FARM - Fred, Albert, Ryan, Martin

We'd been lucky as hell, Abby and I. 

The four men who were running  the farm greet us with open arms. I'd known Fred and Ryan from my time here working side-by-side with em, but I didn't know the other two. They'd been fucking happy to see me, that I was alive, said that my uncle had left the farm to me in his will, not that a piece of legal paper meant much but hey, it was nice to see he'd cared. 

They'd been prepping dinner, and they set the table with two more plates. We grabbed chairs from the cellar. Pretty soon they'd uncorked the wine and we drank and ate. It was the first time in almost five months that I'd tasted food that hadn't been canned or was just yolk. Abby and I dug in. We must have looked like a pair of hungry hyenas. Fred and Ryan introduced themeselves quickly to Abby, while Albert and Martin talked to me. We'd missed each other by only a month. They asked me why I hadn't stayed. 

  "I liked farming and all, but I wanted to go back into accounting." I said after swallowing a bite of roast chicken. "I'd hoped New York City would be kind of...rebuilt, or that I could help rebuild it. I never thought that absolutely every company had crashed. It's crazy." I kept my sentences short so I could shovel food in my mouth between them. "So you guys came after I left?"

"Yeah. I'm Ryan's cousin." Albert said. "I'd heard he came here during the war. I had to fight, I lost my leg." He lifted his pants leg up and there it was, a shiny metal prostetic. "I decided to try and see if the farm was still running and when I came here they took me right in."

I just nodded along to everything he said. I hadn't been this hungry in years. Maybe my whole fucking life. 

"And Martin here just came by. He'd been wondering from east to west trying to find a place to settle down." Albert explained. Martin also had a mouthfull of food so he just nodded. "What about you two?"

"I decided to leave NYC, and on my way out west I ran into a group of girls and Abby decided to tag along." Ryan and Fred listened in to what I had to say, they'd previously been talking to Abby. I didn't know how much she'd told them, so I kept it short and to the point. "I was heading for the farm. I'd had no idea if any of ya'll would be here or not. We got into some light trouble on the way, nothing really bad. I'm glad the farm is still working, you guys seem to be running it great." I finished my sentence and smushed the fork of chicken into my face. I was still fucking hungry even though I'd already had two plates. 

"Are there a lot of mutated animals in the farm?" Abby asked. It was a valid question, one I wanted to know the answer to as well. 

"Yeah, well, the eggs are also only yolks. I assume you had that back in NYC." Ryan said. I nodded. "Apart from chicken we only have five horses and they're fine, a bit scared because of the fucking Narts and Kitty-cats."

"Are the kitty-cats the mountain lion beasts with the weird spine?" I asked. 

"Yeah exactly. Did you run into one on the way?"

"Yeah. We did. It looked fucked up. I don't think those are gonna survive much longer." I said honestly. Ryan agreed. 

Ryan showed me my bedroom. Funny thing, it had been my uncles before. The bedroom they used was the one that used to be mine. I thanked them for their hospitality and told them to wake me in the morning so I could start helping out immediatly. They laughed and told me they thought I should sleep out in the morning. 

I checked in on Abby, she was sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms. One of the smallest in the house, and without a view. The window looked at the back wall of the shed. She seemed incredibly tired. I wished her a good night, asked if she was comftorable and head back to my room. 

I was a bit freaked out with my view. Before the war and the mutations I'd always admired it; it looked out onto a grassy field and then to the forest beyond the farm. But the forest now looked dark and sinister and only God knew how many fucking animals and mutated monsters lurked in there at the present hour. Probably a fuck-ton of them. 

I slipped under the sheets. The second my head hit the pillow I fell asleep. That night I didn't care if any creepy-crawlies were watching me.