So far, I have really enjoyed the prompts on Sammi's "13 Days of Samhain" Challenge. So far, each one has elicited different approaches and results.
Last night I considered this post's prompt, "Kill or Cure", while I watched an old Ray Miland movie from 1962, "Panic in the Year Zero!". I remembered it. I saw it as a kid in a local movie theater.
It came out the same year the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded in October of the same year. The World was actually but a bonehead mistake away from Thermo Nuclear War. To say the planet was on edge would be an understatement.
I wondered about what folks might discuss after an apocalyptic event. But then the twisted section in my brain pan stepped up and took over .... again. Time to channel Harlan Ellison.
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Call Me Cowboy stumbled back into camp. Draped on his shoulders was a puny tick infested mule deer whose death was probably doing it a favor. Times were not just tough for Humanity, times were even tougher for the rest of Life still living on the planet. But now that over half of humanity was fertilizer, the planet had a chance to recover.
The mighty hunter dropped the carcass onto the last blue tarp the group had. Cowboy walked over to what looked like a bundle of rags and kicked it.
"Get up ..... Deer to clean."
The bundle of rags slowly moved. Arms appeared out of the pile and the bundle sat upright.
Everyone in the group had a purpose. There were no freeloaders. People pulled their weight or they became a rib roast at the next group banquet. The bundle of rags knew and understood this reality. If she was to avoid the big pot, she had to make them want her around. She certainly was not there as a sex toy.
She could cook though. Before the Poc, she had been a chef who owned a 4 star restaurant in Portland, Maine. This woman could make dog shit taste good. She also was a born survivor. There was nothing she would not do in order to survive.
Red Rufus, the leader at the moment, gave her a chance. He handed her a knife, released the next victim in line to become lunch and told the Chef to take care of it. Of course, once released, the future meal took off into the pucker brush. All the boys laughed. The girls not so much; they saw no humor in anything these thugs and brutes came up with. But then as women, they had only a few options available to avoid the stew pots.
The next meal had a good jump on the Chef. But she didn't hesitate, she dove into the pucker after her quarry. Only briefly did she consider running away. She understood that they were faster than she was and could catch her again at their leisure. And if she was free, another, possibly more brutal group, might find her. The group that had her now did not seem to enjoy extreme torturous routine and sadistic behavior. She made a decision, caught their next meal and made it walk back to camp.
"Do we have a tarp ...... One without any holes?"
Red Rufus spoke up.
"A tarp? What for?"
The Chef looked at Red Rufus. She had all she could do to not turn away from looking at him. His face had been horribly wounded, leaving an unhealed gash open on his right cheek. She held her ground and her stare.
"Well, you assholes are wasting good food, the way you do it now. A good leak proof tarp will catch all the blood. Blood is not only a good source of nourishment, it can add extra flavor to the meal if used properly."
By this time, the Chef had the whole crew's attention. The eight of them gathered around her as she pushed the next meal onto the tarp. They all watched dispassionately as she killed, gutted, skinned and picked the body parts she would be preparing for supper. Not a one of them turned away. But then it had been over two years since the Poc. Any survivors still alive had become desensitized to the realities of the new age they found themselves in.
That meal sealed the deal. They called her Chef from then on. She was still occasionally kicked, punched, and impersonally mistreated. She had to remember her place. She was not one of them. She was owned by them. She was their slave. All she knew was being a slave beat being one in a pot over a fire.
Chef looked at the pitiful excuse of a deer laying on the blue tarp. Privately she was ecstatic. Finally a real game animal to cook and not some stringy old fart found wandering aimlessly around the Deadscape. She decided this meal would be transformative for the group. She would feed them like they had never been fed before. Yes, a meal they would never forget; or remember for that matter.
That evening, the boys were so eager to eat real game, they jumped all over that meal and soon were squabbling over seconds. All of them even took time to compliment the chef; even Slow Like Joe, who the Chef had only heard speak once or twice before. None of them took notice that the Chef did not partake of this grand feast. Not a bite. They were too wrapped up in their own gluttony to see her sitting quietly with a cat ate the canary look on her face.
Nobody kicked the Chef awake the next morning. No one demanded her presence for this or that minor chore she was expected to perform when not cooking. As a matter of fact, when she awoke to a silent and calm camp, she almost felt a pang of guilt for poisoning the whole lot of them.
Almost guilt was but a fleeting concern. She took her time cherry picking the best choices for her to scavenge and walked away from that camp without looking back. What she left behind she forgot as soon as she spotted her next meal limping along what was once a highway.
The Chef was a survivor for sure. - @ 950 words
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Picking a song this morning was suspicsiously easy and angst free. Is it because my almost lifelong soulmate, housemate and roomate has touched down and is back in New England this morning?
........... Nah. Shit happens is all. Here is a tune from a band I have resisted liking in the past. Is it they just seem too popular and successful? I could dwell on this question for awhile. But I have a Pat's game in an hour or so.
Here is Imagine Dragons and their song about things Apocalyptic. Here is "Radiation".
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