Road to Obsidian
By Z4ch4ry M!L3s
If you’re looking for America, it’s gone. A distant memory to the few who were alive to see it. The few who managed to survive whatever horrible disaster that transformed what was once a great and powerful nation into what is now a living Hell. To most of us, though, we’ve never know different. We grew up in this wasteland, never to know what it’s like not to have to wake up each morning to a barren wasteland. Never to know what it’s like not to have to struggle everyday to survive against starvation, dehydration, radiation poisoning, disease, mutated animals, marauding gangs, and God knows what else.
Even amongst the bloodshed and chaos, civilizations are still managing to form. I live in Bethesta. Or, I lived there until it was burned to the ground. Swamp Rats. A gang of cannibalistic hics with a notorious reputation for slaughtering entire villages. Bethesta was no exception. Only five of us survived the attack. Amy, she ran the city’s apothecary and medical treatment center. She was short but fit. She had dark brown hair, and a smile that could light up a room. She didn’t get to use it much though. Theres not a lot to smile about. There was Ted. He is a big boy. He has a huge scruffy beard and the color of his hair can make fire jealous.He worked at the gun store. Mainly testing the weapons that a group of us would find out in the Wilderness. Kat and I were in that group along with Johnny, Jeremy, and Kendra, but they didn’t survive the attack. Kat doesn’t say much but we’ve almost got a telepathic connection from working together so much. And Chelsey; she was in charge of the towns general supply store. She has the body of an angel but her soul is tormented like that of a demon’s. She came into town one day from God knows where and obviously running from something. She didn’t talk unless she had to. It must have been horrific.
As we walk from the carnage, I look to Ted, “Did you manage to salvage anything from the gun shop?”
“A hunting rifle and about 7 magazines of .308s”
“Ok. That’s going to be our lifeline. Treat that like it’s made of gold.”
Now I look over to Amy, “How about you?”
She replies, “Iodine tablets and some syringes of morphine. It’s not much. Sorry”
“That’s ok. It’s better than nothing. And we can use the Iodine for water. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Kat?”
Kat just gives me a look. She doesn’t talk much. Never really has. Either way, I can tell that she doesn’t have much more than the clothes on her back. I also came un-prepared. “Chelsey, did you save anything?”
“Let’s see, here.” She pulls her backpack off of her back and rummages through it. “Three cans of corn, six bottles of water, and SPAM for months. Looks like I’ve got twenty cans of the stuff.”
I address the group. “Ok, the closet town from here is Obsidian. It’s about a two and a half week’s walk away. We’re going to need to find water and food. Until then we can sustain ourselves on what Chelsey saved, and if we can find any animals that are safe enough to eat, we can hunt. Now let’s move. The Swamp Rats can’t be too far behind.”
We walk. What used to be a road to transport people and good from one prosperous city to the next prosperous city is now our only means of survival. We walk along the road making sure to stay safe from gangs and wild animals. We only stop when it gets dark and that’s when we sleep. We take turns working 3 hour shifts as look-outs. So far it’s been about nine days.
“Nick. Wake up. It’s your shift.”
I feel a warm hand shake me out of sleep. It’s Amy. “Ok. I’m up. Anything happen during your shift?”
“Nada.”
“Ok. Well, get yourself a good night’s sleep”
“Night”
Its dark. In the distance I can make out a nest of giant mutated rattlesnakes hidden in a pile of ash that resides in what once was a forest. Since we’re headed that way I am tempted to try to shoot the nest down. I decide against it. Too much noise. It’d probably wake the others up too. So I just wait out my shift.
My shift is almost over The sun is just beginning to peak its head over the horizon. It illuminates the air and paints the incinerated, gray landscape with dazzling pinks and oranges and yellows. It’s beautiful. Then Hell descends.
First I hear the engine of their car humming and the sound of the tires against the pavement, then I hear them laughing and singing along to banjo music. It’s the swamp rats.
“Everybody up! Get the lead out! Move!” We all hop to our feet, grab the few supplies we’ve managed to keep around and sprint for the cover of what was once a forest but is now an ash strewn no-man’s-land. I hear gun fire and turn around to see how close they are. Very. I can see one clearly, clad in a camo t-shirt, overalls, and a John Dear hat. He’s missing at least four of his teeth.
Then I notice Chelsey has fallen far behind. She’s struggling to move at all. A while ago, she cut her leg open and contracted the Hercules virus, a blood-borne pathogen that makes Ebola look like the sniffles. At first, it causes your coronary arteries to shrivel up and die, which feels like somebody lighting your chest cavity on fire. Then it causes blood to pool up in your extremities until they literally explode, leaving you incapacitated and praying for death. I guess the infection in her leg has gotten worse.
“Chelsey! Run!” I shout. But she can’t. She’s far too sick. And now I can see one of them, their sights trained on the back of her head.
