I really didn’t have a reason to go anywhere, except that I was alive and didn’t know what else to do. I really didn’t have anything left worth living for, but I had seen enough death and gore at the hands of the undead that I knew that I just didn’t want to die like that.
I figured that I wouldn’t live very much longer in this world of the undead, which was OK with me, I just hoped if I started south I would die somewhere peacefully and with a little dignity.
But here I am three years later, still wandering around. My only purpose, the only reason that I have that keeps me pushing on is that maybe before I die, I’ll find out, why.
Why, and to look after my buddy, Wolfe, which reminds me that I was telling you about the day I found him.
I was wandering around somewhere in the hills of Montana when I heard what sounded like two large animals fighting. I found myself in a scary predicament. I was standing on one side of a large clump of brush and all these vicious sounds were coming from the other side.
Common sense told me to get the hell out of there, but hunger told me to go take a look. Maybe I would be able to eat the loser.
I slipped an arrow on to my bow as I crept to the edge of the brush for a look.
As my head cleared the brush, I saw a mountain lion, a wolf and her cub and a wild pig.
From what I could determine it appeared that the wolf and her cub had just killed the wild pig, but the mother wolf had been seriously injured when the wild boar thrust one of its tusks into the mother wolf’s ribcage.
The wolf ended up killing the wild pig, but apparently a mountain lion had been watching and now decided this would be a good time to step in and take the pig from the defenseless pup and the seriously injured mother.
The mother tried to put up a fight, mainly to protect her cub, but she was in no condition to seriously challenge the mountain lion. The lion made fast work of the mother wolf, swatted the cub, knocking it into the brush and started to drag the dead pig’s body away.
I wasn’t excited about tangling with a mountain lion, but I was too hungry to let it drag that pig away without at least taking one shot at the lion with my bow.
I wasn’t a very good shot back then, not like I am now, but I got lucky. As the lion dropped the pig to turn and growl at me to warn me away from its food, I let the arrow fly.
The lion seemed to attack the approaching arrow, which then went through its left eye and into its brain. I walked over and put a second arrow into the cat’s head just to be sure it was dead and wouldn’t attack me later.
I then quickly got to work by building a fire and butchering the pig, it had been ages since I had eaten ham.
I didn’t have time to build a pit and roast the pig for an entire day like in the old days, instead I would build a fire and roast and eat what I could before something showed up and I would be forced to leave.
Having to eat and run was a fact of life, I didn’t like it but that’s just how things were. The main point here was that I would have a chance to eat something, it was an added bonus when I had the opportunity to eat something cooked.
So I quickly went about building a small fire and making a rack out of fresh branches to hang the pieces of pork over the fire.
As I worked, I watched the little cub creep back out of the brush and paw at his mother. I felt sorry for the little guy, but my main concern was in getting a decent meal.
When I thought the pork was cooked enough, or at least warm enough to taste like real food, I began to eat. I put another slice of pork over the fire for every piece that I removed and ate.
I intended to stay here and eat as much as I could for as long as I could because I had no idea when I would get this lucky again
.
As I ate, the little cub looked out from behind it’s mothers body, watching me intently as I ate. I knew the little guy had to be starving, so I tossed him a small piece of ham.
He sniffed and licked at the ham for few minutes as if he had no idea what to do with it.
After watching me for a while, I saw him finally take the ham in his mouth and start chewing on it.
He was a fast learner even back then.
I must have sat there for two hours gorging myself on the hot pork.
The pup stayed behind his mother’s body the entire time, coming out just long enough to grab another piece of hot ham that I would toss his way.
He would chew on the ham and carefully watch what I was doing.
After a time, he didn’t seem to be afraid of me any longer, but he still kept his distance and stayed behind his mother.
As night time was approaching, I knew I should be moving on. I was lucky to have had four uninterrupted hours to eat, but I knew that wouldn’t last much longer.
If the undead didn’t show up, the creatures of the night would be out soon.
Either way, I would not be safe out here much longer. I was amazed the smell of roasting pig hadn’t attracted curious unwelcomed visitors already.
I began packing as much of the roasted ham as I could in my backpack as I studied the little pup and tried to decide what I should do about him.
I didn’t know if he would be adopted by another wolf pack or if they would kill him or chase him away to die on his own.
If any other large animals, or even in his case small animals, came by and found him, they would probably kill him.
I thought I had remembered hearing somewhere that a wolf couldn’t be domesticated, they were dangerous wild animals that would kill you when they grew larger.
I finally decided that I should leave him to his own kind and hope some wolf pack would take him in, he would be happier and be able to live a normal life.
