THE ONLY SURVIVING BREEDER AFTER THE APOCALYPSE

I finally sat down and cried. Thinking of the billions of lives wasted in the name of religion made me decide never to practice religion again. I cried for my comrades-in-arms, my family, and the friends that I'd lost. When I had finally been coherent enough in the hospital, I'd phoned my family. My dad answered, letting me know between bouts of wracking coughs that he and my youngest brother were the only two still alive and probably wouldn't be for long. There had been no answer the next day or the day after when I called again.

I thought about the men in the other squads on base, wondering what had happened to them. I hadn't seen any of their bodies among the ones I buried but I only buried a hundred or so of the many thousands of people originally on base. Then I finally wondered what I should do now. I'd seen dogs, cats, and birds that were obviously unaffected. Hopefully, that meant farm animals would survive. There would be plenty of preserved food for a while, but even canned food would eventually go bad.

Finally, I wondered if anyone else would survive. Surely, I wasn't the only person still alive. Someone else somewhere had to have survived. Would I be able to find them? Would I want to find them? If there were others out there, what did that mean for civilization? I had a pretty good idea what it meant and didn't like the idea one bit. Eight years in the military, four of them as part of a SEAL Team, tends to give one a pessimistic, albeit realistic, view of what humanity is capable of doing to each other.

As the ranking officer, and only person on base still alive, I appropriated an SUV the next morning to set out on my quest to rebuild, if I could find someone to rebuild with. My pessimistic side made sure I was fully geared up for a firefight and the vehicle was fully loaded with fuel, weapons, and ammo. I drove through the main gate dressed for battle just the way I had been the first time we snuck into Tehran years before, except that I was armed better this time.

I spent three days driving slowly through the city honking my horn to let people know someone was there but saw nobody. A few times I could sense someone watching me, but they wouldn't come out.

The fourth day I tried smoking them out. I set up a barbecue in a schoolyard that was surrounded by houses and apartments and started cooking hot dogs. A cooler of ice with a selection of canned beverages was left sitting on the table.

Every hour for the next fourteen hours I started another barbecue somewhere else. The next day I went back and checked. Fourteen of them hadn't been touched. At the fifth one, all the sodas were gone, and one beer had been opened. Missing only one sip, it sat on the table bearing witness to the fact that someone else was alive, or at least had been alive yesterday.

Once again, I started the barbecue, hands trembling with excitement thinking that someone might be alive. Once again, I left, following the same route I had the previous day, except that I doubled back after ten minutes. Halfway back I got out of the car and walked, running from tree to tree as if approaching an enemy position. At the crest of a low hill, I stopped and watched from under the shrubbery. Five minutes later I saw her. Looking around warily she approached in much the same manner I had. I watched as she loaded the drinks into a backpack, scarfed down two hotdogs and wrapped the rest up before shoving them in the backpack with her sodas.

I watched her run away, still looking nervously back over her shoulder every few seconds before slipping between houses. I caught sight of her one last time as she scaled a chain-link fence behind the houses. I followed, sure that I'd be able to track her from that point. Half an hour later I found where she had stopped to eat some more hot dogs and drink a soda.

Rather than trying to cross a residential street in broad daylight, especially when I didn't know where my quarry was, I went inside the house and watched and listened. I trained a parabolic antenna up and down the street but heard nothing. Reasonably certain that the coast was clear, I dashed across the street and into the back yard of the house directly across from where I'd been. Here I could see where she'd run through the tree-bark groundcover headed for the back fence. That house was empty, so I went upstairs and checked out the neighboring houses. Faint wisps of music were coming from the house directly behind me.

