Remnants

Hardtack

Through the scope of his rifle, Jack peered out the window of the building that had once been the office of a car insurance salesman. On the wall behind him the faded poster of the salesman's overly white smile, perfectly coiffed hair, and spray tanned face stared down the empty and neglected city street as well.

"I really can't stand moving in the daytime like this. I feel so exposed out here," Jack whispered.

"I know. Every part of me feels like this is wrong. But I trust James and Becca," Evan softly answered with a shrug.

Moving his head away from the scope of his rifle, Jack turned to face his fellow master. The rest of their party relaxed in the ransacked break room of the office. It was midday and, after hours of walking, they had almost reached the edge of Fort Worth. Before them lay Arlington, a place where Jack had been many times. The city, crammed between the two huge North Texas cities, had once been where Jack grew up attending baseball and football games, spending hours wandering amusement parks, making memories that would last a lifetime.

The streets around them, even the building they currently took shelter in, told him that this world would never again be like the one in those memories. The hole in the roof between the two masters and their companions provided just enough light for a tree to sprout up. It was almost as tall as Jack and would no doubt grow for years to come. The feeble uninhabited structures of before stood no chance at surviving this reclamation. If it hadn't cost the lives of millions of innocent people, Jack would have been happy to see it.

"Come on, man. You need to eat something while you can," Evan said with a sigh, patting Jack on the shoulder and standing.

Jack took one more look out the window before nodding to the elder master and standing to join him. Walking into the plundered break room, he found a suitably stable metal folding chair and, after removing his pack, took a seat. The others chewed on their tough, dried food they brought along. Fires of any kind were to be avoided if at all possible, meaning food could not be cooked. Not that Jack found he cared. Among many other things, he missed his late partner's delicious campsite cooking. He was still a pathetic excuse for a chef and it turned out that Anya was no better than he. The few times they had sat down for a fireside meal while he spent the winter training his apprentice, neither had even bothered to try after discovering one another's severely lacking skills.

Chewing on his tough piece of hardtack, a tasteless field ration from the Civil War era that he had learned about from his father who had been a history professor, Jack let slip a small sigh. He wished Chuck was with him. Scanning the room, he swallowed his mouthful of food. Everything made more sense with Chuck. He was always so laid back. Always so unbothered by the twists and turns of life. Chuck always said his easygoing nature was something the Army had instilled in him.

"When somebody controls almost every aspect of your life, you just learn to go with the flow. Embrace the suck," he would always say.

The thought brought the ghost of a smile to his lips. He needed to do what his mentor taught him. Embrace the suck. Don't let the small things bother him.

He looked at Anya. She chewed on a mouthful of dried fruit, a fairly tasty treat as far as cold rations go. What would Chuck do about her? He could sense that something was wrong. As she ate, she kept her head down, her camouflage baseball cap worn low, shielding her eyes. Her body language told everybody to leave her alone and the small party listened. Even Jase, who still sat beside her at a table, had nearly given up trying to talk to her.

For as long as Jack had known her, Anya had been so tough, so resilient. Even after the loss of her father, she had not been broken. She pushed through, doing what it took to survive. She had handled Chuck's passing with such grace. Even Gabe's betrayal was unable to derail her as she had been crucial in planning out their counter attack and giving them the distraction they had needed to surprise the traitor. But Jack was afraid that what happened in the pecan grove had been too much for her. He was afraid that she had finally been pushed to her breaking point. And although she had done a good job of hiding it before, she was slipping.

Taking a bite of his hardtack, Jack now thought of his father. He was another person who would have known what to do about Anya. Jack knew his dad would have been the perfect person for his apprentice to spend some time with. His father had always had the gift of being someone people could talk to. Although he had been a history professor, only retiring a year before the Separation, many had treated him like the campus therapist, students and colleagues alike taking up his office hours by pouring out their problems to him over his dimly lit desk. Anya would have opened up to him. Even if she wouldn't to her master.

That didn't matter either. Just like Chuck, Jack's dad was gone. He was unlikely to ever be sure, but his parents had lived in the city when the Separation broke out and Jack knew of none of his former friends and acquaintances that had survived that first year while living in the city.

Anya folded up the red bandana that her food had been wrapped in and stuffed it in her pack. The movement snapped Jack from his trance. He had been staring the whole time and quickly looked down as he knew that people generally preferred not to be stared at. He stuffed another piece of his hardtack into his mouth and bit through the seemingly always stale food that could hardly be called bread. The others were beginning to wrap up their light midday meals as well and he had no intention of making them wait for him.

Becca stood up and stretched with a yawn, "If I sit like that any longer, you'll all be hearing me snoring."

James stood beside her, "A nap doesn't sound to bad. And with all of these friends around, maybe we could actually sleep at the same time instead of having to alternate guard duty."

She scratched the stubbly haired, tattooed side of her head with her fingertips and smiled contentedly at her husband, "Si, amor. I miss sleeping at the same time as you."

Evan let out a small puff of air in silent laughter at the pair, "Maybe you two should try to make some more friends so you can actually get a decent night of sleep some time."

Becca winked at him in reply, "Maybe if these pendejos in the city weren't so salvaje, we could make some more friends."

"Yeah and the suburbanites are way too scared to come into the city to help us anyway," James said with a shrug.

"No point in complaining about something we can't fix for now. Let's get moving," Jack said as he slung on his backpack and took his rifle in hand.