Published: 18 Apr 2018
Hunter was roused from his sleep by his bed shaking. “Cut it out, Tim. It’s not funny,” he groused sleepily. There was no answer. With his eyes still closed, Hunter said, “Ha, ha, April fool! I get it, now let me sleep.” It seemed like a lame April fool joke, especially since Tim was still kicking his bed. After all the real earthquakes that had frightened and jolted the world lately, it was a stupid joke and it wasn’t funny.
Then the bedroom door slammed open and Tim shouted from the doorway, “Get up, get up! It’s another damn earthquake. Get outside, now!”
Hunter threw the covers back and dashed from his room, scared and bewildered. Wearing only his briefs, he ran out the front door where his younger sister and brother stood waiting. Betty was in her nightgown and her hair was messed up from sleeping. Ten-year-old Charlie was in his PJ’s and looked very freaked out. He was shaking as Betty hugged him close.
Tim joined them a moment later, carrying blankets for them to wrap up in. He gathered them into his arms and held onto his siblings to comfort them. No one spoke at first. This was not the first quake that had shaken them, but it seemed to be going on much longer than the others. Earlier, the barn had partially collapsed, and the china hutch had fallen over with Mom’s fancy dishes in it, so the four of them had discussed the quakes frequently. Listening to every news report they could find, they all knew that no one seemed to have an answer for why it was happening. There were a lot of theories as to the cause of the earth’s decision to move around, but no one could pinpoint a reason for it. Meanwhile, great forces were wreaking havoc around the world.
There was a sudden sound of breaking glass, and Betty’s bedroom window shattered, and the shards fell out onto the ground. Betty screamed and began to cry. Her brothers hugged her tighter.
Finally, after several minutes the ground stopped shaking and a quiet stillness fell. Hunter started to go back into the house, but Tim stopped him.
“Wait, Hunter, there might be aftershocks. Let’s make sure it’s all settled down for a bit. Charlie, wrap up in your quilt and lay down here on the grass. You too, Betty. Try to get some sleep, if you can,” Tim said quietly. He sat between them and soothed the young ones until they dozed off again.
Hunter sat beside them, also sleepy, but too scared to close his eyes. It was like the whole world had gone crazy. It was Monday, and normally they would be getting ready for school, except the school was closed until further notice. Some of the roads in the county had been so damaged by the previous quakes that they were impassable. Douglas dam was showing some large cracks and there were worries it would fail and release the lake onto everybody downstream. He would be glad when his dad got back from his business meeting in Chicago, if he could get back that is. Their mother had died five years earlier, so for a while the children would be on their own, with seventeen-year-old Tim to look out for them.
Hunter took a walk around the outside of the house to see what sort of damage it had sustained. There were cracks in the foundation and part of the gutter was hanging off the eaves in the back. Betty’s window was not the only one that was shattered. Several others were cracked. But at least the house was still standing, unlike the barn. One end of it had collapsed the previous week and Tim wouldn’t let them go in it any more. They didn’t have any livestock, so it didn’t hurt anything.
Tim joined him a few minutes later and they stood silently, staring at the damage. The boys were obviously brothers, having inherited their father’s dark hair and blue eyes. Hunter, at fourteen, was almost as tall as his seventeen-year-old brother. Where Tim was considered to be handsome, Hunter was merely cute. Everyone said he would look just like his brother when he got older. Their siblings, twelve-year-old Betty and ten-year-old Charlie, both looked like their mother, with brown hair and brown eyes. Betty was getting bossy as she entered her teens, but Charlie was shy and quiet. He depended on Tim to keep him safe, especially now.
Tim put his hand on Hunter’s shoulder, and said, “Let’s go in and see how bad it is. Just be ready to run back out if it starts to shake.”
The two of them cautiously checked out the interior and saw that there were cracks running up some of the walls. Because they had already taken down everything from the walls, pictures and such, none of those things broke, but the book case was lying on the floor and all of the books were jumbled about. Everything seemed to have just been bounced around, all slightly out of place. Hunter helped push the beds back against the walls and tried to straighten up a little.
“Uh-oh,” said Tim, flipping a light switch. Nothing happened. “There must be a line down somewhere.” He picked up his cell phone and turned it on. “Shit, no signal. I hope a cell tower didn’t go down. We’ve got no phone and we are out of power. That really sucks. Look, let’s not open the fridge until we really need something. The food’s gonna spoil if the power doesn’t come back on. Can you eat your cereal without milk today?”
