After the Burn by Franklin Ard
Author:Franklin Ard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rogue Owl Press
***
Six months ago, I got locked in this old walk-in freezer that my daddy used to cure meat. Daddy ran a butchery from the house. The freezer didnât work, of course, and it was all beat up and smelled like spoiled jerky. Daddy had shoved me in there because he got pissed off that I hadnât done my chores. He shut the door behind him, said heâd leave me to think about my actions, and then went out to make a delivery.
Although the freezer wasnât functional, it was still cold in there because it was February in Vermont. Instead of doing my chores around the homestead, Iâd trudged through the snow to the old junkyard where I liked to hang out and clear my head. It had a bunch of ancient cars and tractors and household junk from way before The Burn.
The snow had made my pant legs damp, and my ankles were freezing. Hiding my face against the aluminum wall, I felt isolated and out of breath. It was Jamie who finally saved me, and thatâs how we met.
The door swung open, and Jamieâs lean frame was silhouetted by the daylight behind him. Heâd been skulking around our homestead for days, stealing cheap cuts of meat. Although Iâd seen his campfire flickering in the cow field three nights in a row, I hadnât yet made his acquaintance.
My teeth chattered. âDaddy and me were playing a game.â
Jamie dragged me into a patch of frozen grass. âThatâs some kind of game,â he said. âYour daddy plumb forgot about you.â He helped me out and gave me his coat. âWhat should I call you?â he asked.
âBilly the Kid,â I said, joking. I liked to pretend I was somebody, that people would actually notice me. I had this picture book of Old West outlaws, and The Kid was my favorite. Nobody crossed him, that was for sure.
Jamie took me back to his camp. Sitting beside the campfire, Jamie told me all these stories he knew from the Civil War. He said he liked to think about that time period because it reminded him that things were always shitty and people always scraped to survive, even before The Burn and The Collapse.
âItâs kind of crazy, but now itâs like weâre living the way people did back then,â he said.
We talked about our family histories and realized that our parents were both from the same neck of the woods. Jamieâs dad was from Mississippi, and my mom and dad came from Alabamaâback before The Burn.
As I understand it, after the solar flares hit, things went downhill quick. Somehow, word spread to our parents about folks making a new life in Vermont. Green mountains sure sounded better than baking under the furious sun in the South, and so they made the journey with groups of other families. This was before Jamie and me were ever born.
âI may have grown up in Barning, but I wonât say my heart really belongs here,â Jamie said. âNot that it matters much anyway.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Sita - Warrior of Mithila (Book 2 of the Ram Chandra Series) by Amish(53750)
The Crystal Crypt by Dick Philip K(36389)
Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(14721)
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han(14437)
Ready Player One by Cline Ernest(13928)
The Last by Hanna Jameson(9775)
Year One by Nora Roberts(9274)
Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey(8920)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8349)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro(8264)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown(8217)
Dark Space: The Second Trilogy (Books 4-6) (Dark Space Trilogies Book 2) by Jasper T. Scott(7885)
The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood(7415)
The Circle by Dave Eggers(6816)
Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6 by Frank Herbert(6670)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood(6452)
Legacy by Ellery Kane(6371)
Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1) by A.G. Riddle(6157)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty(5791)
