Free Stadium: A Short Story by Scott Moon Page A

thought of making a puddle between her feet, and cursed. This far into the apocalypse, she drank a lot of beer. Clean water had gone the way of Oklahoma City and Dallas. She groaned, clenched the shotgun, and refused to surrender her dignity despite her greasy unwashed hair and sunburned face. A frightened dog might piss herself in terror, but she wasn't that kind of desperate bitch. The pain of her pride forced a whimper between her teeth. She ignored the warmth, real or imagined, running down her leg as she sprinted toward the chain-link fence to wrestle the gate shut, slung the shotgun over her back, and fought the wind like it was a god.  
    Shut the gate. Lock the gate. Don't listen to them.
    All children are liars. They aren't dying. They’re already dead.
    K. K. leaned against the fence and waited until the little savages slammed against it, catapulting her several steps forward. Months ago, when the siege began, she showed fear. She screamed, cried, begged, and pleaded. That was then. What was now was discovering the gate open right when she needed to relieve herself. Using the momentum of the chain-link fence, she popped forward, found her stride, and walked toward the inner fence where her guard dogs scrambled near the inner gate and whined without barking.
    Shit happens.
    She laughed, not liking the pitch, tone, or melody of her outburst.
    Piss happens!
    Behind her, a new voice calmed the horde of refugees, then spoke through the wind-touched silence. "A mother protects her children."
    K. K. turned only her head. "I saw you."
    "But you can't see me now. Turn around and look at me."
    K. K. took a breath, held it, then let it go with her eyes closed. "I took care of my children. Now leave me alone."
    She opened the inner gate, entered, and closed it. Seven Dobermans, a Mastiff, a Great Dane, and a Wolfhound mutt loved her all over. "Calm down, boys. I'm coming." She shrugged the Mossberg into a better place on her back. "Don't jump. Momma needs to pee."

#

    The end of humanity could not have come at a better time for Kathy "K. K." Korea. She had lost faith in humans, society, and husbands. Her father and her husband had been construction foremen, and bastards, but that was before the crisis came gliding down from distant skies. She smirked. Her handsome high school crush had probably been leaning forward to make a one-dollar donation to a fake redhead's fake college fund when the Armageddon Clouds reached down from the stratosphere. She shuddered at the memory and clenched her teeth at her abandonment. That son-of-a-bitch.
    Her dad, no doubt, had been leaning back in a chair beside Martin Korea, as though that made it classier to be on pervert-row watching a single mom with VD twirl her tassels.
    That was what happened when your babies went to college and your husband bought a Porsche instead of a truck. Thoughts, memories, and guilt mixed in her head as she picked a book at random. Inside the library tent, shelves were made of plywood and cinder blocks. The books and the air smelled musty and perfect. She selected a second and third book, then backed out of the room, zipping it closed and checking the seals.
    The Mother wouldn't care about K. K.'s books. She would burn them to warm that horde of rabid children.
    Go to hell! Just go to hell and leave me alone!
    K. K. mixed water that tasted metallic — despite her best filtration routine — with cheap beer and sipped as she pretended to read the first book. Stretched out on a three-sectioned lawn chair, she tried to relax on the screened-in porch, a stained mosquito tent. Titan, the Great Dane, and Balrog, the mongrel Wolfhound, slept near the fifty-yard line. Furry bellies courted skin cancer as they napped. Dead dogs might show more energy.
    Words meant nothing to K. K. as they drifted through her vision until she closed the book, which turned out to be the owner's manual to a pick-up that no longer started. Nice choice, K. K. She snorted. Functional literature