Oil Apocalypse Collection

by Lou Cadle

  Sierra was as scared as she’d ever been in her life. But she walked forward into that inky space, her breath held, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. A spill of moonlight shone on the floor, and looking down at it she realized that if anyone was in here, they’d have seen her in the light of the open door, plain as could be. Biting off a gasp, she swung herself around, out of the light, pressing her back against the wall, trying to remember what they had stored here and where.

  A noise, a crunch in the dark. Footsteps.

  She thought she’d been scared before. Now that fear ratcheted up until all sensible thought fled her mind. She stood rooted to the spot, listening hard, feeling like an animal, a mouse, knowing there was a cat out there ready to break her neck.

  When a hand closed around her arm, she tried to scream. But nothing came out.

  Her arms were pushed down, and she realized she was losing her chance to shoot. But by the time she had that thought, the shotgun was wrenched from her grasp.

  “So we meet again,” said a voice. A male voice.

  Who is it? She tried to force the question out of her mouth, but she couldn’t get out more than a whisper of breath.

  “Come over here into the light, so I can search you.”

  She didn’t have any other weapon. She wished she did.

  In the light spilling in the open back door, she saw first the height of the man, and his shape—tall and skinny. When he turned his head and she saw the glint in his mouth, she realized it was the guy from the hardware store.

  It made her a tiny bit less afraid. This was no stranger breaking in. It was someone from town, someone whose name she knew. What was it? When you knew a person, even a little like that, they’d not do you any real harm. You could talk them out of stealing from you.

  If you could manage to get a word out.

  His free hand was patting her down while the other kept a grip of her forearm. Two hands in use. He must have put down the shotgun. As his hands ran around the back of her jeans, she shuddered.

  Then they moved between her legs, and she found her voice. But what she’d meant as an angry scream came out a squeak. The mouse again. Little frightened mouse. She hated herself for being one, but she couldn’t find her courage.

  Automatically, she fought to get away from his touch, but his hand clamped down.

  “Shh, just looking for a pistol.” His hand left her crotch—thank you, thank you—and he held her hard with two hands, one on each arm. His face was half illuminated by the moonlight. Hers must be too, for he looked down into it. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

  She was going to nod, frightened little obedient mouse, but she somehow managed to keep herself from it. Be tougher!

  She had no idea how to be tough when she was this scared.

  “It’s kind of exciting, seeing you this scared.” One of his hands dropped down and pulled her into him, and she could feel he had an erection.

  She whimpered. It was louder than her try at a scream.

  “Yeah, I like that,” he said, and he leaned down and tried to kiss her.

  She found her courage then, and when he tried to shove his tongue into her mouth, she let him—only to bite down, as hard as she could.

  He tried to pull away, but she held on.

  And then there was a snarl and the gold-toothed man staggered, and his tongue was wrenched from her teeth. His grip loosened. She yanked her arms back, spitting out blood. His blood.

  Then Bodhi was there, growling, snapping at the man, his teeth clacking together when he missed. She could catch glimpses of him as he darted in and out of the moonlight.

  Her eyes had begun to adjust to the dark. Vague shapes were visible in the barn—the tiller, a wheelbarrow, a stack of bags of chicken feed.

  The shotgun?

  She couldn’t see clearly enough to spot it. Chanting, “Good dog, good dog,” in a harsh whisper, she dropped to her knees and began patting the barn floor wildly, hunting for the shotgun. She spun and tried another spot, trying to remember where she’d started, when he’d taken it from her, spiraling out, groping, willing the shotgun to appear under her hands.

  A sharp sound of pain from Bodhi froze her. And it let her find her normal voice. “You fucker! Leave my dog alone!” She stood and kicked out in his direction. Her foot missed him.

  It found the shotgun.

  Sierra scrambled for it. A sickening thud sounded not a body length away. She grabbed the shotgun, realized she was pointing it at herself, and flipped it around as she braced herself, trying to remember everything Dev had taught her about firing position.

