Chapter 1: The Hunter

There was a time of great foolishness. It was a time when people worshiped illusion and traded appearance for substance. That time came to an end.

Terrorism in Central Asia, earthquakes in the Far East, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, socialists in Latin America, mindless environmentalism in Europe, and greed in North America all conspired to drive the cost of energy beyond reason. The domino effect was inevitable. Automobile sales went to zero, one airline after another failed and major energy companies declared bankruptcy. As the cost of production and transportation went up, the price of goods skyrocketed. Unemployment crept into double digits and continued to rise. No one wanted to live in the suburbs and no one had money to buy so the bottom dropped out of the real estate market.

Banks and lending institutions began wholesale foreclosures, but then the banks and lending institutions themselves failed. Finally the infrastructure failed. For lack of maintenance the power grid died piece by piece all over North America. There was no one and no money available for repairs. One outage spawned dozens more. Soon, drinking water was no longer safe even if it ran from city faucets. Diseases unheard of for a hundred years reappeared and ravaged population centers. The politicians, as adept as they were at pandering and playing shell games, were powerless to deal with this new reality.

The people were angry and blamed everyone but themselves. Some cried that prosperity was being stolen by immigrants, or by Asians or Blacks. There were race riots, and from the destruction rose demagogues who preached hate against anyone unlike themselves. Militias and private armies were formed and what remained of the government was powerless against them. While fuel and ammunition lasted, violent civil war ravaged the continent, but in the end, starvation, disease and wholesale death put an end to even this organized destruction.

There were no crops and few who knew how to farm. There was little to eat. Finally nothing was left but scattered survivors. Some, in small tribes attempted to farm or hunt for survival. A few hardy loners lived by their wits, their courage and their strength. Some formed roving gangs of bandits, stealing and killing. A new Dark Age had descended upon the world.

This is a story of that time.

His dogs had been hunted hard for two days in a row and were no good to him today, so Emil was stalking the feral pig by himself. The boar had been moving downwind which had made the hunt difficult. To keep his scent from alerting the animal, Emil had been unable to follow directly, but had been forced to move through rough ground parallel to the boar's meandering trail. At last he saw the opportunity to get downwind to prepare an ambush. A slow moving, muddy creek crossing the pig's path would surely be an invitation for a wallow. Emil leapt the creek, dashed ahead and then circled around to approach the noisy bath scene from downwind. He would only have one chance. The tip of his walnut-handled boar spear was hardened steel, ground sharp, and formed from the remains of an old rifle barrel. There was a crosspiece fitted to keep an enraged pig from driving its body further up the spear in an attempt to do damage to the hunter. If his aim was true and his luck was good, he'd eat well for a few days. If not, the pig would bolt away into the undergrowth and all the morning's work would be wasted.

Emil was lucky. He was able to charge from cover and drive the steel tip of his pike into the boar's heart before the pig had even sensed danger. With a deceptive ease born of long practice, Emil cleaned the pig, carefully cutting away the internal organs so as not to penetrate the bladder or contaminate the liver with fecal matter. The liver was a delicacy and was carefully removed and set aside to be placed back into the body cavity after all the other organs had been disposed of. Using a rope and a low tree limb, he hoisted the gutted pig by its hind legs. He used the time it took for the hapless animal to bleed out to construct a simple travois that he would use to drag the carcass back to his home. Dressed out the pig probably weighed over 100 lbs so it would be a long hard haul, but Emil was used to hard work and this kill meant that he and his dogs would eat well for a few days.

The first part of the haul was steeply uphill out of the small valley through which the creek flowed. Emil was panting from the effort when he finally reached the level trail that followed the ridgeline. For a half hour the going was easy, but then his path crossed an old Interstate highway. The highway was dangerous because bandits preyed there. The bandits had long ensured that there would be no traffic along the crumbling Interstates, and now, they used the long sight lines along the old highways to detect people crossing. A quick run across the open space was low risk, but dragging a heavy and valuable load could be another matter altogether.

Emil moved with caution. He left the travois in the denser wood at the edge of the Interstate, stealthily moved up the embankment to the concrete, and from a position of concealment scanned the highway in both directions. He surveyed the crossing for almost fifteen minutes until he was reasonably certain there would be little danger. He returned to the travois, and as rapidly as he could, skidded it up the embankment and across the first ribbon of concrete. He crossed the median and was huffing and puffing as he crested the embankment to the second concrete lane. He scanned left and right, and then he saw them.

There were three men, about 400 yards distant. Two were running in his direction, but the other kneeled. Emil felt the sting on his forearm before he heard the rifle shot. He was amazed, not that he had been shot, but that the man had a gun and enough ammunition to waste on a moving target of questionable value and at a relatively long range. Emil concluded that these three were desperate fools, maybe from what remained of the city. They were probably starving and lacked the skill to hunt or the patience to farm. Stealing and killing would be their only means to survive.

Without hesitation, Emil dropped his load and sprinted for the safety of the dense forest at the other side of the Interstate. They probably wouldn't chase him and he was glad to trade the pig carcass for his life. Once into the woods, he continued for a few hundred yards and then lay low in the cover of a small ravine. He listened as his breathing slowed and his heart rate returned to normal, and when he was sure no one had followed, he made his way back to the highway. The men were dots in the distance, hauling the travois back the way they had come.

Emil wasn't angry. The only right in his world was made by might. Right lived and made the rules. Wrong died. Anger was a wasted emotion. Emil made cold, clear calculations. The pig was his. He'd worked for it, and it represented a few days worth of food. To him it had great value, and he decided that the risk of attempting to get it back was worth taking.

He examined the wound on his forearm. It wasn't much more than a scratch and it had cauterized itself. He put the wound out of his mind and began to trail the three men. He stayed on the margins of the forest, carefully keeping out of sight. After observing the men for a while, he decided that his original assessment of them was correct: They were fools. They moved down the middle of the highway, announcing their presence to anyone who might be watching. They were relying on the fact that they had a gun, not thinking that sooner or later they'd have to stop, and that anyone who followed them and who was patient and cunning would not be dissuaded by a gun. Emil was patient and he was cunning.

Soon, the men left the Interstate. It was easy for Emil to track them through the forest to their temporary camp. The smell of their large smoking fire alone would have allowed Emil to find them. They were definitely from the city.