Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

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 facedown 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 pedal.

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 re-load 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 burnt 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.

I was different then, he said in the wind and the night.

When he reached the end of the valley he felt tired enough to stop. He thought about buttoning up the tank and sleeping on the floor.

I need rest. I know I am very sick.

If you die… or if in the morning you cannot get up… no one will know. Eventually the Horde will find the Fort. The machine gun won’t keep them away for long. Once it runs out of bullets, what then?

He drank some water and pressed on. He passed a conical mountain, and then came to the Gas Station that had burned down at the edge of the town that was the farthest limit the villagers would salvage.

Just a ways more.

The Old Man in the book is not his name. His name is Santiago. In the book he wanted the boy with him as he fought the fish. Just as I wanted my granddaughter with me.

He passed the blackened ruins and a little later the moon fell low in the sky.

He topped the rise and saw the village. He turned off the tank feeling the heat dissipate quickly. He was just a mile off from the village but he could see it below. It was a collection of sheds and huts built around an old processing plant. It was his home. He could see the field of broken glass glittering like the stars above.

He left the tank, feeling hot and sore.

I WILL WALK home and go to my house and in the morning they will see the tank.

There has never been such a fish.

He knew he made little sense. But it seemed right not to wake anyone.

Let them sleep in the village one night longer. To have the village one more night. Then they can have the world.

My journey was like the one in the book.

That is the thing about books. You take their journeys with you.