text: You really didn't have any desire to know these people before, why bother now? You only worked there because you needed to. Now that it appears the whole world is going to hell, you might as well just stay home. You wonder if you shouldn't have prepared yourself for this inevitable event, but it's too late now. Last time you heard, the city was in complete anarchy, riots were breaking out and the National Guard was shooting people, can't get supplies from there now. The nearest general store closed up by its owner who headed up north with his family a month ago. Whatever supplies you have in your house will have to do. You start walking around armed at all times as you often think you'll be attacked by stray looters, who have escaped the city, but then again you live in a house on the dead end of wilderness, nobody ever comes out this way normally, and you never see another living soul.
  
  You're all alone.
  
  You spend much of your time watching TV and on the internet keeping up on events, one day blurring into the next as you often fall asleep after spending long amounts of time of being awake... 
  
  Monday 8:00 AM
  
  You groggily wake up from the sofa.
  
  "... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... ."
  
  You wake up to a test pattern on TV.
  
  This is it.
  > head down to your basement
  It's always been like you to do things at the last minute.
  
  After grabbing your pistol and all the food and drink you can, then heading down in the basement with it, you think that things probably won't be that bad. After all you don't live in the city, or even by an important city, surely not EVERY place will get bombed. It's not like you live on the east or west coast, now those people are going to be fucked.
  
  No, all you have to do is wait this out, and then things will get back to normal... okay well maybe not normal, but surely the government will restore order of some sort, you're sure they have a complex plan for this kind of thing.
  
  Eventually you hear a very loud noise; whatever light you had on in the basement immediately goes out as you can hear your house being hit by a powerful force. You curl up in a ball and hold your ears half expecting the entire house to collapse in on you, but it doesn't happen.
  
  You stay in the basement, for what you guess to be a week. You mostly stumble around in the darkness as reality begins to set in and destroy your previous delusions. You mainly think about how you should've planned things out better, especially since your food and drink are running out. The only thing you know really know about nuclear attacks is what you've learned from movies, video games and comic books. You can only hope some of that shit was helpful, as you have little choice, but to leave your basement, the bucket you were using to relieve yourself down there was really starting to stink anyway.
  
  You open up your basement door, which remarkably stayed intact, along with most of your house. The windows and other glass objects have all broke, and there's no power, but that's about it. You can only guess that whatever it was that hit, was far enough away and probably very low yield. You don't really want to think about the radioactivity factor though; you'll know if you're catching a lethal dose soon enough if your hair and teeth start falling out and you begin vomiting blood.
  
  Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter... 
  
  You check the refrigerator again for more food, but there won't be enough to last you one day. You wonder if the water is still working and turn on the faucet, of course it doesn't, you don't think you'd want to risk drinking any of it anyway. Well it looks like you can't stay in your house either; you're going to have to leave to find food and some sort of drinkable liquid.
  
  Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter... 
  
  Well if you're going to leave, you decide some sort of protection is in order; you grab some dishwashing gloves underneath the sink, some safety goggles you've had since you college chemistry class, a winter coat and finally a scarf your grandmother knit you for one of your birthdays to wrap over your mouth. You look somewhat silly in this getup and it probably won't protect you at all, but you're back to deluding yourself again which is probably a good thing since your relapses into fantasy are keeping you from breaking down completely.
  
  You open your dented garage door and get in your old van expecting it not to work, surprisingly it does. You thought it wouldn't due to all that stuff you remember hearing about EMP waves or something, then again your car was built in a year before they started mounting entire computers in the fucking things, so maybe that's why it still works. You don't know, you're just glad its one of the things you still have that functions, you didn't want to be riding that bike you bought and hardly ever used. You throw your backpack of useful items (flashlight, small tool set, first aid kit, etc) into the van and ponder where to go.
  
  You've got two choices that immediately come to mind assuming both still exist; one is that "Mom & Pop" General Store that was abandoned at least a month ago. You can't imagine they took everything from the place. The other choice is to risk going to the city and finding something there. Despite all the looting and mass exodus that was going on there before any of this went down, the city's still a big place and there's probably lots of useful stuff there, the problem is wondering if you'll be heading into a death zone. That radioactivity concern is still in the back of your mind.
  
  Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter... 
  > head to the general store
  You might be absorbing more rads than usual now, but heading to the city would just be retarded. You'd probably die of cancer just going near the place; everything there would be contaminated anyway. You don't even want to see the survivors what the survivors might look like assuming there were any. You head for the general store, that's at least a safer bet.
  
