Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale Read online




  Anything for Food

  A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale

  by: A. Morrel

  Text copyright © 2013, Amy Morrel

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 – Nightmares

  Chapter 2 – Jake's Place

  Chapter 3 – The Proposition

  Chapter 4 – Sealing the Deal

  Chapter 5 – The Daily Grind

  Chapter 6 – What He Wants

  Chapter 7 – Settling In

  Chapter 8 – Going Further

  Chapter 9 – Putting the Past to Rest

  Chapter 10 – What She Wants

  * * *

  Introduction

  Andi fled through the woods as though her life depended on it. She'd been fleeing for hours, ever since lunch time, and dusk was now falling.

  When she and Patrick sat down to their first decent lunch this week they were careless. After finding an abandoned house with some canned goods still on the shelves, they took the food and left. Patrick built a fire outside and, once it was burning well, slid an opened can into the edge of it to heat.

  As the food warmed, three men appeared from nowhere and charged them. Patrick drew a knife and turned to face two of the three. The men drew knives themselves and went after Patrick. When Andi saw the first stab sink home in Patrick's side, she started running. She'd been running ever since.

  Her tired legs eventually failed her. She stumbled and fell, striking her head on a tree root that protruded from the ground. Andi was thirsty and starving. When the added pain of a throbbing headache struck her, she gave up caring about anything. She curled up into a fetal position and sobbed as the light leached from the sky and the scent of rotting leaves surrounded her.

  She lay there crying and wondering how the world could have gone so crazy in less than a month. Slowly her tears subsided, segueing into snores as her exhausted body took over from her mind and demanded rest. Her mind, no longer in control of her body, slipped into dreams of the past month and the insanity that had replaced the world as she had known it.

  * * *

  Chapter 1 – Nightmares

  Andi dreamed about the last few weeks as she slept:

  The bank she worked at closed in the middle of the day. She was glad she'd taken her coat and purse to lunch with her since they weren't letting anyone into the building and they were escorting those inside out.

  A day or two later the restaurants just didn't open one morning. The grocery stores followed suit two days later.

  Her boyfriend left for work one morning and she never saw or heard from again. When she started looking for him she found that he never showed up at work. No-one had any idea where he was or what had happened to him.

  At the end of the month, when she tried write a check for rent, her landlord told her.

  “Cash only. The damn banks aren't open to cash a check at.”

  She went back to her parents' house and stayed with them for a while. With no job and no apartment, she had nowhere else to go, so she moved back in with her parents. She just stayed there in her parents' house all the time; at least until the food ran out after the first two weeks. She and her parents were the lucky ones. The neighbors ran out much sooner. After her parents ran out of food she'd spent some time out of the house, looking for food to no avail.

  As if the previous dreams weren't bad enough they continued on into the more recent past.

  She relived her parents' house burning down in the middle of the day. No firefighters or police responded to the flames. She still didn't know if her parents made it out of the fire or not. The entire neighborhood had gone up in flames just because someone was stupid about how they tried to stay warm. She tried to find her parents but there were so many people running and screaming that she couldn't. When the crowd started turning ugly and violent she'd left and begun walking.

  She admitted it to herself once she was out of town. She was running in terror. She was not one of those people that was willing to do violence at the drop of a hat. She would much rather simply leave, since she didn't think there was anything at all worth doing violence over.

  She left the suburbs and headed out towards the more rural areas. Lots of people did the same and most of them did so much sooner than her. After five days of looking for anyone that needed help of any sort, she'd had no luck.

  The electricity had gone out everywhere after her second day of walking so the nights were truly dark now. There were no tiny little beacons of light from people's houses, no streetlights, and no hum when you passed under the power lines. Once again the night sky was ruled by the moon and stars.

  She was lucky while she was searching for work. A couple of people were kind enough to give her a meal, but that was all. They didn't need any more help. The two households that gave her food were already swollen by the addition of extra people, refugees from the city. She continued walking and on the far side of the rural community that she made her way through while looking for work, she'd met Patrick.

  Patrick had scrounged some food and he'd shared with her. They'd talked and, if he asked, she probably would have slept with him. But he didn't ask. He was just happy to have someone for company and no longer be alone.

  Patrick's food lasted for a week. They holed up in an abandoned house and used his little camping stove to cook it. The fuel ran out before the food so they ate the last couple of cans cold. Then they set out again, together now, looking for anything that might help them survive.

  She and Patrick had spent several days with no food, getting their water from streams and ponds. Eventually they found another abandoned house to break into. Down in the basement she found a small stash of home-canned food. They stayed in the house for a few days eating their prize and resting, but this time they decided to start moving before the food ran out.

  When the food was gone it was a week before they found more. They were down to trying to eat some of the plants that were just poking their sprouts up when they finally found more food. It was only five cans of vegetables so they started moving again immediately after splitting a can between them.

