SDN In the Sea of Time

[Academia Nut]

So this what-if RAR thread infected me with an idea that I just had to write out. After a bit of refinement with others and then some discussion in the Writer's Forum, I present to you the first chapter in what will hopefully be an interesting collaborative work. I already know of someone else working on their own stuff and another potential author. This chapter is a bit slower and introspective than

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Date Unknown

Cobbled paving stones. I had never seen cobbled paving stones before, not outside of pictures. Yet, shivering in the shorts and t-shirt I had been wearing about the house when I had been struck by a strange exhaustion, I now also knew the feel of autumn cooled cobblestones beneath my feet. It seemed strange to fixate on that fact, but my mind was still trying to sort things out, trying to recover from the sudden change in location.

All around me I could see others doing as I had done, waking up from where they lay on the ground, blinking at the grey sky above and stumbling about like ghosts freshly risen from the dead. Everyone was strange, just as the place was strange. They were like the cobblestones, something I had never seen in person before, alien yet understandable.

Just as I had woken up before others, others had woken up before me and some had begun to explore this strange yet strangely familiar place. In the distance, someone began to shout, drawing our attention, causing those of us standing and not helping others to their feet to lurch forward, unthinking zombies following the cries of a B-movie survivor.

I joined them, my feet slapping off the cold stone of the cobbles as I moved for the source of the sound. Confusion was palpable about me, almost a smell, almost like fresh fish. I paused for a moment to sniff the air, and I did detect a definite charge to the air, something physically present. It niggled at my mind, a scent within my repository of memories but not one I could immediately place.

Stumbling out of the cluster of low, old-fashioned buildings that separated us from the source of the commotion, we who had stumbled along all stared blinking at what we saw. A large marina filled with watercraft of nearly every description, including a massive sailing ship, spread out before us, and hundreds of people were starting to gather in before it. There was already an argument between several people, incomprehensible shouting at this distance, but one word carried up, over the din, with the greatest frequency.

Nantucket.

I blinked and looked around once more. It was impossible to believe I was here, but just looking at the architecture, I could believe that we were in Nantucket. That scent I thought I had smelled earlier had to be the sea. There were surely also signs out that would point to this being Nantucket. However, aside from the confused, improperly dressed masses, there was no one. There should be more people, the ones in the darkened shops and homes of this place. There was just confusion and shouting.

And fear. I feel anxiety starting to well up within me, panic beginning to grip my heart in an iron grip. I start to take large, deep breathes to try to calm the pounding in my chest, but just when it feels like I am going to explode a familiar, if unexpected voice, breaks through the noise of the milling and growing crowd.

“Brendan! Brendan!” The distinct voice of my friend Joe says, snapping me out of my growing freak out, at least for a moment. Bringing my head up from staring down at my bare feet, I see him moving towards me, dressed only a little more sensibly in a t-shirt, jeans, and socks. Moving through the crowd with experience born in mosh pits, he quickly reaches me.

Licking my lips to try to get some moisture flowing from my tongue, I just stare at him for a moment to try to make sure he is real before I say, “Joe? What the fuck are you doing here?”

Shaking his head, Joe says, “Fuck me if I know man. What about you?”

“Not a clue man, not a fucking clue. Do you have any idea who all of these people are?” I ask, gesturing to the crowd that is starting to force its way further into the marina with its size.

“Some of ‘em seem familiar... kind of... but I couldn’t tell you man. You just fall asleep and then wake up here too?” He asks.

I nod and say, “Yeah, but I’m normally a lazy ass, so wanting to take a midday nap doesn’t seem that odd. Waking up in Nantucket... yeah, that was really fucking weird.”

Now amongst the crowd a new bit of information was starting to circulate. Apparently, none of the buildings had power and even the water did not work right. The fear and anxiety of the crowd began to undergo metamorphosis into the panic of a mob. Sensing this, one large, fit looking man with an obviously military style haircut had managed to seize a bullhorn from somewhere in the marina and announced to the crowd, “Attention everyone, attention! I know you are all scared, having just woken up without knowing what’s going on, but we need to remain calm so we can figure out what has happened.”

Some people in the crowd seemed to want to get angry, to decry the man for not having any authority over them, but fear weighed more heavily than anger at the moment and the fact that someone was trying to take control seemed to put many at ease. After a bit of grumbling from the crowd the man announced, “Several people are already moving to get into contact with the mainland. Once we have that we can get the authorities in on the scene to sort everything out, get us all home. So for now, just relax, okay?”

From the crowd there was vigorous nodding, but also something else. A low-level babble of different languages permeated the air. Not everyone in the group could speak English and they were looking to find out what was going on from anyone who could understand and translate.

I felt the panic start to rise again, and I turned to Joe and said, “Hey, Joe? I think we really need to get out of here.”

Smirking, Joe nodded and said jovially, “Yeah man, I know what you mean. I have a midterm tomorrow.”

Shaking my head, I state more seriously, “No, I mean get away from this area, away from this crowd. Something’s wrong, and I don’t mean the obvious of waking up in Nantucket with no recollection of how we got here.”

Joe thought this over before a large frown spread over his habitually grinning face. Serious now, he nodded and said, “You’re right man, something’s not right. Let’s get away from this crowd.”

Turning away from the collection of people in front of a collection of boats, I stopped dead in my tracks as I caught sight of another face I really hadn’t expected to see. Weakly at first I shouted out, “Jon! Jon!” while waving, but when my friend did not see me I inflated my lungs and then shouted out at full volume, “JON!” I caught his attention.

Startled, he turned and caught sight of me. For a moment he disappeared back into the crowd, but I continued to wave, Joe taking up the effort as well once I said, “I know that guy!” and in about a minute Jon managed to slip out.

“Brendan! What the frak are you doing here?” Jon asked, to which I could only shrug and say, “Trying to get away from this crowd.”

“Who’s your friend dude?” Joe asked.

“Joe, Jon. Jon, Joe. This will become interesting in short order, reminds me of my MSN contacts list when I have Joe and Joseph on at the same time,” I replied, feeling slightly out of place by it all. I’m the sort of person who maintains distinct sets of friends who rarely meet, so having two friends from two different groups in contact under such unusual circumstances completely disoriented my social compass.

Joe and Jon looked at each other for a moment and I could see Jon wondering how I became friends with Joe. Of the three of us, Jon and I were probably the more similar two, both definite nerdy types: clean shaven, a bit more roundness to the middle than was entirely necessary, and not the most imposing of musculatures. Joe on the other hand was taller than me but lankier, while being the quintessential metal head, sporting long brown hair and facial hair directly inspired by Lemmy from Motörhead.

“Introductions for later, more people are showing up and I want to get the hell out of here before we get boxed in,” I reply. Normally timid, I must admit that when I want to go somewhere I’m the sort to bull ahead and just go where I want. Admittedly, what I really wanted to do was to find a nice corner to curl up in to have a panic attack, but life isn’t always fair.

It took us but a few minutes to get out of the crowd, away from the people into the eerily deserted streets. We went on like this for a few minutes more before Joe finally said, “Hey man, we’re out of the crowd now. Now what?”

I turned back to him, a grim look on my face but my hands visibly shaking. Running a tongue like sandpaper over my teeth, swallowing to try and get some saliva going, I looked between my two friends and said, “I… I don’t know guys. I really don’t know. We just need to get away. Far away, and I’m looking for something… something…”

Jon was visibly taken aback by my response. I had never really opened up like this in front of him. Joe, not so much as the circumstances of our initial meeting and future friendship had their basis on me losing my mind. Joe’s face softened a bit, becoming more sympathetic and he said, “Dude, just calm down, we’ll all figure this out together.”

Clutching my head at the flurry of conflicting thoughts and emotions as I teetered on the edge of a breakdown, something finally clicked and I practically shouted, “A woodpile! I’m looking for a house with a woodpile!”

Both Joe and Jon looked at me crazy for a moment before I added on, “There’s no power right? And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m freezing my fucking balls off out here, to say nothing of my feet. We find a house with a woodpile in the back we can set up a nice fire and get some warmth going.”

Enlightenment dawned on their faces and they both nodded. Joe said, “Good idea man!” while Jon chimed in, “I know how to light a wood fire.”

I nodded, the panicked pounding in my chest subsiding while my brain flooded with feelings of self-congratulation. I also quietly weighed telling them the somewhat more sociopathic reason I was looking for a woodpile. A woodpile implied not just a fireplace or stove but an axe; an axe that could serve as a weapon if it came down to it.

It took us about five minutes to spot a small woodpile in the back of a house that looked like it was at least a hundred years old, but I waved it off, insisting that it was too small while really I was thinking that it was too close to the centre of town and the milling crowds.

Having exited the cobbled streets and moved onto modern pavement, my feet were numb from cold and moving across the hard stones barefoot, and I could tell that Joe and Jon were in similar shape. Finally we spotted a better candidate, a larger, two story house that looked older than the last one with a wood pile. Approaching cautiously like bandits afraid of getting caught, we looked about until finally I said, “Someone knock on the door.”

Joe and Jon looked at me like I’d grown a second head for a moment before I looked down at my dirty, battered feet and said, “I’m shy, okay?”

Joe just shook his head and went up to the door, pounding on it hard and shouting out, “Hey, anybody home?”

After about ten seconds of no response from this we shrugged and Jon said, “Let’s see if they have a hidden key somewhere around here.”

After a few minutes of searching and finding nothing, we all decided that we’d had enough of the cold and circled about to the back of the house where a small shed stood next to the woodpile, locked up by a keyed padlock. We looked at it for a few moments before finally I say, “I think we’ll have to break in.”

“With what?” Jon asks, pointing out our rather decrepit state.

Looking about, I pick up a chunk of wood and move to take a swing at the lock before I pause and look at the sectioned piece of log and then hang my head in defeat, saying, “It would probably be easier to break into the house through one of the windows than try and break into this shed, wouldn’t it?”

Both my friends look at me a little strangely before Jon asks, “Why would you want to break into the shed?”

“I was thinking we could get the axe that’s got be in there out and use it to break into the house,” I admit.

“Bit of an unnecessary step here, isn’t it?” Joe points out.

I nod sheepishly and say, “Hence why I stopped. Come on, let’s just get inside.”

Getting inside quickly proves a little trickier than originally envisioned as none of us have ever done a break and enter and we are not dressed for dealing with glass, so deciding not to try to not get glass in our eyes we resorted to throwing the chunk of wood at the window, watching it bounce off a few times dishearteningly before it finally hit solidly with a good throw from Joe and smashed through.

Taking another piece of wood we punched out the remaining shards of glass about the window and then helped Joe, who was probably the most appropriately dressed for dealing with glass on the floor, get through the window. After about a half a minute the closest door swung open and Joe said expansively, “Welcome in boys, grab a seat!”

