“I’ll help myself.” There were tears in her voice.
If it threw off her aim enough, her sobbing might just save his life. He considered provoking the tears. Several things came to mind that he could say to encourage her hysterics: “Who did you lose?” “Was he/she a good person?” “But, you survived. That’s gotta make you feel pretty bad.” “Sucks to be you.”
He dismissed these as risky and just plain cruel.
She slid the bolt back on the rifle. A large round entered the chamber.
He dove as hard as he could and almost landed behind the brick wall.
The shot erupted a plume of ash where he had stood moments before.
He scrambled to get behind the wall, but he had landed face first in the ash. Soot filled his eyes causing them to water. Blinking frantically, he wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands and succeeded in making his vision worse.
She worked the bolt.
He dove.
She fired.
The world went black.
NINE
Before the apocalypse, there was a certain dignity in having a quiet drink in one’s office. The day’s work accomplished, laid out before you, and a shot of bourbon or whiskey was a celebration of a job well done.
Mayor David Wilson realized that all the dignity was lost when drinking a batch of grain alcohol—made in the town’s spare bathtub—from a Gerber baby food jar.
He slammed the empty bottle on the desk and looked at the next one. Baby Bogey stared up at him from the metal lid—judging him.
Damn that baby, he thought as he uncapped and downed the shot in one fluid motion. The jar clanged on the desk next to the previous one setting off a chain reaction of chimes from the empty jars before him.
For seven years there was no celebration at the end of the day. If everyone was alive, it was a job well done. However, the daily task of presiding over the well-being of dozens of lives was taking its toll.
Now, it seemed that the citizens’ well-being may be out of his hands and thrust into the fate of a merciless world.
He stroked his chin and considered the plan. This Logan seemed to know his stuff. The defenses that the warrior had laid out were sound in theory, but a lot rode upon the people of New Hope; people that had never had to fight for their very survival.
Another Gerber baby gave him guilty looks as he unscrewed the cap and considered Roy’s plan. The coward of a councilman could be right this time. Perhaps the best decision was to run, to take what they could and go. They could restart somewhere else. South, maybe. They had built New Hope from a single old barn and a desire to be free. They could do it again.
He shook his head and thought that maybe the answer was at the bottom of another jar of baby food. The door to his office opened without a sound.
When he lowered the Gerber jar, his daughter stood before him, her arms crossed, her eyes stern.
“I’ve only had a couple. It’s been an ... interesting day.”
“Daddy,” she took a full baby food jar from his hands. “I want to talk about this stranger.”
Sarah Wilson looked like her mother, and the resemblance was uncanny when she was angry with her Daddy. Despite the lectures he would receive, the scolding he would take, he enjoyed every minute being told off because of the resemblance. His wife had been beautiful and his daughter was no different.
“I don’t trust him.” And, like her mother, she was never indirect.
“Why not?”
“It’s all a little too perfect, don’t you think?” She cleared off some of the empties and sat down on his desk.
“I’d hardly call the situation perfect.” The mayor realized that he had never questioned the validity of the stranger’s claims. The video had been proof enough. Hadn’t it?
“First of all, that other guy shows up. And he’s a moron—according to Mr. Tinner.”
“Sweetheart, call him Roy. It makes my skin crawl when you show him respect.”
“Roy,” she said through stern eyes that instructed him not to interrupt again. “Then this rugged man, a superhero by comparison, shows up moments later with news of impending doom. He all but forces us to let him stay. And then we put our safety in his hands.”
“I don’t see what you’re saying, dear.”
“It all seems too easy.”
He reached for another jar of booze; she moved it out of his reach. “Too easy? I’m exhausted by it. Besides, we asked him to help. He didn’t force anyone to do anything.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You said that already.”
“Daddy!”
“Princess, I understand your concern, but these are desperate times. Should these raiders, these bastards come this way ... it’s likely that I won’t have to live with the consequences. It’s you. They’ll be done with me and take you to God knows where to do God knows what. And God knows that I can’t let that happen.”
Sarah was quiet. She didn’t like being dismissed. Scooping the last few baby jars of booze from the desk, she made her way back to the door. It shook the walls of the partitioned office when it slammed behind her.
“I can’t lose you, too,” the mayor whispered after her. His head sunk into his hands, his fingers tore at his graying hair. With a broad stroke of his arm, he swept the empty baby jars from his desk.
They clattered as they hit the ground, but none broke. He sighed heavily and pulled a pickle jar from his desk drawer.
TEN
At first he was surprised that he came to at all. Soot covered him. His eyes were caked with the dried ash. Groaning as he rose, he pulled a handkerchief from his rear pocket and brushed the gray crust from his eyes. Once he could see, he realized that he had fallen inches short of the bulletproof safety of the brick wall.
“Your dog is a jerk,” she said. Her voice was close.
Pain shot through his head as he turned to face her for the first time.
She sat close, a few feet away; her legs were drawn up in front of her. Chewy sat across from the girl; the hunting rifle was locked in the dog’s mouth.
