CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

The collection concludes with a novella, “Bounty,” which takes up about half of the page count of the book. The setting for the novella is a near-future, post-apocalyptic version of America, and begins in the U.S. Northeast. A contagion that causes people to physically mutate, the origin of which is never explained, sends the country into disarray. The country’s populace is thus divided into two groups: “Normals” and “Flaweds.” Flaweds are subject to enslavement. At the outset of the story, Normals are voting as to whether or not to give Flaweds the “right” to procreate. The Normals vote against this.

The novella opens at a themepark-like castle called BountyLand, at which the 30-year-old protagonist and his sister, Connie, work. Wealthy Normals visit BountyLand to experience life during the Middle Ages.

The protagonist and Connie have wound up here after they and their parents fled their home. When the protagonist and Connie were still children, roving gangs moved from house to house, “blockad[ing] the home of any family with a Flawed member” (106). A neighbor kills and cooks the family’s dog and eats in front of them. The gangs have “guns and riding crops and mortars,” along with “a high moral purpose” (106).