Run Like the Wind: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SHTF Series Book 3)

by L. L. Akers

  Olivia had decided she wanted to sauté the dandelion greens. One bag would cook down to nearly nothing, so they’d gathered plenty for one full meal, or maybe enough to can two jars, depending on how much time they had before they wilted away. They’d agreed to work the garden when they returned, before experimenting with their new foods, and after Olivia changed Puck’s bandage.

  She was surprised at what a trooper Olivia had been in dealing with such a gruesome accident. She’d done a great job with Puck—again. Olivia always did have a quiet, inner strength. Growing up, it was her that had taken lead on their little girl group of three, with herself and Emma.

  But when she’d married badly, she hadn’t breathed a word to Gabby for the longest time about the beatings she had endured in first marriage; instead, she’d stoically suffered in silence.

  She hoped Olivia had at least won some points with Tina and Tarra for her bravery—if Elmer could prove she hadn’t touched the trigger, sending off the bullet that shot off Puck’s finger. It’d all happened so quick, and no one other than Puck and Olivia could say for sure if the trigger had been pulled. But both said neither had touched the gun.

  Gabby believed them. Olivia may have held back the truth long ago, but that was to protect her sisters. Olivia would never lie to protect herself.

  If Tina and Tarra had seen Olivia before she’d found Grayson, they’d have seen the her for what she really was, deep down. Gabby was glad to see the layers peeling away a bit at a time to reveal that within her sister again; they were all going to need to toughen up in this new world.

  Gabby stepped out away from the cactus and turned in a circle, wondering which way to go looking for her wayward sister now. She was hot, tired, and frustrated. For hours now she’d had to chase Olivia as she continuously disappeared behind every stand of trees and pile of brush while she complained about the gun; the weight of it, the wobbling of it, the smell of it… as if she could actually smell the gun oil.

  Could she?

  She took a few steps and startled to a stop when she heard a loud scream.

  Rushing forward in that direction, she broke through a stand of brush, thorns and thistles scratching at her face and arms, and pulled her sidearm from her holster.

  “Shhh,” Olivia whispered, catching Gabby’s arm on the other side of the brush and stopping her.

  “Did you scream?” Gabby loudly whispered back.

  “Shhh!” Olivia repeated, her finger to her lips. “No. Not me. Look.” She pointed.

  Gabby followed her finger.

  Sitting at a dilapidated wooden picnic table were two very small, and very dirty children; a boy and a girl with light blonde hair and dirty clothes. They were skinny, and pale as ghosts as they huddled over paper, quietly scribbling with their heads down, in the shade of a huge oak tree. The boy was half a head taller than his little sister, who couldn’t have been more than six years old, if that.

  “Who lives here?” Gabby whispered.

  Olivia looked around. “I’ve never seen this place. We must’ve walked much further off the property than I thought.”

  Behind the children was an old mobile home, the tin roof crumpled and rusted with age, windows broken out with curtains hanging limp in the humid, still air. A set of worn steps leaned to the right and the metal door hung open, like a dark gaping mouth missing a big front tooth.

  “Who screamed?” Gabby whispered, lowering her gun.

  Olivia shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t them.”

  Another scream rang out, sending a shiver down Gabby’s spine, but the children didn’t even flinch.

  She spun her finger in the air in a circle, telling Olivia they needed to check out the back of the yard, and she crept along the edge of the woods, her sister following closely behind her, both trying not to get the attention of the little boy and girl.

  On the other side of the trailer an old truck was parked, one door hanging open. A man stood in the open door, his pants down around his knees, bent over two more smaller, skinny white legs that were barely visible between his own, covered in crazy long knee-socks of rainbow colors shoved into sandals.

  Gabby couldn’t see the owner of the smaller set, but could see from the position of their legs that she was laying bent over the seat, on her stomach.

  Bumping uglies.

  Another man leaned against the truck, looking the other way, smoking a joint, and oblivious to the world around him. With his greasy long hair and stained wife-beater shirt, he looked like a strung-out, botched-up bodyguard. He had a gun strapped to his side. At his feet lay an open bag. Gabby could see a tall bottle of cheap liquor, a roll of toilet paper, and a pack of cookies sticking out the top.

