Sean Barragan

Out The Blue

"It’s not everyday that one jumps off a 30ft overpass." Dregs thought, as he took his backpack off, quickly dropping it in his right hand and grabbed the railing with his left at a full sprint and launched himself into the air. The Wetiko had him cornered, or so they thought. He was glad he had taken martial art classes back when they were available and knew how to land from a fall, because that asphalt below looked as forgiving as a drill sergeant. He looked just past his legs as he flew towards the ground, watching it come up to meet him. This would be a lot of fun if it wasn’t for that bitch gravity He considered. At the faintest contact of feet on asphalt he curled forward, tucked his head in, pivoted his shoulders to the left and pitched himself into a roll. He could feel the grainy rigidness of the asphalt through his shirt as his shoulder blade rolled over it and when he rolled up onto his feet and grinned gratefully. Grateful that he didn’t have to feel that same rigidity compacting his bones. "I am Hanuman, the god of agility." Dregs reflected, as he swung his backpack back on his back. He clutched at the heart-shaped locket around his neck to check if it was still there. Assured, Dregs leaned forward back into a sprint and continued to run away from the overpass. The asphalt he ran and hopped on was in the midst of some serious reclamation from Mother Nature. The asphalt was cracked and raised all over the place by growing trees and all the company they bring. The overpass and all below had been sufficient to provide some shelter for the local plants to flourish under. Dregs moved in a zig zag pattern ducking through the foliage and very uneven asphalt. Dregs was glad for that reclamation as it provided cover as he faunaed through the flora. He could hear the woosh as the Wetiko fired off their arrows after him, and the thunk as it hit the trees and the clatter as they bounced off the asphalt. An axe blurred past his head and bounced shaft over head off the asphalt. "The nerve of some people… Throwing axes. Haters gonna hate." Dregs affirmed, and was glad this batch of baddies didn’t have any guns. It was going to take them a while to catch up if they bothered to at all. The Wetiko are cannibals. Wetiko is a term the Cree Native Americans used for cannibal, Dregs wasn’t Cree, he just liked the word. Apparently, after law and order evaporates some people would rather just eat people than learn how to cultivate food. That’s what you get after decades of public school that taught moral relativism, a consumer lifestyle and not much sustainable farming or social skills. The resulting vacuum of power after the end had left many a band of roving bandits and goons with virtually creative and productive capacity. Cannibalism leads to neurosis Dregs remembered as he ran for his life. He had no interest in being food, so he booked it. After a while through the brush he slowed to a trot and then to a walk. His lungs and muscles were burning. He looked around him, nobody appeared to be pursuing him. Regardless it’d be stupid to remain here, and stupid to keep running. In times like these one had to conserve energy. He wondered to himself if they were pursuing him or not. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be sheer determination that saved Dregs today. No, it was laziness. The Wetiko were looking for a quick lick and after seeing how skinny Dregs was and how fast and agile he was they didn’t consider him worth the energy it would take to pursue him. The one called James of this outfit reluctantly went down the long way to retrieve the axe he threw in his excitement. Axes don’t just grow on trees. Dregs worked his way back to his hideout, a buried shipping container amidst the trees he had outfitted with some solar panels and batteries. It takes a person of mad skills and knowledge to still have electricity in these times. Dregs was that guy. For decades before the devastation many people had prepared for Doomsday, some even hoped for it. There were even reality television shows all the preppers back in the day. Dregs, seeing the horrible state of the society he was to inherit, had started preparing himself for the coming downfall of the consumer lifestyle at the age of 16. Unable to afford anything extravagant, he had buried a shipped container outfitted for survival in his parents' backyard when he turned 19. He had hoped the day would never come, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to be ready. Man how that had paid off. Dregs meandered through the woods that now swallowed his former neighborhood and crept up to the brush that obscured the small ramp that was the entrance to his hideaway. He lifted up the hatch and dropped down the ramp, careful to lower it back. He spun to the entrance and swung open the rickety metal door. Walking into his home he wiped off the dirt on his boots on his welcome mat and took them off, putting them on his bamboo shoe rack. Sometimes all we have is our rituals. Closing the door and flicking on the light switch he looked on in pride on his little station of paradise. He had a bed, a small shower stall, a kitchenette, a drafting table, and a couch. It wasn’t much, before it would’ve been considered a sad place to live, but in current standards where chaos reigns it was the lap of luxury. Despite the attempted murder, Dregs was feeling pretty good about the days events. Even before the sky fell, people trying him wasn’t all that new. Back when society was still functioning, as a solo graffiti artist working a minimum wage job he had to worry about gangs, police, busy bodies, rent ,taxes, and bill collectors. The only real difference between then and now is the monsters didn’t try to to pretend to be anything different. Although he missed all the ones he lost and the internet, it wasn’t all bad when everything fell down, he had more freedom than ever before. With risk being the constant whenever he went out he considered today’s prize to be well worth it. Dregs was an artist, and since the Apocalypse, ink had become quite the rarity. Dregs had recently run out of blue ink. His mission for the day was to obtain some blueberries to create some more. The end of civilization and its constant pollution had brought the war on nature to a halt and plants of every variety grew freely throughout the city, many of which bore fruit. He had scouted out a patch of blueberries and been out foraging them near that overpass. It was on his way back that he had run into the band of Wetiko. There seemed to be more and more of them in the area. Which Dregs knew was going to have to be dealt with sooner or later, but not for now. He’d call upon some of the locals about it later. But for now, he had work to do. He had created vinegar from some fermented apples for years now that he always kept in stock and now he could take his new batch of blueberries and boil them down, mix the juice with some salt and vinegar and boom! Blue ink. Now granted, not nearly as vibrant as the ink available in the times of commerce, but not too bad in the days of revelation. Dregs had heard that the best blue was made from Lapis Lazuli, a precious gemstone in Crested Butte of Colorado, but as he was currently in Lakewood, Colorado. It would take a while before he was prepared to make such a journey. Dregs sat down on his drafting table, looking at his maps, drawings and future plans, grinning in victory. Even at the world’s end, he was still dreaming and scheming.