Shelf Life: Crestline County Series, #1

By Stephanie Lawton

*Mature situations and sexual content - recommended for ages 17+* It's impossible to focus on college biology when your family believes doomsday is imminent and the government is out to get you. All Pete Wilson's ever wanted is to become a veterinarian, but those dreams are going up in flames. Commuting to an urban college and helping his parents with their apocalyptic prepper crap is more than he can handle. Worse, Pete's asshole neighbor is stirring up trouble, his family's stockpile has been destroyed and farm animals are turning up dead. Lindsey Linger is the tomboy sister of his best friend. Now a sexy spitfire, she and Pete are liable to set the barn ablaze as their romance finally heats up. But she's hiding a terrible secret, and rural life isn't all bonfires and hayloft romps. That becomes clear one icy winter night when the survival of everyone Pete loves hangs in the balance. Can Pete be the hero they need, or will this be the end of the world as he knows it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
• Release date: Aug 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939590343

Book preview

SPRING

CHAPTER ONE

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J

ay Leaher has had it out for me from the moment we both toddled into preschool. Even on the last day of high school, not much has changed.

Oomph! All the breath leaves my lungs when Jay slams me up against my locker.

School’s out, torture’s in, Jay breathes just an inch from my nose. Wait ’til you see what I have planned for you this summer, Twig.

I recoil at the nickname Jay gave me in eighth grade when it became obvious he would be the bigger and bulkier of us two. I hate to admit that the name seems apt as I stare up at Jay’s rather bushy unibrow.

I swear he’s grown a foot and packed on another twenty pounds just since he paid me a visit two weeks ago at the line—a mythical division between Jay’s family’s property and my family’s farm. Sure, there are ancient surveyors’ stakes that mark the actual boundary, but Jay prefers to make up his own measurements. I call it The Great Divide. Jay doesn’t think that’s so funny. I have a black eye as proof.

Over Jay’s shoulder, a flash of bright orange catches my eye, making me groan. My best friend Lewis saunters toward us in full hunter’s blaze orange. The only things to break up the bizarre neon glow emanating from him are the camo stripes on either pant leg. He grins, but the tightness around his eyes betrays his calm exterior.

Jay Leaher, you keep marking your territory on Pete’s face and people are going to start wondering about you, he says.

Jay snickers but doesn’t turn away from me. You’d like that, huh? Might stop the rumors about what I did to your sister in the back of my truck last weekend.

I close my eyes and wait for it—the sound of knuckles connecting with cartilage. Fortunately, the sound of heavy footsteps comes first.

Mr. Leaher, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Linger, the final bell hasn’t rung yet, which means you’re still on my watch. You want to spend graduation in detention? My eyes fly open at the sound of Mr. Blackwell’s baritone voice. I breathe a sigh of relief when Jay leans away from me and loosens his grip on my shirt. Lewis is three shades of red, but he lowers his fist.

You’re not worth it, man, Lewis says.

Jay grins. Your sister was.

You lying sack of—

Mr. Linger! To your class, all of you, before I call your parents and make them deal with you. I catch you again and you’ll be spending your free time scrubbing my office floor with a toothbrush.

I grab my backpack off the worn floor and arch an eyebrow at Lewis, who’s faded from red to pink. Jay chuckles. Later, Twig. Oh, and tell Sarah I expect her to swallow next time if she wants to stay on my good side. He salutes Mr. Blackwell on his way past then disappears around the corner into the science wing.

My stomach turns at the thought of Jay’s insinuations being true. I’ve had a crush on Lewis’s sister Lindsey for as long as I can remember. It really kicked into overdrive last summer when I stayed the night at their place and accidentally saw Lindsey changing her clothes through her cracked door. It was open just enough to give me the glimpse of a lifetime. I’d been mortified when Lewis caught me and flipped.

It got worse when Lindsey emerged from her room and smirked at me. No way did I stand a chance with her. She’s been a sister to me, too, until recently. Part of me is sad that things have changed with the three of us, but one part in particular is pretty happy about the transformation.

Earth to Pete.

Sorry. Just dreading French.

