The Cabin on the Mountain: Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Fiction by Carter Woods

Author:Carter Woods [Woods, Carter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-18T14:00:00+00:00

9

I found Pippa on the third-floor landing of the stairwell in her family’s apartment building. She had stopped to catch her breath, holding the support railing with one hand and cradling her belly with the other.

“You know, I used to be in great shape,” she said when she noticed me plodding up the stairs. “I was captain of the field hockey team. I ran a five-minute mile. Now a few flights of stairs have me completely whipped. It’s ridiculous.”

I forced a grim smile. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll go right back to your five-minute mile after you deliver the baby.”

She looped her arm around my shoulders when I offered. “Did you talk to Jacob? Where is he?”

“He gave me a head start.”

“So you didn’t talk.”

“We did,” I replied as we started up the steps to the next floor. “The problem is that we can’t really do anything about the things we talked about right now.”

Pippa flipped her curly blond hair, the same color as Jacob’s, over her shoulder to see the stairs better. “Because of the blackout?”

“Partially.”

“You have to give me more than that, or I can’t help you.” She tugged on my bright purple locks. “I hate to break it to you, but you’ve always been cryptic. It’s no wonder Jacob has a difficult time communicating with you. That boy is dense, like most men, but he does try.”

“I know he does—”

“All I’m saying is that some guys don’t try.” She drew open the lapels of her coat to reveal her belly again. “This is a perfect example. When I told Sebastian that I was going to have the baby, he switched schools to get away from me.”

“Why did you?” I asked her. “Decide to have the baby, I mean.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was such a shit show when I found out about it. Part of me wanted to own up to the responsibility of it. I made a mistake. I screwed up, so now I have to deal with the consequences.” We lugged ourselves up another flight of stairs. “Then another part of me wanted to piss everyone off. Jacob got into all kinds of trouble when he went to Saint Mark’s, but he played on the football team, and he was a straight-A student, and he was a boy, so it didn’t matter if he acted up. My parents went ballistic when I told them about this. They even said I’d have to get rid of it.”

“I thought your parents were super Christian.”

Pippa rolled her eyes. “It turns out that having a pregnant teenage daughter wasn’t their idea of how Christianity is supposed to go. They were more concerned about our family’s reputation than what God might think of me.”

“That’s shitty.”

“Yup,” Pippa agreed. As we rounded the seventh floor, her feet began to drag, so I propped more of her weight over my shoulder. “Anyway, I figured I’d have the baby and give her up for adoption. Let some couple who actually wants her get a beautiful newborn.

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.