“Not to mention the fur. Winter nearly did us in,” a woman named Mary agreed. “Even with the solar heat, I don’t think I’ll ever be fully warm again.”
“Listen,” Becker said to the group of forty-eight people, the population left of the small town in Wisconsin, once called Greensburg. “Listen to me! We survived C47 and the fallout. We have learned how to stay warm. How to help each other. We survived the winters.”
“Yeah, but a lot of people didn’t, Becker,” Mary reminded him.
Cries of agreement passed through the crowd.
“I know that, Mary, but we’re getting things together again. We just have to help each other.”
The rest of the meeting was spent doling out assignments for each group. Now that spring was nearly here, it was time to start preparing, growing, and hunting. Surviving in Wisconsin in the world now was all about getting through the long winter.
The next day, Becker was not surprised to see a row of horse-driven wagons leaving town. Going south. Toward warmth.
That was fine by him. It would mean fewer mouths to feed and fewer bodies to keep warm and healthy.
Becker walked the few blocks to the desolate-looking Wal-Mart building. He had to see the owner for weapons and ammo.
The building was lined with stacks of dead hover cars around the entire thing, to ensure there was only one way in.
The automatic glass doors had been replaced shortly after the initial round of deaths from C47. Now, one huge wooden door hung there. A sign announced “No Handouts!” in red paint.
Becker tried the handle but was not surprised to find it locked. He knocked with the flat side of his fist.
Jarin, the owner, peeked through it, her shrewd business face in place.
“Morning, Jarin.”
“Heard you were coming, Becker. Come on in.”
Jarin knew everything that happened in town and most of what happened outside of it.
Becker’s eyes adjusted to the darkened space, the only light coming from small windows high in the walls and dim lights in between them. The thirty-some tables that occupied the space were empty and as clean as they could be.
Becker looked longingly toward the bar that held what was left of every beer and liquor in the world that Jarin could get a hold of.
He followed her through a pair of double doors you’d likely miss if you didn’t know they were there. The two guards who always stood in front of them had moved out of the way as Jarin stomped her way over. They were twice her weight and size but scared of her just the same. Jarin was known for maiming or even killing without mercy. Even those who worked for her, if they gave her a reason to.
The double doors opened into the heart of Jarin’s business, and the reason she had to keep it all locked up like a fortress. Aisle after aisle of boxed goods of every imaginable item faded into the darkness of the room. Lights blinked on as she veered left, as if even the light obeyed her.
It was hard for Becker not to yearn for some of the things he saw. Even simple conveniences, like can openers or tin foil, were just sitting there, waiting to be bartered or traded for.
Jarin was the new queen in the world. The one in control of what people needed. She was also wickedly smart and incredibly good at business. Even before the virus, it was her future. Her parents owned the Wal-Mart and were just as shrewd and intelligent in business as Jarin herself. When her brother proved uninterested even before C47, it only made sense for her to step up.
She led Becker through yet another set of doors into a pristine white hallway. Like the main room, lights blinked on as they walked.
She walked past the four other doors, all closed, to the one at the end. There she had to enter a six-digit password and press her eyeball to a sensor before the door beeped and popped open.
Although Becker had been in Jarin’s office before, it took his breath away every time. Her office had become a museum of sorts, filled with things that were so important to the world not so long ago, but which now had become mere decorations. Several robotic servants lined one wall, propped like statues.
When the World Wide Web had gone down, so had they, no longer able to function. It was as if their technical umbilical had been cut. Some had still tried to move, breaking themselves or their masters’ houses as their simplified data entry cascaded into itself. Others acted like a lost child asking questions that chilled Becker, like, “What has happened?” over and over again.
Hover devices lined the far wall, from the drones that nearly led to World War III, to the latest hover motorcycles. Some still worked; perhaps these did too. On the wall behind Jarin’s giant mahogany desk was the most significant part of her collection. A visual diary of human history, one snapshot for each decade, going back to the very first photograph ever thought to have been taken. It was a grainy, shadowed image of a backyard in France taken sometime around 1826. Not the original, of course, but an image printed before the internet went down. While the rest of the world panicked, looted, murdered, and died, Jarin calmly researched and printed one photo for each decade and lined her entire wall with it. The last picture was a visual of what the virus, C47, looked like under a microscope. A few swoops and circles that killed millions. It was a grim, yet hauntingly beautiful reminder of how long humans had lived and what they’d done with that time.
“So, what do you need today, Becker?” Jarin asked, startling him out of his blast from the past.
He focused on her rounded, dark face. Her long, black braids were pulled back into a ponytail today. She was wearing a comfortable looking black t-shirt and stared at him patiently.
“I heard you got married,” Becker said, instead of answering her question right away.
She did not smile. Instead, she answered simply, “I did.”
“Well, congratulations to you and Bayer.”
“Thank you. Now what do you want, Becker?”
He sighed, knowing she already knew, but wanted him to ask. “We need guns and weapons for hunting.”
“How many and which kinds specifically?”
“Well, there are eight of us that volunteered to hunt, so . . .”
