My wife and I have been traveling for just about three years now. Our son died last month. We haven't seen anyone else in over half a year. A couple weeks ago, our food started to run dry. I took the forty .22 rounds we had left, loaded some of them into my rifle's magazine, holstered my 40 caliber pistol with one mag left and went out to hunt. We didn’t go hungry that week. Not that I wasn’t close to never having to worry about eating again.
I had been stalking through the meadow in what little clothes I had left, quietly moving through the dew stained weeds at my shoulders. Birds chirped above, but the foliage was too dense for me to see any or otherwise take a shot. I settled down at about noon, just to rest. A deafening roar snapped me out of my relaxation, and I sprang to my feet, rifle in hand. A bear erupted from the brush, unleashing a deafening roar, landing on top of me. Its putrid breath left a stinging in my eyes, long after it had ceased to wail. Thrashing me about like the toy that I was, hunched over me, I managed to unholster my pistol. I waited until his head was low enough to me, and my arms were free, took my gun, pressing it against his jaw, and fired three rounds in quick succession. The beast went down.
I guess this all requires some context. About three years ago, all connections between the countries went to hell. Russia launched some bombs, the US launched some back and the Koreans got involved and all of it went to hell. Most of the world’s a nuclear wasteland. All the major cities have been hit pretty hard. Here and there a small little town will pop up, and me and my wife stay there with what remaining people live there for about a week, or until we wear out our welcome. Martial law was declared when the first bombs hit America, and everything descended into chaos after that. Now everywhere is essentially a no man’s land, what water can be found is typically harshly irradiated. We live meal to meal, which all though not difficult for someone who grew up with a father who was an avid outdoorsman, but at the same time is no simple feat. When my family and I heard on the radio that a city within a hundred miles of us was bombed, we packed up and left. My son, as I previously said, died last month, of cancer. We had no delusions about it, and had known since close to his third birthday. The medicine we had brought ran out nearly two months prior to his death, and frankly we were thankful to have as much time as we did with him. But there’s not a single goddamned day I don’t think of his curly blond hair, sticky hands, and deep blue eyes. I’d give anything to have him on my shoulders again. But I can’t. My father certainly was a bastard, but if he taught me one thing, it’s that people die, and life goes on.
Well life has been sh**ty to say the least, but it has certainly gone on. Until now, that is. Pretty quickly after I had strenuously hoisted and pulled the bear back to the temporary camp we had set up, the shard cry of an engine rang out. Now, to most people the sound of an engine might not be particularly piercing, but after a couple years, any man made sound grows to be. I ventured toward the sound, looking to find the source. After about three hundred yards, I came to a road, old and abandoned, but still there. As the steady cough of the engine grew louder, I ducked into a bush nearby to make a quick judgment call. These people were either A. Simple folk like us who were just looking to survive, or B. Raiders who liked nothing more to steal, kill, rape and pillage. Perhaps there was some middle ground, but in my frantic state of mind after having been nearly mauled, I decided that it was hopefully and most likely option A. Now call me a complainer but it actually turned out to be the less desirable of the two.
And so here me and my poor wife were, sitting cross legged in this dingy, dark, damp and dismal prisoners quarters. The way the abduction went down was essentially I waved down the two army Jeeps, they pointed their guns at me, zip tied me and the missus and threw us on board. When we got to their camp, and they undid our restraints, I counted about ten men there. Five children. I have given much thought to this, and I am not willing to let another one of my family die. They didn’t take my metal spoon which was in my pocket. I had been sharpening it for the past two weeks that they held us captive. Yesterday, I decided to stage my wife’s escape. I walked up to the guard on duty, shouted “Hey buddy, you up for some spooning?” to him, and drove the spoon into his neck, stripping him of his gun as I did. My wife ran away silently. I remained, tears stinging my eyes, firing rounds into anything that moved like a maniac. Two shots to my s*** brought me down.
They’ve been torturing me quite relentlessly since, and I’ve just finished constructing a noose out of my shoelaces. This world truly disgusts me now. I have seen all that humanity can become, and it isn’t worth living for. The funniest part, is that all my life, I had been working for something. To buy a car, a house, or just to pay the bills. These past couple of years, where I’ve actually had to struggle to stay alive are the ones where I have truly been the most alive. I am looking at the shoelace dangling from a rafter in this shed, and it just looks more and more appealing in my present situation. I stand on the stool that they have provided me, put my head through the shoelace, breathe a sigh, she some tears, and kick the stool away. The shoelace breaks. I fall to the dirt floor, stunned at what has just happened. An armed man rushes in, kicks me until I get up, blindfold me, and leads me to a mattress. He puts a lit cigarette in my mouth and whispers in my ear “This camp’s found an outbreak of the flu. It’s killed near everybody. I’m doing you a favor.” And I hear the c*** of a revolver and feel a barrel pressed against the back of my head. I smile and fall as the trigger is pulled.