A Savage Life
Chapter 18

I walked for hours through the wild, and then I found myself onto an old, paved road. It was very big, like the remnants of an old 4-Way, but without paint or signs. And based on the cracks, and broken pieces of the road, as well as the old foundations of buildings that once stood there, you could tell that some disaster had taken place here long ago and wiped out whatever was standing in it’s path. The place smelled of dust and death, and the skeletons strewn about here and there, frozen in mummified terror, even verified that.

Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around me as I walked by a mini mart or gas station that once stood there, (Joy, supplies!) but as my shadow loomed closer, I could see dead bodies, old and new ones, pressed up against the door, as if they were trying to get away from something terrifying. I did not want to visit what was in there.

“Let’s face it Josh, this place is dead.” I tell myself, minding you that that was an understatement.

This place was desolate, so I had no one else to talk to but myself. And if you’re not convinced, I had even walked through what looked like times square and threw a rock into every window I came across and no alarm was set off, nor did people come. Maybe there were a few huge spiders with unicorn-like horns that scurried away as fast as they could, letting out screeches of terror, and ignoring me. If you’re not sold yet, you will be by all the dead skeletons I was wading through. I need a snowmobile to get through all of this...or a sandmobile really.

High end fashion looked incredibly weird as I seen ripped up clothes laden with sparkles and colors that looked so off they were beautiful (Think of a light jade green and brown), exotic jewelry, and high-heeled shoes that made platforms look like flats. There were no toys, but abandoned technology. Dusty technology I couldn’t recognize.

And soon my heart sank at seeing the remains of a child near the city limits once I had started to leave the wasteland. Yes, a child. It wasn’t a full body, just only the skeletal remains. Some of the bones were scattered, but there was a enough together that it wasn’t hard to tell. Oh, that poor thing, it must’ve died alone. Scared, and very alone. I wonder what happened to it? The parents must’ve saw that they couldn’t save the child, and abandoned it? It may have been the last survivor, but was too young to survive on it’s own and died alone? Maybe it was eaten by whatever killed those people inside that store? Or possibly ran over and trampled in the carnage as people escaped this city?

There was an endless amount of possibilities, and I knew I didn’t want to see it anymore, but I wanted to give the body something special because it reminds me that it could’ve been my child, once (Different story, ok). Right where the ground was moist from a rain, I dug a shallow grave for the body, with my hands, and then I went to get the body, almost ready to cry when I saw the teeth marks on the bones. This poor child was ravaged by whatever came to eat it.

It reminded me of the story my grandfather told me when his little sister had been eaten by wolves when she was little, and everyone knows I didn’t like the idea of seeing dead children. I never prided in seeing the corpse of children at all, not even when someone almost killed my son Luke, by hitting him with a car.

It was a Hit and Run, and the guy was drunk, but that didn’t stop the police from setting him free for not having enough evidence to convict the man, and letting my son almost die. I was mad myself, so I broke into the man’s home and beat him within an inch of his life. Nobody hits my son, or any child, with a car. At least, not while I’m still around. Either way, I did what I came to do, and I was arrested in the hospital, in front of Luke, and I was darn proud of it too. I wasn’t proud that Luke had to watch though, just proud that the guy who hit him got what he deserved.

When I had finished burying the bones, I placed a plank above their head and said a prayer, and I continued on down the road.