I remember… watching tv with my mom when I was really little. Not like cartoons or anything, news channels. And I never understood why everyone on them was always worried. Or sad. There was one time that one of the women just stopped talking, right in the middle of a story. Then she started crying and had to get up and leave. The man at the other end of the desk picked up right where she had stopped. My mom turned the television off and took me to the kitchen to make macaroni and cheese. I think she was hoping that I would forget about it.
I didn't.
She always seemed really scared when the reporters talked about the weather. It was irregular I think. Always irregular. I'd ask her what was wrong. She would just laugh and shrug it off and we'd go make cookies or play board games or something. But I'd keep asking questions.
Why did we buy so many cans of beans and corn and stuff like that? We never ate it. Just put it away. "For later. When we need it." She'd tell me, smiling.
Why did we have to go outside to our room to hide when the sirens went off? "So that we'll be ready. For later."
Don't get me wrong, our room was pretty cool compared to the ones some of the kids in my class had. When we played together, everyone liked coming to my house to play the most. Mom and I had a couch and a table and chairs and everything in ours. And since the cement was usually pretty cold, mom found this really big rug with a red, white, and blue pattern on it at some old store downtown and bought it just for me. It looked really nice on the floor, made the little square shaped room feel more like our house. The back wall of cement was cut out into a place to keep food too, like a real military base would have. Playing soldiers in the room was the best! Even though we weren't really supposed to. My mom used to yell at us if she caught us playing in the room. I don't think she wanted anyone to go in there if we didn't have to.
And then the day came where we really didn't have a choice anymore. As soon as the sirens started screaming, mom would grab me and pull me outside. The ground around the room would shake and horribly loud noises could be heard even through the thick cement walls. I asked her what was happening. She told me that very, very strong people were arguing with each other. "Why?" I asked her, surprised. "What do they want?" She said that she wasn't sure anymore.
"Mommy?" The dark, cement shed, built halfway into the slanted hill that took up half the small, city backyard, was barely illuminated by the LED flashlight she had set off to the side on the little table we had moved out here from the living room when the builders had finished building the 'fort' for us. "Why are you crying?" Her shaking hands pulled me closer to her as I sat in her lap. "What's wrong?" She laughed and wiped at her face with the back of one trembling palm. "Nothing's wrong Alfred. I'm just thinking about something else. Why don't we play soldiers together? Wouldn't that be fun?" I nodded.
That's what I usually ended up doing. I'd just laugh and smile and play along with her. I wanted her to be happy.
I stopped asking why after a while. I knew she'd never say… I don't think I necessarily hold that against her. She just wanted me to be safe and happy and give me all those things that every mother wants to give their child. It wasn't her fault that the whole planet was going to hell in a hand grenade around us.
Eventually, that world died.
That's where my life as it is now began.
It was only halfway through the morning and he could already tell that it was going to be a bitch of a day. "Fucking son of a BITCH!" He could've screamed. Smoke rolled out from the edges of the rusted red hood of his truck. "Son. Of. A. BITCH." Angrily switching off the engine and slamming the door open, Alfred stomped through the sand to the front of his vehicle and popped the hood, careful not to get a face full of nasty black smoke in the process. "God damn fucking sand." Because that was it. Sand clogging up the engine. Again.
Sand from the miles upon miles upon miles of desert that had appeared after the war ended, along with the salt lands, poisonous swamps, and gas forests.
He glared at his engine before taking a swig from his water jug. Yanking his faded bandana which had been, at one time, a light blue but now only appeared to be a black and a murky brown from oil, gas, and sand, he began a quick wipe down of the sandy parts, careful to avoid receiving a burn.
"This is some fucking bullshit… god damn Europe gets a nuclear winter and we get fucking sand… Jesus Christ…"
The nuclear poison had dealt its damage in a surprisingly short period of time. The western hemisphere underwent severe draughts and the toxification of most large bodies of water, whereas the eastern hemisphere was thrown into hazardously low temperatures and catastrophic amounts of snow.
