by Lake, E. A.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Disclaimer
Dedication
Opening Words
Blank Page
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Free Gift
Other Books by e a lake
About the Author
STRANDED NO WHERE
e a lake
Copyright © 2016 e a lake
All rights reserved.
Exclusive Kindle Edition.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations are entirely coincidental.
All events portrayed are made up in the authors mind. As such, none are real. However, they are intended to give the reader pause to consider what a alternate future may look like. Further, the author intends to scare the living crap out of you. You’re welcomed.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission of the author.
Also by e a lake:
WWIV - In The Beginning
WWIV - Hope in the Darkness
WWIV - Basin of Secrets
WWIV - Darkness Descends
(The Shorts - Book 1)
Coming Soon:
Surviving No Where (Book 2: The No Where Apocalypse)
For My Sons
Caleb, Micah and Ryan
If you find yourself here, I pray we’ll find each other.
That alone may make this bearable.
Lest we be truly alone.
- Bob Reiniger — No Where, MI
Year 23 WOP (without power)
I killed a man today — another man I should say. While it caused me no great pain to end his life, I can’t say I found any particular joy in the act either.
That makes 14 in the past 22 years, maybe 23 now. Less than one a year; I’m not sure I’ve made mass murderer status yet or not. But in this miserable world without life or hope, I’m sure there are plenty of people who have killed more.
It happened like most of them did. Someone desperate, probably without a thing to eat or drink, shows up and wants to take what’s mine. Once upon a time I dreamt I’d shared with other folks. Now; well, they don’t really seem like the sharing kind, in retrospect.
I was behind the cabin (I should really call it an over-sized shed) stacking green cut wood. That’s all I do it seems, play with what Mother Nature made plentiful in this wilderness I call home. Some days it’s felling trees, others I spend my time limbing, or cutting the large logs into workable sections. After that comes splitting, and that’s back breaking work.
Once split, the fresh cut stuff gets stacked along the back of my cabin/shed. Before I can do that, I have to move the stuff that has aged for a full year to the front. Rotate your wood; cut one year, burn last year’s, stack this year’s for drying. And that’s where the trouble began.
By the time I saw this fellow, he was coming at me with an ax — my ax, more specifically. He was just screaming and foaming at the mouth. The foam is what makes me think they’ve all been hungry or thirsty. Not that I’m any sort of biology expert.
What he didn’t know, what none of them has known thus far, is that they were attacking an armed man. See, I found the Glock 9mm that my dad left here in the middle of nowhere some number of years back. It claims, a stamp on the one side of the barrel, it’s a model 19. I’ll go with that, I don’t know any different. The only thing I really know about it is that it’s dull black with a few spots of rust, maybe seven inches long, and fires every time I pull the trigger.
My father had quite a collection of shells stashed here when I arrived. Most of them were 12-gauge shotgun shells mind you. I don’t have a shotgun, so I didn’t have a use for them. But I figured out after a couple of years that other people were running out of ammo for their weapons. So after a full day’s walk into the nearest town for some horse trading that would have made my old man smile, and a full day’s walk back, I finally got what I really needed — a case of 9mm handgun shells.
With almost 800 rounds for my gun, I went about learning how to use the damned thing. You see, I haven’t even had a use for guns, much less a handgun. I live — check that, lived — in a big city. With almost 8 million people in the Chicagoland area, I never found much need, much less room, for such a frivolous hobby.
My dad and my older brother were the hunters. And up until the time I was 15 I spent some time in the woods as well. But at 15, I discovered basketball and girls. My growth spurt didn’t go unnoticed by the local basketball coach, and my new letter jacket made me a stud among the frenzied female supporters.
But that’s all ancient history now. I haven’t seen Dad in 23 years. I haven’t seen Bud in 24 I bet. But I’ve seen plenty of unholy, unkempt, unrighteous sons-of-a-bitches in that time to last me forever.
In 23 years I’ve become a fairly decent shot with the Glock. I can’t say I could hit anything more than 30 yards away, but when they’re charging you with an ax (my ax, again) and you’re 10 maybe fifteen feet apart, well that ain’t too hard for anyone I don’t suppose.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s not how my story begins.
3 Days Before WOP
I was once, many years back, a logistic manager for a major chemical company. The name of the place is unimportant. The same goes for my job when I look back on it now.