Fuzziness dominated his thoughts as he responded. “Yeah, but she’s man’s best jerk. Wait, that didn’t sound right.”
“Pervert.”
“That’s not what I meant. I was trying to say that ...” He leaned against the wall to clear his head. The brick structure he had sought for protection collapsed under his weight. He fought to maintain his balance. His arms pinwheeled. He thrust his hips with a rhythm that betrayed his dance talents as somewhere between “pathetic” and “high potential for injury.”
It was a fierce but brief struggle against gravity; he lost by a slight margin. He stood back up and tried to act as though nothing had happened.
She rolled her eyes.
Take away the dirt, the soot-gray tearstained cheeks, and ashen clothes, and there would be no denying the young woman’s beauty. Fierce eyes blazed through the dirt and dust to reveal a sharpness that could see beyond the immediate, the misleading, and drill to the truth in any person.
He sighed and forced a smile that would put her at ease. The pain made it difficult, but he managed. “Can me and my jerk help you?”
“Me? You’re the one who’s bleeding.”
Feeling the top of his head, he discovered a paste of ash and blood beneath his hair. Grinding the mixture between his fingers, he looked at her. “Did you shoot me?”
She huffed and gestured to the dog with the gun in its mouth. “You jumped into the wall, dumb ass.”
“Dumb ass? That’s hardly fair.”
“I told you to stay still.”
“So you could shoot me!”
She crossed her arms and pouted.
“Who are you?”
She pouted more.
“Please?”
She went into hyper-pout. He had seen it in children, but he was unaware that an adult was capable.
“Chewy. Give her the gun.”
The mastiff growled.
>
“Give it to her!”
The giant dog obeyed and dropped the gun at the young woman’s feet.
The lone survivor of Vita Nova looked at the ash-covered nomad. She cocked her head and half squinted at the man as he sat patting the dust from his jacket and jeans. Her confusion grew as he turned his back to her.
She reached for the gun.
Chewy put her paw on the weapon.
She looked at the dog then back to the nomad. “Erica. My name is Erica.”
The nomad nodded and Chewy removed her paw. “It’s just a pleasure to meet you, Erica.”
Erica picked up the rifle. “Ewww, it’s all drooly.”
“Erica, meet Chewy.”
The large dog woofed at the young woman and kept a wary eye on the gun as she wiped it clean. Erica made no move to arm the rifle.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“You can call me whatever you want. I’m a post ...”
“Dick.”
“Wait, I wasn’t ...”
“Whatever I want, Dick.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Jerry had never been married, but she gave him a look that he recognized as one a wife gave a husband when he had overstepped his bounds at a party. He relented and changed the subject. “What happened here?”
She began to tremble. Her voice came in spurts as she tried to explain while holding back tears. “A truck. A black truck. They crashed through our gates ... it was over in minutes.”
“A black truck?”
Erica lost her composure and broke down in complete tears. “Everybody. Everyone is gone. My friends. My little sister. They’re all gone.”
Running caused his head to ache every time his heel struck the ground, but he rushed to her side. He put a sooty arm around her. She shook.
Chewy worked her head under the crying girl’s hand.
Erica threw her arms around the dog and let the tears loose into the dog’s brindle fur.
Jerry stood and placed his hands on his hips. Chewy had stolen more than a few things off his plate in the years they had traveled together, but she had never been the first to console a crying woman.
Erica cried long and hard. She tried to speak, but only hysterical gibberish escaped her lips. It was almost fifteen minutes before intelligible words were spoken. “What am I supposed to do now? Where do I go?”
Jerry had been considering the situation since she started crying. Since she had gone on for so long, he had considered many options for her that covered everything from sitting there to discovering a method of time travel. But the most practical was the best solution.
“There’s a town a day or so down the road. It seemed nice. I can take you there.”
She didn’t say anything. She just nodded.
He offered his hand, but she refused. She stood on her own.
The ruins of her home surrounded her. Staying was not an option. Wind blew the ash into the air and stung at her eyes. Without a word she walked toward the red tricycle. Graceful and composed, she bent over and grabbed the handlebars. Setting the toy up on its wheels, she turned and walked silently past the two friends.
He watched her walk away. She was strong. He admired that. She would survive. No mutant, marauder, or black truck would be able to shake this woman now. She had lost everything she had known and everyone she had loved and stood tall and immovable. She would be fine.
“Erica. The truck is the other way.”
She fell to her knees and began to cry.
ELEVEN
What does one say to someone that just lost their family, friends, neighbors, and town in a raid by savages only a few years after the end of the world? Hallmark never even tried to lessen the blow of post-apocalyptic genocide. Browsing the racks, one would find a large gap in sentiments between “please curb your pet” and “probably not malignant.”
Should a card exist, Jerry pictured it featuring a cute kitten in a precarious situation with the headline, “Life isn’t prrrrfect.” He didn’t want to rule out a cute rhyme that expressed the same sentiment, but struggled to imagine a rhyme for “sister was burned alive.” If the kitten was the best Hallmark could do, he thought it was best to say nothing.
