The Search Read Online Free

Martel’s.
         And he was puzzled. Four hundred bags of corn wouldn’t feed the number of cattle and hogs they had for five years. Not even close. And certainly not seven.
         “Stupid fools,” he muttered to himself. “They’d have let their stock starve to death.”
         He didn’t know that the Huckabees had been preppers long before the news of Saris 7 became public. They’d put a lot of thought into their survival plans.
         And they knew how to adjust those plans as changing situations dictated.
         When they found out they couldn’t get any additional livestock or feed to keep them going for the long freeze, they went to Plan B.
         Which was, to kill all the livestock as soon as the freeze hit.
         All of it, that is, except for their most fertile cow and their most amorous bull. And a breeding hog and sow as well.
         The corn stock wouldn’t be enough to keep all their livestock alive for five to seven years.
         But it would be more than enough to keep four animals healthy. And any new calves or piglets would be slaughtered for food along the way.
         As the four animals grew too old to breed, they would be slaughtered and replaced with some of their offspring. And once the thaw came, they could breed animals to barter for other things they might need.
         At least that was the Huckabees’ modified plan.
         Martel had plans of his own. He didn’t see any sense in keeping any of the livestock alive.
         Alive, they’d eat up the corn, and he’d be left without a backup food source.
         Dead, they wouldn’t do anything except freeze into tidy little chunks and sit frozen in a barn until he got around to eating them.
         He went out to the pig sty, where the hogs were huddled in the corner of the pen, against a wind break, trying their best to share one another’s warmth.
         He tried to herd a two hundred pound hog, who’d been called “Wilbur” by the Huckabees’ young children, into the barn.
         But Wilbur didn’t cooperate.
         Perhaps Wilbur sensed somehow that his life was in danger.
         Perhaps he knew somehow that this man before him was evil.
         Or, more likely he just didn’t want to leave the relative warmth of the other pigs.
         Whatever his reason for rebelling, Wilbur would have nothing to do with the barn. Each time Martel herded him close to the open barn door, Wilbur would bolt to one side or the other and run off, squealing every step of the way.
         Martel, perhaps in a benevolent mood, let Wilbur get away with it three times.
         After the fourth time he stopped running, walked slowly toward the beast, and drew his handgun.
         He dropped Wilbur in one shot.
         Then he dragged the hog forty yards through a biting wind to the sanctuary of the barn, and proceeded to butcher him in the same manner he’d done Betsy.
         All in all it took Nathan Martel a full two weeks to butcher all the livestock and carefully stack the meat. When he was finished his meat pile was almost as high as he was, and covered three full sheets of plywood.
         It was an awful lot of meat.
         Combined with the dry goods and canned food in the Huckabees’ root cellar, Martel would be living royally.
         At least compared to the rest of the world.
         Each night, he started up the generator outside and locked himself inside the master bedroom. Two small heaters would keep him warm and toasty while he slept.
         And the next day he’d be free to roam the countryside, robbing and pillaging.
         Or, he could just stay in his new castle, prop his feet up, and while the world away.
         The one thing he was lacking… the one thing that would have made his existence much more palatable, was a woman to share his