The Empty-Full Wild

Some people said it was the best thing to ever happen to mankind. Others called it The Catastrophe. How mnemonic. I found it kind of humorous that the people who believed that The Catastrophe will have the best impact on our planet, were the same people whose lives had been insured long before it even happened, living in air-conditioned metal shacks, eating processed food while others, like us, can starve and die of heat stroke.

Why?

Because we were unlucky. We were unlucky prior to The Catastrophe, so we shall remain unlucky forever. I just hate how we could’ve noticed what was happening, but we were blinded by all the “We’re on the same boat.” crap. Well, maybe their boats are huge tourist yachts that were left undamaged. Our boats, on the other hand, are wooden planks from the dead trees wrapped up in dried vines. Guess who has a higher chance of survival.

We’re the survivors. Any human walking the earth under them is a survivor, at least that’s what Mom told me. I think otherwise. I think that if you don’t wake up at the crack of dawn to hunt boars and wild deer to feed your starving siblings and your mother, staying on guard for more than a day to fend off predators because these people are the only people you know and the only people that matter, then you’re not a survivor. You’re a freeloader. As if the world suddenly became yours to use and manipulate while the poorer ones can go to hell. Literally.

This is hell on Earth. This is us. This is-

“Matt!”

“Coming!” I slammed my journal shut and got up to see what Mom wanted from me. One last glance at the drained river and I finally made my way to our wooden shelter. One touch on the outside and splinters will stick to your fingers like glue, which is why we avoid touching it.

I haven’t seen that many shelters in my life, but ours is bordering on the unliveable. It was basically the size of a living room, with absolutely zero furnishing. Mom was lying down on a tattered red blanket, although you could barely tell it was red from all the brown mud and dried blood on it. She had her broken leg extended to the front on the bare ground. In case you were wondering, animal bite. I can’t even remember what kind it was. Days like those I like to pass off and let them mesh into one big memory so I wouldn’t dwell on details.

“Yes, Mom?” My ankle was bleeding from when I caught that boar. She was still asleep by then, but perhaps Billie or Gary had told her. Sure enough, I could see her scrutinising it, along with my bare knees all the way down. “Is it infected?” she asked simply, so I shook my head no.

In the dark, I could see Gary rocking back and forth, arms interlocked with his knees like a makeshift rocking chair. Billie was in the back where there were a couple trees to shield us in the midst of the wasteland that’s become our home.

“Billie cooking?”

“Yes, Matt. Go help her.” Mom commanded. I bowed my head in obedience and turned to unlock the back gate. “Yes, Mom.”

Six months ago, from when life was still normal, I would’ve thrown a fit at Mom for asking me to do too many things with no rest, especially if those ‘things’ were staying outside all day with close to zero foliage to protect me from the merciless sun that had destroyed millions –perhaps billions– of innocent and not-so-innocent lives to protect them against any wild animal that wanted trouble.

“Hey, Billie.” I smiled as I piled some rocks together next to my fourteen-year old sister. I always smile when I see Billie. Back home, we used to more or less despise each other, the three-year age gap gnawing at us. I always insisted she was useless. That she only cared about her followers and clothing brands and the latest single by her favorite singer. I was proved wrong in so many ways just on the first days of the disaster that I felt entitled to the sincerest apology I’d ever given in my seventeen years of existence.

Looking at the young woman she’d become, I certainly cannot help but smile.

“Hey, Matt. What’s on your mind?” She shuffled from the campfire we started that morning and gave me a slight hug before settling down next to me, fixing a grass skirt she would’ve gagged at the mere sight of six months ago. Six months ago.

“I just realised how stupid humans really are.” I pushed my untrimmed brown hair out of my face to get a clear look at her. To her and Gary’s blond hair they took from Dad, my brown hair looks like the mud we stomp through every day.

“Mm. Guess they planned for everything besides piercing holes through the Ozone layer.” Billie hummed, her tone laced with sarcasm. We both know they saw it coming, and figured the world could use a start over, like the reset button in a sandbox game. Except that we can’t create rivers and raise mountains and drown countries and set the world in permanent winter. We frolic around like puppets, our survival instinct guiding us through obstacles.

“Oh, they done screwed up. Do you even remember anything from home? Besides the streets and cars and the like?” I was already reaching for my pocket journal to read some of my entries to refresh her memory.

