Chapter 17

Caleb Vance sat before the campfire, his eyes fixed on the flickering orange tongues of heat. With a slow, rhythmic motion of his wrist, he rotated a wooden spit. A rabbit leg sizzled over the embers, dripping fat that hissed as it struck the glowing coals. It was the twenty-ninth day since the world had ended, or at least since his world had been replaced by this savage, system-driven reality. He didn't move much. He just watched the meat brown. The silence of the forest was thick, held at...