Recalling the day it all fell to hell, I still grimace at my overreaction to the situation. I was tracking down a lost railcar full of caustic chemicals. My underlings were no help; the car had been missing for several weeks and our customer was screaming for results. Thus, it landed on my desk.
The nice lady with the soft southern voice on the other end of the phone reported her progress to me.
“Railcar DURX-89108 is in the Savannah, Georgia switching station,” she said, her tone more confident than she deserv
ed to be. “I can have it rerouted tomorrow and it should arrive in Dallas by the end of the week.”
Closing my eyes, I began to hear my heart thumping against my eardrums.
“That’s really nice, Ms. Bounden. However,” I drew a deep breath to quell my anger. “I’m still looking for car number DURX-10893, not 89108.”
The silence from the other end of the phone line drove me nuts. I’m not even sure how my coffee mug ended up in my hand at that point.
“I’ll have to do some more digging,” she replied. I could hear the fear in her words. She’d screwed up. “I could have sworn that Peter said he was looking for DURX-89108. Are you sure that isn’t the missing car?”
When the mug hit the wall of my tiny dark office, it exploded into hundreds of pieces. Coffee dripped down the wall like blood on bricks, just like you’d see in an old horror movie.
Within the hour, I was in front of the company president.
Before the end of the day, I was told to take a much needed two-week vacation. My job was causing too much stress, the president claimed. No shit; what was your first clue? The 80-hour works weeks, the perm-a-bags beneath my eyes, or my salty disposition that got worse as the week went on?
My wife couldn’t get off on such short notice. And that was fortunate for her. I’m sure the last thing she wanted to do was to go north with me to an old cabin in the middle of nowhere and watch me decompress for 10 to 14 days. Her work as a nurse kept her busy enough. She didn’t need my hassle, and I still don’t blame her.
I was 25 at the time; Shelly was 24. No kids, two cats, and talk of a dog. We had plenty of money, just no time. We both worked like fools so we could save as much as possible to afford kids someday. Someday isn’t on the calendar, just so you’re aware.
I almost skipped the cabin idea but my wife got a hold of my dad who talked me into it. Hell, I hardly ever went there. It was an all day drive from Joliet to the UP. It didn’t make sense for a weekend jaunt. Drive there one day, enjoy a few hours, sleep, then drive back the next.
Dad reminded me of the exact directions. They weren’t hard; drive north and when you hit Lake Superior, turn around and go south about an hour.
There was two towns equidistance from the cabin: Covington — population about 500 (less, but that’s fine), and Amasa, with about 350 calling that wide spot in the road home. I didn’t need people; I needed quiet.
If I only knew then how much quiet I’d be getting. Well, would of, could of, should of.
2 Days Before WOP
There were no tearful goodbyes. Shelly had to run to a meeting that August morning, I needed to get the oil change on my dark blue 2005 Explorer, and I’d be back within a week or two.
So we exchanged a kiss, not all that passionate, and she played with my hair as she told me to relax and have fun.
Those were the last words my wife ever spoke to me.
The all day trip took me exactly 10 hours after I had stopped for lunch in Fond Du Lac (that’s in Wisconsin, in case you’re wondering — at least it was back then). By eight in the evening, my vehicle slipped into the spot next to Dad’s slice of heaven. And it was the exact dump I always remembered it to be.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of debris on the roof of the place. Small tree branches, a fair amount of leaves and approximately 700 pines trees worth of pine needles decorated the brown log structure’s top. Well, if Dad and Bud didn’t find it crucial to clean that crap away, who was I to argue.
See, Dad and Bud use this mostly as their hunting and fishing hideaway. My dad’s dad originally purchased the land back in the 30s, or maybe it was the 40s. All I know is that in today’s dollars (at least what the dollar was worth 23 years ago) it was nothing more than pocket change.
The upkeep is an annual project mostly taken care of in the late fall…after most the trees have shed their leaves. I was just early to the party this year. No bother to me; I wasn’t going to take away any of their fall rituals.
It had been 8 years since I last set foot on this property, or anywhere in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for that matter. Though I can’t say that I had missed it, it did have a certain Henry David Thoreau type of appeal.
Until I stepped out of the vehicle.
Which was worse, at that time, I can’t recall. Perhaps it was the swarms of evening misquotes out for the daily bloodletting. Maybe it was the bird-sized deer and black flies that circled my head, looking for an opening to inflict as much bodily harm as possible.