Hunter said that he could, grateful that it was Cap’n Crunch and not Corn Flakes. He set the table with plastic bowls, while Tim brought the younger ones in to eat. The two of them put on a brave front so that Betty and Charlie wouldn’t be too scared. After breakfast they sent the little ones out to play while they tried to make some repairs to the inside of the house.
A bit later, Tim said that they should all go check on the neighbors and see how they had fared. Several of the people in the community lived in shouting distance, so it wasn’t a long walk. He didn’t want to leave Charlie and Betty alone and, even though he didn’t want them to see anything bad, he had to take them too. They could have driven, since Tim had Dad’s car, but he wanted to save the gas.
The first house to visit was their cousins, the Gibsons. Uncle Brad and Aunt Mildred were sitting in their car with their kids, Sue Ellen and Mark in the back seat. They were not going anywhere, they were just sitting.
“You kids all right?” Uncle Brad asked, seeming sort of distracted.
“Yeah, we’re all right. You?” Tim asked.
Brad nodded toward the house and Tim saw that it looked lopsided. Then he could see that the back corner had fallen in and the entire roof now tilted. It looked to be half gone.
“Damn,” Tim breathed. He didn’t know what to say.
“Mama’s still in there,” Aunt Mildred whispered. “She’s dead.”
“Great-aunt Flo? Ah, no! That’s horrible. Look, we’re going to go find some help. Just hold tight and we’ll be back soon,” Tim said, holding back tears. He was glad that he had made his siblings stay back, so they didn’t hear what Brad had said.
Tim walked the others back home to get the car. He drove them to Mrs. Blalock’s house to see if she was okay. Since she was fine, and had been a good friend of their family, she agreed to keep Charlie and Betty while Tim went to find help for the Gibsons.
Hunter asked, “Will you take me to Alex’s house? I want to make sure he’s alright, too.”
A very pretty boy, Alex had immediately attracted Hunter’s attention at school. His blond hair and light blue eyes glowed like sunlight. Alex was Hunter’s best friend. They had been pals since elementary school and since Alex lived just on the other side of the hill, they spent a lot of time together. They were both the same age, and they both began to experience sexual awakening at the same time. Luckily for Hunter, Alex was attracted to him, too. What had started out as just jacking off had grown into something much more, and they were not only sexually involved, but romantically involved as well. Hunter and Alex were in love and had to take constant care not to let others see their affection.
It was a relief when Tim pulled into Alex’s driveway and Alex came running out to greet them. His family home had suffered some damage from previous quakes, so he and his parents were now living mostly in their RV. It was parked beside the house and was plenty big enough for the three of them. Hunter and Alex went for a walk down by the creek while Tim and Alex’s dad drove off to talk to other neighbors. It would take several of them to extricate Great-aunt Flo’s body from the wreckage. Tim only hoped that there were not other fatalities or serious injuries to deal with in the community.
Hunter took Alex’s hand and confessed, “I’m scared. This is getting to be real bad. Everything is going wrong. What’s gonna happen next?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared too. I can’t hardly sleep at night.”
Hunter put his arm around him and kissed his cheek. “If you get real scared, you can come and sleep with me. We can take care of each other.”
The two of them sat by the creek, throwing rocks in the water, until Hunter said, “Hey, wanna go look at the school? I wonder if it’s still standing.”
“Good idea. I’ll tell Mom that we’re going,” Alex said.
The school was three miles away, but by going through the woods behind Alex’s house it was only about a mile. It was an old brick building from the 1950’s that held four classrooms, a small lunchroom, and an office for the teachers. As they topped the hill that overlooked the school the boys could see that there was severe damage to the outside. One whole wall of bricks had fallen off and all the windows were broken on that side.
Their teacher, Mr. Maples, was walking around, checking out the rubble. He stopped to talk with the boys and told them that it was unsafe to go inside at that time. He had been doing some paperwork when the quake started and had nearly been crushed by falling shelves. They liked Mr. Maples because he taught them English, and always talked to them as if they were adults, not kids. He also told great stories in class. Paul Maples was in his late thirties, single, and was the smartest man the boys knew.
They told him about the other men getting together to check on the neighbors, so he drove them home and left to help with any rescues.
