The Infernal Regions_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller by Ryan Schow

Author:Ryan Schow [Schow, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: River City Publishing
Published: 2018-03-19T06:00:00+00:00

When I head downstairs, Rider is sitting at the table with a half bottle of water. I can’t stop thinking about how he looks. He’s lean and GQ handsome, an alpha male through and through. I look away from him, refuse to present a false impression. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not falling for an older guy or a former soldier—this is me recognizing in him something I’m only now starting to see in Stanton: a steadfastness, a durability.

Where my husband has to learn and adapt to this world, Rider has home field advantage to this kind of a nightmare. Stanton was never afraid of anything in his world because he mastered it. Now my white collar husband is but a wet calf in the apocalypse, a babe just trying to get his legs under him. Just when I think he’s doing alright, I see a guy like Rider and realize there’s something cold and unbreakable inside of him, something you can see but can’t quite define. Maybe Stanton is going to be okay, but maybe he’s way out of his depths, too.

“Is this what you do?” I ask him. “You just show up and wait for people in their living rooms and kitchens?”

“It’s easier than knocking,” Rider says, sipping his water. “Plus I didn’t think you’d be doing anything terribly inappropriate with it being this early and colder than a witch’s tit.”

“You men are lucky,” I say. “You can keep your hair short, you don’t need makeup and if you don’t shower in a few days, you don’t really smell that bad. And somehow through all of it you still manage to look amazing.”

“Yeah,” he says. Then without an ounce of emotion he adds: “I’m thrilled out of my boots about the fringe benefits of my gender right now.” A smile creeps onto my face and he smiles in return, but it’s an anxious smile. A tempered smile. “If you’re worried about your looks around me, don’t. I’m not that guy.”

“Did you come to tell me you’ve got someone waiting for you at the college and you’re eager to return?”

The outer shell of him cracks. Not wide open, but enough for me to see inside, to see a man no longer indifferent about life. This is a man who is thinking about the woman he loves.

“Wow,” I say, seeing him change. “You must really like her.”

“She caught me off guard.”

For a second I’m seeing the joy of love brightening the faces of my brother, my daughter and now this guy. It makes me think of when Stanton and I first got together. The first time he met my parents he looked so handsome, but he was nervous inside and I missed it. Thankfully. He was wearing grey Boss trousers, a pressed white shirt with cufflinks and a four hundred dollar tie. He had on a black pea coat and a patterned scarf and he’d just purchased his first Maserati. The very look of him stilled my young, clamoring heart, yet it pumped me so full of love and adoration my emotions bordered on obsession.

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