Survival once required strength, skill, experience, practice, maturity, focus, work-ethic. But sometime in the 19th century, living just meant you were not unlucky.

[Jeffrey Scarlett's journal, August 2012]

Jeff sipped Black Label scotch in his rocking chair and reflected on his position. The world seemed to be on the verge of apocalypse, but John was an able bodied man in the world's wealthiest country. He also had the advantage of starting in the small country town a Malcom. A small shock of adrenaline rang through his stomach and chest. But then, a single shot rang out. He knew from experience that someone had shot a shotgun a block away.

Having worked in prisons, and seen the trouble then men get into with firearms, Jeff realized that in any other place at any other time, upon hearing a gunshot you should hit the ground. But due to the strange reports of assaults executed by the unarmed, and brotherly attitude in Malcom, he grabbed his .537 shotgun from the basement. He had to spend almost a minute just digging through the basements desk drawer to find his keys to his gun closet (he had not fired one of his weapons for a decade.

He shoved some shells in his cargo shorts and sprinted out into the hottest of Georgia summer nights. With his heart beating at 135 beats per minute (he had a pretty good sense of this as a crisis manager) it felt great to sprint. He had not had a reason to run for many years. He had to keep readjusting his grip on the forestock because his hand slipped down the slick wood.

He turned his block's corner to where he thought the shot had come from. But, unlike in the movies, and as he had learned in his basic weapons training, a situation does not always present itself quickly and clearly:

He saw no gun, but rather a bleeding man groaning softly with an array of shotgun pellets in his thigh, pelvis, and torso. The man leaned against a rusty pickup.

He ran to the man. To not look for the source of the problem or considering the danger he was entering did not follow procedure. But Jeff had little regard for himself.

He hugged the ground by the wounded, shielding his torso and head behind the front tire. He saw the barrel of a shotgun, which looked like the shotgun based on the width of the barrel. It pointed toward him as the shape of a head began to appear under the car.

His hero instincts, the instincts of the young egotist told him to shoot. But twenty years of developing the mental maturity of a civilized adult, of valuing others as much as he did himself had quieted his impulses enough to consider the situation.

He moved his fingers off of the trigger and onto the guard, so that his trembling finger would not accidentally fire.

A whimpering on the other side began, and eventually formed the words, "Oh Gawwwwsh. Sorry. Don' shoot!" The voice was familiar.

If he had cared more about himself, he would have asked the man to drop his gun. But instead, he popped out from the car with his .537 pointed to the ground.

His supervisor at the State Hospital popped out from the car. "Sam!" Jeff exhaled. "What?"

Jeff ran to the wounded. Jeffrey noticed that the wounded looked strikingly similar to Sam.

The man looked Jeff right in the eyes. "Cousin Tommy, you're back!"

Jeff began to turn around to ask Sam what happened, but he felt the muzzle of a dull crack back of his head before he had the chance to see his face.