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He knew she couldn’t feel the pain he wanted to give her, knew she’d been dead since before the first kick, but he couldn’t stop. Not until the effort and heat combined to make him dizzy.
He picked up the keys she’d dropped along with the crate, and left her there as he walked up and unlocked the door.
She’d have medical supplies—any prepper would.
He crossed the living area with its swaybacked sofa, single chair, and into the kitchen. Double the size of the living area, it had long counters—butcher block, probably the work of the handy husband. Open shelves ran along the walls, packed with canned goods, jarred goods, dry goods in glass jugs.
An old cabinet, maybe handmade, had a first aid kit, boxes of gauze, bottles of peroxide, antiseptics, alcohol, pain pills, bandages, the works.
He cleaned the gash in the kitchen sink. It stung like fire, bled in streams of red. Then, gritting his teeth, he dumped on peroxide, and that stung like the fires of hell.
Tears coursed down his cheeks, but he kept at it, used butterfly bandages to close the gash, slathered it with antiseptic, wrapped it in gauze.
He drank cold water straight from the faucet.
She had Excedrin Extra Strength, and he downed three.
Then he walked out and stared down at her. He’d be damned if he’d bury her, but he couldn’t leave her there. She’d start to stink, plus he didn’t want to look at her. Or risk somebody else with a drone taking a look.
He dragged her around the house. She left a wide smear of blood in the dirt, but he didn’t give a damn.
When he got to the barbed wire, he went through her pockets.Disgusting, but necessary. He found a small wad of bills, more keys, an old pocket watch, and a penknife.
He got the bolt cutters out of his truck, cut the wire, and dragged her farther away across the brush, into it.
Vultures and crows, he thought, they’d take care of the rest of her.
He drove his truck back, unloaded it onto the porch. He’d never leave anything behind in a room again, so he had all he needed. He carried the bolt cutters to the shed, dealt with the lock.
A little gold mine, he thought. More provisions neatly shelved, tools, animal feed. No room for the second truck, but no worries.
Carrying the bolt cutters, he walked back to the house, sneering at the blood path. He hauled up the crate to take the groceries in.
Waste not, want not.
A glance at his throbbing arm showed he’d bled through, so he changed the gauze before snapping the bolt on the door in the kitchen.
He expected some sort of laundry space, but stood surprised and smiling at the locked room.
She may have lived like a hermit in a cave, but she had a lot of tech. Solid tech, and he’d make good use of it. In addition to the electronics, she had a banquet of solar tools. Fire starters; flashlights; chargers; water purifiers; some sort of mini, foldable solar oven. A spare solar generator.
Invasions, Commies, civil war, or Rapture, he thought, Prep4Jesus had it all.
Including what he thought was an AR-15, or whatever the hell those whacked-out mass shooters loved, hanging on the wall next to a picture of Jesus.
He wandered like a boy in a toy store. And spotted the safe.
“Isn’t that a nice surprise?”
He wanted a shower, wanted to change, unpack, settle in. But tossed all that aside and began to hunt for the combination.
He did find a laundry space—an ancient washer, no dryer. A bathroom that would have to do, the single bedroom.
More pictures of Jesus, a tatteredDON’T TREAD ON MEflag pinned to the wall.
In the closet, in a metal box with yet another padlock, he found papers. Old letters, copies of birth certificates, marriage license, the deed to the land he stood on, and the combination for the safe.
He went back, and since they’d bolted the safe to the floor, sat on the rough wood, followed the combination.