We could play The Naughty Game one last time.

I grin. You’re on.

I’m picturing Jay with my sister Sarah when a girl with wavy brown hair makes eye contact and smiles. Before I know what I’m doing, I smile back. She giggles and warmth spreads across my cheeks.

Dude, that was Helen Miller.

I know.

Head of the drill team.

Okay.

She’s the one having the big party tonight, Lewis says, as if I’m a complete idiot.

I know.

She smiled at you!

Uh-huh.

You should ask her out.

Why?

If I have to answer that for you, then we can’t be friends anymore.

I shake my head, conjuring up an image of Lewis the day we met. We’d been standing in the check-out line with our mothers at our town’s one grocery store. I’d been patiently helping my mom sort her coupons when I noticed giggling. I looked over my shoulder and there was a little boy with candy smeared all over his face and in his hair. My eyes widened at the sight, never having seen anyone actually eat the sugary stuff my mom referred to as death on a stick. The little boy broke into a wide grin, and I couldn’t help smiling back. When our mothers began chatting, we learned we lived on the same rural road, though our houses were over a mile apart.

I begged to ride my bike to Lewis’s house, and after many promises not to eat any candy, Mom finally relented. In the nine years since, not a day has gone by that one of us isn’t at the other’s house, at least for a minute. Lewis and Lindsey even stayed with us for a month when their dad went off to a pastor’s retreat in West Virginia—which was the same week the organist went to a Mary Kay convention. Neither one was ever heard from again, except through a lawyer’s divorce papers to their respective spouses. 

I’ll be sorry to leave Lewis behind when Lindsey and I graduate next week, but one more year and Lewis will be done with stupid high school, too.

We enter Mademoiselle Stone’s French III class and grab seats near the back. I try to stuff my feet under the desk in front of me, but end up angling them out so my knees won’t hit the underside of the desk.

Ah, mes fils, I see you’ve already got your dictionaries out. C’est magnifique!

I smile up at our teacher and blush. I think, not for the first time, that this woman has no right teaching teenage boys. Her black hair falls just so over her slender shoulders, contrasting with her deep red lipstick and smooth, fair skin. Today she’s hit a record low. Well, her blouse has, at least, which is why so much of the football team is interested in learning to speak French.

Lewis and I don’t fit in with that crowd, so Mlle. Stone often showers us with extra attention, assuming we’re here to actually learn. Good thing she doesn’t know about The Naughty Game, which begins as soon as she gives us our final assignment—to write about what we’ll be doing over the summer. While the rest of the students goof off until the bell, Lewis and I bend over our dictionaries, flipping through the pages with unrestrained zeal.

I’m the first to find a word and scribble it on a piece of paper. I slide it over to the edge of my desk. Lewis side-eyes the writing then snorts. Good one, he says.

Lewis is next. He scratches his word onto a scrap of paper and inches it toward me. He presses his lips together to avoid laughing out loud, but he can’t keep a wicked blush from creeping up his neck. By the end of class, we’ve written out ménage, lingerie, putain and salope. We spend the rest of the day trying to use the words in a sentence. I’m pretty sure this is the best day of school ever.

Then I head outside to drive home and run directly into Jay Leaher.

CHAPTER TWO

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"I

n a hurry to get home to Mommy? Maybe she’s got some knitting for you to do. Wait—I bet it’s your turn to churn the butter," Jay sneers and makes a motion that could either be churning butter or something more...vulgar.

Look, man, I got no beef with you.

Nice choice of words, considering.

It’s the last day of school. We can finish this another time.

No, sonny boy, we do this when I say we do this. Got it? I flinch when Jay knocks me back into the bricks of the school’s exterior. Pain radiates from where my head makes contact and bounces. And I say we do this now.

On the last word, Jay reaches back and lands an upward punch into my stomach. He laughs and walks away as I drop my backpack and bend over, trying to catch my breath.

At least he didn’t knee you in the nuts. I groan at the sound of my sister’s voice. When I look up, she’s studying her fingernails.

