After the Day

by Matthew Gilman

  He had read the chapter on how to gut a deer several times and yet was baffled where to start. He did finally start with the ribs and slowly moved down and around the genitals. He pulled the guts out and placed the liver and heart in a plastic bag. The buck was well over a hundred and fifty pounds. He still had over a mile back to the house.

  Tom found a couple of long sticks and quickly made a gurney to pull the deer back to the house. At this time he stopped thinking about people seeing him or attacking him on the way back. He didn’t know how warm it would get today, there was no longer a weather forecast to look up. What he had was luck on his side and that was not saying much. He still had to process the deer and if it became warmer than the previous days the chances of the meat rotting were good.

  The scraping sound of the branches rubbing on the pavement echoed in his ears and made him paranoid that someone would hear him. He stopped every fifty feet or so and looked around to see if he was being followed. Then he would try to make up time and jog a little finding himself slowing down to a more manageable pace. Walking down his street he was more aware of his surroundings. He took in every detail and found things that had changed since the last time he had seen his street. Some houses were missing, burned down in the first weeks of the collapse. The rest were abandoned and left to rot, windows open, lawns over grown, holes in roofs were not repaired in spots that branches had fallen through allowing water to flow in and spread the infection of rot that would be the end of the structure.

  Not even a year had passed and already nature was reclaiming what man had taken away so long ago. He could smell wood burning. It wasn’t close, the smoke was not visible. Others were around. They must have been in hiding as well since he had not seen anyone in several weeks. He wondered if it was a good idea to smoke the meat but didn’t have too many other options.

  Tom was less than a block from his house. He could see the tree in front of his house. The hunting mission had been a success. He could feel eyes on him. Several eyes were watching him. He stopped. Had his paranoia gotten the best of him? He turned around and saw the pack of pit bulls behind him. These were the former pets of his neighbors. Many people bought them for breeding and they did breed well. Now that their owners were dead or left them they had reverted back to their survival instincts and joined together for the hunt. He looked a little more and noticed the trail of blood he left behind him dragging the dead deer.

  He slowly set the handles of the gurney down and pulled the rifle off his shoulder. Flipping the safety off, he leveled the rifle and scanned the pack through the scope. He counts four bitches and five males. One of the males sniffs the trail of blood in the street. The rest watch him.

  Tom decides to take one of the males down hoping to kill the alpha male. There is a white and black mix that is standing in the front, quiet and staring at him. He centers the cross hairs on the male’s chest and squeezes the trigger. The crack breaks the silence for miles around. The dogs duck and look around. The male drops where he is and moves a little pushing its legs around but unable to get anywhere. It doesn’t whimper instead it dies silently. The rest of the pack notices their down member and inspect the body sniffing and whining.

  He is stuck at the moment. Does he put his rifle over his shoulder and run with the deer or take more dogs down? As the spent shell hit the pavement and sang with its steel ringing noise the dogs became focused on him.

  “Oh shit,” he thought to himself as he leveled the rifle for a second shot. He brought another dog in the crosshairs and didn’t care what it was. He fired and watched the dogs hind quarters drop. Not a death shot but it would eventually kill it. The rest of the dogs ran off. He didn’t know where but he decided if he was going to move now was the time.

  He picked up the gurney and ran down the street. His rifle bounced around on his back and he made it back to the house in the longest minute of his life. Reaching the front porch he looked around pulling the rifle from his shoulder. He didn’t hear anything. He decided to move the deer into the backyard. It was fenced in and if the dogs went after it he could shoot them from the upstairs window. Dragging the deer through the gate he locked it behind him and quickly hung the deer on the tripod to help it dry some more before he started the smoking process.

  Opening the gate he looked around making sure the pack wasn’t waiting for him. Turning around he padlocked the gate. He had to get into the house. The door was ten feet away and he still needed to unlock it. He pulled the keys from his pocket, picked the house key and wondered why the hell he had the rest of them on there. He unlocked the door and felt a sudden relief that he was inside.

  Dogs, he didn’t think about dogs. They were never an issue before. He remembered all the dog fighting rings that were busted over the years but had not thought about them roaming the streets in packs when their owners were gone. This type of thing was not in any of the books he had.

  He moved his rifle upstairs and reloaded the magazine. He had plenty of ammo but wished he had more guns available. Maybe it was time to start searching the neighborhood for supplies. He remembered a story from a guy he met at the range a few years ago. He saw this guy shooting a Luger 9mm. It looked older and had the original leather holster and two extra clips. He asked the guy about it and he said his grandfather had brought it back from World War II after finding it under a dead German.

  His neighborhood could be prime pickings for other supplies and not just guns.

  The morning sun was up, pink streaked across the sky. A clear blue finished the change in the sky. By the time the sun was at noon, its highest point, he was well into processing the deer. The smoker was burning in the teepee and he had rows of hanging meat drying out and absorbing the hickory branches he had found for the event.