  You drive your Van to the general store not very far from your house. You remember the old guy who ran the place; Billy. He was always alright with you. Whenever you went in to buy food, he was always talking about how bad the state of world was getting and how he was going to be  prepared for when the nukes started flying. You're guessing he probably invested in one of those Ground Zero Survival Shelters you always saw for sale on TV and took himself and his wife to it. The last time you saw the place it was all boarded up and looked closed up for good, still it's a start.
  
  You arrive at the store which is still all boarded up like the last time you've seen it. You always found it weird that Billy bothered to board the place up, if he was going to abandon it. Surely he couldn't have thought things would be restored so quickly after a nuclear exchange that he'd be able to return some day.
  
  You get out of your van and study the store more closely which you never bothered to do before, the windows are boarded up from the outside, but upon closer inspection the door hasn't been boarded up at all. You try the door, but it's firmly locked. Nothing else for it, but to bash it down. You begin prying, slamming, kicking and everything else to the door, but its not budging and you only succeed in bruising your shoulder. In frustration you pull out your pistol and finally just shoot at the lock and then try to open it, which it does slightly, something else is barring the door from the inside though. You're going to have to start ramming the thing again to shove it open enough to get inside.
  
  Suddenly you hear some noise from inside and the click of a shotgun, it's also only just then you realize that Billy's pick up truck is still parked by the side of his store. He's obviously still here and you were oblivious to the fact.
  
  "Goddamn it Martha, hasn't been a month yet an' we already got scum tryin' ta loot the place!"
  
  It's Billy. You thought he left, but apparently not. He just made it look like he did and barricaded himself inside.
  
  "Alright you looting shit stain, you better just get the fuck outta here right now, 'fore you find yourself with a new hole in your chest!" Billy says from inside.
  "Whoa Billy it's me! I used to shop here! Come on open up, I'm not a looter!" you reply.
  "... (sigh) hold on, and back away from the goddamn door."
  
  You back away as Billy presumably moves whatever was still blocking the door. When he finally opens it up, he stands in the doorway still pointing his shotgun at you.
  
  "Damnation boy, I coulda blown your head off! You fuckin' destroyed my lock! What the hell are you wearin'?" Billy asks looking at your silly form of protection.
  "I'm sorry; I thought you abandoned this place."
  "Oh and that gave you the excuse to break in? What're you think yer doin' anyway? Why aren't you in your shelter or something?"
  "Cause I don't have one that's why! I was going to see if this place had any supplies and maybe stay here, if it wasn't in bad condition."
  "Oh. Well, sorry to crush yer dreams, but this place is still occupied and OWNED by me. You're gonna have to skedaddle. Just enough supplies for me and my wife."
  "But... "
  "No buts! Now you were a good customer an' all, but this is a new world and the rules have severely changed! It's all about survival now. And it's not my fault your ass didn't prepare for somethin' that was comin' for a long time! Now if you don't leave now I'm gonna be less understanding about this lack of judgment on your part. Bye and good luck."
  "No wait!"
  
  At this point Billy slams the door shut mumbling about the lock being destroyed and going to have to fix it. Billy must have some sort of private bomb shelter of his own, if he barricaded himself inside his own store. One that must be stocked pretty well to sustain him and his wife for a good amount of time.
  
  An idea races through your head that you never thought you'd consider, well not before the nukes hit anyway, but Billy's statement of "This is about survival" rings true. It IS about survival, and not just his.
  
  You don't really want to do this, but you feel like you have no other choice.
  
  Billy is still trying to barricade the door, when you take another forceful charge into it.  
  Your attempt is successful this time as it flies open causing Billy to fall and drop the heavy box he was going to place in front of it. The box half lands on Billy causing him crushing pain while he struggles to grab his shotgun from the floor. You're quicker though and point your own pistol at him.
  
  "Don't grab that shotgun Billy... I don't want to kill you." you say
  "Goddamn sonofabitch, you ain't taking this... "
  "Billy what's...  OH MY GOD!"
  
  When you hear Martha's outburst, it startles you during this already tense moment, you end up turning around and firing. You hit Martha square in the chest; she looks down briefly in shock before falling over dead. You're a little in shock yourself.
  
  "MARTHA!" Billy screams, causing you to face him once more, he's now actually grabbed the shotgun, and you begin babbling.
  
  "Oh God! Oh man! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that! She came up and... Billy don't do that... I don't want to... please... "
  
  You fire again, hitting Billy in the head, splattering his brains all over the floor and killing him instantly.
  
