The Wasteland Saga

by Nick Cole

  Chapter 40

  They crossed gray concrete roads and empty sun-bleached buildings falling to rubble in the blaze of morning. The Old Man aimed the tank toward the strings of light still twinkling in the bright daylight below the foothills on the eastern edge of town.

  Those lights should be off by now. Who would leave them on during the day?

  But the lights remained on and when the Old Man found the settlement, a walled-off neighborhood below the easternmost foothills, the Old Man did not wonder why no one had turned out the lights. They were greeted by a soft dry breeze and the silence of abandonment.

  The settlement was a large tract housing development lying alongside the highway leading north. A massive adobe brick wall, built before the bombs, surrounded the entire development.

  Why was this place spared, like Tucson?

  At the entrance they found a makeshift gate fashioned from the metal one might find at the gates of industrial warehouses. Two watchtowers that had risen from behind the wall had been pulled down, their frames sprayed outward like so many spilled matchsticks. The patchwork gate was wide open.

  Why?

  The Fool, the Horde, King Charlie. Does it matter? Someone.

  Maybe they fled? Maybe they’re hiding?

  But the pulled-down watchtowers told another story.

  Inside, the three of them found the town.

  Streets.

  Houses.

  A humming generator in the distance.

  Doors wide open.

  Empty mugs and glasses whose insides were still stained with punch-red syrup.

  The Boy went back to the tank and the gate once the Old Man had called out “hello” and received no response.

  “What happened here, Poppa?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “It seems bad.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll leave soon.”

  But the fuel, my friend, there is only a little left.

  “I’m not worried, Poppa.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you worried, Poppa?”

  The Old Man did not answer her and instead continued to search the town as she trailed after him.

  They wandered through a few houses, and what they found within told them nothing other than that one moment of life lived ordinarily had frozen, and that time had refused to move forward.

  Beds unmade.

  Wash hanging.

  Each house smelling of dust and wood.

  Tools, usable salvage, merely left for anyone to take.

  In one house they found a spilled glass of milk.

  The milk was warm and spoiled.

  We should find the generator. Maybe it runs on fuel.

  As if on cue, while the Old Man stood over the spilled milk and heard at the same time the distant hum of power, the generator died.

  Outside, stepping over the front lawns turned to dying gardens, the strings of light above had ceased to twinkle.

  The Old Man followed the darkened lights to thick rubber electrical cables that snaked through the streets and led to a house on the far edge of the settlement. Inside, the Old Man found hundreds of generators set up in every room. A central fuel bladder occupied the upper story. In the backyard they found a fuel truck that started crankily. Its tank was almost empty.

  This was their power plant.

  But the fuel is somewhere else.

  Yes.

  At the front entrance, waiting in the shade of the tank and drinking from a canteen, the Boy watched the land to the north of them.

  “They were chained up over there,” said the Boy and pointed toward the median. “There’re drops of blood all over the dirt. The slavers must have put fishhooks in their noses or mouths and linked them to chains. Then they went north. I’ve seen it done before.”

  “Can you tell how many days ago that might have been?” asked the Old Man.

  “A week. Maybe more.”

  The explosion shook the city.

  It was distant. A boom, and then a crack that seemed to follow seconds after, echoed far out across the city and into the hills above them.

  Back toward the center of the city, flames shot skyward as a black plume of smoke belched into the tired blue sky.

  “Is it one of the bombs from before, Poppa?”

  “No. Just an explosion.”

  She has no idea how big those bombs were. She has heard me and the other survivors who lived through those days talk of them and all that they took away, but she really has no idea how massive they were.

  “Are you sure, Poppa?” she said, the worry evident.

  “I am sure.”

  But he could see her face. Her wide eyes. The lips pressed together.

  “Those bombs destroyed entire cities,” said the Boy. “We would be dead if it had been one.”

  After a moment she seemed to accept the Boy’s words.

  Relaxing.

  She has lived in fear of those bombs her whole life. They are her boogeyman.

  Yes. And this Boy said the words that comforted her, my friend.

  Yes. There is that also.

  They drove as close to the flames and smoke as they could. They could smell the thick scent of burning fuel.

  It was an industrial district.

  Narrow streets.

  Concrete warehouse.

  In green slop-paint the words “How now Nuncle Brown Cow?” were splashed across the smooth side of an old warehouse.

  The Fool did this.

  It would seem so, my friend.

  This Ted must have been brewing their fuel here. He seems a very smart man. Our village could have used him.

  The world could have used him.

  Yes.

  Black smoke erupted through windows and through the roof of a large warehouse as orange flames consumed the entire structure.

  All their fuel must have been inside there, inside a big tank.

  With no one to fight it, this fire will burn the city down in a few days.

  And…

  “What are we gonna do now, Poppa?”

  We have, maybe, ten miles of fuel left.