“I think if I’m going to break into someone’s house under these circumstances, I think I’m going to grab some socks, pants, and a sweater first,” I reply, to which both Jon and Joe nod a thoughtful assent to.

We quickly move through the house, finding it indeed completely without power, and I can’t help but feel a bit of a guilty wave wash over me for intruding into someone else’s home. Unfamiliar furniture, unfamiliar layout, even an unfamiliar smell sets me ill at ease. Picture’s of a stranger’s family sit on the walls and mantles, smiling faces of people I get the sinking feeling I will never know.

Now that my mind is no longer focused entirely on its prior mission of finding shelter, it begins to bubble and churn again, the realistic portion falling sway to the part that lies in bed in the middle of the night wondering what lurks in the shadows, but this time the rational part could not find fault in the fantastical imaginer’s logic. What had happened went beyond explanation. Something had gathered us all up and placed us here at the expense of the people of Nantucket, and the rational explanation was that whatever had done it was beyond our understanding.

I could feel my body begins to tremor again as the ideas in my head feed upon each other, magnifying and amplifying into increasingly horrible thoughts. Before it could reach a critical mass, something caught my eye and interrupted the process. Having gone upstairs, my gaze travels through an open door to what looks like a small museum. Either someone was a history buff or the family had a treasured ancestor, because there is a large display of Civil War memorabilia.

Including what I am fairly certain is a cavalry sabre under a glass display case. Moving into the room, I look about guiltily for a moment before I lay my hands on the case and stare down at the weapon. It is out of its scabbard, which lies next to it, and it looks like it is still in excellent condition. I get the feeling that this has been reverently passed down from generation to generation for nearly a century and a half.

Feeling like the ghosts of those who have cared for the blade are angrily watching over me, I mutter to no one in particular, “I’m really sorry, but I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought right now.”

I then lift the surprisingly heavy glass case off the display, releasing a puff of dry, stale air from within, no doubt set like that to help preserve the sword. Carefully picking it up along with the scabbard, I feel my right hand tighten into a white knuckled death grasp about the leather wrapped grip. Breathing hard, heart pounding in my ears so loudly it drowns out the rest of the world, I conceal the shiny steel blade within its scabbard.

“Whoa, Brendan! What’s that for?” Joe asks behind me, causing me to whip about in wide eyed panic, attempting and fortunately failing to draw the blade. Collapsing to my ass on the floor, my whole body shaking, I say, “Holy fuck man, you scared the fuck out of me!”

“I scared you, man? Look at you man! You’re a mess!” Joe points out.

“I know!” I cry out, starting to hyperventilate, but the feel of the handle in my palm starts to reassure me. I’m such a coward, needing a weapon to feel big, to feel safe. Tears are starting to well up in my eyes.

“Man, don’t you lose it,” Joe warns carefully. “I’ve only managed to get this far because I think you know what you’re doing?”

“Would you be crushed if I said I had no fucking clue?” I spit out bitterly, even as I ground myself against the weight of the weapon and scabbard in my hands.

“Brendan, I sure as hell feel better to have walls between me and the wind outside. Now look man, put the sword down,” Joe says, clearly starting to get freaked out.

I shake my head and say, “No, no, I won’t do that… but I’ll try to calm down. I… I’m so scared right now that I just want to feel like I have a little bit of control. Even if all I can do is wave it around like an idiotic tough guy, it’s feels a whole lot better than having nothing in my hands.”

A sympathetic look crosses over Joe’s face and he nods. “Okay, just don’t try and cut me next time I surprise you, got that?”

I nod and say, “Sure, let’s just find me a belt so that I can have it by my side and still have my hands free.”

“Sure thing man, sure thing,” Joe says, offering me a hand up from my seat on the floor. Taking it, I let him help me off the ground just in time for Jon to show up.

“I was checking out the basement, cellar really, when I heard the bang. What happened?” He asks, no doubt looking at the tears on my face.

Slapping me on the back, Joe says, “Brendan and I were just having a little heart to heart here.”

Jon looks at the sword and says, “Looking at you, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be holding that right now.”

I tense up and prepare to protest but instead I just shake my head and say, “Yeah, you’re probably right, but I’m not giving it up just yet. I… I really need to hold this at the moment.”

Jon looks at me for a moment before he says, “How about we grab a shoelace and tie it up so you don’t hurt anyone? Like at an anime convention.”

Thinking it over, I nod and say, “Yeah… yeah, that sounds a bit saner. I just… I just need to feel its weight, feel it in my hands, okay?”

Jon nods and says, “That will have to do for the moment. Just don’t go all psycho on us, okay?”

Grinning, I say, “Don’t worry, I have no issues with wanting to be my mother.”
Jon snorts with amusement, and then Joe replies, “Oh hey yeah, I think I found the bedrooms, so we can look for some proper clothes.”

“Thank God, my legs are freezing,” I complain, feeling a bit better already, not just because of the sword but because there were others around.

“Why the frak were you wearing shorts in October?” Jon asks.

Shrugging, I reply, “When in my well insulated and centrally heated home, I prefer the freedom of shorts. It’s not like I expected to be here. At least it’s just damp and windy here in comparison to home.”

Following Joe to the bedrooms, we soon all discover a bit of a problem.

“While the sweaters are an improvement, why did we have to pick the house full of short, skinny people? I thought there was an obesity epidemic in America,” I mutter while going through the drawers of the master bedroom. There did not seem to be much choice. At least the belts were big enough to fit and I now had one looped about my waist with the sword stuck through. It was rather awkward and I had to keep adjusting it, but it worked well enough for my short term purposes.

“While I can’t comment on the kid’s taste in music, he at least knew about warm clothing,” Joe commented, picking at the thick wool sweater that was about two sizes too short for him such that his arms and stomach stuck out comically, the incongruous clothing beneath visible, although since I was wearing a similar garment there was little room for me to make fun. Taken from the room of an apparent teenaged Disney-pop fan, the look on Joe’s face upon seeing the shrine to the abomination to good taste had been a further pick me up.

Sticking his head in while I continued to rummage, Jon said, “I found a set of keys in the kitchen, you want me to check out the shed, see if there’s an axe or hatchet to make some kindling with?”

“Go right ahead,” I reply absentmindedly, not quite sure why Jon asked. It then occurs to me that he probably would have done it anyway, he just wanted to phrase it in such a way that we knew where he was. That and since I was the one who had simultaneously lead us here and had a breakdown, he might have wondered if I had wanted to chop wood.

Rubbing my freezing legs, I look over the options and finally look up to Joe who is searching with me and say, “I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is that I really should just swallow my pride because a blanket would just be a more awkward version of what we’re both thinking.”

Smirking slightly, Joe says, “Hey man, my ancestors wore togas. We’ll call it a makeshift kilt.”

Grumbling, I pull out a long grey skirt from the wife’s drawer and comment, “At least it’s not a floral print or something like that.” I then look at Joe and say, “Actually, screw my complaints, we’re all looking like we did a snatch and grab on a Value Village anyway.”

“Ha! The sword really completes the look,” Joe commented, to which I really couldn’t argue with. I looked completely insane, but at least I was warm and had a psychological anchor.

“Come on, let’s go help Jon,” I say once I have the skirt crudely secured about my waist and worn above my shorts, feeling rather ridiculous. If we were not rescued soon we would have to try and find better clothing somewhere else. My mind was already going over how to go about that, along with a half dozen other thoughts on looting and scavenging.

Going downstairs, I could hear Jon chopping away out back, the sound carrying through the broken window. Frowning at that, I ask, “Hey Joe, did you see anything like a hammer and nails or a stapler or something so we can patch that window?”

Thinking for a moment, Joe shakes his head and says, “Nope man. Let’s have a look though.”

Nodding, I say, “We should also look for a broom to clean up that glass. There’s not a hope in hell any of the shoes in here will fit, and we don’t want to get cut by that glass.”

Joe nods and the broom is quickly located along with a few garbage bags that were used to contain the broken shards. Eventually we discover and use a roll of packing to seal up the window along with an empty garbage bag until a sturdier and/or more permanent solution could be found.

Just as we finish putting back everything we took out, Jon called from the back, “Hey guys, get out here!”

Sharing a worried glance, Joe and I both move to where Jon is standing outside, ear turned to the east, a hatchet in his hand and a large axe on the ground. Before we can say anything he raises his hand for silence, and we turn our heads to try and figure out what he’s trying to hear.

The faint sound of some sort popping reaches out across the island, born on a chill wind. We listen in confusion for a moment before Jon says, “I think that’s gunfire.”

A chill ran up my spine not related to the temperature of the air and I said, “Get the kindling together and let’s get in the house, now.”

Gathering everything up, including the axes, some larger logs, and a jerry can in the shed next to a lawnmower, we rush inside and lock the door once more. Heading for the second floor, we look out to the east. Not much is visible, but a thin wisp of black smoke is starting to grow.

“That’s not good,” Jon mutters deadpan.

My mind blazing for a moment, I announce, “Joe, you get the axe.”

“What?” Joe asks, confused.

“Joe, with that big axe in your hand you’ll look like a fucking Viking…” I pause to reassess considering the badly fitting sweater on him before I add on, “A gay yuppie Viking maybe, but still a fucking Viking. Considering that I look like I should be proclaiming myself ‘Duchess of Hampshire’, my only intimidation factor is ‘loopier than a fruit bat’.”

“And we want to intimidate people with guns why?” Jon asks.

Shaking my head, I say, “Not the ones with guns, we can only really surrender to the guys with guns. But anyone without a gun who is running scared and doesn’t care who gets hurt can go find an easier target.”

“Man, that doesn’t sound like a great idea,” Joe comments.

“Well I’d prefer to be crazy and prepared than get caught with my pants down!” I snap before I look a little sheepish and say, “Sorry, just taken too much SAN damage today.”

Sighing, Jon says, “Well, I guess things are a little insane right now. Might as well outfit ourselves like Call of Cthulhu investigators. However, since I’m the one who actually knows how to use a sword I’m going to have to ask for that sabre you found.”

The statement hits me like a slap to the face, and I want to protest for a moment before I just sort of flap my jaw like a fish for a few seconds before I nod and say rather reluctantly, “You’re right… umm… here uh…”

I remove the sword from its place on my belt and move to hand it over to Jon, but my hands remain irrationally stuck to the weapon. Looking down at their traitorous refusal to release, I say, “Uh… sorry about this. A little help here?”

Between Jon and Joe they manage to get my hands off the weapon, and I just shake my head for a bit while I start to ramble, watch as Jon unties the string that kept the blade safely secured in its sheath, “I should probably get a kitchen knife or the hatchet or maybe make up some Molotov cocktails or…”

“Look Brendan, just relax. You’ll only make things worse like this,” Jon states.

