The Last Old Man

Episode 1 of

The Drifter

An America Falls Serialized Novel

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Written by Scott Medbury

Copyright 2022 Scott Medbury

All characters and events depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Blood orange smears dashed the evening sky; the sun melting behind a ridge of chestnut oaks and pine trees found native to the state of Pennsylvania—where the worn boots of the drifter traveled.

Ten long years since the fall of America. It felt like a century to Joshua Ragland. His travels across the ruined remains of his home, the United States, showed it to be a shadow of its former glory.

For most who survived, memories of the old life had faded. Not for Ragland. He had been twenty-four when America fell, when nearly all who survived the virus had been seventeen at the most. Now at thirty-four, the world before the virus was like a home he could never go back to. A town across a gorge without a bridge to reach it.

Reaching down into his pack, Ragland pulled out a metal flask with an inbuilt filter he’d ripped from another bottle long before it fell apart. He took a long gulp, wiped his beard, and surveyed the hills. This will do, he thought. This will make for a good camping spot.

He'd left it a little later than usual, rushing to erect his small tent in the twilight before darkness engulfed him. Around him, in the woods, he could hear the scurrying of possums and cottontails in the leaves. In the distance, the cry of a bobcat echoed, bouncing off the ridge faces and into the inky sky.

A tall man, Ragland always had to negotiate and tuck himself into the tent. At over six-foot-three, it often meant smacking his head on low-hanging branches, too. His collection of bruises and welts were plenty.

Happy with the campfire crackling away, which would keep until the early hours, Ragland had just one more chore before bedding down for the night.

Traps.

He set them most nights and with a bit of luck, he would have a fresh breakfast waiting for him when he woke up.

Ragland was comfortable living off the land. In the world after The Fall—as he called it—law and order existed only in pockets. On the eastern seaboard at least. Gangs of wild kids roamed the lands now. He’d not required the relay of rumor to know of feral gangs and cannibal hordes. Ragland had seen it all.

And they didn’t just stick to one place. With his own grey eyes, he’d witnessed them scurry and loot in the big cities, desecrate towns, and burn down small villages and settlements. That was most. Some, however, sought the wilds. The spaces between our fallen civilization.

One rumor he had heard was of their superstitions. They believed that ghosts claimed dominion of the old places, and said it justified their riotous acts. To him, it was the same old bullshit, but he could never shake the idea of a haunted dimension alongside their own, a dimension filled with the hundreds of millions of souls lost in the space of a few weeks, ten years before.

Standing poised over one of his tripwires, stuck in a reverie, Ragland reached instinctively to his chest, feeling for the necklace. On it, a birthstone. Onyx. The color of deep darkness.

It had belonged to someone special to him. Someone who died long ago when the virus came and wiped out over half the population.

His little sister.

Melanie.

Ragland’s scarred and calloused hand gripped the stone on its leather thong and tried to picture her face again. Like a teardrop, with their dad’s signature blue eyes. His whole family had blue eyes. Not him; he’d drawn the short straw.

The snap of a twig put him on high alert. Dropping his hand, he reached for the hunting knife at his right ankle and drew it, peering into the darkness. After a few minutes of listening intently, he considered himself safe, sheathed the blade, and ensured his tripwire was in order.

Back at the tent, Ragland fell straight to sleep, dropping off within minutes. It was the one benefit of living the apocalypse. Back before the virus, he had always suffered from sporadic insomnia. But now, with the world outside as good as ended, and society in America in tatters and set back a century or more, he had never slept better.

When he woke from his tangled nest, Ragland pulled himself straight out from his sleeping bag, grabbed his knife, and walked blurry eyed into the trees in search of breakfast.

He’d not walked far—perhaps a hundred feet when he found the squirrel snared in his trap. Bending down, one of his knees poking out of his worn jeans, he prized it free and took it back to camp. He usually caught a rabbit, but squirrel would be enough for him to get started.

With plenty of experience, Ragland got the dead fire going again after clearing away the ash. Once he’d skinned and gutted the squirrel, he skewered it on a sharpened stick and held it over the fire

The animal was lean and cooked well enough to eat in ten minutes. The meat was tasty, not as good as rabbit but close, and he savored the fatty juices, licking his fingers after he had picked the carcass clean.

Leaving no time to watch the sunrise, he packed up his gear, breaking down the tent and stacking it neatly into his backpack. As customary, he cleared the site he’d had the fire, throwing away the rocks and brushing the ground with a leafy branch until there was no trace he had been there.

He never liked to stay in one place for longer than was necessary. It invited comfort, laziness and predictability. All of which could come back to bite him if the moment struck advantageous to a group of raiders or cannibals. No sense sleeping in if it meant waking up with his feet cut off, spit-roasting over his own fire.

Tossing away the what-if notion, Ragland threw his well-worn backpack over his shoulders, ran a hand through his long brown hair and tied it back from his face with a bandana, as he surveyed the way ahead.

He decided he’d go north.

His last loop around the northern part of Pennsylvania, south of Canada’s Lake Erie, proved to be a gold mine for abandoned towns and villages, some still stocked with canned food that would probably last another century. All well and good, but hunting was still his preferred option for food where possible.

Sweeping across the eastern states, he’d hunted everything from small fish to elk. The upside to a vastly depleted human population meant the animals thrived and were plentiful in most areas, even returning to their former master’s urban domains, now just concrete and steel shells. Vestiges and relics of a world long gone.

Of course, the abundance of game and the toppling of the former apex predator—man—brought its own problems. There had been a population explosion of predators, and barely a day passed where he didn’t have to avoid an animal with the capacity to kill him. Wolves, cougars, mountain lions, bears… he had seen them all.

Predators weren’t the only ones flourishing though. A year ago, a group of traders had told Ragland of a rumor that bison had returned to the sweeping hills of Wyoming. He had yet to set his eyes on this miracle. Lucrative though it might be, the traders risked a lot by heading west into the occupied territories. He hadn’t yet taken the chance but thought he’d like to before he died, one last, long trek all the way west to the beaches of California.

That said, he had witnessed many other miracles in his lonely travels. Of course, he stopped at the occasional town or village to re-supply, but only his time out in the wilds revealed the new world’s most incredible beauties. Tranquil lakes glistening under a golden sun, untouched by man for years. Farmland gone wild, as far as the eye can see. A rich explosion of life.

He’d seen so much.

With the sun now rising cleanly from behind the pines, its pale light illuminated his lean, bearded face, and he smiled. He’d always hoped to have a backyard with his first house. Now, he had over six million square miles to play with.