“No.”
“But we need the meat.”
“I’m not arming eight potentially suicidal or homicidal hicks with weapons, Becker.”
“Alright, six then.”
“Fine. You’ll get six rifles. Laser or traditional?”
Becker had thought on this a lot. The laser rifles were more accurate and quieter. The traditional weapons, however, were easier to replace if an idiot took off with one.
“Three laser and three traditional.”
“Fine, anything else?”
“A tracker.”
“That one will cost you.”
“What do you want?”
“What have you got?”
“We need some supplies as well.”
Jarin stared him down, making him feel small and scared for his life. That was one of her many talents. Her silence was both deadly and to be feared.
Becker pulled out the sack of collections he had gathered at the meeting in anticipation of this request. He emptied it on her desk. Three wedding rings (one solid gold), two gold filed teeth, and a stack of cash. From his other pocket, he pulled out the carefully written list of supplies people needed. He set this on top of the money.
Jarin picked up the list, speed-reading it. Then the cash, which she carefully counted. “Fine. Six hunting rifles, to be returned after the hunt tomorrow. Clean and functional, of course. I’ll have my men ready the supplies for when you return from hunting with all six of my guns.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Always a pleasure, Becker. You know your way out.”
He stood and walked quickly out of the room, not stopping to ask how she knew they’d be hunting tomorrow. She always knew.
The lights in the empty hallway led him out, the only sound his footsteps on the tile. He looked longingly at the supplies waiting to be paid for b
ut knew better than to even touch one. This was, in a way, a test. To walk past them unescorted and not touch them. Plenty had lost a finger or a hand to spread that fact.
Becker burst through the guarded double doors and was on his way out when a hand on his shoulder stopped him, making him jump.
“Jarin said to give you this,” a man called Cobra said in his gruff voice.
Becker had to look up to see the dark face of one of many who worked for Jarin; he was bigger and meaner than Jarin herself.
“Thanks, Cobra,” Becker said, taking the black duffle bag which obviously held rifles.
For a moment, Cobra held onto the bag when Becker tried to take it. Then he chuckled at the confusion on Becker’s face and let go, making him stumble a little. Cobra slicked his hand over his bald head and walked away chuckling.
Of all of Jarin’s goons, everyone feared and loathed Cobra the worst. He was a bad guy.
Becker left quickly.
“You guys know the drill. We split into teams of three. One gets the tracker, the other scares game our way. Kill whatever you can. Even a handful of squirrels can be tanned and sewn together into a blanket and make a good stew.”
Becker handed out the rifles. Three laser guns for himself, Mick, and Kurt. The three traditional guns went to the group flushing game.
“We’ll give you an hour to go around and start in,” Becker told the flushing team, “then we’ll get going too. Give it three hours. If we don’t meet, start making your way out. No one wants to spend the night out here.”
They all agreed and the team of three walked away. While they waited, Becker and the two other men chatted quietly and stomped their feet to stay warm. Although spring was coming, there was still some snow scattered here and there and a chill in the air.
After an hour, they started toward the woods, walking through a long-abandoned field past a burned down house. One of many around the area. Burnt to dispose of the dead usually.
An hour after that, they were deep in the woods, tracking a big animal following a snare line that occasionally resulted in game. They were pretty sure they’d struck it big and were following a bear.
“Hold it,” Becker whispered. “Look at this.”
He tilted the device so the other two men could see. The signal they’d been following merged with another one close to the same size. Then one moved. After a few minutes of watching, so did the other.
“Which one’s the bear?” Kurt asked. “Are they both bears?”
“I think it’s this one,” Becker said, tapping on the signal that had held still for a bit.
“You think?” Mick asked.
“Come on, let’s just follow it.”
“I don’t know, man. I think it’s the other one,” Kurt muttered, but followed anyway.
The signal moved quickly, then stopped suddenly. It didn’t move anymore.
“What’s it doing?” Mick asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s lucky for us,” Becker answered.
Finally, they closed in on the signal.
“Well?” Kurt asked.
“It’s not far. The signal is still not moving,” Becker whispered.
“How far is not far?”
“Twenty yards, give or take.”
“Twenty yards,” Mick said, pulling the tracking device out of Becker’s hand. “That can’t be right. We would see it.”
“What’s it say?” Kurt asked, peering over Mick’s shoulder.
“Twenty yards,” Mick answered, mystified.
Kurt turned to Becker. “What do you think?”
“Let’s follow it. We have followed it this far, right? What’s twenty more yards?”
Kurt and Mick followed the signal again, walking carefully so as to make little sound. Becker wandered away from them, already knowing where the device said the thing they were tracking was. He looked for the snare near there, marked only by the kind of tree that grew next to it. An elm.
“Hey guys, come here and have a look at this,” he whispered when he found it, or rather what was left of it.
They ran to him.
“What are we looking at?” Mick asked, nearly dropping the tracker when he crouched down next to Becker.
Becker took it from his hands and stuffed it into his bag quickly, pointing. When they still didn’t get it, he whispered, “Where is the snare?”
