BOUGIE APOCALYPSE
A daily 1950s pulp-style serial
Chapter 2: Coffee and a Walker
First blood, then breakfast
We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.
The back roads were darker than they had any right to be. No streetlights, no oncoming traffic, just the 4Runner’s headlights cutting through the night and the occasional distant moan that might have been wind… or might not.
I kept one hand on the wheel. Each door pillar had spring clips holding an AR securely in place — nothing loose, nothing rattling. During full zombie armageddon we each had an AR in the clips and a Wilson Combat CQB 1911 with an 8-round mag full of Federal hollow points resting on our laps. Raych rode shotgun, map on her knees, her own 1911 ready, curly red hair glowing faintly in the dash lights.
“Next left should be clear for a few miles,” she said, voice steady. “Then we can pull off and set a quick bivouac.”
I nodded. “Beans are going to have to wait. No time to soak and cook properly yet. But we can do coffee. Real coffee.”
She gave me that look — half amusement, half Viking-raider assessment. “Of course we can. Priorities.”
Twenty minutes later we found a small gravel pull-off shielded by trees. I killed the lights, backed the 4Runner in so it faced the road, ready to go, and we both moved like we’d rehearsed it a hundred times. Perimeter check. Quick fighting positions. Then the Coleman stove came out.
While I set security, Raych measured the coffee and water with the calm precision of someone who’d kept a homestead running through worse than this. The percolator started its familiar glug-glug rhythm.
I allowed myself half a smile as I spooned out a bit of cold beef stew from an MRE. Definitely rejected by Ethiopians ran through my head as I smelled the coffee — and thought, Zombies or no, I’m drinking some good coffee … Stocking Mill’s Midnight Run.
Raych handed me a metal cup, freckles catching the faint blue flame of the stove. “Drink fast. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before something smells that and comes looking.”
I took a sip, letting the heat and bitterness ground me. For one quiet moment the world felt almost normal — just us, good coffee, and the faint crackle of the stove.
Then the first Walker appeared at the edge of the tree line.
It was slow, clumsy, still wearing what used to be a gas station uniform. A second one followed a few yards behind it, then a third. Not a horde. Not yet. Just the early Walkers.
I set the cup down carefully on the hood, drew the Wilson Combat CQB, and put two calm rounds through the first one’s head. It dropped without drama. Raych did the same with the second. The third never got close.
She never even spilled her coffee. She just raised an eyebrow. “Told you.”
I picked my cup back up, took another sip, and scanned the darkness. “Beans tomorrow night. Proper pot. Tonight we keep moving after this cup. But damn if we’re not doing coffee right.”
She smiled — “One civilized thing at a time, hero. The zombies can wait their turn.”
I drained the cup, rinsed it with a little water, and packed the percolator away. The 4Runner rumbled back to life.
Behind us, the night swallowed the gravel pull-off again.
Ahead of us, the road south waited.
And somewhere in the distance, more moans were starting to rise.
Bougie Apocalypse
A daily serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.
#BougieApocalypse #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.