A Brave, Dead World
Chapter 1 - The Wilderness
Twilight had set in on the little hamlet of Hawthorne. A palette of natures most beautiful colors spread out above the landscape until it was swallowed into the distant horizons or met by the tree line of the nearby forest. Early fall had settled in already, turning the colors of the leaves with it's chilly, nightly tinge.
In another time, lights would have speckled the buildings as viewed from the hilltop at the end of the town. All the that could be seen in the dim light now was the moss and kudzu creeping up the sides of the buildings; the forest's attempt to reclaim what was taken from it many years ago. Trees and shrubs, left unchecked for probably decades, rooted themselves in the oddest places. Still, after all was said and done, it was still a serene sight to behold.
On that hilltop which once bared witness to the town stood a man wrapped in a tattered fur. A small grove of trees raised themselves just above the tall, yellow grass that enveloped the rest of the hilltop. As the last rays of sunlight crept below the horizon, the man sighed and shook his head. His steps were heavy as he made his way into the center of the grove.
Already, under the canopy of branches, night had fallen in his little sanctuary. There was a certain tree he was looking for, but it was easy to find having been engrained in his memory over several years. Chuckling to himself, the man wrapped his arms around a young oak tree. With a grunt he began to scale up it's side, his backpack and fur shifting to either side of him as he made his ascent. A good ways off the ground, a good sized branch snaked it's way into the heart of a thicket of pine trees. The man inhaled deeply, savoring the scent as it had been a few seasons since he had last encountered it.
Once the branch pierced the pine needles and limbs, the man entered a den of sorts. Branches from the pine trees intertwined with each other to make a sturdy floor. The small spaces in between the them appeared to have the same pine needles and pieces of bark the man had left there last time he had been through, however he knew they would have to be replaced soon if they were to continue to conceal his little grotto from the ground if he lit a candle to read by.
It wasn't very big, but it gave him enough room to lay down and keep anything he could carry on him by his side. Pegs jutting from the tree itself, the remains of branches he had cut away long ago, made ideal places to hang his cloths and his backpack along with whatever else he could drape over them.
He laid the fur down next to him and stretched with a yawn. Body odor and the stale smell of dirt came to his nose;his long-sleeved flannel shirt and jeans hadn't been washed in ages. Hopefully, his undershirt was somewhat presentable. The rest of what few cloths he had were over a hundred miles away.
Absent-mindedly he swung his backpack around and began to rummage through it. Matches, a first aid kit, and several other small, necessary items littered the top of the bag. Setting most of these aside, he grinned when he picked up the shaving mirror. The razor was strapped to it with a couple of rubber bands, and after removing it he stared at himself for a moment. Wrinkles had began to spread across his features and into his shadowy stubble. Luckily, though, he didn't see any grey in his semi-long, matted, brown hair. How old was he now? Thirty-five or so? There was no telling. He hadn't been to a town with an accurate calendar in a couple of years, and had forgotten with the seasons his exact age. For now, he decided he would assign the arbitrary age of thirty-five to himself, in case anyone asked.
After setting down the mirror next to the razor, he pulled out perhaps his most valuable possession; a large pistol that made a big noise. Guns weren't his strong point. He had been young and very nieve when it was given to him. Several people had told him over the years that it was a .45, and whenever he came across a gunsmith he would barter to have it serviced, and buy bullets if he felt he needed to. Gunsmith. That was such an old word which had outlived it's use in the old world. Now, though, if you owned a gun store you would starve after a while. There was good business in guns, but only if you could work on them, and especially if you could manufacture your own bullets and shells.
The next item was something he liked to call his spring shot. On the outskirts of one of the old world's metropolitans, a place called Philadelphia, the man had spent the winter in a community that had managed to hold out against the new perils of the world. The people had named their little hole of the world Defiance, and he met an old man there, an inventor even.
Arthur, the old man, had built an invention which had served him well in the first years since the Fall, but he had grown too old and feeble to use it. The spring shot was shaped somewhat like a gun, except that the barrel was much larger. By rotating a disc on the back of it, one could adjust the metal pincers inside so that it could hold anything inside of it with a circumference of less than a half of an inch of that of the barrel. A handle in the back, when turned and pulled, would pull a spring back and would then allow loading of the weapon. After loading a projectile in it, whether it be a sturdy stick or perhaps even a rock, a quick pull of the trigger would open the pincers, release the spring, and send the projectile flying. It was amazing how sturdy it was built and how long it had lasted. It was well worth the chicken and the roll of wire he traded for it.
The man debated on lighting one of the candles he had and reading one of the old comic books he had found while searching a house a few days ago, but decided against it. Almost instinctively he set about his nightly routine. Out of the backpack he pulled out a piece of metal, tapering to a sharpened point, with leather straps on the bottom of it. Above these straps were small, metal o-rings which he could slide his fingers into. The steel was cold on the top of his hand as he strapped it, but it had a strange, soothing quality to it. The back of it was just wide enough to cover his arm below the elbow, and his fingers gripped it comfortably.
Exhaustion kept him from loading the spring shot, which he always did before laying down for the night. In the confines of his elevated grotto, the arm-blade should suffice. In the event that it didn't, the pistol should. Noise was something he like to avoid, but right then he was too tired to care.
He was careful to replace everything else into the backpack as quietly as he could. The crinkle of plastic caught his ear, and he removed a pack of jerky he had picked up a few towns back. It was salty and tough, exactly what anyone should expect out of jerky. It was nice to snack on, but he had began to rely on it more and more on his trips out into the wilderness. Packaged food with a long life was scarce, coming out of only a handful of towns. Even when you came upon one of these towns it was hard to acquire any unless you lived in the community which produced it or had a lot to trade for it.
