Life as we know it..

I rattled the key in the slot eventually forcing it to budge, as was the norm for most Chevy trucks. If you didn't have a sticky ignition, you had a broken ignition, but to my dismay not a single dash light came on, nor did Becky purr to life as she normally does.

"Oh, what the hell now," I muttered under my breath as I pulled the hood release and opened the driver door.

Dad was a mechanic for upwards of thirty years before he died, to tell you the truth I think it might have been the only thing he really knew how to do. Thankfully, somewhere in that span of time I picked up quite a bit of auto knowledge. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a mechanic, but I certainly know more than your average bear. Putting one foot atop the front tire, I hoisted myself up to get a better view. I checked the oil level then the battery connections. Everything seemed to be in order. The cable ends sparked against the posts proving I had at least enough power to bring the instrument panel to life, and I had just driven it merely hours ago. So hy was nothing working?

Climbing back down I took one last look at the dusty Vortec and slammed the hood shut.

Cursing under my breath, I leaned against the bumper and surveyed my surroundings, a bird landed on the tin roof of the medical unit to my left reminding me of what my mission was. The gruesome scene from inside the trailer was freshly seared into my brain and I quickly decided I had no time to sit and tinker with a nearly sixty year old pile of scrap metal.

Climbing into the back seat alongside the infant carrier I locked all three doors and crouched down out of sight. I peaked under the soft blue blanket draped across the carseat to make sure the small human inside was still sound asleep.

"We're gonna have to give you a name, little guy," I racked my brain for a few minutes, trying to think of a suitable name for a newborn refugee. You never realize just how many people you hate until you try to name a baby.

I watched his little chest rise and fall quickly and quietly. His small pink lips turned out in a drooling pout as the pacifier had fallen away.

"How about Henry," I said aloud to myself, "what better way to honor dad's memory than to name his only living son after him."

I watched him sleep a little longer than softly draped the blanket back over the seat and pulled my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. Maybe I can get a message out to one of the girls at the lab and catch a ride back to the house. I'm not exactly what you would call a 'social butterfly' and three months was far from long enough for me to make any real friends. My coworkers are the closest thing I could consider to such.

"What the hell," I muttered to myself, attempting to unlock my tattered phone.

After pressing the lock button multiple times, and being left with nothing more than a black screen, I promptly reached into the center console of the truck for my music player.

I know I had a full battery less than an hour ago, there's no way my phone died that fast, to my disappointment the small MP3 player shared the same fate. First my laptop, then my truck, now my handhelds, something is very wrong. I need to get to the lab as quickly as possible and find out what's going on, there's no way everything that's happened in the last forty-five minutes was purely coincidental..

Guess we're moving on foot, not exactly my ideal choice of travel. Especially considering I still don't have the slightest clue what's going on outside, but if we could make it to the ranch, we could still have a fighting chance. It was less than a mile north of where we sat now. There would be shelter, supplies, and if we were lucky, a spare mode of hay-burning transportation available there.

Memories of Mum leading me blindfolded out to the barn to meet my first pony when I was eight flashed through my brain, things were so simple back then. Wake up and go to school, come home and play on the farm; there were trips to the library and the local pool; visits from friends and family, and mo importantly– here was Keisha.

Keisha was supposed to be the family dog, but really she was my dog and my best friend. We were inseparable, if I could have hidden all 50 pounds of Australian Collie in my backpack, she would have even gone to school with me. She had beautiful medium length fur, a mix of black, white, and brown, and there was just enough of it to turn your black clothes white and your white clothes black. I never cared though, she slept by my side every night. She stood by me through thick and thin all the way up to the day I lost her.

We were somewhere in northern California during the fall of 2051, we were making our way to what we were told was a supposed safe haven when we were ambushed. They took everything, our guns, our food, our truck, our medical supplies—they left us with nothing but the clothes on our back and the teeth in our mouths. Though they stripped us of our material items they left us physically unharmed, my beloved best friend however was not so lucky. She fought to the end to protect her family, now all I have left of her is the leather collar that hangs from my rearview mirror.

A loud bang and sudden jostle at the front of the truck pulled me back from my daydreams.