Chapter 1: Present day

A resume. It was surprising sometimes the things that came to mind. It used to be something I had used to get basic jobs. A ski instructor, game operator at an amusement park, a couple short term jobs before finally finding my career. One that you didn’t apply for; you committed to and enlisted. After that, starting my own business as a self defense/MMA trainer. It was those recent jobs now that would have made my resume arguably extremely impressive for the current world. A world with no stable governments and not even a fraction of its former population. But how does one really prepare for a new world like that?

Let me go back to the beginning of things to explain what I mean by this new world. It could be said that we proved to be our own worst enemy. A genetically engineered super flu virus that had been invented and designed to use as a biological weapon. It had proved entirely too effective, however. An extreme communicability rate above 95% coupled with an even higher nearly 100% fatality rate. At first those who got sick matched the symptoms of a common cold or flu: cough, runny nose, sore throat, etc. The person even seemed to start getting better, but that was proven to be only a false sense of security. After a week the symptoms hit full bore and back with a vengeance. The last stage was obvious. Bloody nose and cheeks that could not be stopped and the organs began to fail and shut down. All told it was 8 weeks typically from first symptoms to death. All the while for 4 of those weeks the person may have only suspected the flu.

It would never be known who had released it or how, nor what made the survivors immune to it. Only that it destroyed societies, governments, and worked extremely fast. If someone had been able to do a population census they would see that the earth’s population went from in the billions in April to the hundreds of thousands in June.

Those hundreds of thousands spread across the globe would then be forced to deal with their next hurdles. Chaos, rioting, looting, rape, murder and general lawlessness, and even new quasi-governments or more likely gangs trying to be formed for examples. That was not counting the accidental deaths that would follow. Those who didn’t have the education/resources to treat what would have been survivable injuries, deaths by electrocution, and survivors who had other health problems like diabetes or heart disease that now couldn’t get proper treatment and medicine.

It was this situation now that I found myself. Where I felt my “resume” could be something to attract people to me. Special Operations soldier and sniper, martial artist with numerous black belts, hunter, fisher, workout buff, arguably a doomsday prepper, and weapon enthusiast.

Through the first few months after the world took a shit I retreated to my cabin in the woods. It had the advantage of being off the grid with solar powered electricity, underground tanks for propane and gasoline, a well for drinking water, a garden for vegetables, a few fruit trees, and also as being naturally defensible and solidly built. A fenced-in area with razor wire and a vehicle gate surrounded my perimeter up to a quarter mile from my cabin. I was close enough to the city that initial foraging attempts had still been feasible, laying in a store of frozen goods and canned goods that would keep me fed, not counting what I could hunt and fish for nearby.