Be Careful, Boy

By Trash Pile

Shiloh just wants to survive the apocalypse. But after his father dies, he's left alone to fend for himself. His luck changes--for better or worse--when he comes across four men: Jake, Mike, Carl, and Toro. What do these men want with Shiloh? And does he want the same thing?

This is pure MMMMM post-apocalyptic trash with rose-colored dubious consent situations, a twinky hero, lusty alphas, and--of course--a happy ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trash Pile
• Release date: Jan 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310778322

Trash Pile

I write trash sometimes. This is where I dump it.

Book preview

Be Careful, Boy

Trash Pile

Copyright 2016 Trash Pile

Smashwords Edition

Part One

I was eighteen years old when the world ended.

My dad and I had been in San Francisco when it happened, visiting a few colleges there, but we lived in Chico. Yeah well, Chico—and my mother—had gone down with the rest of humanity, so it was just me and dad.

That worked for a while. It took two months to get back to Chico, only to find nothing but death. He didn't let me in the house, not even to get my clothes. He said mom was in there. He also said I didn't want to see her. I took his word for it. That night, we packed up the Jeep and headed back down the freeway, stopping occasionally to free the road up or to say hello to a passing group of people. See, back then, at the beginning, everyone was friendly and a little bit bewildered. Panic hadn't set in yet. Meanness hadn't set in yet.

We set up base at a farm, after clearing out the bodies, that is. My dad didn't know one thing about farming, and I didn't have Google anymore, so I wasn't much help. We muddled through for about two years I guess, but then dad caught something. It wasn't anything bad, but these were bad times, so anything, anything, was bad.

And so. I was alone.

I was twenty years old when my dad died.

****

I stayed on the farm until I couldn't anymore. Twenty-one years old.

Packed up the Jeep, made sure it was full of gasoline. Knew that was probably the only tank I would be able to easily come by, but surely there would be other cars on the road, and if not that—I had my own two feet.

Why didn't I stay on the farm? Simple. I was a lonely boy, and I remembered what it was like to have friends and family, and without dad… there was nothing but silence and aching hunger. We never left that secluded ranch, so I had to risk it because maybe there were whole cities thriving out there. Maybe there were people with good food, and other boys my age I could talk to and touch. I had dreams about that.

Sometimes I wonder if leaving was a mistake.

For the first few weeks on the road, all I saw were decrepit buildings and stalled cars pushed to the shoulders. Once in a while, there would be a bleach-white skeleton or two in them. But besides that, I never saw another soul for quite a while.

I was headed down Highway 120 towards Oakdale when I saw someone standing in the road, waving me down. At that point, the person was just a small dot in the arid scenery, barely visible in the shimmery illusions caused by the sun against endless pavement. But I finally realized there really was someone there, so I slowed down from my even 100 MPH to maybe 25, coming up on whoever it was.

When they were closer, I saw it was a young man like me, definitely in his twenties. But the first thing I really noticed about him was that he was wearing army fatigues and had a gun strap slung over his shoulder with the head of some long gun I couldn't possibly name peeking out from behind his back. He had close shaved hair, broad shoulders and a slim waist, just like an action figure. He looked a little sunburn, but he must have shaved recently because he didn't have any stubble.

I came to stop and studied him from behind the car window as he walked over to my Jeep with a smile on his handsome face. Reaching my car, he leaned down a bit to look through the glass, his smile never faltering. He tapped his knuckles against the window and said, Hello in there?

Hi, I replied. His smile widened.

Mind rolling your window down?

I bit my lip, but after a moment I reached for the manual handle of the Jeep and rolled it until the window was half down. There, the guy said, That's better.

He rested his arm on the edge of the glass, and looked into my car. Where you from?

Up north, I said, leaning back a bit. It had been so long since I smelled the sweat of another person. I couldn't see his eyes, they were hidden behind Aviator sunglasses, but his smile stayed in place, in fact he was chewing gum with a smack smack smack.

Also, I felt like his gaze had come to rest on me. Oh yeah? And where you headed?

I wondered if I should be wary of this guy—he didn't seem unhinged, but who knew, right? Also he was wearing the fatigues, and now that he was so close, I could see US ARMY stitched on the front. But that didn't prove anything. I'm headed south, I said curtly, my fingers tightening on the wheel. Meeting up with some family.

Well, I don't know why I added that lie. Maybe because I felt safer with it.

The man made a huh sound and then started chewing on his thumbnail. You need to fuel up?

He must have known from looking at my fuel gage. I was empty. You have some?

The grin that spread on his face made my gut twist.

Sure! he said, all friendliness and neighborliness. Let me hop in, I'll point out where to go.

I could just hear my dad: don't. Just that. Don't. Don't let this guy into my car, just zoom past him. But for how long could I go? What happened when the car was truly out of gas and I was left stranded?

With a click, I unlocked the car doors. The guy trotted around to the other side of the jeep, grabbing the handle at the roof and pulling himself up into the seat. Whew, he said. It is fucking hot out here.

Right? I laughed nervously. Now that he was sitting right there next to me, I saw how much his muscled frame differed from my skinny one. I mean, I hadn't starved through the years, but I wasn't really that bulked out to begin with. My dad was a skinny guy, and I was a skinny guy—although I had a pretty cute ass that I was proud of. Before the world ended, I put that ass on Grindr and got all kinds of tempting messages from guys who didn't know I was seventeen. But that's all in the past now.

So where you from, really? he asked. He said it like we were in cahoots or something. "I mean, who are