Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

The Old Man dismounted the tank, feeling the stiffness of his sleeping position in each handhold and footfall that brought him jarringly to the ground.

The Boy stood and hobbled toward the Old Man.

The Stranger looked exhausted. It had been a long night for him also.

“I found him up there on top of the large rock,” said the Boy. The Stranger had turned back to the fire and the skillet.

“Was he alone?” asked the Old Man.

“Yes. He’s harmless. I don’t think we’ll get much out of him, though.” The Boy waited until the Stranger bent to inspect something within the skillet. Then the Boy raised his index finger to his temple and twirled it.

The Boy lay down near where he’d left his worn rucksack. He patted it once and then laid his head on it and closed his eyes. A moment later the Boy was asleep.

The Old Man retrieved a percolator from the tank and some tea, the last remaining packets in their supplies, and went to the fire. He set the percolator to boil on the coals and sat down across from the Stranger.

“Good morning,” he said to the Stranger.

The Stranger raised his clasped hands to his mouth, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to rock back and forth.

This went on for a while and the Old Man was content to wait for the water to boil and for the tea to steep. He sat out mugs on stones near the fire and poured the tea.

The day was still cool, though soon the heat would be up. In the blue shadows beneath the bridge, the Old Man watched the pork sizzle in the cast-iron pan and sipped his hot tea.

Like camping.

The Stranger produced a large meat fork and skewered a piece of sizzling pork, holding it out toward the Old Man.

“Thank you.”

The Old Man chewed.

Should I be worried about the quality of this meat?

Life has already made several attempts to kill you, my friend. This pork is probably the least of your worries today.

It’s good.

The Stranger ate none of the pork.

He watched the Old Man, nodding slightly with approval.

He’s not as old as me, but he is old enough to have lived through the bombs. Maybe he was young and never learned to speak. Maybe no one survived with him. Maybe he has been alone all this time.

“Your country is desolate,” said the Stranger in a high voice.

As if his heart was breaking.

As if he were on the verge of tears.

“Your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence.”

The Old Man nodded respectfully, chewing the pork. He picked up his tea and sipped.

“What’s your name?” he asked through another mouthful of pork.

The Stranger looked as if he were about to go on, as if the Old Man had interrupted him in the middle of his speech.

“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates,” continued the Stranger, almost pleading with the Old Man. “They are a trouble unto me: I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eye from you.” The Stranger covered his brown liquid-filled eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he looked up and, putting his hands over his ears, he whispered in horror, “Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.”

Okay.

The Old Man’s granddaughter emerged from the tank, rubbing sleepy eyes. He saw her look about for the Boy. She saw her grandfather watching her when her gaze had finally fallen upon his sleeping form. She climbed down from the tank, eyes still half closed, and settled next to the fire. The Stranger held out pork for her from within the skillet.

She chewed.

Just like camping.

Okay, I will try once more. But I already know I will be sorry.

“Do you have a name, sir?” asked the Old Man.

The Stranger nodded emphatically.

Then stopped.

“Wash you, make you clean: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes: cease to do evil.”

“We are not doing evil. We are on a journey to rescue some people who are trapped in a bunker to the east. In what was once Colorado,” said the Old Man reaching exasperation. “Do you know Colorado?”

“Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow,” continued the Stranger.

“That’s what we’re doing!” said the Old Man, surprised with himself that he was already upset.

Usually, I am much more patient.

The Stranger stopped. He leaned forward. There was hope in his voice when he spoke again.

“Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be wool.”

“Crimson is red?” interrupted his granddaughter.

The Stranger nodded emphatically and continued.

“They shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

The Old Man stood. He was shaking.

I am angry and I do not know why!

You are angry at this man, my friend, because he will not answer a simple question.

Yes, that is why I am angry.

“What is your name, sir?”

When the Stranger did not immediately answer, the Old Man began to turn and walk away. A few steps and he heard the Stranger say, “Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. I am as one crying in the wilderness.”

When the Old Man turned back, there were tears streaming down the Stranger’s sunburned cheeks.

Don’t be angry with him. He can’t help…

He’s crazy.

The Old Man sat down next to the fire again.

If you’d watched civilization go up in flames. If you’d watched what came after and had to survive any way you could through all those years alone. How could you not be crazy, my friend?

I did. I watched. I survived. I’m not crazy.

But you had the village. Your wife. Your son. Your grandchildren. Maybe he had no one.

The Old Man sighed and sipped his tea again. He had another piece of bacon.

“I think you understand me,” he said to the Stranger.

The Stranger nodded.

“But for some reason you speak in riddles and I don’t know why. So I will tell you that we are headed east to find some people who have asked for our help. We need fuel. Were you part of the people who lived up here?” The Old Man pointed toward the abandoned hotel that had been the center of the outpost.

The Stranger shook his head in the negative.

“Did you know them?”

The Stranger nodded.

“We need their fuel. Do you know where it is? Is there any left?”

The Stranger nodded again.

“And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.”

The Old Man watched the Stranger as he worked at pulling up the grating that covered what must have once been a pool inside the skeletal remains of a gym.

That is his answer to what lies east?

Yes, my friend. That is his answer.

When the metal cover was pushed back, the hint of kerosene bloomed in full. Inside the empty pool, salvage-fashioned fuel tanks lay along the bottom.

My eyes are burning from the fumes.

The Old Man waved the others back and dropped down into the shallow end of the dry pool. He tapped his scarred knuckles against a tank and heard the hollow echo of a half-filled volume.

Will it be enough?

It will have to be.

They brought the tank in through the shattered remains of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It crushed ancient fitness machines beneath its treads. Above them a barn owl screeched incessantly, refusing to flee into the daylight.

He has been here for some time.

If he waits, we will go away. But he must wait until we have taken all their fuel.