Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

no clue how to support themselves using the land.   At least, none of the kids in this area did.   Maybe out in the farmlands it was different.   But here?   No way.   They were desperate and going crazier with the hunger every day.
    My dad had shown me the basics of growing tomatoes and beans and stuff, but refused to put a garden in at our house.   He’d said hundreds of times before he left that I would need to move away to be safe, and he didn’t want me stuck here out of a false sense of comfort.   I was starting to suspect in this moment, as I wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand, that my dad had foreseen this problem of savagery taking over the minds of the formerly sane, but had never wanted to speak the actual words to me.   Lots of little things he’d said and did took on new meaning for me, telling me he had come to the same conclusion that was now a permanent part of Peter’s life: people, when hungry and desperate enough, and without the means or smarts to come up with a better way, would go for the easy kill to survive.   Even if it meant eating their own kind.
    I vomited again at the idea of a gang chasing down and taking out a child for their dinner meal.
    The door opened and Peter came out, a tissue in his hand.   “Here,” he said, handing it to me dispassionately.
    I took it and stared at it for a second.   I hadn’t seen a tissue in months.   I’d been wiping my butt with leaves and weeds, after doing my business in a hole in the ground in the yard.   A week after my dad left, I no longer had running water.   It wasn’t worth it to waste precious rain or pool water on flushes, so I’d made myself an old-fashioned outhouse out of tarps.
    “Thanks,” I said, using it to wipe my mouth.   “Sorry about that.   Lost it a little, I guess.”
    “Good.   Now I know you’re not a canner and still human.”
    “I was kind of worried about you, actually,” I admitted.   “You seemed a little … off your rocker for a while there.   But now I understand.”
    “Yeah.   I guess I have gone a little nuts.”
    “I would have, too.   Probably worse than you.”   I reached out and punched him lightly on the arm.   I meant it as a gesture of friendship, but I felt my fist make contact with bone.   He had no body fat on him anywhere.
    “Ow!” he said, massaging his arm.
    “Dude, why are you so skinny?”
    He looked at me like I was crazy.   “Maybe because I’m slowly starving to death?”
    “What have you been eating?”
    “Spaghetti sauce!” he yelled, his face going red with anger and his arms held stiffly at his side.
    “Okay, chill, Chef-Boy-R-Dee.   Come on inside.   I’ll make you some beans and noodles.   We need to get some meat on your bones before we head out of here.”   I tried not to think about the image of meat on a person’s bones, but the vision kept assailing my mind.   It was awful.   I decided then and there that becoming a vegetarian might be a very good idea.   I didn’t ever want to get so hungry that I’d consider eating my new friend, never mind the fact that he’d make a pretty pitiful meal.
    “When are we leaving?”
    “I don’t know.   A few days?   We have to make our plan.”
    Peter followed me inside and then stood at the edge of the kitchen while I added water to the pan from the plastic bottle that stood on the counter.   The noodles went in next.
    “Where’s the water from?”
    “It’s rainwater.   I catch it in a food-safe container outside.   A bucket, actually.”
    “Is it okay to drink?”
    “The stuff in this container hasn’t been treated, but since I’m heating it to boiling, it doesn’t matter.   That’ll kill any bacteria.”
    “Yeah.   I know that.”
    I looked at him sideways, not sure why he felt the need to clarify what he knew.   Then I continued.   “I have another bottle in the cabinet that has water I’ve treated.   I usually just boil it, but I also have bleach.”
    “Smart.”
    “My dad’s idea.   I have enough to last me for years.   I hope by the time it runs out, the rain and stream water will be pure enough to drink without it.”
    “You’re thinking without all the factories and other places polluting the atmosphere, there’s a chance that the Earth will regenerate itself?”
    “That’s my hope anyway.”
    “Mine too.   So what about the gas?   How do you still have gas working at your house?”
    I pulled open the cabinet doors under the stovetop