The Old Man and the Wasteland

by Nick Cole

  Finally he went to the top floor suite and found the corpse of the Sergeant Major. The room was orderly, and only the photograph of a woman, young, bangs, glasses, was any clue to the personal life of the man. There was a body bag beside the bed.

  The Old Man closed the door and went back to the elevator. In the garage he found vehicles, farming and construction equipment. Each had a composition book. Near the main entrance to the garage he found four tanks. Three were missing parts, obviously cannibalized to keep the fourth in good condition. He climbed up to the cupola and found a note on the hatch instructing him how to enter the tank.

  Inside he found a VCR tape and a note that read ‘Watch First!!!’ He returned to the offices of the building, and in one of the video libraries he found a VCR.

  These were extinct when I was a kid.

  Soon he had it working.

  He sat down and watched as Sergeant Major Preston, middle aged, instructed him how to run the tank.

  The tank had been fitted with a remote control system, slaved to the tank’s command compartment. This centralized the operation of the tank in the commander’s cupola. Sergeant Major Preston instructed the watcher on how to swivel and sight the main gun. How to fire it and how a reloading system would automatically rack another round. There were only twenty rounds on board. The video then detailed the starting of the engines, firing the fifty caliber machine gun, and reloading the tank’s fuel compartment at a fuel depot a few miles away where the Sergeant Major had managed to store fuel. Though, he said, the fuel tanks of any gas station could be siphoned using an auto pump on board the tank.

  The Old Man had passed only a few gas stations that hadn’t burned to the ground. He doubted their fuel had survived. The video ended with the Sergeant Major putting the key to the fuel pumps on a wallboard inside the fuel station and showing a drawing of how to get to the station from the Fort. Then he lowered the white placard map and smiled into the camera. The tape ended.

  Earlier in the day The Old Man had found the kitchen. He’d made a breakfast of powdered eggs and canned tomatoes from the pantry, one of several in fact. There was coffee and creamer too, though his throat had been too raw for it. Instead he had made some tea from tea bags he’d found on the counter.

  Now he returned and opened a can of ham, made more powdered eggs, and put ketchup on them. He sat, chewing slowly.

  I need to go, get there and back before someone comes.

  No one has come in all this time. Who will come?

  He thought about the savage boy lying at the bottom of Gates Pass. He thought about his own parent’s house.

  There will be time for that once you come back with the village.

  Will the village want to come?

  He laughed at himself and chewed more egg.

  When he had finished eating, he felt weaker than he should have.

  The desert was too much. I won, but it may have beaten me. Maybe I got too close to Phoenix, or the rations or snakes were irradiated.

  He thought of cancer.

  I could leave now. Drive the tank through the night. Be home before dawn.

  In the dark over broken roads and monsoon mud? It will take skill in the daylight. Don’t even think about it at night.

  He went back to the office. He rolled out a new army issue sleeping bag he’d found in an office full of supplies ranging from camping stoves to cots.

  He made some tea and added a packet of honey. He wondered if they might grow lemons here some day. He lay back in the sleeping bag with a fresh clean pillow he’d unzipped from a package that bore the name of a very expensive store. He wondered if there might be a gym and showers in the building. But he had not seen one.

  It would be nice to have a hot shower before bed.

  He fell asleep in the middle of the thought, and woke up later, still holding the Styrofoam cup of cold tea. He rolled over and slept until just before dawn.

  Awake and moving stiffly, he tried to tell himself he wasn’t worse.

  I won’t ask much of you today. Just get me back to my village. Then you can die.

  Why are you so concerned about death now? Is it because you have everything to lose?

  The eastern night ended in thin blue streaks. He rolled up the sleeping bag, stopped by the infirmary, and grabbed a bottle of aspirin. In the kitchen, he took bottles of water and cans of tuna and chili. He found a can opener, almost forgetting to, laughing at himself as if he had forgotten.

  In the garage, he raised the door by electronic control in a guard shack and went to the tank. Soon he had the first engine on the tank started. It sounded like a jet engine. Then he started the second engine, and felt for a brief moment that controlling the tank would be beyond him. He checked the instruments and found that the tank was full of fuel. He went down into the brightly lit cupola of the tank and stowed his gear on a seat near the rear, then returned to the seat in the cupola. He took hold of a joystick and swiveled the main gun, sensing a momentary sickness as the entire cupola swung to the right. Then he pointed it back to the front of the tank and placed his hands on two levers below the joystick.

  The right controls the right tread, the left the left tread.

  Pushing forward on both would move the tank forward. Or so Sergeant Major Preston had assured him. He pushed forward on both cautiously and nothing happened. He tried again. He thought back to the instructional video.

  The gas pedal.

  Below him, near the new boots he’d found in a different supply room, was the pedal. He stepped on it and heard the tank’s engines spool up to a high-pitched whine. He pressed forward on the two sticks while gassing the pedal as the tank eased through the garage doors. Outside he dismounted and closed the doors, then climbed aboard once more.

