Chase sat up on the bed and tossed the magazine onto the pile on the floor. “Alright, Dad. You want to talk? Let’s talk.” Dawson didn’t say anything, just stared at Chase. Chase stared back. “OK, I’ll start. Let’s talk about last weekend. You remember, right? Last weekend. That was the weekend fishing trip we’d been planning. Remember? No? Well, I do. You had this great idea that we’d go on this big family fishing trip. You said you’d found the perfect spot to go. Your boss, Bert, had recommended it. Bert’s been living here all his life, and loves spending time outdoors. He’s a farmer after all, that’s what he does for a living, and he’s really good at it. You said that it would be fun. I said I hate fishing, and Veronica can’t swim, so it would be a bad idea. You said, no problem, we’d put a life jacket on Veronica. Then you added that no, we’d all wear life jackets, because we didn’t want Veronica to feel like she was standing out, and that it’d be safer anyways. Remember that? Do you?”
Dawson interrupted. “Yes, of course I remember. I’ll make it up to you. Work things just came up, we’ll do it another time. I can’t believe you’re that upset about this. I thought you weren’t that keen on it anyways.”
“You’re right, Dad, I wasn’t that keen on it. I’m still not that keen on it—actually, forget that. I think it’s a damn stupid idea now. That’s what I think. I agreed to it because it seemed like you really wanted to spend time with us. Veronica thought so too. She was so excited about it, and a little scared about being out on the water, but mostly excited. I tried to tell you not to say anything to her, that it would be better to make it a surprise, that she likes surprises. You didn’t listen. I should have said what I was really thinking.”
Dawson’s stared at the floor. “And what was it that you were really thinking, Chase?”
Chase took a deep breath. “What I was thinking was that you would get her hopes up, and then do something stupid and let us both down again, especially her. I’m used to it, but she still thinks you’re the most amazing person on the planet. She thinks you can do anything. She actually still thinks that you want to be our father.”
“Now wait just a minute. I told you I had to work at the last minute. I told you that Bert needed—”
“I know where you were, and I know what you were doing. I’m not stupid. Stop lying about it.”
Dawson never took his eyes off the floor, and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant to do or say. It just matters what happened. I saw them bring you home last night … that guy and that girl. It was two-thirty in the morning when they carried you in and plunked you on the sofa. I thought someone was breaking in. I had the baseball bat in my hand. I almost clocked that guy when he opened the door. Then I saw you, lying on the porch. He just handed me your keys, said 'sorry', and took off. I tried to wake you, but you were really out of it.”
“I was just really tired I guess.” Dawson lied.
“You weren't tired Dad, you were fall-down drunk. You couldn't even stand up. I've never seen you like that before” Chase closed his eyes in thought. “I thought you didn't drink anymore. You said you'd quit after the army … that you'd learned your lesson.”
Dawson shook his head as he sat next to Chase. “I don’t suppose that we’ve ever really talked about this, have we?” Dawson put his hand on Chase’s shoulder, but Chase shrugged it off. Dawson hesitated, then crossed his arms. “You’re just a kid, so it’s hard to understand, but adults look at the world differently. We worry more about things, and have a lot more responsibility. It’s not easy to be a grownup, but sometimes if we’re lucky we get help along the way. Having someone close that we can rely on to help us through the difficult decisions and troubled times helps. That’s why it’s important to pick the right person to be with.”
Chase grimaced. “Ah c’mon, Dad. We’re not going to have that talk now, are we?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about just regular day to day adult stuff, like jobs and money, and having kids. It’s important that adults have other adults they can talk to and share their burden with. Someone they can trust. That’s why it’s so important to have two parents in every family. Your mom and I kept it together by helping each other out.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work out so great now, did it?”
“Hey! A little—” Dawson raised his voice, then paused for a moment. “Life is complicated, Chase. You’ll see that someday. I know it seems pretty simple when you’re a kid, but it’s not. You’ll see. How you feel about people and things changes as you get older. It’s constant change. It may not look like it, but adults are growing and changing just like kids. It’s all on the inside, so others don’t see it. You understand?”
Chase gave a forced nod, with a little shoulder shrug for good measure.
“I know it seems complicated,” Dawson said. “Sometimes, I just need to get away, to be with other adults. When your mom left me, I lost a lot. My whole life changed, and I had to take on everything on my own. The world, and you kids.”
Chase broke his silence. “She didn’t leave you, Dad, she left us.” He looked straight at Dawson with conviction. “She left all of us. You talk about how hard things are when you’re an adult, but it’s hard for kids as well. We’re all alone most of the time too. We have feelings and stuff that we don’t know what to do with, and Mom was just as important to us as to you. You’ve had other friends and adults in your life. Veronica and I have only ever had you and Mom.” Chase’s voice cracked as his eyes misted over. “You may have lost a wife, but Veronica and I lost two people. We lost you and Mom. Mom left, and you wanted to, but you couldn’t. You act like you’re a prisoner. Like we’re your jail cell.” A tear trickled down Chase’s cheek. “Even the little bit you’re here, you’re never really here. You don’t listen. You don’t care. You just pretend like you do.” Chase wiped his eyes. “We’re just kids. We don’t know how to do this either. You’re supposed to be here to help us understand. Can’t you just do that?”