Later that afternoon, Hunter sat in his dark house with Tim and Betty and Charlie. Tim had made sandwiches for them and they drank milk from the fridge since it was going to spoil. There was no water because they had a well, and the pump for it was electric. Just to be safe, they pulled their mattresses out to the porch instead of sleeping inside.
There had been other people who were hurt from falling buildings and trees, but no one else was killed. Tim and a few of the neighbors drove out to the highway to see if there were any stores open, and to try to get a phone signal. The few convenience stores were without power, so their registers didn’t work. One store was selling to those who had cash. Tim managed to get some bread and peanut butter and jugs of water.
It took three days before the power returned. Their father was still stuck in Chicago and they could only talk to him if they drove out to get reception from another cell tower. Meanwhile, everyone was trying to stock up on gasoline and food stocks, certain that there would be another quake. Tim filled the bathtub with water that they might need for drinking.
Mr. Maples reopened the school for those kids who were close enough to make it. The county roads were still preventing the rest of the schools from restarting. Hunter and his younger siblings went because there was nothing else to do. So did Alex and a few other children. It was sort of fun because they moved their desks outside and had class on the lawn.
For the next two weeks there were tremors that made everyone nervous. Those with satellite television were able to keep up with the news of the rest of the world and saw that there was widespread devastation. Volcanoes had erupted in the Pacific Ocean and were spewing ash and smoke. Cities that were near to known fault lines suffered severe damage with huge death tolls from collapsing buildings. The governments were overwhelmed so neighbors tried to help neighbors. Of course, crime was becoming a real problem with law enforcement stretched thin. The military was called upon to keep the peace. There was no more word from their father, and they feared that he was not one of the survivors of the devastation that wrecked Chicago. Not knowing his fate was a terrible burden on them all. Not knowing what would happen next made them anxious and restless. They hated being scared all the time.
Their community, like the rest of the world, was uneasy with the calm that had settled on the land. Everyone began to stockpile supplies, and not just food. People snatched up everything that they could get, hoping either to use it or to sell it later to someone else. The stores emptied quickly, even the smaller convenience stores, and there were no more food deliveries because the roads were a mess all over the area. Hunter and Tim were both especially worried about the future and fearful of their responsibility for taking care of their family.
Then, on the 19th, all hell broke loose. It didn’t start with a gradually building quake. It started with an explosive shockwave that broke windows and threw people from their beds. Previous quakes had made a loud rumbling noise, like an eighteen-wheeler going by, but this was much worse. It sounded like a series of explosions, like sonic booms.
Before they could get outside, the earth fell from under their feet. It felt as if the ground had become a trampoline, and everything on it began to bounce. Structures fell, trees toppled, hillsides slid and buried the things that were below.
Hunter and his family were able to get outside before their house fell apart, almost burying them in its splintered roof and walls. Terrified, the four of them clung to each other in shock, watching the world crumble. It was hard to stand as waves rolled through the ground and great cracks opened before them. The tumultuous upheaval seemed to go on forever. They had fallen to the ground, still clinging to each other. Betty began to scream, while Charlie sobbed uncontrollably. Hunter felt like screaming, too. He closed his eyes and prayed for it all to stop.
At last, things began to taper off and, while there were still sizable tremors, they came less often. Tim got shakily to his feet and looked at the pile of debris that used to be their home. He felt like vomiting. The wooden walls were shattered, and the steel roof panels were twisted and bent. All of their belongings were buried, along with their food and water supplies. He would have to dig through it all to salvage something, but for now he only wanted to calm and comfort his younger siblings.
Hunter looked dazed, but he had his arms around Betty and Charlie. Charlie was sucking his thumb and looking terrified. Eventually, Tim said, “Come on, Hunter, help me move some of this stuff. Maybe we can find something to eat.”
They went to the back of the house and Tim was able to pull off some of the roof that had been over the kitchen. After kicking through some sheetrock, they saw the refrigerator and one of the cabinets that used to be beside it. With some effort they managed to get some milk and cereal, but the dishes were out of reach, and most were broken. They had to eat the cereal dry and wash it down with sips from the jug. Charlie wouldn’t eat or talk. He kept his thumb in his mouth and stared at nothing. That worried Tim a lot.
To make matters worse, a tree had fallen on top of the car and it was crushed nearly flat. It obviously wouldn’t drive again, and they were all stuck. With no other options, he decided to try to get to the neighbors and see if anyone had fared better, or worse.