I know how to avoid both now, but back then I was a mere novice at such north wood’s feats.
I flipped the power on, as per Dad’s detailed instructions, and unloaded my truck as fast as I could. By sunset, maybe an hour after arrival, I was settled in with the sound of June-bugs and millers pounding at the screens, downing my first bottle of expensive bourbon.
That was my simple plan. Week one — hole up in the cabin in an all out blind drunken pity party. Week two — sober up, figure out if I needed to change jobs, and plan my return to society.
That turned out to be a real horseshit plan, but it wasn’t my fault.
One Day Before WOP
I think I remember most of my first night in the dank cabin, before the alcohol kicked in that is. The next morning, I awoke on the couch, naked and shivering from the chilly air trapped in a place with the world’s worst ventilation. Drinking; drinking a lot. That’s what I remembered.
Being naked was no big deal. Bud told me he and his college cronies used to do it all the time back in the day. That was the advantage of being here — as he called this place, the spot where the rocks fall when people toss them to the middle of absolutely nowhere.
I did put clothes on that first morning; well, old sweat pants and a stinky sweatshirt I found hanging by the door. Hitting the outhouse, I noticed most of the bugs had abated. A few mosquitoes did lazy loops around my head as I tried to relieve myself of all the toxins I had ingested. Needed to make room for the next batch, beginning very shortly. I noticed a deer fly trying to find a spot to land. A wadded up magazine took care of that issue.
Eating a couple of granola bars, I waited for my water to warm on the old gas stove. I needed coffee, badly. Perhaps that was one of my issues with stress and rage; I was over-caffeinated. I played with the radio but found nothing, unless you call static a victory. In that case, I found almost a million stations of loud annoying static to listen to. Dad had always said if you wanted radio up here, nighttime was the best — and only — time to listen.
By noon, I couldn’t read the clock on the wall, even though it had to be two feet wide. Sober, I could have read the time from a mile away. Drunk, not so much. I don’t remember the afternoon or evening, though I wish I had.
I had no idea what was about to happen, how much my life would change. A truer statement is this: no one anywhere had any idea what was about to happen to them. And no one’s life would ever be the same.
But drunk me, Bob Reiniger, hadn’t a worry in the world.
Day 1 WOP
I awoke on day two (my second full day of solitude) to problems — many problems.
Problem one: a raging headache. Perhaps I wasn’t the professional drinker I had always considered myself. History would argue with that, but the pounding that began in my head the minute I opened my eyes said the contrary.
Many times I went to Cubs games and Bears games with my friends and drank so much beer that a legend began. Two hours of tailgating before the game, followed by a beer an inning (or quarter with football) and by the end I had easily consumed a 12-pack. Yet, I was the sober driver by the time we made our way home. Each and every time.
Apparently, bourbon had a different effect on my system. Well, in my system’s defense, I wasn’t used to half a bottle at a time. So that explained that.
I found some aspirin and tossed them down with the last of my glass of water from the kitchen counter. Problem one solved, or at least was on the way to being solved.
Wh
en I relieved my bulging bladder, I knew I needed to take in a lot more water. If dark urine is a sign of dehydration, I can’t imagine what maple syrup colored meant. Aside from drink more water.
When I threw open a tap on the kitchen sink, I discovered problem number two: low water pressure. It quickly became no water pressure. That meant the circuit had tripped on the pump. That meant another trip outside, this time to the back of the cabin.
Staring at the three-circuit box, I found nothing out of place. Just for good measure, I clicked each of the three off and then on again. Problem solved — or so I thought.
Still no water came from the faucet. Just a few drips, nothing more. Within a minute, they quit. I tried the radio, even though I knew no stations would come in. The fact the no static came in bothered me a little at the time. Thus, I inspected the interior further.
Not one single light would come on. Any appliance plugged into the power grid was useless as well. Only the stove worked, and that was because it was run by LP (liquid propane). As for everything else…deader than Grant himself.
I took a hit from the open bourbon bottle on the end table next to the couch. Absentmindedly, I swished the brown liquor around my mouth, staring out the front window. Crap, I was going to have to get dressed, clean up a little, brush my teeth, and head into Covington. I needed to check with the Power Company when they thought they might get the electricity back up and running.
Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from my hiding, keys in hand ready to run my single errand of the day. That’s when I discovered problem three: and this was a biggie.