The After

The July heat was sweltering today. It was still well before noon but the rivulets of sweat pouring down my face told me that work in the garden was done. I sighed, removed the gloves from my hands and carried the hoe into the shade of the porch. After taking a deep drink of the water from a jug I splashed some over my head, reveling in the immediate coolness trickling down my drenched scalp. I looked out over the rows of potatoes that still needed tending and resolved I would finish them first thing in the morning, I couldn’t risk the biggest crop I had being poor or even worse, failing.

The next few hours I did less strenuous chores. Feed the rabbits and chickens, check the horses and goats, wash the pan in the creek from the eggs I had for breakfast, pick herbs and string them up to dry and I really needed to finish covering the root cellar before it was time to harvest but I was already too exhausted today.

My days were full working alone to sustain myself and the small farm I had managed to scrape together after. I had read extensively as a hobby before and every book always cautioned to be wary in an after, that most humans were more likely to be a hindrance rather than a help when their own survival was at risk. I was glad for my caution in the beginning. Watching those men kill another man and take the woman with him screaming and kicking away in a car had hardened my resolve to ensure I could rely on myself and would never need to make a risky scavenge or seek out help where I might run into the wrong people.

I was meticulous in the beginning. I chose this place because I had read an article in the local paper about it when it was built years before. The first house in our small county that was “eco” and “self-sustaining”. There were solar panels that were enough to power most of the house when it was being used normally, but, since I had forgone the fridge for a root cellar in winter and a simple milk crate in the creek in summer to keep milk and butter cold through the day, used the smallest 32” TV in the house and only two lamps it was more than enough for my needs. It also had a water catchment system in place securing my need for water anytime the creek out back was too low or frozen over.

I also made a concerted effort to conceal my home. It was already set back from a main road, hidden easily by trees in the summer and barely noticeable even in the stark winter. But still, I took time early on in covering the gravel at the end of the driveway where it connected to the main road with a heavy layer of dirt ten feet back and now that it had had two summers to grow in it looked like every other overgrown weed covered road side.

Setting up the farm was more difficult than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated it’d be impossible alone.

The horses I found half starved in a nearby neighbor’s field. I was worried not having them fenced in they’d wander off but after I had led them over and kept them in the detached garage for a few days, when I finally let them out they seemed content to return to the garage at night and wander the fields and woods during the day.

I found chickens at another farm house nearby by chance one day. I watched them for three days to find where they roosted and one night crept up into the tree and shined a flashlight in their eyes, like I remember my grandmother doing in the barn when I was very little, before quickly grabbing them by their feet while they panicked in a flurry of feathers. I had caught only four that night but now had eight that reliably provided at least four eggs everyday.

The goats just showed up one day this summer sauntering through the field and right up to the porch like they were traveling salesmen. A billy, two nannies and a young kid. I hadn’t planned on seeking out goats but the fresh milk everyday was fantastic and I had so much I had already experimented with making butter and cheese.

The rabbits I found lingering around the feed store, I assume meant to be pets as they were more than willing to watch me walk straight to them and pick them up. I built a large pen for the three I found hoping I at least had one male and one female and was shortly rewarded with a litter of five kits. Once I discovered which one was the male I separated him periodically so that I wouldn’t be overrun with them. Although I had more than once taken some ten miles away and released them when the colony got too big in the pen. Between the eggs, milk and rabbits I had a steady source of protein, even if one of them provided my conscience difficulty in reaping.

The feed store turned out to be a godsend I hadn’t expected that first summer. Not surprisingly it had remained relatively untouched since I guess no one else thought to raid it for supplies before and I was free to sneak in one early morning and collect canning jars, and most importantly lids, to my hearts content in preparation to learn to store my own crops. I found seeds for almost anything I could wish to grow. I took them all even though I doubted I’d ever want to grow a lima bean. I also cleaned out their magazines and books, scouring them for articles and information on gardening, canning, animal care or anything that I could use to educate myself. I fastidiously marked anything that could be useful, especially planting and harvesting schedules and seed storage.

