Survivalist Reality Show: The Complete Series
Page 77
Regan shuddered to think about the town she had fallen in love with, not to mention all the people who had been so kind, but so naïve. They had been trying to live a peaceful life, but they hadn’t taken Wolf’s advice to have armed guards constantly patrolling, and they hadn’t fortified their wall to block out the many openings all around the perimeter. Ultimately, it had been their downfall.
Wolf and Regan had discovered the devastation when they’d made a trip over last month to do some trading. Wolf had been wise to hide their approach in case something had gone wrong. On their way back to the reservation, they’d come across a few people who had once lived inside the walls, who’d told them everything that had happened. The attack had left most of the town’s inhabitants dead or banished outside the walls.
“That’s another thing worrying me,” Tabitha admitted. “We don’t know if the reservation will be safe. Without their crops, we’ll be sorely lacking for fresh vegetables. I know we can survive on the food we find here, but it will be so much harder. I want my baby to have all the nutrition it needs to be healthy. And I need the nutrition during the pregnancy to give my baby the best chance at life,” Tabitha added.
Heather nodded, but didn’t seem as concerned as Tabitha. “You’re almost halfway there. Our food supply is strong. You’re eating well, and you’re young and healthy. There is nothing to say your child won’t be.”
Tabitha laughed. “Thank you. I’m so glad I got to tell you guys finally.”
“I’m really excited for you. You have to let us take some of the workload off your shoulders,” Regan insisted.
“Not yet. I’m fine and I want to stay active. I need to stay active,” she insisted.
“Fine, but when you’re tired, you rest,” Heather ordered her.
“I will,” Tabitha promised.
“We should get started on dinner soon,” Regan said, walking toward the fire pit to start the fire they would need to cook in their outdoor oven.
“I hope they get something other than alligator. I’m running out of ways to cook alligator,” Heather muttered.
Regan laughed. “You are a cooking genius. I would never have been able to come up with even half of what you have. I think the alligator tacos were my favorite.”
Tabitha nodded. “I can make some tortillas. I have a lot of cornmeal left over from the last time.”
Heather sighed. “That’s settled then. I guess it will be alligator tacos for dinner, unless they come back with a turtle or fish. Turtle tacos,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“I think that after the apocalypse is over you should write a cookbook for those who want to prepare for the next apocalypse,” Tabitha suggested.
Heather laughed. “I guess it’s good to have a plan for the future.”
It wasn’t long before Wolf, RC, Lily, and Travis returned, dragging a small alligator behind them. The three women exchanged a look before bursting into laughter. Fred and Geno arrived a short time later, carrying bags of fresh peppers, squash, and corn that had been traded for with yesterday’s alligator catch.
Dinner was served soon after that, each of them taking a seat on a stool that was nothing more than a cypress tree stump. Still, Regan looked around the group and smiled. She would never have imagined her life turning out the way it had. She was sitting at a table, deep in a swamp, surrounded by shacks and people she had grown to love. She had never known what family was until she’d met the people around her in the worst possible situation. They had all been through something tragic, and yet they’d come out stronger on the other side.
She bit into her alligator taco and felt completely at peace with the world, content, even if there was a nightmare beyond the trees that cocooned them inside the swamp.
End of Surviving the Elements
Survivalist Reality Show Book Three
PS: Do you love EMP post-apocalyptic fiction? Then keep reading for exclusive extracts from Dark Retreat.
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About Grace Hamilton
Grace Hamilton is the prepper pen-name for a bad-ass, survivalist momma-bear of four kids, and wife to a wonderful husband. After being stuck in a mountain cabin for six days following a flash flood, she decided she never wanted to feel so powerless or have to send her kids to bed hungry again. Now she lives the prepper lifestyle and knows that if SHTF or TEOTWAWKI happens, she’ll be ready to help protect and provide for her family.
Combine this survivalist mentality with a vivid imagination (as well as a slightly unhealthy day dreaming habit) and you get a prepper fiction author. Grace spends her days thinking about the worst possible survival situations that a person could be thrown into, then throwing her characters into these nightmares while trying to figure out "What SHOULD you do in this situation?"
You will find Grace on:
BLURB
Three months after life as she knows it was decimated, Megan Wolford has only one goal: protect her daughter, Caitlin, at any cost. When a mysterious illness strikes Caitlin down, Megan is forced to forage for medical supplies at a remote lodge. The last thing she wants is help from her fellow survivors when so many in her life have let her down—but soon she'll find herself with no other option.
Ex-Navy SEAL Wyatt Morris is doing everything he can to hold his family together after the tragic death of his prepper Dad, so when Megan enters their lands, he is mistrustful at first despite feeling drawn to her. He won't turn away an ill child though—no matter how deadly the world has become. The arrival of another stranger named Kyle soon gives them all a new reason to be suspicious. Wyatt knows he’ll have to forge alliances in order to keep his family safe, but trusting the wrong person could be a deadly mistake.
When Megan and Wyatt discover her daughter’s illness may be linked to Kyle’s arrival, it sets off a race to discover the truth before it’s too late to save Caitlin—and the rest of the Morris clan. Can they work together for survival . . . and something more?
Grab your copy of Dark Retreat here.
EXCERPT
Chapter One
Megan Wolford stumbled over a rock and nearly dropped her daughter before she quickly regained her footing. The sight of a log cabin through the trees had given her a boost of adrenaline and she found she was practically running through the damp forest despite her heavy burden.