The apocalypse wasn’t without its silver linings.

Chapter 2

Ragland’s descent from his campsite was less treacherous than he had anticipated, the ground not so slippery, with plenty of grip on his old boots granting him purchase.

The plan for the day would be to navigate the small stream to the north, climb the next ridge and get his bearings on any nearby settlements, so as to avoid them. Almost fully stocked, he had no reason to entertain the presence of people.

Around him, as he navigated the way down, he could hear a chorus of birds above him, dancing and fluttering between the branches. The further he descended, the more he could make out the distant trickle of water.

Beneath his boots, small twigs snapped, and the first leaves of fall wedged themselves into the grooves. Despite the time of year, Ragland had earned himself a decent sweat by the time he reached the bottom. Taking a breath, he drained the rest of his filtered water and followed the sound of the stream.

‘Out on the streets,’ he suddenly started singing to himself, spying the glint of midday sun off the water between the trees. ‘That’s where we’ll meet.’

A song he once heard his dad sing. A song he hadn’t heard played in a long, long time.

Ragland would give anything to hear recorded music again and a device he had looked for on his travels—one which was top of the list—was a record player. One he could finally use to listen to music the way his dad’s generation had. He’d heard of some still lying around but he was yet to come across one that didn’t require power from a grid that no longer ran. A battery operated one was what he needed.

During his many supermarket raids in the early days, batteries were a dime a dozen. He found old MP3 players, Walkmans, and even a cassette tape player that all worked on batteries. During the first few years, he’d listened to a lot of music. But it didn’t last.

Over time, as others sought to ransack those last vestiges of technology, the batteries dwindled and became extinct. Now, only some major towns and cities had any left, but they were still hard to come by.

Ragland felt like each year that passed took them further back in time. It didn’t feel like the twenty-first century anymore, not even the twentieth.

And traveling had proven that notion.

Crouching and still singing, Ragland dipped his water flask into the stream, the filtering device at the top already at work.

His badly out of tune song played to a small family of Elk drinking on the northern shore.

He paused then. Watched. Took in the gleam of their fine, chestnut coats. Their shiny bauble eyes beneath long eyelashes. A scurry to the east had a few of them raise and crane their heads.

The buck noticed Ragland and gazed at him warily. For some reason, he found himself raising a hand in greeting.

The buck blinked.

‘Come here often?’

The buck dipped his head back to the water.

‘Not much for chit chat, I see?’

Smiling, he rummaged through his bag and pulled out a bag of nuts and berries he’d been collecting. A skill he’d taken the time to perfect—not keen on finding an abandoned bus to shit himself to death in.

Thirst quenched, and belly full, Ragland saw off the bucks as they traveled west down the stream, leaving his way open to cross the shallow middle to the other side. The gradual incline of the valley opposite meant he could keep his pace without tiring himself for hunting.

Back between the pines, he bent low to look out for signs of life, keen to start hunting early before the sun set in six or so hours. He’d quickly learned in his first year in the wild that time slipped away when you got busy hunting.

It didn’t take long for him to find the prints of a medium-sized bird. A wild turkey if experience served him well. Gripping his bow carefully—it was always strapped vertically to his backpack—he took out an arrow and held it against the limb of the bow, not yet wanting to notch. That would come later.

And turkey was his favorite.

With males weighing in at over twenty pounds if they were big and healthy, just their heart boiled in salt water would provide him enough for a good snack, the rest of the carcass easily feeding him for the next two days before it spoiled.

Unlike the hellish episode he’d had recently with groundhogs, Ragland found he had much better luck with turkeys. Their wing and claw marks on the ground, and the little dust bowls they left on the forest floor were all telltale signs.

Today, he was feeling a bit cocky. Today he would feast.

His mouth was already watering when he caught what sounded like, at the very least, a small flock of wild turkey. Ragland clambered across a particularly rocky outcrop, kneeling to spy his prize. And there they were.

Foraging just twenty feet ahead, they remained ignorant to his presence. Using this window, Ragland notched an arrow onto his bowstring, pulling it back, feeling the resistance, keeping it in line with his chin and nose. A straight, accurate line for precision shooting.

He'd seen other hunters prefer the more unorthodox method of pulling it to their cheek, but he felt it never guaranteed accuracy like his way. And he’d never gone hungry.

Taking measure of the distance, the stillness of the air, and the cool temperature, he exhaled slowly, feeling his chest depress, and then loosed his arrow.

Feather and shaft cut through the air like a knife, finding its way home in the lower neck of one of the turkeys. The others scattered instantly, dashing between the trees in different directions, their wings scraping the forest floor.

Feeling uncharacteristically smug, he continued to admire his shot, and it almost cost him his dinner.

A bobcat's whiskers, then its head appeared from the shadows between a few closely knitted trees, prowling toward the dead turkey. Ragland paused, stock still, not having heard it coming. In all his time in the wild, he’d heard the cry and scream of a bobcat maybe a half-dozen times. They were incredibly agile and silent hunters.

Sensing Ragland was poised to move, the bobcat moved quickly to claim the turkey, grabbing the scrawny neck between its jaws.

‘Fucker!

Ragland bolted forward, scaring the bobcat away, but as he did so, a sharp, hot pain seared in his ankle, and he came crashing down.

‘Christ!’ he screamed.

The lynx rufus—the scientific name Ragland knew from reading books on his journeys—had vanished, along with his dinner and his precious arrow, leaving him sprawled on the muddy ground, clutching his ankle.

A lesson for you, you cocky bastard, he admonished himself.

He’d let his long years of successful hunting and ego best him for just a split second, and it’d come back to bite him on the ass.

Wincing and pulling himself up slowly, he tested the weight on his twisted ankle and felt it to be much more manageable than he’d anticipated. In fact, he had the feeling he would walk it off in a few hours. The same could not be said for his pride, which was significantly battered.

Ragland continued towards the top of the ridge, checking absent-mindedly for any other tracks to pursue. After an hour of fruitless tracking, he found a fresh set of claw marks. But his attention had been drawn to something else.

A voice.

Dropping down to his haunches, Ragland immediately froze, scanning the woods around him for the source of the voice.

Male.

No, two voices. No! Three…

He tilted his head, and held his breath as he listened to pinpoint their location. They were downwind, further east along the hill. Maybe a little higher up. Torn between curiosity and caution, Ragland decided to gain height and vantage.

With bow and arrows stashed away, and running in a low crouch, he closed the distance to the voices and made his way further up the incline to a large outcropping. When he was settled, he saw them below, some fifty feet away. Three rough looking young men, in all black.