  He gassed the pedal and pulled back on the left stick and went forward with the right as the tank swerved to the left. He looked back at the Fort. Then he eased the tank out onto the road leading to the highway. His throat felt sore. Maybe he was sick. But he wouldn’t think about it. The tank took all his concentration.

  Twenty Eight

  At first the going was slow, as he wound through the side streets that led onto the main freeway. Once atop the eight-lane, the going got better.

  For awhile he rode the blacktop. The evacuation had left the city empty forty years ago. The Old Man knew where the people had fled during that long ago exodus from a wrecked civilization. Many lay trapped between the cities in great wrecks of their own. A few had become his fellow villagers.

  The highway ran smooth and eventually became a two lane and a median with two lanes on the other side. Other than the occasional downed bridge which he maneuvered around or through, there was little that stood in the way of the tank. Soon he had the tank up to forty-five miles an hour.

  He passed a semi overturned on its belly and stopped. It was covered in red hand prints.

  Is that recent?

  Are they getting closer?

  He revved the tank and sent it down the road once more. Soon the hum of the engines lulled him to thinking, and at times almost sleep. The day was cold. He could feel the rain in the air. Knew the heat of the sun hadn’t driven away the cold of night completely. Winter was coming.

  In the distance he could see Picacho Peak as the road began a long gentle curve to the west.

  I am finally heading west.

  He thought about the end of curses. What needed to be done once he returned to the village? How to organize them and get them back to the fort?

  The village is over.

  How so?

  When I return with this tank. Everything changes. My life in the village will be something that happened long ago. A dream. Just like my life before the bombs. A dream also.

  It was noon when he spotted them coming down from the northern mountains across the plain like a vast dark herd. They were crossing the highway in groups, running for Picacho Peak just on the other side. He stopped the tank. The roar of the engines was still loud and he could h
ear nothing above it. He could feel the north wind on his face. He could feel the cold of the arctic and the high mountain passes it had come down through to reach the Sonoran Desert.

  The Horde lay scattered in bands across the horizon. Now they formed into two groups.

  So they still exist.

  One group resolved itself into men and boys painted and various in weapons and dress. Savages of the new wasteland. The other group drew itself toward Picacho Peak, running like a startled herd of buffalo.

  There is the main gun and then the machine gun.

  If not today, when?

  I don’t think I’ve ever killed a man.

  Mirrored Sunglasses? The savage boy?

  They killed themselves.

  I don’t think it will be just a couple today.

  The wild men came on in a ragged line, running with mouths open.

  What you do today determines the future of the village. Civilization even.

  I don’t know if I’m the man to make that choice.

  There’s no other. Act now or die. Do this today or forget tomorrow!

  The Old Man tapped the accelerator and listened to the engines spool up to a high-pitched whine.

  Maybe this will give them something to stop for.

  The ragged mobbed surged over the soft sand, closing the distance.

  Do something now Old Man!

  They were twenty yards off when he gave the tank full power and pushed forward on the control sticks. The tank jumped forward with a roar, and The Old Man closed his eyes as he crashed into their line. They were hundreds turning into thousands and the air was suddenly thick with missiles of rock and broken pipe. He tucked into the hatch and kept forward on the sticks. He heard their wild screams above the thunder of the engines.

  When the rain of debris ceased, he popped out of the hatch and checked the tank’s progress as it veered across the median. He overcorrected and the tank gave a sharp right turn. Before he could get it straightened out he’d gone out over the north bound lanes and into the desert off the road.

  He surveyed the mob. There were thousands surging all around the tank. Thin gaunt men the color of dust chased his wake, waving and yelling. Pot bellied, sun browned women, and feral children snarled as they ran from him. Stones began to fall, but they were too far off. The main mass of the mob seemed to be collecting around the base of the peak but the warriors were gathering again for another charge.

  He moved the tank back onto the road and started toward the abandoned gas station. The desert scrub was thick on the far side of the road and at times, wild-eyed men and screaming women ran gibbering before the tank, darting off into the bushes like frightened animals.

  He traversed the gun and toggled the gunsight onto the building where he’d found their laws. Behind him, their main force pounded down the road after him, their eyes wild with anger and fear. He depressed the red button atop the joystick and sent a round into the building.

  At once, two things happened. The tank rocked back in a cloud of powdery dust, and the wall of the building exploded in a spray of cement. Beyond the building a moment later, the round exploded in dirt and sand, having passed straight through the decrepit wall without exploding.

  The Old Man traversed the gun, hearing nothing but dull silence and feeling, more than hearing, the servos that swiveled the cupola. He landed the main gun on the advancing wall of savages.

  This must mean something to you! He screamed and barely heard himself.

  He felt a sharp blow on his shoulder as a club smashed down hard upon it. He turned to see a crazed naked man with cracked skin and open sores, his watermelon head drooling crazily amid a mouth full of misshapen teeth. The savage raised a club to strike once again. His attacker had climbed from the back of the tank onto the cupola. Three others were struggling up the same way, each as lunatic as the first.

