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  To the magnificent reflection we behold when we look into the mirror.

  PROLOGUE

  JULY 21, 2030

  Cassandra sat still in a red cedar tree as she waited for a rabbit or a mouse or any small animal to wander by. The food was running out, and her clan badly needed new provisions. No one had eaten meat in two weeks. Over the last twelve months, hunting had become more and more difficult. The Great Disruption of 2027 had forced most of the wildlife in the Ozark National Forest to migrate south for water and a more hospitable climate. What animals remained had largely perished from lack of water and the influx of people who had taken refuge in the forest, desperate for food.

  Although the leafy branches of the trees provided some protection from the noon sun, it was a hot summer day, and Cassandra could feel the sweat on her brow. She reached into the satchel she wore looped over her shoulder and across her chest and pulled out a cloth to wipe her face. Then she froze, hearing the sound of cracking twigs.

  “Do you hear that, Cassie?” a deep voice asked quietly from another branch, a few feet above Cassandra.

  “Yes, RJ,” Cassandra whispered back as she readied her rifle. This was what they’d been waiting for all morning. The sounds of crackling brush and breaking branches indicated something was approaching from the west. The noise was loud enough to suggest multiple targets and enough meat for most of their clan. Cassandra repositioned herself to get a better look at their prey.

  A man was coming in their direction; Cassandra’s heart fell at the sight of him. Large, long-haired, and bearded. Cassandra slowly leaned back, pressing her shoulders against the trunk of the tree, gladly giving up her view for better cover. She took a deep breath. She’d thought her clan had moved a safe distance from the Beariman clan, whose reputation for viciousness was well-known. They weren’t hunters, they were killers.

  “RJ,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

  “What do you see? Is it a deer? How many?”

  “Forgotten Ones. From the Beariman clan. Quiet.”

  RJ gritted his teeth in silence, narrowing his eyes. As much as he might have wanted to take down a member or two of the Bearimans, he knew this wasn’t the right time and place. Not with Cassie here.

  Cassandra’s heart beat faster. The heat from the sun seemed to become more intense, as sweat on her forehead began to roll down her face. She did not dare wipe it off with the rag in her hand.

  Cassandra hated what the Great Disruption had done to people. Turned them into savages who stole or killed to get what they needed, brutes who would do anything to survive. Cassandra didn’t judge them, though; in her heart, she knew she was not far away from becoming another casualty of the times. She’d found a group of survivors who still valued the rules of a civil society. But with their food supply dwindling each day, she wondered how much longer they would be able to maintain that sense of community.

  The Great Disruption had thrown the world into chaos. It began when the decades-long financial turmoil and political unrest became much more widespread and turned more violent. The first effective worldwide civil war had begun. Then a Carrington-class solar storm struck the earth, knocking satellites out of their orbits and taking down electrical grids, power stations, and communication systems. It seemed as if the Mayan gods had played a dirty trick on humanity, delaying the end of the world, which they had predicted for 2012, by fifteen years. Then, on December 21, 2027, as in the final scene of a Shakespearean tragedy, the earth shifted four degrees south on its axis. Over the next three months, weather and temperature patterns across the globe changed. The once-lush Ozark National Forest turned sere. Wildlife fled the arid landscape, and wildfires became constant. Earthquakes shook all seven continents, causing tsunamis that depopulated islands and ravaged coastlines.

  In less than one year, the world lost almost half of its population, and the survivors, many of whom did not consider themselves the lucky ones, lost their way. The lives that people had once complained about seemed idyllic compared with this new world.

  “Here they come,” Cassandra whispered.

  She and RJ watched as ten men and three women walked in single file along the dirt path below them. They all wore necklaces made of small animal bones, which clanked as they walked, and black bandanas tied around their right thighs. The men’s and women’s heads were shaved except for a double trail of hair along the right and left sides. The clansmen had rifles slung over their shoulders and flare guns clipped to their belts. They used the flares to signal others that a target was nearby and being pursued.

  Cassandra saw that most of the men were carrying government-issued ration boxes. The spoils of a raid, she knew. How many had died for that? Cassandra noticed something fall from the belt of the last man in the troop, but she was too far away to see exactly what it was. She and RJ remained still for several minutes after the Bearimans passed.

  When Cassandra could no longer hear their steps in the brush, she secured her rifle around her shoulder and climbed down the tree, jumping the last five feet to the ground.

  RJ followed her. “That was close,” he said.

  “Too close,” Cassandra said, picking up a small black pouch that one of the Beariman men had dropped. “It’s one of their flare pistols. And two cartridges.”

  “Little good that’s gonna do us. We can’t eat it,” RJ said. “Besides, we’re trying to keep away from them, not draw their attention.”

  Still, Cassandra put the black pouch into her satchel. “Another empty-handed day,” she said, looking around. “We need to get to the rendezvous stump so we don’t miss our ride. It’s a long walk home.” She adjusted the piece of rope that tied back her long blond hair.

  “We can’t go back yet,” RJ said. “We haven’t eaten anything substantial in a week.”

  “I know, RJ. But maybe the others found something. Maybe a freshwater lake and some fish. You never know.”