She’d fallen several times, bruising her knees and twisting her ankle. Her arms had deep cuts from tree branches that showed no mercy. There wasn’t exactly a trail to follow, which meant she was cutting through the heart of the forest and its unforgiving terrain. She was making her own way, as usual, which always seemed to be far harder than it had to be.
“Caitlin, hold on, baby. Hold on,” she whispered to the lifeless seven-year-old in her arms.
Megan was doing her best not to panic, but Caitlin had collapsed a couple miles back and she’d been carrying the sleeping child ever since. Carrying her where she didn’t know, but now that she saw what appeared to be a hunting lodge of some sort in front of her, she had a destination in mind. She had a goal.
It gave her something to focus on other than the agony that was tearing through her entire body. Another tree branch slapped her in the face, making her wince in pain. Her physical discomfort was nothing compared to the emotional anguish she felt at the thought of losing her daughter. Caitlin was the only thing she’d left in this world. She couldn’t lose her.
Her arms were burning and her lungs felt like they would collapse, but nothing would stop her from getting her daughter to what she hoped would be medicine. Without it, Megan knew her only
child would die.
She didn’t have a clue what had made her so sick, but Caitlin was gravely ill. In the past twenty-four hours, her daughter went from bubbly and energetic to lethargic and weak. Megan had left their most recent camp in the hopes of finding something to help her. They’d walked through one small town yesterday and found nothing. Every single place she checked had been emptied already forcing them to travel for miles.
She was afraid to walk through the city streets overrun with looters. Megan knew it wasn’t safe for her and definitely not for Caitlin. It wasn’t as if she could leave her daughter alone while she went on a scavenging mission. She had to do it with Caitlin or not all. Common sense told her she didn’t have the strength to fight off the hundreds and thousands of other people vying for the same basic supplies. Instead, she’d decided to head out of town in the hopes of finding clinics, stores, and homes in more rural areas that weren’t as likely to be quite so dangerous.
Megan took long strides, slightly shifting her daughter, as she kept moving forward. Her sweaty hands were making it difficult for her to hold on to Caitlin. Gripping her hands together under her daughter’s backside, Megan pressed on.
She tried to protect her daughter’s head as best she could from the branches and sharp twigs that seemed to be jumping out and stabbing the intruders in the forest. Another branch hooked her sleeve, scratching painfully at the skin beneath and she could feel blood trickling down her arm, towards her fingers. She wanted to scream at the trees and order them to stop their assault.
Her back was killing her with the awkward posture of leaning back to keep her daughter secured against her chest. The weight of her pack helped pull her backwards, but also put more strain on her hips. She was grateful to have had an old hiking pack in the closet. The internal frame made it easier for Megan to carry it and allowed her to carry a lot more without much additional strain. She didn’t know if she would have been able to carry her daughter and her supplies without it. Right now, she was grateful the pushy salesman had persuaded her to spend the extra money on the pack.
Regardless, everything hurt. She could feel dried blood on her bare arms pulling the fine hairs whenever Caitlin’s body rubbed against the cuts, further adding to the misery. Each twist tore open the dried wounds, causing them to start bleeding again.
She’d fallen several times, catching herself with one arm and holding her daughter with the other. She could tell her left knee was swollen. It was stiff and difficult to bend. It didn’t matter. Her daughter’s life was all that mattered.
“A few more steps,” Megan chanted more for her own benefit than her unconscious daughter.
She was thankful the weather had been mild. It was early spring in the northwest, but there were still little piles of snow in the shady areas. Climbing steadily uphill, her overused muscles screamed at her to take a break but she knew if she did, she wouldn’t be able to get back up again. The cabin ahead was growing steadily larger as her strides ate up the distance. Because of the harsh winter storms, mountain residents were prepared to outlast storms for weeks at a time, which meant they would have supplies, including medicine.
If it’d been more than the mild seventy degrees that it currently was, Megan wasn’t sure she could’ve walked as far as she did. As it was, she was sweating and the growing fatigue was partly dehydration. Her daughter’s feverish body was like carrying a giant lava rock. In addition to finding shelter and medicine, they needed water. The little water she had wouldn’t last long; especially if Caitlin woke and needed it.
She’d eaten the last of the food she’d managed to scrounge up at an abandoned home earlier that morning. Megan was now running on empty and knew her collapse would mean her daughter’s life. Push, Megan. Push.
When she got within three hundred feet of the cabin, she stopped to survey the property, staying partially hidden in the surrounding trees. If someone was here, it could go either way. Unfortunately, the new world was not kind. You didn’t simply knock on a stranger’s door to beg for food and water.
Not now.
Not after the EMP had plunged the world into the biggest blackout, humankind had ever experienced.
At least those who’d grown up with electricity. Pioneers would do okay in this world, but for those who’d never learned how to work with their hands or hunt for food, this was a form of population control that no one wanted to face. Those who didn’t know how to perform some of the most basic skills were suffering.
Megan had seen more dead in the past few weeks than the living. After the first dozen or so, she thought she’d grow immune to the horror of death and could simply move quickly past but the smell reminded her of what it meant to be alive as her gag reflex kicked in.
This new world meant that only the fittest, strongest and most prepared would survive.
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