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Ozzy stared at the road from the rooftop. His stomach hurt because he couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that Danika was carrying his baby. His father used to travel the fifty miles into the nearest settlement alone. But he was ambushed one night by a group of bandits and only narrowly escaped. After that, he'd determined it would be better to make future trips with a partner to keep watch. Ozzy, being his son, had been his first choice.

The journey was frightening. Ozzy had never been away from his mom for more than a few hours, and his father was a harsh man, given to violence and belittlement. Without the buffer of his mother, every moment felt like a fight for his life.

The incident that caused Hank to choose to take Danika, a girl a year younger than Ozzy, was forever etched in his memory. Hank had been at the campfire while Ozzy was relieving himself in the woods nearby. He'd taken the rifle, leaving his father without a weapon.

When a man walked up on his father from the forest, a gun trained on his back, Hank caught his son's eye at the tree line. He'd signaled for his son to shoot the man. Ozzy lifted the rifle, aiming at the man's head. The fourteen-year-old wanted to pull the trigger. He wanted to save his father and the horses. He tried to shoot, but instead he froze. The man shot a bullet at his father, barely missing him.

When the gun blasted, Ozzy finally came out of his stupor, pulled the trigger, and shot the man in the leg. Hank jumped him, pushed him to the ground and drove a knife through the man's skull. Blood spurted on his father's face and clothing. Ozzy walked over to his father, holding the smoking rifle in his trembling hands.

“Took you long enough,” Hank said, yanking his knife from the man's forehead.

After that, Hank took Danika on the trips into town. She'd proved herself fast and smart and brave plenty of times. And when his son let him down in that moment, it was a turning point in all their lives. From then on, he favored her in everything. Now that his mother Mary was gone, Ozzy thought Hank had come to favor Danika too much.

Thinking about his father's eyes on her made anger thrash in his gut. He stood abruptly, his foot slipping on the slick wood roof. His arms wheeled as he fought to regain his balance. Heart thrashing in his chest, he fell backward, landing hard on his behind.

Pain shot through his backside and up his spine while a sharp breath was forced from his lungs. Feeling stupid, he scampered back through the window, closing it behind him with a hard thwack.

He rubbed his ass and sighed, thinking of all the chores he'd have to do alone. With the grass in the pasture having dried to a dull brown, the goats and chickens needed fresh food brought in from the garden. There were spent vines to be pulled and manure to be shoveled and hauled to the compost piles. Eggs to be gathered and buildings to be maintained.

He climbed down the stairs and went outside. Being alone on the farm gave him an eerie feeling. When Danika left with his father, it always freaked him out. This time, it was far worse. He'd seen Hank’s eyes on her. He knew what those looks meant because he looked at her the same way. If Hank laid a hand on her... He didn't know what he'd do. What he did know was that he loved her, and he'd do anything to defend their right to love each other.

Her choice not to tell Hank about the possible pregnancy left a hollow pit in him. He couldn't help but wonder if there was another reason she didn't want Hank to know about their relationship.

Ozzy had wanted to tell his parents they were betrothed for a long time. But every time he'd brought it up, Danika said she wasn't ready to break the news to them. She wanted to keep their relationship hidden, not rock the boat, keep things as they'd always been.

He grabbed the wheelbarrow's handle and pushed it toward the garden. In late September, most of the summer vegetables were in their final stages. And there would be plenty of fodder for the goats and chickens for a few weeks. But he'd have to harvest forage from surrounding meadows. Summer grasses outside the compound were high, making perfect hay. But the job of harvesting it would require cutting it manually with a sharp metal scythe. That was a job that couldn't be done until the others returned unless he left the compound unattended.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ozzy walked up and down the garden beds, pulling out the spent stalks and vines of the summer vegetables. With his wheelbarrow full, he returned to the pasture and dumped part of the load for the goats. He then went to the chicken coop and fed them the rest of the roughage.