Alfred sighed, going back to the bed to pull out a jug of radiator fluid. "If you pull this crap again I'm ditching you. You hear me you piece of shit? I put a fortune into you and your damn tires and parts and so help me GOD I will leave you on some fucking mountain and pick up a motorcycle or something… Christ almighty…"
Hopping back into the driver's seat, he turned the key. The truck sputtered before dying. He tried again. "c'mon, c'mooon…" Nothing.
"FUCK!" kicking the bottom edge of the dash board and slamming his hand into the window he screamed. "FUCK ME!" Groaning, he let his head drop onto the wheel. It was useless. He was going to have to wait a couple hours for the engine to cool down before he could do any work on it. Groaning again, he reached into the back seat to pull out the sandy brown cover that he used to help him stay out of sight. Jumping out, he made quick work of disguising the red monster to look like just another part of the low, rocking outcrop he was currently stuck on.
He settled the last scraggly bush into place and shouldered his bag. To move to the top of the rocks was risky, but he needed a better viewpoint for a lookout. He couldn't afford to get a surprise visit from his blind side. Moving low, he made his way up to settle beneath a gnarled dry tree that hadn't been alive in years. He took another drink of water and rested back against the trunk. He watched.
And waited.
A tremor slithered up through his legs. He checked the landscape quickly. Empty. Just like the past hour or so. "Fuck." He needed cover again.
He slide back down the rocks painfully, slicing his palm open in the process. He hissed. The tarp rustled lightly as he slipped under and pulled his bag in after him. Slipping down to his stomach, binoculars in hand, he scouted out the horizon. Now he could hear them and feel them. Engines. Just a few of them. Moving fast, possibly in pursuit of something.
A glare rolling off a windshield and a cloud of dust caught his eyes. "Bingo." He spotted them. Two trucks, three bikes. Chasing what looked like a beat up Charger. Heading just south of his direction.
The Charger looked a little desperate to him; he wondered how long this chase had been going on for. Zipping across the desert in an almost random pattern, it flew… straight towards his hiding place.
"Aw shit… not good." He popped the door above him and pulled his rifle down from the floorboards. Sinking back down, he checked the gun out quickly and then set up for a shot he hoped he wouldn't have to take. He didn't want to waste ammo, but he sure as hell didn't want to get caught.
One of the trucks fired a harpoon, brilliantly situated on the hood for this exact purpose. It met its target. Sinking into the back right of the car, the chain snapped taunt as the truck braked heavily. It was enough to get the job done. The motorcycles caught their stride next and rushed the car on both sides. If the driver wasn't panicked before he sure was now. Attempting to take out the motorcycles, he over corrected on a bank. That and the drag of the chain caused the car to flip before it rolled to a stop upside down meters away from the base of his rocks. Alfred almost stopped breathing. The roof of the car was smashed in pretty badly. Could someone survive that?
The air and dust stilled as the motorcyclists and truck drivers turned off their vehicles before approaching the car easily. All laughing loud enough for Alfred to hear. "Idiot must have forgotten how to drive!" One of the men reached down through the window in an attempt to pull out the person inside.
That person was ready for him. Quick as a snake, the man collapsed with a bullet hole through his skull. The next two closest were down before they could shoulder their weapons. One shot to the heart, the next through the throat. Alfred gasped as the remaining men scrambled to get away from the downed car. Raising his own gun, he took a breath and steadied his aim. One. Two. There was hardly a sound as he picked off the last two guys. No screams. No nothing. It was too quick for either of them to have seen him coming.
And then there was quiet. He hardly dared to breathe. There was no movement from inside the car.
Minutes passed like this.
"If I come out…are you going to shoot me?" A light voice finally called out from amidst the smashed metal and dead bodies lying at the foot of the outcropping. Alfred released the breath he had been holding. "That all depends. If I came out would ya shoot me?"
He could hear the scowl in the others voice. "Maybe." He smiled and laughed a bit to himself. Just a bit. "Then maybe I'd shoot you too."
The voice was quiet for a moment. "On three then?" Alfred nodded to himself. "Toss weapons out first?"
"…fine. Even though you and I both know we each have more than one weapon."
That pompous jerk.
He couldn't help himself.
"One." He laughed again and slide his rifle out onto the rock.
"Two." A small pistol landed with a quiet thump in the sand.
"Three."
The sun had never seemed so bright before.
