Day 63

Endless woods in every direction, nothing but silhouettes against a sheet of black. Like decrepit old men reaching into the sky as the dark clouds preceding the four horsemen come to swallow those unlucky enough to still be alive. I expect it any minute now...
 Death, it's never far away. He will come knocking, and I will receive him with open arms. Hell cannot be worse than this.
 I started running through these woods... Four hours ago? Five hours ago? So much running the last 63 days that time ceases to matter. Silence save the fall of my feet, the sound of my breathing and the sound of the rain. Alone now, only my sidearm for company now. Stop to take stock for the countless time now. I don't know what I expect to change, maybe a can of food will fall out of my backpack, stranger things have happened.
Three magazines for my 1911, matches, compass, map, one empty water bottle, one full water bottle, 3 cans of food, bino's, two road flares, and, God know's why, an empty whiskey bottle.
Then there was the engraved knife.
It had belonged to Loki, and no not the Norse god. He wasn't using it anymore so I grabbed it before I ran. Loki had been murdered by someone he trusted, by someone we had all trusted.
There were 8 of us by the end, surviving in the endless wastes, hanging on because what else can you do? Four days ago Johnson had accused Bonni of holding out on her food loot. She always raided alone, preferring stealth over rolling into town in force guns blazing. She always produced for the group and no one ever questioned her integrity. Hell, we would have never had the motorcycle had it not been for her. Johnson thought that Bonni looked too, "healthy", as he put it, the implication that she'd been gorging on her loot before bringing it to the group. It deteriorated quickly from there.
Johnson wanted to look in Bonni's tent, Loki stepped in and said no way. Johnson accused them of sleeping together and the guns came out...
I would like to say that I was a Saint in all of this. I would like to say that I managed to stay out of it and got lucky.
I was the first to shoot.
Johnson was always a divisive force in the group, never co-operating, always pushing people around. Your classic meathead dick. He ignored every consensus that didn't adhere to his idea of how the group should run, and that being with him as the monarch and us as his subjects.
He never saw it coming. Double tap to the left back of the head, just like I'd done a dozen times before in countless towns on countless raids. But this time was different, this time it was a living, breathing, free thinking individual, not some mindless mouth with legs.
It was just Bonni, Loki and I in camp at the time. The rest were looking for vehicle salvage at the old factory. Bonni and Loki never questioned my decision, and we hid the body in the forest. The story we told was that Johnson had gone running after a boar, half hour later we heard what sounded like Enfield shots and assumed he'd be back with the boar but that he never came back. The charade lasted 4 days.
 On the night of the fourth day, while I was on watch, I heard the sound of someone startled, and a muffled thud. I roused Chester from his tent, as he got up we heard another muffled and wet thurwhack come from the direction of Bonni's tent.
 Chester and I rushed to the sound to see Roger coming out of Bonni's tent, bloody hatchet in hand. Chester freaked. Roger said he'd found Johnson's body, 2 holes from a .45 in his head, not Enfield rounds. Said one of us had murdered Johnson and we couldn't be trusted. Roger and Johnson had been close, and apparently so had Chester and Bonni.
 Chester went at Roger, knife in hand. By this time the last 2 of the group had been roused and were coming towards the commotion. The three of us managed to separate Roger and Chester but Roger was already bleeding out. Bonni had been the camp medic, being an ER nurse for 10 years in her prior life. I searched Loki's tent while the other 2 searched Bonni's for med supplies, that' when I grabbed Loki's knife.
Roger explained to the others what he'd found and what he'd done and that if they were smart they'd do the same to me. I stuck to the Enfield story. Then Chester spoke up, said Bonni had told them when they were together that I had killed Johnson. He had kept my secret for her sake. But now she was dead and it was all my fault.
MY FAULT? Who swung the ax? I asked. If I'd come clean she'd still be alive. His anger was rousted again but the other two managed to keep him restrained. They were both wearing their Makarovs, Chester pulled one out of the holster, but Laurence, the one who's gun it had been, struggled with Chester, while Barnes pulled his gun and trained it on Chester. During the struggle there was a shot and Laurence went down, Barnes pulled the trigger and Chester went down. Barnes had taken off the top of Chester's skull but somehow Chester was still alive, he shot Barnes three times in the chest and Barnes was still.
 After the bloodbath I grabbed my bag and my gun and ran, leaving Roger and Chester to their fates.
 At the end of the world and who had I become. A wraith, a shell of a man. A harbinger of a world that was the worst it had ever been and was not likely to ever get better. Not in my, if God is merciful, short life.