  This would be an all- day event. He was at a loss what to do with the head and other parts. He didn’t want to waste anything but had no clue what to do with them besides bury them in the yard somewhere. He found a sharp saw in the shed and cut the antlers off to use later in hunting. If he wasn’t successful using them that way there was always the Chinese medicine he read about.

  Tom had not forgotten about the dogs. He would stop working once in a while and look around at the fence to see if anything was lurking. He never saw anything other than a squirrel. The first couple batches of jerky he judged by how they felt and looked. When he had a good idea how long it took to dry the meat he started working on other projects. He was setting up cold frames in the garden. He had saved old windows from his house after replacing them with new ones.

  When the sun started to set he was finishing up with the jerky project. He had tens of pounds of jerky that would last him through the winter. He sealed them up in plastic bags and made sure they stayed cool in the basement. The pelt he left stretched out for the sun to dry over the next couple of days. He cleaned off as much of the fat and sinew that he could and hoped it was enough to keep it from being ruined.

  That night he pulled a map of the neighborhood out and started planning his scavenging schedule. He decided to start with the houses he knew were empty, like his neighbor who lived across the street. He wondered if she had made it to her son’s house. She was old but tough. He would start there and hope there were items she had to leave behind. She had only had the pull cart.

  That night he heard howling that he had never heard before. He kept his rifle at his side with the safety off.

  Light shined through the cracks of the basement windows. He awoke confident that the deer skin was left alone. None of the alarms he made had gone off. The cans in the basement didn’t move throughout the night. He checked anyway, bringing his Russian rifle with him he climbed the stairs and went to the back bedroom over- looking the yard. The deer skin was there and the smoking teepee was still standing. Exhaling a sigh of relief he went back down stairs and made his usual breakfast of oatmeal.

  Carrying his battle rifle and a satchel he walked out the front door of his house and looked across the street. He didn’t
know what his neighbor had left behind but he would soon find out. He scanned the street and didn’t see anything. He listened and the silence gave him an all clear to go ahead. He walked across and his old nerves told him to expect his neighbor to answer the door. He even put his hand up to knock and almost laughed at himself. Then he did, taking a minute to adjust to his reality.

  Kicking open the door he moved around the living room aiming his rifle at every direction he was looking. He cleared the first floor and then traveled upstairs. He looked through all the rooms and almost shot a dress that was hanging on a door. He went straight to the basement which she had locked before leaving the house, or she always had locked, he didn’t know which. He kicked the door, felt some guilt for destroying part of her house and moved to the basement stairs. He could see it was dark except for some beams of light coming through the windows. He turned on his flash light and went down the stairs holding the flash light on the front end of the rifle. Reaching the bottom it wasn’t hard to clear the room. The furnace in the middle was the only large object that obstructed his view. He found a row of shelves on one end. Along the floor laid new electric powered tools and other items bought on QVC. He laughed to himself again, a small fortune in tools that served no purpose without electricity.

  The shelves had some paint cans partially filled, hand tools, and at the bottom a dust covered case of canning jars. He grabbed the jars and continued looking around.

  Going back to the kitchen he started opening all the cupboards to find anything that was useful. He found an old French press coffee maker, a partial bag of coffee, spices, cast iron skillets, cleaning supplies and some cans of food that were left behind. Already from the one house he was a few steps ahead of the game on winter. He made three trips back to his house before everything was there. He used a black magic marker to place an X on the door frame showing he had already checked the house for supplies.

  He did this several more times that day. He tried to finish one side of the block but found too much to X it off the map. He wrote down what house he was still working on and walked back home as the sun was setting. He pulled out a partially used composition note book and started to catalog all of his supplies. He ate some jerky as he spent an hour burning oil to write everything down. Finally he was tired and went to sleep.

  His new project of salvaging supplies from the neighborhood took up the rest of the fall season. He was able to move faster when he found an old mountain bike and attached a trailer to it. He was amazed at the things people left behind because of the weight or not having enough room in their cars. As he ventured further out from his house he decided to start creating supply houses that would hold extra supplies. He couldn’t keep everything he found at his place, the basement already packed as it was. He found a few houses that would work great with newer roofs and secure windows and doors that would help keep things secure. One house had the basement only accessible through steel double doors that he could pad lock with a titanium bike lock.

  Frost was becoming common in the morning and he was at a race with time now. He was afraid that any canned goods he didn’t find would go bad from freezing. The basements he sorted things so that they would be safe from freezing since the ground stays a constant 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the higher levels were a different story.

  When the first snow fell he locked his bike and trailer in the shed and hibernated inside with his books and warm fire.

