Cannibal Country (Book 1): The Land Darkened Read online

  The Land Darkened

  Cannibal Country - Book 1

  Tony Urban

  Drew Strickland

  Copyright © 2020 by Tony Urban & Drew Strickland

  Published by Packanack Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Visit Drew online - http://drewstricklandbooks.com

  Visit Tony online - http://tonyurbanauthor.com

  Created with Vellum

  “Ye who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from them, and their flesh from off their bones;

  Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.”

  Micah 3:2-3

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Afterword

  More from Tony & Drew

  Chapter One

  I was thirteen years old when the world ended…

  “Now what the hell am I supposed to write?” Wyatt stared down at the moleskin journal, hoping more words would come. It was easy for him to make up stories. Gory thrillers about superheroes or zombies. Heroic tales where brave people saved the world. But that was fiction.

  Reality was hard. Reality was pain and loss and hunger and hopelessness. So much had happened in the last five years, since the world changed forever, but what made his story worth writing about? Wyatt struggled to find any point.

  His previous life, that of a teenager without a care in the world, seemed insignificant and naïve at best. Selfish at worst. Back then his biggest concern was hanging out with his buddies and trying to pick the lock to his parent’s liquor cabinet with a safety pin. Or teaming up with Cliff Barbin to try to cajole the Ewing Twins into going to the quarry for make-out sessions.

  Wyatt smiled at the thought. Five years wasn’t that long in theory, but these five years were an entire lifetime that made everything that had come before seem like a fairy tale. Ever since he’d watched the news reports of bombs exploding and people dying by the millions in the cities, his old life had ceased to matter.

  He pinched the pen hard between his fingers and stared at the almost blank page. Where should he even start? His point of view of the United States crumbling from Middle of Nowhere, Maine was hilariously detached from the reality, the terror, that the people who’d actually lived through it, or died in it, must have experienced. For him, the beginning of the apocalypse consisted of watching his mother go half-crazy with worry over her husband, Wyatt’s father, missing in Boston. And that was a story he didn’t want to relive.

  “Screw it.” He placed the pen inside the journal and closed it. The sound of the pages smacking together was like a firecracker in this silent world. He flinched at the noise, then smirked, embarrassed over being easily startled.

  He shifted his weight and stretched his legs which had gone half-numb from straddling the tree branch for the last two hours. It gave a pained groan that reminded him of an old man trying to stand after sitting for too long. For a moment he wondered if the branch might snap. A few years ago he’d have believed the towering oak would stand a century or more. But now it was as brittle and bare as a skeleton and he knew it was as dead as almost everything else.

  He’d been nervous, coming here and climbing the tree alone. But Trooper had seen deer tracks in the area a few weeks earlier and even the slightest chance of harvesting a deer was worth the risk. As he settled back into position, the tree gave another sound of protest and he took a long look at the ground twenty feet below. He didn’t think the fall would kill him, not outright anyway, but it could lead to broken bones, if not worse.

  That’s just what we need, Wyatt thought. Two cripples in the family. Part of him hated that word. Cripple. But Seth threw it around often enough that it had lost most of its meaning.

  While he waited to see whether he would fall, there came another sound, but this one from ground level. Wyatt looked past his own legs to the dirt forest floor underneath him. When he saw it, his breath caught in his throat.

  A buck pushed its way through a long-dead hedge of laurel. Once free of it, the deer gave a full-body shake that sent up a puff of dust or dander, Wyatt couldn’t be sure which. Maybe both. The exertion almost caused the animal to tumble over and its long legs teetered side to side before it stabilized itself.

  The buck was anything but a prime specimen, however it was the first deer Wyatt had seen in going on a year. Its fur was patchy and missing in places, revealing gray flesh. One antler was snapped off, but the other was tall and thick - seven points, Wyatt counted - and he imagined it might have been a trophy in its day.

  But Wyatt wasn’t after a trophy. He was after food. It had been a full season since he’d eaten meat that wasn’t from a can. And that long-ago meal was a groundhog that Trooper had shot so full of shotgun lead that Wyatt spent most of the dinner spitting out pellets and trying to avoid breaking a tooth. But even that glorified rat tasted divine against his tongue.

  Venison… Damn... Just the thought had his mouth-watering.

  He shrugged the rifle strap free and raised the barrel. As he placed the butt of the gun against his shoulder and peered through the scope, he kept his breaths long and calm. Just like Trooper had taught him. Breathe in. And out. In and out. Shoot on the exhale.

