Wait Like a Stone: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SHTF Series Book 4) by L.L. Akers

Author:L.L. Akers [Akers, L.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scorched Earth Publishing, LLC
Published: 2020-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

14

Grayson & Jake

Grayson snapped awake to the thunderous noise of boisterous men laughing, yelling, and arguing.

The smell of sweat and mildew flooded his nose. He carried a killer headache. Slowly, he opened his eyes to find himself face-down in the dirt with his arms and legs shackled to a chain hooked to a U-bolt buried deep within the ground.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was nearly dawn outside, based on the light leaking through all the vents around the foundation of the room. It was definitely at least the next day.

He tested his restraints.

They were solid, although they did have a little slack.

He struggled to put his thoughts together. His mind was still muddled. The last thing he remembered was finding shelter with Oso and Darion, in their cellar. He bargained with them, losing his gun—which wasn’t really a choice—in exchange for shelter, food and water.

The water.

It had tasted funny.

They’d been drugged.

He turned his head and looked around. He was in the middle of a cellar—larger than the one he apparently fell asleep in. Different implements hang randomly on one wall from rusty nails: a metal pipe, a sharp shovel, a nail-studded ball bat, and an axe. Pain-inducing tools, as told by the red stains upon them, and the long red drips staining the concrete beneath them.

Oh shit.

He turned the other way to see Jake, also shackled, sitting in a metal chair, his head hanging down. Still asleep. The chair was firmly bolted to the ground.

A small door hung open, showing him a peek into another room and he recognized the cellar where he and Jake sought shelter. Apparently, there was a secret door that led to this bigger room beneath the same house. Bigger, but still close quarters.

Grayson swore under his breath at his stupidity.

He looked for his captor and found him only a few feet away, dickering and taking bets with the room chock full of excited men, all hunched over or in a squatting position to avoid hitting their heads.

None were armed, other than Oso, who had a pistol hanging from both sides.

The other men were all wearing an assortment of crazy-ass leather protective garb and hats topped with goggles, and motorcycle boots. Lots of chain and smooth animal-skin. They had bandanas around their necks; their idea of fallout protection, Grayson assumed.

Mad Max much, assholes?

There was barely room to move, other than a six foot circle in the middle in which he and Jake held center stage but the men meandered about, some holding very excited roosters—fighting gamecocks—and others clutching money, fresh vegetables, cartons of eggs, bullets or Mason jars of clear liquid.

One fat man just a few feet away clutched the hand of a frightened teenage girl, gaudily painted in too-loud makeup. She was dressed uncomfortably in and a flamboyant polka-dotted dress and too-big heels. Her mouth was a red blob of lipstick. His meaty paw swallowed the girl’s delicate hand completely to the wrist.

The girl shook in fear, her ridiculously over-painted lips quivering.

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