I nod and breath deeply before I say, “Yeah, but if I go nuts that won’t help either.”

Joe pipes up and says, “I think there’s a baseball bat in the son’s room.”

Nodding I say, “I think I’ll get that then.”

“You go do that man and just keep watch here, we’ll go get everything ready downstairs” Joe replies, the two of them leaving me upstairs to watch out the window at the smudgy black line in the sky, pacing back and forth with the smooth wood of a somewhat undersized bat in my hands, head down as ever more terrible imaginings assault my brain. I know I’m being irrational, I know that this is not how I should act, but just knowing that I’m acting crazy is driving me crazier.

Finally after perhaps half an hour, psychologically drained and feeling completely hollow inside, I stumble down the stairs to where Jon has a little fire going in the main fireplace in the living room, the smoke thankfully going up the flue instead of suffocating us all. The fireplace was a big stone thing, designed many years ago before the age of central heating to provide warmth for the home, spreading it out across the living room and keeping it warm through cold winter nights. He looks up at me and says, “Joe’s keeping watch out the front door right now. Are you alright Brendan? You’re kind of scaring the crap out of me right now.”

Slumping down onto the couch in front of the fire, I settle in with the bat still in my hands and say, “No, I’m not alright. I… I just need some sleep right now. I’m going to try to get a nap, try to get this buzzing out of my head. Wake me if anything important happens.”

Grabbing up a pillow and a blanket, I curled into a miserable ball and let my eyelids flicker shut.

I awoke to Joe shaking me, telling me to get up. At first I wondered what Joe was doing in my house, but then the aching of my feet reminded me of the horrible events that had already happened. Bolting upright, I asked rather loudly, “What’s wrong?”

“You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours, the sun’s already set. But there are some guys in a pick up out front and they want to talk to us. They have guns,” Joe stated.

My blood went cold and my mouth went dry. I asked, “What do they want to talk about?”

“I don’t know, I just figure you should be up for this,” Joe states.

I nod and move to get up only to find that my limbs are jelly. Funny, fear had kept me going before, but I guess now that I had a comfortable couch to hide on my body was now protesting the prospect of meeting people with the power to kill me. Grabbing me as I faltered, Joe said, “Whoa! You okay there?”

Shaking my head, I reply, “Haven’t been okay all day. But come on; let’s go meet the nice gentlemen with the very big guns.”

It was dark in the house, the only light coming from the fireplace and I instinctively wanted to turn on the electricity, but that was impossible. Moving to the entrance hall, I could see Jon waiting there with a flashlight in hand, sword at his side, pointing it out into the street through the screen door. From beyond the door there was the yellow-white glow of a vehicle’s headlights, and I could see the outline of the cab of a pick-up truck sitting in the darkness.

We were all visibly scared, all terrified by this batshit insane situation, but somehow no one had started screaming yet. Moving up to the door with Joe, we found a man in an outfit about as piecemeal as ours, of a random assortment of ill-fitting clothing that was either too small or too large for him. Cradled in his hands but fortunately not pointed at us was a double barrel shotgun. While it was probably just a 12-gauge, I swear it looks like I could fit my fist in the barrels.

Jon’s flashlight beam pointed at his chest, it gives his face a hard, sinister look and he asks, “You three the only ones in here?”

We all nod, not really saying anything.

“No one else?” The man asks.

Shaking heads.

“Would you mind stepping outside so I and one of my buddies can confirm that?” The man asks, stepping aside to reveal another man with a pistol who had been concealed by the play of shadows before.

We all freeze for a moment before Jon says, “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Quietly filing out, we step into the cold air while the two men enter inside, pulling out their own flashlights in the process. We also notice that at the pick up truck there is a third man, a rifle in his hands and decidedly pointed in our direction.

After a few minutes both men exit from the house, the spokesman smiling and nodding at us while saying, “Sorry about that, we’re just checking all the places that are inhabited for any sort of ugly business. People think that the situation means that the rules of civilization no longer apply.”

“What happened?” Jon asks.

He looks at us curiously before he asks in turn, “You don’t know?”

Gulping hard I say nervously, “I got scared of the crowd so I convinced my friends to get away from the area where everyone was congregating.”

Then man laughed, a harsh bark that nearly had us jumping out of our skins. “Ha! One of the sensible ones I see. Well, might as well tell you because it’s why there’s no power.” He then got a bit of a nervous look in his eyes, backing up a bit and clearly reading his grip on his weapon, even if his finger was still safely well away from the trigger. His partner does something similar with his pistol.

“You see… we can’t find the mainland,” he says.

“What?” All three of us cry out as one, before the tension in the armed men causes us to shut up again.

“Well… it’s more that we can’t find our mainland. The first boat that went out there just found wilderness… and jittery natives in canoes. Admittedly, the guys in the boat probably spooked them when they tried to chase them down with the engine at full bore to find out who they were. They got away, but one of the guys on the boat took a spear to the arm and is in the hospital now,” the man explained.

We are all staring in open mouthed shock right now, not believing our ears.

The man nods and says, “If I hadn’t seen the wound and the spear with my own eyes… and our radios are working with each other, but there’s nothing else out there. Someone who knew how to fly grabbed a plane from the little airport and went up as high as they could with a spotter and a telescope. Boston is just… gone. Nothing but wilderness. New York too probably, but they didn’t go far enough to confirm before they returned due to approaching darkness.”

The names had always been academic for me and my friends, but we all just sort of sag as our minds tried to wrap themselves around the idea of major metropolises with millions of people just disappearing.

The man smiled and he said, “You’re taking this better than the people who got angry or stupid. Things got really ugly for a few minutes, but fortunately we got our hands on the majority of the obvious guns before anyone else did. Now we’re just trying to pick up the pieces and make sure everyone is safe. Uh… speaking of which, the whole house inspection thing? Yeah, there have already been a couple of attempted and successful rapes, both men and women. We’re not just patrolling for anarchists and possible Indian war parties, but for anyone with a captive tied up in the basement. Fortunately we haven’t found any… yet.”

A sick feeling crawls through my gut, and I can see Jon and Joe are not looking too good, although I’m pretty sure there is also a dose of righteous anger mixed in with everything else.

“You see anyone looking lost or scared, you help them out. Those of us who are trying to keep control are holing up in the local medical centre right now since it has a back-up generator and we can take care of anyone injured. We’ve also noticed that there are a lot more guys than girls, and since we can’t be everywhere at once, any lady that wants to stay there can,” the man explained.

“Holy fuck,” I mutter.

Nodding, the man says, “Tell me about it.” He then glances at the sword and scabbard shoved through Jon’s belt and asks, “You know how to use that thing?”

He nods and says, “Sort of. I know how to use a sword, although I don’t know how well I would be in actual combat.”

“Fair enough. Well, you boys stay safe, once we have things in order we’ll try and work out what is really going on here and what we’re going to do. Could take a few days, so sit tight and try and conserve food and water,” the man says, starting to walk off. He then pauses and asks, “Oh, and one more thing. Have any of you ever heard of a place called SDN?”

Joe and I look at each other, and then I look at Jon and we all nod. Jon asks, “Yes, why?”

Shrugging, the man says, “No one knows why, but so far everyone on this island was a member.”

He and his friends then get into the truck and drive off, leaving us to close the door and huddle about the fire. After a time Jon says, “Are either of you hungry?”

“I was. Not at the moment,” I state.

“Same,” Joe replies.

“Me too,” Jon says before he adds on, “We should probably figure out what we have.”

“We should,” I say.

“No sense holding back no,” Joe adds on.

“Yeah,” Jon replies.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Despite being able the fire with multiple layers of clothing on and blankets about our shoulders, it takes a long time before any of us feel warm again.

---

There we go. What do you guys think?

[darthdavid]

Interesting...
Please keep going.

[WesFox13]

This is an awesome start to a story. I wonder what some of the other famous SDNers are doing in the story.

[Robo Jesus]

Also, if anyone wants to have a namesake or explicitly doesn't want to appear (I've got one of those requests already) just speak up and I will be happy to accomodate either way.

My name is Andrew Richards, but all my friends just call me 'A. Dick.'

Sadly, most people don't get that joke right away.

[Alferd Packer]

Well, as the esteemed Mr. Academia Nut said, I've indeed been writing up my own story. I'll take a moment to preface it with this: our stories are vastly different, though set in the same universe. We've been discussing things, hashing out some little details so that both our narratives will fit together nicely, but the focus of our tales is quite narrow, so we're really only defining certain, specific aspects. Much of what was discussed in the original thread is left quite vague and is spoken of only in the broadest terms.

Having said all that, I'm pleased to begin my story. As you'll see, it's markedly different from Academia Nut's tale in tone, style, and structure. I hope you enjoy.

---

Day 174, Morning, Atlantic Ocean

Alferd Packer winced and gripped the railing of the yacht tighter, his roiling stomach staging a full-scale mutiny against the rest of his body. The heaving boat was not due to a rough ocean, but rather the exuberance of the woman at the helm: a lean, sinewy girl in her mid-twenties, now indulging in a bit of theatrics as the pleasure-cruiser-turned-workhorse streaked away from Nantucket Bay.

Though the late April morning was cool yet, Packer was sweating. His thick brown hair, having had some six months to grow, whipped in the breeze. He unzipped his bomber jacket to cool off a bit.

Besides he and the helmswoman, there were half a dozen others on the yacht that day, all men. By and large, they seemed unaffected, as they were some of many fishermen and sailors, so they'd certainly seen worse from the ocean than the calm waters besetting them on this spring morning.

Turning back towards the rapidly-shrinking island of Nantucket, ostensibly to watch it vanish(but also to direct his breakfast away from the others, if his stomach's mutiny succeeded), he felt a sudden stab of panic. Why the hell did he agree to this insane mission? Did he truly have some kind of deathwish?

Quickly, he got himself under control, as the boat assumed a more sedate course and speed, its two engines purring contentedly. Packer knew why he was chosen, and--

"Hey, Packer!" the helmswoman--actually, she would be the captain of the boat(no one owned any of Nantucket's boats, per se, but the convention held)--called out. She turned to face him. "Sorry about opening up the motors a bit back there. Been a while since I really ripped through the water, you know? You OK? You can go ahead and barf if you need to. I won't report it."

"I'm good now," Packer replied, forcing himself to smile. "How long's the ride gonna take?"

She shrugged. "Oh, 'bout an hour and a half." She grinned. "Why, are you in a rush or something?"

His smile, forced as it was, faded and could not be brought back. "No, I guess I'm not."

Alferd Packer, like some three thousand others, awoke to find himself on the island of Nantucket on a late October morning in 2009. There was no power. The phones didn't work. The gas lines were dry. The houses were empty of their owners. In fact, the three thousand people had exactly one thing in common: they weren't from Nantucket. Some people seemed to know each other, but most were complete strangers.