One of them turned toward the lip of the precipice that hid Ragland, and he could see the smears of crimson on his cheeks.

Blood.

‘Cannibals,’ he mouthed, ducking lower, so only his eyes peeked through the undergrowth, his right hand touching the knife in his boot to make sure it was there.

They were talking amongst themselves. Hurriedly. Debating about how to split up. Then, catching Ragland off guard, one of the cannibals screamed, pointing further down the hill toward another figure.

‘Meat!’ he screeched.

The words fell cold against his skin, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. The war cry was something he’d heard plenty of times before. Cannibals did not see people for who they were, only what they were.

Meat.

The figure in the distance froze for a second, then took off but stumbled as they ran, falling, and they were quickly set upon by the cannibals. Ragland stayed hidden, an audience to their hunt. Their movements were quick, decisive, and merciless. He saw their quarry was a female and as he watched, the laughing cannibals took her arms and legs and carried her back towards the small camp they’d made below Ragland’s hiding spot.

The prisoner screamed. As they drew closer, Ragland could see she was young, perhaps only in her late teens. She was putting up a pretty good fight, reaching across to bite one of the cannibals on the arm.

He dropped her, and she took a chance to leap up and kick another square in the balls.

A howl from him went up, piercing the canopy above.

Ouch.

Ragland thought she might just fight her way free and make a run for it, but the third cannibal, the biggest of them, stepped forward and unleashed a roundhouse punch that took her on the temple.

Like a ragdoll, she fell in a heap on the leafy floor.

‘No!’ Ragland gasped involuntarily.

Though not a yell, his voice carried, stirring the ears of the cannibal who had been bitten. His dark, murderous eyes scanned the ridge where he hid. After a few seconds, with Ragland holding his breath and blood pounding in his ears, the cannibal decided it was nothing and moved to help tie up their meal.

As they turned the teenager over, Ragland caught sight of her face and froze. It was Melanie…

No. She’s dead, Josh. Dead. You’re seeing things again.

But the resemblance was unmistakable. The same long black hair. The same Roman nose. The same brow.

She looked just like his sister, Melanie.

Taking stock of the situation, wanting to take advantage of their vulnerability, Ragland pulled his knife from its ankle sheath and was seconds from pouncing when a fourth man approached from the west, slow and deliberate in his movements. He spoke in a deep voice.

‘We take her to the pack,’ he spoke, surveying the girl who lay motionless, her arms and legs bound. ‘He will want to see.’

The other three nodded, the large one picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. He was easily as tall as Ragland but broader across the back. It would take a lot to put someone like that in the dirt, but a well-placed arrow would be all he’d need.

As the cannibals moved off, heading northeast away from him and up the ridge, Ragland decided against his better judgement that he would need to get involved.

He was going to kill every one of them.

Chapter 3

Ragland’s stomach growled like a wolf as the crescent moon peeped over the swaying treetops. A sweet breeze reached his nose but soon soured with the greasy sweat of his prey. The cannibals were close.

For the last few hours, he’d kept slow and at least a quarter mile away. The last thing he wanted was to alert them. At this distance, he could easily track and keep them in sight. If the day had taught him one thing, it was to stay true to his own habits.

Be slow. Be cautious. Be deliberate.

He had no idea where their camp could be, or how permanent it was. His familiarity with the area wasn’t the best. But as they crested the ridge by dusk, he could see a few winks of light below in a clearing. No doubt their camp.

How many would be there, he thought? Would he be met with a whole pack of them? If so, how would he free the girl? As good a hunter as he was, he wouldn’t be able to take on more than half a dozen of them and even then, stealth and surprise would have to work in his favor.

Ragland let the distance between he and the cannibals grow as they moved down the slope, descending to the camp. He was keen to avoid dislodging stray rocks or making any noise that might give away his presence.

His patience paid dividends when they reached the camp just a half-hour later, his existence still undetected. Sticking to the shadows just outside the camp, Ragland began to survey and recon the area to get a good headcount. The cannibals—four to the party—had mentioned another, so he knew already there would be a minimum of five to deal with.

Circling slowly, avoiding any dry twigs underfoot, he soon learned that the hunting party was only the four, plus one. Their leader. Dressed only in black pants, he was a gruesome sight, his lean, muscled torso covered in dried blood and other markings. To top off his outfit, he wore a gruesome necklace of ears and fingers.

Once he was satisfied it was only a party of five, Ragland pinpointed the girl’s location. She was tied against a tree at the center of the camp, head lolling on her chest where she sat, legs bent to the left.

How are you going to do this, Josh?

He closed his eyes and listened to their muttering. Their footsteps. The crackle of logs on the campfire. He could smell the musky smoke, the pine charring in the heat. It whistled in the night. A sound Ragland had grown to love like a friend.

As he circled them, a plan formulated in his head.

He noticed the ringleader was hanging around the girl, pointing and prodding as she recoiled from his touch. She was gagged with no chance to scream for help. The other four were split into two pairs.

Closer to the girl and their boss, the two smaller men huddled together, nudging, and pushing each other between laughs. These two were clearly Zoms.

Cannibalism had become rife in the years after the attack and the retreat of the invading army. A lot could be said of their Chinese conquerors, but at least they fed the children they enslaved. No one knew where or how it started but over the years, the consumption of human meat had taken its toll on the very young. Those whose brains hadn’t fully developed before they chose or were forced into the gruesome eating habits.

Whilst eating human flesh was repulsive, it was no more dangerous than other meat if cooked properly. Unfortunately, the starving children and teens who had started the horrible practice hadn’t been fussy about cooking meat properly or supplementing their diet with vegetables. It left them with poor brain and physical development, with some even incapable of speech.

The ones already in their teens had fared better, those in their twenties now, but many still suffered from their appalling diet.

The result was that the cannibals had developed a two-tiered society. Zoms, the developmentally challenged, and Norms the older less affected ones who ruled over them.  

Ragland could make out between the giggles that these two were deciding what parts of the girl they would eat first. He felt the embers of rage begin to glow deep inside him.

He continued around the camp in a southerly direction. On the western side of the big campfire were the other two. They were Norms.

The largest man leaned against a big tree about twenty-five feet away facing south and relieving himself in the dark, while his shorter friend sat on a fallen tree ten feet closer, sharpening a knife on a whetstone. His back was to the bushes where Ragland lurked. Hidden from the other three by the roaring fire and surrounding dark, he saw his chance.

