The World Burns: A Post-Apocalyptic Story Read online

  Something in his voice made Sandra look back, and her jaw dropped open.

  “Do you think they run?” he asked her, running his hands over the old Hondas.

  “If they don’t, I can fix them easily.” She was smiling.

  “Of course you can.”

  “Let’s get these loaded before the old lady comes out and decides to charge you more.”

  They both worked in a hurry, putting the Hondas into the front of the trailer and then loading boxes on and behind them, making a solid blocking wall. The mattress went next, and they found a small metal frame when they rolled the safe in. The safe wasn’t as heavy as they expected it to be, but it had something inside that shifted and banged when it was moved. Sandra guessed it held guns. It was the right size, but there were no markings, and even worse, no keys.

  The last unit, the one that Blake wanted the most, was also the easiest to load. That one took little time, and as they were rolling down the doors, Ethel came out to wish them luck and to see if they had left a mess for her. When she saw they hadn’t, she smiled and wished them a happy life together. Blake made it until they were in the truck and almost pulling out until he busted up laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You smiled when she said that, like you think—” then he stopped dead. “I almost did it again, didn’t I?” he asked her.

  “You don’t get out much, do you?”

  “You have no idea! So where would you like to grab a bite to eat today?”

  “Well, let’s get this stuff unloaded at your place, and then we’ll figure something out.”

  Blake just nodded. He hadn’t intended on going back so early, but now that he had her in the truck with him, he didn’t want to spend any time apart. Finding a lady who caught his interest was hard enough, finding a lady who could put up with his foot in mouth disease was almost impossible when you added the two things together. He drove the loaded down truck out of town slowly.

  “Do you think you’re dad will get the wrong idea about you helping me unload things?”

  “What, that a single woman who’s an adult with military training cannot handle herself in a proper manner around a roughened hermit who may or may not be an axe murderer?”

  “I wouldn’t use an axe. I have a chainsaw.” He busted up laughing when her jaw dropped open.

  “See, you are starting to loosen up around me. Joking—jokes are good, Mister Funny Man.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know, you don’t scare me so much now.”

  “Scare you?”

  “Well, you know.” His face was burning.

  “Scare you?” she pressed.

  “You’re pretty, but you are Pastor Duncan’s daughter, and I don’t want to screw this up. It scares me.”

  “My my, love at first sight?” she asked, watching him turn a shade of crimson.

  “I’m about to die of a stroke. Let me pull off the lane so I can die without taking you with me first.”

  “Okay, okay, I won’t pick on you. Thank you though.”

  “For what?”

  “For calling me pretty. Most guys won’t give me a second look. I know you don’t mean it—nobody likes a greasy tomboy hanging around. I’m just glad you took pity on me. It’s lonely sometimes.”

  “You’re joking right?” Blake asked, not understanding her tone of voice. She didn’t sound like she had earlier when she was joking.

  She never answered, and he didn’t press. His turn off for Holloway Trail was coming, and it took all his concentration to get the trailer straight on the path because the turns didn’t leave much room with the trees closing in on both sides. Sandra had been right; this lane was little more than an old logging trail. It had a full canopy of trees across it, the branches sometimes brushing noisily across the top of the trailer. They came to a spot, and Blake drove the truck slowly through and stopped, jumping out.

  “What are you doing?” Sandra yelled.

  “Making sure I don’t rip the jack off the trailer. It’s loaded down more than I’d normally like. The ruts in the road are bad here.”

  After a moment of inspection, they started rolling slowly. Even raised and turned sideways, it rubbed on the ground, but it didn’t cause any issues. After that spot, the drive got easier until the lane ended.

  “Where’s your house?” Sandra asked as he turned left into an old cow pasture and skirted the fence line.

  “Up and over the hill.”

  “It’s way back there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you get out in the winter time?”

  “Uh, I don’t.”

  “You mean, you live up here alone, all winter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I take that back, you weren’t joking about the chainsaw, were you?”

  “Nope.” He grinned and concentrated on the drive.

  Another ten minutes of bone-jarring bumps and he was pulling in front of his small house. Almost self-consciously, he wished he would have parked his old camper trailer out back. He’d lived there alone for years by himself, and he’d never had to worry about what a lady would think. In fact, she was the first person to come back here since he’d started construction. Blake decided he needed to get out more. Maybe he was living his life too much on his blogs and by himself.

  “Wow, this place is so cool…Oh shit,” Sandra said and then covered her mouth.

  “What?” Blake asked, worried the place looked too unkempt. Truth was, he never mowed around the house unless the grass got more than waist high. He only used the old diesel tractor once a year to cut paths through the property where he wanted to go.

  “That trailer.”

  Blake groaned inwardly.

  “It’s like the one in this blog I’ve been reading…Oh my God, you’re Back Country J?”

  Blake was worse than speechless; he was tongue-tied yet again. He knew his blog got readers, because folks used the affiliate links he put up, and he got the occasional comment on his writing. Mostly a request for more pictures or to explain something better, but he’d never run into or talked to somebody who’d read it. Not face to face.