“Stay and take care of the little ones, Hunter. I’m gonna go to see uncle Brad and aunt Mildred. I hope they did better than we did. I’ll be back as quick as I can,” Tim said, his voice quaking with emotion. He took off on foot quickly, anxious to see his uncle and unable to bring himself to look back at their ruined home.
When he turned down the Gibson’s driveway he gasped. Their house was also a pile of rubble, and there was no sign of life. Slowly he approached, hoping to find someone alive, but the roof was flattened and sitting squarely on the splintered walls. Tim called and called, but there was no sound coming from the wreckage. There was nothing Tim could do except to cry. He sat on the ground and sobbed for several minutes, washing out his grief and fear until he was empty. They were dead.
Uncle Brad’s car sat at the bottom of the yard where it had rolled away from the house. Tim knew that his uncle kept a set of spare keys in a little box over the rear tire. He found it and was relieved that the car started, and he managed to get it back up to the road. Blessedly, there was a full tank of gas.
He drove first to Alex’s family, the Lathams, since it was the closest. Their RV was surprisingly intact, and they were all sitting quietly outside at a picnic table. It looked almost normal, except that everyone had red eyes from crying and Mr. Latham was hugging Alex close while his wife comforted his little sister. Then Tim noticed that the baby wasn’t with them. Off to the side of the RV lay a little bundle, wrapped in a pink little blanket. He swallowed hard and approached them carefully. He put his hand on Mr. Latham’s shoulder and held it there. The older man reached up and placed his hand on Tim’s, as if welcoming the gesture.
Alex looked up and quietly asked about Hunter. Tim said, “They’re all alive. Shook up, but alive. Uncle Brad and his family are all gone, I’m afraid.”
That started another round of weeping. Finally, Tim asked Mr. Latham if he wanted to ride with him to check on other community members. He silently got up and together they drove off. It seemed like half of their neighbors were either killed or injured by falling houses or trees. Up on the mountain they could see smoke coming from the other side. Fire was the last thing they needed, because their area was heavily forested, and the weather had been dry.
Alex asked his mother if he could go see Hunter. She just nodded and so he took off over the hill to see his friend. Hunter felt better when he heard Alex’s voice calling out to him. He had been trying to cheer up Betty by telling her stories. Charlie was still in shock and seemed to have retreated inside himself. He stared silently ahead and sucked his thumb.
Alex took Hunter aside and told him about his baby sister, and what Tim had said about the Gibsons. After sitting with them for an hour or more, Alex said, “Why don’t we go back to my place. Momma will be glad to see you and you’ll be inside. Our RV is fine, and we got some food. Help the kids up and we’ll go.”
Hunter left a note for Tim and they all took off. Hunter carried Charlie on his back. When they arrived, Tim was still gone with the car. He and Mr. Latham came back just before dark and told Hunter and Alex about how the rest of the community had fared, and it wasn’t good news. Mr. Latham was happy that they were there and welcomed them to stay. There was room for Betty and Charlie to sleep inside. Meanwhile, he and Tim were gathering a couple of the other men and were going to try and get out to the highway.
“I know that McCarter’s Market still has some food. Old man McCarter locked up his basement when stuff started to run low a couple of weeks ago. He’s hoarding. I say we make him share some of it before some others get the same idea,” Mr. Latham said.
Tim agreed, and the two of them drove off, leaving the younger kids alone with Mrs. Latham. She had still not said a word to anyone. She just hugged her daughter and kept looking over at the little body that lay under the blanket.
Alex took charge and got them all a sandwich and a warm Coke. Charlie wouldn’t eat. When night came, they went inside, anxious to hear the sound of the men returning. Eventually, worn out from a day of intense emotions, they fell asleep. Hunter and Alex snuggled together on the floor while the other children slept in the bed with Mrs. Latham.
When they awoke, they were dismayed to find that Alex’s dad and Tim had still not returned. They didn’t know what to do. The air outside was smoky and the sky was really overcast. They were not sure what time of the day it was, but the two boys decided to go find Mr. Maples. He lived near the school and they were happy to find that his log cabin was still intact, and Mr. Maples was carrying in books from his car.
“Boys, I am so relieved to see that the two of you are alive and apparently uninjured. Come, sit down and rest and tell me what has happened with you,” the young man said.