Thick fingers gripped his knife as he crept up on his first victim. Reaching out, he clasped a hand over the cannibal’s mouth and sliced his throat open with a quick movement. He held the struggling man as he bled out, spraying the foliage and ground black in the darkness. The struggle didn’t last long and with his eyes on the larger cannibal, he eased his victim down to the ground.

He took a split second to visualize his next move. This man was the biggest of them, and he needed to make sure he got it right first time. His life and that of the girl depended on it.

Sprinting forward to apply as much force as possible, Ragland launched his left foot into the back of the man’s left knee, buckling him just as he was zipping up. Before the man could cry out, Ragland had already gripped him by the hair and reefed his head backward, before hammering his blade deep into the man’s right eye. He fell without a whimper.

Two down. Three to go.

Wiping his hands clean, he circled back and reevaluated his chances. The Zoms were so hectic and noisy that an attack silencing them would almost certainly alert the leader. He would put a knife in the girl’s belly, and it would all have been for nothing.

No.

He’d have to cut the head off the snake first.

He moved forward, pressing a finger to his lips, so the girl wouldn’t give him away. It was too little or too late. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and the cannibal leader spun around before Ragland could close the gap.

The cannibal’s yell of alarm tore the silence and echoed from the trees. Bats fluttered out from the canopy, and rodents scurried with fright. With his bloodied knife in hand, Ragland was momentarily frozen as his mind sought a solution to this new problem.

A half-second passed before he spun the knife, pinched the tip of the blade, and raised it to his ear before launching it and breaking into a run to follow its course. The steel blade found its home, buried hilt deep in the cannibal’s muscled chest, and he dropped to his knees looking down at the worn handle as if trying to figure out what it was.

‘MEAT!’ one of the Zoms screeched behind him.

Ragland decided the leader posed no further threat and spun around, drawing his bow. Adrenaline was thrumming through his system and his rapid heartbeat drowned out the noise of his surroundings.

Nocking an arrow, he took aim at the Zoms who were running helter-skelter towards him, drool flying from their mouths.

His arrow whipped through the dark and suddenly came still in one of their eye sockets. The Zom wobbled, as if confused, before his legs stopped working and he fell face first into the dirt.

His friend didn’t notice and continued his charge.

Ragland drew another arrow but fumbled the shot and watched as it whizzed by the bastard’s pointy head. It was too late to nock another, and the cannibal hopped then skipped and then launched himself from a rock and crashed into Ragland, sending them both sprawling to the dirt beside the campfire.

‘MEAT!’ he shrieked again.

Ragland saw the crazy in his eyes and he had no doubt the teenager was mad with whatever rotten disease you earned for eating the meat of your own species. His attacker’s charnel breath took his breath away and as he struggled; he turned his face away to avoid the drool dripping from the sharpened teeth.

The son of a bitch was strong for his size.

The crazed Zom pressed a forearm down on Ragland’s windpipe and secured his legs so he couldn’t wriggle away. Ragland punched his face and rock-hard head, but all it did was irritate the cannibal and hurt his knuckles.

With the air slowly choked from him, he started to see static crawl in the edges of his vision. He was passing out. In a last-ditched effort to survive, his hand scrabbled at the edges of the campfire, until it found a smoldering stick. The pain from the heat was immense, but he ignored it and drove the glowing point as hard as he could into the cannibal’s ribcage.

The other man squealed in agony, falling from Ragland as if he were molten to the touch, and writhed on the ground trying to pull the stick out.

Staring down at the angry red welts on his palm, Ragland ground his teeth in both pain and anger. He didn’t waste time tending to the wound, but quickly turned to the leader, who was still kneeling looking dumbly at the knife in his chest. Ragland gripped the handle of his hunting knife, put a foot to the man’s chest and ripped it free, kicking him onto his back before turning to face the Zom.

The surviving cannibal was in no state to fight; he lay on the ground in the fetal position crying pitifully. Ragland felt no pity. He knelt and drove the blade deep between the C2 and C3 vertebrae of the cannibal’s neck, driving it until it protruded from his gargling mouth like a silver tongue.

He glanced back at the leader. The man was on his back staring sightlessly at the sky. With the job done, a huge sigh escaped him. He had almost forgotten the girl in the heat of battle and his heartbeat was only just beginning to slow as he staggered over, covered in dirt and blood, with his knife at the ready to cut the girl’s ropes.

‘It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said, watching her flinch as he knelt beside her. The blade sawed through the bonds with ease.

He reached up for her gag and paused.

‘Don’t scream, okay? I’m here to help. They’re gone now. Dealt with.’

Ragland pulled the bunched cloth from her mouth. While she didn’t scream out loud, she did scream with her big, round eyes and stayed rooted to the spot in absolute terror. He wagered that it may have been the first time she’d seen such violence.

That surprised him, living in a world like this.

Once she was free, Ragland helped the girl up, but she lurched away from his hands and climbed to her feet before stepping a safe distance away and casting an eye over the bodies and blood.

She promptly bent over and vomited, the hot rush splattering in the dirt like lava on sand.

‘Easy there,’ Ragland said. ‘We need to get you out of here. Where’s your settlement or village?’

The girl’s shoulders heaved again. Then stopped. Wiping her mouth, she rose slowly, suddenly shaking from the cold. Ragland spied one of the cannibals’ jackets nearby and threw it to her.

‘Here.’

She caught it wordlessly, draping it over her shoulders.

Ragland had to close his mouth. In the poor light, this girl really did look like Melanie; the same fine features and complexion framed by long black hair. He rubbed his eyes to make sure the campfire wasn’t playing tricks on him.

‘Where do you live?’ He asked again.

No answer. She stood silent. Helpless.

A howl nearby pricked their ears. The smell of blood would have cougars and wolves eager for a midnight snack, here in no time. Not wanting to waste any more time, preferring to take their chances in the darkness, Ragland grabbed her by the arm and tugged her away from camp, heading down into the trees.

‘We need to go. Now.’

She resisted at first, then stumbled on reluctantly, keeping pace with him as they descended into the shadows, the flickering light of the cannibals’ camp vanishing in the thickets and tree branches behind them.

In the distance, echoing across the wooded hills, the howl of a wolf spurred them on.

Chapter 4

‘Keep up!’ Ragland rasped, glancing back to see the girl trudging behind.

He’d assumed the sun had risen. Assumed, only because he couldn’t see it through the thick fog that clung to the valley they’d walked into. The trees grew thin on the valley floor, opening into a vast grassland before the next ridge.

She jogged, matching Ragland’s speed, and glanced at him, fearful still. Cautious. Wondering where he was going.