  In the moonlight, out of the corner of her eye, she could see her dog lying there, unmoving. She screamed then, really screamed finally, an angry piercing sound that split the night in two, and she fired.

  And missed, it seemed, for the gold-toothed man came at her, fast as thought, and he clamped both his hands on the gun. She tried to hold on, but within seconds she knew it was a fight she’d lose. He was too strong. So she kicked hard, wishing she had on something hard-toed, not just her running shoes.

  He grunted. But he did not let loose of the shotgun.

  She was losing it, losing the gun. He’d shoot her, and he’d shoot Bodhi. He might shoot her dad. She quit pulling back, and instead she pushed the gun at him, driving her legs into the ground, catching him off-guard and pushing him back several feet. They were out of the moonlight now, back in the dark, and she hoped he couldn’t see her any better than she could see him.

  He wouldn’t go down, but he was off-balance, his feet moving to keep himself upright. She was close. Too close to kick. She brought her knee up, hoping to catch him in the balls. He was ready for it and twisted away. She screamed again, frustrated by not being able to do anything to hurt him.

  Wait. Knees. Her father had said to go for the knees, not the balls. Get to the side and kick hard, take his knee out.

  She was trying to figure out how to get around to his side without losing her tenuous grip on the gun when three things happened all at once.

  She lost hold of the gun, and she’d been yanking at it again, so this overbalanced her. She fell back, landing half on her back, half on her side, and the wind was knocked out of her. At the same moment, a light flashed on, blinding her.

  There was a metallic sound. And then the gold-toothed man fell forward onto her.

  She found her strength and fought, fought to get away from him, would have done anything in the world to get her weight off him.

  “It’s okay,” came a voice in the dark. Another strange man.

  She said, “No” to it. Then louder, “Get away, you fucker. No.” She was half out from under the other man, and belatedly realized she was fighting someone who wasn’t fighting back. He was dead weight.

  She had discovered in the last ten minutes that she was no soldier, no hero, no kind of fighter at all. She was a coward and a flailing amateur.

  “It’s okay,” the voice said again. “Look, it’s me, Curt Henry from down the road.” He shone the light—it was just a flashlight—at his own face.

  But the harsh shadows made his ugly face an even more horrible thing, and she was already scared, and she flinched back from it. She was ashamed of the reaction, but it was the one she had.

  She made it out from under the unconscious man and made it to her feet.

  The flashlight beam shifted, shining on the gold-toothed man. Suddenly, his name popped into her mind—Aiden. “Is he dead?”

  “Could be,” said Mr. Henry, “though it’d be a hell of a lucky bang.”

  As his flashlight moved, she saw there was a shovel on the ground beside him. “Jesus,” she whispered. “You hit him with that?”

  “You helped. When you let go, he went flying back at the same time I was swinging it at his head. Hang on.” He got to his knees and checked the man. “Still alive.”

  “Kill him,” Sierra said.

  There was a long, long silence. “If you want him de
ad, you’ll have to do it,” Mr. Henry finally said.

  Sierra went over to the man, shoved at him with her foot, and shoved harder. She was trying to get to the shotgun.

  His hand shot out and grabbed her ankle. She shrieked, yanking back her foot.

  A booted foot came down on the hand. “I have a gun,” Mr. Henry said to him. “Another move, and you’re dead.”

  Had he just been playing dead? Or what? He moaned. “Get off my fucking arm,” he said. He sounded groggy, and his words were slurred. Right, she’d bit his tongue hard.

  She remembered Bodhi and turned from the men, running to Bodhi. She dropped by the dog’s side. He was still. She touched his neck. “Bodhi? Good dog. Good dog.”

  He wasn’t moving. Gently, she shook him by the shoulder. “Get up, boy.” His body was limp. She laid her head gently on his side, listening for a heartbeat, hoping to feel the rise and fall of his breathing. Nothing.