The boys sat on his porch and told their sad story, spilling out their worries and fears while their teacher shook his head and offered words of condolence. At the news about Tim’s and Mr. Latham’s absence, he said, “I don’t know if their going out there was a good idea. A lot of desperate and frightened people probably had the same idea, and McCarter probably won’t give up his hoard easily. Still, we have to keep our hopes up, don’t we?
“Listen, boys, I’ve been thinking for some time now about what to do if times get really dark for us. Do you remember the Foxfire books that we talked about in class? Well, I retrieved those and some other good survivalist books, just in case we need them, and it looks like we just might. If you want to help, we can figure out what native plants are edible and how to maybe snare some wild game to eat. We may have to go back to living like our ancestors, living without electricity or luxuries. Do you think we can do it?”
He purposely spoke with a sense of excitement, hoping to bring the boys out of their depression for a bit. It worked, and they started talking about how to survive the old-fashioned way.
Mr. Maples told them that the school was not safe to enter, especially since the last big quake, so they could have school at his house if they wanted.
With something to look forward to, the boys headed back to Alex’s. The men were still gone, and Alex’s mother was acting strange. She was talking to herself under her breath, muttering words that they couldn’t make out. She puttered around the RV, folding clothes, putting things away, and wiping things down all as if she was in a trance. Alex asked Hunter if he would help him bury the baby. They needed to do it since Alex’s dad wasn’t there and his mom wouldn’t be able. They dug a small grave out behind the fallen house and laid the baby in it, wrapped in her blanket.
Alex said, “I know that the preacher says that babies are born in sin, but I don’t believe it for a minute. There is no way little Karen is anywhere except in Heaven. I don’t need to say a prayer over her, not to ask God to receive her, because she is there already. I’m just so sorry that she got taken so young.”
They reverently covered her over and went back inside to eat something and try to take care of the others. It looked like they were the men of the house, at least until Tim and Mr. Latham returned. The next day, Betty got little Charlie to eat something at last. He still wouldn’t speak, but now he wandered around the yard, looking lost, his thumb between his lips.
The boys left Betty to watch Charlie and little Ruth and went back to Mr. Maples to start writing out a plan for survival. Since it was only April, no one had planted a garden yet. Most people still practiced home canning and had put up shelves of jars of green beans, tomatoes, and other things from the previous year’s harvest. Unfortunately, those jars were made of glass, and few would have survived the quakes. Most people these days had a deep freeze which they filled with meats and vegetables, but without electricity to keep them frozen they wouldn’t last long. Many of those freezers would be buried under rubble anyway.
Cattail roots, wood sorrel, wild onions, walnuts and hickory nuts, Morel mushrooms, dandelion greens and young poke, were things that were available in the wild and they spent time collecting the things they could find. It didn’t make an appetizing array, but Mr. Maples assured them that it would keep them alive.
When they returned to the RV, they found Charlie and Alex’s sister, Ruth, playing in the dirt. There was no one else around. They called out for Alex’s mom and for Betty and they searched frantically for them. Finally, they found Mrs. Latham. She was lying in the baby’s grave, her dead infant in her arms. Alex threw himself at her, trying to rouse her, but Hunter could see that she was dead. There was an empty pill vial by her side. Her stiffness told him that she had been dead for hours. Alex screamed and hugged her until he was exhausted. Hunter wanted to comfort him, but he needed to find Betty.
He went back to Charlie and said, “Charlie, where’s Betty? Where’s Betty, Charlie? Answer me, Charlie, tell me. Where’s your sister?” He shook the boy, but it was no use. He couldn’t speak.
Finally, four-year-old Ruth, said, “The man took her away.”
“What man, Ruth? What man?”
“In the car. She got in the car. She was crying.”
Hunter felt sick. He prayed for Tim to return and take this burden from his shoulders. He looked over at Alex, sobbing over his mother’s body and knew that he couldn’t help. The only one he could think to turn to was Mr. Maples again, so he took Charlie and Ruth by the hand and walked as quickly as he could, back to see his teacher. When he spilled out his fearful story to his friend, Mr. Maples wrapped him in his arms and tried to comfort him.
“Hunter,” he sighed, “The whole world has gone crazy. Let’s get in the car and go see about Alex. Then we will drive around and look for your sister, but I don’t hold out much hope. Everyone is seeing to their own families and there probably won’t be much hope. Disasters bring out the best in some people, and the worst in others.”