The trio walked towards the Dairy Queen. Erica trailed behind the nomad and his dog. Only the ground was at risk of being shot by the rifle held loosely in her hands. Her pace was even, but she walked with a stiffness and malaise. Her gaze never left the road ahead. There was no life in her eyes. There was only sorrow and some ash from her burned up hometown that had settled by the bridge of her nose. Her mother, any mother, would have called it “gunk.”
Throwing a regular glance back to the girl, Chewy would whimper and place her head under Jerry’s hand, encouraging the warrior to say something. There was no misinterpretation of the dog’s intent, but all he could do was scratch the large dog’s head.
“She’ll be okay, girl. It’ll just take time.”
Chewy sat down and just stared at him with a cocked head.
“What do you want me to say? Buck up little camper? Walk it off? Rub some dirt on it?”
The dog held his stare.
“There wasn’t jack in my studies about this. In all the books, everyone had already lost everyone. There was no consoling. Only revenge. Only ass kicking.”
Chewy barked.
“You say something then.”
Chewy barked and ran back to Erica. She tried to put her head under the girl’s hand, but there was no reaction. No petting or patting. There was just the half-dead steady gait. Chewy walked beside her and offered an apologetic whine on occasion.
Long known as the Texas stop sign, the Dairy Queen would have been a more welcome sight if the soft serve machines were still functional. Still, as the comfort of the Silver Lining waited behind the crumbled roadside eatery, it was a relief to see the familiar red and white sign.
Jerry longed to clean up, but he knew that a gentleman post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior would offer the victim of a massacre the first shower. Fetching aspirin and peroxide out of the medicine cabinet and cleaning his wound would keep him occupied until she was done.
Heat from the summer sun had added a mixture of sweat to the blood and ash in his hair. Each step aggravated the headache that accompanied the gash in his head. Still, the thought of A/C put a bounce in his step. The comfort of the Silver Lining was just what he needed. The trio rounded the corner of the building.
There was nothing there.
“No ... no, no, no!”
Erica awoke from her daze for the first time since leaving Vita Nova. “What is it, Dick?”
“No, no. Shit!” He ran to the edge of the parking lot and stared across an overgrown field. Parallel trails had been crushed into the overgrowth. “Shit!”
Chewy barked.
Jerry looked at the dog. “Did you lock it?”
The dog barked again.
“You were the last one out.”
Chewy lay down and placed her head on her paws. Her sigh blew dust from the asphalt-covered parking lot.
“What’s going on?” Erica held the rifle tight against her shoulder. Her eyes, now alert, scanned the fields, the road, and everything in between.
“My coach is gone.”
Chewy barked.
“Our. Our coach is gone.”
“Your coach?”
“Our truck. Our home.”
Peering into the field, he tried to imagine the people who had taken the Silver Lining. He imagined the thieves’ excitement when they found the coach open and defenseless. Cursing himself for not arming the booby trap, he stared into the dense grass. Overgrown and empty, the trail led to nothing. There was no indication of how deep the path ran into the wild.
“Did you leave the keys in it?”
“Of course not.” He pulled the keys from his pocket. “Someone must have hot-wired it.”
“But, why would they take it into the field? Why not just drive off with it?”
> He shook his head and shrugged. “Are there any settlements in that direction?”
“No. Vita Nova is the only town for miles.” Erica answered and then added, “It was the only town for miles.”
Chewy began to root at the edge of the field.
“We were always very welcoming. But we hadn’t seen anyone for months. Not until the truck.”
Darting into the brush, Chewy disappeared in the tall reeds. Thrashing grass was the sole sign to the dog’s location as she followed a scent deeper into the field. Emerging moments later, she grasped something in her teeth. She trotted back to the nomad and dropped it at his feet.
The Texas license plate rattled to the ground with the vanity letters RDWRER facing up at him. It was bent and rent in several places. Jerry lifted it from the ground.
“Why the walls?” he asked, staring at the plate that had hung from the front bumper of the Silver Lining.
“What?”
“Why the walls? If Vita Nova was so welcoming, why did you have fortifications?”
“Animals. There are some aggressive mutations in the area.”
“Shit. SSB.” He tossed the plate towards her.
She picked up the plate. It was torn, shredded by claws.
“What’s SSB?”
“Super Smart Bears aren’t really that smart,” Logan explained.
“Why do they call them that then?” a child asked.
“Well, they’re smarter than your average bear. But super smart? I don’t think so. They can’t talk. And, they still poop in the woods like any other bear.”
A chorus of “ewww,” “gross,” and “he said poop” stirred from the crowd of children that had gathered around him as he prepared for the defense of New Hope.
Strands of steel cable were spread around the warrior as he continued to strip the filaments from a worn winch cable. Fingers bleeding, he pulled at the wisps of metal and laid them out. Several of the children had offered to help and he set them to work pulling the fibers.
“They’re smart enough to cause trouble. That’s why most towns have walls like New Hope. If they’re in your area, they want your food, and if it wasn’t for walls like these they would come right in and take it.”
Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors (A Duck & Cover Adventure) Page 6
