The Family

Kent peered across the horizon as his horse walked next to the decaying road. Traveling between settlements was a mixture of mostly boredom occasionally broken by moments of terror. Everyone had to be wary of ambushes but the long hours with nothing to see but fallow fields made it difficult to concentrate.

Kent reached into his pocket and pulled out the locket. He held it up to see and, not for the first time, opened it and looked at the faded, stained photo inside. It was difficult to make out but Kent knew it was a man, a woman, and their child in the photo.

Kent was only a young boy when the end came. Not quite the end of the world, but the end of civilization. It started with a whimper but ended with a bang. The end was not what anyone had expected. Most people had no idea how thin the veneer of civilization was. They had forgotten what it took for civilization to rise from a collection of tribal peoples.

It started with a plague. Not like the Black Plague from the Dark Ages, but a plague nonetheless. It wasn't the plague that brought the end, but it was the catalyst. The plague brought with it fear. The people feared to leave their homes go out into the world and create the necessities for survival. It did not take long for the shortages to start. When they reached the food supply the panic and violence started.

As the people lost faith in their leadership, the leadership's problems multiplied. The sabers of nations began to rattle as weakness was seen. In a sudden moment of nuclear fury it was over. It was not the nuclear cataclysm foretold in stories. Oh, population and industrial centers did die in the fires of the bomb, but when that fury was over the thirst for war had been quenched. Those that remained no longer had the means to live.

True global famine then struck. Billions died and those that remained had to relearn how to survive using only their own labors. Technology failed as the infrastructure needed to support it no longer existed.

This was the world Kent now knew. He was just a child when the fury destroyed his world but it did not consume him. He was adopted and nurtured by a new Family, one that taught him the ways of survival. New settlements grew from the ashes of the old civilization. People relearned the ways of farming and cottage industries.

Some old ways would not die in the fury of the past. As in all civilizations there were some that created what they needed from the earth and the resources it provided and others that simply took what they wanted from those that created.

Kent knew there was no way to replace the photo in the locket. He didn't have the file or negative it came from. There was no lab or printer to replace it with. Even the locket itself was nothing more than a trinket of no value. It broke up the boredom of traveling across the wasteland of a dead civilization.

"Hey Kent!" Geoff yelled out as he rode up next to Kent. "Keep your eyes peeled and stop screwing around!"

"Yeah!" Kent grumbled as he closed the locket and put it back into his pocket.

"You're gonna get us all killed out here if you don't pay attention kid!" Geoff continued.

Annoyed, Kent cried out "I got it!"

"C'mon kid! The Major told us we gotta collect the offerings from these farmers out here. You keep try'na kill off the farmers for dissin' ya, there wont be any farmers to collect offerings from anymore!"

"Well, I didn't kill him, did I!" Kent glared at Geoff.

"No, ya lucky that kid he took in got between ya! Stabbed him instead and took his locket. Major told ya the next time ya killed a farmer for that crap he was gonna cut your throat. I'd say that kid ya killed saved your life! You should be thanking him!" Geoff snickered.

Kent pulled out the locket and threw it at Geoff, letting it fall to the ground on the crumbing road.

Geoff snickered again. "Keep watch! I heard one of these towns hired a Marshall. I don't wanna get ambushed out here". Geoff galloped ahead leaving Kent alone with his thoughts.

"You're either predator or prey out here." Kent thought to himself. "I guess I'm lucky The Major and The Family took me in out here or I'd be prey."

Kent glared at Geoff's backside as he galloped away and then continued watching the landscape for signs of an ambush.