At twenty-seven, Packer was among the older people on Nantucket. The demographics of the island were for some reason skewed drastically young, with fully two thousand teenagers(and overwhelmingly male teenagers, at that) making up their population. Early incidents of vandalism, public drunkeness, and firearms accidents quickly died down, however, when the teenagers were segmented and put to work under the watchful eye of the adults. A punk teen who works fourteen hours a day chopping wood is a punk teen too tired to cause trouble.

Packer relived the night when he'd be approached by the nascent government often, though less so now that spring was here. He didn't quite know why he did what he did, why he said what he said, but had he not, he might not be here today.

Day 3, Night, Nantucket

"Hey, you!" The sound, coupled with the flashlight, stung Packer's eyes. Least they would've, had he not been wearing a welder's mask. He flipped the visor and looked up. Someone was coming out of the murky shadows of the backyard, into the glare cast by the heavy-duty work light. It was a man...no, two. And they both were armed.

"Evening, gents," Packer said, unable to take his eyes off the weapons.

"You alone here? This your house?" The speaker was tall, burly, and did not appear to be in good humor.

"Yes, and no. I picked this house because I could see into the garage," he chucked a thumb towards the dim outline of a structure across the yard, "and in there I saw the gennie. I needed power to work."

"Work? What is it you're working on?" the second one asked.

"Renewable energy on demand. I only found twenty gallons of gas in the shed, and some of that is two-stroke. I saw how many people are here. You think it's gonna last? Gotta get started," he added absently. "Gotta get started."

"On what?"

"Oh! Syngas, my armed friend. Specifically, this stuff is going to produce combustible gas by way of incomplete pyrolysis of wood chips, coal...hell, even cherry pits would work. Said natural gas will then be piped into into the intake of the generator, allowing me to run some appliances in this house. Probably the fridge and maybe the microwave and a lightbulb or two."

The men were quiet for a moment. "Natural gas from wood, huh?" one of them said.

"Yup. Built one back on my uncle's farm when, well, back then. It ran a tractor. You could run a car on it, if you wanted. They used to do that over in Korea up until about 1970."

"Where you get all this stuff?" the first man asked.

"Around. I had to bust into neighboring garages for some of the fittings and pipe you see here. There's a metal saw at the gas station down the street which I used to cut the pipe. Had to lug the gennie all the way down there to run it. And I needed to borrow the welder from the gas station, too. Don't worry, they had a TIG welder, but I didn't take that. This is an older welder, the flux is built right into the electrode."

"So you wouldn't mind parting with the tools?"

Packer laughed. "Guys, you have the guns. Even if I did mind, you think I'm gonna argue with you? Listen, if you guys are stopping what's been going on these last couple days, then you can count me in. Just let me finish my gasifier, and I'll personally load all the tools into your truck or van or whatever you got. If I've got any gasoline left over, you can have that, too. I won't be needing it."

The man nodded. "So you heard what we found?"

"What you didn't find, yes," Packer was silent for a moment. "The guy was raving mad. He wandered past the house, screaming what I thought was impossible nonsense. Then his friend showed up, who was a bit more cognizant, and confirmed everything to my face. That's when I started working."

Suddenly, from the darkness, a third voice piped in. "Everything OK back here?"

The first man replied, "Fine." To Packer: "Do you mind if he searches the house? You carrying?"

"Like guns?" Packer goggled. "No, I'm unarmed. I found a pistol upstairs, in the nightstand in the main bedroom. You're welcome to it. I'd just as likely shoot myself a second asshole. Go on in, the back door's unlocked." The third man nodded, then entered the house.

"Say," the first guy began, "You're the first person we found actually doing something. Well, constructing something. Most people that aren't catatonic are chopping firewood or trading with others for clothes that fit. This, uh...gasifier, was it? Would it work on a bigger generator?"

Packer looked up. "Sure. Just need to scale it properly. Are your generators gasoline or diesel?"

"Does it matter?" the second one bit off rather sharply.

"Yes, it does matter," Packer snapped back. "You can't convert a diesel engine to run on entirely on biogas. It'll supplement your diesel, more than double how long it lasts. Gasoline, however, can be completely replaced."

The first man nodded. "Tell you the truth, I don't know. The fuel tanks are underground, and I don't think anyone's bothered to look. Listen, when are you gonna be finished with this thing?"

"Tomorrow, for sure."

"OK, we'll swing by in the afternoon. You feel like coming down to the clinic and taking a look at our setup? That's where we're basing out of for now, by the way."

"Sure thing, gents. I should have everything wrapped up by then." At this, the third man emerged from the house.

"Clear," he said. "Found the weapon. Old revolver. .38. Box of ammo, too."

"Alright, we're gonna move on. Unless you feel like you need someone hanging around...?" The first man let the interrogative dangle.

Packer laughed. "Nah, I'm safe enough. Seems like almost no one's come out this way. It took a lot of searching to find this house, if you know what I mean. I'll look for you guys around two tomorrow."

"Alright." All four of them shook hands. "Say, what's your name? I gotta report this to the higher ups. You understand."

"Oh, it's J---" he stopped. "Packer. Alferd Packer."

"Very good, Mister Packer. We'll see you tomorrow."

Day 174, Midmorning, Atlantic Ocean

And they'd shown up the next day. He nuked each of them a TV dinner(which had remained frozen thanks to the generator), and after lunch, he showed them the generator running with this fuel cap off and the gas tank bone dry. Then then loaded up the truck with Packer's salvaged tools and were off to the clinic. Its generators were indeed gasoline-powered, so the gasifiers would work. Packer requested use of the island's machine shop for construction, and this was granted.

For about a week, it was just him, frantically attempting to build a larger gasifier than he thought possible. But, as the chaos dwindled, order followed. Soon, Packer found that he had an assistant, a mechanic from Columbus, Ohio. Then two more. Then five. As time passed, more people were assigned to work there, learning this valuable skill. With this labor force, they were soon turning out one gasifier a day. By the New Year, all the important equipment of the town was running on woodgas.

And so it went elsewhere. The previously unruly teenagers proved to mainly be composed of scared children, and they relished the order imposed on them by the adults.

So, they'd made it through the winter. Fish, crabs, oysters, and kelp, supplemented by what remained of commercial foodstocks and most people's ample fat reserves, kept most people healthy. Some, especially those with underlying health problems, had succumbed to their illnesses over the winter. Now, though, was time to think of the future.

And the future did not look bright. For whatever reason, there were less than two hundred women on Nantucket. They could not produce enough children to sustain, much less grow, their population. Women were needed, and what women there were to be found, were on the mainland.

As all this ran through Packer's head, he once again asked himself: why did I accept this mission? Why am I to be the first to make contact with the natives?

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Scouting trips made during the first few days discovered natives in canoes in various bays on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. Another scouting party on Martha's Vineyard had found evidence of recent human presence: extinguished fires, a primitive latrine, animal bones. Though they'd returned immediately and not said they'd seen anyone, they could not help but feel they were being watched.

Regardless, this would be an attempt at direct, face-to-face contact. Packer was to be first. And only now, as they yacht cruised towards Cape Cod at a stately twenty knots, could he face the reasons why.

Though Packer worked hard, he liked to stir up shit. At the monthly town hall meetings, he loved playing Devil's Advocate, being contrary for its own sake. As the man who made abundant the gasifiers that were heating buildings and keeping machine shops running, he had a certain, but finite, amount of political capital. People generally liked him, but he was not part of the island's government, and the council did not always appreciate him being the nucleus of opposition to almost everything they proposed. Even though his concerns were mostly silenced through reasoned argument, and he accepted this without complaint, he remained an annoyance.

What's more, Packer knew it. He felt he was doing a service by forcing the council to expose their thought processes at town hall meetings to the people--that is, those who showed up. Perhaps he was, but that didn't mean any of the council had to like him for it.

So, when it came down to it, he was expendable. He'd gotten the gasifier production going, and he'd helped train the crew that now worked in shifts to churn out a standard design, scaling for the individual application. It was a good idea, but he held no monopoly of knowledge. And despite being a shit-stirrer, at his core, he still played by the rules. He didn't hoard. He didn't advocate sedition. He didn't get into petty squabbles with others. And, perhaps to his detriment, he'd proved himself competent.

Competent, but not necessary. Contrary, but obedient. Popular, but not an elite. So, they tapped him and him alone to make first contact.

Packer knew the risks. He could be ambushed and killed by a hostile tribe. He could give them some kind of disease and wipe them out(though this was unlikely, the only doctor on the island having proclaimed him perfectly healthy yesterday). He could get some disease and be wiped out, himself. He could break a leg ten miles inland. Hell, a goddamn bear could sneak up on him and tear his head off while he was taking a dump.

Of course, it wasn't as if he'd be thrown off the boat naked with just a knife for protection. He'd been given plenty of survival gear, which he'd been practicing with for the last two weeks. He'd a heavy sleeping bag, though it seemed to be past the time for frosts. And, of course, he was not unarmed: he'd been given a rather nasty-looking crossbow, along with ten bolts of various shapes. He'd time to practice and "wasn't entirely horrible," as one of the deputies who'd been assigned to show him the fundamentals put it.

Finally, there were the trade goods. Two sacks filled very different, but hopefully very valuable things. The first held fifty salted cod fillets wrapped in kelp. The second contained three hatchets and two splitting mauls. It was hoped the natives would want more of both of these.

"Land ho!" the captain shouted, and Packer jumped in his seat. He had completely lost track of time. He walked over to the helm of the boat. and sure enough, a point of land rose just to the right of the heading of the yacht. "No worries, Packer," she continued with a grin. "We still have about five miles to go. You aren't dead just yet."

"No, I suppose not." They stood side-by-side for a moment, the wind whipping a gentle spray of sea against them every now and again.

"So. I have to ask," she began, turning to look at him. "Who'd you piss off?"

Packer sighed. "I've been asking myself that same question. I guess everyone important. Or no one, and I'm just unlucky."

"Oh, I think you can share at least some of the blame, for this, Packer. Always running against them, then backing down. I've seen you at the town hall meetings. You're clever, but not clever enough to know when to shut up. They see you as a threat. I'm sure once we ratify the charter, that you'll be elected to some position. Well, you would've been. Now they get to keep their power, and you get..." she swung a hand at the land looming on the horizon, "...all this. Exile. Of sorts."

Packer stared gloomily. "There must be an easier way. To get rid of me, that is. As it is, they've wasted half a day and who knows how many gallons of ethanol getting us out here and you back. Not to mention all the stuff I'm bringing."

"Well, they could've executed you, sure. Trumped up some charge and sent you up the rope. But people like you, Packer. I had to fight off three other captains who wanted the honor of running you out here. Why risk arresting and trying you, making you a martyr in the process? At least, in the wrong way.