  So there is that also, my friend.

  Yes.

  Chapter 41

  The tank limped through the fence at the far end of the international airport. Ahead, dirty and ancient jetliners waited forever at their gates for passengers on that last and long-ago day. Doomsday.

  The needle in the gas gauge rested firmly on Empty.

  I will not give up.

  As if you could fuel this tank with your words?

  I will not give up.

  As if you can make it all the way to Colorado Springs?

  We have made it this far. I will not give up.

  And do you think the fuel in these jets is still any good?

  It has to be, and if it isn’t, we will find another way. I will not give up.

  Why?

  The Old Man did not answer himself.

  Why? Why won’t you give up?

  Silence as he maneuvered the tank under the wing of one of the biggest jets.

  A 747 I think.

  Why won’t you give up?

  Stop!

  Why?

  Because in that moment when I saw the painted words of the Fool, I wanted to. Because this thing is bigger than an old man like me. Because this is too much, and seeing all that fuel we could’ve had, if we’d just gotten there earlier, go up in flames, crushed…

  Crushed?

  Silence.

  Yes. It crushed me.

  But you have been through worse, my friend.

  Have I?

  Yes.

  “Will there be fuel here, Poppa?” she said over the intercom.

  “Let us hope so.”

  Outside and climbing onto the hot metal of the wing, burning his knees and the palms of his hands, he searched for the opening to the fuel tank.

  I can’t find it.

  Think. There is something you’re forgetting.

  It’
s underneath the wing, my friend.

  Will the fuel still be good after all these years?

  I will not give up.

  It’s underneath the wing.

  “I found it!” he called out to them.

  The Boy dragged the fueling hose away from the tank.

  Think. There is something…

  “Wait!”

  He opened the cover to the wing fueling nozzle.

  There will be water in the bottom of the fuel reservoir after all these years.

  Water is heavier than fuel.

  The Old Man found the lever that drained the fuel tank.

  “Stand back!”

  He pushed the lever and fuel gushed out onto the ground.

  How will I know when it isn’t water?

  He waited.

  Did it change color?

  It smells more like kerosene now.

  “Okay, bring me the hose,” he said, slamming the fuel release lever back into the closed position.

  Hopefully the fuel will not have as much water in it now. Now there will be a better chance that it will burn.

  The tank drank up all the fuel it could from the insides of the old plane. Afterward, they topped off the two reserve drums still strapped to the turret.

  In his mind the Old Man saw the map.

  This is enough to make it there.

  But what about getting back?

  THEY LET THE spilled fuel dry. Over a fire of discarded luggage, they spitted and roasted some rabbit the Boy had taken near the settlement. They drank water in the shadows of the old terminal. Broken glass guarded the shadowy interior of the place, and they could only catch glimpses of suitcases and curtains near the daylight, high up on the concourses above.

  There must have been panic that day.

  I remember.

  The Old Man made them stand far away and then went to the tank.

  Off in the distance the fire in the center of town seemed to grow, its oily top like an anvil of smoke or an evil bird looming high over the city.

  If the aircraft fuel explodes when I start the tank, would they be safe?

  Would he protect her? Would he take her back to Tucson?

  What other choice do you have, my friend?

  The Old Man started the APU, waited a few seconds, and then fired the turbine. He watched the Boy and his granddaughter struggling with a manhole cover they’d managed to pry up from the tarmac as he listened for trouble within the noise of the tank’s engine.

  It sounds rougher and this time there is gray smoke instead of black.

  Is that better? Is gray better than black?

  I don’t know, my friend.

  The Old Man backed the tank out from underneath the jumbo jet. He drove down the runway once and then back.

  If the fuel wasn’t any good then it should be out of fuel or dying now, right, Santiago? The temperature gauge is also a cause for concern.

  Yes, but it runs, my friend, and for now, that is enough.

  In the distance, the black plumes above the fire had grown as smoke drifted east over the dead city.

  The Old Man looked around at the terminal.

  I wonder if my dad ever came here in the jets he flew.

  In a few days the fire will come and it will all be gone. Maybe by tonight even.

  Yes.

  The ancient jets, immobile and waiting, seemed to him as if all they needed were pilots, pilots like his dad, and once again they might leap away from the earth.

  I remember being pressed into my seat as we raced down the runway.

  I remember that my feet did not reach the floor.

  I remember that my dad was up front, at the controls of the plane.

  I was very proud to be his son.

  Chapter 42

  They pushed north as the flames consuming Albuquerque climbed toward the old highway on the eastern edge of town. For miles they could see the billowing black smoke reaching high into the iron blue of noonday.

  The old highway was sun-bleached and rent by gaping cracks as the tank pushed upward through a ponderosa of rocks and stunted twisting pines.

  There is only Santa Fe between us and Colorado Springs now. It is the last major city.