“Oh my God, Matthew Peter Hudson! Did you write it down before it flew away?” Billie exclaimed in excitement. She had to act like this new life wasn’t bothering her as much as it was, but she doesn’t know that I hear her cry every night, wishing Dad was here. Wishing everyone was here.

“I’ll read some for you. But first, get that meat off the fire.” Her face shone with recognition, as if she’d momentarily forgotten her initial task. Using washed leaves that we used multiple times as plates, she scooped the meat she’d pushed into sticks off the rack and piled them on top of each other. Obviously, it’s not really a rack, not the one we used to barbecue on. More like three wooden sticks tied together. After everyone evacuated the cities and fled to the woods and the savannahs, it was as if all sorts of human inventions had vanished. At least, anything created after the year 1980 did, which is why we could scavenge for books and pens and notebooks, clothes and knives, but not phones or TVs or even just an electrical wire. Sure, electricity existed before the 1980’s, but that’s beside the point.

I was so lost in my daydream that I didn’t realize Billie had frozen into her place, staring at something straight ahead. “Billie?” I cautiously pushed myself off the rocks and stood behind her, trying to align my eyes with hers to see what she could see.

“Matt…” She didn’t finish. She just pointed at a group of dark figures in the distance, and that was enough to set me into motion. I dashed inside the shelter and grabbed my bow and Billie’s fishing spear. Gary sat up with worried eyes at my rushed manner, and Mom kept glancing at me in a way that asked ‘What the hell is happening?’

“Buffalo, Gary. Freaking buffalo.” Gary might be only eight, but God knows how he understands code emergencies. Buffalo meant that if we caught at least one, we’d have one week to relax and not go out everyday. We were practically carnivorous by now, so buffalo was enough of a meal.

“Here!” I handed Billie and, using a silent communication method to not startle the herd, and like wild cats approaching their prey, Billie and I got on all-fours and crawled over to the buffalo that stood furthest away from the other to grass-eating animals.

“Okay.” I breathed lowly. “On the count of three, you hammer that one over that with your spear, and I’ll shoot it with my arrows. If it tries to escape, chase it.”

She nodded intently, studying the buffalo stood at least ten feet away from us. It started to wander even further from its group, and I held my breath as I motioned to Billie to crawl even closer to it. Six months ago, you wouldn’t find three buffalo wandering around all by themselves, but with barely any animals left due to the radiation and the deadly sun rays, groups of three were now a common sight.

“Alright. One…two...” But I was too stupid. The bow broke under my weight, the wooden crack sounding like thunder, disrupting the quiet, and obviously chasing the three buffalo away. Since there was no reason to be quiet anymore, I cried out to Billie as I chased the herd, “Spear it! We can’t let it get away, Billie!”

I couldn’t look behind me to see what her response, but I could only assume she understood what I meant. The rocks were rough under my bare feet, tearing and clawing at bits of my skin, but I’d gotten used to it. I pushed on and on, and soon it felt like I was flying from how fast I was running, but the buffalo were still too far away from me. In the back of my mind, I knew it was stupid to assume I’d catch up with them, but I was too far in to turn around now.

A wooden spear flew from behind me like a shooting star, minus the brightness. It landed smack into the middle of the buffalo’s back, the one we’d been chasing. It slowed down its pace as it let out an animalistic cry of pain. Fuelled with yet another charge of adrenaline, I pushed myself further ahead until the injured buffalo was a couple of feet away.

“Get it, Matt!” Billie called out from behind me, but it was like I was frozen onto one constant speed and I couldn’t go faster than that. Then, without thinking, I flung myself on the buffalo’s lower back, a little too close to the spear submerged in blood. My fingers dug into the buffalo’s skin, holding on for dear life. I dared to glance behind me and found out that Billie had stopped running a while ago, her hands on her knees, breathless.

I knew what I had to do, so I gripped the spear handle, ready to puncture it deeper into the buffalo to halt its movement once and for all. Its pace was already slowing, but what I saw next froze my entire being in time. A cold chill trailed down my spine despite the six-month long summer. A couple or more wooden shacks surrounded by green trees, steam rising up from one of the shacks with a straw roof.