Dawson was silent for a moment. He hadn’t seen Chase cry in years. The last time he could remember was when he fell trying to learn how to ride his bicycle. He was more scared than hurt then. Actually, Dawson was more scared when that happened. There was a car backing quickly out of a driveway, and the driver never took the time to look where he was going. Either that, or he couldn’t see a small boy on a bike with training wheels behind him. Chase saw him coming though. The kid had quick reflexes. Most people do, when they think their life is in peril. He sped up in a hurry, but lost control on the other side, and crashed into a fire hydrant. Dawson was more scared because he couldn’t see Chase with the car blocking his view. All he could hear were the screams. The fire hydrant hurt, but the shock of nearly being crushed under the wheels of a big pickup scared Chase the most.
This was different though. These were grownup tears. Chase was still only a teen, but these were real tears and emotions. It took everything Dawson had to keep his emotions in check. His heart ached, but he didn’t want to feel weak in front of Chase. Maybe he should have, but his instincts got the better of him, and he held it back, barely. He couldn’t stop the ache he felt in his chest though.
“Chase, buddy. I didn’t realize how bad this made you feel. I am so sorry.”
Chase tried to hide, wiping away the tears. “It’s not that bad,” Chase said. He shook his head as if it were nothing. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”
“No, son. It’s not alright. I’m going to make this up to you.” Dawson thought he saw a bit of a smile on Chase’s face; a very little smile, and then it disappeared. “Really,” Dawson continued. “I am going to make this better. Starting today. Right now actually.” They both just sort of stared at each other in silence for a second. It was like they were somewhere they’d never been before, and were caught breathless by the view. “How about that game you like to play. What’s it called?” Dawson asked.
“You mean Apocalyps
e Fallout?” Chase held up the game cover from his nightstand.
“Yeah, that’s the one. How ‘bout you show me how to play it?” They both looked around at the lack of lighting in the place. “Well, not right now, but once the power comes back on.”
Chase smiled for real. “Alright, Newbie, but don’t expect me to go easy on you, it’s a dark, cold world out there in the Apocalypse.”
“Hey, no special treatment for this guy. Just because I’m your dad, and at least partially responsible for giving you life and all. No need to play favorites with this guy.”
Chase smirked. “Not that funny, Dad.”
Dawson couldn’t help smiling a little bit. “So, maybe just to get me a little prepared, tell me a little bit about how this game works.” Chase raised an eyebrow. “It’s not that I’m worried or anything. I’m sure I’ll catch on quick. It’s just that competitive rodeo cowboy in me. I do hate losing at anything.”
“All right, sounds fair enough.” Chase flipped the game case over in his hands. “Well, it’s the end of the world … or more like the end of civilization as we know it. There’s still a world obviously, or there wouldn’t be much to do. There was this atomic bomb that went off in the Middle East somewhere. No one is really sure quite where, but it got all the other superpowers worked up and they started firing their atomic missiles at each other. A preemptive strike scenario. You know what that is, right?”
“Yes, yes of course. I do read the occasional paper, you know, and I did pass history back in my school days. Not by much, mind you. Who can remember all those dates?”
“You passed classes in high school, Dad?” Chase teased. “I had no idea. I thought you just spent all your time falling off horses.”
“Hey now, you know what your grandparents are like. Do you really think your grandpa would let his son get away with doing anything halfway?”
“Yeah, no. Grandpa can be a real hard-ass sometimes.”
“Hey, hey. Watch the language there. That’s my father you’re talking about. So, OK, what happens next? When do the zombies show up? We get to kill zombies in this game, right?”
“Dad. Really? Zombies are, like, so old school. Nobody cares about that stuff anymore. This is the real deal. It’s like what would you do, and how you would survive in the real world with whatever is left.”
“Real world? Right, OK.” Dawson rolled his eyes, and leaned in towards Chase.
“C’mon, Dad, I know it’s a game, but they make it seem so real. That’s the fun of it. You need to let your imagination take over. Don’t be so serious all the time. And don’t worry, there are monsters to fight, just not zombies.”
“Yes, of course. Zombies are old school; I got it. What happens next?”
“Well, it really depends on what you want to do next. It’s open ended, you know.”
“Open ended?”
“Well yeah, you get to make all the choices and decisions about where you go and what you do. Not like the old games they had when you were a kid.” Dawson raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, you know, where you just run down some hallway shooting at everything or crawl through some vents where you come out into another hallway and shoot a bunch of monsters till you find some crates and climb up into another vent and repeat it over and over till you beat the boss monster.”
“Boss monster? Remember now Chase, I was too busy falling off horses to be playing video games.”
“Right, right.” Chase held his hand up in pause. “Don’t worry about that. We’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. All you need to know to get started is that the whole world is kind of new. Broken and really messed up, but new, and then you get to imagine it the way you want it to be, with the choices you make. You collect all this cool stuff and salvage things from the wreckage. You can build your own place, and start your own tribe. You have to learn skills, like how to survive without power or water or grocery stores. You really get to make the world the way you want it. That’s the fun of it all.”
