This is a work of fiction set in real locations, referencing real events, and existing during a real time. Any relation to a real person or specific events in their life event is entirely coincidental. Everything here received a heavy dose of imagination.

Carson Mueller was a man, an ordinary, nondescript man who was still alive. As he pushed his worn hiking boots through one step and then another, Carson silently congratulated himself on having the forethought to get the hell out of Dodge before the world collapsed and took him with it. He had been living in the wilderness, as far from civilization as he could get in the Black Hills of South Dakota, for, near as he could figure, two years. Carson’s only tie to the greater world was the smartphone he pointlessly still carried in his pack. The phone died after a week of frugal use during the earliest days of Caron’s self-imposed seclusion, but he had seen enough to believe civilization had crumbled. Rampant disease created fear, which led to division among the population, which led to rioting, which led to violent suppression. The last snip of news Carson saw showed marshal law had been instituted in cities across the country as the healthcare and supply chain infrastructures buckled under unprecedented strain. Validating Carson’s assumption about civilization’s fate was the fact the world had become quieter. The general buzz of an expanding population or wandering tourist had not been heard or felt for, again, near as he could figure, a year.

While Carson’s phone succumbed to a true death, his GPS was still able to power up after an hour attached to a portable solar power bank, and thankfully, the satellites had not yet crashed into the ocean. Carson’s current coordinates put him between Deadwood and Spearfish. He was closer to Sturgis than he would have liked, but the combination of a roaming bear and a bison herd forced him north. Sturgis had essentially been ground zero for the Midwest’s collapse. Two weeks after the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally occurred, and attendees returned home, cases of the virus exploded both at home and wherever the motorcyclists had flipped out their kickstands. Within a month, the interstate connecting the Black Hills to the rest of the state and further west was closed. Another month after that, mass burial sites dotted the landscape as town after town faced erasure. Nobody knew for certain what to do, so they overreacted.

The first riot occurred at the main regional healthcare facility in Rapid City. A stressed system can only stretch so far, and they had reached the breaking point. Patients were being transferred to any available bed within the state, but that was not good enough for a scared population demanding immediate care. As the hospital went up in flames, nobody understood all the violence had accomplished was dooming thousands to a miserable final few weeks of existence. Every neighboring state had already sealed their borders, and South Dakota had been reduced to a cautionary tale. Those other states, unbeknownst to them, had not yet had their moment of deprivation. Nobody was spared.

Carson Mueller loaded his pack and headed for a blank spot on the map as first responders tried to quell the horde dismantling the Rapid City hospital. By the time flame reduced the facility to an ashen husk, he was making camp as George Washington’s stone face looked out over his fractured, hurting nation from his perch on Mount Rushmore. At this point, the only thing that surprised Carson was that he found himself in the same situation as the prior year, being driven from his home camp by wild animals. The first winter nearly ended him as he was forced to relocate after the season had already started and did not have time to establish sufficient shelter. Despite renewed efforts through the spring and summer, Carson once again found himself staying a half day ahead of a black bear family and the largest herd of bison he had ever seen. They just kept moving north, as if something was inspiring their relocation.

Lost in his thoughts, Carson nearly missed the cluster of trees encircling a rock outcropping. Amazingly enough, the rocks formed a natural, three-sided shelter that could easily be covered and was naturally secluded by the bunched together pines. He had found his new home. Even if the bears or bison continued on their northward movement, Carson figured his established presence at this spot would encourage the animals to pay him no mind rather than seeing him as an intruder. Carson tossed his pack into his new living room and set to work rounding out the shelter before nightfall.

The first sound opened Carson’s eyes. The second spurred him to sit upright. In the quiet night, branches began snapping all around Carson like popping corn. Soon, the frequency and number of cracks created a thunderous cacophony of sound that sent cold tingles down Carson’s spine. The herd had arrived.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of bison lumbered past Carson in the dark. He could now hear their snorts and the scratches as their hides brushed one another. In the waning daylight hours, Carson had been able to construct a blind to place across the opening of the rocks. He looked through it now at the gigantic beasts shaking the ground upon which they trod. Carson’s scanning eyes suddenly stopped upon a lone, stationary buffalo. The creature appeared to be looking directly at the blind, and Carson felt certain the animal could peer into his terrified soul. Carson did not breathe, but his mind began racing through scenarios and actions that, in the immediate future, could prevent him from being crushed. Despite his brain’s fervent activity, Carson’s body was not going to comply with any instruction to move. The rumble of the passing herd had become deafening, dampened only by the sound of Carson’s heart hammering out a quickening beat with each passing second. The lone buffalo stamped its front hooves and shook its massive head. Then, after another brief pause, it charged.

Carson closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain, hoping his suffering would be brief. The adrenaline coursing through Carson’s body, however, forced his eyes back open, to meet his fate with awareness. It also put things in slow motion. While Carson’s body was racing internally, the rest of the world felt as if it were moving at a snail’s pace. The air was choked with dirt from the bison’s charge, but Carson could see the slight shift of the animal’s weight and watched as it veered away from the rocks at the last second and smashed into another buffalo charging from the other direction. The impact sent a shockwave that jostled Carson’s blind askew. He now had a clear view of the massive herd and the battle for supremacy playing out before his eyes. A distracting thought out of nowhere popped into Carson’s mind at that moment, that men were truly not that different from animals in how they handled establishing dominance and social hierarchy. The thought was fleeting, however, as one of the scuffling bison stumbled backwards into the shelter, obliterating the blind and bumping Carson with enough inertia to send him forcefully rolling back into the shelter’s rear wall. The thump of his head against stone immediately turned off the lights.