I realize seeing your brother bent over in pain is an everyday occurrence and unworthy of the slightest sympathy, but you think you could gimme a hand?

Sarah rolls her eyes. Whatever. Be at the car in five minutes or I’m leaving without you. And try not to get beaten up again on the way there.

I shoot daggers into my sister’s retreating back as she saunters her way across the school parking lot to our dark green Explorer. It used to be Dad’s, but he gifted it to me on my sixteenth birthday. Then when Sarah turned sixteen, her name was added to the title. That was more than a year ago, and not a day has gone by that she hasn’t taken advantage of it.

Hefting my backpack onto my sore shoulder, I think that maybe this is the worst last day of school ever. My hypothesis is confirmed when I open the passenger door and hear a Nickelback ballad blaring from the speakers.

Really?

You can walk. It’s only ten miles home, she says.

I shake my head, but slide in and buckle up. Except for the obnoxious music, the ride home is quiet. I stare as our small city recedes and the landscape becomes more rural. We pass the hardware store, the feed mill where Lindsey works, and the farm equipment store. A few more miles and Sarah makes a hard right onto our dirt road.

You should stay away from him, she says.

What?

She leans over and turns down the volume. I said, you should stay away from him. Jay’s bad news.

I blink a few times, partly because I can’t believe she actually seems to care, and partly because her statement is so stupid. It’s not like I go looking for him.

Sarah shrugs, her pity obviously short-lived. I consider relaying Jay’s message to her as payback, but I can’t bring myself to sink that low. Plus, the mental picture makes me ill. We ride the last few miles in silence. Once we reach the edge of our family’s property, I sit up straighter and do my daily inspection. I check off my mental list from the passenger seat.

The livestock fence is fine—none of the girls are trapped in it. I can’t see any fallen trees, and the orchard is bursting with blooms. When we get within a hundred yards of the driveway, Bennie appears, barking and leaping after the SUV.

I swear, I’ll run over that damn dog one of these days.

That damn dog may save your life one of these days.

Sarah snorts and pulls up near the house. Mom is in the side yard, bent over a fire and a large pot. Next to her are empty canning jars she’s sterilizing. She began canning when she was in middle school after reading the Little House on the Prairie books. Then she read Gone with the Wind where all poor Scarlett O’Hara had to eat after the war was sweet potatoes. Those books became our bedtime stories and I swear I can recite each one by heart.

When Dad came back from Iraq in 2004, that’s when things really got weird. I don’t mind living on a farm—love it, in fact. Love the animals, love the food, don’t mind the hard work, and I’ve always preferred to be outside rather than in. But Dad started talking about the economic collapse that was coming, along with infidels who were trying to destroy America, undermine the value of the U.S. dollar, and how factions within our own government were responsible for eroding our civil liberties.

He began investing in gold and silver, used his and mom’s savings to construct an underground bunker and root cellar hidden in the woods near the back of the property, and there’s at least one gun in every room of the house. Add in Dad’s random freak-outs when it thunders or someone shoots off fireworks, and yeah, the past couple years have been bizarre.

Hey, kiddos, Mom says. How was your last day?

Fine, Sarah grunts and disappears into the house. Clearly, someone’s bitter that she has to go back in the fall.

Good, I say, knowing Mom can detect my lie with preternatural skill.

Glad to hear it. Hey, can you get me some more water?

Sure. The giant metal bucket smacks my legs as I wander over to the water pump. Don’t know why we can’t just have a water hose hooked up to the house like normal people, I grumble. I continue to curse my bad luck and odd life while priming the pump and filling the bucket with cold water drawn straight from the ground.

This winter’s supposed to be a really bad one, Mom says as I pour the water into the kettle. Not too much now. That’s good. We’ll have to make sure to stock up for the long season as early as possible. Never mind that it’s the end of May and she’s already thinking of December.

Where’s Dad?

Went fishing after he got home from work. Should be back any time now. Why don’t you do your chores before he returns? Then we’ll eat. I’m making your favorite in honor of your last day of high school. I still can’t believe my baby’s graduating. She reaches out and ruffles my hair before I stalk off to the barn, blushing ’til my cheeks hurt.

