Today it’s World Plant a Vegetable Garden Day, which means The Hunger Gap is turning two. When I wrote this, back in 2021, I had a bit of an Oh, shit, the world is going to collapse feeling. Can’t say it’s disappeared 😨
What would you do if you couldn’t get hold of what you needed to survive in the shops?
In The Hunger Gap, the world is farther gone than it is today, and everyone is hanging on by a thread. People are starving, there are regulations to keep everyone in check, and everyone living outside of the city line is supposed to grow enough food to feed themselves as well as those living in the city.
Every week a controller is coming to collect the food those living in the countryside have produced, and if you can’t fill your quota, things will go to hell.
George lives outside the city limit and one day a new controller is showing up at his place, one he can’t bribe to look the other way.
The Hunger Gap
After years of the government taking everything he grows, homesteader George Vega has had enough. Food is scarce and people are starving. To provide for himself, he’ll need to break the law. Together with his next-door neighbor June, he sets up a system to hide food from the controller during his weekly collecting visits.
Axel Rowe won’t survive much longer. Every scrap of food he can get his hands on, he gives to his six-year-old daughter, but it isn’t nearly enough. Luck is on his side when he secures a job as a controller. He realizes taking the job will make people dislike him, but he has to eat.
George understands the danger he’s in when his old, lazy controller is replaced with a new, more observant one. Axel suspects there is something George is withholding, but when George takes care of him after nearly collapsing from hunger, Axel is more curious about how he’s able to keep food for himself than he’s interested in reporting him. George knows the risk, but after having looked into Axel’s desperate eyes, he’s compelled to take care of him. But can an outlaw homesteader have a relationship with the man who’s supposed to make sure he follows the law?
Buy links:
Dystopian M/M Romance: 23,976 words
JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheHungerGap
Chapter 1
George Vega froze at the sound of a car rolling over the gravel in his yard. His heart stopped only to go into full gear a second later.
It was Tuesday, not Thursday.
He went up on tiptoe, leaned over the sink in the kitchen, and glanced toward the garage. Where were the hens? He’d let them roam free today to save on the feed. They didn’t have nearly enough, and not much was growing yet. Icy fear filled his veins. What if all of them had come down to the garden?
Holding his breath, he listened—no crowing from the roosters. It was only a matter of time, though. Even if they’d gone down on the other side of the hill, they could be heard. June, his next-door neighbor, was allowed one rooster. Hopefully, they wouldn’t crow at the same time.
Luna, his Bullmastiff mix, barked in the pen and he regretted having locked her up. If she’d been free in the yard, she’d have bought him a couple of minutes.
He pushed the dough back into the bowl where it had been rising. Harriet, his boss at the bakery, had given everyone some fresh yeast, claimed it was going in the trash. George was pretty sure it would’ve lasted longer, and the bakery could’ve used it, but they were still in the middle of the hunger gap, and June had three mouths to feed.
Harriet was a good woman.
Grabbing the bowl, he looked around. Where to hide it? If they were going to go through his cupboards, he was screwed. Last week, Harriet had given everyone four cups of flour—four cups were the weekly amount sanctioned by the government, but George had still bought four extra cups at the market, as had June. He’d used it for the dough, but if Douglas, the district’s controller, knew anything about baking, he’d realize it took flour to bake.
He could claim it had been in his food package, but flour seldom was. When he was lucky, he got some rolled oats, but most often he had to buy that too.
He placed the bowl on top of the refrigerator and hoped Douglas would think he stored it there and not look inside.
A quick look around had him freezing again. There were eggs in a basket on the counter. Why hadn’t he hidden them? Thirteen eggs—five more than he was allowed per week.
He grabbed the basket and rushed into the bathroom. Judging by Luna’s barks, they’d exited the car. He muttered a curse as he grabbed the towels off the rack, put the basket in the corner by the shower, and placed the towels on top of it. It looked like damp towels he’d carelessly thrown on the floor. He grimaced—he’d never throw towels on the floor, but Douglas didn’t know that.
As quickly as he could, he tore off his shirt and threw it over one of the kitchen chairs. Then he kicked off his shoes and socks and unbuttoned the top button on his jeans. Nearing the front door, he messed up his hair—not that it ever was styled.
He pushed open the door and stumbled out as if in a hurry, wincing as the gravel dug into his bare feet. The cold had him shivering.
“What’s going on?” He frowned at the scrawny man watching him—not Douglas. Ice filled his veins. It was the car of a controller, and there was a bored-looking guard following the man.
The man was at least a head shorter than George, starved, and with clothes that had more holes than fabric.
George held on to his glare. The man might be starving, but he was still a controller—the right hand of the government. He might look harmless, but the guard standing two steps behind him wasn’t. The machine gun slung over his shoulder was ancient, but George didn’t doubt its efficiency. Old didn’t mean useless.
“Erm… Are you George Vega?” The man looked ready to faint, his blue eyes wide.
“It’s not Thursday. I was in bed.”
The man’s eyes widened, but he tried to conceal it by looking at the paper in his hand. It had to have been folded a hundred times.
“You’re a baker.”