This was my first year of real pressure. The early months of the year I spent planning a garden and drawing a monthly calendar to keep me on track of when to plant and harvest certain crops and how often to tend them based on what I’d read and the small test crops I’d planted the year before. Two weeks were spent just deciding what hearty crops to grow that would provide the most yield with the least amount of work. I had spent the entire spring and summer in the garden, tending it fastidiously knowing that there was very little room for error. Although I still had stores of canned food I scavenged early on I knew the stocks were getting low and I desperately needed to start supplementing it with food I produced to make it stretch the following year just in case this years crop didn’t provide as much as I had calculated or too many of my canning jars failed to seal properly.

Dusk was setting in, blanketing the sky in deep russet oranges. I sat in a large plastic green tote soaking the days grime from my skin and enjoying the luxury of a bath that I rarely got to experience anymore. When I didn’t use it for laundry it was the perfect size to easily fill with creek water and fully submerge myself in. I thought about the Christmas Tree I had taken out of it when I found it in the attic and mused that this year I might actually put it up and decorate it.

Clean, or as clean as I ever felt when I didn’t have shampoo to wash my hair, I fried two more eggs for dinner over the small firepit near the creek. With the eggs, fresh spring onions from the garden and two slices of homemade bread with my third attempt at homemade goat butter, I went to bed that night with a full belly, sore back and a cautiously optimistic outlook on my little farm’s chances of making me self-sufficient this year.

I woke up the next morning earlier than usual, determined to finish tending the three rows of potatoes I had left before the day became unbearably hot.

Finishing the last row I looked up to the sky and was ecstatic that I had finished well before ten when the heat of the day threatened to cook me alive. I finished a few other chores easily enough and found myself sitting in the creek in the hottest part of the day staring at the root cellar that was on my list of next big job that needed finished. I knew it would take a least three days to put all the dirt back on top of the suspiciously shaky wooden roof I had built. I grimaced thinking about shovel after shovel full of dirt I would have to move in the late summer heat. I castigated myself for not finishing it in the spring when I had planned to, but, the rain had made digging it such a muddy and miserable chore I couldn’t bring myself to finish it fully.

I laid down in the creek staring up at the tree limbs above me. It was so shallow where I was that it was barely two inches high. I let the cool water run over my back and suddenly became very frustrated thinking about not having had shampoo for months. It wasn’t a priority when I had scavenged before so I didn’t stock pile it like other things. The soap I used for my body and laundry had given me horrible itchy dandruff the one time I tried to use it in my hair. The dish soap had been even worse. Thinking about being filthy over the next few days shoveling dirt made me even more annoyed at not being able to feel completely clean after working so hard.

I stood up quickly, my wet hair and clothes dripping as I stormed off into the house and grabbed my backpack. I was going to get shampoo right now, I deserved it. I worked my ass off just to scrape by and no one could fault me for wanting to want some semblance of normality again.

After watching the small pharmacy for about thirty minutes I cautiously made my way around the back and found the back door lock already pried open. I could only hope they came for drugs and not shampoo. The back door stayed open of its own accord and I left it that way, preferring to have the extra light in the dark back room.

I cautiously peeked around the corner and crept slowly through the aisles just to make sure someone or something hadn’t taken up residence. Finding a family of racoons in a gas station once had literally scared the piss out of me. And while it was funny to look back on now I didn’t want any surprises today.

I did my shopping as usual, finding what I wanted and taking it to the counter to sort through what was most important and would fit in my backpack at the end.

I stood staring at the haul and excitedly started packing it away. Lots of luxuries and I was happy for it. They’ve been few and far between for me after.