"This way, you get killed? They can use you to justify a stronger expedition next time. Build a fortification on the mainland. Who knows what they really have planned? Worth the expense, if you ask me." With a practiced motion, she swung the wheel and gunned the throttle, sending the yacht roaring parallel the the headland which was now becoming visible.

"Remarkable, that Lewis Bay is still here," she remarked to a visibly greener Packer. "Of course, the sandbar precludes us taking this beast in there, but the scouts said they definitely found signs of people on the bayside beaches. So you might get lucky. Or you might wander the woods for three days.

"You already know all this, but it bears repeating. We're going to swing by here on the fourth day. That's Sunday, by the way. If you can, light a fire on that promontory," she pointed to a wooded hill they were passing on the right, "and smolder it so we can see the smoke. If you can't do that, just make it out at the sandbar at low tide. That's when we'll be waiting here. You'll have until about 5:30 PM; we need to be back well before dark, so that's the best you'll get."

She turned to face him once again. "Your odds aren't good, but if anyone can pull this off, it's you. If I told you what bets have been made on the outcome of this, you'd blush. I've got you surviving in the pool. You're going off at fifty to one. See that I win, huh?" She winked, then cut the throttle. The boat lurched to a near halt. "Drop anchor, boys! Put the rowboats in! Let's see Mister Packer off promptly, shall we?"

[The Vortex Empire]

Very interesting. I wonder how many people died in the first winter? And will the Natives treat us as Gods, as one would expect?

I'd be willing to have a character. Name will be Matt Plante, 16 year old teen. About 5'7", some experience with firearms and archery. I get to chop wood. Fuck yeah.

[Academia Nut]

Considering our lack of what they would consider basic skills, they're more likely to consider us incompetent wizards than gods.

[darthdavid]

1) Woodgas is methanol not ethanol
2) I'd like to be in the story if a place can be found. Name: David Harris Age: 20 Education: HS Degree, AS New Media, working on my BS in Physics at the moment...

[consequences]

Well, apparently the Mess isn't in charge, because there's no way we'd send off the guy who knows best how to make a damned renewable energy source without a fantastically good reason(you being even ten times as annoying as you are portraying yourself being entirely insufficient reason under the circumstances). Unless you happened be the only board member to have a degree in 'Indian languages in the vicinity of Nantucket of this time period', the word 'shitstorm' would best describe the political fallout from that decision.

And yes, you might have trained others, but unless we have a previously undiscovered syngas prodigy among the denizens, you'd still be well ahead of them.

[Zwinmar]

Slowly he comes to consciousness. As he comes to he realized something wrong, but what he could not place. Unmoving, he concentrated on his senses takeing in the sounds of this place. A clamor assaulted his ears, voices shouting people in distress. Salt, he realizes as he took a sniff. It had been years since he had been in the Norfolk Naval yards, or disembarking from an LCAC off Lejuene.

"The hell?" he muttered as he opens his eyes. The place is dark, but fortunantly, because he had been asleep, his eyes are adjusted to it. Carefully he got to his feet and looks down, takeing stock of his possessions. He wore dark loose jeans, with a dark blue hoodie over his overweight frame. "Great time to be a fat ass" he cursed himself, as his hand reached into his right pocket, feeling the aluminum handle of his cheap four inch jacknife, along with his keys. Most importantly he noted was what was on his feet, stout brown leather workboots.

No electrical buzz, he realized abrubtly. Now thats strange, as he looked around. Yes, street lights are present in this town. Slowly he made his way from what he recognizes as an alley, keeping slightly crouched. Occasionally he stops, looks and listens to his surrounding as he makes his way toward the clamor.

Minutes later he stops at the corner of an old clapboard building and looks out. "Damn, thats a riot' he spits, having seen such before, in training anyways. His brown eyes scan the crowd, looking for the main aggitator, only to find not one, but many of the overweight geeks. "Shit."

He sees one figure, and overweight adult, get up on a crate and attempt to control the crowd, somewhat successfully, with a bull horn. So he nods and starts to look around. Seeing a medium sized, two story house he makes his way to the front door and tured the nob. Fortunantly, it is unlocked so he pushed it open and stepped in. As he closed the door he takes stock of the entry way, noting a large brick fireplace in the next room.

He stepped into the room, his eyes being drawn to a a single barreled weapon mounted on the mantel. "Perfect" he says, as he took it down, as he inspects it. "Triumph Special" he said with a grin, "just like dad has" as he popped open the breech of the tweleve gage shotgun. "Ammo" he said as he started searching the room. In a box over the mantel is a box of ammo, a mix of slug and double ot buck. In the upstairs bedroom he finds a M1911A1. "Nice." Along with it he finds a molded plastic holster and two spare magazines.

Clipping the holster to the left side of his belt, and a hunting knife to the right, he pulled on a woolen jacket he finds in the closet before makeing his way back to the living area. He placed the shotgun shells in the jacket pocket, the shotgun he keeps open and tucks in the crook of his arm before stepping back out on the street. Only to duck back inside,"cop shop" he says,"where the hell is it.." as he looks for a phone book.

After much searching, he gets lucky and finds a map of the island and the location of the local sheriff's office before makeing his way there. This place is going to need some form of organization, or, the people are going to go apeshit.

[Academia Nut]

Ahem. If you would like to join in on this, I might suggest joining up with the Writer's Guild as we have a collaboration thread over there where we can refine the plot before posting to the main public. That goes for anyone else interested in joining in on the story.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Ironically my alternate thread to the one that led to this series of posts, was based on a years-old story I posted here based on a collaboration with IDMR. Was unfinished, though. It's still available in the back of the archives. Just google "Shang" and you can, I suppose, see my own vision as I wrote it.

[Alferd Packer]

Day 174, Noon, Cape Cod

"You have everything you need, Mister Packer?" the pimply kid asked. Packer looked plaintively at his dinghy, the gentler bayside waves lapping at its hull timidly.

"This thing got GPS?" he finally asked.

The kid laughed. He was probably about seventeen, judging by the zits and the awful imitation of a beard he was growing. Packer was suddenly reminded of the movie Joe Dirt. "Naw, it was that or a the fish-finder."

"Yeah, I got everything. See you in four days." He shook the kid's handed and then watched him trudge across the sandbar, climbing into the other dinghy. There two other crewmen started rowing towards the yacht, anchored a few hundred feet out to sea. Packer waved, and the captain and crew waved back.

Well, he thought, nothing to do now except row. He clumped over over to his dinghy, packed with his gear, and shoved off. Happy with himself for managing to get aboard without falling in or flipping the whole thing, he stripped off his bomber jacket and sweaters, set the oars in the rowlocks, and started off.

In his other life, Packer always liked exercise, though as an American white-collar professional, he didn't do it often. Six months of fair but lean rations and hard work had put him, however, in the best shape of his life. His muscles rapidly warmed up and turned his face upward to catch some sun as he cruised through the quiet bay. Struck by the sudden urge, he began to sing:

"In the toooown where I was booooorn,
lived a maaaan who sailed to seaaaa,
and he tooold us of his liiiife,
in the laaaand of submarines..."

Of course, he was awful. He was sure that he was off key, he frequently skipped lines, mixed the order of verses, then went back to correct himself. But, he thought with delight, there was definitely no one in the world singing the Beatles as well as he was at that moment.

"A cheap ego trip, but my own," he said when he was done butchering "Get Back," remembering the line from a Stephen King book.

When he was about in the middle of the bay, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. The beach looked deserted, but he probably wouldn't see anyone that wasn't trying to get his attention at this distance. He took a swig of water from his canteen, then bent back to the oars.

Landing on shore was not as monumental a moment as he'd hoped it would be. He simply muscled the rowboat onto the narrow beach and looked around. Deserted. Absolutely nothing but unspoiled sand and woods. He shrugged, and dragged the boat to the edge of the woods. There weren't many leaves on the trees yet, so he couldn't hide the boat, but he could at least keep high tide from it.

When he got the boat flipped over so it wouldn't collect rainwater, he stopped and checked his shadow. Since watches, though plentiful, weren't that reliable, he'd gotten quite good at telling the time of day from the angle of the sun. He judged there to be about six hours of useful light left.

"Get camp going, then go check out the beach," he muttered to no one.

About a hundred feet inland there was a small, grassy clearing. Calling on his earlier practice, he pitched the pup tent and laid out his sleeping bag inside it. Going back to the water, he hoisted his food and the cod fillets up into a tree branch, using the rope that had been given to him for this purpose. Tying it off at a nearby tree, he turned to gather deadfall for a fire.

Day 28, Late Afternoon, Nantucket

"What I really need," Packer grumbled, "is an engineer. I haven't done any drafting since high school. How am I supposed to come up with a readable, standardized schematic for these guys to build off of?"

The office for the machine shop was cold. They had power, but not heat. Neither Packer, or the man he was talking to, the aforementioned Ohioan mechanic, a Mr. Jason Terrance, minded in the least. It was a reprieve from the veritable inferno that was the workshop proper.

"Don't look at me, boss. I went to community for like a year before I started working on cars full time." He gestured towards the workshop. "Besides, look at us. I didn't need written directions to build these things. Those guys are getting along just fine. Why bother drawing up plans anyway?"

Packer looked back at Terrance. He was the first one who came to shop after Packer had started working on gasifiers full time, so now he was the de-facto second in command of the operation. Packer liked him immensely: no dramatics, good sense of humor, and a solid work ethic. "Not for us, Jason. The council wants it. Contingency." Packer pushed away from the drafting desk and stood up. "They seem to think I have this magical skill, and it's because they've never looked inside a gasifier to see how simple it is. They think that if anything happens to me--to us--that they'll never figure out how to replicate what we've done."

"Weird. It's really not that hard to build 'em," Terrance offered.

"Exactly! And if someone would just come down and take a look at our operation, they'd see that." Packer crossed his arms. "Not that I can blame them. They're still dealing with those holdouts down on the east side of island, they're trying to figure out a place large enough to set up that community soup kitchen they've been promising, plus they're trying to categorize all the equipment they've been salvaging, not to mention twenty other critical projects which neither of us know about. They're absolutely swamped. It's easier to ask us to do the work than it is for them to spare someone for it. I'm just not sure I'm up for it."

"Shucks, boss, you're Alferd Packer. You can do anything if you just put your mind to it!" Terrance swung his arm and stomped his foot emphatically as he said it, a vacant grin on his face.

Packer laughed. "Asshole. Get back to work, or I'm docking you six bucks for slacking off."

"That's fine. I'll go to the Nantucket Bank after work and get a hundred thousand bucks to make up for it." He walked out of the office, saying thoughtfully, "I'll just need to find a wheelbarrow, first..."