When they saw Alex, he was shoveling dirt over his mother and the baby. His face was dirty but streaked with tears, and he choked back sobs as he worked. Mr. Maples took the shovel from him and finished the job while Hunter saw to his friend and the children. Then the tired crew drove around the neighborhood looking for a grey car. That was all that Ruth could help them with, and little help it was. Every other car was grey. With each passing moment, Hunter became more aware that their quest was useless. His sister was gone, and terrible things were happening to her.
They all went back to the teacher’s cabin and he settled them down with soup and he fixed a basin of wash water. He had the boys wash their siblings and then themselves while he prepared bedding for them all.
Everyone was glum the next day and things only got worse as people stopped by now and then with news. One of the most frightening and strange bits of news was that about ten miles west of them, there was now an ocean. Mr. Davis said that he had tried to get to Knoxville, but the city was gone. All that he could see was water, nothing but water.
Mr. Maples said that what had most likely happened was that the entire Tennessee Valley had been flooded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the east coast is also under water. We might find our mountains have become an island.”
Meanwhile, the sky was becoming increasingly dark and they could smell smoke from the other side of Bluff mountain. The mountain stood like a shield wall over their community. It was 3,000 feet high and was faced with sheer cliffs on their side. Hunter had always felt safe with the mountain guarding him. He used to say that their home was too high to flood, too far south to have real blizzards, too far from fault lines to have quakes. Now all that had changed. He was worried that the fires would sweep over them, that the ground would continue to shake, that they might find an ocean swallowing their yard.
For the next several days they tried to formulate a plan. Having given up their search for Betty, their biggest need was to stock up on food. Before foraging in the woods for plants, Mr. Maples decided to visit some of the devastated homes where no one was left alive, to try and find canned food or other supplies. He took Hunter with him, leaving Alex to look over the children.
They had already cleaned out Alex’s home and collected a good bit of food, fuel, candles and clothing, so now they went to the Gibson’s place. The smell of rotting bodies under the wreckage was getting strong, so they kept to the side of the house were the kitchen had been, not eager to see a corpse. It was hard work, still they managed to get some gasoline and some boxes of stuffing mix and mashed potatoes. Hunter remembered that his aunt had a root cellar, so they drug away some pieces of wood at the back of the house and uncovered the steps down to the door, which now hung crookedly. Most of the jars of preserved food had broken and spilled onto the vegetables below, but they rescued a lot of potatoes, cabbages, carrots and turnips that were still good, despite being six months old. It was a treasure that made them feel better.
The next day they visited a couple of other homes, but other people had the same idea. Neighbors who once had been friends now searched these abandoned homes jealously and showed firearms to enforce their claims. The teacher and the boy drove on, leaving the scavengers alone.
The next day, ash began to fall from the sky. It looked like grey snow as it began to accumulate on the grass and trees. Mr. Maples said that there must be volcanoes erupting somewhere. “It’s strange, because there are no known volcanoes anywhere near us. The breaking of the earth must have created new fissures and vents. I hope it’s far enough away, so we don’t get buried like Pompei.”
It was a relief when that afternoon the sky began to rain. It washed away the ash, although it made some ugly mud, and it also extinguished the fires on the mountain. Unfortunately, some of the wild plants that they had been hoping to harvest were beaten down and ruined.
On the positive side, the five of them were safe for the time being. There was no electricity, but they had candles and kerosene lamps for light. The cabin had a fireplace, a wood stove, and a well with a hand pump. At least they could cook, stay warm and have water. They could fill the tank on the toilet so they could flush it. There was also a variety of books and Mr. Maples would tell them stories at night.
The world around them continued to fall apart and they were shocked at the speed with which the people around them seemed to forget that they were once civilized. Fear, and an overwhelming sense of doom, seemed to cloud everyone’s judgment, and they clung to the philosophy of every man for himself. Starving people from outside the community began to wander in, begging, threatening, and stealing what they could. Mr. Maples took to guarding their cabin with a shotgun. He didn’t have many shells, but it was a good enough threat to scare off the few souls that came near them. He had the boys take turns at guard duty too.
They were all hungry, trying to ration their supplies and hoping that aid would come someday. There were a few neighbors who remained somewhat sane, and they stopped by to visit now and then. They were lonely and needed human contact and a little food. Little Charlie had not spoken since the big quake. He was almost catatonic, except that he would eat when told to. It grieved Hunter to see his brother in such a state, but he was helpless to cure him. Little Ruth cried a lot and said that she was hungry.