As I approach the big, red box, I suck in my breath to fully inhale the smell of sweet hay. Of course, there are a few fouler smells mixed in, but they all combine to create a perfume I can’t imagine going without for a single day. Like clockwork, the cows are already in their stalls, waiting for me to relieve them of their burden. I approach Katie, Scarlett and Ashley—yes, Mom named them—and stroke their heads, noticing, not for the first time, that their big brown eyes seem more kind and human that most of the jerkwads at school—one in particular.

Just a minute, ladies, and I’ll be right with you.

I wash my hands, grab a sanitized bucket, a stool, iodine dip, and settle in to milk Scarlett. Lewis and I played our last round of The Naughty Game today, girl. Gonna miss that. Lots of things I’ll miss, actually, but don’t tell anyone. Not everything has to change, right? I mean, Lewis will still come over every day, and me, him and Lindsey will still hang out.

Scarlett shifts a little, so I pat her flank. Won’t miss seeing Jay every day, though, that’s for damn sure. He pinned me up against a locker one last time then got me in the gut after school. Good thing you can’t tell Mom about that. She’d freak and go to the principal again, or worse, march over to the Leahers’ and go off on his parents. She did that once in middle school before we got you. Made things worse.

Scarlett gives me about three gallons. I pour it into the milk strainer then move on to Ashley and Katie. Even after ten years of hand-milking cows, I secretly love this chore. Sure, my hands get sore, I have to get up before dawn, and it sucks when the girls get too excited and drop a steaming cow pie right next to my head, but I love knowing my family trusts me enough to follow their strict guidelines to make sure the milk is clean and uncontaminated.

Once all three are done, I tighten the lid on the milk can and pull the cart to the front of the house.

Mom! Can you get the door?

No longer outside, she pokes her head out of the front door, looking like a hobbit in an underground woodland cottage. It’s built into a hill similar to a bunker. The roof is grass, and the front of the house features the only windows.

Here, let me help you, sweetheart.

I got it. Where’s Dad?

She frowns. He’s still not back. I’m getting worried.

If he’s not back in an hour, I’ll go look for him.

I appreciate that, honey. Take Bennie with you, she says as I slide the can out of the cart.

My, my, look at those muscles. You really are growing up, aren’t you?

Stop it, Mom. Jeez.

Oh, don’t jeez me. I can’t help it. You’re my baby.

I’ve got paperwork to fill out for the summer class. Call me when dinner’s ready. I quickly kiss Mom’s cheek before heading to my room.

Instead of completing the paperwork, I sprawl out on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Though I appreciate Mom’s compliments and I know she’s having trouble dealing with me graduating, I still wish I could stay on campus like most students instead of commuting. There’s too much work to do around here and we just can’t afford for me to move out.

I nearly jump out of my skin when someone shakes my shoulder.

CHAPTER THREE

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"D

inner’s ready," Mom whispers, then she bends down and kisses my forehead as I blink away the dream I’d been having.

Dad back?

No.

Crap.

Yep.

After shoveling down my dinner of venison stew and trading insults with Sarah while Mom referees, I grab a couple small utility knives and my coat. It’s technically spring, nearly summer, but the temperature falls pretty quickly after dark, and the sun is well on its way to setting.

Take Bennie, Mom reminds me.

Outside, I whistle and Bennie comes bounding across the yard at full speed.

Good girl, I say, patting our border collie on the head. Let’s go find Dad.

She wags her tail and circles me a few times before finally settling into a trot at my heels. Mom said Dad was fishing at the creek on the eastern edge of the property, but he may have finished early and decided to check on the supplies in the bunker. They’re in the same direction, so I’ll make a quick stop before heading over to the creek.

The bunker is set into the ground, accessible by descending five steps that lead to its only entrance and exit. Camouflaged to match the woods around it, there’s no way anyone could ever find it on their own. I tug on the padlock.

