The New Barbarians-11

With the return of Spring, it became obvious that we of the Anderson Clan had irreversibly transformed ourselves into a form better adapted for this crazy world we're in now. Using our new awareness and abilities, and seeing off Ken and Jack, we set about securing anew our homestead and laying claim--as much as anyone can without using force--to the lands around us. You see, it's been two years since this cataclysm brought the world we knew to an end. If there was a government left, it would have reached us by now and the normalcy we knew restored to some degree. This did not happen; that government--and all of the institutions we knew--is now a ruin, a relic of an age now past, and as such only that which exists in nature will thrive.

Other changes came about as a result of the changed state of ourselves and our world. The women and children stopped gainsaying the men entirely, and the men stopped gainsaying me. In other words, I was now undisputed in my leadership. "Chief" acquired some heft that I, quite frankly, always wanted. That came in good stead when, as I knew was going to happen sooner or later, when the zeds came.

With the full muster of our clan's powers at hand, we met and destroyed that horde many miles away from our homestead. We froze them into place with driving sleet and shattered them with massive hail stones. The honored dead, for reasons I did not know at the time, guided our rifles and blessed our bullets. We would make such a display twice more before the Summer, after which we shifted towards concealment and forewarning. The shelter we made for the cars became part of a well-concealed forward post, with a bit of kit to make communication by someone unable to do so by themselves possible.

This marked our emergence, I guess, as The Anderson Clan. Two years of transformation from a band of survivors into a coherent social unit of our own, where everyone has a place and is at home, seems somehow right to my mind. I have seen strong bands of fellowship form faster than that, and last life-long thereafter, but those are always derived from time fighting a war with one's fellows.

I can only conclude, therefore, that we are now--and shall hereafter, for as long as any can foresee--be living in a state of regular warfare, if not perpetual, as the tribal nations of old did in many places in the world. Civilization is gone. We are the new barbarians.