It was four weeks after the EMP, and civilization was declining quickly. You would think it would take years, or at least months, before it all fell apart, but it was only weeks. North of us was mostly gone according to wild-eyed survivors arriving daily with horror stories we didn't want to believe. There was little news from the west because it was on fire. South? Well, we were South, and people who thought we were a safe haven were quickly finding out their journey was not over.
I don't know if they were calling it an apocalypse officially or not yet, but it was starting to feel that way. Apocalypse means the complete destruction of the world and for me and the other 328 million or so Americans alive before the EMP, that was what happened. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was the same as before, and I can completely illustrate my point by telling you what happened one night early in the disaster.
It was a Friday night, at least I think it was Friday night, because we were at the football field. We did not go for the game. We went to an execution.
How did I know there was to be an execution? I read it in the paper. That's right. I know it is hard to believe, but my hometown of Mount Airy, NC still had a paper before the EMP that you could hold in your hand and read, and we still had one for months after the world ended. This was all because of an editor who believed in the power of information and the right of the people to know the truth.
The Mount Airy Daily News, which is not so daily now (more like every third day or so), is still being published and delivered (more like posted on some telephone polls) by the distribution department (a kid on a bike). It is ironic that a newspaper (more like a piece of legal paper) printed on paper is the way we are getting our news, but otherwise all we get is gossip and what the editor of the paper, Mr. Johnson, calls "fearmongering".
"Execution at 6:00 pm" read the headline. "All able-bodied citizens required to attend by order of the sheriff."
"Don't listen to the government" was one of dad's rules of survival, but the next paragraph mentioned that there would be an evaporated milk giveaway, so I had to go. Steven and I were stockpiling food, and you can do a lot with a can of evaporated milk.
I am not going to talk about the execution other than to say a man was shot by a man who called himself "the new sheriff in town". The man was shot for something that he would have been given probation for in the old days. Times were desperate and strangers were no longer welcome in our town even if the visitors' sign on the outskirts of town said - Welcome to Mount Airy - Friendliest Town in America. Times had changed and the executed thief was proof that the people in my town were tired and war weary from suffering.
We had no patience with wrongdoing, but really most of us just came for the milk. All those present, about a hundred of us, got three cans apiece. I wish we had brought Steven's Nana with us because that would have meant extra cans, but she was on a walker, and if we had waited on her to get there, the milk would have been gone. The crowd gathered for the execution was so jaded already that no one looked at the man shot dead over stealing what might have been the milk we were all taking home for supper.
After the execution and the milk giveaway, Steven and I stayed around long enough to listen to the fearmongering. Listen, said my father, listen close. Sometimes there is truth in what people say, especially if it seems unbelievable.
The rumors said he was coming. Their leader. The man they call "The One", as in The One who ended it all. The One who will not be satisfied until he is the ruler of the world, his world not ours. He has been coming since the first day according to the gossip, but this time there was evidence - outsiders who arrived by bus the day of the execution. They tried to run away from the fight. Some were burnt and smelled of smoke. There was nothing to be done to help them.
Their town burned to the ground. No fire trucks came to the rescue because there was no one left to help.
Our town was directly in the path of the army of the One. I knew it was time for me and Steven to go, but I couldn't leave just yet. I couldn't give up on her.
What if my mama was almost home?
YOU ARE READING
Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Apocalypse
General FictionEliot and her best friend, Steven, are teenage survivors of the end of the world. Eliot's dad is a world-renowned survivalist, and he taught her all the rules. After weeks of waiting for Eliot's missing mother to come home, Eliot and Steven are read...
