Geoff North - How the World Ends

Elton snorted and wiped what came out from his big nose against a shirt sleeve. “That was mighty big of them. They left that stupid thing as well.” He nodded at the old dead television set sitting in front of the coffee table. “For all the good it does me now. As much as I hated that idiot box, I have to admit I miss the company. I have a generator hooked up out back still running the essentials. Lights and so forth. First thing I unplugged was that thing.” He pointed an accusing finger at the television. “All it’s broadcasting now is snow.”

Hayden had heard the old farmer say we and we’ve two or three times. “How long have you been on your own, Elton?”

The old man stared at him through hooded eyes. His bottom lip jutted out for the longest time before he answered. “May is still with me… We were sitting together on that very couch watching the news the morning it happened.”

The morning it happened. Less than two weeks ago. “Where’s your wife now?” He asked softly.

More long, lip-hanging silence. “Upstairs… She’s sleeping. Does a lot of that now.”

Hayden nodded. “I see. Well, Mr. Macdonald, I want to thank you for your hospitality, but Nicholas and I have kept you too long. It’s time we were heading on.” He shook the boy awake.

“Heading on?” The old man said. “Where is it you’re heading to?”

“The city, to see what’s left.”

“But there’s a storm coming from that way.”

“We’ve been through plenty of storms the last few days. We’ll take cover.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I have room here. At least wait until this one’s passed over.”

Hayden went to a window and lifted the faded drapes. It was just past noon, but it looked more like full night out to the east. The clouds had that sinister roiling appearance to them that reminded him of the storm Jake had stolen Nicholas out into. “Do you have a cellar?”

“Of course,” Elton said. “But we won’t need to take cover down there. This house is solid, built it myself over forty years ago.”

“They didn’t have this kind of weather forty years ago.” He was about to add they didn’t have this kind of weather forty days ago, but something else caught his eye. Below the wall of advancing grey and green Hayden saw a line of vehicles moving down the highway. Seconds later he heard the low rumble of motors. “It looks like the army is on the move.”

Nicholas pushed up in front of him to see. Elton joined them a few moments later. “There’s a military base not all that far from here. Those boys are probably looking for survivors, helping out those in need. It’s good to see.”

They watched a few more minutes as the line of vehicles made their way west. MacDonald’s farm was less than a quarter mile off the main highway. The six green transport trucks and the solitary tank following would be out of sight in a few more minutes. Nicholas tugged on Hayden’s shirt. “Are they coming to help us? Are the soldiers gonna find us a new home?”

Hayden watched as the vehicles slowed. They stopped a hundred yards short of an abandoned car sitting in the ditch between lanes running east and west. “I’m not sure what they’re doing out there.” The big tank rumbled around the trucks and rolled to a halt facing the car. Seconds later the turret swung thirty degrees to the left and a flash of yellow exploded from the gun barrel. The tank rocked back on its tracks, and the abandoned car was destroyed.

Elton spoke first. “What the hell are those idiots trying to prove?”

Hayden could see the hatch on top of the tank beginning to open. “Do you have binoculars?”

“Well yeah,” the farmer said, shuffling off to a closet next to the front door. He reached up and found them on a top shelf the looters before hadn’t thought to explore. “These things have come in handy the last few days. Don’t you go taking them when you leave.”

Hayden took the binoculars and focused them on the tank. The man climbing out was no soldier, or at least he wasn’t dressed like one. The only thing he was wearing from the waist up was a pair of sunglasses. More men were spilling out from the trucks. They were wearing dirty blue jeans and tee-shirts. They took turns high-fiving the gunner. One of them went to a piece of burning wreckage that had fallen close to the tank and began urinating on it. “Those aren’t soldiers, and I don’t think they’re helping people.”

Elton had taken the binoculars from him and was peering out over the destruction. “Goddamned animals is what they are. If there’s no army left to give aid… then we’re all in a for a heap of hard times…. harder, that is.”

“As long as they stay away from here they can blow up and piss on whatever they want.”

The shirtless gunner returned to his tank as if he’d heard Hayden say the words. The others ran back to their trucks. The big machine lurched forward and back in its tracks. It shot forward again as the inexperienced driver found the proper gear, and the tank rolled into the ditch straight toward Elton MacDonald’s farm.

“It’s that horse you rode in on—they can see it from the highway.”

“I think it’s time we went into that cellar of yours.” Hayden could feel Nicholas pressed up to his side. The window had begun to rattle in its frame from the deep rumble of approaching vehicles.

“We’d be better off upstairs,” Elton said quickly. “The bedroom door locks from the inside.”

“They have a tank—locked bedroom doors won’t stop them. We need to hole up somewhere dark. Maybe they won’t even bother looking down there if they find the rest of the house deserted.”

“Please,” MacDonald pleaded. He’d grabbed onto to Hayden’s wide shoulders. “Not the cellar.”

Hayden took one of the boney wrists and forced it down. “We don’t have time to argue. Where is it?”

The old man wagged his head to one side, indicating a hallway off from the stairs leading up. Hayden pulled him along quickly and Nicholas ran ahead both of them. “First door on the left,” he said resignedly.

Nicholas opened the door and an unpleasant smell greeted them from the darkness below. The boy went for the light switch.

“No,” Hayden said. He reached up towards the ceiling and unscrewed the single light bulb from its socket. “If they can’t see what’s down there, maybe they won’t even bother coming down.”

Elton crept down the steep steps first, leading the other two into blackness. “Watch the third step. It’s starting to give in the middle.”

Hayden straddled the stairway, placing each step to the outside. He could feel Nicholas’s fingers dug into the waistband of his pants, using him as a guide. They heard the vehicles pull into the yard—the tank’s rumble, doors slamming shut, men whooping and laughing. Hayden stopped halfway down the stairs and pointed back up at the door. Nicholas scrambled back up in the gloom and pulled it shut. Hayden held his hands out and waited for the boy to find him again.

Gun shots fired when they reached the dirt floor. Multiple rounds.

“Trixie!”

Hayden started up the stairs, but Elton took hold of one of his big shoulders again and spun him around. He was a lot stronger than Hayden suspected. “Don’t be a fool, man. That horse isn’t worth our lives.”

There were more gunshots. Rapid fire. They were unloading entire machine gun magazines. Hayden stumbled into a corner and held Nicholas tightly to him. He was shaking and crying. “It’s okay,” Hayden whispered into the boy’s ear. “It will stop soon.”

The shooting ended a few moments later. Hayden prayed they’d murdered each other. The laughing started up again. Heavy boots thumped up the porch steps, and the front door slammed open against the inside wall. They were in the house, thudding about from room to room. Hayden slid his hand over Nicholas’s mouth. A heavy crash sounded directly over their heads. There goes Elton’s television set.