With not a single word spoken since he’d rescued her from the cannibals, Ragland had no information about where she had come from, where her settlement was, or even her goddamn name.

‘You don’t speak much, do you?’ he grumbled, cleaning one of his arrowheads with a cloth.

Nothing.

‘If you don’t speak by noon, and I know you can speak. I know it. Then we’re gonna have to part ways, you and I.’

She frowned at him, measuring his words but said nothing.

‘Well then,’ he smirked. ‘That settles that. I think we best get us breakfast.’

His arrows were quickly bloodied, finding not one but two cottontails whipping through the field. Back as a kid, he’d loved animals. Couldn’t bear the thought of harming a single hair on their heads. Not even a mouse. Now, ten years deep into the new world, he didn’t so much as blink. It was just life. Eat or die.

He cut them and pulled the furs off the carcasses like a glove with a soft thrup sound, revealing the purple-red meat beneath.

The girl didn’t blink, which told Ragland she may be new to human violence but was no stranger to hunting or butchering.

With the ground damp, it took him a little longer than usual to find enough dry kindling for a fire. As sure as it always was, the fire was soon popping; two rabbits spitting across the flames, fat dropping onto the logs and hissing.

The girl sat on a rock, knees close together, arms wrapped tight around them. She stared at the rabbit, not blinking, and once again, Ragland was reminded just how much she looked like Melanie.

Her stomach growled as loud as any hungry bear’s.

‘Eat,’ he said, pointing his knife at the rabbit.

No movement.

‘It ain’t a request, kid. I need your strength for the hike tomorrow. Nothing but hills and ridges north of here.’

She glanced at him, shuffling her weight a little, but decided against it.

Wow, he thought. Those fuckers really did a number on her.

Sympathizing, he took the second rabbit off the fire, stuck one end of the stick into the ground between two campfire rocks, and cut off a wedge of cooked meat like a kebab, handing it over to her.

Her hand flashed out and grabbed the food. Ragland had barely blinked, and she’d consumed the entire piece.

‘There we go. You’re gonna have to sort the res—’

But she had gotten the hint, tearing at the rabbit with her bare fingers and wolfing the meat down like she hadn’t eaten in days. And maybe she hadn’t.

Ragland watched her ravenous movements with a pang. The resemblance didn’t help things, and he found it difficult to compartmentalize what he was seeing - to separate himself and his emotions. For all his travels, he’d witnessed a lot of suffering and pain. New mothers not able to feed their babies. Young kids orphaned by the virus, fighting for scraps outside trash heaps.

Yet, for all of it, this sight hit the deepest.

Sighing, almost choking on the smoke that suddenly turned in his direction, he went back to his own meal, methodically peeling the meat away from cartilage and bone.

A habit Ragland knew had been essential to his survival this long had been traps. And not just the kind that secured his breakfast. No. These ones were the others who followed, hoping for a quick finish.

Ragland always deprived them of that.

Just before noon, he knelt to check the tracks he and the silent girl had made on their walk north. The grass before had left deep, sodden impressions, with numerous twigs in the woods snapped and ripped from nearby shrubs. Perfect.

Choosing a particularly overgrown section of the climb, Ragland reached into his bag and pulled out a shotgun slug. Something he only used in emergencies. The girl watched as he worked the trap; her curiosity piqued for the first time since he’d rescued her.

Setting a thin piece of fishing wire from one tree to the next, he hooked it to a small trap on the bark shrouded in leaves and attached the shotgun shell to it.

Standing up with a groan, feeling his left knee pop, he motioned to it as he walked back up to her.

‘Just in case we’re followed. Won’t kill ‘em, but we’ll hear them from miles off.’

A blink.

Ragland supposed that was as good as it was going to get with her, jokingly wondering if he’d arrived after they’d cut her tongue out. It was silence from the trauma. Had to be. He’d seen it a few times before when he’d helped a few folks out here and there. The terror of what they’d endured would render them frozen. A defense mechanism and a way for the brain to protect itself.

Maybe it was the same for her? But he’d never seen it last for more than a few hours and it was now almost a full day since he’d found her. He let his mind ponder what might have happened to her if he hadn’t been on the scene.

Thankful he’d put down the trap sooner rather than later, he shivered; not from the cold, and lugged his weight up the ridge to the top, the girl in tow, making no complaints. He had to give her that, she never complained.

The rest of the day fell away to the night quicker than he’d anticipated, with the pair falling into a rhythm that felt hypnotic and regulated their breathing to keep them going. But with moisture in the air, he felt damp from the exertion—sweat seeping into his clothes.

Reaching the top of another ridge, he spied a slightly flatter area of terrain toward the northeast, toward a route he’d take to hike to New York and eventually Maine.

‘We’ll stop here for the night,’ Ragland called to her as she hid behind a set of trees to relieve herself.

Setting his backpack and things down in a spot blanketed by pine needles, he stretched and rolled his shoulders to relieve the stiffness. Next, he cleared a spot in the earth, then moved off to find wood for the fire that would be supplemented by a fistful of spare twigs he’d collected at their morning camp.

The silent girl loped off to help.

‘Not too far,’ he said.

She nodded, and with another pair of hands, he had a pile ready and a new fire going within minutes. Thoroughly pleased with the efficiency, he found himself grinning as he fed some of the twigs into the fire to stoke it.

‘You know, I can’t recall the last time I had a camp companion. God. It must have been at least three years ago. Maybe more…’ He stopped; suddenly aware he’d spoken more words in twenty-four hours to his mute audience than he had in months.

Noticing the pause, the girl looked up from warming her hands to regard him with big inquisitive eyes.

‘Not gonna say a word, are ya?’

She stared.

‘We doin’ this? Because I did say, I’d cut you loose if you didn’t tell me at least your name. In fact,’ he grumbled, checking the setting sun through the clouds. ‘I’d say I’ve given you a good few hours’ leeway, right?’

Nothing. She went back to warming her hands.

‘I want you gone by morning,’ he said.

And he meant it. Without knowing who she was or where she came from, regardless of who she looked like, it could bite him right on the ass. She could be part of a group that would make the cannibals look like a knitting circle, people who might slit his throat in the night as easy as they would a turkey.

Thinking about turkey, he ducked into the pack and pulled out the cut remains of their rabbit from the morning. It would be good to eat now, but any left would have to be thrown away, with no way to keep it from spoiling.

His dark eyes buried themselves in the crackling fire. He fell into another one of his reveries, so lost to the world that he almost missed what she said.

‘Kit.’

Ragland almost choked on his rabbit, thumping himself in the chest to wrestle himself back from death.