  The man over the woman kept moving, and not gently. The woman didn’t make a sound.

  “Do you think that’s consensual?” Olivia whispered.

  Gabby turned to her sister and gave her ‘the look.’ “I don’t know. She’s not fighting, but we both know that doesn’t mean she wants it. There’s two of them and only one of her. But she’s not screaming either, so maybe that was someone else from inside the trailer. Let’s go talk to the kids. See if they know these guys, or if someone else is here. There could be more men—or women—inside.”

  She backed up, pulling Olivia with her, as a determined look came over her. They’d all seen their share of this sort of thing up close and personal. Gabby hoped that it wasn’t what they thought it was. If it was, or even if it wasn’t, it would probably bring them both nightmares tonight. They were no strangers to night terrors; they haunted their family’s dreams.

  They crept back to the front yard where they could see the kids and the door. Gabby whispered to Olivia. “You stay here and cover me.”

  “Cover you?” Olivia whispered loudly, around a look of disbelief. “What are you talking about, Gabby? I don’t know how to cover someone!”

  Gabby slowly pulled Olivia’s pistol out of her holster and placed it in her hand. “Don’t play dumb. You know how to shoot this. Just keep it pointed toward me—not at me—and if one of those men comes around and tries to shoot me, you shoot him first.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “Geez, Gabby. This isn’t a movie. No one is gonna shoot at you. Just find out if the woman in the truck is the one that screamed. That’ll tell us all we need to know. Hurry! They might be hurting her.”

  Gabby smoothed down her mussed hair so she didn’t look like a wild, crazy woman, and ran to the kids, stopping short and coming to a walk before moving into their line of vision. She didn’t want to startle them. She whistled a song, the first one she could think of… the tune to Sponge Bob Square Pants. The kids turned around with wide eyes, and watched her approach, their crayons held in mid-air.

  The little boy scooted closer to his sister, putting his arm around her and pulling her tight against him, an attempt at bravery when Gabby could clearly see he was as afraid as she was.

  Gabby squatted down between them. “Hi. My name is Gabby. What’s your name?”

  The boy slowly answered. “Brody.” He stuck his chin out in false bravado, and then looked down at his sister. Her lip poked out and quivered. He took her hand and held it tight. “This is my sister, Briar.”

  Gabby gently ran her hand over the child’s dirty, tangled hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. I won’t hurt you. I have a sister, too,” she said brightly. “She’s right over there, and she looks just like me. We’re twins.” Gabby pointed behind her to the woods. “We heard a scream. Is everyone okay here?”

  Brody looked over his shoulder, toward the trailer. “That was my mama. She always screams like that when those men come over. She told us to stay here.”

  “Does your mom wear rainbow knee-socks?” Gabby asked him.

  Brody nodded slowly.

  So, she was the screamer.

  “Is anyone else here? Someone inside the house?” Gabby asked.

  The boy shook his head no, with wide eyes.

  Gabby looked towa
rd the woods and found Olivia, nodded, confirming from Olivia’s face she could hear the kids’ answers, and then turned back to the kids. She looked at the papers on the picnic table. The little girl’s picture showed two little stick figure people standing on either side of a bigger stick figure; a larger one, clearly a man, wearing a ball cap. In his hand was a ball with three holes in it. The daddy? Bowling?

  Where was the mama in the picture?

  The little stick figures beside him were drawn with big smiles—smiles that were nowhere to be seen on these children in real life.

  The little boy’s paper showed a remarkably well-drawn picture of a hotdog and a pizza. “Are you hungry?” Gabby asked them.

  Both the kids vigorously nodded.

  “Go over to my sister. She’s really nice. She’ll give you a snack out of her bag. I’ll be there in a minute.” She stood up. “Go ahead,” she encouraged them with a smile. “She’s got fruit snacks.”

  The kids stood to obey her immediately, and Brody kept a hold of his little sister’s hand. He turned to where Gabby pointed and said, “Where?”

