William Rose - Apocalyptic Organ Grinder

“I’m just a moisture farmer, Sweeper.” He said softly. “These people look to me for protection. For guidance. I’m… I’m just a moisture farmer, ya know?”

The statement hung in the air like an admission of guilt and neither man said a word, allowing the implications to sink in. Finally, Tanner placed his hand on the crook of the man’s elbow and squeezed so softly that it almost seemed as if he were testing the ripeness of a fruit.

“So be it, moisture farmer. Stand down.”

Jayme’s head snapped up and a shadow passed over his face. Tanner had seen the same look when weeding recruits from potential Sweepers for communities who’d lost their own. It was an expression of conflicting resolve and shame, of someone who wished they had what it took to protect their settlement but was also too keenly aware of his own shortcomings.

“Sometimes,” Tanner whispered, “being a leader means knowing when to hand over the reins. There’s no disgrace in that, friend. I’ll protect your people as if they were my own. I give you my word as a Sweeper. But, more importantly… as a father.”

Without another word, Jayme slipped the strap of the binoculars over his head and handed them to the man by his side. The moisture farmer’s head wasn’t nearly as broad as Tanner’s and the Sweeper struggled to adjust the old field glasses to accommodate his own eyes. The mount hadn’t been cared for properly and the mechanism was stiff, but as Tanner applied downward pressure while simultaneously lifting the sides, the span begrudgingly widened.

The rubber cups surrounding the eyepieces were hard and brittle, causing the bruise on Tanner’s cheek to ache; but this was a manageable pain so he slowly swept the binoculars across the landscape. At first he saw nothing but trees and field, marred by magnified scratches on the lenses. Except for the dark smoke curling above the forest, it could have been just another peaceful Summer morning. Tracking across a field of wildflowers brought his field of vision to the riverbank – and it was there that he saw what had had caused a once-proud man to deteriorate when faced with his own limitations. For what Jayme had seen, and Tanner now watched, was a young girl with a tear streaked face running as if a pack of wild dogs were on her trail. She was dressed in the traditional, long sleeved smock of a girl whose body had just started down the path to womanhood and her mouth opened wide, releasing a scream whose power was robbed by distance.

Tanner’s jaw tensed as his training rushed to the forefront of his mind.

It’s begun.

There was no denying it now, no chance that the smoke on the horizon was an accidental fire or anything other than all out war. For the terrified girl was covered in fresh blood.

There was no hesitation, no regard for his own well-being or safety. He dropped the binoculars without thinking. Before they even hit the ground, Tanner Kline slid down the outer embankment and tumbled across the grass outside the relative protection of Knoll. Half-running, half limping, he shambled toward the girl, tempering the explosions of pain in his ankle with the calm familiarity of the Sweeper mantra.

Without the help of field glasses, the running girl was nothing more than a speck in the distance. Though she had looked several years older than his little princess, Tanner’s mind superimposed Shayla onto the memory of that brief glimpse. It was all too easy to imagine his daughter’s pigtails bouncing as she fled from the horrors that caused the spatter to stand in stark contrast against a face that looked drained of blood. The birthmark on her throat, the one which almost looked like a tiny heart, pulsed and throbbed with each palpitation of her carotid artery and he could even imagine seeing inside her, her real heart thudding like a frightened bunny.

As the girl in the distance grew closer, her scream grew louder. It was a continuous wail, so high pitched that it almost sounded like the squeals of rusted metal that echoed through the ruins of cities when the wind blew. He could see her now: strawberry-blond hair streamed behind her as she ran and her patchwork skirt was so tattered and ripped that part of it seemed to slide off her hip, revealing her underwear with no regard for decorum or modesty.

By the time Tanner scooped the girl into his arms, he realized that her screams weren’t the wordless shrieks he’d first assumed them to be. In fact, they were actually a single word shouted so loudly that her voice broke and cracked with the strain. With her head thrashing near his cheek and tears dripping onto his shoulder, Tanner’s eardrum felt as if it were being punctured with needles. Wincing, he tried to remind himself that whatever discomfort her cries caused could be no worse than what she’d lived through. For the solitary syllable that the girl yelled was the word no , repeated again and again as if her mind refused to come to grips with what she had witnessed and could make it all disappear if she only protested loudly enough.

Running with only his own body weight to support had been difficult enough, but the added deadweight of the girl made his ankle feel as if it were about to snap. Nor did he struggles help. Part of her mind must have insisted that she was still back in her own community, replaying the events over and over as her fists thudded against Tanner’s back and her body writhed and twisted like a headless snake.

“It’s okay.” He whispered in a ragged pant. “I’m a Sweeper. You’re safe, darlin’. You’re safe .”

His words did nothing to penetrate the time loop she was stuck in and by the time they made it to the base of Knoll, Tanner’s face was crosshatched with scratches and welts from the girl’s grappling. The residents of the community scampered over the grassy ring and pulled the girl away from him, assuring her repeatedly that everything was all right, that she was among friends and the nightmare was over. The worried furrows in their brows and the way their eyes flitted from the girl to the field beyond, searching for signs of the savages who’d done this to her, told a different story, however.. Tanner could tell these people didn’t believe their own words any more than he did.

The nightmare was far from over.

The nightmare was just beginning.

“Life is not a clear and easy path, but is beset with brambles, thorns, and obstacles. Only through honor, strength, and wisdom may we hope to see the clearing beyond.”

Tanner Kline lay in the darkness and listened to the distant pounding of drums as he tried to focus himself. The steady, unfaltering rhythm had boomed through the night for hours and was starting to take its toll on the residents of Knoll. Just after sunset, the drums had begun. They echoed through the fields and resounded off the hills, making it impossible to tell how many there actually were, and the community collectively laid near the top of the ridge, their eyes peering over the apex as they watched for the first wave of the attack.

When there was no sign of a Spewer advance, they fidgeted in the grass and toyed with weapons that were more like refuse of the Old World. Knoll’s Sweeper had been either lazy or inept. Perhaps both. Much like the binoculars, the arsenal of this community had been neglected to the point that they almost seemed as dangerous as the Spewers hiding within the forest. Rust textured barrels that should have been smooth and slick, causing Tanner to discard many of the weapons with a disgusted grunt. If these deathtraps had actually been fired, they would have blown off the wielder’s hand. Or worse. To make complicate matter further, there was no organization to the ammunition at all. Shotgun shells mingled with .22 bullets which were scattered in a wooden box among calibers that didn’t match any of the firearms in Knoll’s armory. The settlement had probably traded for these in bulk… which was understandable. Ammo, after all, was a rare commodity. Not everyone had the skills or equipment needed to cast their own and poorer communities were forced to take what they could get. That being said, however, Kline could not excuse that fact that the unusable rounds had not been traded for more appropriate ones after the fact.