Stadium: A Short Story

by Moon, Scott

  She opened the inner gate and crossed no man's land. Energy tingled up her spine as she came as close to a human as she had in months. He didn't move. Perhaps that was why she risked contact. The nearer she came, the older she thought he was. The Armageddon Cloud spared the young and the old, but there were exceptions. K. K. didn't consider herself old, but here she was. Several times on the way to the man's side, she hesitated.

  "No closer. I need to concentrate," he said.

  K. K. nodded, then shook her head at her foolishness.

  "What do you know about this motor gang?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she said. "They kill coyotes at night."

  The man chuckled. "Look at them,” he said. Then he moved his left hand without changing the attitude of his body or his rifle at all. He patted a pair of binoculars.

  K. K. didn't need his help, not now. She saw what he meant. Boys and girls rode the four-wheelers, motorcycles, and dune buggies. Some of them couldn't be older than eleven or twelve. A few were teenagers.

  "They are the same as the Mother's Brood," she said.

  The man tilted his head a fraction of an inch, as though he was almost turning to look back at her. "Is that what you call her?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Interesting." He focused on the motor gang, then squeezed the trigger.

  K. K. assumed he pulled the trigger, because the big rifle recoiled into his shoulder. Red dust exploded under the end of the rifle barrel.

  She looked to see if he hit but couldn't tell. If a rider was down, they had left him or her behind.

  He fired again and again and again, then stopped. "They will be at your fence soon. It is time for you to decide."

  K. K. retreated to her inner sanctum and locked the gate. She felt awkward and foolish. The man had been a soldier. A chain-link fence would never stop him.

  "Thanks for killing my dogs, you fucking asshole."

  He got up and looked back then. His face was sad, sun-burned, and painted with self-made camouflage. "They were good dogs."

  "Are you going to kill me too?" she asked.

  "Are you a good dog?"

  His words hurt. She ran to her tent and cried for her dogs, crumpling inward like she hadn't when the end times began. Watching a town of people die outside of her various strongholds, losing valuable stockpiles to earthquakes and animals, setting her own broken leg — none of it had made her cry like this. She wondered what happened to her son and daughter on the East Coast or her mother and stepfather wherever they had been at the end, but had never cried for them. That was like admitting they were dead.

  The soldier ignored her emotional Armageddon. She knew because he was shooting with his big rifle, killing one tribe of kids before they murdered their pedestrian rivals.

  Time passed.

  The shooting stopped.

  A single motorcycle vanished into the sunset.

  The Mother and her children pushed on the outer gate until the soldier man walked with his prosthetic legs to open it.

  #

  The Mother's voice cut through K. K.'s anguish over the death of Titan, Balrog, and Benji — the last of her dogs. Titan had been gentle until pushed into a corner. Balrog, the mongrel Wolfhound, had snarled as the stranger in black moved in for the kill. Benji went silently in the night, probably licking the sniper's face even after the boot knife plunged into his throat.

  K. K. pumped a shotgun shell into the Mossberg, aimed, squeezed the trigger, then released the pressure as the Mother spoke again.

  "He is my guard dog," she said, moving between K. K. and the man. "He's the last man on Earth, or this continent, I bet. Let us in. You don't want to be alone."

  Despite all that had happened K. K. knew what she wanted. "Take your children and go. Leave your guard dog. I have a grave to fill."

  "What kind of person are you?" the Mother asked. "We are the last people for a thousand miles!"

  The man looked over the Mother's shoulder. He didn't move. He held her gaze.

  "You don't feel guilty for wanting to be alone?" he asked.

  K. K. glared, then relaxed. Breathing seemed easier. "No."

  Several moments passed.

  "Come on, Mother. There are more defensible places between here and Wichita."

  "I'm not your mother," the Mother said.

  "That's what I call you," he said, guiding her toward the restless mob of hungry children.

  "Since when?" the Mother asked.

  K. K. held a warm, unopened beer in her left hand as she watched them move away. Her right hand hung on the strap that held the shotgun over her shoulder.

  A shooting star slashed open the sky that night. A pair of coyotes howled. There had been hundreds of the things out there. That night and the next day and the night after that, there was no music on the PA, no dogs begging for scraps.

  There was, however, the sound of engines at the edge of hearing and something that might have been a rifle shot.

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