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humanity.  Houses stand, overgrown.  I imagine another few decades and these will be completely gone.  Even now, as I walk up what once was a quiet street just outside of town, I can see the blacktop bleaching grey and grasses poking through cracks at either side.  How long before this is consumed?  The climate here is near Mediterranean; virtually no chance of frost.  Rains in the winter here cause the earth to run, to flood in places, to erase more of our waste--to cleanse.
         I tramp along at a nice clip.  I assume that I have attracted most of the stragglers in this area.  I come to a “T” intersection now which connects the main road I have been avoiding to the street I am on.  I am only a few hundred yards from Main Street now; the town being just over the next rise.  What I behold in the distance makes my heart beat faster.  Where I have expected ruin and emptiness, I now behold a…stockade, a fence constructed of junk.   
         An eighteen wheeler is parked across the road.  Dirt has been packed beneath it mixed with rubble and cinder blocks.  Old telephone poles fill the space to the left and right bound with chain link fence and corrugated pieces of tin roof.  It stretches to either side and incorporates buildings and homes that are boarded up. Spinning at different speeds on the other side are a handful of windmills.  There are people standing on the roofs of the buildings next to the eighteen wheeler.
         I drop flat and consider my options.  I probably haven’t been seen, dressed as I am, and at this distance.  Even if I have been spied, I doubt they will think more of me than a walking corpse that tripped and remained on the ground.  I can turn back now, head for the barn and call this trip over, or I can walk to town and see what is going on.  The sentries have guns, but they are living in a town, settled, not scavenging around my home.  I am not lonely, exactly, but I wouldn’t mind information and company of the right sort.
         I decide then to do this.  I will circle wide of the town and travel back on the road from the other direction.  I will offer that I am a drifter from further west or a hold out from the next town over looking for trade.  I am not too worried that anyone from before will recognize me.  Besides, I have grown this rather impressive beard over the past few years.  In Cognito.
         The sun is high in the sky when, finally, I walk up to the opposite side of town and approach the gate.   The walk has been easy on the blacktop, and I haven’t seen anyone, alive or dead, on the road.  I guess that the absence of cars on the road explains some of the fortifications.
         I have my AK slung low and hanging on my back, right hip, point down.  I amble on with a sturdy walking stick I’ve hacked from the brush earlier, and try, as I draw up to the chain link fence, to appear friendly.
         A man steps out from behind the fence and holds up his hand for me to stop when I am about ten feet back.  He wears faded denim jeans, cowboy boots, and a black and green flannel shirt.  He tips back his black Stetson and smiles.
         “Morning,” he hails me.  “You been out this way before?”
         I stop, smile back and shake my head.  “Nope, just passing by and I wasn’t expecting all this.”
         I wave an arm across the wall and fence.  “What is this place?”
         The man has his own AK and keeps his hands on it, pointed at the ground before him.  It takes him a moment to reply and I wonder if he knows the answer himself.  “This place used to be called Selma.  We renamed it Salem when we came back.  Bryce says that means ‘peace’ and that’s what we crave here.  As long as you don’t cause any trouble or bring any with you, you’re welcome to trade or rest or whatever.”
         He looks me up and down as if re-considering.  “There’s no law here, but if you kill or steal,