Please be aware that there is a prologue at the start of this story. Read that first by clicking HERE.

Ryan Richie lay on his back, barely covered by a single cotton sheet that clung to his sweaty skin. The apartment manager had sworn blind that the air conditioner would be in perfect working order by the end of the day, but that had proven to be a lie, just as it was with everything that was wrong with this crummy apartment.

Even in the room lit only by the orange glow of the streetlights, Ryan could still see the water stains on the ceiling, the brown splashes slowing spreading like a living, breathing Rorschach test.

Having been born and raised in New York City, Ryan had grown accustomed to living in flea traps. Over the years, he had slowly but surely seen his writing career take off, finding a better place to live as the royalty checks started to grow. He and his wife, Diana, were in good shape financially now, but their dream of building a tiny house and moving out west meant that they had to settle for a lesser apartment and save as much money as humanly possible.

Diana was ready to sell off everything and make the move tomorrow, but Ryan was a little more cautious. He lived in mortal fear that the royalties would suddenly dry up and that they would need to dip into their nest egg. It was probably an irrational fear, but one that kept him up on hot summer nights like they were experiencing right then.

Looking over at Diana, he was more than a little jealous, as she seemed to be sleeping like a baby, swaddled in layers of covers that would make the casual observer believe that she was bunking in the Arctic. Her dirty blonde hair stuck to her sweat covered face, yet she still managed to look beautiful. Sitting up, Ryan looked down at the paunch that was starting to grow around his waist and wondered again why she still found him attractive.

Pinching his love handles, he gave his belly a little jiggle and promised himself that he would start back at the gym tomorrow, assuming he could get any sleep. Ryan knew himself well enough to know that when he woke up groggy, his will to do anything slipped away.

Slipping out of bed, he padded into the kitchen, stifling a yawn as he straightened out his tousled brown hair. He had to admit that his little gut didn’t look quite so bad when he was on his feet. He was over six feet tall and solidly built, so the fat seemed to melt away when he was upright, but he knew that it was all just an optical illusion.

Ryan poured himself a glass of milk and sat down at the kitchen table. His laptop was sitting there, and he contemplated opening it and trying to get some work done, but he also knew that if he started, he’d be up all night, throwing off his delicate internal clock. As tough as it was to do, Ryan tried to limit his writing time to the hours when Diana was at work. Her nursing job was a stressful one, and he wanted to be there for her when she got home and needed to vent, which was essentially her daily routine.

Chugging down the milk, Ryan felt some relief from the heat. He rubbed the cold glass against his forehead, but almost dropped it when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He was relieved to see that it was Diana standing in the doorway, giving him the stink eye.

“What are you doing up at three in the morning, you creeper?” she asked.

“Sweating my balls off, if you must know. How can you sleep in that?’

Diana shuffled into the kitchen, the T-shirt she was wearing sticking to her body and showing off all her curves. She plucked the glass from his hand, rinsing it under the tap and filling it with water, which she chugged down in one shot.

“I’m going back to bed,” she said, ignoring his question. “Are you coming?”

“Coming? Not yet, but maybe you can help speed that along,” Ryan said mischievously.

“Oh yes, big boy. All that talk about your sweaty balls has me fired up and ready to go.”

Ryan laughed as he bolted from the chair and chased after his wife, growling like a predatory animal. “I’m coming for you.”

With a little skip, Diana took off down the hallway towards their bedroom, although not so fast that her husband would not be able to catch her before she made it to the bed.

***

Cuddled together with the top sheets all covering the floor, neither of them seemed to mind the heat or the sweat.

“If Jenkins doesn’t get that AC fixed tomorrow, I’m going to need to invest in a fan,” Ryan said.

“What, you don’t like my sweaty body all up in your face?” Diana said, aiming her armpit in the direction of his nose.

“You filthy animal,” Ryan said, trying not to laugh.

Giving him a playful shove, Diana said, “Why don’t you be a dear and go crack open the window. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be some type of breeze blowing out there.”

Slipping into his boxer shorts, Ryan unlocked the window and tried to slide it open. It hadn’t been opened since Don Jenkins, the building manager, had applied a fresh lick of paint during the winter. The paint now served as some type of super-strong glue, holding the window in place, no matter how much Ryan struggled with it.

