One Second After – Week 4

Wowza, hold onto your hats folks! This weeks adventure is a topsy-turvy one for sure!

John and the militia are embroiled in the battle of their lives. They are determined to save their town and save their friends and family. The Posse on the other hand are determined to wipe them all out for the few mouthfuls of food that they have remaining… and of course the remaining flesh on their bodies. With severe casualties and hand to hand combat, the local militia come out on top. The losses though are beyond what anyone could have imagined. Sgt. Washington is killed in the fighting, along with several students, and most of the Posse are wiped out. A few manage to escape, but the majority of the Posse who were captured after the fighting were executed, with just a small handful being allowed to leave.

John is concerned about the protection of the town. With Charlie gone, killed in the fighting, John is now the top dog in town. He is entrusted to keep the town safe, fed and as healthy as possible. Doctor Keller has expressed concerns for the next round of deaths which are sure to hit the town, from disease, and winter has yet to hit. Keeping the majority alive is the biggest problem they are facing.

The hardest part through everything is knowing that his little girl is slowly dying, and there is nothing that he can do about it. Medication is just about gone, and there is no chance to get anything from anywhere else. For the time being its just a waiting game, and doing the best they can to make sure that those that can live, will.

Just when it seems all is lost…

This week we are reading Chapters 10- Epilogue 

Questions:

1. The Posse poses one of the biggest threats to Black Mountain that they have faced yet. Do you think that the town will be able to withstand the attack and the after affects that are sure to follow?
2. Death from plague is something that is new. The town doctors are relating the diseases to the Medieval Ages and the terror that was unleashed there. Just how many are going to die, and is there anything that the town can do about it?
3. This book hits home many uncomfortable things that we are not used to. If an EMP was to go off over the United States, just how many Americans do you think would survive, and how long would the United States withstand anything like the Posse?

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Some thoughts from the book:

I hope that you enjoyed this read. It was one of the more emotional ones that we have done so far. I will admit that this book made me cry, laugh, and shake with fury. I found myself looking at the future of the United States and wondering how soon something like this could happen. It is scary to think just how fast humans will turn on one another, and instead of banding together for the betterment, tearing each other down and survival of the fittest coming along. Don’t get me wrong, should something like this happen, I would want to make sure that my family was taken care of before anyone else, but through the glimpses of the outside world that we get through the eyes of John and those from Black Mountain, most would do anything that they could to make sure that they would survive for as long as possible, no matter the cost to anyone else. The struggle with the children and the death of John’s daughter hit me harder than most other things in the book. Putting myself in his situation, looking at my own children, how hard that must have been, and hoping that we never have to face anything like this in the future.

We cannot be sure that we WONT face anything like this, but the question does remain: Just how prepared are we? How long COULD we survive something like this!? In the age of electronics and the dependence that we have on them, just how long could we as human beings survive?

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