A gentle tug lifted the canteen at his side out of it's pouch. After finishing the jerky, he opened it and put it to his lips, letting the water rush down his throat in gulps. In the new world fresh water was harder to come by. Most of the reservoirs, lakes, and rivers around and down stream of old world cities were contaminated. A greasy film covered the top, and even boiling the water to purify it wasn't a certainty. Normally he would be a little more conservative with his water supplies, but he knew of a lake a few miles away that was pure.
The man laid down and took one more swig of the water before capping the canteen and hanging it next to him. It was an eerie thing, the silence. A few crickets chirped off in the distance, but the immediate vicinity was deadly quiet. Something down the hill caught his ears. It was leaves rustling. One or two of them from the town had seen him atop the hill. At least one always did. With a smile, he scooted against the tree and closed his eyes. The sweet embrace of sleep was swift, and he never heard the low moans from below his little home in the trees.
XxXxXxXx
"Great," the man said sarcastically as he looked down on the small mob gathered below him. Having full intentions to sleep in since he had found relative safety, he wasn't in the best of moods when he had been awakened by the sun's first rays breaking across the east to the sound of excited moans from beneath him.
There were four of them, all of them heavily decayed. Were there anymore around, they would already have been underneath him. After deciding there wasn't any hurry, he began to study the creatures below him. After seeing so many of them in his lifetime, it was almost a hobby to watch them when they didn't pose an immediate threat.
Three women and a man. One of the women was completely nude, revealing her gory, sore-riddled body in all of it's glory. The few tatters and rags which clung to the other three must have resembled clothing at one time. He almost gagged when he noticed how much one of the women had decayed. While her arms and legs seemed to be intact, gaping holes in the flesh of her chest and stomach put what was left of her organs, now a gelatinous mush, on display. Having been empty, the socket of her left eye had became a black hole, beckoning him from down below.
Within a few seconds, the spring shooter was in his hands. A quick look inside the backpack under the pastel light of the early morning yielded four bundles of small metal cylinders. Without any sense of urgency, he began to unwrap one of the bundles and placed one of the cylinders inside the spring shot. A few twists of the disc and it was secured in place. Placing his right hand on the back of it, he twisted the handle and began to pull back. He jumped when one of the creatures let out a loud, rabid growl, causing him to let go of the handle before it was locked into place. He cursed as the cylinder sailed upwards into the sky.
After the initial aggravation had subsided, he repeated the process and turned the handle until it clicked into place. An eruption of growls and moans went out through the trees as he leaned over, taking a few minutes with his aim until one of them stayed still long enough. With a loud "thunk", the cylinder exited the spring shot and struck the naked woman in the head. It was a bit to the left, and the ease with which it passed through her head made him worry that it hadn't pierced the brain, but when she slumped to the ground he knew he had hit his mark.
He repeated the process three more times, and then nodded in approval at the bodies down below. Even after all this time, he still got a little anxious even being around the dead. However, he had come a long way since the Fall. Everyone had. It was a necessity.
Dreading the task of dragging the bodies away from his abode, the man took his time as he prepared breakfast. In all the excitement, he hard hardly noticed how chilly it had gotten while he slept until he noticed his breath materializing in front of him as he opened the pack of jerky. It wouldn't be long, he thought, until the sun's rays would be shining through the treetops.
Not satisfied with just the salty jerky, he dug through the bottom of his backpack until he found a small plastic jar containing some wild blackberries he had picked. It was very unusual for them to be ripe this time of the year, and the ones he had found were still a little off-colored, but the tangy sourness of unripened berries was better than none at all.
And so he sat down in his grotto, devouring his feast of jerky, berries, and water. In the surrounding trees a small choir of birds serenaded him. By the time he had finished breakfast the sun was shining through the limbs, allowing him to take off his over shirt. A quick sniff of the pine needles excited his senses as he stood up, holding the trunk of the tree with his right hand. For now, everything was perfect.
Finally, he put the pistol into his pocket after turning the safety on. A small rumble, barely audible to him, sounded when he dumped the contents of his bag onto the floor carefully. Last time he had been through those parts, a small community still existed on the other side of the town. After seeing the creatures that had wished to make him their next meal, he doubted they had moved into the town.
Three comic books he didn't really care for, a cloth wrapped around various nuts, bolts, nails, and wires, and two cigarette lighters went into his pack. It wasn't much for his first bartering expedition, but he hoped to pass through a couple of the houses at the edge of town. With any luck he should be able find enough odds and ends to keep his stomach full for a week or so without having to do too much hunting.
With that, he climbed out onto the branch. Surveying the area halfway across, he dropped his backpack to the ground with a thud once he was satisfied nothing else lurked around the grove. More than likely he could have dropped to the ground himself, but he was more cautious than that. All it would take out there was one mistake to lead to a slow painful death. Careful not to scrape his arm-blade on the bark, he climbed across the branch and down the oak tree.
Some people would have vomited being that close to the creatures, their stench seeming to grow worse with each second. He, like many others, had come to tolerate it. No one ever really got used to that smell, but it was tolerable after a while. After retrieving the metal cylinders that pierced the creatures skulls, he set them aside to be cleaned and boiled later and stomped on each one of their skulls. The vibrant sound of his whistling joined the birds' song as he grabbed what he figured was the heaviest of the four by the ankles and began to drag it down the hill.