‘Jesus fuck! She speaks! What’s that? Kit? That your name?’

‘Yes.’

He’d imagined a softer voice coming from that delicate face. But instead, it was something far raspier, not exactly like a bartender who smoked ten a day, but certainly husky.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Guess you get to stay at the Ragland Motel for another night. Watch out for the bed bugs, they’re everywhere.’

She smirked, which only fueled his freshly minted good mood.

‘Want the rest of mine?’

‘Sure,’ she repeated, reaching out to take the leftover rabbit, munching away happily.

‘I’m gonna have to teach you to hunt the way you eat. Goddamn!’

‘I hunt.’

‘What?’

Kit swallowed the last of the food, wiping her mouth with the back of her jacket sleeve. ‘I can hunt.’

‘Like, small game? Or bigger?’

She nodded.

‘Both? That’s good. That’s good,’ he said, twisting the tip of his blade into a log next to him. ‘Is that how they got you? Out hunting too far from your settlement?’

Kit looked to pull back in on herself. Building back the walls he’d finally managed to break down.

He’d hit a nerve.

‘It’s okay. You don’t have to say a thing.’

‘It’s fine,’ she sighed, shoulders rolling forward as she poked a long stick into the fire, causing a dusty of sparks to leap up from the ash. ‘It was my own fault. They warned me before.’

‘They? Your group?’

Kit nodded, then pointed to his chest.

‘What’s that?’

Ragland looked down, plucking up his sister’s onyx necklace. ‘It’s… something I keep to remember someone close to me. I lost her; my sister, at the start of The Fall, when everything happened. I’ve been alone ever since.’

Speaking the words seemed to hit him harder than the nightmares had in years. It took a great deal of control to compose himself, thankful the night had drawn in quickly, leaving the light of the fire little chance to illuminate his expression.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kit said. ‘How old was she?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘That’s rough.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But what about you? We need to get you home. Are you ready to tell me so we can call time on this rescue operation, or am I going to get that silent treatment again?’

‘No,’ she said, looking back at the fire. ‘I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t trust you.’

‘Trust me? I saved your goddamn life.’

Kit threw the stick into the fire.

‘Well, for me it was five men with weapons taking me, and then another took their place.’

‘Wow,’ he said. Incredulous. ‘I fed you and kept you safe. I don’t see any bonds on your wrists or ankles.’

‘I didn’t ask for you to save me.’

Ragland threw his head back and barked with laughter.

‘So, what, you were just biding your time before you took them all on yourself?’

Kit remained silent, picking up a fresh stick to stoke the fire. Afraid he’d lose her again, Ragland reined in his ego, shook his head, and gestured toward her, but before he could make the speech, she was already speaking.

‘I’ve decided I trust you.’

Ragland was pleasantly surprised.

‘Why’s that? Ragland Motel serves the best cottontail roast in Pennsylvania?’

‘No, jerk,’ she smirked. ‘That necklace. A lady in our town has something similar. Different type, but she keeps it to remember someone too. She’s the nicest one there. At least, in my opinion. But whatever. So, yeah, I guess I trust you, old man.’

‘Old man?’ Ragland scoffed, slightly offended.

‘Yeah, go figure. All the old ones died out except you. What are you, like fifty?’

He got up from his perch, knowing he’d be about ready for bed after a quick check on his traps. As he rolled out his sleeping mat, he looked over his shoulder at her silhouette against the dwindling campfire.

‘I’m thirty-four, you cheeky shit.’

‘Damn.’

‘And you?’

‘Seventeen.’

That figured. Not only like Melanie, but the same age too.

Busying himself with checking the traps shortly after the tent was ready, he staggered back, yawning, suddenly aware of how tired he was from having to worry about another human being. It had sapped him of his energy.

‘Nice to meet you, Kit,’ he said before rolling over to sleep. ‘Let’s get some shut eye.’

Chapter 5

Once the dam was breached, Ragland couldn’t stem the flow of words. From the moment the sun rose the next day, Kit wouldn’t stop talking. She would recall the last time she hunted. Her favorite food to eat. The meals she disliked most. On and on it went.

But nothing about where she was from or her people. That nugget of knowledge, clearly, she kept locked away.

Ragland had a name. Kit. And that was a good start. Perhaps if he could gain more of her trust, he’d finally obtain the name and location of her settlement so he could deliver her and be on his way. As nice as it was to have company, Ragland was a loner and somewhat of an introvert. Large crowds, or even the occasional companion, were a big no in his rulebook.

Things were never simple with people. They bred trouble. Small talk turned to conversation. Conversation became gossip. Gossip became lies, which then turned into arguments. Arguments became fights, and then before you knew it, all hell broke loose.

No. Best that he kept well away from people and their problems.

‘So, like I said,’ Kit rattled on, storming through the last of Ragland’s ration of nuts. ‘I go out hunting all the time. It’s no biggie. All the guys do. Most of the girls don’t, though, but I don’t give a shit. We all need to eat, so no point just, like, sitting around making blankets or whatever, right?’

Ragland was trying his best not to listen. The sun was high in the sky, and she’d been talking for hours, and now it was to the point that he was silently wishing he’d never heard her screams in the first place.

This is what you get for getting involved, Josh.

‘Right?’

‘Tell you what,’ Ragland huffed, putting down his pack. ‘Take my bow, go get lunch.’

He pulled the worn limb from his shoulder and handed the bow and a few arrows to Kit, who suddenly didn’t look too enthusiastic.

‘What?’

‘Go get us lunch,’ he said.

‘Like, right now? You want me to go find game?’

Ragland nodded, trying not to lose his patience.

‘Sure.’

‘Okay, er… you trust me with this? I mean, you don’t even know me, and you’re just giving me your gear that you need and—’ He stared at her with raised eyebrows and folded his arms. ‘Okay, okay, geez, I’m going!’

She put the bow over her shoulder and holding the arrows in a tight grip jogged off into the trees, missing some tracks Ragland had hoped she’d spot.

Great going, he thought. We’ll be lucky to eat by sundown.

With his pack rearranged to accommodate new supplies of foraged food, he made to put his feet up and take a quick nap when he heard footsteps approaching from the west.

Jumping up and reaching for his hunting knife, Ragland ducked low and scanned the undergrowth. Then, with a turkey in each hand, an arrow in her mouth, and the bow slung over her shoulders, Kit practically swaggered into their campsite and dropped them at his feet.

‘What d’ya reckon to a pair of gobblers, old man?’

She spat the arrow into her free hand and handed it and the bow back to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said, hiding how impressed he was.