Being constantly on the run was no way to live, especially for a free wild creature.
I was conflicted and didn’t know if I was doing him a favor or condemning him to die. After I packed all the ham I could carry I decided I had to leave.
I had moved on about two hundred feet through the woods when I heard the brush rustling behind me.
As I looked back to see what was coming through the woods, I saw the little gray pup struggling to follow me through the rugged terrain.
I took out a piece of ham and got down on my knees to see what he would do.
If he turned and ran, I would leave, but if he came up to me, I still wasn’t sure what I should do.
To my surprise he came right up to me and took the ham.
“What the hell,” I thought. “How could I leave him behind now, besides he and I had a lot in common. We were two of a kind. We both had seen our family brutally killed right in front of us and we were both alone in this cold unforgiving world.”
I picked up the little guy and slid him into the pouch I used to gather berries.
I gave him another piece of ham and started walking again.
When he finished his ham, he curled up in the pouch and went to sleep.
Somehow it just felt right.
It was so emotional to be next to another living being after all this time that it almost brought me to tears.
I named him Wolfe and we have been together ever since.
Like I said, he likes his meat done medium rare, probably because he thinks I’m his mother and meat cooked medium rare is all he has ever known.
I cooked the rabbit on a stick over the open fire as Wolfe sat by patiently watching the meat cook over the open flames.
When he sat up and whined, I knew the rabbit was done just the way he and I both liked it.
I removed the rabbit from the fire and reached inside the carcass to give Wolfe his appetizer, the liver which had been done medium rare.
Then I cut the rabbit in half and gave Wolfe his half and we quietly sat and had our dinner.
He ate the front half of the rabbit and I had the back half.
I like the back half because of the legs.
Since Wolfe never complained, I just assumed he was happy with the front half.
He of course f
inished his half before I did, but he didn’t beg for more, he was too dignified to beg.
Besides, he was a team player who only wanted his share and nothing more.
It was the way we were, we shared everything and looked out for each other.
I missed my family and I often wondered if Wolfe ever missed his family.
I would often see him dreaming, panting and his legs moving at night when he slept. Was he dreaming about tomorrow’s hunt or was he thinking about running with a pack of his own kind out in the wild like he was meant to do.
I don’t know the answer to that question, but for now he is my family and my best friend, I just hope he enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his.
After dinner, I laid out my blanket and used my backpack as a pillow.
I laid out a blanket for Wolfe, which he immediately walked over to and laid down.
They say you can’t domesticate a wolf but sleeping on a blanket and eating his meals cooked over an open fire seems domesticated to me.
However, I would never insult Wolfe by telling him I thought he was becoming domesticated.
He is very sensitive and would probably be offended.
We laid there as the sky darkened and listened to the sounds of the night together.
As we laid there together, my mind often drifted back to when this all began, to my wife and kids, to everyone I had lost and to why this had to happen.
Would I ever know what had happened?
Why is the world now inhabited by the undead?
I can somehow understand how this had all started, mankind had been on a self-destructive course for as long as I can remember. Honestly, I am amazed that it took them this long to destroy civilization.
But it is the existence of the undead that I do not understand. Why are they here?
Before I die, will I ever know the answer?
Some how I had my doubts.
I used to feel that it really didn’t matter how much longer I would live, but my thinking has changed over the last few years.
Even though he is better suited to live on his own than I am, I don’t want to leave him on his own in a world that isn’t fit for a man or beast to live in, I hope to be able to hang around for as long as Wolfe is still here.
I understand wolfs live about eight years, so I hope I can hang on for a few more years.
I wouldn’t want him to have to live by himself.
Being with me is all he has ever known, I would like to think that he would miss me.
I can’t believe that I almost had left him behind.
But I often wonder what Wolfe thinks about at night.
I slowly begin to drift off.
I don’t worry much about anything sneaking up on us, not with Wolfe here.
His hearing is even better than his sense of smell.
It should be with the size of those ears.
Chapter 2
Tonight, like I always do most every night, I dream.
Or should I say I have nightmares.
I really don’t want to dream, at least about the things that constantly creep into my mind at night, but I can’t stop the nightly visions.
Tonight, I dreamt about that first day, the day it all started.
It was around six o’clock in the morning.
I was up having my morning coffee, a crème filled donut and listening to my favorite radio station just like I did every other morning.
Kelly and the kids were still asleep, they wouldn’t be getting up for school for another hour yet.
It was my quiet hour when I could enjoy the silence and wake up at my own pace before the daily string of emergencies that only I could solve began.
It was also an hour before Kelly would give me my Honey Do List for the day.