  The Old Man sank into the turret, grabbing at the hatch with his free hand as he stepped hard on the accelerator. The tank bolted forward across the road and onto broken ground. Sure that they had fallen off, he popped up from the turret once more to scan the terrain ahead. As he turned to look forward he saw that the tank was headed off the lip of a dry riverbed. He took his foot off the pedal hoping to stop in time.

  The tank fell. He had just enough time to swing the hatch shut and throw himself to the floor of the tank.

  He awoke to a cacophony of noise. Everywhere the sound of hammers and pipes could be heard across the interior of the tank. The Old Man was bathed in red light. He stood shakily and locked the hatch, marveling that they hadn’t pulled on it.

  He reached into his ruck and got out some water. It was hot, though the sweat felt cold on his back. He wondered if they would try to set the tank on fire. He wondered if the tank would burn.

  He found his way awkwardly into the control seat. The tank was in a face down angle.

  At least we are not on our side.

  He stepped on the accelerator and the engines whined. He pushed forward on the sticks and felt the tank strain, but refuse to go forward. He reversed the sticks and felt the tank jump backward straining and digging. He took his foot off the petal.

  I might be stuck.

  Anew, the ringing sounds of metal on metal began again.

  Too much and I will dig a ditch I might not get out of. Then all they have to do is wait me out.

  What other choice do you have? You only brought two cans of food and some water. They might damage something and stick you here whether you like it or not.

  He pulled the restraint harness across his shoulders and snapped a belt around his waist.

  I can’t go forward. But I can go back just a little.

  He imagined what the tank might be stuck in. What position would cause that and how to get out without making things worse.

  Outside the tank, someone had found a sledgehammer or something equally capable of making a tremendous ringing gong. Mixed with the other assaults, it was becoming unbearable.

  I am not beaten. I am just stuck.

  He thought of the old man in the book. What would he do?

  Sometimes there is nothing to do but the only thing that you can do.

  He gassed the accelerator hard and held back on the sticks with all of his might, as his fingers and wrist turned sweaty with heat and tension. At the top of the rise, he pushed forward on the tank, and then almost immediately, once it leapt forward, he pushed back again.

  I have to pop the nose up. It’s the only thing I can imagine that must be done.

  He felt his stomach float for a second and knew that the attitude of the tank had changed. He hoped it was enough. He gassed it forward, and then at the last second, felt he needed more of one stick than the other. He went with the right stick, pulling back on the left before he could think further on the subject. He felt the tank turning and finally moving forward. The attacks on its shell ceased.

  I’ve got to see or this will happen again.

  He opened the hatch but kept the tank moving. He traversed the turret, taking in the panorama of savagery that surrounded him. Black smoke filled the area and the sun was low in the sky, turning everything blood red. As he traversed east, monsoon clouds built up in angry red and purple bruises.

  I must have been out for a while.

  The Horde, toothless, angry misshapen, twitching, hobbling, screaming, gashing, beating, wild animal thing that it was, surged in every direction as he gunned away from the center. His passing clotted quickly as they followed him howling and yelling.

  There must be an end to this.

  Atop Picacho Peak, a large bonfire burned against the deep blue of the high altitude.

  When he had some distance from them, he swiveled the tank to face the peak.

  It must be this then.

  He traversed the gun and set it on the face of the peak just below the topmost edge and fired. This time he put one finger in his ear. He heard the reloading system eject a hot shell and reload another. He fired again once the
ready light went from red to green, near the firing button.

  The rounds began to fall directly into the side of the peak, and almost instantly the walls began to crumble in great sheets of dust and rock.

  He fired again and saw the savages scream, dropping to their knees, unable to comprehend the horror of what was happening to them.

  In the last moments of daylight, he switched on the tank’s high beams and fired again. The Horde fled the field, heading east into the dark.

  When he had fired most of the rounds, he alone remained. Bodies crushed by the tank turned up as he crossed the field. But the rest had gone. He returned to the main road and set the tank on it.

  We will have to watch them.

  Over the hum of the engines, he considered the place as he readied for the long push back to the village.

  What had been the difference between this place and the village?

  He set off down the road making slow but steady progress. A harvest moon came out and it stayed dry. It smelled dusty when he arrived at the burned town where the two highways intersected. The bodies were still spaced across the blacktop. He maneuvered around them and set the high beams on the road heading west.

  If I remember right, the village will be beyond the next valley. But it has been some time.

  He crossed a small plain where once crops had grown. An overpass had collapsed across the road and he went around it. Shaking with hunger, he stopped and turned off the tank. He opened the can of chili and ate it as he walked around the silent tank. It was cold and he began to shiver.

  Back in the tank, he started it, momentarily knowing it wouldn’t. But it did and soon he eased forward into the night as the road climbed a small desert plateau, crossing a pass and descending into a valley of jagged peaks.

  I remember this part. I remember driving it many times.

  Thoughts that had seemed so important then, as he passed over the same ground now, seemed foreign.