  When he showed the Boy the map and pointed toward Santa Fe, asking if the Boy knew anything about what they might find there, the Boy only shook his head.

  In the late afternoon they arrived in Santa Fe.

  The Old Man turned off the tank and watched the pink rocks in the last of the hot day.

  There is nothing here.

  The Old Man looked hard into the dense tangle of weed bracken and cactus that spread west of the highway across a wide rise that ended in a chalky ridge and tired rocky hills beyond.

  If there was a city here it is gone now.

  Were they nuked?

  The Old Man checked the dosimeter.

  There is radiation.

  On the sudden and very light afternoon breeze that began to sweep the place, the Old Man could hear bone chimes rattling against each other, hidden but there all the same.

  So what is their story of salvage?

  The Old Man watched as purple shadows began to lengthen and as the sun sank into the western sands. Within the brush he could see the frames and structures of rotting buildings signaling their surrender to the landscape.

  The land turned to red and what was not red was purple and cool.

  The buildings are like victims tied to a stake, signaling through the flames that they were here. Trying to communicate their last message.

  What do you know of such things, my friend?

  THEY DROVE ON until the dosimeter was back down to an acceptable level.

  High. But not too high.

  There will always be radiation now. With the amount of bombs we used, there must be.

  I never fired one.

  Yes. But it was your generation that can never be forgiven.

  Silence.

  In the dark, beside the tank, watching their fire turn and leap as it consumed the sweet-scented local pine, the Boy spoke.

  “I know where you are going. But where did you come from?”

  His granddaughter watched him, her eyes wide.

  I am surprised she has not told him already.

  She still listens to you.

  “A city,” said the Old Man.

  The Boy continued to watch the fire, its flames within his green eyes.

  “Ain’t nothin’ left of cities, Boy,” said the Boy.

  “What do you mean?”

  The Boy shook his head.

  “Just something someone used to tell me.”

  The soldier.

  I wish we’d more of that rabbit than we did. Tomorrow we should hunt for a while.

  “It’s true,” said his granddaughter. “Isn’t it, Poppa?”

  The Old Man nodded still thinking of rabbit.

  “Poppa found it. We used to live in a tiny village but Poppa went out into the wasteland and found Tucson.”

  The Old Man shot a quick look at her and then the Boy.

  “Sorry, Poppa.”

  The Old Man got up and went to get some water.

  When he came back he said, “I’m sorry.” He nodded at the Boy. “I didn’t know if we could trust you. When we found you… well… you’d had a tough time. That was obvious.”

  The Boy only seems to listen to me now. But really, he is somewhere else. Maybe in his past, before we found him.

  How do you know, my friend?

  Whatever happened before we met him scarred him, changed him. Left its mark on him. He is there even now and I doubt he wholly ever leaves that place.

  Yes.

  “We don’t need to know about your past,” said the Old Man. “You’ve proven yourself to us. In fact, I don’t know what we’d have done without you. When we finish with this business, you could come and live in the city with us, if you wanted to.”

  “You’d like it there!” said his granddaughter. “There’s lots of
salvage.”

  After a moment the Boy whispered a barely audible “thank you” and nothing more.

  In the night, the others were asleep and the Old Man lay awake again, watching the night and the stars.

  I would give anything to sleep like I used to. Like they do.

  You’re not thinking about rabbit even though you’ve been trying to.

  Yes.

  So what are you really thinking about?

  Everything.

  That’s a lot to think about, my friend.

  Yes.

  A lot for one person.

  Yes.

  The story of Santa Fe? The story you would need to know if you were going to go and salvage there?

  A little of that, although it is easy to understand what happened there, but mostly of other things.

  Then what happened there?

  A dirty bomb would be my guess. That is why we got the higher reading on the dosimeter. A dirty bomb parked in the downtown district.

  Or the art district. Or even the historic.

  Did they have such things?

  Wherever it was, it went off and destroyed less than a block. The fire engines and police arrived. If it was the first bomb, or one of the first in those early days before we truly understood what was going on, they hadn’t even thought of checking their dosimeters that day. But in the days that followed, before the EMP that knocked out the networks, an exploding van in any kind of populated area would have had them checking. In a moment they would’ve known.

  Known what?

  That the city was poisoned.

  That everyone must flee.

  Why?

  Because, what can you do now? The bomb has gone off. You can’t put out radiation like a fire. Or clean it up like a flood. Or pack it into an ambulance and take it to the hospital. No. It is just there, somewhere under all that brush.

  And that is what happened. In a matter of hours, by evening no doubt, because I remember the bombs always seemed to go off during the morning rush hour… they are all gone into the desert and the city is dead for all practical intents and purposes.

  The bombs always went off at morning rush hour.

  I have not thought about that in a long time. Funny, what comes back to you across the years. What surfaces in the little pond we call our mind.