After a several weeks, when the five of them were reduced to eating cattail roots, poke greens and bitter acorns, in order to stretch out their supply of potatoes and dried beans, Alex went out one day into the woods. He came back a few hours later carrying a can of peaches.
He looked dazed and sad. His walk was awkward, as if he was in pain, and Hunter could see that he had been crying. “Alex, where have you been? I’ve been so worried about you. What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“Heh, I-I got us some food, Hunter. See? Peaches. Ruthie loves peaches. I got them for her. I haven’t had peaches in a long time. You want some peaches, Hunter? Look, they look good, don’t they?” Alex sounded like he was confused and tired.
Hunter helped him back to the cabin and sat him down on the porch. He asked, “Can you tell me what’s wrong? Please, where did you get the peaches?”
Alex looked up at him and tried to focus. “The preacher,” he laughed. “The preacher will give us food. If we’re nice to him. He’s got food, Hunter. He only gives it to boys, though. He said I was pretty. Do you think I’m pretty, Hunter? Go get some food. It doesn’t hurt too much.”
Hunter began to cry, and he threw his arms around his boyfriend and held him tightly as he whispered, “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay. We will be okay, Alex. We will.”
Mr. Maples stood in the doorway, looking terribly angry. He had heard what Alex had said and he also felt like crying. He knelt and took the can from Alex’s hand and gave him a little hug. “Thank you very much for the food, Alex. But promise me that you won’t get anymore of it from the preacher, okay?”
Hunger was all they could think about. The search for food became their main occupation. Because there was so much ash in the sky it blocked out the sun and plants were not growing as they should. Everyone had lost a lot of weight, and their clothes hung on them. Hunter was desperate to find something for them to eat and one morning he heard something on the porch outside. When he looked, he saw a dog, a mutt whose ribs were visible through its thin fur. He called it and held out his hand. “Here boy, here boy. Come on.”
The dog approached cautiously and sniffed his hand, hoping for a morsel of food, but Hunter had only one thing in mind. Here was protein. Food. He wrapped his hands around the dog’s neck and began to squeeze, trying to kill it. The dog was weak and whimpered as it felt its life going, but still it fought as much as it could. Then Hunter realized what he was doing and let the animal go. Sobbing, he said, “Go on, boy. Get out of here. Go on now. I’m sorry. Run…, run away.”
He chased the mongrel away and sat down to pull himself together.
One day a ragged looking boy stood at the edge of the yard and called out, “Hello to the house.”
Mr. Maples looked around to see if he was alone and invited him up. He was happy to get a bowl of thin soup to eat, and after he relaxed a bit, he said that his name was Gilbert. He was sixteen and as skinny as the rest of them. Gilbert said that he had been walking for days, since his family had been killed. He had no idea where to go or what to do, so he just wandered along.
“I’ve been really scared, but now I’m scared to death. There’s people out there who are eating other people. I try to steer clear from most people, but you looked like you’d be okay.”
“I wondered how long it would take for game to be hunted out. I haven’t seen a deer in weeks, and only a few squirrels. Come to think of it, I don’t see dogs or cats now either, but I can’t believe things have gotten so desperate that they are resorting to cannibalism,” the teacher said. “We don’t have much food ourselves, but we will share it if you will help us keep guard. It looks like now we need all the help we can get.”
Gilbert was a quiet guest, saying little except that he was tired and hungry. After a thin dinner that evening Mr. Maples settled everyone down and read them a story. He was in the middle of The Hobbit when Gilbert fell asleep on the floor. Soon, the others dozed off too. Their energy levels were very low, and they were tired a lot. The teacher stood guard for the first shift.
The next day, Hunter and Alex went out to gather fiddleheads from a stand of ferns that could be eaten raw. They hoped to find some crawfish from the creek to boil up. They hadn’t gone far, only about a hundred yards, when they heard a scream from the cabin. They raced back to find Mr. Maples running across the yard toward the trees. He was carrying the shotgun and screaming “Stop! Stop now! I’ll shoot you!” But he didn’t shoot. The boys saw Gilbert entering the trees with little Charlie slung over his shoulder. A group of dirty looking men stood just inside the trees, waiting. They had rifles and pointed them at the teacher. He had to stop. He couldn’t shoot without hitting Charlie and he was certain the men would shoot him if he continued.