  You feel sick and promptly run outside to vomit. You've never killed anyone before, though you don't think it was that, that made you sick. It was the fact you murdered two people who were really innocent. You were the trespasser and when you couldn't get what you wanted, you took it by force. You acted like a criminal even if there's no such thing as "law" anymore. You sit down in a daze for a few minute trying to take all this in, before realizing you have to take care of some clean up first.
  
  You remove the bodies of Billy and Martha from the store. (You also remove your silly "protection wear", well except the dishwashing gloves for moving the bodies) You wonder where you're going put them, but eventually you decide to just dump them in the wilderness nearby, you figure nature will take its course.
  
  You go back to the store and re-barricade it. The store itself is empty, but in a back room, you discover a trapdoor. You descend and discover a large shelter with a treasure of food and water supplies, along with other useful items like first aid kits. Looks like Billy was more prepared than you could've imagined. One necessity you're glad to find is a bathroom facility with a sink and toilet, there's a little bit of water seeping from the cracks of the walls. Billy must've hit the jackpot and found an underground water source and built a crude plumbing system. He's also installed a small hydro generator which would explain how come there's dim lighting down here.
  
  Finally you see some survivalist books Billy had on a small bookshelf by a bed and a couple of hunting rifles along with ammunition for them and the shotgun you've recently acquired as well.
  
  Well you're certainly set up, and all you had to do was kill an old couple. As you lie down on the bed you think about your actions in greater depth now. You're not sure how to feel. Part of you wants to feel bad, but somehow you can't make yourself feel as bad as you probably should. In fact you're already starting to rationalize your actions. The first murder was a mistake, and the second one was self-defense.
  
  "And this is survival." You say and fall asleep.
  
  The next day you wake up, you feel the most refreshed than you have in a long time.
  
  Something has changed within you. You don't recognize immediately, but as a few months go by you begin to.
  
  Granted you were never a big one for human contact, anti-social and reclusive even, but this "line" you've crossed recently, your continued isolation, and the absence of civilization have made you become a little unhinged.
  
  You also start becoming paranoid, about other people stumbling across your new place and attempt to break in and take it like you did. Using the knowledge you've been getting from the survivalist books, you start setting up traps, inside and outside the store. One time, you spend just about a whole day doing that. When the darkness approaches you go back to your underground haven to descend further into quiet madness, before you fall asleep.
  
  Suddenly in the middle of the night you hear a noise and a scream from above. Sounds like it's coming from outside and from more than one person. You immediately grab your shotgun and head upstairs.
  
  After going through the typical routine of taking down the barricades, you open the door and see a family in panic. A man is lying on the ground yelling in pain from the snap trap that has obviously broken his leg. A woman and a little boy are screaming frantically and totally clueless of what to do in this situation.
  
  Looks like your traps work.
  
  The family hasn't seen you yet and don't know your intentions, come to think of it, you aren't even sure of your intentions... 
  > finish them off
  Obviously they thought they could just stroll in and take shelter here, bad mistake on
  their part... 
  
  You calmly point the shotgun at the man caught in the trap and blast him before he even notices you. The little boy now really begins screaming, but the woman just becomes silent and falls into shock turning her head in your direction covered in the blood of her husband.
  
  You don't feel sick like you did last time; you do feel an overwhelming sense of power though.
  
  The woman grabs her son's hand and turns to run, but realizes two seconds later that she's only holding on to his hand and the rest of him is lying on the ground, one arm less, from your second blast.
  
  "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" the woman screams.
  "Because I can, and there's nobody around to stop me." You say and briskly walk over to the woman. After a pathetic struggle you knock her out and drag her into your new home.
  
  After all, you're not sure when you'll get to see another woman again... 
  
  A couple days after the incident with the family (and disposing of all three bodies) you begin keeping yourself in better shape. You start exercising regularly, and fixing up your home. You need to be prepared, in case more people ever show up. You MUST defend yourself and your home. You don't get many, but every now and then another poor soul stumbles across your death lair. You're merciless. Soon you begin to arrange the vehicles of your victims to form a semi "wall" around your home and place some grisly totems as "decoration".
  
  A year passes... 
  
  You don't get visitors anymore, though that's probably because of the unfriendly image you've projected with all the skulls you've stuck on the spikes outside. Part of you is glad that you aren't being disturbed anymore, but the other part misses the killing. You begin to wonder if you shouldn't start venturing out more, but you'd hate to leave your home.
  
  One day you're awakened by the roar of motorcycles. You've got visitors again, you ready your weapons. As you head upstairs you hear that inevitable "SNAP!" sound followed by screaming. Yet another victim to your traps, though you hear the typical sounds of distress, you also hear some laughter, taunting even, which has got you more curious than anything.
  
