For the next several months, Sawyer stayed at the school, rationing his large cache of food and living in relative comfort. Finding water during the warm summer months was still a challenge, but with the ability to purify almost any amount that he discovered, it was rare that he went thirsty. For the first time since the blackout, he felt a real sense of security, and instead of searching for food each day, he divided his time between reading and exploring the foothills surrounding the school.

The virus had played no favorites, wiping out the human race and all other warm-blooded creatures with magnificent efficiency, and although he still saw no signs of human activity, he had begun to notice small changes as he walked the trails. Everywhere around him were signs of renewal, signs of life. He kept track of what he saw and heard, the chirping of a single ground squirrel somewhere in the brush, the prints of mice in the dirt, the droppings from what looked like a coyote or possibly a dog alongside the trail. Sawyer saw these new signs of life as evidence of healing, of re-growth, and despite the crushing loneliness that he often felt, the boy could not help but smile often.

He had put some time into several projects in and around the school, and with winter fast approaching, his first order of business had been to develop a method of collecting water. It was not rocket science, and the boy had simply rigged the rain gutters on the roof to filter directly into a series of fifty-gallon trashcans that he had set up inside the courtyard of the school. Although the rains were often scattered and anemic even during winter, he knew that with just one good storm he could potentially collect more than three hundred fifty gallons of rainwater, all of which he could easily treat with just a few Aquatabs.

His second order of business was simply to keep himself busy, and the boy taught himself a variety of new skills. Not long after finding the school, Sawyer had come across a small public library that he had somehow missed before, and after only a few minutes of wandering the aisles, he began to realize the potentially tremendous value of what he had discovered. He had brought everything he thought he might use back to the school—detailed city maps, building blueprints, reference books of every kind. He sought out any text related to survival and self-reliance, from Peterson’s Edible Plants to outdated medical handbooks to a ragged copy of the official US Army Survival Manual. He devoured them all.

Once he had read a book, Sawyer was quick to put his knowledge into action, searching for edible plants in the foothills, and setting up simple animal traps around the perimeter of the school. In fact, much of the boy’s time became absorbed with fashioning traps of every kind, and before long he was catching a variety of birds and reptiles. On extremely rare occasions, he found his traps sprung by something warm-blooded, and although the tiny, gray-brown field mice and their larger cousins did not amount to much of a meal, the simple fact that he was finding mammals in the area gave him a small feeling of hope.

Although he carried the Mossberg with him at all times, he hunted with only a heavy throwing stick made of eucalyptus or an old sling shot, and within a short time, he had become deadly accurate with both weapons. However, with so few warm-blooded animals in the area, game of any kind besides fowl or reptile was scarce, if not completely nonexistent. Early on, the boy had made one trip to the coast to attempt to fish, but he had found that the ocean had been decimated by the unchecked flow of sewage after the blackout, and the water was noxious with contaminants, the beach littered with dead marine mammals and fish. Still, despite the scarce game in the foothills, Sawyer enjoyed the time he spent hunting most of all, his natural instincts taking over as he silently stalked his prey through the tall grass and trees.

He sometimes ate the lizards and snakes that he was able to catch, but while a fat king snake or a dozen blue-bellies could make a decent barbecue lunch, he much preferred to spend his time hunting birds to supplement his diet. Besides the dove and quail, he sometimes bagged duck and coot, and he learned to soak his catch in simmering water before plucking the feathers, taking his time to clean the birds well before gutting them, always saving the livers, hearts, and gizzards for soup.

Of all the animals that he came across, it was only the crow that he hunted for sport, and since arriving at the school, he had killed them by the dozens. The boy had his own deeply felt reasons for killing the crow, and in one of his books he read about an ingenious bird snare that the Native Americans once used. The design was simple and easy to build, and with dark purpose and satisfaction, Sawyer constructed the trap in the center of the courtyard. With a fall-away perch and rock-weighted snare attached to a single pole, once baited and set, it usually did not take long. Alerted by the frantic and shrill cries of the newly snared crow, Sawyer would arrive with a shovel or club, and a single crushing blow was the best ending the bird could hope for. For the sake of revenge alone, Sawyer could not help but take pleasure in each crow that he put to death, leaving the birds’ bloody, black feathers to litter the ground before he tossed their broken bodies into the fire at the end of each day.

As his skill in fashioning traps increased, he soon recognized that such devices could be adapted as defensive measures, as well. On several spots along the trails that led to the school, he built spring spear traps, each one with two fire-hardened spikes ready to impale anyone or anything who was unfortunate enough to disturb the trip line. In another spot, he set to work designing a large deadfall trap. It took him over a full week to put all of the necessary elements into place, but after several failed attempts and considerable effort, Sawyer eventually rested a heavy spruce log on top of the trigger stick and moved quickly away. He was not necessarily looking to kill indiscriminately, but he told himself that any person who approached the school was probably not there to make friends in the first place, and that any animal that sprung the trap would sure as hell make a good meal.

With his traps made, the boy had also cleared a patch of ground in the rear of the school for his first attempt at a vegetable garden. Over time, the boy had collected a considerable number of seed packets, but he was no farmer, and with the repeated infestations of pests and the limited water supply he was willing to share with his garden, his initial attempt at agriculture had not gone well. In the end, his harvest could be described as meager at best, producing only a few withered zucchinis, a handful of shriveled, yellowish carrots, and a single row of pale, shrunken heads of broccoli.

On more than one occasion, he had tried to hook up a light to one of the few functioning solar panels he had come across, but for all his skills, the boy was no techie, and the projects always ended in failure. Nevertheless, the boy had grown accustomed to waking and sleeping with the sun, and he had fallen into a routine of running and working out each morning, hunting and searching for water during the day, and reading and relaxing at night. There was no question that he was getting faster, stronger, and smarter with every passing day; still, the boy found that he was not satisfied, he was not happy. He had come across no other living person since his encounter with the Whispering Man several months prior, and his lonesomeness was growing profound.

He tried to remain positive, but he could no longer deny that his life was only fulfilling in the sense that he was still alive when so many others were not. It had been nearly two years since the virus had wiped the slate clean, and the absolute solitude of his existence was suffocating. Quite often, he would fall asleep with a clear conscience, but wake in the dead of the night in a panic, gasping for air in the darkness, praying for someone to help remove the crushing weight of loneliness that was seated on his chest.

As the seasons changed and the weather began to cool, the boy found himself re-checking traps he knew were empty, spending hours cataloging his supplies for the third and fourth time in a single day, doing everything he could to keep his mind occupied. Even though there was no question that the desire to live was still burning white-hot inside of him, deep down the boy understood that a flame that burned alone, could not burn forever. Truth be told, like so many teenagers before him, Sawyer simply wanted something more than the solitary existence that had been thrust upon him. Although the boy had been forced to become a killer to survive, he was not ready to give up on himself or his fellow man quite yet, even if it meant risking his own life in the venture. Sawyer was determined to prove to himself that he was still worth something to the world, and that somewhere out there in the vast wastelands, there had to be someone else who felt the same goddamn way.