Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

Sorry baby, I’m no marine. Gonna have to leave you behind. All plans to give her a proper funeral go by the wayside in favor of saving my own hide.

Four little kittens in the backseat of my dead car, and I’ve got twenty miles between me and safety; twenty miles of rocky desert canyon paths and deadly scorpions, snakes, and rabbits. Don’t get me started on those rabbits, some wack-job’s idea of post-Crash hardened wildlife. Remember hearing once that some dumb fools brought all these birds over from England to America because they were mentioned in a book of plays. Now we all gotta deal with starling shit covering our cars if we park under the wrong dead tree. So it was like that with some post-Crash survival who thought they could help wildlife survive the die-offs. Now rabbits just as likely to gore you to death as they are to fill your belly. Damn shame how some people deal with the end of everything.

So what do I do? I’m not ready to call it quits, gonna have to do something I never do, which is hoof it. I’m wishing I still had that box, but I’ve gotta have something in the trunk that will work to carry these little fur babies. I pop the back and rummage around through the tools and parts and scavenged junk I been holding onto just in case it ever proved useful. There we go—tool box. Covered in grease, filled with rusty screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, but it’ll do.

I dump it out without a thought, just a small whimper, slipping one good wrench into my back pocket, and gently place the kittens inside. I take a bloody nick on the hand from the pissy one. Shut the lid just part way, not latching it. I can’t hardly imagine being the kind of asshole who’d walk into Shantyville with a toolbox full of suffocated kittens.

Got no choice but to walk across the canyon floor, not sure what I’m going to have to cross on foot, having only been through these parts in my ride, but I know I’d better stick to the difficult terrain so they can’t run me down from their still-working rides. After a minute of jogging, I see a path high up on the canyon wall, so I head that way. Clouds of dust approach from behind, the dogs hot on my trail again, but still a ways off. My ruse must have worked. I crack a smile, pat my tool box, and cut my own dust cloud up that trail, hoping to make it out of sight before they pull in, wishing I’d learned something about covering tracks, or desert survival, back before the Crash. Shoulda been a boy scout instead of spending all that time helping my old man change oil and shit. Course, I can’t beat myself up too bad; knowledge of engines had gotten me this far. It was only the past few minutes where that was worth about as much as a handful of rancid beans.

I stumble for an hour, then another, up crumbling canyon walls, down dry streambeds, ducking, looking back constantly. Wishing I had eyes in the back of my head so my neck wouldn’t hurt so much from trying to look two ways at once.

The kitties are mewing just loud enough they’ll give me away if those bastards get too close. I tear off my shirt and wrap it around the box, gotta muffle that sound and keep the box from heating up too much. Plus who knows what’ll come running, worse than thugs, at the sound of a struggling animal. The thought chills me, turns my sweat cold, which is kind of a relief in the heat. Being scared out of your mind has some fringe benefits, turns out.

I’m working on a sunburn twenty minutes later, but it’s better than being shot or eaten alive. I try to keep the small things in perspective like my old man taught me. I do okay except at the worst times, like when I decide to ditch off with a box full of kittens and royally piss off my now-former employer. Stealing from the big man has to be the last straw in our already strained working relationship. Oh well; plenty of other wannabe dictators to work for out there in the wastes. I’ll look for gainful employment just as soon as I’m sure I don’t die gut shot on a sandy stretch of ghostly creek bed.

I hear shouts, gunshots in the distance. They’re spread out all over, keeping tabs on each other by firing off their guns like good, stupid henchmen. Several times I switch directions, scramble down some boulders, around a corner to avoid the sources of gunfire, but mostly the sound’s confusing, echoing off the canyon walls, making it hard for me to be sure exactly which direction they’re headed. I try hauling my dragging-ass carcass up high on some rock, scalding my calloused hands and arms by grabbing the sun-scorched surface. The thugs aren’t far back, ever, not more than a mile, and they had the forethought to bring water with them, I guess. My throat’s in dire need of lubrication and my eyes are sore from sand-grit and dust. Sure could use a good washing out about now. I soldier on, though. At first, this was about sentimentality; now it’s about plain old survival. Don’t think I could live with myself if I let Saul and his boys kill me.

Sun setting, moon rolling up. What’s left of it anyway—big old shattered dinner dish in the sky, constant reminder that the world can’t never be put back together again. Air’s getting nippy, and everything’s coming to life around me. I skirt around an enormous sleeping rattlesnake and spook some spiky-haired rat-thing that shambles off, spines waving and prickly nose held high with offense. An hour after dusk, I still hear the shouts and gunshots behind me but eventually they go quiet except for one large volley of blasts that I suspect are intended to kill or maim something, rather than communicate. I hope whatever they’re shooting gets in a few licks of its own.

I stagger on, dust clinging to my hair in the grease I use to keep it slicked back and out of my eyes. I’m thinking about a nice, warm bath with a pretty lady when out of nowhere comes this behemoth of a man, dirty pinstripe gray suit, pistol leveled at my head.

“Give ’em up and I’ll kill you quick,” he says, voice like an avalanche. I’m shaking, adrenaline making me jittery, and he sees it, gets nervous. “Do it now!”

Got no choice now, I think, only there’s the weight of that wrench in my pocket, that fucking wrench that’s been slowing me down all afternoon. I’ve forgotten until now what it is. I lower the toolbox to the ground, heavy with sleeping feline, and take a short step back, putting my hands behind my head like I’m ready for him to just shoot me, praying he has the brains to check the box before he does.

Luckily the monster has a few brain cells not killed with shooting up Viper-venom. He slips right up in front of me, bending down to remove my sweat-stained shirt and flip up the lid—

Instead, I flip his lid. Quick as anything, like I was born for this shit instead of rebuilding carburetors, I bring up the wrench, striking him clean in the jaw with an honest-to-goodness uppercut swing that knocks him senseless. He collapses on top of the box. After, I look down at the bloody wrench in my hand in astonishment like the appendage belongs to a stranger. Lots of opportunity for violence in my life since the Crash, but I’ve always dodged by being good at fixing and driving things on wheels.

Muffled kitty noises under the body remind me I don’t have time to think about it. Soon as I stop shaking, I roll the body away, pick up my load, and take off, not looking back, not even for a second, not wanting to see a dead man any longer than necessary. Especially not wanting to see a dead man in the light of the FUBAR-ed moon. On I walk, hoping his ghost never tracks me down.

My neck’s stiff. My back burns like it’s been dipped in battery acid. My head feels like it’s wrapped in cotton. All I’ve had for sustenance is a beer and a couple of rabbit burgers two days ago, maybe a little stale pump water at the cantina. Enough for me to get around on wheels, but on foot, things are different.