  “Oh, this is great! You must show me around!” She was bossy in such a way that he had to comply. He killed his engine and followed her as she bypassed the house and ran through the grass towards the camper.

  “This, how many nights did you sit inside here with that little solar panel you talked about? Writing?”

  “Almost every night,” he admitted.

  “Oh, and the house. You finished? You hadn’t said on your blog. Latest update was the French drains you put in around your fruit—oh my gosh, there they are.”

  Blake let her walk around and tell him all about his homestead. It was somewhat embarrassing how much she knew about him, and she hadn’t realized it was him the entire time. He figured everybody knew about the hermit of Holloway Trail, but he’d never posted a picture of himself. She stopped at the barn and raised an eyebrow.

  “You never took pictures of inside the barn, just the outside. How come?”

  “It’s full of old junk, scrap, glass and such. Never cleaned it out, and I guess I was too frugal to pay to have a scrapper come out and clean it up.”

  “Cheap.”

  “Frugal,” he said, but he was smiling as she darted inside.

  There were no lights in the barn, but sunlight filtered through the slats of wood. This hadn’t been an insulated barn meant for keeping animals, but one that would hold a lot of hay, a tractor, or other equipment. When he showed her the stairs leading down to the root cellar, Sandra made a sound that he’d never heard, but had read about. He believed she actually “squeed.” Whatever that meant, it was a happy sound.

  “Why no lights?”

  “Too much voltage drop from the battery banks,” he admitted, the house being quite a distance from the barn.

  “Wait, you have lights. Kerosene lanterns.” She pointed to the wall.

  “Well, yeah, but I thought you me
ant just electric stuff.”

  “Can we light one and go down?”

  “It’s just a hole in the ground where I store things.”

  “I know what a root cellar is, I’ve just never seen one. You blogged about yours, but I never could figure out where it was.”

  “Well, to be honest, it’s a dirty hole in the ground with earth floors. I didn’t want to take pictures of it.”

  “Please?”

  “Okay.” He grabbed a box of matches on a work bench and got a lantern lit. They walked down the block cement stairs until they stopped at a heavy wooden door on the bottom.

  “This has been here long before my grandparents. I think this is the root cellar from the original farm, but I’m not for sure.”

  He pushed the door open and held the lantern up high.

  “Oh wow. Like, wow. Doomsday Preppers would have a fit if they ever saw this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Blake was confused. She was walking down the twenty-foot row of shelves that lined either side of the cellar, pausing to look into the bins. The potatoes and carrots were labeled and on the bottom stacks, the carrots packed in loose mason sand that was damp. The potatoes were in bins that let the air in, and higher up on the shelves were crates of apples. Actually, the apples were almost on top of every shelf, with an old wooden crate of pears placed here and there.

  “This isn't the only modification that’s been done to it in the last hundred years.” He pointed to a metal piece of ductwork that came down from the ceiling.

  Sandra got underneath of it, frowning, and then put her hand up to it, feeling the draft.

  “I didn’t think you had power out here?”

  “It’s a little solar setup with a DC duct fan. It wasn’t much to rig up. Keeps the air fresh and the ethylene from the apples from ripening everything until it’s overdone.”

  “How does the air flow in?”

  “Right now, through the cracks under the door.”

  “Wow. How do you keep the critters out of here?”

  “Well, two ways. I have a screen over the vent up on the main floor, and there’s a whole passel of barn cats that people always donate out here.”

  “You still have Mr. Fluffy Buttons?” she asked, referring to a cat on his blog that almost made grumpy cat green with envy.

  “No,” he said sadly. “An owl got him about two months ago. I had to put him down after he fought his way free.”

  “This is so cool. Back Country J. Wait until I tell my dad.” She was all smiles, but Blake had a serious look on his face.

  “Please don’t. I just like things quiet around here.”

  “Daddy’s a fan of your blog. He’s the one who told the preppers in the area about it.”

  “Preppers? Your dad?”

  “Yeah. You don’t really talk about prepping, but most of the stuff you talk about goes hand in hand with prepping.”

  “I always thought putting some extra back was good common sense. Like money in the bank.”

  “Oh God, I’m dying to ask. This place, it cost like millions to set up, didn’t it?”

  “No, not really. I mean, I’m just a handyman. I’d buy a board when I could afford one, I’d recycle materials from old jobs when I had a chance, and I built things out here.”

  “No wonder you always used hand tools in your blog. You didn’t have electricity…”

  “Well, it was an off-grid blog…”

  “I never thought you were truly off-grid, but wow.”

  “Okay, can we go upstairs? This is kind of embarrassing me.”

  “Okay, okay. But wow. We will so have to talk about this again sometime.”

  “We can, I’m just not used to people. You’re the first one up here since I started on the house.”

  Sandra’s jaw dropped open, and she stepped close to Blake and gave him a hug, then left the cellar, leaving him flustered and confused.

  “Thank you,” he told the empty room before blowing out the lamp and closing the door.