George grunted in reply. “I start early. I stay awake after work on Thursdays to greet you because I have to. Today is not Thursday.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience—” George did his best not to react, and when the guard snorted, the man dropped his gaze to the gravel. As if reminding himself he was a controller, he straightened his back and met George’s gaze full-on. “I’m taking over from Mr. Miller. Today, I’m traveling the route to know what to expect on Thursday.”
George could lose himself in those blue eyes if he allowed him to. “Is that so?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Douglas was a drunk with no knowledge of either plants or animals. He took George’s weekly payment without argument, and it was only occasionally he demanded more than the minimum toll.
“Can you show me around?”
No. George crossed his arms over his naked chest. “I’m sleeping.”
The man’s gaze slid down to the still unbuttoned jeans, only to jerk away. “You’re awake now. It won’t take many minutes. It says here you have three hens. That’s one more than allowed. We’ll have to increase your weekly food toll.”
George fought not to give any outward reaction other than narrowing his eyes. An increased toll would leave him starving. “One of them is old and isn’t laying more than the occasional egg. I keep her for the sake of the others. Two hens are too few to have a happy group. They need to be three.”
“Then you should increase your number and register as a farmer.” The man didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’m a baker.” Being registered as a farmer would triple what he owed every week. There was no way he could grow enough to sustain that, especially not now in the middle of the hunger gap. “Douglas agreed to let me keep her since the few extra eggs she gives in a year goes to the town market.”
He tried to appear annoyed and confident at the same time. Controllers could sense fear—though he doubted this one had developed the skill. He was convinced Douglas had put the extra eggs he gave him to keep up the appearance of having three hens in his own pocket—most likely traded them for booze. Perhaps he could get this new guy to agree to a similar trade. He had to find his weakness. With Douglas, it was alcohol. This man didn’t strike him as a drunk, but there had to be something else that would make him sway.
One adult was allowed a maximum of seven eggs, he got one extra because he was a homesteader and provided eggs for the market. Every child was allowed two eggs. One egg equaled one point in the food system. How many points you got depended on how many days you worked. Every person with a salary was allowed to buy what they needed—if they could find it—but you weren’t allowed to have more than the weekly quota. The system was skewed, and far too many ended up with no eggs at all.
“Can I see them?”
Shit. On Thursdays, he made sure to have three of the larger hens pecking around the yard. Now, he didn’t know where they were. Why had he let them out? What would he do if the controller spotted a group of ten hens scratching around?
Hopefully, they were all in the forest garden, or maybe they’d gone back home into the hidden one.
“They might have run off when you drove up with the car. Let me put on shoes.” He limped over the gravel and then made quick work of the stairs. He flicked his wrist so the door would close before the controller made it up the stairs, rushed into the kitchen, and grabbed the shoes and socks he’d kicked off before going out. He was about to hit the light switch to turn off the growing lights in the hidden garden—and hopefully warn June—when the man appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” He frowned at George.
“Grabbing a shirt.” He gestured at the shirt he’d slung over the kitchen chair. “It’s cold in the barn.”
* * * *
Axel Rowe wanted to lean against the doorpost. The entire room spun around him, but he couldn’t appear weak. He hadn’t eaten for two days; he had given everything to his six-year-old daughter, Mira. It was pure luck Douglas Miller had been caught trading meat meant for the food market for whiskey down at the docks.
If he hadn’t, Axel never would have gotten the job, and therefore not been registered as a contributor to society. If you didn’t have a job, you weren’t given any food.
How he’d bring everyone’s weekly quota to the Friday market, he didn’t know. He’d never been a person people listened to, and he wasn’t sure he could take food from starving people, but he had to learn. It was his job.
Hopefully, the guard going with him everywhere would make people pay what they owed. He wasn’t a big enough fool to believe the guard would help him. He was there to make sure Axel didn’t steal from the town’s food toll as much as to make sure no one threatened Axel.
He focused on the man, George Vega—tall and dark-haired and in far better shape than Axel had ever been. He had strong arms, and while he was thin, he wasn’t malnourished. How could he not be malnourished? These days everyone was starving.
“Is one meal part of your employment contract?” Axel wished he could’ve gotten a job which included a meal—but few jobs did—then he wouldn’t have to eat at home, and Mira could have it all.
Mr. Vega narrowed his almost black eyes. “Yes. Bread for breakfast every day.”
“Even on days you’re not working?” Axel almost swayed as he realized how a benefit like that would have changed his life.
“I’m working seven days a week.”
Axel stared. Seven days a week? Few jobs were seven days a week. His was only three, one extra this week, but that was only because it was his first day and he was supposed to get to know the route—still, it would earn him the middle-sized food package this week. It would save his and Mira’s lives.
The small food package he’d get every week was more than he’d had before, but only half as much food as George was entitled to, plus he got breakfast every day. Axel would get the extra child package, but there never was much in them, not nearly enough to feed Mira for a week.
He pushed down the resentment wanting to bubble up. He couldn’t work seven days a week. He had a child to take care of. Having this job would make their lives better, perhaps not as good as Mr. Vega’s life, but better than it had been.
“So you get meals every day.”
Something flickered in Mr. Vega’s eyes, but then they hardened. “Yes.”
