The No Where Apocalypse (Book 1): Stranded No Where by E.A. Lake Read Free Book Online Page A

presence.
    The front of the bike started to wobble. Leaning forward, I searched for the problem. Trouble struck then, and it struck hard.
    One second I was peeling away, minding my own business. The next, I found myself lying on the blacktop, unsure of what had just happened.
    The bike was three or four feet behind me. I tried to shake away the blow to my head, the one that occurred when it met the black highway at approximately five miles an hour. Touching my scalp, I found the injury and noticed the crimson stain on my fingertips.
    I lay back, right in the middle of the highway almost on top of the faded yellow stripe that divided the two lanes. It wasn’t like someone was going to come tearing down the road and run me over. In all my time here, the only working vehicle that had passed by was Dizzy’s dippy garden tractor.
    Taking a few minutes to gather my wits, I finally rose and inspected my ride. As suspected, the front tire was flat. Something had caused it to blow. I wondered if that something had been planted by my fat friend. Quickly I shook away that thought. If anything, Dizzy was harmless.
    Striding away from the crash site, I set my jaw, and mind, on my continued journey. If I couldn’t ride home, I’d walk.
    It took all of 100 yards before the pain in my back and right ankle convinced me to stop. Apparently, the fall had been more severe than I first thought. Checking inside my pant leg, I found the cause of the pain. An ugly stripe of road rash covered my right calf. Further investigation showed my ankle was bleeding, badly.
    I hurled the backpack as far as I could towards the woods in disgust.
    “Damn it all to hell!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. A faint echo seconded my feeling.
    I wasn’t going anywhere. Not anytime soon at least.

Day 36 WOP

    I don’t know how many days I laid on the couch, taking sips from the latest bourbon casualty. If I couldn’t be traveling, I may as well be drunk.
    Night after night I rested, listening to the eerie howls from nearby coyotes. If I had had the strength, I would have joined them. But the sound of their cries reminded me what a wild place this was.
    Dizzy was delighted to find me back home…if I dared to call this place home. Treating my wounds, he showed me a compassionate side I don’t know existed. Making a large pot of venison stew was his way of bringing round a casserole.
    Using what was left of his almost rancid meat, frying it to an almost black hunk of leather, Dizzy added it to a pot with a small amount of water. Already in the water, boiling the life out of them, were a dozen or so small potatoes Lettie had given me several weeks back. For a fishing touch, he added a small amount of flour to thick the sauce.
    It tasted like shit, but it was edible.
    “You’re lucky the wolves didn’t get you,” Dizzy pontificated on one of his daily visits. I had always suspected he’d come back the first day to pilfer what he could from my remaining stock. Discovering his friend had returned, he only borrowed two cans of spam.
    Rubbing my forehead, I laughed at him. “There’s no wolves here, Dizzy. I know that much. You’re not frightening me that easily.”
    When I looked back his face wore a serious expression. “There’s wolves here,” he added dryly. “They’ve moved in the past 10 years, from over in northern Wisconsin.”
    “Wolves?”
    He laughed. “Hell yeah. And you gotta be careful starting now through spring. Those bastards will follow you everywhere. And if you get in trouble, they’ll eat you.”
    Oh, good God. Wasn’t it bad enough I was stuck in the middle of nowhere? Without power, or communication, or a vehicle? NowI had to worry about carnivorous neighbors too?
    This place really sucked.
    “I brought you a roof rake,” he stated as if he had told me he’d brought me a shirt.
    “Don’t you need it?” I asked, knowing that when the snows came, his flat roof was far more susceptible to collapse.
    “I got four,” he