At first, no one really knew who Peter was talking about.
When he asked about the hunter who said he felt energy after eating the buck, most people gave him odd looks. A few just shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing—stacking wood, sorting supplies, sitting quietly like they were waiting for something to start or end.
Apparently, the news wasn't very well known, and people were ignorant of the fact their food could possibly have changed—probably because they were still eating "normal" food. Canned stuff. Bags of chips. Bread when they could get it. Most of them hadn't had the game meat yet.
Peter didn't care. He felt like time was running short. Not in a vague, anxious way—but real, practical. He didn't think things were going to get better. There wasn't going to be a return to how it was. No lights flicking back on. No cleanup crews. No "all clear" broadcast from somewhere safe. If anything, it would keep getting worse. So he didn't bother with politeness. He just kept asking.
He worked his way through town, block by block. People stood in loose groups, cleaning fish, boiling water, hammering together benches out of broken pallets. Some ignored him. Some shook their heads. A few waved him off without saying anything.
Then he stopped a guy leaning against the side of a cinderblock shed. Full camo, face streaked with dark paint, a bow strapped across his back. Definitely looked like a hunter.
Peter asked about the energy—how someone said they'd felt it after eating the deer.
The man grinned.
Then he let out a short laugh, not mean, not friendly either. More like someone enjoying a private joke.
"You mean Crazy Jud?" he said. "No idea where he's at."
He adjusted the strap on his bow and walked off without another word.
That wasn't a positive sign, Peter thought, watching the hunter walk away.
About fifteen minutes later, he finally got a solid lead.
She was sitting outside an old brick house near the middle of town. The building looked like it used to be something—maybe a corner store or a post office—but now it was just a house with a faded, hand-painted sign nailed to the wall. The paint was almost gone. A few plastic chairs sat off to the side, and a rusted watering can leaned against the step.
The woman was maybe in her nineties. Short, thin, her gray hair pulled back. She sat on a folding stool just outside the doorway, shelling something into a metal bowl. Her hands worked quick and steady.
She looked surprisingly spry, Peter thought. Alert, clear in the eyes. Probably sharper than most people he'd talked to all day.
Then again, a lot of people seemed that way since the energy came.
Peter felt it himself. He didn't get tired like before. He got up in the morning without dragging. His head felt clearer. He moved with more purpose, like his body just had more in it now.
He stepped up to her.
"Oh, you must mean little Jud," she said. "He lives at the edge of town. Green house with the semi in the long driveway. It's kinda by itself, that way." She pointed east.
Peter walked east, past a few sagging houses and a chain-link fence tangled with weeds. The town thinned out as he went—more space between buildings, more overgrowth, more silence. Eventually, he saw the house.
It matched the description, mostly. Though in Peter's opinion, the green was more teal. A dull, weather-faded teal that might've been brighter once, but now looked like it had been washed out by a decade of sun and wind. The trim had started peeling, the corners of the roof dipped slightly, and the gutters were hanging crooked in two spots. One shutter had fallen halfway off a window and was resting at a slant. The front steps looked soft—wood worn pale from exposure.
The lawn was long. Not just uncut like most places since the world went sideways, but already wild-looking before things collapsed. Tall grass and prickly weeds reached past Peter's knees as he stepped off the road. There were beer bottles in the brush and a plastic grocery bag caught on a branch.
In contrast, the semi in the driveway looked almost out of place—clean, well-kept, and newer than anything else on the block. It was a Volvo sleeper cab, pale blue with chrome along the front grille and sides. The windshield was still clear, not caked with dirt or cracked like most parked vehicles Peter had seen lately. The cab had a raised roofline behind the driver's seat—probably a bunk inside, maybe even a small compartment for supplies. Someone had taken care of it.
Peter slowed down as he approached. The house might've looked like it was falling apart, but the truck said someone was still around.
Peter sighed. He was probably a block from the border of town.
They'd started calling it the circle—an outer ring people had put together by dragging cars into place with horses. What started as a loose perimeter was getting sturdier. People were stacking crates, bolting on metal sheets, trying to make something that could hold if anything pushed through. It wasn't perfect, but it looked better than it had a week ago.
That was probably what his dad was helping with, Peter guessed. He hadn't asked, but it made sense.
He looked back once, then turned toward the house again.
Peter stepped up to the front door. The paint was the same dull teal as the rest of the house, but most of it had flaked away around the edges, especially near the handle where the bare metal showed through. A long scratch curved across the middle panel, like someone had dragged a key or a nail in a wide, slow circle. The doorbell had a small hole where the button used to be—wires poked out, stiff and corroded.
He raised his hand and knocked twice. A hollow sound echoed inside.
No answer.
He waited, then knocked again—harder this time. Still nothing.
He stood there for a moment, hand still resting near the frame. The house was quiet, not abandoned—just still. Maybe the guy was out. Hunting, maybe.
Then he caught a smell on the breeze.
Something cooking. Fat and char. Smoke and meat. It wasn't strong, but it was clear enough.
Peter followed the scent along the side of the house, stepping through the grass and around a stack of old tires. The back opened into a narrow clearing where the yard dipped slightly. A ring of mismatched bricks and rusted engine parts had been arranged into a fire pit, and smoke rose low and steady from a bed of glowing coals.
The rest of the lawn was overgrown—long grass, tall weeds, and scattered junk—but around the fire pit, the grass was trimmed short, clean. Someone had taken time to clear it, make a space. A folding chair sat off to one side, next to a dented metal cooler and a wooden crate with tools piled on top. A hatchet was sunk into the stump of a low tree.
Over the fire, a round metal grate had been mounted onto a welded frame—probably scrap from an old grill. The blackened grate sagged slightly in the middle, its surface coated in old grease and fresh drippings. Below it, a bed of glowing charcoal sat in a rusted-out oil drum that had been cut in half and mounted on legs. Smoke curled upward in slow twists as the fat hit the coals.
A man was crouched next to it, one hand on his knee, the other turning meat with the edge of a flattened fork. The strips sizzled and curled as he flipped them—thin slices, maybe venison, maybe something else.
He wore a sun-bleached muscle shirt and camo pants tucked into worn black boots. His arms were lean and tight, more wire than bulk. Red hair stuck out under a backwards cap, and his beard was long and patchy. A folding knife hung from his belt.
He hadn't noticed Peter yet. Just kept his eyes on the meat, adjusting coals with a stick and tapping ash from the edge of the grate.
Peter took a breath.
The old woman had called him "Little Jud," like she still pictured some lanky kid riding his bike down the street. Peter hoped that version was closer to the truth—someone decent, someone who could talk—rather than the way that other hunter had said it. Crazy Jud.
He stepped forward, boots brushing over the trimmed grass, and went to introduce himself.