After the End: Survival by Dave Stebbins

Author:Dave Stebbins [Stebbins, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Sci-Fi | Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian | Crime
Published: 2015-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Kim was tall and blond. Pete recalled a wizened rancher once describing a beautiful woman. "More curves than a barrel of snakes."

Healthy appetite, too. Kim was exuberantly licking sauce from her fingers, starting with her thumb and working her way down to each pinkie in turn.

"God, this is good. Can I borrow one of your napkins?"

Pete handed her a napkin, and she grinned apologetically. Pete noticed some corn stuck between her front teeth.

Looks like one happy kernel of corn.

"We're allowed to get seconds, right?" she asked.

"It's all you can eat," he said smiling. Kim was about eighteen. His own daughter, had she lived, would have been just a couple of years younger.

Kim drank some iced tea, sighed contentedly, and leaned back in her chair. Paul was sitting about twenty feet down the hall, eating, ignoring them both.

"This is about Susan, right?"

"That's right."

"Jeez, I'm sorry she's dead. Like, we weren't exactly friends? But we were still kind of close, if you know what I mean."

Pete had no idea what she meant, but nodded sagely.

"How did you meet her?"

"Well, after the Change, I'd moved in with a couple of different families. I moved out of the first one when the man there started getting kind of creepy. You know. Then, at the second place, they were pretty nice and all, but the guy there wouldn't let me out at night unless I was back by, like, ten o'clock, and it was like I was in jail or something. I mean I'm not a little girl, OK, and these people are all the time asking me, ‘Where are you going, who are you going to be with, what time will you be back.’ Geez. So one day I just packed up and moved over to Easy's place, you know where that is? And it was OK living there. I mean the food sucked, and you had to do all your own laundry and the guys there were kind of gross sometimes. Like really gross." Her face wrinkled with distaste. "But it was kind of nice to be able to not have to ask permission to do stuff."

"How long ago was it you moved there?"

"A year ago last spring."

"Was Susan already there?"

"No, but she moved in right after I got there so we got to be kind of roommates. She was like a little sister. We'd go scrounge together sometimes and I'd tell her how to deal with guys. She was sort of messed up. You know that Dingman preacher dude? He'd been screwing her and telling her it was God's will, or some such shit. I kept telling her not to think about it so much, because guys'll tell you anything to get laid. But really I think the guy's a pervert 'cause, I mean, she's so young, you know?" Kim looked at Pete, hoping for agreement.

Pete nodded, his eyes flat.

Kim continued, somewhat reassured.

"So how did she die?"

"Some guy raped her, beat her, strangled her and cut her with a knife."

"Ugh.” She shook her head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
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.