“Ted! Hunting rifle! Now!” he tosses me the weapon without hesitation, and with the same speed, I place a bullet in between the cannibal’s eyes. He’s dead. I sling the rifle over my shoulder and run over to Chelsey, who’s now on the ground, her body racked with coughing. I pick her up off the ground and sling her over my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I whisper to her as I brush her hair out of her face, “I’ve got you.” I notice that the rest of the group has stop to recover about 50 yards away. That’s when I hear the car screech to a stop and the whoops coming from those freaks.
“Can you shoot?” I ask her. She simply nods her head and takes the gun from off of my other shoulder.
Gunshots. Lots of them. Resonating from the barrels hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols.
Bullets. Whizzing past my head, exploding in little puffs of dust and ash at my feet. I feel the recoil from our own rifle as Chelsey tries to fend off the cannibals from her awkward position on my shoulder. We make it back to the rest of the group who have all been hiding behind a giant, downed tree. “Chelsey, hand the rifle back to Ted. I’m going to need you as still as possible while I try to clean up your leg.” She nods and gives our only weapon back to Ted.
More gunshots.
I drag Chelsey out of the way of any harm and rip her pant-leg off at the knee. Then I use what little of our sterile water we have left to clean the blood and pus from the wound. There’s a lot of both. After the wound is clean, I rip off the sleeve of my shirt a bandage it as well as I can. It sucks. It’ll be a miracle if she lasts until tomorrow. “Can you sit up?” I ask her. She nods and sits up.
Blood. All over my face. Warm and sickly. Oozing out the bullet-hole in Chelsey’s forehead. She’s been shot. And our water wasted. I lay her down on the ground, and wipe my face with my sleeve. At least she won’t have to suffer anymore. I rejoin the group. “Ted, rifle.” He hands me the rifle.
“How’s Chelsey doing?” asks Ted.
“She’s not. She’s dead. Took a bullet to the face.” I had my sights trained on one of the cannibals as he tried to dive behind a bush. Too late. I had already pulled the trigger and the .308 hollow point round had already torn into his throat. As the bullet hit, blood spurted from his neck and soaked a near-by tree in red. One little drop trickled down the tree, pooling at the end of what was once a branch, and then falling four feet to scorched earth. I chamber another round, put my sights on another cannibal and pull the trigger. The round flies into his nasal cavity and goes on to sever his brain stem. He died before he hit the ground. Shame he didn’t suffer.
Pain. Searing pain deep in my chest. As if somebody extinguished a cigarette on my ribcage. Oh God, it’s the Hercules virus. How did I contrac- Chelsey’s blood. It splattered in my face when she was shot.
“Ted, Amy, Kat, you guys need to go. I’ll stay back and hold them off for as long as I can. Ted, you take the rifle and the rest of the ammo,” I hand the rifle and the last three magazines to Ted.
Ted takes them, “Are you sure?”
Amy, “You can’t! They’ll eat you!”
Kat stays silent but gives a me a look that says more than any words could.
“Go. All of you. Now. The road to Obsidian should be due south through these woods. Don’t stop until you’re there”
They run off. To safety. To Obsidian, an established settlement with secure borders and plenty of provisions. An oasis in this scarred wasteland that was once America but has since been perverted until unrecognizable.
“Looky what we got here. Look boys, this is the guy that’s been shootin’ up all our boys.” I turn around. It’s one of them. He looks at me. ”Now Whad’ja go an’ do that fer?”
“You’re one sick piece of sh-“ CRACK!
I’ve been hit in the head with a gun stock. I think he broke my nose.
“Now, you shut up! Me an’ the fellers was, uh… getting kina’ hungry. We was hopin’ a fine gentleman such as yerself could tell us where ta get sumpin’… tasty.” He grins an awful grin. A sinister, sadistic, 5-toothed grin.
I say nothing.
“‘Ay! Clem! Get over here with that there cattle prod!” A small stubby man brings the man the most evil-looking device I’ve ever seen. It’s a metal stick with two needles at the top, and in-between the two needles, small lightning crackles and pops.
I run. I don’t get far though, because somebody shoots out my legs from underneath of me. Then, every single muscle in my body contracts as I get electrocuted by the lightning from the cattle prod.
I wake up. I’m in a dark, disgusting room that smells of human excrement and death. The floor is stained with I don’t even want to know what. I hear moaning of people around me. I take that back, these are no longer people; these are livestock for those freaks… and now, so am I. My feet are bound and so are my wrists, but I can feel the blood causing my fingers and toes to swell. Soon they will explode. And then my hands, then my arms and legs, then… I don’t know what happens after that.
Footsteps. Coming closer. A voice. Young, “Look at this one, Pa, he looks mighty tasty.”
“Yep. Sure does, doesn’t he, son?”
A gun to my forehead, one final breath of life, and then…
Bang.
Gender:
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