  Gabby turned to look behind her.

  Olivia was gone.

  17

  The Farm

  Olivia eased up the side of the yard to get closer to the truck, bent slightly over and awkwardly gripping her gun with two hands. She took a deep breath, trying to control her trembling. Whether she was shaking from holding the gun awkwardly, or shaking from anger, she didn’t know.

  Images of her sisters, Gabby and Emma, flashed through her mind. They too had been in this position at one time, a long time ago; at the mercy of a stronger human being. Someone taking advantage of the weaker sex and forcing themselves onto them in sick ways. She was the older sister—only by three minutes from Gabby—but she’d always taken that role seriously.

  She’d failed to protect her sisters back then; she’d had no idea it was going on. Struggling to find a way free from her own monster, she’d missed all their signs. She’d let them down. She thought about her own first marriage, and the abuse she’d escaped; hers was fists and feet… and she wondered which was worse, and not for the first time. To be taken against your will, or beaten? Was the devil you knew better than the devil you didn’t?

  It didn’t matter.

  Both types of abusers were the devil. Men who used their dominance to overpower women in any way were the scourge of the earth. They were a blight on humanity. A menace to society, and in this new society it would only get worse. She couldn’t allow it to go unpunished.

  Not anymore.

  The woman in the truck screamed again, and again, and again, and Olivia raised her gun.

  “Get off of her!” she yelled. “Now.”

  The scroungy man leaning against the truck snapped his head up, and gave a little scream of his own, dropping his smoke and raising both hands, palms out.

  “Umm. Gary?” he yelled to his friend, keeping his face and eyes pointed at Olivia.

  Gary, the name of the man mounting the woman now revealed, ignored him, and the woman began to scream continuously, barely taking a breath.

  Olivia cringed at her cries, and raised the gun higher, pointing it directly at the man from twenty-five feet away. “Tell him to get off of that woman right now,” she said in a strangely calm, but loud and scary voice, that didn’t sound as though it belonged to her. She hadn’t even thought to speak… the words were coming out on their own.

  “Gary! Get your ass out here! Hurry!” Scroungy Guard yelled desperately, a bead of sweat running down his temple. His legs shook and his hands vibrated in fear of the wild-eyed woman standing over him. He lifted one knee, and then dropped it quick, kicking the truck behind him with his boot heel.

  Gary, obviously otherwise engaged to the point of deafness, didn’t heed the call.

  The woman continued to scream, and Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger, landing her first bullet in the passenger side-view mirror of the truck, shattering the glass. The gun kicked up, nearly hitting her in the nose.

  Limp-wristed it, she heard Tina’s voice in her head say.

  Scroungy Guard dropped to the ground. “Holy shit! Gary!”

  Gary’s legs stilled and his head finally popped up. He looked out the front window, caught sight of Olivia and ducked again, skedaddling all the way into the truck with his britches still down, crawling over the top of the poor woman laying on her stomach, half in and half out of the vehicle. She climbed in behind him, moving quickly in her panic, too, and disappeared into the floor.

  “What the hell’s going on out there?” Gary yelled, keeping his head down.

  The air filled with the smell of gunpowder and the sound of silence; even the birds were afraid to make a peep with Olivia holding a shaking, smoking gun. She stood still, pointing the gun at the front of the truck.

  “Um… there’s some lady out here. She said to get off of Glenda,” Scroungy Guard yelled.

  “What the hell for?” Gary asked in disbelief. “Who is it?”

  “Who the hell knows? Just do it!” Scroungy guard answered, keeping his eyes on a silent Olivia, while trying to press himself as far into the ground and against the truck as he could.

  A long moment passed, and then Gary and ‘Glenda’ slithered out of the truck, pulling up their pants with one hand, while holding the other up in the air.

  “Move away from the truck,” Olivia snapped, her voice brisk.

  The couple moved a few feet away from the truck, giving Olivia a perfect shot.

  “Come over here,” Olivia said to the woman, waving her gun beside her.