“Sonofabitch bastard, “ he said, hitting the palm of his hand against the frame in disgust.

“Jiggle it,” Diana said in a teasing tone.

“I’ll jiggle you in a minute. I hate this goddam place.”

“We could move anytime. Our lease is month to month, babe, and I only need to give a week’s notice at work.”

Ryan climbed back on top of the bed, looking at his beautiful wife and feeling as though he was letting her down by not making the move that she so wanted. He wanted it too, but that niggling doubt kept him in place. Ryan had not set an amount in mind that he believed would be the perfect amount of saving to pull the trigger, and the fact was that he knew they already had more than enough. They had purchased a new truck outright, and the contractor building their tiny house was paid and just waiting for the word to begin the build, which he assured them would take no more than two months.

“As soon as I finish the book I’m working on, I promise we’ll set the wheels in motion. I’m not sure I want to be driving west over the winter months. We think we get snow and cold here, but it’s nothing like what we’ll run into on our way to Oregon.”

Diana sighed, feeling as though they were in an endless loop where they had the same conversation over and over again. She loved her husband, but his stubbornness sometimes made her a little nuts. She knew that his childhood had been rough and that there were plenty of nights where there was no food on the table, but she also wanted him to understand that those days were in the past. As long as they were together, Diana would do all she could to protect him and make life as comfortable as possible.

It had been Diana who had first floated the idea of living off the grid. A TV show about families living the tiny house lifestyle had drawn her attention; the romantic notion of downsizing and living in an idyllic spot far from the madness of the city took hold as the credits ran.

The romantic notion was quickly put in check the moment she started to do some research and found out how difficult it was to live that lifestyle. Building the home was easy enough, but finding a place to park it and set up residence was a little more problematic. Big cities wanted to make sure you were suckling from the teat of the utility companies and paying as many taxes as possible. That made it tough to find a place where you could live without running afoul of the law.

Once the idea was seeded in her head, though, it refused to stop growing. Diana buried herself in research, plotting a path from New York City to Oregon that included stopping points along the way where they could legally stay in their new home. She now had a large map of the United States pinned up on their wall with colored pushpins marking the places they would stop along the way. The final one was the biggest of all and circled with a red marker. It landed smack dab in the middle of the Three Rivers Recreation Area in Central Oregon, a community that was home to people committed to living their life off the grid.

Three Rivers was home to homes of all sizes, from cabins and tiny houses to million-dollar mansions. Diana had contacted several people who lived there to ask about leasing some space. She had finally found an older couple that owned one of the most significant plots of land in the community. The Garrisons, Emily and Ted, only lived there during the summer months, living the rest of the year in a beach house in Florida. Emily had loved the idea of having Diana and Ryan live on their land, as she had been actively looking for someone to look after their home while they were back down south. Emily and Ted were willing to forego a lease if the Richies promised to maintain the property while they were away. It was a deal that was almost too good to be true, which was just one more reason why Diana was so keen to make a move.

“How’s the book coming along?” she asked.

Ryan furrowed his brow and mumbled, “Not so bad,” a sure sign that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“Are you struggling, love? You can tell me,” Diana said, taking her husband’s hand.

“Struggling isn’t the right word. It’s…It’s just that it’s going in a direction that is probably not going to sit well with the publisher.

“Let me guess; Barry wants you to stick to the old tried and true formula.”

“Yes. I want to explore different genres and themes, but Barry wants the same hard-boiled detective novel that I’ve delivered with the last four books.”

“What about writing under a different name? Would they maybe go for that?”

“I doubt it. We’re all making money now, so why mess with a formula that’s working, until it isn’t anymore,” Ryan said, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Diana pulled him in close, stroking his hair as he lay his head on her chest. There were times when she was jealous that he got to stay home all day and do what he loved, but that was always tempered by the fact that his job seemed to be just as stressful, if not more so than the average nine to five gig.

“Let’s get some sleep, babe. We can figure it out tomorrow.”

Her words fell on deaf ears, the sound of his shallow breathing a sure sign that he had already drifted off to sleep. With one more loving look at her map on the wall, Diana closed her eyes and fell asleep thinking about the future.

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Watson’s House of Horrors

Serial Novel: Off the Grid Chapter 1