  Wyatt saw it all happening through the sights like they’d transformed into a miniature, prescient TV. He shot the buck, dropping it in one clean shot. Then he descended the oak and dropped to the hard Earth. He considered gutting it right there, but he knew he couldn’t let anything go to waste. Besides, it wasn’t heavy at all - no more than seventy pounds. He could handle that. He slung the deer over his shoulders, its limp neck allowing the head to loll to and fro, bouncing against his back. And when he brought his kill home, his family feasted.

  It would be amazing.

  Wyatt curled his finger around the cold trigger of the Marlin rifle and squeezed. One pound.
Two.

  His heart thudded in his chest, the sound like thunder in his ears.

  Three pounds of pull. Over half way there.

  The buck’s head snapped sideways, its dull eyes coming alert and aware. It stood, poised to flee, and Wyatt was sure it had smelled him.

  And then he saw the second deer. This one had no antlers and was skinny and fat at the same time. Wyatt realized the doe was pregnant.

  His finger froze on the trigger, unsure how to handle this development. The rational part of his brain knew the choice was easy. Shoot the buck. Bring home food. Be a hero. But as he stared at the pendulous midsection of the doe, he knew he couldn’t do that because somehow, in a world where everything was already dead or most of the way there, these two deer had managed to create life.

  What gave him the right to destroy that?

  Hands trembling, he lowered the barrel of the rifle. “Get the hell out of here!”

  The buck stared up at him with startled black eyes, as if it understood how close it had come to dying. And then both animals disappeared into the brittle brush.

  “Don’t come back because, if Trooper’s here the next time instead of me, you won’t be as lucky.” Wyatt sighed and his stomach responded with a resentful, or pissed off, rumble. “And you shut up,” he said.

  He was done there.

  Chapter Two

  Barbara’s stomach made no growling noises. There’d been days when the food had grown truly scarce, about three years into this mess, that it seemed like her stomach talked more than she did. But it didn’t anymore. She’d noticed that some time ago. It had gone silent as if it had resigned itself to perpetual hunger and want and had grown accustomed to its hollow, empty fate.

  How long has it been since we had a good meal, she wondered? Good meal? Well, that was a bit of a stretch. Any meal was more truthful. On the fleeting occasions where she allowed herself to think about what used to make a good meal - like Thanksgiving with Turkey and so many sides it filled a dining room table that could seat twelve - she struggled to believe that such opulence, such gluttony, was ever a real thing. That life seemed as fanciful as the stories she’d read when she was even younger than her boys.

  It used to be so easy. Want a hamburger? Steak? Even a whole damned chicken? You could get anything you desired by driving five minutes. Hell, you could order food via an app on your cell phone and have it brought to your house and didn’t even have to tip the driver unless you were feeling generous. What would she give someone for real food now? What wouldn’t she give, might be a better question. She didn’t want to allow herself to consider how far she’d go for a meal that didn’t consist of long-expired vegetables that carried the metallic flavor of the can that housed them.

  She appreciated that Wyatt still went hunting every day even though she couldn’t remember the last time he’d brought anything home. It wasn’t his fault. The wildlife died off about the same time as the plants. It wasn’t just the humans that saw their all you can eat buffets come to an end.

  Now and then Trooper would show up with a squirrel or rabbit that had somehow managed to stay alive. Once he even brought them a rat. And when she saw him carrying that disgusting, disease-carrying creature, swinging it by its limp tail, she told herself she wouldn’t dare take so much as a nibble. But she did, of course. The days of picking and choosing what you ate were long gone. There was a reason you never even saw dogs or cats anymore.

  But Wyatt didn’t even bring them rats. He brought nothing but disappointment day after day. She didn’t blame him - at least that’s what she told herself. But each day when he emerged from the gray dusk carrying nothing but an unused rifle, she couldn’t help but feel let down and she loathed herself for that.

  Wyatt was a good kid, even if he wasn’t exactly a kid anymore. He’d grown up quick and done a fair job of filling the vacancy left in the house when his father never came home from that job interview down in Boston. He might not be a provider, but he was loyal and willing to do whatever she asked of him.

  So, when she saw him emerging from the dusty, gunmetal gloom, empty-handed as usual, she put on her best fake happy face and unlocked the front door. She opened it and watched him come to her.