Hunter arrived in time to hear Charlie finally speak. He screamed out, “Hunter…” as he was carried away. The men laughed and ran down the hill into the thick forest. Hunter frantically began to race after them, but Mr. Maples stopped him and hugged him tightly to hold him back.
“No, Hunter. Wait. I’ll go after them. Wait for a bit and I’ll track them. It looks like they’re leaving a clear trail. I’ll bring Charlie back. Don’t you worry.”
But the teacher was worried. He didn’t want to tell Hunter, but he was almost certain that these were the cannibals that Gilbert had talked about. He was just a scout, conning them into letting him in their home so he could steal a child. He hoped that he would be able to reach their camp in time to save the boy. If not, he was going to kill some bastards.
Hunter felt defeated. He had failed to keep his brother and sister safe, and now they were both gone. He staggered to the porch, too exhausted to even cry. He was in shock.
Mr. Maples waited until the gang could get far enough ahead that they wouldn’t hear him following. He had been raised in the area and had spent a lot of time stalking game with his father when he was young. He had gone about two miles when he heard voices ahead. He slowed down and tried to approach without making any noise. Darting from tree to tree, trying to get close enough to see without being seen, he saw a clearing ahead. The ruins of the Wallace house sat rotting at the back of the lot, while several men and women fiddled with something in the yard. There was a fire pit that looked heavily used and was still smoking. A wooden structure, looking something like goal posts, stood nearby with a table beside it. A human leg was hanging from the structure.
He could hear Charlie crying and calling for Hunter. The sound tormented the man and he shook with fury. He tried to see the boy, but Charlie was surrounded by three women. Then Charlie shrieked and Mr. Maples saw a jet of blood shoot into the air. They had slit the child’s throat.
“Git it hung up, so it’ll bleed out,” one of the men snarled. Mr. Maples lost it. He raised his shotgun and blasted the group of women. Two of them fell, but he was already pumping out another cartridge, and then another. He saw Gilbert running across the yard and he dropped him with a loud blast and a sense of satisfaction. It was then that he felt like a hammer had hit him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him. “I’ve been shot,” was his last thought.
The boys waited anxiously at the cabin for their leader to return. When night came, they began to realize that there would be no good news. Mr. Maples and Charlie were not coming back.
It was hard to describe their feelings. So many terrible things had happened to them, so much death and loss, that they were left drained and exhausted. They were lost and had no idea what to do now, so they sat and did nothing. Hunter was afraid to go to sleep that night. Exhaustion again knocked him out at some point and when he woke up the next morning, he was alone. Alex and Ruth were gone. He was afraid that hunger had driven Alex back to the preacher, so he immediately ran after his lover to stop him.
The church was two miles away, so it took a bit to get there. He was so tired that he couldn’t walk very fast. It seemed to take forever to get there. The preacher had blasted the community with damnation, claiming that God was punishing them all for their iniquity and faithlessness. It was almost funny to see that the church had fallen down. Apparently, the preacher had not been holy enough either. The parsonage was mostly intact, and Hunter slipped up to the window to look inside. Alex was there with Ruth. They were eating something with their heads down, cramming it into their mouths with both hands. In the dim light Hunter couldn’t see what it was until Alex raised his head for a moment and he could see that his friend’s face and hands were smeared with blood. Alex’s eyes met his and they looked like the eyes of a stranger. Hunter started to shout at him, but then he saw that over on the floor lay the body of the preacher with his stomach was cut open. Alex and Ruthie were eating his liver. He let out a horrified wail and turned away.
It was the last thing that Hunter could take. The person he loved most in the world was lost now. He turned and with leaden steps he plodded back to the cabin. It felt as if he had a rock in his stomach, where his heart had been there was now nothing. Just an empty hollow space. Hunter took a knife from the kitchen and went to the porch. He sat in the old rocking chair and used the knife to open his wrists. It hurt, but he welcomed the pain. At least he felt something. The cuts ached and throbbed as the blood poured out onto the wooden floor. He quickly became drowsy, but as he faded away, he heard a song playing in his head. It was REM’s song, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It… and I Feel Fine.”
End of the world scenarios are widespread. They don’t always end well for the protagonists. Here is one such tale. Let Parker know your thoughts: ParkerSheaffer at CastleRoland dot Net.
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