BOUGIE APOCALYPSE
A daily 1950s pulp-style serial
Chapter 5: Swampfall
Deeper into the green hell
We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.
The deeper we pushed into the swamp, the more the world felt like it was trying to forget us.
By the second night we found a decent piece of higher ground — not much, just a small hammock ringed by water and thick cypress. It would do. I backed the 4Runner in tight and Tom did a decent job positioning his truck. He was shaping up okay for a civilian who’d never been ex-military or a hardcore prepper. Or so I thought. After we got a perimeter set with the trucks and the stand of trees, we could all take a breather tonight. I hoped.
The three strangers — Tom, his daughter Sarah, and the kid they called Mikey — stuck close but not too close. They helped drag fallen branches for a fire line and never argued when we told them where to sleep. Small mercies.
Raych stayed up with me for a bit during the first watch. The percolator was already working its magic again, the familiar glug-glug cutting through the frog noise and occasional gator splash.
She handed me a cup, steam rising in the moonlight. “You really think we can make something here?”
I took a slow sip, letting the bitterness ground me. “Not yet. But we’ve got coffee, a little ham and beans left, and three extra sets of eyes. That’s more than we had two days ago.”
Raych glanced toward the go-boxes stacked in the back of the 4Runner. “How much food, clothes, and sundries did you actually pack in those things?”
I gave a small shrug. “They were more than enough for the two of us for four weeks or so. I’ll do a full inventory again now that we have more headcount. We’ll stretch what we have and get smarter about it.”
The percolator bubbled. The ham and beans simmered. For a few precious minutes the night felt almost civilized.
Then another moan rose, closer this time.
Raych stood first, 1911 already in hand. I followed, Wilson Combat coming up smooth.
The strangers tensed behind us.
I kept my voice low and steady. “Welcome to the new normal. We protect the coffee, the beans, and each other. Everything else is negotiable.”
Raych gave a soft laugh, eyes scanning the darkness. “And if they get too close…”
I finished the thought without missing a beat.
“…we shoot the Walker and go back to the beans.”
The percolator kept bubbling.
The night kept watching.
And for the first time since The Cough broke the world, I had the faint, dangerous feeling that we might actually do more than hide in a swamp while the world ended.
Even if it started with bad coffee, half-decent ham and beans, and strangers we still didn’t quite trust.
Bougie Apocalypse
A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.
#BougieApocalypse #Swampfall #TheCough #StayHuman
Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.
Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.
I'm finding the story decent so far.
There is one issue, though. You keep switching from first person (I and we) to second person (you). In a story, never use second person. Either use first person or third.