Chapter 1: I killed a man today

“Day 23

I killed a man today.  I don't know if I feel bad because I should feel bad about killing him and I feel nothing or because I did a bad thing.  I didn't plan on killing anyone. It just happened so fast and it was dark out and ... and no excuses.  I'm now a killer and I'll have to live with that.”

God this diary thing sucks. How can I put down in words how scared I am? How do I make sense of the fact that the first real people I've seen in two weeks were looters that tried to kill me?  If mom was still here she could explain; she was such a good writer.  The house - her house looked so empty without her.  The flickering illumination from gran's antique oil lamp casting shadows crawling back and forth across the room's walls. Shadows cast from better times, times when the house was full of life and happiness. Even after dad died, mom and I were still happy, still able to maintain the farm. I could just see her grave through the window. Moonlight angling under the oak's branches bathing the simple wooden marker I had painstakingly hand carved before glinting off the hard frost and lighting underneath the tree in a pale shifting witch fire. The grave I had hand dug through the frozen soil as a penance for my failure blistering and blooding my hands until the pain in my palms equaled the pain in my heart. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't save her; no one left to call, no one to help keep the cool wet towels on her to keep the fever down.  I tried, but I was so tired, I only meant to close my eyes for a moment. I didn't mean to sleep but when I woke up she was gone.  I killed her because I was too selfish to watch over her.

Blowing out the lamp to conserve what little oil remained I closed the diary and set it on the kitchen table before picking up dad's rifle and the remaining box of ammo.  I made my way slowly out the kitchen and into the dimly moonlit living room. The word silence doesn’t do justice to the night. You can’t understand how noisy the world was until it stopped.  No sound of cars on distant roads, no dim roar of planes overhead, no distant echo of neighbors doing their thing the next farm over, not even the omnipresent hum of electricity; all the little sounds of life going through its motions the background music of life – dead and gone.  I should probably get rid of the TV and the lights now that the electricity is gone. Maybe arrange the furniture around the fireplace?  Less than a month from 21^st century living to 19^th century living.  Not even that I guess, what century would reflect a time when humanity was an endangered species?  Adding another log to the fire provided the light I needed to get ready for bed. Not that much getting ready for was necessary; just getting the pillow and blankets on the couch arranged. After last night, I was going to sleep fully dressed and ready for anything.  A glance at the few remaining logs reminding me that I couldn’t postpone a supplies run much longer.  Any more delay and winter will catch me unprepared.

Laying down and listening to the night caught me remembering last night. I still can’t believe I didn’t hear them coming. I had woken up in my bedroom to the sound of Gandalf – I know corny name but I liked Lord of the Rings so sue me; he was my horse so I got to name him - neighing in the stables and had thought the dogs were trying to get in.  The dogs here abouts had all gone feral and started to roam in packs when they realized no one was left to feed them.  Or had finished off eating what remained of their former masters.  I had been leaving out poison to try to cull them before they could kill off our livestock – my livestock now I guess.  Anyway, I had grabbed the rifle and headed downstairs quiet like so I wouldn’t scare them off before I could shoot them when I heard the commotion and lights in the kitchen and had the rifle up and ready as I came around the corner and stood in the archway into the kitchen.

A man and a woman were opening cupboards and empting their contents into large burlap sacks.  They looked like they hadn’t washed in days but under the grime their cloths I could tell that they were city folk.  “Hey! Stop that” I yelled pointing the rifle at them.  God they stank.  The woman froze but the man snarled and lunged towards me with a knife held high.  So animal like he seemed that I froze for a second, I almost didn’t have time to pull the trigger.

But I did.

Killing a man wasn’t anything like hunting with my dad had been.  I don’t really know how long I stood there frozen watching the pool of blood slowly expand out from the body; when I looked back up the woman was gone.  Was he her husband, father, brother?  After all the death and dying as the world lurched and flailed like a dying patient lashing out at his physician; to survive the death of billions to have it end pointlessly over a can of pork and beans.

I searched the property for any signs of the woman but the tracks showed her heading south along the road out front.  Gandalf was safe in the stables so I gave him an extra cup of oats; after all that horse was shaping up to be a dam fine guard dog. Heading back towards the house I thought about what to do with the body.

The fact is no one is safe alone.  No one can be alert every hour of the day, every day for the rest of their life.  If I was going to survive people wanting to do me harm I needed to be hard.  It isn’t the strongest who survive; it is the one who is will to do what it takes – anything it takes to survive.  Like a school yard fight I needed not only to win this fight I needed to do it in such a way that no one would be willing to pick a fight with me again.

I knew what I needed to do.  Dawn found me with the body and a length of rope by the tree out front next to the road.  It was a huge old Butternut the trunk so wide that it took both my mom and I to circle our arms around it.  It would serve my macabre purpose now.  Its branches were wide as my legs and short strait out from the trunk parallel from the ground. Branches those were perfect for building my many tree forts in better times.  Now they would be transformed into my gallows warning that looters will be dealt with harshly.

Even now searching for the remorse my actions should have caused I only find emptiness inside as if part of me died today along with that man.  It was a simple thing to affix the sign upon his chest and slip the noose around his neck.  “Looters will be shot” it read.  I can still see the body swinging and turning slowly in the breeze as I turned away as headed back to the house and its fireplace wanting to feel the flames on my face warming the chill on my soul.

I spent the day cleaning and scrubbing removing any evidence of my crime from the kitchen.  Anything I could do to postpone going to sleep and facing the nightmares that I knew would come; even putting words to the journal seemed better then facing that.

What have I become? Maybe if I’m lucky the woman will come back seeking revenge and finish me of in my sleep, I thought as I turned over onto my side and let the flickering flames lull me towards sleep.  There has to be something more that just keeping going.

Reviews

[Syldor]

A beautifully written peice. The story is captivating. I can't wait for more!

[Jenny Nelson]

Wow. Can't wait to read more. Really well written and certainly has caught my attention. Incredibly eerie and ominous. Really conveyed the aloneness