Free The Scattered and the Dead (Book 0.5) by Tim McBain, L.T. Vargus Page A

am I supposed to be? Can any of these things make sense anymore?
    Will those of us still here spend the rest of our time fighting to get back what we had? What did we even have? Convenience? Novelty? Is that the best we can achieve? Is it even worth fighting for?
    Everyone dies. Is that the lesson? That was always the case, though, wasn’t it? Now a bunch of them just died all at once. All together. So what’s the difference? In some ways everything is different. In some ways nothing is different. For me, that is.
    Part of me tells myself how I would do it all over, how I would handle things differently. The thought assails me even when I try to avoid it, nags at me in the quiet moments, when everything goes still. It doesn’t suggest a path of honesty and openness. What did those things ever get me?
    It wants me to stop looking through things, stop probing for meaning in life and love and such matters. It wants me to take it all at face value, to believe the lie the best I can, to take that lie to the grave. It wants me to calculate and manipulate and present a version of myself that people can love. Forget the truth. Craft and present a version of myself that tells everyone what they want to hear, gives them something to believe, gives support to this surface lie we’ve all agreed upon. And if I give them these things, I can take all that I want in return. All that the animal part of me wants – power, pride, contempt and lust -- all of my primal appetites appeased.
    Because that’s the best you can do, maybe. Taking what you want to make yourself feel good. Becoming the one at the top of the food chain. Maybe that’s the only connection that really exists between people, the power we can exert over each other.
    Maybe.

 
     
     
    48 days after
     
    I look in the mirror and can’t believe how much I’ve physically changed. I’m already all tan from walking around out there, my body going lean and hard from even the miniscule amount of exercise I do now compared to all of that time in front of the TV and computer before. That’s the one thing I’ll say about the post-apocalypse. It makes for decent cardio.
    I look like someone else. Some confident guy with a light beard. Like a man, I guess. An actual adult man who solves problems, makes sweet moves, attacks life with great gusto.
    Anyway, I’ve abandoned the idea of getting a car for now. I’d need to find keys since I don’t have the internet to teach me how to hotwire or anything like that. It just seems too involved to go door to door looking for car keys and then hoping I can find the matching functioning car in the driveway or garage.
    The water is all that really matters, so I will focus on that.
    I will bike out of town, looking for a well in the country somewhere. Something with a pump, a hand pump, I guess. That’s the one good thing about being in Pittsburgh. There are wooded, rural areas not far outside of town, and I’m sure I’ll find something.
    Once the water situation is secure, I will look for a car and a gun. Maybe someday I can find a generator, even if my storage unit has been pillaged, but who knows if there will be any gas left by that time. Those jags in the semi tanker are apparently going around collecting it all, you know? And it’s not like anyone will be refining more oil and shipping it around in its various forms. What’s out there now is all there will be for a long, long time.

 
     
     
    49 days after
     
    It wasn’t so hot today. It felt great to be outside, to feel the open air rush against me when the wind picked up.
    I sat and watched the cats eat, and I wondered what will become of them once I’m gone. I’m tempted sometimes to inch my way closer day by day, to make them my pets and take them with me wherever I go next. I don’t think it would be difficult. They’re pretty comfortable with my presence now. It’d be nice to have companions, though lately I’m more hopeful about finding human ones down the