I hesitated no more. Digging the spear deeper and deeper into the poor buffalo’s flesh, it finally collapsed in a heap just a few feet away from one of the tribe’s huts. I collapsed on the ground, sweating endlessly, my chest heaving. My muscles were screaming at me for running so fast, for doing so many things all of a sudden, and I closed my eyes in pain.

It felt as if I’d closed them for seconds, but when I re-opened them again, I was met with a hazy darkness…and a dark face staring down at me. My body shot up in alarm. People meant trouble, at least the last two tribes were. I had to carry Gary on my back while running from them, hoping –praying– that Mom and Billie were right behind me. If only Dad had been with us…

“Kid, you alright?” It was a feminine voice, probably a girl around my age. I must have been inside one of their houses, because darkness surrounded us completely, not a lantern in sight.

“I’m okay. I should get going, though.” I cut right to the point, I had no intention staying here a minute longer, even if they had saved my life –which I’m sure they did not–

“Oh. That’s totally fine.” It didn’t sound ‘totally fine’ to her. In fact, she sounded rather disappointed, but it was hard to tell how her face displayed, let alone, how she actually looked. I had just realised that I had been lying on a stretcher all along, which meant they probably had valuable resources with them. I don’t usually steal but if we’re desperate…

“We just think it’d be better to stay together, you know? So if you have a family nearby- “

“Who is ‘we’?” I asked, confused. And above that, I had a throbbing headache pounding through my skull, making rational thinking harder than usual. I had to remain on guard, not to reveal our hideout-

“Um, us? This…tribe, is that what you call it? Me, my family, our survival friends?” She seemed perplexed at my confusion, which only allowed more confusion. “Who are you? What’s your name?” I finally asked.

In the dark I could make out a glimmer of a smile on her lips. “I’m Bonnie.” She extended a hand out to lift me up. I reluctantly took it and she hoisted me off the stretcher.

“Matthew.” I replied.

“Nice to meet you.” She said as she pulled open a door that I had never noticed before, revealing the moonlit sky up above and a clearing right ahead. “Your sister’s here, by the way. She’d just come back after returning that buffalo you hunted down.”

I nodded absent-mindedly, eager to get a breath of fresh air into my lungs. Straight ahead, there were a couple of shacks in front of the one I was just in; one on the right and another on the left, forming an acute angled triangle. In the middle, there was a fire going, with about twelve people of all ages encircling it. I instantly spotted Billie sitting with the group, chatting intently with a woman around Mom’s age. She kept nodding in understanding, which led me to think they were discussing something of importance. Excellent.

“Matthew’s here!” Bonnie called out with a tone of excitement once we were close enough to be heard over the constant cheers and the cries of the little children. All eyes were on us immediately, and Billie’s eyes lit up in happiness. She shot up from the ground and ran to me, her arms wide.

I pulled her into a brotherly embrace, relived smiles drawn over our faces. “Dude, are you alright?” I nodded in assurance and turned my gaze to the other humans around us. Bonnie was whispering something to the lady Billie was talking to, her brown skin radiating a certain warmness in the light. Before I could ask any questions, Bonnie was pulling me towards the lady, an earnest look on her face.

“Mom, this is Matthew. Matt, this is Mom.” I reached my hand out for a handshake, but the woman only stood and pulled me into a hug.

After a couple of moments, she patted my cheek and smiled at me. “I saw what you did this morning, boy. It takes a lot of guts to chase a buffalo away from your shelter without that many weapons with you just for your family.” I didn’t know whether she was going to lecture me on being out in the wilderness or if she was complimenting me, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

“Heroic actions should be rewarded.” She continued. “We don’t have that much to give you, but we would love if you brought the rest of your family here, with us. We all live and cooperate with each other, and we would love an addition. It’s always pleasant to see some new faces every once in a while.” She laughed as she shot a mischievous look at her daughter. I laughed, too, to ease some of the tension that had piled into my stomach since morning.

“So, what do you say?” She was now all business again. “Would you like to join us? Instead of being all alone?”

I felt an air of pride wash over me. She was asking me, as the person responsible for my family. I was the one to make the decision, nobody else. I glanced around to find Billie already talking with other people around the fire, and then back to Bonnie and her mother. And when they both smiled at me, I knew. I knew that for the first time in the last six months, there was a place to be. This was our future home.