  The woman bit her lip and looked from Olivia to Gary, and then back to Olivia. Her face scrunched up. “Why?”

  Olivia blinked twice, rapidly. “To get away from them,” she hissed, not believing the woman’s stupidity. Maybe she was disorientated?

  “But… why?” the woman asked again.

  Olivia paused in her answer, looking from Glenda to Gary, and then to the man on the ground and back to Glenda. She was getting a very bad vibe from this woman now. “Isn’t he raping you?”

  “Hell no, I’m not raping her!” Gary answered for her. “She’s working off a trade. This is business.”

  Olivia startled at his words. Could that be true? She wanted it? What kind of woman— “Is he… telling the truth?” she asked Glenda in a shaky voice, now having problems keeping the gun up; her arms were so tired. She took a deep breath and waited for Glenda’s answer.

  Glenda didn’t have the grace to look down when she answered. Defiantly, she said, “Yeah, I guess,” and then added, hesitantly, “I mean, I need what he’s bringing for it.”

  Olivia swallowed hard, and then felt a hand on her shoulder. She whipped her head around, nearly dropping her gun.

  Gabby stepped up beside her sister and pointed her own gun, more to protect her and Olivia than to threaten with.

  Olivia turned back to Glenda, taking the opportunity to lower her own pistol and rest her arms, since Gabby now had them covered. “Then why were you screaming?”

  Glenda shrugged. “He pays more for screaming. A girl has needs, yanno?” Her face twitched, making the many scabs dance, and she furtively tried to scratch at her head with the backside of her thumb while her hands were still splayed open, in the air.

  Junkie.

  It was obvious now.

  “Your kids have needs too. They look like they’re starving. Why are they bringing you liquor and toilet paper instead of more food? The only thing I see here is a pack of cookies,” Gabby said, her eyes falling onto the sores on the woman’s arms and face, and her thin, stringy hair.

  Olivia raised her gun again, pointing at Gary, fire in her eyes.

  Gary and Scroungy Guard both spoke at once, their hands in the air. “Wait!”

  “We’d give her food instead if that’s what she wanted. She don’t want that. We went out and found exactly what she asked for,” said Gary, in defense.

  “And som
e of what she got isn’t in the bag. Plus, she needs her juice,” Scroungy Guard added. “That was extra.”

  “Yeah. This bitch don’t care about those kids,” Scroungy Guard spit out. “She’s giving it away to anyone that brings her a bottle of liquor or a fix.”

  Olivia’s finger squeezed the trigger, and the gun went off, splitting the air with the deafening shot. The dirt danced in front of the man.

  “Olivia!” Gabby yelled. “What the hell are you doing? You could ‘a killed him!”

  Olivia dropped her gun onto the ground and stared at it, then looked at the man crab walking toward the back of the truck, his eyes wide with fear. “Stop right there.” He froze again. “You’re still taking advantage of her. Making her have sex to feed her kids.” She bent down and grabbed her gun again.

  “We didn’t make her do shit. She offered. Hell, she offered the kids to us, too! I’m telling ya, she don’t give a shit about them,” Gary yelled in defense. “I brought the cookies on my own for the children. She didn’t even ask for food. They’re up for trade, too. Just ask her yourself.”

  Gabby and Olivia both gasped.

  Surely, he didn’t mean—?

  Did he?

  The woman didn’t even try to deny it. Olivia narrowed her eyes and stomped forward, her gun straight and steady, and pointed it at the woman’s head. “We’re taking those kids with us,” she growled at her.

  The woman held her hands up even higher, not arguing. She nodded repeatedly, looking all the world like a strung-out bobblehead doll.

  Gary side-stepped slowly away from Glenda, lowering his hands, now that he wasn’t the target of Olivia’s anger anymore. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around, licking his lips. “Look, if y’all want the boy, I’ll be happy to take the girl off her hands. I’ll keep her fed.” He squinted his eyes at Glenda. “I hadn’t got around to my offer yet. I’ve got another four bottles in the truck. Trade ya fair and square… the little girl for the hooch—and by hooch, I don’t mean yours.”