  RJ shook his head. “What are the odds of that? The streams are down to a trickle, and the lakes barely sustain the algae. We need to keep hunting.”

  “But not here, not with the Beariman clan wandering around.” Cassandra sighed. She looked at the slowly decaying forest around them. “Maybe we have to seriously consider moving on. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it might be time to make our way to Dallas.”

  “No!” RJ glared at her. “The cities are still filled with fascist pigs. People who once lived in the lap of luxury while the rest of us got our hands dirty so they could buy their pricey shoes and drink their thousand-dollar bottles of wine. Do you think anything has changed?” Cassandra didn’t answer. “Those people still think they’re better than everyone else. I guarantee you they’ll still be trying to figure out how to have more than everyone else.”

  “You can’t know that,” Cassandra countered.

  “Greed is greed,” said RJ, “and those people ain’t gonna change. We need to let them kill each other off before we go back to the cities. Until then, we take our chances out here where the rules are clear. You know the others agree with me.”

  A rustling sound came from their right. Cassandra and RJ turned; a jackrabbit was darting out from under a pile of broken branches. RJ ran after it, and Cassandra started to follow before deciding not to waste her energy. RJ didn’t need her help to catch a rabbit, and they had to stay on the trail to
get to the rendezvous point. She sat down on a large fallen tree limb. She placed her rifle next to her and took the black pouch she had found out of her satchel. She let out her breath lightly, and then it caught, as the blade of a knife was suddenly pressed to her throat.

  “Hey, girl,” said a hoarse male voice behind her. The large blade of the hunting knife pressed against the bottom of her chin, indicating that she should stand up. “I see you found my pouch.” He slipped a muscular arm around Cassandra’s waist and held her tightly against him, his foul odor threatening to overwhelm her. He reached into her satchel and groped around. “Now, what’s a pretty thing like you doing out here all alone . . . ?”

  Cassandra stiffened.

  “She ain’t alone.”

  Cassandra heard RJ’s voice. The knife retreated from her throat, and she pulled away from the man. Turning, she saw RJ standing with his own knife pressed to the clansman’s throat. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, her voice still trembling.

  RJ didn’t budge. “Apologize to her,” he said, pressing the knife harder on the man’s throat. “Apologize, and maybe I’ll let you go.”

  “Sorry,” the man said quickly.

  “I don’t think you really mean that,” RJ said, tightening his grip. “I hope your sins don’t keep you from heaven’s gates.”

  “RJ! No!” Cassandra yelled.

  But it was too late. RJ slid his blade across the man’s throat. Blood spurted from the man’s neck, and then it gushed, streaming down his chest and shoulders. RJ released his grip, and the man fell to the ground, gurgling. Then RJ kneeled at the man’s side, wiping the blood from his knife onto his shirt. “You shouldn’t have touched her,” he said. He put the knife back into the sheath he wore on his ankle, then looked up at Cassandra, who was still stunned. “Don’t worry, Cassie. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.” RJ yanked the necklace of bones from the man’s neck and put it in his pocket. “Now let’s get out of here,” he said with a smile, holding up a dead jackrabbit.

  They walked in silence. Cassandra still couldn’t say a word to RJ, and she kept ahead of him so as not to have to look at his bloodstained shirt.

  After a half hour, they reached the rendezvous stump. Cassandra, RJ, and four other hunters jumped into the bed of a silver pickup while two others got into the cab. They drove six miles down a dirt road until they arrived at the encampment.

  “Looks like it’s going to be another night of root vegetables and berries,” said Allen, the leader of the group meeting the truck. He looked at RJ’s meager snag and the empty hands of the other hunters.

  “Slim pickings out there,” RJ said, handing the dead rabbit to Allen’s wife, Mary, who was in charge of provisions.

  “Doesn’t look like this rabbit ate any better in the last few months than we did,” she said. “Well, we’ll do what we can to get everyone fed tonight.”

  Allen looked at RJ’s shirt. “A lot of blood for such a skinny rabbit,” he said.

  RJ smiled, launching into an account of their encounter with the Beariman clan and boastfully displaying the necklace of bones. Cassandra walked away without adding a word.

  The encampment included about three hundred people. Some lived in teepees, and most lived in tents. A few of the less fortunate occupied pieced-together plywood and tin-roof shelters. Such a scene was not uncommon after the Great Disruption. In the spring of 2028, a year after the devastation started, rumors circulated that what few government institutions remained were organizing reconstruction efforts. But as time passed, their priorities became clearer. Resources were being directed to the big cities that hadn’t been altogether wiped out, and the people in rural areas were left to fend for themselves. They called themselves the Forgotten Ones, because they believed their government had forgotten them.

  Discouraged and tired, Cassandra entered her tent, which was pitched under the canopy of a white oak tree. She ate the last of her fireweed, a wild plant that had some nutrients and could be easily digested, and then lay down on her bedroll. A green and yellow checkered blanket had been folded up for use as a pillow. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a disturbed sleep, haunted by RJ’s deed. She saw a row of shrouded bodies lying on the forest floor and a man walking from body to body, peeking under each shroud, saying, “Cassandra? Cassandra?” It was her father; he was searching for her.

