There is Always Food

The snow crunched under the heavy footsteps of several large boots. Sephiid lay prone in the crisp powder, breathing slowly, keeping her head low to ensure that her breath wouldn’t be seen forming in the frigid air. Three hunters from the village slowly followed her trail, not realizing that it circled around, and that she was mere feet in front of them. They had their rifles ready, their thick, gloved, fingers already curled around the triggers. She watched and waited carefully as they neared the trap, she would only have one shot. She breathed quietly until the last hunter passed into a small ring of trees. Then she snapped upright, screaming a fierce cry, pulling back her bowstring and releasing the arrow at the man who turned the fastest. The arrow sunk into his faceplate and the sharpened point protruded from the back of his skull. The other two hunters whipped their guns up, ready to fire, but then from beneath their feet a group of her friends exploded from the snow. Knives flashed in the early morning sun, and the snow streaked with fresh blood, creating a field of red flowers in the snow. Quietly Sephiid and her four comrades dragged the hunters to their hideaway.

The hunters were stripped, gutted and skinned; their bodies were then buried in a snow drift to keep them from going bad. Sephiid and her friends lay back easily around a fire, roasting a few choice cuts from their fresh kills. It wasn’t so bad now, eating human flesh. It had been years since they had been able to find any other form of meat. It was their only source of food, this far to the north, so it’s what they ate.

They dined quietly in the light of the fire, and even though most would consider their day’s activities to be a grotesque display of the most abominable practices, they were in light humor. Their shelter was constructed from an old boxcar that had rolled on its side. The snow had piled up around it, making the entire container practically buried. One of their members, Tavn, lay close to the fire, reading a book in the meager light. Then, reaching a certain part in the book, he asked absent mindedly, “What does chicken taste like?”

Sephiid looked up at him, as she had almost fallen asleep, “Why do you ask?” she said.

“These people, in the book, they got to another planet and are eating a bird that they caught. One of them said that it ‘tastes like chicken’ and I was just wondering what chicken tastes like,” he replied. Sephiid smiled at him, he was the youngest there, and she liked to think of him as a sort of little brother, even though he was really of no relation to her. He was always asking what different things tasted like, and she would always try her best to explain the different textures and peculiarities of the foods that were once so varied in the world.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” she said, “Chickens were one of the first animals lost in the plague. I can’t remember what they taste like.”

“Oh, well I was just wondering,” Tavn said.

“Aye, no harm in being curious,” Roen intoned, who was the oldest, “but it’s been so long, I don’t think I could tell you either. I can assure you, though, chicken was so much better than bark.”

They quieted down again, those that could, savored distant memories of delightful dainties, while the younger amongst them tried to fathom the ideas of tastes that they had never been granted. It was pleasantly peaceful and warm in their small shelter. The smoke from their fire wouldn’t be noticeable as it was vented into the outside world and was quickly dispersed in the trees. The five of them together felt safe and comfortable, knowing that they had succeeded in gathering enough food to last them for a good week comfortably before they had to go back to scavenging for bark. They were looking forward to a few easy days ahead of them, and were glad of it. They all fell asleep by the fire, at peace with the world around them.

Sephiid woke in the morning, the fire nothing more than smoldering coals. It was freezing, and she didn’t want to clamber out of her warm blankets to stoke up the fire just yet. So she lay, contentedly, under the artificial fur that made up her blanket. Then she heard footsteps outside, and she thought happily to herself, someone had gotten cold and was bringing back some firewood to restart the fire. She wouldn’t have to now; surely they would be back in just a minute to return the hearty glow to the bleak morning world. She started dozing off again….and then she sat bolt upright in the dark, because she heard something that was infinitely more important than her comfort.

There were too many footsteps outside for it to be just one or two people. She carefully counted the people laying around her in the dark. Everyone was still inside, and there were footsteps moving closer, quietly, as if they intended on sneaking up on them. Sephiid slowly placed her hand on the semi-automatic 7mm rifle that lay next to her bed. She loaded a shell into the chamber, trying to keep the old gun from making too much noise. Then she clicked the safety off. Outside the footsteps stopped moving.

Sephiid breathed as quietly as she could. If she woke the others now whoever was outside was sure to hear her. If she didn’t wake them then all she could do was hope that those outside would simply keep moving. She sat very still, clutching the gun, watching the entrance to their small shelter, listening for her enemy’s movements. It was terrifyingly quiet, and then Tavn sat up, and seeing Sephiid sitting up with the gun in her hands he asked, “What’s the matter?”

Sephiid’s eyes went wide, the boy spoke in a barely audible whisper, but it was enough. The sound of four automatic rifles immediately shook the forest. The thin metal lining of the boxcar did nothing to slow the rounds as they rained down from above. Light began streaming in as the roof was torn to shreds. Sephiid emptied her gun, firing into the ceiling in random directions. A bullet lodged itself in the ground next to her ear, and the heat from its passing seared the skin on the side of her face. Tavn had fallen back to the ground, his arms sticking out at odd angles. No one else seemed to have been awakened by the horrendous noise. Sephiid lay on her back, shaking, still pointing the gun upward, but she had no more ammunition, she was listening again. She listened to the footsteps, cautiously moving forward again, and she listened for the breathing of her friends. To her the footsteps were far less distressing than the sound she didn’t hear. Her friends were so quiet, so, completely and mind numbingly inert. As the footsteps approached she skidded to the back of the boxcar. There was a second exit there.

