only my wife, but also the mother to our three young children, an 8 year
old named Sam, a 4 year old named Brice, and my little 6 month old baby girl
Jessica.
For the first year, we would spend most of the time
on the road, but after Laura became pregnant, we decided to stop seeking
rescue, and instead find protected shelter where we could grow our own food, be
safe from the infected, and most importantly, to find our happiness and our
purpose in life again.
We eventually found our haven in Wyoming.
It was a small ranch out in the middle of nowhere.
Even back then, there were only a few infected that
seemed to wander onto the property, as the old wood beam fencing kept most out.
I eventually went out and reinforced the fence so that the walkers couldn’t
even see us, let alone climb the fence.
We planted our first crops, and before the harvest,
Laura gave birth to our first son, Sam. I was pretty terrified at the thought
of delivering a child, as I had no previous medical training, but after making
a trip to the library in the next town over, I found plenty of books on the
subject, and plenty of others as well on a whole score of topics, from
first-aid, to weatherproofing, to water conservation, and even some classic
novels by Dickens, Hemmingway, and Tolstoy that I snuck back to the ranch for
my private time.
In what felt like no time at all, we had our second
son, Brice, and just months after that, Laura was giving birth to our little
baby girl, Jessica. SHE was the reason I began to seek civilization again. I
knew that one day these kids would grow up, and they couldn’t just live out
their lives on this ranch. They would need to find others, have houses of
their own, and one day, kids of their own as well.
I began to make week-long outings, scouting around
the area and all major cities within a 300 mile radius. After only one month,
I found a massive group of scavengers moving through an old abandoned
neighborhood. They all seemed as normal and friendly as you could want, so I
finally introduced myself to them.
They came from an honest to God city. It was a
smaller, walled off section of Evanston, Wyoming. They named it New Evanston.
They all wore black arm bands with a white hand painted on them. This
represented the hand of God, they said, which they all believed was the reason
they had been spared and their new city spared the wrath of the plague. They
referred to themselves as The Chosen, short for the chosen few, although over
the last decade their numbers had soared into the thousands.
Though they could not find another significant city
in the surrounding area, they had located other small towns and communities where
hearty bands had gathered together and managed to survive against the odds.
The Chosen even told me about how they had encountered a group of ex-military
that had secured a Navy base on the West Coast, and how they were supposedly
sending out helicopter search parties that were trying to locate any remaining
military units across the country. They talked about wild stories of a new
Democratic Republic that had risen from the ashes in the desert a thousand
miles to the south of us and HAM radio broadcasts from all over the globe. The
plague had been completely swept from the island of Hawaii, they said.
My new friends tried to convince me to bring the
family along and to join them in New Evanston, and I said I would consider it,
but something still felt a bit off about giving up this new life of
self-sufficiency. It was impossible to imagine a return to a world of
electricity, televisions, cd players, and all of the other things that we’d not
only come to terms with giving up, but after being so far removed from our
daily lives, seemed more of a distraction from our family interactions than a
convenience.
They gave me a map with all the roads they had
cleared for others to reach the city, and we parted ways.
When I arrived back home to my
old named Sam, a 4 year old named Brice, and my little 6 month old baby girl
Jessica.
For the first year, we would spend most of the time
on the road, but after Laura became pregnant, we decided to stop seeking
rescue, and instead find protected shelter where we could grow our own food, be
safe from the infected, and most importantly, to find our happiness and our
purpose in life again.
We eventually found our haven in Wyoming.
It was a small ranch out in the middle of nowhere.
Even back then, there were only a few infected that
seemed to wander onto the property, as the old wood beam fencing kept most out.
I eventually went out and reinforced the fence so that the walkers couldn’t
even see us, let alone climb the fence.
We planted our first crops, and before the harvest,
Laura gave birth to our first son, Sam. I was pretty terrified at the thought
of delivering a child, as I had no previous medical training, but after making
a trip to the library in the next town over, I found plenty of books on the
subject, and plenty of others as well on a whole score of topics, from
first-aid, to weatherproofing, to water conservation, and even some classic
novels by Dickens, Hemmingway, and Tolstoy that I snuck back to the ranch for
my private time.
In what felt like no time at all, we had our second
son, Brice, and just months after that, Laura was giving birth to our little
baby girl, Jessica. SHE was the reason I began to seek civilization again. I
knew that one day these kids would grow up, and they couldn’t just live out
their lives on this ranch. They would need to find others, have houses of
their own, and one day, kids of their own as well.
I began to make week-long outings, scouting around
the area and all major cities within a 300 mile radius. After only one month,
I found a massive group of scavengers moving through an old abandoned
neighborhood. They all seemed as normal and friendly as you could want, so I
finally introduced myself to them.
They came from an honest to God city. It was a
smaller, walled off section of Evanston, Wyoming. They named it New Evanston.
They all wore black arm bands with a white hand painted on them. This
represented the hand of God, they said, which they all believed was the reason
they had been spared and their new city spared the wrath of the plague. They
referred to themselves as The Chosen, short for the chosen few, although over
the last decade their numbers had soared into the thousands.
Though they could not find another significant city
in the surrounding area, they had located other small towns and communities where
hearty bands had gathered together and managed to survive against the odds.
The Chosen even told me about how they had encountered a group of ex-military
that had secured a Navy base on the West Coast, and how they were supposedly
sending out helicopter search parties that were trying to locate any remaining
military units across the country. They talked about wild stories of a new
Democratic Republic that had risen from the ashes in the desert a thousand
miles to the south of us and HAM radio broadcasts from all over the globe. The
plague had been completely swept from the island of Hawaii, they said.
My new friends tried to convince me to bring the
family along and to join them in New Evanston, and I said I would consider it,
but something still felt a bit off about giving up this new life of
self-sufficiency. It was impossible to imagine a return to a world of
electricity, televisions, cd players, and all of the other things that we’d not
only come to terms with giving up, but after being so far removed from our
daily lives, seemed more of a distraction from our family interactions than a
convenience.
They gave me a map with all the roads they had
cleared for others to reach the city, and we parted ways.
When I arrived back home to my
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