  The next afternoon, they were cooking their lunch when three men appeared. Without a word, they'd rushed Patrick and the cans of food next to him. Andi was sure the men killed Patrick since she saw one of them thrust a knife into his side. She hadn't stayed around to find out or to make herself a target. She'd been fleeing ever since. Her fear that they might think she possessed something they wanted pushed her beyond her normal endurance. She was sure they were chasing her so she kept pushing herself along as quickly as she could, even when her fastest was only a staggering walk.

  She woke up, sure that it was all a nightmare, until she stretched out and barked her knuckles on the protruding tree roots. There were stars in the sky and a sliver of moon was visible through the small leaves of early spring, but there wasn't enough light to illuminate the floor of the forest. She gave up her idea of moving on and, with a sob, slumped back into sleep.

  The nightmares began again.

  * * *

  Chapter 2 – Jake's Place

  Andi woke to the damp grayness that preceded dawn. She heard something or someone moving around in the woods nearby. They were trying to be quiet but not entirely succeeding. The attempt at stealth made her fear it was a person and not a wild animal. She sat up slowly and huddled back against the nearby tree. Andi was cold and sore, hungry and thirsty, but above all else she was terrified that the men had caught up with her.

  As soon as she sat up, the noises stopped. She knew that wh
oever it was saw her movement and was now sneaking up on her, moving more quietly than they had earlier on. She sat there trembling from the cold and her fears, waiting for a chance to run. If she could just see where they were then she could run in the opposite direction. As the sun slowly rose the area brightened, bit by bit. Finally, she could see her surroundings. She scanned the area but was unable to spot anyone.

  I have to run, she thought, when I move maybe they will also and I'll be able to see them.

  She slowly inched herself up the tree until she was standing. When she pushed off from the tree and started to run, her legs refused to cooperate. She stumbled and fell to the ground. Her legs would not obey her when she tried to force herself into a standing position. Despair took her as she lay there, waiting to be grabbed. She was shocked when a pleasant male voice called out.

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I heard something crashing around in the brush out here last night and thought I might be able to bag a deer if I was out here early enough. I didn't know it was a person or I would've come out when I heard you.”

  The voice was a solid baritone that sounded rusty from disuse.

  Andi rolled onto her back and saw a man looking down at her. There was a haunted look in his eyes for a moment before he shook his head dismissively. After that they were just ordinary eyes with a hint of curiosity in them.

  He leaned over and offered her a hand to help her up. She instinctively took his hand and he hauled her onto her feet. Andi was about average height for a woman and she wasn't at all petite but the man had effortlessly supported most of her weight with one arm as she stood. She saw that there was a crossbow slung over his back and caught herself staring at it. She knew what it was in general, she'd just never seen one up close before.

  Andi continued to lean on his arm, in order to stay upright. The man noticed where she was looking and began to speak.

  “Oh that, I didn't want to attract attention with a gunshot if it was a deer, so I brought this along instead.” he said, gesturing to the crossbow, “There are far too many other folks in the area that would hear a gunshot and come to check it out. If I take down a deer I want to keep the meat for myself, not have to share it out to a bunch of folks that wouldn't offer anything in return.”

  “Oh” Andi said, her voice scratchy from the dryness of her mouth and her thirst.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Andi coughed several times, trying to clear the gummy feeling from her mouth.

  “Dry mouth, need a drink.” she said.

  The man pulled a canteen from his belt and handed it to her.

  “Just water I'm afraid, but I've got plenty of that to spare.”

  “Thanks” said Andi as she spun the top from the canteen and proceeded to drain it dry in less than a minute.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught him staring at her breasts. She'd leaned back to drink from the canteen and the movement had made them even more noticeable than usual. By the time she'd emptied the canteen, the man's eyes were looking at her face.

  “Wow, you were thirsty weren't you? Well, that's all the water I have on me. If you want to come back to my place I can get you some more. It isn't far, it's just on the other side of that rise.” he said, pointing.

  “Thank you again... I don't know your name, I'm Andi.”

  His face broke into a wry smile.

  “Sorry, I'm Jake.”

  “Thank you again Jake. I'm not sure about your offer. No offense, but I don't know you. I'm pretty sure someone was chasing me yesterday. I was afraid they were going to catch up with me so I just kept going until I couldn't any more. I thought you were them when I heard you moving through the brush.”

  “Well, I didn't hear anyone else out there when I was scouting the area earlier on, just you. So, if they were chasing you, they aren't close to catching up.”

  “Good, maybe they quit.”

  “My offer stands, if you want some more water you can come down and get some. But I don't do delivery.”

  “I'm not trying to be offensive, but how do I know you aren't a nutcase intent on doing something to me?”

  Jake looked around in an exaggerated fashion. He raised a hand to waist level, palm up, and gestured to the surrounding area with it.