She grabbed another rifle that lay by the door and then slipped out into the tunnel of snow that they had made in case of an emergency. Crawling along the ice she cried to herself. Another spray of bullets began ringing out behind her, and a stray shot ricocheted down the tunnel she was now fleeing through. The bullet blew a hole through her foot, and she buried her face in the snow and ice, trying not to scream. She lay there only for a few moments suppressing her urge to cry. Then she was crawling again, dragging herself through the tunnel and pushing her way through the thin layer of ice that sealed it.

Outside the air was still as deathly cold as it had been the night before. A gentle breeze was blowing, just enough to disturb the top layer of snow, blowing it up into her face. Unable to stand she dragged herself through the snow, and without her usual winter gear she was quickly soaked to the bone, and already shaking with hypothermia. She hadn’t dragged herself more than a few hundred yards before she collapsed again, heaving in the cold air. Her lungs already responded with a painful wheeze each time she inhaled, protesting their discomfort. She looked around for a place to hide and she saw a small old jeep sitting unattended in the trees. Not one to give into pain, Sephiid dragged herself the rest of the way, and finally pulled herself up into the driver seat. She tried pumping the pedals a few times with her left foot, as it was to painful too use her right. Ready to make her escape she reached her hand down to the ignition, to find that there wasn’t any key. Frantically she searched about the front of the car for the key, but it wasn’t there.

Once she sat up, after checking in the glove compartment, she saw several men approaching the jeep. Each one of them was carrying the body of one of her friends. As quietly as she could she climbed in between the two front seats and slipped underneath the rear duel-passenger seat. Just a few seconds later the men opened the trunk behind her, and unceremoniously dropped in the bodies of her friends. Sephiid slowly turned her head to look into the unfocused eyes of Tavn. She choked back another scream, even as the men all loaded into the jeep. They didn’t drive for very far, instead they backed the vehicle up right to the entrance of the old boxcar, and then all of them filed out again wordlessly. Sephiid looked back up at the driver seat, the vehicle’s engine still rumbled.

Desperately she shot out from under the chair and squirmed her way back to the steering wheel. She quickly put the jeep in gear and pressed the accelerator. A few seconds later bullets began bouncing off the back of the vehicle. It wasn’t a civilian model though, and the metal armor was genuinely designed to stop the low caliber weapons firing at her. In a few more minutes they were left far behind. She kept driving, making sure to check the fuel gauges and carefully monitored the untended road before her. It had been a long time since she had driven a vehicle of any kind. She drove for a good half-hour before finally stopping. She hadn’t had anything to eat, and her foot was still bleeding badly. She had lost enough blood to make her dizzy.

She reached into the glove compartment and took out the knife that she had seen there earlier. She cut the bottom half of her pant leg off, fashioning it into a sort of cord. She tied it around her leg, and crawled around outside until she found a branch that was suitable for a tourniquet. She then proceeded to tighten it around her leg, stopping the blood flow. She grabbed a second stick and used it to prop herself up so that she could hobble around to the back of the jeep.

Opening up the trunk, she carefully took out the bodies of her friends. She couldn’t stand to have them there. She also found that there were spare blankets and fuel, along with a few boxes of ammunition. The ammunition would do her no good, as it wasn’t the caliber of her gun, but she immediately wrapped herself in the blankets. She left the bodies of her friends there, piled in the snow.

By the time nightfall came Sephiid had exhausted her supply of fuel. There wasn’t anything left in the tank, or any of the spare gasoline cans in the trunk. She sat and shivered in the front seat of the car, trying to get some rest, but having little success. It was simply too cold, and without the heater of the vehicle running anymore the jeep quickly became an icebox. She piled all the blankets on top of herself, and it provided minimal relief, though the worst part of having to sleep was taking off the tourniquet around her leg. Her foot had swollen and her leg had suffered from a lack of blood throughout the whole day, and was now painfully stiff. She set it on top of the dashboard to keep the blood loss to a minimum. She didn’t have anything to stitch it; otherwise she would have done so right away. Eventually her exhaustion caught up with her and she did fall asleep.

In the morning she woke up to the sound of snow falling from a tree onto her car. At first she jumped at the sound, not realizing what it was, and then she sunk down into her chair letting the pain in her body subside some. Without having eaten the day before she was now famished and she let her mind wander dreamily back to the three hunters buried in a snow bank back home. She snapped back to her reality after awhile though, and looked cautiously out at the world around her. She would need something to eat, and there wasn’t much in the world that she could hope to find for nourishment. Then, looking to her left she saw something that was truly a cause for excitement. An old shipping truck had run off the side of the road. She smiled to herself, thinking that it might be possible to siphon some fuel from it, and then she remembered she didn’t have a hose. Still it was enough of a lucky find to merit an investigation. She held her gun in one hand and the walking stick in the other. Her foot was numb enough now that she didn’t really mind walking so much. She cut the cloth from the passenger seat and wrapped it around her foot to provide some protection then she crept to the cabin, and found the long dead driver still sitting there. It wasn’t surprising, not many people could travel the roads in the north and hope to survive.