  “Daddy!” she called, but he didn’t seem to hear her. “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Over here, Mel,” a female voice said. “I found him.”

  Cassandra looked to her left and saw her mother kneeling next to the dead body of Cassandra’s younger brother, Tony. A bloody sheet had been pulled back from his face. Cassandra’s father walked over and knelt down next to his wife, his face overcome with grief.

  “We need to find Cass,” Cassandra’s mother said. “We need to find her before it’s too late.”

  Suddenly, Cassandra saw four members of the Beariman clan approaching her parents from behind, their knives out and readied. “Mom! Dad!” Cassandra screamed, but she couldn’t move. She screamed again, this time loudly enough to wake from her nightmare. She sat upright, gasping for air. She covered her face with her hands, wishing she were back in her old life, with her parents, her brother, and her friends. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand to live in this brutal new world.

  She got up and opened a waterproof box containing her few possessions. She took out a voice recorder she had found in an abandoned electronics store in her hometown of Vickery Meadow, a suburb of Little Rock, and a stash of AA batteries, which she kept hidden from the others—they were a valuable commodity these days. Every evening, Cassandra recorded what had happened that day; it was the closest thing she had to a journal.

  I know RJ saved my life today, and I’m grateful. But even after everything I’ve witnessed, it was still horrible to see the blood pouring out of that man, to see him collapse gurgling on the ground. I’ve never seen eyes as cold as RJ’s when he said that thing about sins and heaven’s gates before killing the man. There was no remorse in them, no sorrow. I hope I never see those eyes again.

  What is happening to us? We have to get back to civilization. I only hope I can convince the others tonight that it’s time for us to move to a city. We’re running out of time.

  Cassandra turned off her recorder, and her thoughts returned to her parents and brother. She hadn’t seen them in close to three years. She didn’t know if they were dead or alive. As in her dream, they could still be looking for her, still trying to make their way back from New York, where they had been when the solar storm started, changing the world forever. Cassandra knew part of the reason she was so anxious to get to a city was that she believed she stood a better chance of finding them if she did.

  She heard the familiar sound of fiddle music. It never failed to raise her spirits. Hank, the fiddler, was a white-haired, apple-cheeked man in his eighties who had been a famous bluegrass musician before the Great Disruption. Every evening, he played a lively little tune to let people know when supper was ready. Cassandra grabbed her wooden bowl and silver spoon and left her tent. She was joined immediately by RJ, who always seemed to be waiting by her tent to escort her to supper. He had changed his shirt and was wearing a bright red bandana on his head. The sun was setting, and a welcome breeze was chasing away the heat of the day.

  As Cassandra and RJ waited in the food line, he looked annoyed. “This line gets longer every week.”

  “People all over are hungry,” Cassandra said.

  “Yeah, well, we can’t take care of everyone. We need to start turning them away.”

  “Turning them away? To what? Death? We’re all in this together. Why, I don’t know, but we are.”

  “It’s either us or them,” RJ said.

  Cassandra did not reply. She knew that there was some truth to what RJ was saying. Each week, more and more Forgotten Ones joined their clan, known as the Osagy, named after the original Indian tribe that inhabited the Ozark f
orest. Unlike the Beariman clan, the Osagy never turned anyone away. But each additional person meant more strain on their already limited resources. Pretty soon the system was going to break, and people would begin to starve.

  Cassandra put on a smile as she accepted her paltry meal. It was a broth made from root vegetables spiced with seasonings pillaged from abandoned supermarkets. The mood at the encampment was grim. It had been that way for some time. This was the seventh day without anything substantial to eat, and there was little hope for more anytime soon.

  Cassandra and RJ took their usual seats with the leaders of the clan, four men and four women.

  “We need to pick up camp and find another spot,” Allen said.

  “Agreed,” said Mary, who was sitting next to him. “After RJ and Cassandra’s Beariman encounter this morning, I’d say that they’re getting too close for comfort.”

  This was the opportunity that Cassandra was hoping for. “Where will we go?” she asked.

  “South,” a man at the table answered. “Follow the animals. They are moving south, and so should we.”

  “What about going west to Dallas or north to St. Louis or Chicago?” Cassandra suggested. “Maybe it’s time to see if the government—” She was interrupted by protests from the other people at the table.

  “Don’t talk about the government,” a woman named Beth said. “They helped get us into this mess.”

  Others at the table nodded their agreement, including RJ. “Maybe we need to take matters into our own hands,” RJ said in a voice that quieted the others. “Maybe the Beariman clan has it right. We’re seeing more and more armed government transports traveling up and down Route Forty. Instead of letting them take over again, let’s stake our claim.”

  “We don’t know that they’re taking over,” Cassandra said. “They could simply be transporting supplies to people in need.”

  RJ shook his head. “The Bearimans take what they need, is all I’m saying. Maybe we need to do the same.” RJ grabbed the barrel of his shotgun, hinting at what he meant. “It was the sins of the government that put us here. Time for us to collect,” he added with a smile.