  Chapter 4 -

  It took them two hours to unload the trailer, most of it going into the barn for now. The safe was rolled into the house, and Sandra promptly walked out of the house towards the barn. She came back moments later with a cold chisel and a two-pound sledge from the work bench in the barn.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, looking at the tools in her hands.

  “No, no. Go ahead. It’s not like I live here or anything.”

  “Humor, good. It’s starting to come back. Seriously though, you want the honors?”

  “No, go ahead. I’ve never cracked a safe before.”

  “If it’s anything like a vending machine…” She pushed the chisel against a seam in the metal and swung with all her might.

  Blake was surprised when the metal was forced apart, bending as it went. She changed the angle of the chisel and hit it half a dozen times more and finally wedged the door open.

  “Sheet metal, and it’s not too thick,” she explained before opening the big door all the way.

  I wasn’t surprised to see the gun inside, but I was surprised to see a note taped inside the back of the safe in a Ziploc bag. Sandra was reaching for the rifle when I started to read the note out loud.

  “Ben, your pistols are in one of the blue totes wrapped in oilcloth. Didn’t want you to come back here and freak out when dad’s rifle was the only thing in the safe. That way you can grab and go. The keys to the quads and cabin are in there too. Safe was too heavy to move by myself with everything in it.

  Love ya bro,

  Corey.”

  “I think we better go through those boxes soon,” Blake told her.

  “What’s this we thing? I’m hungry. What’s for dinner, Mr. Back Country?”

  “Well, what do you like? There’s Clyde’s Diner, or, if you want a drive, we could catch dinner and a movie at that new place in—”

  “I’ll have whatever you’re cooking.” Her smile was sweet, but Blake wasn’t used to having a woman around him that made him jump to her every command. Willingly even.

  “Well, I have some venison steaks I took out to thaw in the fridge. I could grill some of those up with some baked potatoes and such,” he said after a pause.

  “That sounds great. Is there a fire pit somewhere I can light for you, or do you need me to go pull stuff out of the garden or…”

  “I have a gas grill out on the back porch, or we can use the griddle here inside.”

  “Sorry, I just got a little carried away.”

  “Just because I show how to do that stuff doesn’t mean I always do it like that. I do have some modern conveniences.”

  “Fair enough. What can I do?”

  “Park it right there and I’ll be right back.”

  Blake got the ingredients out from the freezer chest fridge and carried them upstairs. He washed two potatoes and wrapped them in foil and threw them over the flames on one side of a propane burner. It wasn’t an oven, but it worked just like grilling your baked potatoes. Then he set up an old cast iron griddle on the other side and turned on the heat, making sure the ribbed surface was good and hot before unwrapping two thick steaks and throwing them on to cook.

  “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared back into the basement and came back up with a green bottle and a cork that’d seen better days.

  “What’s that?”

  “A little fruit wine. I didn’t expect company, so I have wine, water or—”

  “Wine is great!” They were both smiling, starting to relax around each other.

  Dinner was a big hit, and they went out on the porch to sit on the steps side by side. There was only an hour of full daylight left, and without his phone on him, he could only guess at the time. They sat in companionable silence for a while. When she stood, he followed suit, not knowing what to say or what to do. They’d talked for a long time, and there was so much more he wanted to hear about her, but the day was almost over, and he’d have to drive her home soon
or risk the drive in the darkness by himself.

  “That was great. I really had a lot of fun.” She looked at him awkwardly, and he wondered if she was thinking about a first kiss.

  It was plain to both of them that they liked each other, but neither of them had voiced it. The moment stretched, neither of them sure. Blake didn’t want her to think he was too forward, and Sandra seemed reluctant to make the lonely man uncomfortable. She’d done that plenty of times just by being excited and interested in everything. In the end, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. They stayed like that a long moment, and she took his hand, pulling him off the porch towards the truck.

  “I told Dad I’d be home before dark.”

  “Oh God, I almost hate to ask, what did your dad think of, uh…”

  “The date?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told me, ‘Good, it’s about time somebody got you out of the hills.’”

  “Well, at the end of the day, I’m still up here.”

  “Yes, you are. Let’s go.”

  Beneath them, the ground started to shake. She squeezed his hand, and they were thrown off their feet. The noise was so loud; they couldn’t describe it if they had the words to, but the closest any of them would later admit was it sounded like a freight train going off the tracks.

  “Earthquake?” Blake asked, not believing it himself.

  “Owwwww.” Sandra was holding her head. Once the ground quit shaking, she stood.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I hit my head on your big foot when I fell. I’m fine.”

  Blake brushed the debris out of her short hair and then dusted his pants off.

  “I wonder what that was?” she said.

  “I don’t know, but look at that,” Blake told her, pointing to the rising cloud of smoke.

  “Oh God, the town. Hurry.” Her voice was frantic as she rounded the truck and slid in.

  Blake got the truck fired up and tore off down the lane.

  “My battery is dead on my phone,” she said after a few moments of pushing buttons and cursing the device.

  “Here, use mine.” Blake pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her, trying to concentrate on the two-track so he didn’t wreck the truck. He’d never tried to travel this stretch this fast.