Axel nodded. “The barn?”
Mr. Vega glanced out the kitchen window. “I think the hens ran off into the woods, but I can show you where I keep them.”
Axel nodded. As Mr. Vega pulled the shirt over his head, he did his best not to notice how his muscles moved, but it was hard to look away. Axel looked like a skeleton next to him.
“Let’s go.”
Axel nodded, and right as he turned to head for the front door, Mr. Vega flicked a light switch on the kitchen wall. Maybe he was turning on the light in the barn? He didn’t ask. It was his right to inspect everything on the property, and one day he would, but right now it was a struggle to stay upright. They’d check the barn, so Mr. Vega would know he’d monitor his small farmstead, but then he needed to sit.
Axel hadn’t been in a barn in about thirty years. He’d spent the summers with his grandmother as a child, and she’d had a small farm similar to this. But that had been before the economy collapsed, before people were starving. Axel hadn’t paid much attention, there had been food in abundance, and no weekly controls or food tolls.
“I keep them here.” Mr. Vega gestured at a small stall with a couple of laying boxes in the corner and a roosting bar on the opposite wall. Axel didn’t know much about keeping hens, but it looked a bit too clean compared to the vague memories he had of his grandmother’s chicken coop. “See, there is one now.” He gestured at a bird coming in through the door. Axel frowned. He knew nothing about hens, but the one strutting around by the barn door looked more like a rooster than a hen.
Mr. Vega took a few hasty steps in its direction, and it hurried off. “Oh, she ran off.”
Of course, it did. Mr. Vega had intentionally scared it off. Axel frowned at him. A crow cut through the air. “That’s a rooster.”
“What?”
“The crowing. I might not know a lot about homesteading, Mr. Vega, but that sound, it’s a rooster.”
“It’s June’s rooster. She’s allowed one.”
For a second, Axel wanted to argue. He couldn’t appear weak. Before he accused Mr. Vega of anything, he glanced down at his paper. June Stone, George Vega’s next-door neighbor, was granted three hens and one rooster. She was a single mother of three and was allowed to keep fourteen eggs a week—seven eggs, as every adult was allowed, then two per child, and one extra because she was a homesteader. He assumed she was allowed the extra hen so she would cover her own consumption. He still didn’t understand the rules. Many seemed as if they’d been made on a whim and then never changed.
Mr. Vega, for example, could keep eight eggs for himself, not a single more, but on Friday when he got in line for his food package at the town square, he could be given seven eggs, and then he’d have the right to them. If Axel dropped by on a control and found fifteen eggs, Mr. Vega would be punished. It made no sense.
Axel took a deep breath as a wave of dizziness hit him. “Ms. Stone lives on the other side of the hill.” He tried to focus on the conversation, and not on Mr. Vega or the rules.
Mr. Vega nodded. “Yes, but birds roam, and our properties border each other. We have a fence between them, but we’ll hear the rooster. And sometimes they fly over the fence.”
Axel wasn’t sure he believed him, but he let it go for now. He straightened his back and met Mr. Vega’s gaze. “I’ll be back on Thursday, Mr. Vega. I expect you to have everything ready for me when I come.”
They walked out of the barn and toward the car where the guard was waiting. What was the point of having him if he stayed by the car when Axel inspected the property?
“It’ll be eggs.”
“What?” Axel blinked, having lost himself in his head again. For a second, he thought Mr. Vega would smile, but then he scowled instead.
“My payment this week. It’ll be eggs.”
“Oh, no vegetables?” He looked around the garden bed closest to the car. What he wouldn’t give for something fresh. He hadn’t had anything green in months.
“We’re in the hunger gap, Mr.…”
“Rowe, Axel Rowe.” Damn, should he have introduced himself when he arrived? Probably.
“There won’t be any vegetables for weeks. The government hasn’t decided yet how many seeds we’re allowed this year.”
They hadn’t? But it was already April. From what Axel could remember, his grandmother had the windowsills packed with seedlings in April. Maybe he remembered wrong.
“What’s this then?” He gestured at the plants taking over the garden bed.
“Chicken weed.”
“Chicken…”
“It doesn’t count as chicken food.”
Axel nodded. “And that?” He pointed at some leaves coming up through the soil.
“Bishop weed.”
There it was again, a flicker of something too quickly concealed for Axel to know if it was there or if he imagined it.
“Is it edible?”
“It’s not poisonous. Can’t have poisonous plants growing where the hens peck around. I wouldn’t survive if they died.”
Axel assumed he was telling the truth. The hens would help a good deal to keep Mr. Vega fed. A quick glance at the record before he’d exited the car had told him, Mr. Vega most often paid his toll in eggs.
Mr. Vega turned toward the house, effectively preventing Axel from asking more questions. “See you on Thursday, Mr. Rowe.”
Axel nodded and climbed into the car.
Everything would’ve been perfect if Grayson Dawe hadn’t been forced to share his garden with Camden Hensley. Grayson has everything he needs in life – a job, friends, a house he loves, and a garden. He wants to grow enough vegetables to cover his needs over the summer, and he has a plan for how to achieve it.
Would knowing how you die change the way you live?
Holly Day 