Packer watched him go with a good-natured smile, then sat back at this desk, trying to sift through the orders that had been placed by the council for gasifiers. It'd taken him some time, but he finally worked out a reasonable system: each new request had to have a field inspection before it could be assigned a priority. Then it was placed in the queue, according to its overall importance. There were already more than fifty orders for gasifiers; that would last them well into the next year, and that was assuming they got more people. Even now, half the shop sat unused.

A shape passed by the office, causing Packer to jump from his chair. "Whoa, whoa whoa, hey! Where are you guys taking that?" Packer strode out from his office and across the floor of the machine shop. All around him was the din of construction.

The two men froze in place, looking rather like the cats that just ate the canary. "We're done, boss. We're gonna move this one out to the loading bay."

"Done, huh?" Packer looked at them with a grin. "Done? You absolutely sure about this?"

The first man, Andrew, looked wary. "Yeah, we just put on the cooling line, and--"

"Shit!" the second, Darryl, said. "We forgot the filter box! And the blower!" They set their assembly back on a workbench.

"Good," Packer nodded with satisfaction. "You guys fucked up, but it wasn't bad, and you realized your mistake quickly. You're coming along a lot faster than the other guys did when they were new, but don't tell them I said that." He winked. "Your workmanship is coming along too, guys. I'm proud of you. Once you get the filter box fabbed up, you can knock off for the day. You'll attach the blower first thing tomorrow, then we'll field test it and get it installed. Oh, speaking of." His voice rose. "Guys? Guys! Can you all gather around real quick? I need to talk about something."

The dozen men working in the brightly-lit machine shop put down their tools and stepped forward, automatically taking a knee around Packer. The youngest among them was sixteen, and the oldest nearly forty.

"I just wanted to share something important with you guys. I came in the other day and I discovered Tommy and Rustbucket over here field-testing a gasifier in the shop. Never, ever, ever do this! It's my fault for not telling you this sooner, but heed me now. This stuff churns out a lot of carbon monoxide. If it runs for more than a few minutes in a closed room, you'll be deader than dogshit. Remember this if you're out installing one on site. Never install one of these indoors, period. I don't care if someone threatens to arrest you for disobeying orders; you just refer them back to me, and I'll take the heat.

"But, now that that's out of the way, I got some good news. Our tenth gasifier went online yesterday, and the council decided to give us a little reward," Packer lied. He reached under one of the work benches, pulled back a canvas tarp, and hefted a case of Samuel Adams Boston Lager onto the tabletop. A collective gasp went up.

He was lying because it hadn't come from the council; the beer had been sitting in the basement of his house, and he decided to share, rather than hoard. And I might as well engender a little goodwill towards the government. They need all the help they can get.

"Some of the last beer on the island," Packer said wistfully. "Leastwise until we get power back to the brewery. And get something to brew, I suppose. Anyway, accept this with the gratitude of the council and me. There's twelve of you, so you can each take two."

"Boss, there are thirteen of us," Andrew said. "You didn't count yourself."

"No, I didn't. I'm a teacher now. I'm not the one doing the hard work. You guys are. Ergo, it is you who deserve this. Just bring the empties back, OK? The clinic can autoclave them and use 'em for something, I'm sure." Packer looked up at the clock, then at the sun filtering through the windows. "Fuck it, it's close enough to four. Clean up your stations and head on out of here. Might as well walk home while it's still light out, for a change." As they got up, Packer was struck by the look of amazed gratitude on each of their faces. Small gestures still count, I guess.

Fifteen minutes later, everyone had filed out except for Andrew. He had finished sweeping (the newest guy always had the shittiest jobs) and went over to to claim the last two beers. Packer sat at the bench, looking at a something completely incongruous.

"Boss, is that what I think it is?"

Packer didn't look up. "Yeah, it's my phone."

"Why do you carry a cell phone around?"

"You don't understand. It's my phone. I had it in my pocket when I arrived. You dig?" Packer's voice was absolutely frigid.

Andrew didn't, but he knew better than to argue. "I dig, boss. See you tomorrow." He snatched his bottles and left quickly.

Day 174, Sunset, Cape Cod

The day's warmth was going. Packer finished eating one of the prepared rations, which had been doled out separate from the cod fillets he was supposed to trade with the natives. Natives which he hadn't seen all day. No smoke from a fire other than his own. No canoes out on the bay. No laughing children playing on the beach.

Packer stood, then bent over to the water. He rubbed his hands thoroughly, doing his best to get the stench of fish off of them. He certainly didn't want a bear snooping around his camp overnight because he smelled like a midnight snack. The crossbow, though powerful, was probably worth two shits against a bear, and Packer didn't want to learn if that was indeed the case.

In the twilight, he strolled back through the woods to his camp. The fire had died a bit, so he banked it with a hearty offering of sticks and logs. He sighed, watching them catch.

Might as well do it now.

He crawled into his tent and got under the sleeping bag. Maybe it would frost tonight. He reached into his pack and fished out his cell phone, turning it on purely by muscle memory. He only turned it on once a day, for a few minutes. It still needed to be charged once in a while, and he made sure the battery was full before he left this morning. He cared for it with a fanatic's zeal.

After it booted to life, he flipped it open to see the larger screen. It was all rote now.

"OK" button to call up the menu.

"2" for Media.

"3" for Pictures and Video.

"2" again for My Pictures.

Down twice, right once, hit "OK."

He set the phone down, its screen casting a different glow upon his face than the fire. His wife's image was small, but it was his entire world at that moment.

"Hi," he whispered. "I had a big day. I'm on Cape Cod now. You know, we never got out here, and we were always meaning to. Well, it's beautiful. We should've come when we had the chance. I missed you today, but I say that all time. I would've liked you to see me off. Or come with me. But you never did like camping, did you?

"I'm supposed to find the natives. But I told you that already. Setting up camp wasn't too hard, though I'm glad I practiced. Kept me from getting all bent out of shape, like I sometimes do. I'm keeping the food well away from me, like you're supposed to. I'll be safe, I think. Don't worry.

"Well, I should probably go to sleep. It's going to be an even bigger day tomorrow. I suspect the natives will be fishing early, so I want to be up before dawn to see if I can follow them back to their place. It should be sunny again, I think.

"I love you. I miss you so much. Talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight."

He shut the phone off and put it away. Heaving forth a single, silent, tearless sob, he crawled fully into his sleeping bag. He hadn't cried tonight. Those nights when he did cry were becoming fewer and farther between. Was that good? Will I ever stop completely?

He fell asleep slowly, while the fire popped and crackled in the brisk spring night.

[Academia Nut]

I still disagree with you being alone on the mainland (as I'm sure others will too) for a wide array of reasons, but I like the other bits. I think you really need to expand on why you're alone out here, and why anyone would actually send you out alone instead of sending out a group to maximize the possibility of success in a rather critical endeavour.

[Alferd Packer]

I still disagree with you being alone on the mainland (as I'm sure others will too) for a wide array of reasons, but I like the other bits. I think you really need to expand on why you're alone out here, and why anyone would actually send you out alone instead of sending out a group to maximize the possibility of success in a rather critical endeavour.

All in good time, my friend. It should not, and indeed, it doesn't really make sense to send a lone man out on such an important mission. But where's the fun in immediately solving the mystery? I have had the solution in mind, and patience will pay off, I assure you.

[Knife]

Good story, but yeah, doesn't make sense to have you out there alone unless the 1st Mess Recon Force has snipers out there covering you from an overlord position.

[PeZook]

Yeah, sending out one man is a death sentence, especially since practically all local tribes value warriors and the warrior culture, it would make sense to send a soldier along.

As an aside, I'd like to get in. My name's Paul Zuk (read like Zhuk, as in Zhukovsky), and my only relevant skill is sailing, so I guess I'll be participating in the fishing operation, training people, or perhaps getting the Eagle running with Marina

EDIT: I'm also married. So the situation would suck doubly for me, damn...

[WesFox13]

This is starting to get really interesting.

I was wondering if I could be in the story as well, I sort of was thinking that on the first day I probably would search for some of the more level-headed SD.Neters as well as head to the library to search for some books and information to help us survive in this new world, as well as get a few political books to help make suggestions for the long-term government of the new nation.

You can call me either Wes or Wesley in the story, I'm about a 5' 8" tall 21 year old, I have blond hair, blue-green eyes and somewhat of a fair complexion. and I'm slightly overweight with a tiny bit of a gut but it is not that visible when I have clothes on and I also have stitches along my abdomen from my many surgeries as a baby.

[open_sketchbook]

If you need a bitch to get stabbed or something, I'm game. Derek, 19 years old, my only real skills is that I swordfight (Broadswords, sabers, and I dabble with kendo, though ironically, we're actually too far back for that to matter) I shoot recreationally and I can draw. I'm pretty good cannon fodder methinks.

[Master_Baerne]

If you want to insert me, I'd be honored. James Baerne, tallish, missing an eye due to a fencing accident. Useful skills...Nothing specific, I dabble in just about everything though. I might be able to contribute to the Eagle crew.

[Master_Baerne]

If you need a bitch to get stabbed or something, I'm game. Derek, 19 years old, my only real skills is that I swordfight (Broadswords, sabers, and I dabble with kendo, though ironically, we're actually too far back for that to matter) I shoot recreationally and I can draw. I'm pretty good cannon fodder methinks.

Sorry for the doublepost, but I'm glad to know that there is another saber fencer on the board. Hi there!

[Academia Nut]

Date Unknown + 1

I was shaken awake by Jon, having been so exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster of the day before that I could not stay awake for first watch and I would probably fall asleep for the second, so I took the last watch of the night. My response to this awakening is not fear or panic, but rather just a desire to roll over on the couch and go back to sleep. Grumbling though, I eventually shift back and roll off the couch.

Looking up at Jon in the dark, the only real light at the moment being the cherry glow of the banked fire, I ask, “Anything interesting happen?”

Shaking his head, Jon says, “No. I mostly just kept a patrol and catalogued what we have for food in the house. I’ve made some porridge, its keeping warm next to the fire right now. I suggest you add some fruit now before it all goes bad.”

Nodding, I hand the blankets I had been using to Jon and say, “Can’t say I got enough sleep, but here you go. Hope you feel better in the morning.”

“I will if I wake up and find this was all a crazy dream,” Jon replies.

Snorting, I say, “I was hoping for that too. Didn’t seem to work.”

Taking the blanket in exchange for the flashlight, Jon settles in on the couch and says, “You roll around a lot in your sleep.”

“I know,” I reply while going over to the fire. There is a metal pot with some sort of semi-liquid substance in it along with a large spoon, but now that my head is no longer swimming my stomach is roaring. Going into the kitchen, I shine my light on the table and see a pad of paper that has a long list of what is available, along with a bunch of the perishables stacked up on the counter nearby.

