Fallen City by Nathan Jones

Author:Nathan Jones [Jones, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic
Published: 2018-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Vengeance

Over the next six days the insects Jack scavenged became easier to stomach and harder to find.

He would've preferred it the other way around but there wasn't much he could do but keep looking, while at the same time exploring any other possibility that might put food in his belly. Those were few and far between, and usually other people had got to them first.

It had been over a month since the Gulf burned. Jack could barely believe it was only that, when it felt like the world had been insane for a nightmarish eternity. And there was no hope it was getting better anytime soon: the riots in the city had stopped because there was almost nobody left. The few remaining people had claimed their territory and now viciously fought to defend it, as well as more often than not sending out raiding parties, searching for any valuable scraps among buildings that looked as if they'd been empty for decades and not just five weeks.

Capitol Hill was an abandoned ruin, gutted by fire and smashed by vengeful rioters after the massacre. The highways were no longer defended and bandits had finally begun preying on refugees walking along them, forcing travelers to find safer routes. Or routes that they thought were safer until wandering into ambushes. Jack saw instances of it whenever he got anywhere near I-15 or I-80, although he tried to avoid going that way when he could.

As for FETF, Antelope Island had been the last bastion of their emergency relief efforts. Jack avoided people and talked to no one so he didn't know exactly what was going on there, but he did occasionally see vehicles full of armed men driving around from that direction. It looked as if whoever had ended up in charge there was sending raiders out into the city, searching for anyone who had anything worth stealing.

A couple of times over the last six days he'd heard enough gunfire to make it seem like he was within stone's throw of a war zone, and assumed raiders from the refugee camp were attacking the territory of nearby gangs, either to expand their own influence or to steal whatever the gangs had. Or both. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that eventually the jackals would start eating each other.

And all the while Jack scuttled from hiding spot to hiding spot in the devastated city like a rodent, sniffing out bugs and edible plants and trying his luck at chucking rocks at squirrels and other critters to try to get some meat.

Sometimes after returning to his apartment he'd practice talking, not sure whether it was to reassure himself he still could or to hear the comforting sound of a human voice that wasn't raised in anger or pain. During the long nights he sang just about every song he knew in the dark to entertain himself, and while he'd always been a bit embarrassed about his singing voice it kept him centered when things seemed bleakest.

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