Mick looked confused. “What snare?”
“Exactly. And look at this,” Becker said, grabbing the small tree the snare had been tethered to.
“It looks cut,” Kurt noted.
“Yup, with some kind of knife,” said Mick.
Becker shook his head. “I don’t think we were tracking a bear.”
Just then, Becker heard a sound above their heads. He pointed, but both men were still looking at the snare. Smacking Mick in the head and nudging Kurt, he pointed again. All three men looked up to see what exactly they were tracking. A person in camo, like them, in a tree.
“Alright, come on down,” Becker said out loud, breaking the silence and anticipation.
Startled, the person’s hat flew off and fluttered to the ground. Long blonde hair tumbled down across her shoulder.
“Dude, it’s a girl!” Mick shouted the obvious.
“No wonder she’s freaked out,” Kurt muttered.
“Maybe we should just leave her alone,” Becker said, already turning away.
“Yeah, she’s probably scared to death,” Mick remarked.
“Wait,” Kurt whispered, “what if she’s in trouble? I mean, what if she needs help?”
Becker spied a fantastic bow lying among the leaves and grinned. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, picking it up. “If she needed help, she wouldn’t have a bow like this!”
The other men chuckled as Becker pulled it to his shoulder. “You’re right,” Kurt said. “Let’s go find that stupid bear we thought we were tracking in the first place. I told you it was that other signal!”
“Hey!” the girl in the tree shouted. “You can’t take my bow!”
“Well, since you’re up there and we’re down here, I think we can,” Mick cracked, making all three of them laugh.
They heard her making noise as she jumped from the tree, but ignored it. Then she shouted right behind them, “Hey!”
“Jeeps, you’re only a kid,” Becker said when he got a good look at her.
“Give me back my bow!”
This made them laugh again.
“Feisty, ain’t she, Mick?” Becker joked.
To his astonishment, she was brandishing a knife and coming at them, their snare still wrapped around her wrist.
“Whoa! Look out. Here she comes!” Mick mocked.
Kurt grabbed her arm and twisted it. The girl dropped the knife, gasping in surprise. He yanked her back against his chest and held his knife to her throat. For some reason, Becker felt a twinge of protectiveness at this.
“You’re brave, sweetheart,” Kurt said. “But you have a lot to learn.”
She struggled to break his hold. “Let go of me!”
Becker stepped forward to intervene when Kurt let her go. She spun around and kicked Kurt hard in the shin. He went down. The girl picked up her knife and bent to hold it to Kurt’s throat, like he had hers, the snare dangling from her wrist above Kurt.
Becker was impressed.
“My bow, please,” she said, staring Kurt down.
Becker smiled and pulled her bow off his shoulder. He threw it and she caught it easily.
“Thank you,” she said sarcastically.
“You’re alright, kid. You got a name?” Becker asked.
“No.”
She took off and they watched her run away.
“Gotta admire her spirit,” Kurt said.
“Yep. Now let’s go find that bear.” Becker took one last look at the beautiful young girl as she faded into the woods.
That night, the group celebrated a successful hunt. Although the bear had been long gone, between the six of them
they had got enough game to feed them for months and make lots of warm blankets and clothes for the winter.
They were in Jarin’s bar drinking when the big door crashed open, the last light of day behind it as the sun went down. Two men that Becker didn’t recognize stepped inside. They both were good looking with their long hair pulled back. One had a dark complexion, the other was more fair, blond, and blue-eyed. Both looked tough and a bit scary.
After the blond-haired man looked around, he whistled, making everyone in the packed room stare at him.
“My name is Timber. You might say I am the new leader of this town.”
Becker instinctively looked for Jarin. She wouldn’t like to hear that. When she didn’t appear right away, he wondered if she was already dead.
“I’m looking for men and women who are tired of being cold, hungry, and without purpose in this new world of ours.”
Becker looked around and saw interest and excitement on the faces of friends and neighbors, even Kurt and Mick’s.
The man’s voice boomed, forcing Becker to look back at him again.
“I promise each one of you, if you are loyal, if you help me, you will be rewarded with all that and more.”
“What do you want us to do?” a woman asked. “We’re barely able to help ourselves.”
Timber eyed the woman who spoke. “Simple. You bring me what I need, you get something in return.”
“What is it you need, exactly?” Mick asked.
“I need a pack.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” the woman who spoke up before asked bluntly. “A pack of what exactly? Wolves?”
Timber stomped over to stand in front of her and ripped his shirt open, revealing a huge wolf tattoo that covered his chest. All around the room, people that had infiltrated them unnoticed stood silently, pulling up sleeves to show paw print tattoos on their forearms. Becker recognized many of them, including Cobra.
They were surrounded.
“Exactly,” Timber said to the lady and grabbed her by the throat. “And you do not speak before the alpha male without permission.”
He squeezed harder, making her gasp and sputter. No one defended her as he choked her until she nearly passed out. Becker could see blood seeping from the scratch marks she left on Timber’s arms. He let her go and she fell to the floor, gasping and gagging.
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