Taking a knife, I carefully cut up an apple, and then grab a bowl and spoon, putting the chunks in. Quietly moving back into the living room, I ladle in some of the porridge into my bowl, stirring up the resulting mass. Finding a seat next to a window, I quietly look out into the night while eating.

It’s incredibly quiet and dark, darker than I’m used to living in the city. I can’t see very far, the neighbourhood featuring many trees to provide scenery and privacy, but peaking through the clouds is a sky so full of stars only childhood memories of camping can compare. I wonder if any astronomy buffs have scrounged up a telescope and are peering up at the heavens, trying to discern when we are.

When we are. Not where but when. What a creepy, spine chilling thing, to suddenly be divorced from your world and paired up with such a familiar yet alien one; a world geographically similar to our own, but empty of people, empty of light. I stop the train of thought before I go too far, finishing up the last scrap of my meal and going to get more before I pause and consider that Joe probably has yet to eat. Leaving it, I put the bowl in the sink and then grab up the knife I used to cut up the apple to peel an orange.

Oranges. We are back in a time before citrus farming. No more orange juice. No more lemonade. This could be one of the last citrus fruit I ever eat. It is an almost melancholy moment to peel it.

I wander the house, orange in my left hand, flashlight in my right, and the baseball bat tucked under my left armpit. I occasionally peak outside, scanning for anything unusual, but there is nothing. Eventually I wander up the stairs and begin to check out the rooms there, morbid curiosity compelling me onward.

I look at the pictures of the smiling family that used to live here. Mom and pop, grinning son growing like a weed, maybe fifteen. I had seen them before yesterday and they had weighed upon me, but they take on new meaning in the quiet hours of the new day with the revelation of what has happened. These people whose home we have invaded, what of them? Are they wandering about the wilderness of this time’s island, wondering where their home has gone, National Guardsmen trying to get them to shelter while the world screams about what has happened? Or are they simply erased, like they never were to accommodate our place here? Or is this just a copy? Are we just copies of people still living out their lives back home?

I turn down the pictures so that they will not stare at me with their accusing happiness. I do not want to think about that right now.

I wander into the son’s room and take a peek out the window before I begin to carefully rifle about, just trying to figure out what is in here. The kid listened to Disney-pop and played baseball and probably sang in the choir down at church after dutifully attending Sunday school. Such a sweet slice of cornball Americana.

Lifting up the mattress, I snicker as I pull out the collection of dirty magazines that he probably thought were hidden. I bet his father was his supplier and his mother knew but was just glad he was interested in girls. My smirk turns to a sad smile. This is where people lived, every corner of this house holds a story, just from this generation, but now less than ghosts linger.

I consider putting the magazines back, but then a thought occurs to me. The man on patrol last night had said that it seemed that everyone on the island was from SDN. That meant that there would be a lot more guys than girls. How long would it be until the next time I would get to talk to a girl? How long would it be for the majority of the men on the island?

Food was more important, properly fitting clothes were more important, there were a dozen things more important to survival now, but there was a lot of stuff that would become greater than gold in time. These cheap, glossy magazines were an investment in the future. So long as the acquisition did not hurt the ability to gather food in the present, there were a lot of things worth picking up now for a future date.

An idea was starting to crystallize in my mind. Checking the exterior of the house again, I wander over to the master bedroom. Pausing at the threshold, I require a few minutes to get psychologically prepared before I tip toe in, a thief stealing from people who no longer exist, who may never exist. I do not take anything, not now, but I do open up the jewellery case of the wife, staring down at the reflections of silver, gold, and gemstones off of the beam of light from my flashlight.

I pick up a simple golden band, a wedding ring probably. I feel like such a ghoul, but my mind is thinking. We are in a time before Europeans arrived on Nantucket, but how far back? There were people in North America, so it had to be sometime between the end of the last Ice Age and the Renaissance. The sea levels seemed about the same, if they were radically different presumably the water in the harbour would have shifted, either flooding out or drowning us all. So probably we were sometime after the end of the last Ice Age. The end of the last Ice Age was the start of agriculture.

Somewhere out there, there have to be people who would trade something of value for a gold ring. I drop the little band of yellow metal back into the case and close it up. When the sun comes up, I’ll wake the others and outline the plan. We have to get better clothing anyway, we need to hit at least one other house to do that.

Going back to the windows to check outside, I sweep the flashlight out across the lawn outside and I’m surprised when I see a figure skulking in the shadows outside. Just a black outline in the bushes, the person freezes up as the light strikes them, and I cry out, “Jon! Joe! We’ve got someone outside!” while keeping my flashlight on the person.

Jon is out first, having only gone to bed recently. Hand on the hilt of the sword, he doesn’t draw it, but he is clearly ready to draw if necessary. I can not hear what is being said, but by the time Joe gets up the figure is already coming out of the bushes, hands up. Keeping the light on him until Jon shouts out, “It’s okay, you can come down now,” I then move down the stairs as quickly as I can in the poor light.

Arriving in the living room, I see a kid, not much older than the one in the pictures about the house, shivering in a torn Judas Priest T-shirt and jeans, his sneakers looking rather muddy. Joe was draping a blanket over his shoulders, while Jon was getting a bowl from the kitchen.

“Hey Matt, this is Brendan, our current night watchman,” Joe says while he takes a log from the bundle we brought inside and throws it on the coals of the fire.

“Hey Matt. Sorry if I scared you, but we were a bit worried about people skulking about after what we’d heard what happened,” I say in apology for probably near blinding him with my flashlight.

Shaking it off he says through chattering teeth, “N-no problem. I just wanted to see if there was anyone inside.”

“Just sit down and warm up. What were you doing outside this late?” Jon asks, guiding Matt to sit down on one of the couches.

Sitting down, Matt looks rather pale and shaken. Shaking, a bit from cold, a bit probably from shock, he says, “I was… I was hiding. I was… I was at the marina. I was waiting to hear that they had everything sorted out, that the Navy would be here to pick us all up in helicopters. It was freezing out there, but we were all huddled up, breathing into our hands, hopping about in our bare feet, trying to stay warm while we waited… waited for good news.”

Frowning, we all look at him. Joe asks, “Were you there when…?”

Matt nods, with tears now leaking from his eyes. My stomach flip-flops for a moment, watching him look so terrified and sad, alone, surrounded by strangers. Sitting down on the floor, I encourage the others to do the same, make it so that we’re not towering over him. I say, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Shaking his head, he says, “I… I should have got out when I had the chance. People were starting to get ugly waiting for news. People were breaking into stores and houses to get out of the wind and cold, shoving others around to keep their own spots secure. The… the… I suppose you could call them the guys in charge… they were trying to stop that. Some punks were also harassing girls, like school shit but bigger. Fights were breaking out. I saw this one lady whack this jock looking guy with a big stick when he tried to grope a girl. Most of the girls were escorted out of the area by the people with guns. Then people began to demand to know what was going on.”

Matt inhaled deeply, his breath wet with bottled tears, and then said, “People started shouting, wanting to know what was going on. Finally someone let slip that they couldn’t find the mainland. Someone cried out something like ‘What the fuck?’ and then a brick flew through the air towards the guy with the bullhorn. One of the guys with the guns around him responded by firing. Oh God! The noise! So much screaming! People yelling and pushing, you couldn’t move! A car got flipped and set on fire in the chaos of everyone trying to escape in all directions. Once I got out, I just ran and hid.”

We were all silent, listening to this kid; listening to the fear in his voice, the raw, yet unresolved emotion weighing down on his soul. I asked, “What then?”

“I… I stopped running and found a bunch of people in a corner store. Most of them were my age, and they were all guys. They offered me to come inside. Some of them were talking about how there nothing was left, how we were all going to die, so it didn’t matter what we did. They found booze, started chugging it while pigging out on chips and shit. Then one guy says that he saw a girl outside and that they should rape her. Most of the others get upset, but a bunch of the other guys who are drinking say they don’t want to die virgins. Bottles start getting smashed, people draw sides, and I run out into the dark. I’ve been stumbling around ever since,” Matt explains, his eyes now visibly drooping as the fear keeping him going for hours starts to wane.

We all nod and Jon says, “Look Matt, just get some sleep here, we’ll keep an eye out, okay?”

Matt nods, exhaustion overtaking him, and once he’s cuddled up the rest of us retreat to the kitchen, keeping him and the fire in the corner of our eyes. Joe shakes his head and says, “That’s fucked up.”

“People who are scared, despairing, and have no supervision do fucked up things. Look, I was planning something a little greedy before, but now I think I can put a bit of a better spin on it. We need to start looting the houses around us,” I state.

Jon and Joe stare at me blankly.

“We need food, not just for today or tomorrow, but the whole year. There’s what, enough for a week in here?” I ask.

“I figure we can stretch it to two,” Jon states.

“We need more than that. Much more. There will be stores, but everyone is thinking that if what Matt says is true. We need to crack open the houses around us, see what is inside. We need to empty the fridges, get the perishables eaten now to save the other stuff for later. And we need a glimmer at the end of the tunnel,” I explain.

Jon and Joe stare at me. I can see the gears turning in their heads, but I’ve already thought through this. So I continue and say, “We need to find the things that will let us not just survive but prosper. We need to find the manuals and textbooks that will let us build and maintain things. We need to find the luxuries, like spices, novels, and even porn. And even further into the future, we need trade goods like glass and jewellery.”

“Trade goods?” Jon asks, obviously thinking I’m going overboard.

“Look, they said there were people on the mainland, right?” I ask rhetorically. After getting nods, I continue, “If there are people on the mainland that means that there are people elsewhere, people who will want shiny things. They’re useless now, so if we take an extra minute or two at a house to loot the necklace collection while searching it for things more immediately useful to our survival, we’ll have a leg up for later down the road.”

A tremor passes over me for a moment, anxiety nearly overwhelming me that they might reject it, but Jon nods and says, “We’re going to need to get organized.”

The stress evaporates and I say, “But of course. Here, I’ll go around the house on my watch and start gathering up anything we can use to transport stuff: backpacks, gym bags, suitcases, even plastic bags. We’ll come up with an order and start hitting the houses around us. We hit a house as a team, two guys hitting for food while a third searches for other vitals like the medicine chest, picking up luxury goods on the way. We then bring everything back here for sorting. We can get Matt to do it while keeping an eye out on the house.”

Jon and Joe both nod thoughtfully at that. I then shoo them away, telling them to get back to their rest. Once they are safely away and I am busy upstairs emptying out the school backpack from the son’s room, I quietly collapse from a near heart attack. I thought that they were going to reject my proposal. Breathing deeply, I relax a bit. We just have to keep moving forward, keep from falling and realizing how fucked up our situation is. So long as I can keep dreaming, I can keep from considering the horrible truth of the situation.

