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Authors: Nicholas Ryan
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“Here,” she handed me the piece of paper she had torn from my notebook and had folded into the pocket of her pants. “Here’s your answer, Mr. Culver. This is how we survived the Apocalypse. I hope it helps you with your interview.”
I tucked the piece of paper into my shirt pocket, waved goodbye and drove to the end of the street, past the burned out shell of a vehicle crashed against a power pole. I didn’t look back.
When I got around the corner I stopped the car in the middle of the road, left the engine idling, and reached into my pocket for the piece of paper Kate Sellar had handed me, my curiosity burning like a fire.
She had written just three words.
Dumb.
Fucking.
Luck.
At the bottom of the page she had drawn a smiley face.
I stared at the piece of paper for a long time, shaking my head with slow wonder. I had travelled the length and breadth of America searching for answers – trying to understand those indomitable characteristics that separated those who had survived the ‘Affliction’ from the many, many millions who had perished. Each person’s story I had heard had been a tale of painstaking preparation or determination – quiet stoic heroism in the face of impossible odds. Now, I had another intangible factor to ponder.
Some people had just been dumb fucking lucky.
* * *
Laurel Fork, Virginia:
Hard eyes: a hard man.
Mike Jackson greeted me with a grunt, a shake of the hand – and then turned his head away, staring out across the tree-studded land that surrounded us.
He had his balled fists thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, his heavy jaw set in a determined thrust, his chin and cheeks stubbled with a couple of days growth. He said nothing more, and I spent a couple of moments taking in the view of the Virginia countryside, sneaking glances at him from out of the corner of my eye. He was a man in his late forties, his hair brown turning grey, cropped close to his skull. His eyes were set in a web of fine wrinkles, his face tanned to the color of mahogany.
We stayed that way – standing in utter silence – until it became almost awkward. I felt unwelcome; like a stranger who had encroached on some private place that was somehow sacred.
I drew a deep breath, kicked my feet around in the dead grass.
“How much land do you have here?” I made a wide sweeping gesture with the flat of my hand.
Mike Jackson turned his head and stared at me for a full five seconds, his eyes narrowed warily before he finally answered.
“Twenty-one acres,” he said.
I nodded. If he wasn’t outright hostile towards me, he was at the very least guarded.
Mike Jackson was a man of few words.
I tried to engage him. “That’s a lot of space. Do you have neighbors?”
“We did have,” Mike muttered. He let out a sigh. “Before we fled Virginia at the outbreak of the ‘Affliction’, we had neighbors on either side. I don’t know if they’re still living or not.”
“You haven’t checked?”
The man glared at me. “No,” he said bluntly. “Not my business and not my problem.”
We were standing on a fold of low-lying ground, with the family’s single story modular home at our back. The house was nestled under the shade of nearby trees, and I could hear the sound of female voices coming from somewhere inside. It seemed to me to be an ideal place for a family to sit out the sweeping death of the ‘Affliction’; the home was concealed from the passing road by groves of trees, and the Laurel Fork region is no more than a clustered small community about ninety minutes from Roanoke, and just a twenty minute drive from the North Carolina state line. It was rural land – quiet, isolated, and crisscrossed with a meandering lacework of babbling creeks that wound their way along the folds and contours of the property.
It made me wonder why this man had abandoned the home when the ‘Affliction’ had first broken out – and why he had taken his family on a perilous journey
I tucked the piece of paper into my shirt pocket, waved goodbye and drove to the end of the street, past the burned out shell of a vehicle crashed against a power pole. I didn’t look back.
When I got around the corner I stopped the car in the middle of the road, left the engine idling, and reached into my pocket for the piece of paper Kate Sellar had handed me, my curiosity burning like a fire.
She had written just three words.
Dumb.
Fucking.
Luck.
At the bottom of the page she had drawn a smiley face.
I stared at the piece of paper for a long time, shaking my head with slow wonder. I had travelled the length and breadth of America searching for answers – trying to understand those indomitable characteristics that separated those who had survived the ‘Affliction’ from the many, many millions who had perished. Each person’s story I had heard had been a tale of painstaking preparation or determination – quiet stoic heroism in the face of impossible odds. Now, I had another intangible factor to ponder.
Some people had just been dumb fucking lucky.
* * *
Laurel Fork, Virginia:
Hard eyes: a hard man.
Mike Jackson greeted me with a grunt, a shake of the hand – and then turned his head away, staring out across the tree-studded land that surrounded us.
He had his balled fists thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, his heavy jaw set in a determined thrust, his chin and cheeks stubbled with a couple of days growth. He said nothing more, and I spent a couple of moments taking in the view of the Virginia countryside, sneaking glances at him from out of the corner of my eye. He was a man in his late forties, his hair brown turning grey, cropped close to his skull. His eyes were set in a web of fine wrinkles, his face tanned to the color of mahogany.
We stayed that way – standing in utter silence – until it became almost awkward. I felt unwelcome; like a stranger who had encroached on some private place that was somehow sacred.
I drew a deep breath, kicked my feet around in the dead grass.
“How much land do you have here?” I made a wide sweeping gesture with the flat of my hand.
Mike Jackson turned his head and stared at me for a full five seconds, his eyes narrowed warily before he finally answered.
“Twenty-one acres,” he said.
I nodded. If he wasn’t outright hostile towards me, he was at the very least guarded.
Mike Jackson was a man of few words.
I tried to engage him. “That’s a lot of space. Do you have neighbors?”
“We did have,” Mike muttered. He let out a sigh. “Before we fled Virginia at the outbreak of the ‘Affliction’, we had neighbors on either side. I don’t know if they’re still living or not.”
“You haven’t checked?”
The man glared at me. “No,” he said bluntly. “Not my business and not my problem.”
We were standing on a fold of low-lying ground, with the family’s single story modular home at our back. The house was nestled under the shade of nearby trees, and I could hear the sound of female voices coming from somewhere inside. It seemed to me to be an ideal place for a family to sit out the sweeping death of the ‘Affliction’; the home was concealed from the passing road by groves of trees, and the Laurel Fork region is no more than a clustered small community about ninety minutes from Roanoke, and just a twenty minute drive from the North Carolina state line. It was rural land – quiet, isolated, and crisscrossed with a meandering lacework of babbling creeks that wound their way along the folds and contours of the property.
It made me wonder why this man had abandoned the home when the ‘Affliction’ had first broken out – and why he had taken his family on a perilous journey
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