L Akers - Fight Like a Man

Gabby threw herself backward, landing on her rump in the dirt and scooting away from the voice—also scooting away from her gun that she’d taken out of her pants so she could relax against the tree for a moment.

“Who the hell are you?” she yelled.

Olivia and Emma scrambled in a crabwalk across the grass the few feet they needed to get to Gabby, where they all huddled together.

Mei froze in place, staring up at the stranger with an open mouth.

“I’d ask you the same, but I don’t give a damn. I’d have just rolled over and gone to sleep, except the missus insisted I come out here and check on you girls.”

“Missus?” Gabby asked in confusion. “Where is she? Where did you come from? What do you want?”

“From the farmhouse, just across the field over there,” he said as he pointed into the darkness. “Voices travel out here, especially now that the lights are out. I heard y’all as soon as you stepped into my field. You need to work on your sneak-skills.”

“We weren’t sneaking. We didn’t know we were in your field. We didn’t know we were even in a field. We’ll leave,” Gabby snapped. She stared the old man in the eye, after appraising his overalls, rubber boots fit for chicken-coop poop-scooping and John Deere cap. The bill was bent and frayed and short tufts of white hair stuck out the sides.

Regardless of his age, he was strong. His broad shoulders framed a rather fit looking torso, and his arms were corded with hard-earned muscle. He wore a red T-shirt under his overalls and Gabby could just make out the acronym: MAGA.

Make America Great Again .

His wrinkled face scowled through the scraggly lines and whiskers. He didn’t look the friendly sort.

With a big foot and a frustrated kick, he sent dirt over their fire, immediately squashing it. “Not only are you too loud, but you’re advertising your spot out here with this fire. I can’t leave you girls out here tonight. The missus won’t let me. She’s afraid something is gonna get ya, and trust me, there’s plenty of varmints out here tonight that would and could.”

A chill ran down Gabby’s spine. She couldn’t see much past six feet with the limited moonlight. Was someone—or something—watching them now?

The old man jerked his head toward the direction he’d appeared from. “Come with me. I’d rather deal with three whining city girls than deal with y’all’s dead bodies and told-you-so’s from the wife in the morn’. You girls can sleep in the house tonight.”

He stomped off, fully expecting them to follow.

They didn’t disappoint him.

GRAYSIE RAN her tongue over her gritty teeth and revved her engine. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. No one had come to let her out of the car parking lot; the gates were still closed. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep and slept all night and half the morning. She should’ve been sleeping in her car since the power went out. Smelled better out here and she felt safe cocooned in Sally.

But she was still stuck. The only way to get out of here now was to drive through the gate.

She shrugged. She’d seen it on TV a million times. She could do this.

She centered her car up in front of the gap and stepped on the gas, gaining a lot of speed in a short amount of pavement and barreling toward the small opening between the gates. Her dad was going to kill her when he saw Sally—her car. This was definitely going to leave a mark, as he liked to say.

She sped the short distance and at the last minute squinted her eyes. “Gird your loins, girl,” she whispered, again, something else her daddy liked to say.

Metal screamed and Graysie flinched, waiting for her seatbelt to slam into her as her car was ripped to a stop.

But it didn’t.

In complete astonishment to her, she actually did it! The mustang rammed through the gates, throwing them wide open, but leaving them bent as they waved and bounced back in fury. She gave her best rebel yell as she braked heavily to make the turn and screeched around the corner.

Her spirits lifted. Home was only a little over an hour away. If she’d made it this far, she could make it there alone. She’d be there soon.

To her surprise, it was clear all the way to the interstate and down the access ramp to I-77. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think the college administration had made everything up. Other than no moving traffic, everything looked normal.

So far.

But once on the interstate, she ran into problems only minutes later. She was coming up on both lanes mostly blocked by stalled cars. Some were wrecked into the others. As she got closer she saw there was an opening, but a crowd of people were walking, blocking the one clear side of the road.

Hearing her engine, they turned as one and watched her approach. She slowed when she was within fifty feet of them and grabbed her gun that she’d laid in the seat beside her. Slowly, she rolled up to them and beeped the horn.

The bulk of the crowd moved to the side, but three men stood their ground, one holding his hand up in the air in a ‘stop’ motion, and the other two waving their arms.

Graysie rolled her window all the way up and creeped forward a bit further.

“Get out of the way,” she yelled through the windshield, sure they could hear her or at least get the point, punctuated by her brandishing her gun back at them.

The two guys who were waving dove out of her way without need of a second warning. The third guy ran toward the car, weaving around the front to run toward her door. He was dirty and desperate, and not someone she would have stopped for even in the best of circumstances.

Her heart bounced in fear as she goosed the gas and left him standing there chasing wind.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the road was mostly clear for the next ten miles, other than a few stragglers walking in groups of two or three, who didn’t have the energy to try to stop her. They merely moved aside when they heard her coming, not even bothering to turn around. She slowed when passing them and glanced at their hopeless gait, then sped up a long hill, gaining speed all the way toward a bridge that crossed the river.

The top of the bridge disappeared as the hill grew steeper before it crossed the water and she hoped it was clear on the other side. If she maintained this sort of speed, she’d be home tonight. She could’ve kicked herself for not leaving days ago. She could’ve been home right now.

Her mind drifted to home as the road bent out of sight ahead, arcing into the sky.

She could barely wait to see her dad, and Ozzie. Her entire family would be a welcome sight. Hopefully, her dad knew what was going on; why the phones weren’t working and the power wasn’t back on yet. She swallowed hard as she realized he may have news that she didn’t want to hear.

The road in front of her disappeared into the remains of a blue sky as she zoomed closer to topping the hill. Her visibility was abruptly cut off at the top of the bridge. She held her breath, hoping her luck hadn’t run out.

It had.

The road wasn’t clear.

A wall of stalled and wrecked vehicles blocked it.

She slammed on her brakes, and veered right toward the low concrete wall. She could barely see the river at the bottom of a huge drop-off. She’d never make that fall. She jerked the wheel to the left, all while in a long, screaming slide, and then realized there was nothing to keep her from falling off that side either. She corrected and watched the wall of metal quickly approaching her windshield as she steered right into it, standing on her brakes.

Omigod. Stop Stop Stop

Her prayer went unanswered as metal connected with metal. Everything slowed down. Graysie felt her seatbelt cut into her as her hair flew past her face, long tendrils reaching desperately toward the windshield. Out of the corner of her eye and through the red veil of hair, she saw her gun slide into the floor in slow motion. The sound was deafening; the loudest thing she’d heard in days. It seemed to go on and on as she wondered if that was her… her car , making that sound. She felt as though her heart had stopped, along with time, as she waited an eternity to come full stop, anticipating a head-on collision of her face with the steering wheel. Seconds seemed like minutes…