Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga - The Old Man and the Wasteland, Savage Boy and The Road is a River

“So here’s the story of the Dragon. You can judge if you want. I don’t suspect it matters much in my current situation. When I took that drive to Phoenix in the tank I found a settlement living in the gas station and the rocks of Picacho Peak. I tried to tell ’em they could come back to the city but they said city ways is what caused all this mess. They wanted to start a new society. No rules. Had a college professor, or so he said he was, that ran the whole place. We were friendly enough at first. I’d drive out every six months or so and give what medical aid I could. But every trip they got wilder and wilder. Crazy stuff I don’t need to go into. But you will find a movie in the video library on the third floor, room 307, called Apocalypse Now . That might explain how it got. Anyway the professor, as they called him, was running amok. He had a harem. I suspected he was killing his people. Maybe just his enemies within the tribe, which I took to calling the Horde after this computer game I played when I was kid, called Warcraft . Or just because he could. People I’d treat wouldn’t be there the next time for me to follow up. I’d ask, but no one could tell me what happened to them. They were eating a lot of peyote. Lots of accidents, burns, falls, that sort of thing. I let it go.

“One day I go out there and they’re gone. I looked over the whole place and that’s when I found the bone pile beneath the peak. I climbed up to the top of the peak. They had a whole weird cave system slash temple up there. Chalk drawings of what they were doing told me the whole story. But they were gone. I tried to track them down. I found another settlement out in the west called Ajo, which means ‘garlic’ in Spanish. It was easy to follow the Horde because they moved like locusts. This was ten, maybe fifteen years after the bombs. There were lots of them by then. Anyway, Ajo had been surviving out there. They had a sheriff. Walls. A store. The Horde found them and destroyed the whole town. It was terrible what they did to those people who had survived out there for so long.

“You might ask ‘Do I feel bad about what happened to those people in Ajo?’ I do. Anyone would. But I had my orders and they were to save Tucson and hold position. I was trying to keep the candle burning by saving as much as I could for whoever would come along. It wasn’t my job to go find those people and bring ’em in. I should have, but I didn’t and that’s the way it is. Like I said you can judge me if you want.

“The Horde moved on over the border of Mexico. I figured they would either die out there or never come back, and that was for the best. I continued to work on the Fort, and periodically I started driving out to other towns on the map, a day’s journey or so out. Most were dead. Some had their own stories of what went wrong. You could tell by the bodies and the bloodstains the Horde got to a few. I checked Picacho Peak. It was quiet for a long time. I waited. About ten years ago they came back. They started the sacrifices as soon as they got back. I shot the head off the leader with a Barrett from a ways off, as he was about to throw an infant off the top of the peak. He and the kid tumbled into the crowd below and they … well, forget it.

“Then I went in with the tank. They call it the Dragon. I interrogated a few of them after the battle. Scattered all the rest and shot the place up. Held it for a few days. They kept trying to re-take it at night. I had four sentry guns set up around the tank. It was not a quiet night. I killed a lot of them and came to two conclusions. One, Picacho is important to them. Two, there are a lot of ’em. So whoever you are, watch out for Picacho Peak. They ain’t nothing more than animals now. If that’s what’s left of humanity, then this was all for nothing. But if I made it, someone else must have made it too.

“I wish I could hear your story. I think I would like it very much. I waited for you, but I think cancer got me. I tried to make this place safe and easy to get into at the same time. I set the auto gun to recognize ‘a hands up’ silhouette profile as ‘safe.’ So if you made it past the gun, you can read.

“I started a project. When I neutralized the temple at Picacho Peak I found laws the Horde had written down. Utter nonsense. I decided to write my own. For the next bunch who want to have a go at civilization. I used a plate welding torch and carved them into the sewers here and others places throughout the area. Kinda like the pyramids, except useful, and sewage systems outlast most civilizations.

“You are civilization now. What more can I say? I’ve left lots of these composition books throughout the buildings and on the equipment to tell you how to use it, or what’s where and such. Cancer got me. You can find my body in bed on the top floor of this building, in an apartment I set up. I promoted myself to Sergeant Major. God Bless America.”

The Old Man leaned back in the chair and wept.

He felt weak. Later he went to one corner of the room, which had once most likely been an executive office, and rolled out his emergency blanket. He found a bathroom down the hall and heard Muzak playing in the sound system of the building. The tune was familiar but he couldn’t remember it. He ran cool water on his face and drank from the sink. He thought about finding the infirmary. Medicine might help, but the feeling of fatigue was bone deep. He went back to the office and slept.

He awoke in the night. He stood for a moment looking out the large windows. White clouds scudded across a night sky that seemed bigger than any he could remember.

How long have I been gone?

He tried to count the days by their adventures. But they seemed too many.

He went to the restroom again and heard another familiar tune coming from the building’s Muzak system. He couldn’t say its name either. He came back to the office and wrapped himself in his blanket and sat in the chair watching the clouds drift across the sea of night.

In the morning when he awoke sitting in the chair, he felt hollow and sweaty.

Maybe the worst of the sickness has passed.

When he moved, he felt fragile as though it all might come back upon him.

I need to make it back to the village.

If you start now, it will take a few weeks.

I know that. It is also monsoon season. Very dangerous.

The desert looked calm and cool beyond the city boundaries. Distant mountains of orange rock and brown shadow seemed pleasant from the safety of the building.

I have to make it back before I die. I have to tell them. If this fever turns into something, they will never know.

You have to make it back without dying.

He thought of the tank in the garage.

He searched the building for the rest of the day, finding the libraries of books and discs and computers that still worked. Medical supplies, equipment of every sort; all had been catalogued, ordered, and stored. Waiting. The Old Man wondered at all the years and the person of Sergeant Major Preston.

Finally he went to the top floor suite and found the corpse of the Sergeant Major. The room was orderly, and only the photograph of a woman, young, bangs, glasses, was any clue to the personal life of the man. There was a body bag beside the bed.

The Old Man closed the door and went back to the elevator. In the garage he found vehicles, farming and construction equipment. Each had a composition book. Near the main entrance to the garage he found four tanks. Three were missing parts, obviously cannibalized to keep the fourth in good condition. He climbed up to the cupola and found a note on the hatch instructing him how to enter the tank.

Inside he found a VCR tape and a note that read “Watch First!!!” He returned to the offices of the building, and in one of the video libraries he found a VCR.