  You check through a little peephole you made and see a bunch of biker types, one is lying on the ground, his leg nearly severed by the hidden bear trap. While one is trying to free him, a couple of the others are just laughing and remarking about how it looks like it really hurts.
  
  "AAAAAARGH! AGHHH!"
  "Look are you assholes going to help or not?" one of them asks.
  "Hey, I told you fuckers not to go traipsing into a place that has skulls stuck on stakes. Y'all should've known it wasn't exactly going to be a friendly place."
  "We need fuckin' gas Jim, and this place has a lot of vehicles, and maybe some of them have gas. We had to go check!"
  "Well yeah, but that didn't mean just walking around unaware of your surroundings... shit that leg looks bad."
  "GET IT OFF! AAAAHHHH!"
  
  "That leg is bad. Even if you did get it off of him, he's probably going to lose it to infection. I wiped my own shit on it, not to mention it was developing a nice set of rust on it when I found it.  I'd say his bike riding days are over." You say standing your doorway with your shotgun ready. The bikers look in your direction, one looks like he's going to pull his pistol, but the one called Jim stops him. He's obviously the leader.
  
  "You might be right, stranger, but that still leaves you outnumbered one to three. You sure you wanna take those odds?" Jim says.
  "I'll take 'em and I'll enjoy it. It's been a long time since I've killed a whole mess of people."
  "Oh, so you're a REAL killer eh?"
  "Better killer than you."
  "Hah! I doubt that! See me an' the boys here have been raisin' hell where ever we can. Come across a few towns and let's just say we're not real welcome there anymore. It's a brand new world, and only the strong are gonna survive it."
  "Yeah? Well it looks like one of your flock isn't so strong now."
  "Yeah... well you might be right about that stranger... maybe someone should put him out of his misery. Can't very well ride with one leg, that'd be kind of silly."
  
  The biker trying to help speaks up.
  
  "Oh come on Jim man! Clyde here saved all of our asses about a month ago!"
  "Yeah? Well what has he done for us lately? The stranger's right, we gotta put him down, it's the kind thing to do really. You gonna do it, Dan?"
  "No... I... mean... well... "
  "Pussy. Nevermind. Ramon you gonna do it?"
  "Shit yeah! Here hold on, oh fuck." Ramon says pulling out his pistol and then dropping it on the ground. Jim just shakes his head.
  
  "Ramon, its amazing you've even lasted this long with your clumsy ass. Fuck it, I'LL do it."
  > let Jim kill Clyde
  As strange as it may seem, you're kind of glad for the company believe it or not, so you'd rather just let this play out and see where it leads. You can always kill them all later.
  
  Meanwhile Jim is pointing his gun at Clyde's head in an overly dramatic manner.
  
  "Alright Clyde you knew the risks. No begging or pleadin' now."
  "Come on Jim! Don't do this! I can still ride... I'll... "
  "Goddamn it, get a fuckin' hold of yourself you fuckin' sissy! Fuck, I was givin' you a chance to go out like a man! Guess you fucked that up. Die bitch!"
  
  Jim blows Clyde's brains out, and turns his attention back to you.
  
  "Can't say I didn't give him a fair chance."
  "Yes... so what do you have planned now?" you ask, forming an idea in your mind.
  "Planned? Ha ha! We don't do a whole lotta planning, we just kinda roam from place to place causing meaningless violence! I think there's a town around in this area somewhere... "
  "You probably should look for a more reliable fuel source, if you're going to continue with this line of work."
  "Yeah, well we'll be good after Ramon here sucks out the remaining gas from this vehicle graveyard you got here. I trust YOU won't have a problem with that right?"
  "I'm sucking what?!" Ramon says with a surprised look on his face.
  "No, I don't have a problem with it, but what happens when that runs out? Are you going hope you find some more in your travels?"
  "It's worked so far... what the hell are you getting at?"
  "Instead of spreading meaningless violence on a small scale, how about spreading meaningful violence on a grand scale for a change?"
  
  You explain how you've been reading in the survivalist books about how to create a still, except not being a drinker; you never felt the need to create one. However that same cheap hooch could probably work as a substitute for real gas, if certain modifications were made to the vehicles. Basically the vehicles would be running on "garbage" given that's what the booze is made out of. It would smell horrible, but you get the impression that Jim and his boys wouldn't know the difference anyway. You begin to explain even more technical aspects as well, but you soon realize it's too much to process for them, so you stop before their heads explode.
  