  Chapter 5: Three years after The Day

  Walking around the shore of the lake he searches for a boat that hasn’t been ruined by the passing of time. Jet skis and pontoon boats litter the former back yards of the lake houses, faded non running versions of their former selves. Gasoline is a rare commodity these days and a reliable row boat is all that he wants. A few houses down he finds it. Kicking the sides he cleans off the build- up of leaves and turns it over. He checks the sides and looks for any holes. There is only one sure way to check.

  He tells Aurora to stay on shore. He pushes the boat into the water. Hopping in, he looks around and pushes off with the help of an oar. When he is sure that there are no leaks he waves Aurora over and grabs the poles and tackle box from her. Her self- reliance surprises him. She’s almost five and yet she is more mature than any child he could remember from before the collapse. She dug the worms up that morning from the garden at their home. She even places them on the hook herself.

  He was surprised when she asked to go fishing. He had gone before in the past to catch something different for dinner. It was his reading of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn that piqued her interest. The lake was full of blue gill, perch, and bass from the years of letting it recover to its natural state. He guessed they might have been out there an hour before their basket was full and they were ready to head home. He was filled with joy every time she giggled in excitement from her latest catch. He spent so much time taking the fish off the hook and placing a new worm on she ended up catching more than him.

  They rode their car home and he cleaned the fish to have a fish fry. He showed her how to clean them. He detailed what the parts were and what to eat. Filleting the meat off he cleaned everything and the rest he took to the garden as plant food.

  Inside the house he grabbed a bag of fish fry batter and coated the pieces before dropping them into the oil. Using charcoal that he made weeks before he cooked the fish outside and let the pieces cool before letting her try it.

  “Daddy, it tastes better when you catch it yourself.” Aurora said smacking her lips.

  He nodded and continued cooking the fish.

  The house they lived in was not the house that they had during the collapse. That was abandoned when her mother died of the flu that spread throughout the country. After all the years of the flu shot being given suddenly when the shot no longer existed it was a deadly strain that wiped out everyone. She wasn’t there when her mother died. They made an agreement that they were to leave before then and he held to his promise. Aurora was still joyful and happy as a child should be. She asked about her mother once in a while and secretly he hoped that one day she would forget about her so he would not have to explain what happened to her. In his heart he knew he would have to tell her one day and she would be older, only making things harder. She would understand what happened and that scared him more than anything. Would she understand the choice they had to make?

  After the fish fry he cleaned up the cutting board and the tools. They enjoyed the remaining heat from the coals until they burned out and moved back into the house. The main room was still warm from the sunlight and they sat on the mattress while he read to her. It was more Mark Twain and he had to stop once in a while and explain different things to her. He was caught off guard at some of the questions. He would have to remember what he was taught about life back in the 1800’s and that she had no idea what that time was like. Questions about slavery surprised him, “what’s a slave?” she asked and he had a tough time explaining the idea to her.

  She enjoyed stories about the frog leaping contest and white washing. She may not know what they really where about and he hoped in his heart it had more to do with how he read the story. She would never know he wasn’t her father but that was ok. As long as she believed it what did it matter? They both filled gaps in each other’s lives that needed filling. Who did it hurt in this life if they complimented one another?

  The next morning they ate their breakfast of quick oats and decided on the day’s events.

  “What should we do today?” Bruce asked Aurora as she ate from her bowl.

  “I don’t know.” She said at first. He looked at her with a puzzled look. She had never not known what she wanted to do before. “Could we look for frogs?”

  “I think it’s too cold for frogs to be out.” He said watching her.

  “Oh, well, could we look for other people today?”

  He paused for a moment and pondered her question. He wasn’t expecting anything like that from her. Was she getting bored of him? Why would she
say something like that?

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We don’t know what people are like now.”

  “Now? What do you mean?”

  “Things were different before.”

  “Before?”

  He knew this was going to be hard. He would have to explain the world before that she never knew. That was going to be very difficult for her to understand. If she really knew what the world was like before she should be angry and how his generation and the several before him squandered the world that they had. He hoped to teach her to appreciate the world that should have been enjoyed instead of ruined by the mentally ill that were allowed to rule and decide what happened to the planet for everyone.

  He spent the day explaining what life was like. The supermarket turned into a three hour story. A job was an idea that she didn’t understand and the notion of money was an idea lost in the wind. She simply could not understand the idea of paper that represented an idea. He wondered if the world would be better off not remembering what life was like before. Things were hard now, but were they really worse than what life was like before?

  They had not seen another person for months now. He purposely chose this place because of how secluded it was. Sure he had to bury the occasional body but it was a vacation spot. Meaning that it was a place one could live if they had money in the old world. Now it was the perfect spot to survive if the world came to an end. They had fish, wild game, and fertile land to plant things for food. He worked here as a teenager doing lawn work and maintenance once in a while. Now it was his retirement home. Surviving wasn’t hard, it was relaxing when bills no longer had to be paid. The explanation of the world before went from one day to two, then three and soon the week was gone and he was still explaining how things worked before. The more he explained to more insane it sounded.