Read The Gift: A Short Story (Voices of the Apocalypse Book 4) for Free Online

The Gift

    R ANSOM S HERMAN AND Keyla Johnson were probably the last two people you’d ever expect to find roving around together. But it was the end of the world and sometimes that was how these things went.  
    Ransom was a sixty-three-year-old retired farmer, living in a secluded spot in the woods somewhere in Lake County. He wasn’t retired by choice––the workhorse was no quitter––he had lost his Ohio dairy farm when the big corporations took control of the Midwest farming industry in the early 2000s. The big guns had shut him down and forced him off his land. A true survivalist, he stole back some of his own chickens and claimed a hidden location in the woods, where he’d been living for over two decades. Over the years, his eggs had become the most popular item at the weekly farmers market in the small town of Willoughby. He was heading to the market when he met Keyla Johnson.  
    He drove his rickety antique tractor along Erie Street, biting down on a piece of twig he had picked specifically for the ride to town. Chewing twigs had replaced his habit of chewing on wooden matches. Ransom often complained that “there weren’t no more matches to gnaw on no more.” He passed by the boarded-up shops and dilapidated brick buildings, remembering visions of the once charming town. The place had diminished in the last few years due to the Repatterning. Ransom had told the townspeople the Repatterning was a bunch of hooey, but nobody listened. He knew not to trust anything that worked so hard to sell itself. Just like the corporations taking over the farming industry, he knew the Repatterning was the beginning of the end.
    The farmers market dwindled down a little bit more each week as the residents of Willoughby started disappearing. There were tales about “The Girl in Blue” coming from the cemetery to claim their souls, but Ransom knew it was the broken economy that had claimed them. Many folks had to relocate up north to work on the Chicago City Center. Ransom didn’t care about any foolish city center, and he wasn’t about to depend on anyone else to feed him so he stayed put. A handful of residents still lived in Willoughby because they were either too sick or old to travel. Ransom planned to stick around with those sad saps until the bitter end.  
    He was ruminating on those thoughts when he spotted Keyla crouched against the empty building where the town dentist used to work. The small black girl was gnawing on a raw corncob. The poor thing looked so scrawny and pathetic underneath her unruly mane that Ransom stopped his tractor. She couldn’t have been more than twelve-years-old. Someone so young shouldn’t be all alone.
    He walked over to the girl. “That probably ain’t good fer your teeth.”  
    “Hahaha!” She laughed.
    “What’s ticklin’ you?”  
    “That’s an amusing comment, coming from a man with hardly any teeth left in his own mouth.”  
    She sounded like one of those well-educated types from a good family. Ransom wondered how the girl had ended up all alone in the dying town of Willoughby. She continued biting down into the cob, pretending like it wasn’t bothering her.
    “Hows about I get ya somethin’ real to eat?” Ransom tried to smile.
    “I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t know you.”  
    “I ain’t asking ya to go anywheres with me. I’m offerin’ to git ya fed.”
    She flinched. “I’m not stupid. I know how these things go. You take me somewhere and tie me up and do horrible things. Then you kill me, or leave me for dead.”
    Ransom stepped back a few inches, wondering if she was talking from experience. A sadness settled in his body. The world was all wrong, making victims out of its innocents. Now he had to help her. Though she was black and had a proper city accent, she reminded him of his daughter––the one he tried not to think about. The one he had lost in a farming accident about thirty years ago.  
    “Why are you crying, mister? I