‘No trouble?’

‘Nope. Easy like Wednesday morning.’

‘You mean easy like Sunday morning...’

‘It’s not Sunday,’ she laughed, oblivious to the song reference. ‘It’s Wednesday.’

Ragland closed his eyes and pressed his thumbs into them.

‘That’s not what I… never mind. Grab those turkeys. We’re heading north before we break again for camp and dinner. And stop calling me old man, will you?’

‘Sure thing, Gramps.’

He ignored it. His spirits lifted by the fact her bravado about hunting wasn’t bullshit after all. She was quick with her words, but so far, none of it had been a lie.

As much as he could tell, anyway.

Their hike carried them over a set of low, rolling hills covered in more woods. When they came across old roads, they crossed with caution. The tarmac in this part of the country was long weathered by mother nature, cracked, and crumbled by wild grass and encroaching tree roots. It would be reckless to navigate the old ways in their present condition, particularly when one could also run across more human problems too.

He’d learned a while ago, when their deterioration truly started to take hold, that it was best to go horseback by daylight or cross-country by foot. Never in a wagon, and never at night.

He heard the gentle trickle of water running over rocks to his right, so they detoured and stopped briefly to refill his flask. Ragland was getting through at least twice the water now, with his sidekick.

Mid-afternoon came in cooler than he anticipated; winter was just around the corner. He debated taking out an extra layer from his pack but decided against it, removing his water flask instead. It was then, pausing for a break, that he’d realized he’d finally tuned Kit’s incessant voice out.

He found out because she’d thumped him on the arm.

‘Hey, Gramps, you home? You hear a thing I said back there?’

‘Not really.’

Kit shook her head, folding her arms.

‘Asshole.’

Ragland tossed the bottle aside and raised his hands above his head. ‘That’s it, I can’t do it. I tried. Really, I did. Just tell me where your goddamn town is, right now, or so help me god...’

Kit froze, pursing her lips together. Melanie used to do that, too, and it only pissed him off more.

‘Goddamn it!’ He picked up his bottle, tucked it back into his pack, and grabbed the turkeys off the girl, who still stood rigid, refusing to speak. ‘Have a nice life and good luck getting back!’

It’d be a lie to say he didn’t feel a little betrayed to not have more trust from someone he’d saved from being beaten, raped, and eaten by cannibals. Then again, he understood her side too. He really did, he just lived better on his own.

He had only taken a few dozen steps south when she called out.

‘Bakerstown.’

Ragland stopped. Debating whether it was still worth the trouble. He felt the onyx necklace against his chest. It sat at a slight angle and was digging in where the bow’s limb met it, almost like a divine sign from beyond the veil. His sister telling him what an ass he was being. And maybe she was right.

He turned, walked back up the hill, and gave her the turkeys back.

‘How far?’

‘Not far,’ she said, glancing at her surroundings. ‘We were walking in the right direction anyway. Another half-day northeast, and we should reach Rubin’s Hunting Lodge.’

‘Hang on, I thought you said you were from Bakerstown?

‘I am. The Lodge is a half-mile outside the town. It’s a checkpoint for anyone who travels south to hunt.’

‘Is that why you kept your mouth shut? Because I just so happened to be heading the way you wanted?’

A slow nod.

Ragland swore and decided it best to get a good pace on. With any luck, this time tomorrow, he’d be free of her and back to his nomad life in the mountains.

Alone and happy.

Chapter 6

Ragland’s knees welcomed the gradual slope down into the wooded valley. They’d been hiking for hours and were now just a few miles away from Rubin’s Hunting Lodge according to Kit. His joints were a far cry from their glory days, the creaks and aches signifying his nutrient deficient diet and accumulated injuries during his ten years of trekking through rough landscape.

How long could he keep it up, he thought, until he’d need a Gandalf staff?

He let a laugh best him, which drew Kit’s attention.

‘Holy shit, was that genuine?’

‘Sure, why not?’

Kit shrugged.

‘Just sayin’, you don’t laugh so much, Gramps.’

Ragland knew she was right, but he failed to see how it made a difference to surviving. The less noise, the better. Another reason it’d been difficult to tolerate her rambling.

‘You should laugh more. It’s, like, good for you. When life is taking a shit on things, you got two choices, right? You can either cry, or you can laugh.’

‘That one of yours?’

‘No,’ she said pensively. ‘Someone… Something someone told me a long time ago.’

‘They sound wise.’

‘They were.’

Ragland didn’t miss the past tense and wondered then about her past. Perhaps—just like his—it was stained with trauma and loss?

‘So, that’s your mantra?’

Kit shook her head; frown turning into a grin.

‘Nah. My mantra is talk trash, get mashed. And I live by it, old man, so don’t try any of that knife kung-fu on me, or you’ll be eating dirt.’

‘That so?’

‘Uh, yeah.’

They both exchanged a quick look to see who would break first, and both laughed.

Above them, the sky was clear. A pale, metallic blue, turning to a navy beyond the next ridge as the day marched on. Ragland squinted at the sun, almost missing a circle of birds just a quarter mile from where they stood.

He threw out an arm to stop Kit, almost winding her.

‘Hey, what the fu—’ She stopped, seeing the birds Ragland was pointing to. ‘So what? It’s probably a dead animal.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Something seems off.’

Kit rolled her eyes.

‘Oh, sure. What could it be, Gramps? A body? Maybe even a trap? After what you did to those cannibals though, it can’t be them unless they came back to life...’

Ragland raised a finger to his lips.

‘We go check it out. Might be nothing but might also be nothing good. If so, then we detour west. Stay low and quiet.’

She decided to obey, not wanting to neglect the unease that had crept into her bones. A prickling that ran along her arms and up her back. Something did feel wrong.

When the pair broke through a throng of tightly set young pines, Ragland motioned Kit to copy him and squat down low. With the sun setting, she couldn’t see a thing in the half-light, but he pointed a finger ahead.

‘There, just by the fallen tree,’ he whispered.

Kit’s eyes scanned the area and finally saw it. A dead buck.

‘I see it.’

Ragland notched an arrow into his bow and waited. And waited some more. Kit grew restless, shuffling her weight from left to right.

‘What now?’ she said.

‘It’s a trap. We leave. Now.’

A rogue cloud swamped the sun which was now low on the horizon. Darkness fell over them, and the howl of a wolf pierced the temporary twilight.

Kit and Ragland looked at each other and he saw her eyes were filled with terror. Not needing to be told, she turned and followed Ragland at a quick pace back west up the valley side, moving so fast she nearly stumbled.

