay—kind of sweet—but after each use, you’d cut the used ‘brush’ away and have a clean and fresh ‘toothbrush’ for the next use. She’d said not only could they use the licorice Root for a toothbrush, but it also had anti-inflammatory and antibacterial uses.

  The sage was a backup to the licorice plant since she hadn’t known how well it would grow. It could be used by rubbing it over gums and teeth. He didn’t like it nearly as much as the licorice but it did grow quickly and more easily. He’d laughed when he’d overheard her telling the ladies she had really planted it in case they ever ran out of deodorant. It could be made into an infusion to spritz their girly parts for body odor.

  As if anyone would care about that in an apocalypse.

  The first year taking care of the gardens they’d been bitten nearly to death by mosquitos, and driven to near insanity with the flies. So the last bed she put in was Lemon Balm, Basil and Rosemary for mosquito and fly control. She also used the Basil and Rosemary in the kitchen for cooking. She added Garlic for its therapeutic and anti-bacterial reasons, and for adding flavor to their food.

  He’d built a small picket fence around her beds so that Ozzie wouldn’t get into them. She’d said some of the plants could be toxic to animals. For the whole area, Grayson had stuffed a scarecrow and hung pie-pans from its arms to try to keep out other varmints.

  These gardens held memories of working the dirt, laughter, slapping at bugs, long conversations—family time. That’s what it was all about.

  But yeah, the guys all helped with the big garden, and the ladies worked the smaller beds. They’d made it fun. A hobby. And if the shit never hit the fan, it wasn’t a waste. Not much went uneaten, not with a group this big.

  No, not a group.

  A family.

  He swallowed hard. It had taken him years to build a new one after his had been ripped apart. He never thought he’d have another. He’d thought he’d finish raising Graysie alone, and spend his golden years poking around the farm all by himself.

  When his little brother, Dusty, had married Emma, Grayson had come to attend the wedding on Bald Head Island as a lonely, bitter, widower. He’d lost his first wife—Graysie’s mom—in Hurricane Katrina. Then he’d met Emma’s older sister, Olivia, and his world had been rocked—by both her and another hurricane that had unexpectedly hit the island the night before the wedding. He’d been given the honor and the salvation of rescuing her and Ozzie from the storm.

  Where he’d failed his first wife, he’d succeeded with Olivia. She’d given him hope and love where before lived regret and hurt—an aching pain he hadn’t believed would ever dull. He’d loved his first wife dearly, and he’d felt like he failed her. But Olivia had redeemed him. Soon after he’d asked her to marry him, and she’d said yes.

  Olivia’s twin sister, Gabby, was married to Jake, a good ‘ole southern boy without a dishonest bone in his body. He was a mid-thirties mechanic with a strong back and a good soul, muscular physique and a knack for fixing just about anything, mechanical or not. He had a good head on his shoulders and a kind heart. Loyal as they came. He wouldn’t steal. Ever.

  And his little brother, Dusty, had only to ask. He knew that anything Grayson had was his for the taking—as long as he replaced it or brought it back. They’d borrowed off each other all their lives. Started out trading marbles and baseball cards, and then later guns and tools. Dusty would’ve mentioned if he’d had a need for a pump. No way. It just had to be here. But Grayson had wasted enough time looking. He had things to do. He needed to prepare the old homestead for his family. They’d all be coming, sooner rather than later, he hoped.

  Especially Graysie. He knew in his heart he’d raised that girl up right. Red-headed and stubborn as a mule, he had no doubt she’d started walking toward home already. He’d trained her to handle a gun and a crossbow, and hoped she’d been listening to all the survival shows he’d watched while she pecked away on her phone texting night after night before she went away to college. Hopefully, some of it had sunk in. It was disappointing she’d refused survival training, but she was a smart girl… her father’s daughter. He had confidence in her, although he threw up a little in his mouth each time he thought of her out on the road, alone.

  No!

  He caught himself and swallowed down the bile before his fears ran away from him and pushed him into another panic attack. Graysie would never be so stupid as to try it alone. She had them college boys nipping at her heels day and night. With a figure like hers and that long, curly red hair, he hoped she’d just this once use it to her advantage to recruit a few strong boys to escort her home. Hell, he’d even let a boy stay, if he brought his daughter home unhurt and unmolested.

  He’d been an idiot not telling Graysie what he’d hidden under her bed, in her dorm room. What if she didn’t find it? Dammit again.

  He shook off thoughts of Graysie, reminding himself there wasn’t a thing he could do except wait. No time to worry right now.

  But what about Jake and Dust
y? They were an hour away, in town. He knew Dusty had his stepson, Rickey, with him, so why hadn’t they gotten here yet? It was only a day’s walk and the power had been out two days now. Surely, he wasn’t still working with the gas shortage, and a thirteen-year old boy in tow. He imagined Dusty was pretty worked up about Emma being stuck on vacation when this happened. Maybe he’d somehow gone to get her, and taken their son with him?

  He shook his head. No way. If he had a vehicle, he’d drop Rickey off here first. He wouldn’t risk the boy to rescue the mama; Emma would kick his ass.

  And Jake. Where the hell was Jake? Maybe Jake could figure out a way to salvage the gas. He was a fixer by nature and a mechanic by trade. Surely, he knew something to do? At the very least, he expected Jake to have a full tank of gas in his own truck. He should be here by now. But Jake had been acting weird lately. Not himself. Sort of down and out sometimes. He’d noticed it but assumed Gabby, Jake’s wife, was on top of it.

  Although Jake put on a stoic face, everyone knew he still dealt with a lot of pain from a car accident years ago. Grayson figured his up and down moods lately were related to that.

  Jake and Dusty had to know he was nearly out of his mind with worry for everyone, especially the women. He jerked the ax out of the log and threw it as hard as he could. It flipped ass over elbows three times before lodging in a tree. He threw his head back and screamed, “Where the hell are you guys?!”

  He stomped off to cool down. Pacing back and forth in the shade behind the barn where the chickens had just rounded the bend, he let off steam. He let out all his inner ramblings and fears. He directed all his anger at the absent Dusty and Jake. “What about the damn plan, guys? You two are supposed to be here. I can’t do this all alone. I don’t want to be here by myself. This was for all of you. Son of a bitch, Jake! We could be driving to get the women. What if something happens to them? What if we can’t find them because you farted around getting here?”