Would you like to see my locket?

Look at her! Look how beautiful she is, shining in the candlelight like that. I just got her back, you see. Oh, that shitty, sneaky little thief thought he could get away with stealing her from me, but he was dead wrong. Dead wrong.

He must have thought he could just mosey right on into my town and take whatever he wanted. Guys like that were used to getting their way all the time in the Before, and they still think they’re entitled to everything even now in the After. But not this time! No, not this time! I got her back!

I.

Got.

Her.

Back!

Ha-ha!

I’m celebrating tonight. I'm enjoying my second glass of whiskey…and I even sang a song earlier! I know, I know, it’s super risky to do so, but I just couldn’t help myself. This has been the happiest I’ve been in…weeks? Months? I don’t even know. Consequences be damned, I threw my head back and sang the first song that came to mind, a pretty song I hadn’t heard since the Before. Do you remember “Sweet Caroline”? Awesome karaoke tune.

Where it began…I can’t begin to know when…but then I know it’s growing strong…

“Where it began” …where did all this begin? So hard to tell. I know that it started with just a couple of funny stories on the news, some infection happening in central Europe or God-knows-where. Then there were whispers that whatever was happening was expected to spread everywhere, even here in the States. Then one day, like a switch had been flipped, panic erupted. People were taking to the streets, fighting, rioting, looting, setting buildings ablaze…so much noise, a collectively angry noise, low and guttural and growling.

And then the noise faded into silence. Not just in my town, but in every town, every city. The news stopped, the radios turned to white noise, and bodies seemed cover the ground everywhere you’d go. The smell was overbearing, and the flies, oh God, the flies…

…was in the spring…and spring became the summer…who’d have believed you’d come along…

I just stayed inside, kept my head low, avoided people. After those initial riots and all of the fighting in the streets, I decided that people were nothing but trouble. I believe that mindset has been keeping me alive, and made me the sole survivor of this little town.

I am lonely, though. So lonely.

But, hey, that’s what I have the locket for.

Let me pour another glass of whiskey. I’m catching a nice buzz.

…haaaands…touchin’ hands…reachin’ out…touchin’ meeee…touchin’ youuuuu…

Hands.

You wanna know something? It totally blows my mind that there was once a time when we'd exchange handshakes – and not gunfire – upon meeting strangers. We would just walk by each other on the streets and left each other alone. Crazy.

Not the case anymore. Too dangerous. I may be the last person in this town, but I’m not the last person on the planet, no by a long shot.

There are at least three tribes of people that I know for sure are located somewhere out there in the surrounding area. It gives me the heebie-jeebies thinking about them wandering around this empty state, scavenging and hunting and raping and killing. I do what I can to avoid them, and they’re the reason why I stay so quiet at night; all three of the gangs have passed through my town at one point or another.

Two of the groups are easy to avoid because they’re so damn loud. They’re what you’d expect: tough guys and gals, armed to the teeth, decked out in leather, running through places to scavenge for supplies and shooting before asking questions.

The third group, however, is much worse.

These demons sneak quietly into town, and never announce their presence with loud noise nor gunfire. There have been one too many times I have almost been spotted by this crew, and I am grateful for being swift enough to slip away.

I don’t know exactly who they are or where their tribe is located, but I do know that they practice a horrific type of evil that is almost unspeakable – they keep slaves. Men, women, children. I’ve seen them marched through town, shackled at their necks and wrists. If they resist, or move too slowly, the tribe takes a body part. Sometimes it’s an eye, or a hand, or sometimes even the poor person’s tongue. The slaves are always small and malnourished, but their enslavers are typically large and bloated; starving does not seem to be an issue for them.

I sometimes wonder if the slaves are not slaves at all, but perhaps cattle, snatched up for eating.

What a horrible thought.

They must not catch me, ever. They must not.

I’d be lying if I said they were not driving me a bit mad. Most days I feel like a wandering doe; at the slightest noise, I’m ready to bolt. Most nights I can hardly sleep, as I am plagued with the worrying doubt that I will wake up to find myself being dragged by my neck to a stove, the plump enslavers licking their lips as they see their next meal prepared.

There is nobody around to talk to about these concerns.

Nobody except the locket.

...but now I look at the night…and it don’t seem so lonely…we fill it up with only two…

I don’t exactly know when I started talking to the locket, but I know that it talks back. Matter of fact, it talks to me all the time. I know it’s not really talking, that’s impossible, but when I look at it there’s this…voice from my head. A woman’s voice. Maybe because the picture inside the locket is a woman. It’s a young blonde one, sitting in a yard and playing the guitar, and she looks so sweet—

Sweeeeeet Caroline…bah bah bah…

--and it must be her voice that I’m hearing. She’s so pretty, as pretty as the locket itself. This little silver charm must be the only pretty thing left in this dark, disgusting world, I’d guess. And it’s all mine. It’s my responsibility.