  Running her hands all over him, she tried to find what was wrong with him. Maybe she could fix it. Maybe, please. She got to his face and felt the sticky wetness around his muzzle. He had bled. From the face? From the insides?

  “Oh, Bodhi,” she said, and as it really hit her that he was dead, she started to cry. He’d been trying to protect her. She’d been too weak and stupid to protect herself, and it had cost Bodhi his life. What a terrible, terrible person she was, a horrible friend to her dog. “Sweetie,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.” She felt the soft, silky hair behind his ears, realized it would be the last time she ever did, and cried even harder.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there crying before she thought to look up. The lights were on in the barn now. Mr. Henry had tied the man up, wrists and ankles. Sierra sniffed hard, and wiped the back of her hand across her snotty face, sucking in breaths, trying to get control of herself.

  When she stood, she saw the shotgun was sitting right by her, broken open. Mr. Henry was gone. Maybe there were more guys out there to take care of. He had left this up to her. Kill the man who had killed Bodhi? Or let him live?

  “Why are you here?” she said.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  She nearly shouted the question at him. “Why did you—and your friends—come to our property, Aiden?”

  He glared at her.

  She checked the gun and shut it. She pointed it at the gold-toothed asshole. “Why. Are. You. Here?”

  “We’re hungry. Okay? Everybody in Payson is hungry unless they have a garden!”

  She went cold with rage. “And so you thought you’d rape me while you were up here stealing our food?”

  No answer.

  “Answer me, you son of a bitch.”

  “Hell, you offered it to me in town.”

  “I was a child then.” And she pulled the trigger.

  She looked at what she had done. The shotgun blast turned his head into a mess. But he was dead, and he’d never hurt anyone again. She felt a cold satisfaction at that. Good riddance. She turned her back on him and ran outside, worried about her father and what he was dealing with. Thinking of Bodhi made her sick, and how she failed him even sicker, so she tried to shove that out of her mind.

  Her father was trying to push up a section of fence that had been torn down.

  “Pilar?” she said. “Is there anyone else out here?”

  “Thank God you’re okay. No, these guys ran.”

  “Bodhi is dead.”

  “Oh, hon. But are you okay?”

  She’d never be okay again in her life. But she managed to say, “Fine. Did Mr. Henry talk to you?”

  “He told me you’d had trouble in the barn but it was taken care of. Then he went after the ones who got away. He said he’d check with the Quinns. I think they’re having trouble over there as well.”

  “I’ll go into the house—or barn—so I can see to text them, see if they’ve texted me.”

  “The one got away with a hen and probably a bunch of eggs. There’s an off-chance he circled back to the house. I’m sorry, but I have to get this fence up, or we’ll lose even more hens. Wait for me, and we’ll check the house together.”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll be careful,” she said. She ran for the house, her head swiveling, watching for danger arriving from any direction.

  She checked the pantry first. When she saw it was empty of people, she flipped on its light. No reason to hide that they were home and awake now. Everyone on the road must know it.

  Sierra did not want someone sneaking up on her from behind, so she checked every room in the house, every closet. When she saw the old rug that Bodhi usually slept on, her heart fell, and she wanted to lie down on it herself, curl up, and have another good cry.

  There’d be time enough for that later. Once the house was secure, she checked texts. Only one had come in, from Dev, seconds after she had sent hers: same. So they had troubles too.

  Chapter 17

  Dev slept in a T-shirt and only needed to pull on pants and shoes when his father rousted him out of bed. “Who are they? Where are they?”

  “Don’t know. Crockers woke us up with a text.”

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Tie your shoes. I’ll meet you at the back door.” His father touched the curtain and peered out of Dev’s window, then ran out as Dev tied his laces.

  In the kitchen, his mother was at the door, leaning against the wall, rifle in hand. “Be careful out there,” she said. “Signal if you need me. If you do, I’ll go watch at the front door, so don’t shoot me.”