When he finished feeding and watering the animals, he collected the eggs and brought them back to the house. He washed them off and left them to dry on the counter. Their refrigerator was one of the few items they left plugged in. But even that was running low on freon.

The possibility of the family continuing the comfortable lifestyle they'd enjoyed all his life seemed to grow less probable by the day. He hated to think what the future would be like for his own children. Would they be able to use electricity at all in a few more years? It all depended on whether Hank and Danika found a solar battery. Which he was apt to think unlikely.

He filled a pot with water, dropped in six eggs, and carried the pot outside. There was a low fire burning in the porch stove from the tea Danika had made that morning, and he stoked it up with a few more logs. Ozzy placed the pot on the stove and took a seat to wait for the water to boil.

Dark clouds were blowing in from the east, and the wind picked up. The sheets hanging on the clothesline near the garden twisted and cracked in the gale. Ozzy stood and trotted down the stairs to the clothesline. He pulled the pins off the sheets and bundled them up in his arms. They were still slightly damp, but the growing winds would blow dirt onto the clean laundry. And wasted effort was not something he enjoyed.

He thought about Danika washing the sheets from his bed the day before she'd left. Her arms up to their elbows in soapy water. Her dark hair hanging around her elfin face as she scrubbed. He'd wanted to stop her, take her hands off the washboard, and pull her up to standing. Seeing her do domestic chores like his mother made his stomach tight. She deserved so much more than this. More than him. Maybe she would be better off with a man like his father. Or maybe she'd be better off leading a settlement, or a region, or the world.

He didn't know, but he wanted so much more for her. When he pulled the last sheet off the clothesline, he folded them up in his arms and took them back inside to finish drying draped over the kitchen table.

His mind slipped to the moments before she left. The feeling of his hand on her belly. The thought that she was carrying his child haunted him like a specter. How could he have let her go?

Confusion roiled inside him. What did it mean to be a man who loved a woman as strong, capable, and independent as her? If his father wanted her as much as he did, what did any of it mean to her?

Ozzy could only believe that her words were true. That the relationship they'd nurtured since they were children was as strong and wholesome as he believed it to be. But there had never been a woman like her in any of his mother's romance stories. And there had never been a man like him in any of them either. What had people like them done before the world ended? Were the two of them just two freaks who were too traumatized and broken by the ravaged world to be the way men and women ought to be?

When he returned to the porch stove, the water was simmering, and the eggs were ready to be peeled. He drained the water in the kitchen sink and took his lunch into the living room.

The front curtains were open, allowing light in. They didn't waste electricity or candles to light the house in the daytime, and today was no exception to that rule. He ate his eggs, trying to clear his mind of the intrusive thoughts that had plagued him since Danika and Hank left that morning.

The next day, he went about his chores in much the same way. The wind picked up and the storm clouds gathered steam. He wondered how his father and Danika were fairing in this weather as he watched the sky darken over the farm. He knew she could survive anything that was thrown at her. But he wished she didn't have to. He wanted to make her life soft and gentle. To give her what she'd given him.

A deafening crack slit the air as the wind whipped through the forest. He looked up just as the dark shadow of a massive dead pine tree hurdled toward the fence. He sucked a startled breath, shock freezing him in place. As if in slow motion, the tree came hurtling down. The breath was caught in his lungs as his feet turned to iron. He couldn't move. Could barely think. The tree crashed into the gate. The gate creaked and the hinges screamed, the rusted divots popping before the entire thing came crashing to the ground.

Dust and splinters filled the air. Ozzy blinked, his mouth open. Slowly his wits returned, and the air began to clear. He could barely believe what he'd just witnessed. But the giant gaping hole in the fence was unmistakable. His feet thawed from deep freeze, and he rushed down the stairs to stand beside the broken fence and the rogue pine tree.

There were no hinges to fix the fence, and he wouldn't be able to use the backhoe to hoist it up without gas. He stood beside the wreckage, contemplating how he might use a lever and pulley system to put the gate back in place and secure it with iron bolts. Ozzy then heard the most terrifying sound of his entire life.