The last apiary.
Dust blows up and appears to catch fire as it flies into the setting sun from a tiny black speck on the horizon. Paul gazes across the dry empty planes in wonder. He hears a steady thump thump rising as the speck slowly turns into a car. He runs and nearly makes it to the road by the time the booming car rattles by the end of his gravel driveway. He waves, holding up one of his pathetic shrivelled apples. Red lights illuminate the long grass and pale pavement as the passerby stops. The lights go out and the air becomes silent. Paul watches a tall man climb out of the passengers side of the car. The man lights a long cigarette, staring back at Paul from under a dark shroud of messy hair. He beckons Paul impatiently. Paul lifts his bushel from its resting place in the deep grass beside him and jogs towards the tall stranger. The man is holding out his hand, he points at Paul then puts up two fingers as he blows out a cloud of smoke. Paul grabs a couple of his best, least rotten apples and approaches the back end of the old car, he notices dark red rust covering the trunk. He offers the apples to the looming man, as he does he feels a long sting across his neck and he falls forward. Blood fills his throat and mouth and gurgles out onto the road in spurts quickly forming a pool. His bruised apples roll out under the car and into the ditch with a stream of crimson slowly following behind. Paul's eyes roll up and his vision starts to fade. He sees a pair of stained leather boots step out onto the ground from the drivers side and then all goes black.
Vanessa cringes and tries not to look down at the short hairy man.
Tony twirls his knife and looks at her with a solemn and far off stare. “If we didn't, The Raiders would eventually,” Tony puts the knife down on top of the car and opens the trunk. He pulls out a cooler and a large butcher knife. “And you know how they do things, don't you? It's better this way.”
Vanessa closes the trunk. “I know,” She whispers “Its hard though. I wish their was a different way.”
“But their isn't, look at him.” Tony lifts the corps onto the cars trunk and lays it on its back. “If we weren't us we'd be him. Or worse. We all need to eat, remember. Everyone that depends on us, think of all the kids.
“He had a life.” She bends down and picks up a bloody apple.
“He was alone, no one will miss him.”
The world has collapsed after climate change killed off the planets pollinators. Cities and ghettos cover most of the world except for barren wastelands. Over population lead to an inflation of food costs followed by poverty and famine. In the wasteland the last of the farmers, now the richest men on earth, try to defend their property from the rest of the world. Anarchy has taken over and gangs have begun stealing whatever food they can find. The crops fail and the farmers money becomes useless. When all the food vanishes, cannibalism becomes popular and the farmers start to count out the days until they run out of ammo and can't stop the murderous city gang known as The Raiders. More gangs are formed, families turn into clans and the population thins. Communication towers are destroyed, cutting farmers off from the rest of the world. They realize that they are at a loss in a fight against a mob of cannibal gangsters. A small family has left the city in fear of being taken and eaten by one of the gangs. Staying one step ahead of the gangs the family reluctantly survive off of ignorant hermits and hitchhikers, forever heading towards the green mountains on a hunch. A tiny ray of hope rests in a small commune deep within the green mountains where a beekeeper and his family live sustainably far from any civilization.
