ASHFALL APOCALYPSE by Banner M.L

Author:Banner, M.L.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Toes in the Water Publishing, LLC
Published: 2022-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Nan

Turned out, it didn’t take long for Pecker to find us.

After we had returned with Ron and his new friends to Sarah’s place, we tried to “lay low” as Ron called it. Really all we did is sleep for the first two days straight: our bodies desperately needed time to heal. But even that didn’t last long.

Turned out, there was way too much work to be done during an apocalypse.

While we slept, Sarah—who had more energy than a big-box store shelf full of batteries—and her newest helper Joey Rancone, the Army Ranger who had saved Ron, took a day to clean up the earthquake damage in the house and basement storage areas. I’m sure Sarah was excited to have Joey’s young and strong hands to do things around the house.

During a break, Joey told us a little of his story. He had been on leave, visiting his parents, when the wave hit, destroying his family home and probably killing his parents as well. He’d been searching the town’s rubble for survivors when Dog found him and brought him to Ron. Sarah had given him Bob’s study to stay in indefinitely, although he resisted at first. “You’re part of our family now,” Sarah had explained to him. And just like she did with Ron, Sarah began to look at Joey like a son that she and Bob never had.

The next day—the day Pecker’s people found us—Sarah and Joey quietly buried Bob’s body. I suspect that Sarah did this, in part, so that she didn’t have to bother us. But I also suspect it was a privacy thing: She didn’t want to lose it anymore in front of us. She wouldn’t give any details about the burial, only that she had done this after she had checked in on me in the morning.

Later that morning, I woke up to a small argument between Joey and Sarah. I shuffled out of my room to find out why.

“But you promised, ma’am... I mean Sarah.”

On my way out to the kitchen, I noticed Ron was a few steps ahead of me. He must have been stirred from his sleep at the same time as me.

Dog was on Ron’s right side, panting. When Dog heard my footsteps, he gulped back his tongue and glared at me, analyzing. Once his dog-noggin calculated that I wasn’t a threat, he returned his gaze back to Ron and Sarah.

“You’re a nice young man, Joey. But I’m going to ask that you stay out of this... Oh, hello, Ronald... Nanette,” Sarah said with quick glances thrown at both of us.

Sarah had been facing Joey, who was standing, but then she turned and moved away from all of us to the other side of the kitchen.

She had a shoulder through the strap of her pack—which she described to me as her BOB or Bug Out Bag—and that meant she had planned to go into town or further out.

“What’s this all about? Where are you going?” Ron demanded and then hobbled over to a counter, taking an edge so that he could rest and face her at the same time.

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