Mountain Man - 01 Read Online Free PDF Page A

but the airplanes were just as guilty of fucking up the atmosphere. People just didn’t hear about it as often, if ever. The sky that he opened his eyes to was the color of paintings. He wondered if that was a conspiracy of some kind. Fuck it. The only conspiracy he wanted to hear about at the moment concerned breakfast. Rising to his feet with a grunt, he turned to the kitchen with a long lingering scratch of his nether regions. He threw down his blanket and left the whiskey on the table. His core complained of a chill, and he wondered if he could pick up a cold without other people around. That was that. No more sleeping in the great outdoors, even if it was in a plush lawn chair.
    In the kitchen, he boiled water on the electric range and unpackaged a bowl of instant noodles. Gus thought about checking the solar panels on the roof, but decided against it. He wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway, beyond clearing them off. There was a wind turbine to supplement the limited power supplied by the solar panels, but it didn’t seem to work. The batteries in the storage shed collected and stored enough power from the panels to keep the house going, as long as he didn’t do anything too heavy. He had no idea how long the power was going to last, and trips to the shed where the batteries were housed gave him no clues. The meters and their numbers meant nothing to him. Any day, he fully expected the things to die on him, and whatever electricity the batteries had stored up to that point would be the last.
    He opened the fridge and mixed himself a glass of powdered milk, which he swore curdled as it splashed down onto the contrary pad of his stomach. No dry heaves, which was good. He held out his hand, flat, as if he were about to walk like an Egyptian. It quivered slightly.
    Gus grunted. He stared out a mostly boarded-up window that gave him a nice view of his wall out front. Moving to a cabinet, he got out a rare can of Coke, as well as a bottle of rum, and mixed a drink. Half a smile, Pop , he thought to his long-gone grandfather. Sighing, he shook out four aspirin from a bottle and palmed them all into his mouth. Raising the drink in a toast to the outer wall, he downed it. With the Coke, the rum tasted sweeter. His grandfather and father had it right after all. It was better than milk.
    Gus gasped as the mix and medicine went down, then took a deep breath. When the noodles were cool enough, he ate, feeling the revulsion in his guts, but determined to get something in there besides booze. After breakfast, he rinsed the dishes in the sink and dumped the plastic packaging from the noodles into a garbage can. The sofa in the living room called out to him, and he walked to it, half in a daze. Lying down and getting comfortable, he realized that he hadn’t opened the curtains in the last two days. A deep weariness settled over him then, and he knew he wasn’t about to open them now.
    Wasn’t it bad to take drugs and booze together? was his last conscious thought before drifting off.
    *
    Six hours later, he woke up, still feeling hung over. He lounged about the house, carrying a bottle of rum with him wherever he roamed. He went down into the rec room, opposite the storerooms, and flopped down on the soft sofa there. He lit candles, both for the light and the relaxing effect. There was something pure about candles. Something even Christmasy, if that was a word. Tammy had gotten him into the practice, as she often had rooms illuminated with candles, some scented, most not, as they were the cheap variety. It never bothered her, as they all burned the same.
    For the next four hours, Gus watched Disney animated movies, chuckling while drinking water from a four-liter plastic bottle with a chaser of Bacardi White and cola, not thinking about having Tammy snuggled up next to him. After the last movie, he flicked off the screen and covered up on the sofa. Thoughts seeped into his mind like vines forcing their way through the mortar