Shades of Gray Read Online Free PDF

it.
    “I’m sure yer right, kid. Folks’ve went and lost their damn minds, that’s a fact. Never thought I’d hafta kill to protect what’s mine. But I have.”
    “You had to,” Jake spoke up.
    Pepper shoved away from the table, grunting as he stood, and walked over to stare out the small kitchen window above the sink. He was silent for a long time, his back to us and his arthritic hands resting on the counter. Mia and Jake grew restless and fidgety. I stayed their impatience with a stern glance.
    “Yeah, I did. They ain’t right anymore. I damn sure didn’t lose no sleep over it either.” He turned to face us and leaned against the counter. “I’m just an old man. Don’t know much. You learned me there’s more goin’ on out there ‘n I can understand, sure.” Pepper shoved off the counter and shuffled back to the table. He placed his palms against the wood and locked his eyes on mine. “But I know it can’t be helped. There’s nothin’ for it. Yer too young to have to do what ya do. All of yuns are. Them people out there ain’t right in the head, and you gotta protect you and yours, but the killin’ of it ain’t for kids. It’s for old folks like me. Ones who don’t have much to live for anymore, don’t have much to lose, and are already too hard to give a damn either way.”
    With that, Pepper left the room. Left us to chew over what he’d said. We didn’t discuss it, didn’t make smart remarks about how the old hillbilly didn’t know what he was talking about. Never acknowledged out loud that the old man had been absolutely right. We knew it, we felt it. We were too young, with too much life left ahead of us. And what sort of life would it be now?
    We sat at the kitchen table a while longer, then moved off to our sleeping bags spread out on the living room floor.

Chapter Two
     
    November 18th: Winchester Country club
     
    The Winchester had changed quite a bit over the summer. All the outbuildings had either been torn down or remodeled to suit our needs. The concrete wall was taller, finally making Michael happy with its twenty foot height. Four watch towers had been erected; one on each end, and two in the middle, cutting the wall into thirds. Most of the golf courses inside the wall had been plowed under, making way for various vegetable gardens. What hadn’t been planted in seed had been fenced off for pasture. The resident horses appreciated this immensely. All told, the residents of the Winchester were doing just fine, and that wasn’t counting the aid we received monthly from the military. That was the point, wasn’t it? Independence was the key (well, one of the keys), to survival in the new world. Michael and John foresaw this early on, and made sure that all their requests to the military were for things that would help us towards this goal.
    Except for the candy requisitions. Those were for the kids.
    Speaking of the kids, some of them had moved on to bigger and better things. A month after the National Guard had set up at Blueville Correctional and announced its presence, one of the scouting parties stumbled upon a group of survivors in the next county over. Their camp was reasonably fortified, and with the help of the Guardsmen, became a veritable fortress. As it turned out, some of the residents at that location were related to some of the kids at the Winchester. The kids couldn’t pack their shit fast enough. The only ones left at the club were Sam and two others, Elwood (who everyone lovingly referred to as Elly, even though he was a boy), and Meredith. They also happened to be the oldest of the Winchester kids, which took some of the pressure and responsibility that comes with raising small children off the rest of us.
    Nancy spent most of her time teaching the other females of the household how to can and preserve the food grown in the garden. We didn’t spend much time preserving any of the meat that was brought in, since wildlife seemed to be in abundance around the