“Ah, I get it. Kind of like right now.” Dawson held up his hands, indicating their current power outage.
“Yeah, exactly, Dad. But a lot worse, and for keeps. You’ll see when the power comes back on. The game is a lot more fun than this. This is just boring.”
“Boring? Talking with your old man is boring?”
“No, no. This is fine. I just mean that there are so many other things you can do in the game once you get going. I guess at the beginning it can be sort of boring, because you don’t have anything. But, once you start to figure things out and collect stuff, it’s pretty cool. You learn to build things, like how to get power and water and food. You can build solar stuff, and you find a lot of weapons too. There’s a lot of cool guns and other technology in the game.”
“Really, like what?”
“Well, there’s like these secret big corporations, kind of like the big boss monsters in your old games. I haven’t gotten far enough to figure them out yet, but I think they’ve got something to do with the atomic wars. Conspiracy stuff, you know. Like they caused the fighting, just so they could take over and start running things. The corporations figured there were too many people around, and the planet was running out of resources so they decided it would be better for them with fewer people. Easier to control.”
“That sounds like some pretty serious stuff.”
“Ah, don’t worry. You don’t have to figure that out in the beginning. First thing you have to worry about is finding a place to live so you’re not stuck out in the radioactive rain all the time.”
“Yeah, I could see where that wouldn’t be fun. Well, that does sound pretty cool. I can kinda see why you spend so much time playing it all the time. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing; I’m not saying you play too much here. It just sounds like there’s a lot to these games. A lot more than I thought.”
Chase smiled. “Yeah, there really is. It’s fun getting to fix a big messed up world to be exactly like you’d want it to be.”
“That sounds like something I could get better at.” They both smiled.
Chapter 20 ~ Reunion
Ahmed’s level of disgust was only surpassed by his desire to be reunited once again with Harish. To learn, after all these years, that Harish was still alive strengthened Ahmed’s conviction to cleanse the world of the infidels. It took years for him to grow accustomed to the idea of his brother being gone. Believing he was the last survivor of his lineage was a lonely thought. He’d considered taking a wife and starting a family of his own, but watching your family being taken from you one by one tainted the idea of starting a family of his own. He didn’t see the sense of all the pain. Why put yourself in a situation to be so crushed?
This place was not fit for the beauty of a family of Allah. This world was a disgrace—a pale and pathetic shadow of what it should be—but Ahmed made it his mission in life to fix that. He knew it wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, but he didn’t let that deter him. If there was an opportunity to cleanse even a small patch of land, he would take it. And he would convince other true believers to follow the same path.
In his younger years, the isolation from his own people nearly drove him to desperate choices. Eventually others found him. Frustration and desperation almost brought his life to a close; Ahmed did not fear dying so young. The Imam, however, taught him that dying young would be unfortunate for someone with so much potential. They taught him that by following their lessons, he could move those around him onto a more sacred path. If enough followers performed the missions they requested of them, they could change the world.
It was difficult at first. They said he had to be patient, that he had to wait until the moment was right. Ahmed wanted to take action, he wanted his life to have purpose. All this waiting around didn’t make sense to him. Every day, he saw opportunities passing by. Weaknesses he could exploit. People he could convert. People he could stop. People that he would kill if called upon to do so. But … no, he had to wait. The leaders taught him that every day he
waited, he was storing his potential. That he was making himself smaller in the eyes of the infidel. The less action he took, the more insignificant he would become in their eyes.
“Wait for your moment,” his leaders said. When he was small and forgotten, and feeling like he had no purpose … like he would never be part of the great cause, that would be the time. When he believed he was insignificant, then others would believe the same thing. They would no longer care what he did. Then, and only then, he would receive the greatest mission of his life. He would lead the Americas to their knees, groveling in the dirt of the desert. His desert. The land of his ancestors, and his religion, and his beliefs, and his mother, and his father. Then, when the infidels were prostrate in the sand like a common desert snake, he could strike and remove the head.
Today was the first step in that mighty mission. Today, he would reunite with the blood of his blood. He would see his brother for the first time in seventeen years. Today, for the first time, he believed he wouldn’t pass through the gates of Heaven on his own. Today, for the first time, he realized that when that time came, he and his brother would walk through those gates hand in hand and receive their glorious reward.
Ahmed could barely catch his breath in the streets. The air was heavy with the smell of cars, garbage and sewer gases filtering up through the manhole covers and grates he walked over. It was very different from the dry, crisp air he was used to breathing in the desert. This was damp and rotten; enough to make him want to gag up the little food left in him. The hunger pains nagged at him, as he had refused to eat what was available on the train. Surely his brother would have something better than the train kitchen or the vendors he saw in the streets. As if the vile smell wasn’t enough coming from the animal meat being cooked by street vendors, it was near impossible to avoid the sight of people eating the vendors’ food. He longed for his desert home.
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