This truck appeared to be undisturbed since the time it had crashed. How long ago that was, Sephiid couldn’t even guess. The man who had been driving it still had a small baggie of beef jerky sitting on his lap. The bag was still sealed so Sephiid snatched it up and immediately began eating the sweat and spicy meat. It was tough, tangy, and quite possibly the best thing she had tasted in more than ten years. Giving into her excitement she pulled the man out of the cabin of the truck and quickly rummaged through everything there. The valuable food seemed to have been depleted though, as the only other item of any worth that she found was an old revolver in the glove compartment. She smiled, spinning the six-shooter around her finger like in an old western movie she had once seen. Life was full of small joys that had to be savored.

Upon finishing with the front cabin of the truck she quietly made her way to investigate the trailer. Sliding the heavy metal door open she found that the boxes in the back had been relatively undisturbed, as they had been packed very tightly together. She sighed to herself, thinking that it was probably a great deal of worthless printer paper, or other such useless material that would normally be found in a truck like this. She slid one of the boxes down and cut open the lid. Inside was another set of twelve small boxes. These were brightly colored in a variety of organic colors, greens, yellows, and oranges predominantly. Still slightly disinterested she pulled one of the smaller boxes out and read the inscription, “Assorted Garden Seed.”

Sephiid stared at the little box in her hands. She stared long and hard, reading the words over and over again. “Seeds.” Inside this little box were seeds. She cautiously opened the lid, as if what was inside was a lie and she hated to look at it. Inside there were over several dozen small packets, and each of which carried a different species of edible plant. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked back up at the boxes all lined up in the truck. There would be thousands of seeds in there. She hobbled back to the cabin of the truck, climbed into the driver seat, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine groaned as the sparkplugs fired, and then, suddenly, the old engine kicked to life. “Yes!” Sephiied exclaimed, backing the massive roaring beast onto the road. She ignored the jeep, as it was no more use to her now. Instead she had a far greater mission. South, to where it was warm.

The massive truck rumbled over the landscape, gathering attention as it went. A half dozen of the road hunters began trailing her. She didn’t have much of a chance against them, with only one clip in her gun, and the six-shooter, put together she had about a dozen shots, but that probably wouldn’t be enough. The smaller vehicles kept trying to move in close enough to get a shot at her in the cabin, so she had to continuously swerve. If they tried to move up they would get run off the road. They fired several shots at her anyway, but it didn’t even slow her.

After a few minutes of pursuit the dim-witted-road-warriors began shooting out her tires. The truck skidded on the ice, and Sephiid barely retained control. She looked into her rearview mirror, weighing her odds. Very deliberately she buckled her seatbelt. For a moment she composed herself running through what she was about to do in her head. Then she jammed the steering wheel into a hard left turn.

The massive truck rolled onto its side, the long trailer took up the entire road, and her pursuers had very little time to react. Three of the six cars crashed into the overturned truck, the other three swerved off the road. Sephiid burst out of the cabin, her rifle in hand, firing at the cars as they drove around the truck. The three cars that had swerved off the road were emptied of their passengers. Sephiid dropped her rifle back into the cabin and climbed up on top of the overturned trailer, cautiously dragging herself along, getting ready for the last part of her plan. She hoped that the crashed cars were already full of corpses, but odds were there were at least a couple survivors. Scooting her way to the edge of the trailer she peeked down at the wrecked cars.

Immediately an automatic weapon opened fire on her. Whoever was shooting it was not particularly accurate, but there were enough bullets traveling in Sephiid’s direction that she couldn’t avoid getting hit. Two more bullets punctured her body, one in her left shoulder, the other in her hip. Rather than ducking back behind cover she emptied the revolver at the man. On the fourth shot he fell to the ground, but she added the last two just for good measure. Then she let the gun fall from her hand. She was just so tired, her body couldn’t continue. It would be so easy now, to just fall asleep, to just sleep forever. She laid her head down, ignoring the cold, her body burned with pain, so the cold didn’t matter. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.



*



Two years later Sephiid climbed out of bed and went about her room getting ready for the day, she still walked with a limp. She could hobble about fairly well, and the doctor said she would probably be walking normally after a few more years of therapy. It didn’t matter though; she could get around well enough. She dressed herself in clothes that were already covered in grime from the day before. Making her way outside of her small hut she surveyed an expansive field that had been overturned. Already several large combines were running over the soil. People were seeding the freshly tilled ground by hand, and Sephiid quickly joined them. Another field in the distance was being harvested, and a variety of plants were being brought in. It was a long day’s work, and she savored every moment of it.