By the time pre-dawn begins the paint the sky red and purple, coarse brushstrokes across the bellies of the clouds above, I have a sizeable collection of various containers and have even gone outside to get the wheelbarrow in the shed ready. Rubbing my hands by the fire, I gently wake everyone up. Jon and Joe rouse easily, but Matt has the sleep of the damned about him, the emotional exhaustion that curls you into a ball fit to return to the womb where it is warm and safe. I know the sleep well; know that if I could I would join him.

Rolling over, Matt stares at us with confused, terrified eyes for a moment before he calms down, remembering where he is. I already have a few bits of fruit cut up and hand them over to Matt while Jon and Joe dig into their breakfasts. Looking at the poor kid, I feel a strange weight press into me, and it takes a moment to realize that I’m one of the adults in this situation. A strange thing, responsibility.

“Hey Matt, I know you’re tired and scared, but we need you to do something for us. We’re going to go next door and get some supplies, but we need you to watch the place. If anything goes wrong, just scream bloody murder, okay?” I explain, and Matt nods, scared and young but clearly a smart kid.

“We’re then going to start bringing in supplies, and we’re going to need you to write down what we bring in. I found some paper and some pens, and I’ve already divided up a few categories. We just need you to catalogue everything while we’re busy grabbing that. Got that?” I ask.

Matt nods and says, “I’ve got it. Seems easy enough.”

“Yeah, you get the easy job, and you’re getting a full share: food, shelter, protection of the group, and one more thing,” I hold up a necklace I have taken out of the box upstairs. Fine gold chain with a little loop in the shape of a heart at the centre, with little crimson gemstones set about the perimeter. The dull glow of the coals in the fire and the wan light of dawn set the whole thing to glowing. I see Matt’s eyes track the flash of red and orange sparking off the piece and I say, “This is absolutely worthless today. We need food much more badly. We need clothing that fits much more badly. We need a dozen things much more badly. But when we have a civilization, this will be worth much, much more. You catalogue the stuff we bring in and keep an eye on it, and we’ll have much more time to explore, to get every last scrap of food and medicine we can, make sure no guns get into the wrong hands, and along the way pick up things like this for the future. You got that?”

Matt nods, his eyes sparking with the jewellery, a glimmer of hope rekindled in his eyes after what he had seen yesterday. I can see it, the little gears in his mind set into motion. I’m not just talking about today, or the next day, but the next year. I’m giving him visions where he’s covered in jewellery, women throwing themselves at his feet to get at his wealth. Pure fantasy in need of moderation, but he’s got hope. He will not collapse today.

I will not collapse today.

The three of us are out of the house as the sun is starting to breach the horizon. I have left the baseball bat behind for Matt with the instructions not to knock anyone’s head off. I can feel my fingers longing for the weight, but I ignore it, instead focusing on the wheelbarrow full of bags that I carry with me.

Running around the hedgerow that separates the houses, Joe goes up to the front door and knocks on it loudly with the butt of the axe in his hands. He cries out, “Anybody in there?” After a short period of no response, he swings the axe into the door above the handle, cutting into the wood.

“You know, I really should be doing this,” Jon comments, a bit of an impish grin on his face.

I consider what he says for a moment before I groan and say, “Bad man, just bad.”

After finishing hacking through the door such that the lock and handle no longer bar entry, Joe kicks it open to reveal shadows within. Oh for electric lighting! We pan our flashlight across the floor and find where the shoes are kept, and to our joy we actually find some in Joe’s size. While Joe puts on a pair of boots, we gather up all the shoes in that size and dump them into the wheelbarrow. We will need spares.

Already Jon has found the kitchen and has started to fill up a garbage bag with perishables. Even though the power has been out for at least half a day, the fridge remained cool with its door unopened. Now it is a race to get whatever we find eaten or preserved.

Cabinet doors are thrown open, seeking useful items. I find the spice cabinet and start shoving everything I can find into a bag. Some of this stuff might be useful for preservatives. Others might have useful vitamins or minerals. Most of it will be saved for later when food gets bland or even later still if we want to trade with other people for things. Pepper used to be worth more than gold at times. Salt controlled the fate of empires.

My bag full, I run it out front to deposit it in the wheelbarrow. Now properly shoed, Joe grabs the handles of the wheelbarrow and takes the bags of food and spices thrown inside back to the house we have claimed as our own. Jon has a duffel bag out and is filling it with cans he found in a pantry, and I quickly join him. We have it waiting out front by the time Joe gets back.

The kitchen now about half emptied of food, I nod to Jon and say, “I’ll start sweeping the rest of the house.” He nods and I make a beeline for a room I am pretty sure is a bathroom. Going inside, I find my suspicions confirmed. Checking it, I begin opening up drawers and cabinets. This is not the main bathroom, just with a toilet and a shower stall, but I loot the various hygiene products. Soap and toilet paper are not just luxuries when you need to avoid getting sick.

Our search slowed from the initial mad dash of grabbing as much food as our containers could hold, Joe rejoins us to begin hauling more cans and boxes of stuff with a long shelf life out of the kitchen while I look for another room, my bag only half full. We could probably slow, but there is a simultaneous sense of urgency and accomplishment that drives us onward. How fast can we drain a house dry of useful goods?

An office. I grab up stationary supplies, we will need them to continue cataloguing what we find. I scan over the books, looking for anything useful, pulling them out to check for anything hidden. I take out a few nature guides and local maps, setting them outside the room to pick up later. Rifling through the desk I also find a false bottom in one of the drawers containing a secret collection of candy bars and porno magazines. Someone was cheating on their diet. I scoop those up, the candy for the calories, the porn for the entertainment.

My bag now full enough, I rush it outside and pile it onto the wheelbarrow, Jon and Joe having already filled it half way with cans. Jon looks up at me and says, “Next is stuff in glass jars, so no extra. We don’t want it tipping.”

I nod and say, “I got some toiletries and stationary, plus about a half box of Snickers with a few Mars bars thrown in for good measure. I also left out some local books and found some dirty magazines for those lonely nights.”

Rushing back in, I hit the next room, a bedroom, and begin throwing socks and underwear into a garbage bag while setting aside shirts and sweaters for a later grab. I also find another few hidden candy bars, several hundred dollars in cash hidden under the bed, and several wooden boxes of jewellery. Wrapping the jewellery up in the bundles of clothing, I move on to the next room.

By the time we have everything we want from the house on that pass, the sun is already fully above the horizon, half obscured by grey clouds, only intermittently providing warming rays. Still, from all the work we’ve been doing, all three of us have developed something of a sweat and Joe has his sweater off, wrapped about his waist.

I can already feel the extra pounds about my gut weighing me down, but there are still more houses to go. We have added another two flashlights and several dozen batteries to our arsenal, along with a crowbar and a pair of claw hammers. Several other sets of tools had also been transported to the house for sorting. We had also found a palette of bottled water, no doubt to go with whatever diet the husband had been sneakily circumventing with his hidden stash of goodies, and had cracked open several bottles to wet our tongues.

By late morning, the sun now high in the sky, we had hit three houses. Each was a story told by the possessions within. The first seemed inhabited by a childless couple, still young but not yet old judging by the pictures, the husband a bit overweight while the wife seemed a touch on the over-enthusiastic athletic side. Unfortunately for us that meant lots of fresh fruits and vegetables that would not keep long. Fortunately for us that also meant lots of organically canned goods.

The second had a lone man, either an electrician or someone who enjoyed working with electronics. We got lots of plenty from that house, and a somewhat heartbreaking amount of alcohol. How sad it was to crack open a person’s home, to see the side of them that they hid from the world, to feel the emotions they carried with them on their possessions, to glimpse at the stories of their lives you would never know about. We also found a blunt nosed .45 revolver, Jon taking care to unload it and carefully stash away the weapon in the attic of the house we had claimed.

The third house was another large home featuring a family. Rich, with two older daughters and a son, they seemed to only stay in the house over the summer months. There were only really spices and a few preserves for food, but the real jackpot was in the antiques we found. We could not move most of them right away, but there were a number of 19th and early 20th century machines that required no electricity to run, like a treadle powered sewing machine. There was also a fair collection of jewellery and perfume that went into our ‘investment portfolio’.

We broke for lunch and consumed some of the meat we had recovered from the refrigerators of the houses, happily digging in while we had the chance, Matt looking somewhat oblivious as to why we are having such a big meal. With us taking the terror of other people off of him, he seemed to not quite fully comprehend just how many things are going to disappear.

Still, we leave him to his meal and then head back out.

By the fifth house of the day, we hit the mother load.

“God bless America,” I mutter sarcastically as we enter into the house of the man who was clearly the NRA member on the street. Hunting trophies line the walls, there are various weapon and hunting magazines spread about. We also quickly recovered a large quantity of camping and survival gear, including several tents and sleeping bags. Best of all, there was an entire room and workshop devoted to weaponry.

After finding the keys to the gun cabinet and starting to check the large collection of rifles and shotguns for proper storage protocols, I pick up one of the more personally useful bits of kit, a compound fibreglass hunting crossbow, one of several along with other hunting bows. I had no illusions of keeping the firearms. Only Jon had any training with them, and I doubted that the gentlemen from last night would let us keep them, but the bows could be trained with and were much less of a threat to guys with guns.

“This is the future here Joe. We won’t be able to keep looting forever; this is just to get us set up. But we find stuff like this, we pick up useful skills like hunting, and we have a future where we can spend silver and gold again one day,” I say while getting the feel of the weapon in my hands, trying to engrain safety habits with something obviously not loaded.

“I don’t know about the future man, but these will definitely be useful today,” Joe says while checking out another crossbow.

Satisfied that the former owner of this house, while perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic about hunting and firearms from a Canadian perspective, was a safe keeper of his weaponry and left nothing loaded, Jon begins to pack the guns away in various carrying cases and invites us to join him.

“What will we do with these once we get them packed away?” Jon asks.

“Load ‘em up in the wheelbarrow, take them back to the place, and hide them until the guys on patrol return so we can donate them to the cause. Buy us a lot of good will, make sure we aren’t marginalized,” I state, shrugging.

“And if we are marginalized?” Jon asks.

“Then we may be looking at jobs shittier than this,” I state. “There’s going to be a lot of work to do. Best to seize the jobs we want than get assigned jobs we don’t. Like latrine duty. Incidentally…”

“I’ll teach you guys how to take a crap without running water,” Jon says, shaking his head.

[The Vortex Empire]

Dammit, my Priest shirt got ripped!

Our group seems like it will be decently well off. Weapons, good will from the higher-ups, etc.

[Academia Nut]

Also two thirds of the founding members are metal fans, so you should be in good company

The next chapter I'm planning on introducing other problems for our little group, namely political ones.

[LadyTevar]

I saw this one lady whack this jock looking guy with a big stick when he tried to grope a girl.

Gee... wonder who THAT was...

So, did we de-nut the rapist?