After. Such a strange word on its own. But, it’s what I had come to call the time after everyone died three years ago. A wave of death in a matter of weeks, something airborne that killed everyone who didn’t have the gene mutation that made them immune. A mysterious illness that they were only able to name MR-223 before it swept the globe like a biblical plague. They were working on a cure furiously but within three weeks everyone I knew was dead. After four weeks the news stopped, reporting in the last that it was catastrophic levels of death and that survivors should seek each other out in hopes of continuing humanity. The two weeks prior was pure societal chaos that I’d rather forget.

I shook the memory from my head and stared down at my loot for the day. Three bottles of shampoo, four tubes of toothpaste and a pack of new toothbrushes, Band-Aids and gauze, two bottles of alcohol, magazines I knew I didn’t have at home. I even found three books in the back break area that I greedily packed away immediately, excited for anything new to read over winter. I resolved in that moment to try to find a bookstore close enough to scavenge before the first snow fell. I topped off the bag with all the chapsticks and lighters I could find in the store. I was zipping up the backpack and about to heave it over my shoulder when I heard a gunshot just outside.

I panicked. It had been a year since I even saw another person from a distance and now I hear gunshots? Maybe it’s just someone hunting nearby. I quickly crawled under the shelving unit nearby, already knowing that unless they knew where to look they wouldn’t find me. Regardless, my heart beat was drumming loudly in my ears and my breathing was becoming erratic.

A shot rang out again and I heard the glass at the front of the store shatter. I heard footsteps over the glass coming closer to me then suddenly I saw someone fall directly in front of me on the floor. I peeked through the slat and covered my mouth with my shaking hand, willing myself not to scream.

It was a man, blood staining his pants ,and he wasn’t moving.

“Jones stop running!” A mans voice, then laughing.

I heard the yell from the street and watched as the man pulled his arms under him and tried to lift himself up before failing and falling back to the ground, his head slamming hard on the floor.

Something in me told me to save him. I refused to take the risk and didn’t move. The gut feeling I had intensified, telling me he’s not the bad guy. Before I knew it I had crawled from my hiding spot and was crouching over him.

I grabbed him by his ragged shirt to pull him close to the shelving unit. I pushed him under it and thankfully he didn’t make a sound. How was he so heavy though!? I sat down, braced with my arms behind me and all but kicked him under the rest of the way before scrambling under the shelving unit across the aisle.

I heard them calling from the front of the store.

“Come on Jones! You know we’ll come in there and finish you off! Just come out so we don’t waste our time! We know you only got the one bullet for the hunt!”

I heard the broken glass crunch under their weight as they moved into the store. How many of them were there?!

I glanced up and through the slat could see my backpack sitting behind the counter where I’d dropped it. Shit, shit, shit! I had left the back door open, with any luck they’d think he ran out it and into the woods and not think twice about the backpack.

Just then their boots came into my view and I stopped breathing. They walked quickly through and to the back, I counted them. One, two, three sets of feet. As quickly as they appeared they had disappeared, I assumed out the open back door.

Too scared to move I simply waited.

Then I heard their voices from the front of the store again.

“We have to kill him.”

“He’s been running all morning. With that shot he’s as good as dead anyway, let him rot in the woods for what he did.”

For hours I waited. The moonlight flooded in through the front of the store before I dared to do more than breathe. I crept to the feed store I knew well only a few storefronts down and came back with a yard cart. I carefully pulled him out from under the shelf and used my flashlight to look him over. He was still breathing. The wound on his leg looked nasty and I took a moment to get a shirt from the front of the store, one supporting a local woman who’d been on the most recent Survivor season, to wrap around his leg tightly. With a lot of effort I pulled him into the cart, his legs dangling over the side almost touching the ground. I put on my backpack and began pulling the cart through the aisles and with one last look before leaving I pulled the cart behind me into the alley. I knew I had to make it home before sun up, I was terrified the men would come back looking for him the next morning and find me on the road nearby. I gritted my teeth and tried not to think about the long walk back to the house.

So much for no surprises today.