Read After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) for Free Online

cottage, cleaning up Ant’s shed or whatever.”
    “Alone?” I asked.
    “With the dogs.”
    “It’s not just Kayla I’m worried about,” Sara said. “Frankly, I don’t want to hear about Stems, either.”
    Justin shook his head. “We can’t just stick our heads in the sand,” he said.
    “We talked about this,” I said. “And we’re done talking about it.”
    Justin laughed. “That’s right. King Baptiste has spoken. No more talking about Ryan Stems. No more talking about what a goddamn joke the Supply Partnership has become. No more talking about how we hand over the best stuff we scavenge and get fucking bupkis back. All hail the great King Baptiste.”
    “You need to leave, Justin,” Sara said.
    “Don’t worry... I don’t mean to pick a fight. I won’t beat up your old man.”
    “She’s more worried about what I’ll do,” I said. “More than half this district would cheer me on if I hanged you from the yard light.”
    “More than half this district is dead. All I ever did was save a few lives.”
    “Get out,” Sara said. “Now.”
    Justin gave another chuckle before getting off the couch and making his way toward the porch.
    “I’ll take the coyote, I guess,” he said. “I was kind of hoping Fiona would cook something up for us.”
    “Cook it up yourself,” Fiona said.
    For some reason that made me laugh.
     

    The rain outside was getting heavy after breakfast so we decided to stay in for a few hours in the hope that it would lighten up eventually. All of us except for Kayla, who went back to Ant’s shed despite the rain.
    Kayla’s taken Ant’s death the hardest, I think. They’d been friends from before The Fires, back when Ant was a new-in-town metal fab apprentice and Kayla danced at Fleshy’s Inn. I think Ant was the first guy to take her seriously. Maybe that’s why she won’t let go of him.
    Matt and Fiona went down to the basement to sort through a few so-far-unchecked boxes that we’d pulled from a shed up Kennedy Road, while Sara and Lisa decided to sort through Ant’s stuff.
    I’ve heard that parents who suddenly lose a child often leave their child’s room untouched afterwards, sometimes for years. Now it’s true that what I’ve heard may just be a pile of crap, and obviously Ant’s not my kid, but it doesn’t feel right to me for Sara and Lisa to be pulling out his clothes and stacking them on the bed in piles.
    And it certainly doesn’t feel right to have Graham standing by the door, licking his lips and hoping for a chance to take his old room back.
    We need more time. The world needs to hold on for a little longer before things are allowed to start up again.
    “Most of the shirts can work,” Lisa said, “but the pants would be too short for Matt.”
    “They might fit Fiona,” Sara said.
    “I think we all have enough clothes,” I said as I sat in Ant’s old desk chair, flipping through some of his half-drawn comics; I know he had folders of finished work somewhere, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Kayla or Fiona had already swept in to grab them.
    “We’ll show them to her, at least,” Sara said to Lisa, not paying any notice to me.
    Lisa held up a red hoodie with a long-fanged cobra. “Someone’s going to want this,” she said. She tossed it over to Sara.
    It looked just like the hoodie Ant was wearing when he was shot. The one we’d buried him in.
    “I want it,” Sara said as she started to fold it. “But I don’t really get first dibs, do I?”
    “Kayla will want it,” Lisa said.
    “I think Fiona might want it, too,” I said.
    She’d always looked up to Ant. It wasn’t just that both of them like to think of themselves as artists; Ant had a way of making everyone feel wanted, and that’s something Fiona always needs a little more of.
    “Good thing those two share a room,” Sara said. “That’ll postpone the decision for a few months at least.”
    “It’ll work itself out,” Lisa said. “One of them will shoot the other