Hang on, I want another drink.

Okay, back. Pretty drunk now. Guess I’ll keep writing til I fall asleep…if sleep ever comes tonight.

Anyways. We talk to each other all day. Everywhere I go, I make sure the locket is with me so that she and I can talk. She’s so funny and sweet and clever and kind. She tells me where to go and what to do. Together we’ve cleaned up all the damage around town. We’ve swept up the broken glass and scrubbed the dried blood off the sidewalks. And as we work, we get to know each other even better.

When bad times come, I kiss her, to reassure myself. Sometimes I…I even pleasure myself to her.

Perhaps I love her.

No. I most definitely love her. What else is there to love here?

At night, when I’m not typing my thoughts away, I’m just staring at this locket. Just like tonight, as I write this, the little silver heart is sitting in the light of one of the hundreds of battery-operated candles I’ve scavenged.

She soothes me. Whenever I’m lonely or missing the Before or I’m scared of the gangs coming through, she’s there for me. I will admit, there are many days where I can’t imagine going on. This new world is just so stressful, more than any job I’ve ever had, or any trouble I’ve ever been in. I don’t know if I’m going to be dead tomorrow, or enslaved, or served on a plate and placed in front of some cannibalistic maniac. How does a man continue on in such a place?

The locket keeps me sane. She calms my nerves, assures me all will be okay, and most of the time, she’s right.

She was only ever wrong about the Quiet Man.

When there are intruders in my town, I avoid them like the plague that destroyed this country and this planet. But something was different about the Quiet Man. He had stumbled in a few days ago, dressed in nothing but rags. He was an odd-looking fellow, bald and with a cleft lip. His eyes were wide and innocent. He never spoke a word.

I followed him as he scavenged through the town’s grocery store and restaurants. It was clear he was looking for food. I’m not sure if he was just a wanderer or perhaps a slave that escaped from the nearby tribe of monsters. Whatever he was, he was in bad shape.

...Waaaaaaarm…touchin’ waaaaarm…reachin out’…

The locket's voice sparked inside me that hadn’t been there since the Before: sympathy.

I went up to the Quiet Man, introduced myself, and brought him back to my safehouse. I started a fire and heated up some hot dogs and beans. I have never seen a man salivate as much as him when he dug into dinner. Across the street from the safehouse, at Lou’s Tavern, I grabbed some warm beer. When the Quiet Man cracked the can and sipped the beer, he made the first noise that he may have ever made in the After: he moaned. We drank together, never exchanging words but simply exchanging comradery. This was a process I hadn’t been through in quite some time; I was making a friend.

Drunkenly and perhaps stupidly, I decided to tell the Quiet Man about my locket. I showed her to him, and told him that she was all that I had been talking to for the past few…months? Years? Whatever.

I’m very drunk now. As drunk as I was then.

Anyways, I should have known what was going on. The Quiet Man, this stranger, this intruder, looked at my locket with longing. I dismissed it as mere admiration. What a stupid mistake.

The next morning, the Quiet Man was gone. And she was gone. Along with all the food and half my candles.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet Caroline…

Bah!

Bah!

Bah.

No.

I searched everywhere for him. I walked for miles along the major interstates coming in and out of town. I had no guns, for all had been taken by the gangs and monsters that haunted this world. I had scavenged the town, tore it up and down, threw away all my hard work cleaning it up, and in return found a very nice-looking knife at the local butcher’s place; the tribes must have dismissed this precious weapon, a primitive method of killing with no firepower.

It was time to move.

This man, this shitty sneak thief, would not take what was mine. I would not allow that.

His big mistake was trying to make a fire at a rest stop, six miles from here. I followed the smoke, fearing that it would be one of the slavers, but knowing in my heart that it was the Quiet Man. I suppose the locket had assured me it was him. Perhaps she was calling out to me, begging me to get her back.

When I struck the back of his head, he went limp. I suspect he passed out on impact.

He was awake for what came next.

The knife came down on him over and over again. The Quiet Man became the Crying Man; with every time the knife went through him, he screamed and begged and pleaded. Oh, in his last moments he found his voice, believe me.

I carved and tore. It was ecstasy. After so much fear and stress, I found release.

When he was gone, it didn’t take long for me to find my precious locket, my love…

Very, very drunk now. Falling asleep.

So much evil in this world…

Finally, some of it brought to justice.

I cut him open everywhere. And I took from him. It was my turn to take.

And now I have two heart-shaped treasures.

…good times never seemed so good…

So good!

SO GOOD!

So good.