Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale (2 page)

“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 fireplace 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.

“I normally give them some
scratch when I let them out in the morning. It keeps them from being
lazy and staying inside.”

She looked at him, confusion evident on
her face, so he continued.

“Scratch is kind of like candy
for chickens. It's a bunch of grains they love, all mixed together.
Anyhow they're all out now, let's see if they've left us some eggs
this morning.”

Jake ducked into the shed through a
man-sized door. He came out smiling with a small basket holding four
eggs.

“That ought to do for breakfast
for the two of us.”

A single small brown chicken exited the
second door Jake had opened. It immediately announced its presence to
the world. Andi decided that it must be the rooster since the sound
it made reminded her vaguely of the classic 'cock-a-doodle-doo'.

“Anyhow, those are my ladies.
That bum is just a bum, he'll keep squawking like that all day long
until I put him back in his coop. The ladies pay their way with eggs
though and are much more quiet. I've only been keeping the rooster
alive because I thought I might need to start breeding my own
chickens.”

“Oh,” Andi exclaimed, “will
these ones keep laying so you get eggs every day?”

“Yes, as long as I can keep them
fed. They'll forage for a lot of their food, that's why I have the
big enclosure. But I need to add grains to their diet if they're
going to stay healthy and keep laying.”

Andi's mind was swarming with ideas,
Jake's
got a big garden, surely it provides more than one
person needs. He's got chickens so he has meat and eggs as well. I
thought I'd given up finding a place to work for my keep but maybe...
One more shot, I'll try it. I bet I can get him to keep me around, I
saw the way he was staring at my breasts. If it comes down to it,
I'll gladly whore myself out for some security and regular meals. All
my other options are worse, so what do I have to lose?

Andi carefully kept her thoughts from
showing on her face.

“That's nice. You were saying
something about breakfast?” was all she said.

“Yeah, I need to set up my stove
though. For now I'm just using a propane grill but once things settle
down more I've got a wood stove I'll use for cooking. I just don't
want to put up a trail of smoke leading to the house right now. Come
on in.”

Jake led the way back around to the
front of the house. This time when he went in, he held the door for
Andi. She entered the house and looked around. The room was brightly
lit, primarily from the sunlight streaming in through the window.
There was also a string of what looked like Christmas lights tacked
up around the top of the room. She didn't think they were on but
couldn't tell due to the bright sunlight.

Jake moved past her, closing the door
behind him, and left the room. She followed him into a small kitchen
where he laid a board over the sink and opened the window above it.
He moved the camping stove he had mentioned onto the board and
started it.

“You need good ventilation for
these, so I'll only run it inside if it's right under an open
window.”

She watched him pull a loaf of bread
from a cloth bag on the counter. It looked slightly irregular, like
the artisan breads she'd occasionally purchased, and the irregularity
triggered a thought for her.

“Where did you get the bread? Is
there a bakery still open near here?”

“Nah, there's nothing open, I
baked it myself. I don't worry so much about the smoke at night so I
can fire up the wood stove and use it then. I baked last night. I'm
not too surprised you didn't smell the smoke though, it tends to
drift down along the valley and dissipate from the breeze. It does
drift up over the ridges some farther down which is why I'm careful
about when I use the stove.”

“I don't get it. You baked bread?
How? Why?”

“Because if I want it, I have to
make it myself and I happen to like bread. So I bake it a couple of
times a week. As to how, it's an easy recipe.”

“No, I mean how do you still have
the ingredients to make it.”

“Oh, I get you now. Do you
promise not to laugh?”

Andi nodded, being careful not to drool
as she did so. Just the thought of eating a slice of bread had her
salivating.

“I'm a prepper. You remember that
show, Doomsday Preppers? Well, they only showed the batshit crazy
prepper types. I started prepping like the FEMA folks said, with only
a few days worth of supplies but I figured that if a few days worth
of food and such was good, then more would be better. It got to be a
habit so I've got a fair bit of supplies tucked away.”

“I would have laughed at you if
you'd told me that a couple of months ago. Now I'm just envious.”

“Well, the pan's heated. Let me
whip up our eggs and we can sit down and eat. Then you can tell me
about Bend and what things were like there when you left.”

She saw Jake put one of those camp
toast makers on the stove, so in addition to scrambled eggs they had
warm toast as well, slathered with butter. Jake didn't comment as to
where he got the butter from, he just asked Andi if she wanted it or
not.

Andi wasn't sure if it was hunger or
the homemade bread and fresh eggs that made this one of the best
meals she could remember. She finished it so quickly that Jake
offered her some more toast, which she accepted gratefully. The bread
was fresh, heavy, and delicious. It was so different from any store
bought bread that she'd ever eaten that it might as well be something
else. By the time she finished her extra toast Jake was finished
eating as well.

He turned to face her and began to ask
question after question of her. Some of them made little sense to
Andi but she answered them as best as she could. When he'd finally
finished with his questions, she asked him a single question in
return.

“So, what was that all about?
What did it tell you?”

“Mostly that I don't think things
will go back to normal any time soon. It sounds like the big banks
were in worse shape than anyone admitted and when they finally went
bust, they took everything else with them.”

“Oh” said Andi,
dispiritedly.

What the hell do I do now? If nowhere is still normal, everyone
will be hoarding their food. I better figure a way to get Jake to
keep me here with him. Otherwise I'll be dead or worse in a few more
days.

Andi caught Jake staring at her again. His glance swept from her
feet to her hair and back again. With an extra pause, however slight,
each time his gaze swept past her generous chest.

“What?” she asked.

“Would you like to get cleaned up? I don't mean to be rude,
but you're quite a mess.”

“You try running through the woods and hiding for weeks on
end. See what you look like.”

“No thank you. That's part of the reason I prepped, so I
wouldn't have to do that. But... the water won't be hot but it should
be at least lukewarm if you'd like a shower. You can rinse your
clothes out too. I'll loan you a robe or something to wear while they
dry.”

“I accept. Are you trying to bribe me or something? You fed
me and now you're offering me a shower. All I did was answer a few
questions.”

“Nope, I was just wondering what you looked like all cleaned
up and this seemed the easiest way to find out.”

Andi grinned slyly as she dangled her bait.

“Well, I accept. Show me where the shower is and get that
robe you mentioned please. You can see what I look like clean in the
robe, but it'd take more than a meal and a shower to see the rest of
me.”

“I need to warn you first, there's only about eight minutes
worth of warm water before it gets cold. So you might want to rinse,
suds, and rinse. If you shut the water off while you suds up and wash
your hair it should last for the whole shower.”

“You know, my first inclination was to bitch about that.”
Andi said bemusedly, “Then I wondered where I'd find that much
hot water to get clean with anywhere else and stopped myself. Thank
you, for everything. If I bitch about something, just tell me to shut
up, okay?”

“Can do. Let me get you that robe and I'll show you the
shower on the way.”

Andi followed Jake down a short hallway. Halfway down the hall he
opened a door and gestured her towards it. Inside the door was a
small bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. Out of curiosity Andi
turned the tap on in the sink. Cold water came gushing out. She
sighed with relief and thought,
Running water. I'm excited that he
has running water. What's the world coming to? Wait, I don't think I
really want to know the answer to that.