Carolina

After the bomb, there was only one town left. In the distance you could see it. The entire electrical grid had been scrambled, some towns had lights for one minute while other parts were dark.
"I want you to keep that door locked and don't let no one in. You hear me? No one! I got word from the sheriff that there's enough heathens left from that explosion to fill a ballroom and we only got enough food in this house for us," Greg explained to his wife.
"I do what I want, Greg, all them there heathens is the cause of the people we voted in power. If one come, I'm gon feed em. You do what you won't. You ain't nothin but a ruthless bastard anyway. I only married you cuz of that damn stubborn preacher," Vickie replied.
Greg threw down his gun and pushed her up against the wall,
"Now you listen to me and you listen to me good, I don't got time for your stupidity. Right now it's about survival. I'm the man in this house and if I say don't let them in here, then you listen to what I say."
When he let go to pick up his weapon, Vickie grabbed a pot off of the counter and cracked it over Greg's head౼knocking him out. She then heard someone at the front door. She proceeded to answer when her daughter came running into the kitchen.
"It's one of them, mama, it's one of them. What we gonna do? Daddy said not to let them in," Shanna said, trembling from the waist up.
Peeking out of the window, Vickie took hold of Greg's gun.
"Well I ain't 'yo daddy, 'Izz feel real sorry for folks who ain't don no harm to nobody. Them folks 'is innocent. Now I want you to make some room at the table. God loves all his people," Vickie said, reaching for the doorknob.
Shanna looked down at Greg laying on the floor, "But what about daddy?"
"You do as I say. Daddy ain't got nothin to do with this. He, the sheriff, and all the men of Carolina ain't nothin but some ruthless bastards, who only care about themselves. They don got everybody all revved up and now they wanna starve people who just wanna eat. They the cause of this. You hear me? They started this mess," Vickie explained to Shanna.
Hearing another knock, she lifted the chain lock off of the steal door. When she opened it, she noticed a little girl and her mother.
"Mam, wez' got nowhere to go. Wez' got no food. Please help us," the woman said.
Vickie opened up the screen door and welcomed them in.
Shanna came rushing from the kitchen, "The table is ready momma."
Vickie put down the gun and they all walked to the dinner table to eat what she had been cooking before her and Greg started arguing.
While eating, Shanna noticed Greg with her peripheral vision, he was rubbing his head with his gun pointed in their direction.
"Vickie, I told you, you damn women don't listen to nothin a man say. Now I want you folks out of my house," Greg said while waving his gun in the poor woman's direction.
Vickie stood up, "Ya'll ain't got to go nowhere. If they go, I'm goin with them."
"Daddy, put down the gun, please," Shanna said.
Greg looked at his daughter and glanced at the woman with her child.
With his gun in one hand, he fell up against the wall, rubbing his head with his other hand.
"It's hard ain't it Greg. It's hard takin' on the problems that y'all caused. Now you gon, have to man-up and hunt for a family of five now," Vickie said as she sat back down to finish her meal.
Greg slide with his back against the wall down to the floor holding his gun. While he watched them all eat, his eyes began to water. Everything that he and the men were fighting for had resulted to nothing. For all they had been fighting for was no more. All that had been left of Carolina was a vision to protect the region from being divided, but the state of Carolina had one problem: The poor and unfortunate had gotten stuck in the middle of a fight between the middle class and the rich. In the midst of the madness, Greg sat there on the floor with no choice but having to face the reality that no matter how hard men fought, the poor and innocent were always there to pickup what was left over and until they too became fat off of the land, they took every handout given to them until they themselves became the providers.
As the war between the middle class and rich ended, this is all that was left of Carolina. Nothing changed. It only got worse.