‘Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God,’ she repeated, breathing heavily and trying her best to keep up with Ragland, who had lengthened his stride.

‘We need to keep going,’ he called back. ‘Their pack will be in the area.’

‘Won’t they be occupied by the buck?

‘No, he’d already been gutted.’

Kit clutched at a stitch, navigating an outcropping on their right.

‘So, they’ve eaten? Great. Can we slow down?’

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘It was a trap. Someone left it there. They’d taken what they wanted. The wolves will be in the area now, and we need to leave.’

‘Who? How do you kn—’

‘I don’t know who, but I saw their footprints.’

Kit cursed. She hadn’t seen the tracks. Ragland didn’t blame her - he’d been hunting and tracking a lot longer than she had.

Sweating from exertion, a few more howls to their left alerted Ragland, and so he changed course, making a more northern direction this time. At the top of the valley side, the trees thinned out into an open area of grassland. He could see it ahead and knew that while it would leave them vulnerable, it would also give them sight of anything—or anyone—following them.

He hoped the latter would be unnecessary but had a feeling that was wishful thinking.

Kit and Ragland broke out from the trees, panting now, and raced across the open ground to its center. They turned on the spot and surveyed the tree line where they had emerged, chests heaving from the effort.

‘What now?’ she breathed, bending over to suck in some air.

‘We wait a moment. Here,’ he handed her his bow, taking out the hunting knife on his ankle. ‘Don’t hesitate, and don’t notch the second arrow.’

Kit frowned, strapping his quiver to her own belt.

‘Huh? Why?’

‘It will take too long to draw again. Take them in your hand and stab them. They’ll be on us before you can get a second shot off.’

‘Oh, great. Shit. That’s reassuring, Gramps. You save my ass from the cannibals just to serve us both to the wolves?’

He gritted his teeth.

‘Not if I can help it.’

The air grew still. Blood pounded in his ears, and after a few minutes of painful waiting, a single wolf emerged from the trees to their right. Then, on their left, two more. The animals’ heads were bowed low, eyes fixed on them.

A larger wolf followed; nose raised as it sniffed the air. The alpha. Then four more.

Seven. They were well and truly outnumbered.

Ragland felt his stomach drop. This would be more than they could survive. He could no longer hear nor taste the salt in his mouth. The world around him was muffled by the adrenaline coursing through his body. He twisted on his heels, grabbing Kit by the arm.

‘RUN!’

The jerk of her arm caused her to drop the bow, and she was in no position to retrieve it, having to pump her legs as hard as she could just to keep up with Ragland. Chased by the wolves, she could hear their ragged breathing gaining on them, imagining their sharp teeth ready to sink into vulnerable flesh.

Ahead, Kit could make out a wooden structure. It was an old railroad bridge that looked like it had been decommissioned decades ago. She tried to find the breath to tell Ragland, but he had already seen it.

‘Go! The bridge!’

No shit, Sherlock, she thought.

Now with a destination, they poured on a new burst of speed, but the wolves were eating up the distance quicker than they were closing the gap to the railroad bridge. Ragland knew it would be a close thing.

Kit heard wolves yapping barely yards behind her and she screamed, almost tripping, before running onto the old wooden sleepers.

Now sprinting over the dilapidated structure, her eyes widened at a new danger. The wooden beams were creaking under their weight. She could see ahead of Ragland that it crossed all the way over the narrow, yet deep gully, but also saw that many of the supports under the bridge, along with a good number of the sleepers on top, had given way years ago. The steel rails were long gone.

The drop was enough to kill them both if it gave way.

Ragland, who was a few yards ahead of Kit, skidded to a halt and turned with his hunting knife in hand. He moved to the side as Kit flew past him, then stepped back into the path of the huge wolf on her tail and lunged, sweeping the weapon in an upward arc as it leapt at him. The force of his blow embedded the blade to the hilt, but the momentum of the animal sent the wolf sailing over his head.

The rickety bridge shook as the shrieking animal landed, then skidded over the edge, taking his hunting knife with it.

‘Nooo!’

The rest of the wolves slowed their charge and cantered cautiously onto the bridge, now wary of Ragland’s threat.

Kit continued her wobbly run across the bridge, arms out like a circus acrobat.

Good, he thought. At least saving you from the cannibals won’t have been in vain.

Deciding the wolves wouldn’t delay for too much longer, Ragland took his chances on the bridge and ran after Kit.

The wolves gave chase. Ragland yelled for her to keep going. His lungs were on fire. Heart pounding in his chest, as the wolves gained, snapping and snarling as they got closer. He caught up with Kit.

‘Keep going!” he urged her before he felt sharp teeth clamp down on his calf.

The pain was searing. Ragland tripped and knocked Kit over in the process. The combined weight of the wolves, him, and Kit hitting the old timber sent up dust, and a creaking wooden groan punctuated by three ominous cracking sounds.

He kicked out at the wolf, still biting and pulling the denim of his jeans, intent on getting to the flesh beneath. It didn’t flinch, and its packmates were moving in warily to get their share of the pending kill when the bridge began to tilt to the right.

‘Run, Kit!’ Ragland screamed his throat raw. ‘RUN!’

It was too late. As Kit rose to make an escape, the structure beneath them gave out with an explosive CRAAACK!

‘No!’

Ragland dropped, desperately grabbing Kit’s ankle and with his other hand a fractured support beam on the rotten substructure of the bridge. As gravity bit and Kit stopped falling, the sudden weight of her almost wrenched his arm free of his shoulder socket.

His cry was louder than the wolves’ yelps and squeals as he watched them, along with sleepers and splintered debris from the bridge, plummet into the gully where they were dashed against the rocks and scrub below.

Ragland struggled to contain his panic and regulate his breathing. He looked up and saw the baleful yellow eyes of the pack leader eyeing him from the edge of the broken track, sniffing the air as though weighing up the risk of leaping down onto the narrow beam his erstwhile meal now clung to.

Dismissing the wolf as an immediate threat, Ragland peered down at Kit, who had her eyes closed and a splash of blood on her scalp.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘Hey Kit. Hey! You awake? Argh!’

His shoulders burned with the strain of holding their combined weight, and he felt his little finger slip and lose purchase on the beam. Just three fingers and a thumb now held him in place, dangling over the huge drop.

With a wolf above, certain death below, and Kit hanging unconscious from his rapidly slipping grip, Ragland knew without a doubt that the long streak of luck he’d enjoyed since America fell, had finally run out…

The End of Episode One

Don't miss Episode Two: Bakerstown 