  “There's no-one in sight. If I wanted to do something to you, it would be done already.”

  Andi looked at Jake, scanning him up and down. The wry smile that was still on his face decided her.

  “Alright, where is it?”

  Andi tried to follow when Jake started to walk towards the rise he had indicated earlier. As soon as she let go of his arm, her legs started to give out and she had to fight to remain standing. She paused for a moment, noticing that Jake had stopped to wait for her. When she tried to take a step again, her legs cramped up on her badly and she started to fall before Jake noticed and caught her.

  “Why don't you lean on me while we head that way.”

  Andi nodded, the painful cramps in her legs stealing her breath away and making it difficult to speak.

  Andi hobbled towards Jake's house, her weight evenly distributed between them. When they crested the rise Andi saw that the house was in a small bowl formed where a ridge had split in two. The house rested in the center of the bowl and a driveway led off down the valley formed by the two ridges. The driveway disappeared around a turn before she saw it meet a road. The area around the house was all cultivated as a garden and spots of green sprouted through the straw that was used as mulch.

  As her eyes traced the driveway out of sight, Jake followed her gaze.

  “Yeah, my place isn't visible from the road, and I like it that way. Because of that no-one tries to steal the produce from my garden. Come on over this way, there's a path down that will probably be easier for us to use side by side.”

  Andi accepted Jake's help to get down the steep slope. She followed him over to a bench on the south side of the house where he gestured for her to sit. The sun was just starting to push its rays over the edge of the ridge and the air was beginning to warm.

  “Have a seat there, I'll get you some more water.”

  Andi sat on the bench as Jake hurried into the house. He was back out a minute later with a tall plastic cup of water which he handed to her.

  “You might want to drink that slower than the last one. Otherwise you'll end up with cramps.”

  Andi responded by taking a small sip of water and then lowering the cup.

  “Thank you so much. I needed this.”

  “You're welcome.”

  They sat in silence for a while as the sun rose and its rays finally struck them directly. Jake grunted in pleasure as the sun began to warm his body. Andi simply sprawled her legs out, relishing the warmth of the sun as it began to soothe the cramps that knotted her legs.

  Andi startled when Jake finally broke the silence.

  “So, where are you headed?”

  “I have no idea.” Andi replied in a voice devoid of emotion, “I've been trying to find a place that needed someone for any kind of work at all but there don't appear to be any of those.”

  “Where did you come from? I don't hear any rural in your voice.”

  “Nope, I'm a city girl through and through, well... I used to be. I doubt there are any cities left that I'd want to be in by now.”

  “So, did you come out of Bend or something then?”

  “Yes I did. Bend, Oregon; now the home of ghosts, charred bodies, dead banks, and who knows what else.”

  “Did you see what happened there at all? I've got a radio but after the first few days there weren't any more news broadcasts.”

  Andi's voice was steady when she began to speak but became more and more hysterical as she continued.

  “What happened? Everything closed, no-one could get food or water, the suburbs burned, no-one cared any more. I watched my parents' house burn down when it caught on fire because some idiot in the neighborhood tried to warm his house with a fire in a fir
eplace that hadn't been cleaned in decades. There wasn't a police officer or a fireman to be found responding. Hundreds of people, most of them already starving, were running around and screaming in terror while the whole neighborhood burned. Is that the type of thing you want to know about?”

  Andi was calmed slightly by Jake's soothing reply.

  “Not exactly. I just want to know if there's any effort being made to restore things to normality. I don't think you're tracking very well right now though. I'll make you a deal, if you can calm back down and let me know what was going on there before you left I'll give you a meal. You look like you're hungry, so is that a deal?”

  “Hungry? I'm starving! I'll do anything for food.”

  Andi noticed Jake's eyes flashing at the opportunities offered by her open-ended statement.

  “Okay then, it's a deal. Toast and scrambled eggs okay? Speaking of which, I need to go let my ladies out.”

  “Your ladies?” Andi asked incredulously.

  Jake chuckled.

  “That's just what I call them. They're my flock of hens, I've got eight of them. I've got a rooster too and I'm thinking it may be about time to start breeding them so I make sure to keep a supply of chicken and eggs. Here, I'll show you. Follow me.”

  Andi tried to get to her feet and found that her legs were more willing to support her now. She followed Jake around the back of the house.

  “Good morning ladies, time to open up your coop.”

  Andi watched Jake open a low door on what appeared to be a shed. He had to lean over a section of fencing to do so since there was a large area fenced off. The enclosure contained mainly grass and weeds of various sorts.

  “You too, ya bum.”

  With his second call he'd opened another low door. This one also had a fenced area but it was much smaller.

  A stream of small reddish brown chickens were coming out of the first door now. Jake turned to a container hung on the side of the shed and pulled out a handful of something he scattered in the fenced enclosures.