There was a recently dug grave in the back yard, and I caught a glimpse of movement when the girl hurried out the back door of a neighboring house, her backpack bulging with loot. Dropping it over the fence she moved a board she'd previously loosened and squeezed through. That was the first time I actually got a good look at her. I upgraded my initial estimate of her age to high school age, probably 17 or 18 based on the breasts she had a hard time squeezing through the opening in the fence. Her pale red hair was more obvious this close although she had it hidden under a baseball cap. I recognized the logo on the hat as one of the local high schools. From what I could discern from the blue jeans she wore, she had an athletic figure. She was tall for a girl and had a cute face ... not the kind guys would stop and stare at, but cute nonetheless. She also had a pistol clutched tightly in her hand, a 9mm from the looks of it.

She disappeared into her house quickly, locking the door behind herself and looking out through the drawn blinds of the window next to the door. An hour later she snuck out again, running through her front yard and across the street with her empty backpack. I took the opportunity to sneak into her back yard and then into the house to wait for her. I did a quick recon of the house to make sure she was alone and went back downstairs to wait for her.

Twenty minutes later she crept back into the house. I watched while she stashed the canned goods she'd appropriated from the neighbors. I watched as she looked longingly at a picture she brought back, one she set on the table next to the one I'd seen earlier of what I assumed was a fairly recent picture of her parents and her.

"I'm impressed," I said calmly.

She screamed and turned on me, pointing the gun at me. "Don't move, or I'll shoot. I already killed one asshole," she spat vehemently.

"If I meant to hurt you, I would have waited behind the door and caught you when you ran in," I replied.

"I mean it," she warned when I took a step towards her. When I took the next step, she raised the gun and pointed it straight at me. "I'll shoot," she promised with my third step.

"No, you won't," I answered calmly as I took another step. She tried to shoot but guns don't work well when the safety is on. Screaming, she threw the gun at me and tried to duck away.

I caught her hand when she threw the gun and spun her around, grabbing her from behind with her arms pinned under mine.

"Let. Me. Go!" she grunted as she struggled.

"I promise that I won't hurt you," I said as soothingly as I could while hanging on to 120 pounds of fighting mad girl.

"No, I know what you want," she yelled as she continued to struggle.

Only then did it dawn on me. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that," I apologized as I let her go. She spun and backed away quickly until the kitchen counter stopped her.

"Look, I'm not here to hurt you, I was just trying to find out if anyone else survived. Believe me, If I intended to, I could have done anything I wanted," I said. That comment certainly didn't help so I tried again. "I was with a SEAL Team at Coronado," I explained pulling out my military ID and tossing it onto the counter next to her.

Still watching me she felt around until she found it and held it in front of her face to read it. "Doesn't say anything about SEALs," she grunted as she threw it back.

I caught it in midair. "Not something we advertise," I explained.

"Who was the base commander?" she asked.

Yeah, like she'd know. "Shadler," I answered.

"What was your team number?" she asked.

Okay, so maybe she did know something. "Team seven," I replied.

She sighed a breath of relief and collapsed into the chair opposite me. "I'm sorry, it's just..." she trailed off.

"No need to explain," I answered.

"So, how did you know the name of the base commander?" I asked.

"My best friend lived two doors down, Carol Shadler," she sighed as she pointed to the picture she'd just put on the table.

"I'm sorry," I answered sympathetically. We sat in silence for a couple minutes. I thought again about my family, wondering how it ended for them and decided I probably didn't want to know.

"What do you plan to do now?" she asked.

I shrugged. "The canned food won't last forever. I thought I should head away from the big cities to farming country and see what I can set up for the future. Of course, I don't know the first thing about farming," I sighed.

"Then it's a good thing you found me," she gloated.

It took a second for the implication of her statement to hit me. "Why's that?" I asked, stunned.

"My grandparents have ... had ... a place near Visalia, up in the Central Valley. I used to spend summers there and know a little bit about farming."

"That could work," I said, thinking out loud. "We should probably hit the grocery stores and stock up on canned goods rather than just raiding all the neighborhood homes," I suggested.

"No!" she answered adamantly, her vehemence surprising me. "They're watching the grocery stores," she answered sadly when she saw the confusion on my face.

"They who?" I asked, still not understanding. She took a breath and steeled herself.