“Andria Saxon.” Dropping the deer carcass on the floor, she roamed the house, taking inventory. “Air-conditioning … a working refrigerator and stove—pretty impressive, Eisenbrain. What else do you have here?”

“A running shower and soap for starters. And it’s Eisenbraun.”

“Tell you what, I’ll handle the brawn, you handle the brains and maybe we’ll manage to survive this mess.”

Chapter 2

2

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

—JOSEPH STALIN

“You make love like a freshman.”

“And you make love like a woman breaking in a wild stallion.”

We had lived together in my parents’ home for three weeks, sleeping in separate bedrooms, which we kept bolted from the inside. She taught me how to target shoot from tree limbs while I educated her on how everything worked in our shared fortress, but we rarely engaged in conversation about our lives before the Die-Off.

And then late this afternoon, she turned to me while we picked apples in the orchard and kissed me.

Within minutes we were in bed, naked and entwined; the two of us entering an exciting new world.

When we were done, Andria climbed off and lay beside me, the flesh on her tan back and buttocks sporting a series of scars. “Scratch.”

I accepted my duties, restricting the urge to hug her from behind lest she crush my windpipe with an elbow to the throat.

“You may have noticed that I have control issues, Eisenbraun. I guess it comes from being on my own since I was fifteen. A little lower. Now harder, use your nails.… God, that’s good. So what’s your story? How’d you learn to do all this?”

“I studied a lot. You know … lack of a social life.”

“Funny, I pegged you as a jock. How tall are you? Six foot five? Maybe two-twenty? Bet you played basketball.”

“Track and field. Mom was a natural athlete, I inherited her foot speed. Did some long jump and the hundred meters in high school until the varsity football coach forced me to try out as a receiver. I couldn’t catch a cold, let alone a football. ‘Stone hands Eisenbraun,’ they called me on the field, ‘Jew bastard’ off it. Things changed after they switched me to free safety and found out the Jew liked to hit.”

“Chip on your shoulder, huh? That makes us kindred spirits. Did you play ball in college?”

“I wanted to, but the Pentagon ordered me not to play. Guess they were afraid of concussions damaging the old noggin.”

“The Pentagon?”

“My uncle was a general, a bigwig with DARPA. When I was fourteen I created an algorithm for a video game that ended up being used to train gamers to fly military drones. Three years later my uncle was placed in charge of a top-secret initiative, called Omega. I left school during my sophomore year in college to work with his team.”