1. The Cough
The Cough Is Loose
The TV kept looping the same panic footage like a bad rerun nobody asked for.
I didn’t wait for the suits in Washington to finish lying.
I’d read Alas, Babylon too many damn times — and most people haven’t even heard of Pat Frank, which is a damn shame. I also grew up on Dawn of the Dead. I knew exactly what was coming.
“The Cough is loose,” I said, voice flat as range day.
Raych looked up from the counter — curly red hair tied back, freckles standing out against her skin, with Viking-raider steadiness that had kept our homestead running for decades.
“Twenty minutes,” she replied. “I’ll get the go-boxes.”
Gun safe cracked open like a well-drilled crew. Rifles, pistols, shotguns, and every box of ammo that would physically fit went into the 4Runner. The rest got staged by the door in case there was time for a second run — but I wasn’t betting the farm on it.
Wusthof knives wrapped tight.
The De Buyer Mineral B Pro went in without debate — because if it came down to close defense, that heavy carbon steel was going to rearrange a zombie skull and still be ready to fry eggs the next morning.
Then the two go-boxes got heaved into the back: Rancho Gordo heirloom beans from Napa County, jasmine rice, chocolate, coffee, white gas for the Coleman, and the percolator. I caught myself laughing out loud as I slammed the tailgate.
“Fucking bougie apocalypse,” I muttered.
Raych slid into the passenger seat with the smaller book box on her lap, curly red hair catching the last light. “You’re the one who packed the heirloom beans, hero. Don’t act shocked now.”
“Damn right I did,” I shot back, firing up the engine — darker curly hair, salt-and-pepper beard closely cropped, the same stubborn look I’ve worn since my tanker days. “And it’s fucking corny… I’m tossing boxes of Rancho Gordo beans in my 4Runner right next to stacks of ammo and AR-15s. We’re not rebuilding civilization on cold SpaghettiOs and despair. Somebody’s got to keep standards.”
Beside the bougie beans rode the smaller box — Ranger Handbook for the fighting, Alas, Babylon for the cold dose of realism, Meditations and Lord of the Rings because I wasn’t just trying to survive the plague. I was trying to stay the kind of people who could still build something worth living in when the dying finally stopped.
I looked across at her as the gate clicked shut behind us.
“Panhandle swamp. Back roads only. We stay human.”
She gave me that small, fierce smile — happy go lucky one moment, Viking-raider wife and steady homestead keeper the next. “Then let’s go remind the universe what civilization looks like.”
The 4Runner rumbled south. The percolator rattled gently in the back like a quiet promise.
And yeah… come on. Bougie zombie apocalypse.
I’m bringing heirloom beans from Napa County.
Damn.
Bougie Apocalypse
A serialized military-flavored post-apocalyptic pulp story about heirloom beans, De Buyer carbon steel skull-crackers, good coffee, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.
#BougieApocalypse #TheCough #StayHuman
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