  “I’m sor--”

  She held up her hand, shushing him before he could finish. “Not another word about it. You try and that’s all I can ask. And there’s always next time.” She studied his face, relieved to see he believed the lie.

  “Thanks, Mom. I just wish it was easier, you know?”

  She smiled, brushing his dark hair out of his eyes. I need to give him a haircut, she thought. He was starting to look like one of those boy band kids all the girls used to swoon over. And it wasn’t just the hair either. He was handsome, or damn close.

  “We were never promised easy. So we just have to muddle through and try to make things better.”

  “Or we could get it over with and die already.”

  Barbara slapped his mouth, her false smile replaced by pinched lips from which deep wrinkles trailed out like roads on a map. Smokers lines, her mother had always called them, usually when trying to get her to give up the nasty habit. But she hadn’t.

  “Listen to me, Wyatt. You can be sad. You can be depressed. You can be angry. But you can’t quit. I won’t stand for that. Do you understand me?”

  Wyatt rubbed his mouth where her wedding band had left behind a pink welt and nodded. His eyes welled with tears. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said and wrapped her arms around him. She couldn’t recall more than a handful of times she’d spanked or slapped her boys when they were growing up, but every part of living was different now. And if it took a little smack to get him to stop feeling sorry for himself, she’d do it. It was her job to hold everyone together.

  “Come. I’ve got a present for you.” She turned and moved into the house.

  “A present?”

  “God Wyatt, I know they’re not going to award me one of those World’s Best Mom trophies but I didn’t forget your birthday.” She passed him a small bottle of tequila - the miniature type they overcharged for in hotels. She’d come across it a few months ago when they were scavenging houses in Rosemont. At the time she was tempted to drink it straight down but she wouldn’t allow herself the pleasure. Besides, she preferred gin. She’d kept it as a backup, in case her own stash ran too low but it hadn’t and now she could pass it on.

  “Tequila?” Wyatt asked. “My mom’s giving me tequila?” He glanced around the otherwise empty room as if expecting Allen Funt to pop out and announce that he was on Candid Camera. Not that her son would know who Allen Funt was.

  “You’re a man now, even if I’m loathed to admit it. And a man is entitled to a drink on his birthday.”

  Wyatt laughed. It was deep and rhythmic and reminded her of her husband. “Thank you. I guess.”

  “That’s not all.” She pulled a small strip of beef jerky from her pocket and handed it to him. She’d found that foraging too. Actually, five times as much, but this was all that remained. A dappled spattering of mold covered it, but she scraped that off and didn’t see any point in sharing that nugget of information now.

  “No, Mom. I can’t. I don’t deserve this.” His expression was almost pained, and she wondered if she was too hard on him, put too much pressure on him.

  “You do. And if you don’t eat it this very moment, I’ll throw it in the yard for the bugs.”

  Wyatt shook his head and bit a piece off. “You know you’re kind of manipulative, right?”

  “I’m your mother. That’s what we do.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, the opposite side of where’s she’s slapped him moments earlier. “Happy birthday, Wyatt.”

  Hinges squeaked and both of them turned to watch as Seth rolled his wheelchair through the hallway and into the room. When he stopped, he rubbed his barely open eyes and spoke through a yawn. “Happy birthday, brother.”

  “Thanks. Were you hard at work on you
r afternoon nap?”

  “Sure was. Rested up and ready to run a marathon.”

  “That’s messed up,” Wyatt said.

  “Only if someone else says it. If I say it, it’s funny.”

  “No one thinks you’re funny, Seth. They only laugh at your jokes because you’re handicapped.”

  “Wyatt!” Barb slapped him again, but playfully this time, and on the shoulder.

  “It’s okay, mom. I know I’m handicapped. But it could be worse, I could have the IQ of a troglodyte like Wyatt.”

  Wyatt wrapped his arm around Seth’s neck and gave him a hard noogie that turned his straw-yellow hair into something resembling a bird’s nest. Seth responded by rapping Wyatt in the groin with his fist. Both laughed through their shared pain.

  Watching them play fight-filled Barb’s heart with hope, with love. She needed that because both were in short supply these days. So even as they fought and cursed, she was content to let boys be boys until they tired themselves out.

  When that happened, Seth pointed to the rifle which Wyatt had leaned beside the door. “You’re really running this ‘no meat Monday’ thing into the ground.”

  Barbara knew he didn’t mean it to bring Wyatt down, but Wyatt took everything to heart and his smile vanished. “Sorry.”