  “I won’t,” Dev said.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “We’ll all be fine,” he said.

  His father came from the front of the house, and said, “Turn on your night scope once we’re out there. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. That includes the workshop. It’s your responsibility to clear it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His mom opened the door for them, and they slid out, his father first. Dev went to the right side of the porch and lifted his rifle, flicking on the night vision scope. The black world lit up in shades of green. No human forms close, none around the shop. The doors to the shop looked to be closed.

  He scanned the property. A flash of white by the truck, a human head poking up. He clicked to his father, a signal he’d sighted someone. Dev felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and then a single tap. More silent communication. It told him to take his man.

  He heard a shot from the Crockers’ place, then two more in quick succession. They had intruders too. Not hundreds, or he’d be seeing more lit-up forms. But he had to assume a dozen or more people were in the neighborhood. He hoped they weren’t at the Morrows’ house too.

  Realizing he was letting his mind drift from his job, he bore down and focused. The head had ducked back down before his father had told him to shoot. Either the person was trying to steal diesel fuel from the truck or was just hiding there.

  He heard his father take the steps and crunch on the bark mulch at the bottom of the stairs. Then he ran for the hens and rabbits. Dev had to move from where he was to take his man. He swung through the porch railing and held himself back so that he made not a sound when his feet touched the ground. He knew it was his mother’s herb garden he was trampling, but he was pretty sure she’d rather have him do his job than protect the herbs. A scent of something minty hit his nose.

  Keeping low, he ran forward and swerved around the truck to the right. Nobody. Where had the guy gone?

  He heard him. Under the truck. Maybe he knew he was being hunted. Maybe he was stealing something. But what? An oil filter? If there was no gas, why would car parts be of any use? He had to be hiding.

  A triple click from his father told him he had sighted three people.

  Dev could easily shoot under the truck, but his father hadn’t used his rifle, and he debated. Shoot, and alert the people his father was after that they were on to them? Wait until his father fired?

  His father had said to take the
man. So he would. Dev decided not to make himself a target. He held the rifle low and shot without aiming, trying to aim between all the tires. He heard gravel spray and then the sound of someone getting up and running.

  Flushed the bastard.

  Scope to his eye again, he saw the intruder, running down the driveway, moving fast. Dev had little time to set up his shot, but he had experience with moving deer. He fired.

  And missed.

  Goddamn it! He never missed! He ran after the man—or woman, impossible to tell—half-expecting the person to shoot back.

  But he didn’t. He put on a burst of speed and was out of sight.

  Yelling from his father coming from behind distracted him, made him hesitate a second longer.

  No, his father said to get his man, not back him up. Dev took off running after his quarry, down the road to the main highway. He had to stop and look through the scope to spot the man again. He was climbing over the tree they’d taken down. Fast runner. Dev stopped, took a breath, set up the shot, and fired.

  The man dropped, slithering over the far side of the trunk like a snake.

  Dev had no idea if he’d hit him or not. He’d hit something. Trying to think what the impact had sounded like, he thought not. It sounded more like he’d hit the tree than flesh.

  Again, he debated. Pursue the man, who was over into the road, maybe across and into the national forest? Or go back and help his father?

  Knowing he’d catch it from his father for the choice, he retraced his steps. When he was up the drive, he heard voices. Several voices.

  His father: “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. To my family.”

  “We’re hungry, Arch. We’re all hungry.”

  It wasn’t a voice Devlin recognized, but it was obviously someone his father knew.

  “You should have planned better.”

  A third voice. “You shouldn’t have bragged about how well you had planned. Not if you didn’t want the whole town to know you had supplies up here.”

  “Did I ask you to talk?” The second voice, the one his father knew, angry at his buddy.

  Dev thought the third voice had a good point. His father did go on, if given half a piece of encouragement, about his prepping and the end of the world. He’d heard him do it at church and at the hardware store. And now the end of the world seemed to have come, and so everyone knew his father had prepped. And so here they were.