Everything looks good, little lady. Bennie stops, perks up her ears, and faces west. Then she turns in a circle and resumes her wagging. Ten minutes later, we approach Dad’s favorite fishing hole. The soft earth of the well-worn path gently gives way under my boots. The spring rains have turned the ground into a lush carpet of greenery and rich mud, home to wild daffodils, dandelions, and clover. New grapevines stretch skyward, desperate to catch the last shafts of sunlight that filter through the growing trees.

Bennie gives a soft yip and sprints ahead, leaving me alone with my thoughts—two sets warring for attention. In the back of my mind, I know I can’t put off asking Dad for permission to stop by tonight’s party at Helen’s. Only juniors and graduating seniors are invited. I shake my head. This’ll be my first and last high school party. Foremost in my mind is the scene before me. The solace and beauty found only in the woods of my home brings peace I can’t find anywhere else. I look up to see a wren jump from one branch to another then close my eyes and inhale deeply, infusing my breath with the scents of rich, dark earth and clean air. I’m in the Garden of Eden. I open my eyes and sprint the last hundred yards to the creek.

Bennie meets me on the path, turning in circles and barking crazily.

Again? Bennie nudges my hand. I know, girl. Show me where he is.

Dad’s crouched behind a cluster of trees near the edge of the water. I never would have seen him if Bennie hadn’t practically turned herself inside out trying to get me to follow.

Dad, it’s me. Pete. Bennie’s here. C’mere girl.

She stops prancing and slowly approaches, just as she’s been taught. Carefully, she lowers her head and licks Dad’s hand.

Pete.

Yeah, Dad.

I watch my soldier father curl into a ball on the forest floor and begin to rock back and forth with his hands on his head. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him do this.

Dad, it’s okay. Look at me. Look at my eyes.

Bennie continues to nuzzle Dad as I try to lift his chin from where he’s tucked it into his chest. Great, heaving sobs wrack his body.

Time to go back to the house, Dad. Mom made a big dinner and we don’t want it to get cold. Lord knows she’s as scary as whatever you’re remembering.

After a few moments, he manages a small smile. Okay, kiddo. Okay. I’m okay. Just gimme a minute?

Sure, Dad.

He stops rocking, but remains on the ground. His clothes are caked with mud. Mom will be upset, but not about the clothes. Those she can soak and make good as new again. My dad, however, is a tougher case.

Okay, girl, I get it. I’m fine now, he says, and pats Bennie on the head. That was a bad one. Don’t tell your mother?

I sigh. You know I can’t keep anything from her, and you’re a terrible liar. She’ll know. Besides, you’ve been gone a long time and she’s already worried. She’s not stupid.

Yeah, I know. We could tell her I fell in the creek. I’ll go jump in.

I can’t stop the eye roll that follows. Dad, stop. Let’s just get back to the house, okay?

Okay. I hold out my hand, he grasps it, and I pull him to his feet. I don’t even have any fish to bring back as a peace offering. Caught some bluegill, but threw ’em back. Used soda can tabs to make hooks, and they worked, but the creek’s still too cold to catch much.

Let me see.

Dad searches his coat pocket and produces a soda tab with part of the bottom loop cut away. I turn it over in my hand to see how he made it. Cool. We could make tons of these and keep a supply of them.

Exactly. Cheap, too, he says.

I hand it back and flick on the flashlight Mom made me bring. In the time since I found Dad, the sun has mostly disappeared, sending the temperature down, too. We make our way through the woods without incident, though I can’t help glancing back to make sure Dad’s still behind me. Bennie runs circles around us both, nose to the ground. She treats us like her puppies, or maybe sheep, since that’s what she was bred to do. Thank goodness she’s also trained to keep an eye on Dad and knows how to handle him when humans sometimes can’t.

By the time we make it to the corn field, it’s completely dark.

Dad clears his throat. You check the bunker today?

Yep, on my way to find you.

Ah, good. Been thinking about making a new bow. I read a blog about making them out of PVC and nylon string. Wanna help?

Sure, Dad. Hey, what triggered this one? I didn’t mean to blurt it out, but the question’s been running through my head the entire walk.

Dad stops and glances up at the stars. "Don’t know, son. One minute I was sitting on a rock, fishing, and man was it a glorious