As I look back on it now, it was funny some of the crazy things I would find on my list each day. Tammy and Jamie would have things for me to do like making sure there were no monsters under their beds.
Kelly would have things that would take me a bit longer to complete like fixing the dryer or the drip in the bathroom shower.
Even though I had complained at the time, I really miss those lists.
They were much more complicated than my daily lists are now.
Now my lists are fairly simple and constant day after day.
Now my to do list have items on it like find food and stay alive.
Simple?
Maybe not as simple as it sounds.
But in my most recent nightmare, there were no lists, I just sat at the kitchen table drinking my coffee, munching on my donut and staring out the kitchen window.
In my nightmare, as it did on that day, the entire house shook as a rumbling sound started and seemed to be coming from everywhere outside around the house.
My mind started racing at what could be causing that sound and making the house shake.
A gas pipeline explosion was my first thought, people had been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline for years before it was finally dug in North Dakota.
“Did it explode like the protestors said it would?” was my first thought.
I got up and ran over to the window to look outside expecting to see flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air.
However there weren’t any flames shooting into the sky, the grass was still green and the trees were not balls of fire, they were balls of green leaves as they always were.
I was relieved to see that the world hadn’t suddenly burst into flames, but that rumbling sound still continued every few moments, making the house shake every time I heard the rumbling begin all over again.
I was confused, but then I looked up in to the sky.
There were dark pillars of smoke streaking across the sky, all moving to the north.
It was morning and my mind was still half asleep, so it took a few minutes for it to sink in and for me to realize what I was seeing.
If you didn’t know, North and South Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and also scattered through out many of the other Midwestern states, were the silos for the U.S. Minuteman Missile Program.
In hardened concrete silos, buried safely deep underground were the nuclear missiles that were meant to protect our country.
The silos and missiles were meant to deter an enemy from attacking us because our missiles were where they could never be destroyed by an attack.
If we would ever be attacked, our missiles would then destroy any enemy that was foolish enough to attack us.
Many people were unaware that they were located here, but all of us that lived here were aware of the fact, but like everyone else, we just didn’t think about them.
Their presence was enough to prevent a war, we never expected to ever see them being launched.
But as I studied the sky, I knew that the impossible was actually happening as I followed the dark trails through the sky.
I lost count after counting thirty smoky trails speeding overhead.
My mind started racing faster than when I had suspected a pipeline explosion.
Are we at war?
With who?
My first thought was Canada, because the missiles were flying north, but then I remembered that the shortest distance to Russia was by going north over the North Pole.
By now, Tammy and Jamie were hanging onto my legs asking what all that noise was and why was the house shaking?
I honestly didn’t know what to tell them, maybe it was because I didn’t really want to tell them the truth.
It was something I knew they wouldn’t understand.
I really didn’t understand it myself, sure I knew what war was, I understood the concept of missiles and nuclear explosions, but I also knew that I could never really visualize what the real thing would be like.
It would be impossible to know that without actually living through it, and I didn’t know anyone that had lived through something like that.
I took the girls back to bed and tucked them in.
“Go back to sleep,
you have another hour before you have to get up,” I said. “You were just having a bad dream. See, the house isn’t shaking.”
It was a school day, so it didn’t take much convincing to get the girls to go back to bed.
Making them get out of bed on a school day was always a problem.
After I got the girls to go back to bed, I ran in and woke up Kelly.
She was still sleeping because nothing woke her up during the night, she could sleep through an earthquake.
I led her out to the kitchen, of course she grumbled and complained the entire way, and I took her over to the kitchen window and made her look outside.
“Can I go back to bed now?” she complained, but midway through her sentence, she realized what she was seeing.
She just stood and stared.
“What do we do?” she finally asked.
“I don’t think there is much was can do,” I replied. “I guess we just wait.”
“Should we get the girls up?” Kelly asked.
“No, let them sleep,” I replied. “If what I think is going to happen, I think it best if they are asleep when it happens. I don’t want them to be afraid.”
“We’re all going to die,” Kelly whispered.
“It should happen quickly,” I replied as I pulled her close to me. “At least that’s what I heard.”
“How long do you think we have?” she asked.
“My guess is about twenty minutes,” I replied. “That is how long it takes a missile to travel from Russia to the U.S.”
“Oh, Charlie,” Kelly sobbed.
“At least we will be together when it happens,” I said. “It could be worse, the girls could be at school, me at work and you here at home by yourself. If we have to die, I’m glad that at least we are all together.”
“Do you really think it will happen fast,” Kelly asked. “I remember seeing pictures of all the people that were horribly burned in Japan during the war.”
Apocalypse- the Plan Page 25