  They do realize you seem to be a lot smarter than the rest of them though, so they agree to your "grand" plan. You tell one of them that they should drive to the nearest town by themselves, try to get a feel of the place, to scout the entire place out, find out what the defenses are and all of that.
  
  Ultimately Dan is chosen for this task since he can actually come off as being a nice guy. You give him some canned food and some bottled water you have. You explain that he should use the stuff as something to barter with, so it looks like he's just a wandering traveler.
  
  While Dan goes and does some scouting, you get to work on the still and Jim and Ramon, work on their altering their bikes (At least they know how to do that) a few days pass and you all generally start getting along. Unsurprisingly Jim and the rest of his gang were criminals even before the bombs dropped. You lie and say you were in the life of crime as well, nothing too specific though and just common and vague enough for Jim to believe. Of course all the people you killed after the bombs, you don't need to lie about at all.
  
  When Dan comes back, he does so with some interesting news. He mentions the closest town is Cinderville. He mentions it's not a completely harmonious town and it does have its rougher elements, but the local law enforcement is still in control of the place and relies on a vigilante mindset of some of the townspeople. Apparently they're trying to keep the resemblance of the "old world". He mentions there's another gang that hangs around the outskirts of it which attempts raids every now and then, but they're poorly lead. Finally he states they have a small farming area with animals like cows and pigs. Not all for eating, but to mainly produce shit for biofuel to run the law enforcement vehicles.
  
  Originally you were just thinking you could strike hard and fast and get out, every few months to break up the monotony, with the still to keep your vehicle running so you could engage in this behavior. But with this new information, of other gangs in the area and bad elements in the actual little oasis of civilization, you wonder if you couldn't actually take over the town, at the very least you could destabilize it. The biofuel center wouldn't be a bad acquisition either. You're confident you can pull this off, you just need more help.
  > recruit some of the locals
  You decide that the locals have more intimate knowledge of the town and would probably be better to enlist help from. You suggest that you all go to Cinderville and do just that.
  
  After re-trapping your home, and gathering what supplies you think you'll need, you and the bikers all take a trip to Cinderville (You take your Van). After about a day of traveling you arrive at the place.
  
  However you don't get very far. The townsfolk remember Dan, and the cops were watching him the whole time he entered town. They didn't really buy his whole "wandering traveler" act and neither did most other people. They figured he was up to no good. So when all of you come rolling in, the cops instantly arrive and tell you to leave immediately.
  
  Normally you might've done that and come up with another strategy, but Jim begins revving up his cycle and shooting at the fuckers and disregards whatever plan you had. His boys follow suit.
  
  After seeing Ramon getting his head blown off and Jim get shot off his bike, you have no intention of sharing that fate, so you swerve to turn the van around... which promptly dies on the spot.
  
  "SHIT! GODDAMN IT! I JUST FIXED IT!" you shout beating on the wheel.
  "GIVE UP, ALL YOUR LOWLIFE BUDDIES ARE DEAD! GET OUTTA THE VAN NOW ASSHOLE!" you hear one of the cops shout in a bullhorn.
  
  Do they really expect you to give up? This is a brand new world, the cops don't need to put anyone in jail anymore; they can just shoot criminals. Not to mention, Dan had mentioned a vigilante mindset of the common townsfolk. They probably have every intention in hanging your ass, assuming they don't shoot you immediately after you give up.
  
  Fuck it; you ain't going out without a fight. Hell maybe you'll even get back home, probably not. (Sigh) you think maybe you should've just stayed in your nice home waylaying wanderers when they came by. Too late for that now though.
  
  You grab the hunting rifle and put it on your back, check your pistol, and grab your shotgun to be your primary weapon. You take a deep breath and open up sliding door of your van and blast the first pig you see and make a break for it.
  
  You manage to get a few blocks with the cops in pursuit, before one of the neighborhood "Rambos" shoots at you, hitting you in the leg. You fall to the street hard, dropping your shotgun which spirals out of your hand several feet from you. You get some pay back by blasting the shithead who shot you in the leg when he came closer to confirm the "kill".
  
  You struggle to stand up, only to get hit by a fucking police car fully intent on running you down, except you go flying in the air instead and land on your face again with a pair of broken legs now. The car stops and a police woman with dreadlocks gets out, she shoots you in the arm, when you attempt to go for your pistol.
  
  "You're under arrest suga!" she says in a high voice.
  
  You merely turn to look at her, and laugh at the absurdity of it all.
  
  "Fuck you bitch."
  "You wish honey!"
  
  And with that last snappy come back, she decides that you were resisting arrest and shoots you.