America's Sunset: A Post Apocalyptic Fight for Survival

by Norman Christof

  Heaven would be nothing like the desert. Would he miss it, Ahmed wondered. Today, the desert brought him closer to Allah. It was simpler here, unspoiled by the boot of the transgressors. Change happened slowly if at all. The desert was both beautiful and dangerous. Deadly even, if you didn’t treat it with respect.

  His GPS told him he was close, and this looked as good a location as any to spend the night. A night under the stars would be good for his soul and serve as a reminder of his place in the grander scheme. Even though he spent most of his time in the desert, along the fringe in his small home, there was nothing quite like spending the night without a man-made structure between him and the stars. It was as close to heaven as he’d ever been. He setup a simple camp, using the desert to protect him. The short cliffs running along this section of desert would shield him from the elements. They would block the winds from the west, keeping him warmer as he slept.

  Turning off the bike, he reached into the saddle bag, and pulled out the high-powered binoculars. One last scan as far as he could see before sunset would be the prudent thing to do. Not only to take note of any desert beasts or infidels that may be approaching. There would come a day when they would smarten up, and learn to pursue him further into the desert. They didn't like the desert. This was a strange land for them, not one that had belonged to their ancestors. They were invaders. The original people knew how to live in the desert, but not these oppressors. To them it was both amusing and something to be feared. Something to charge the tourists for. He laid out a sleeping roll, and built a small fire pit to illuminate his prayers.

  He packed his things carefully in the morning. He shook out his sleeping roll first, to ensure there were no unwanted visitors from the night hiding in his warm bed. Nothing but sand freed itself from his roll. He broke up the fire pit, returning the small stones to the exact locations where he had found them. He rolled his bike a good distance from his camp manually, then brushed away the footprints in the sand. Carefully walking back to his motorcycle, he brushed away his tracks once more. It wasn’t about hiding himself. The fools that chased him were probably still sleeping off hangovers from their bottles of sin. It was about respecting Allah’s work, and putting things back in His vision of beauty. The desert was sacred, and shouldn’t have to bear the scars of man for any longer than necessary. Even if those scars were inflicted by a true believer.

  Ahmed drove to the designated location in the desert, like he’d done for the last ten years of his life. Every month, he drove into the desert, and dug a hole. Every month, he’d look at the piece of paper he’d been carrying on his person for ten years. Each line on the list was a string of apparently random numbers that seemed meaningless. Meaningless to anyone but Ahmed. Ahmed knew that the numbers were a day of the month and a GPS location.

  While the numbers weren’t meaningless, the purpose of them seemed lost to Ahmed. The further he got down the list, the more desperate he became. There were one hundred and twenty rows of numbers on his list, and today he used the last row of numbers. He didn’t know what he’d do after today. Should he start at the beginning of the list? He’d received no instructions as to what would happen once he got to the last entry.

  His mother had given him the list on his fifteenth birthday. She said that he was old enough to be the man of the family that day, and that the list was now his responsibility. She told him what the numbers meant, and what he had to do with them. Drive to the location, and dig until he found a metal box. The metal box would only be a few feet under the dirt. Sometimes, the GPS numbers weren’t all that accurate and he’d have to dig several holes over a span of hours till he found the box. Sometimes, he’d find the box on the first try. Either way, the contents of the box would always be the same … empty. Just some old rusted toolbox with nothing inside.

  His mother died within a year of the first box he dug up. She always drove him to the location, because he hadn't yet learned to drive. Ahmed believed there was another reason she did the driving. She wanted to be sure he completed the task. What fifteen-year-old wants to spend hours in a hot desert digging holes? Every month though, she insisted. He could make no other plans on desert days. Even school, which was something his mother never let him miss, could be missed on the desert days. That part of it Ahmed didn’t mind so much. The day his mother died was a desert day. He drove to the desert and dug up an empty box then came home to an empty house.

  A social worker came by the next day, to talk with Ahmed. The social worker explained that he and his brother were now wards of the state, since they had no next of kin. She was nice enough as she explained they would be placed into foster homes. It would be difficult however to keep them together because of their age. Ahmed ran away from the first home the second night he was there. He made his way to his brother’s foster home, where the foster parents found him the next morning, sleeping on the floor of his brother’s room. It was the last time he saw his brother. Both boys were relocated to different homes, and they weren’t told where the other one was. It was important, the social worker told him, to adjust to his new home. She promised that once he settled in and things were going well, he’d be able to see his brother again. Ahmed couldn’t wait that long and ran away from foster care for good. In spite of his best efforts, he never was able to find where his brother was placed.

  It was time to complete his mission. He’d hoped and prayed that today would be the day. That the message he had hoped for all these years would be found. When he finally arrived and turned off his motorcycle, he was taken aback by how pristine the area was. Either he was in the wrong location, or his predecessors were even more fastidious about respecting Allah’s home than he was. He prayed for the latter, and it wasn’t long before those prayers were rewarded.

  Today, July 16, 2012 was the last day on the neatly folded, yellowed paper in Ahmed’s pocket. Along the way Ahmed had mixed feelings about the trip. Part of him didn’t want to go at all, but another part of him wanted to get it over with. He pulled the paper list from his pocket, and opened it. On the reverse side of the list, written in Arabic in his mother’s handwriting, were the words ‘Taqum biwajibuk’ … ‘Do your duty.’ He felt he didn’t have a choice. Even after all these years, he could remember his mother’s insistence on following the list. She never told him where the list came from, only that it was part of his responsibility. His duty as a man. So, he drove on.

  His handheld GPS told him he was at the right location. He pulled a swig of water from his bottle before dropping his pack and unfolding his collapsible shovel. By the sixth hole, he was getting more than a little frustrated. It wasn’t unusual to have to dig this many holes, but today was different. What was the point of digging just to find an empty box? A hundred and twenty boxes to be exact. If he only found one hundred and nineteen, would he still have fulfilled his duty as a man, he wondered? He knew what his mother would say, so Ahmed kept digging.

  On the eleventh hole, he heard his shovel clink against something metallic. He knelt and brushed the dirt away from the box. This time, something was different. This wasn’t an old rusty metal box. This time, the box looked brand new. As he pulled the bright red box from the dirt, the only damage to it was the ding where his shovel had hit the top of it. Apart from the fresh dirt covering it, the box looked like it was fresh off the shelf of a department store. This time, the box was heavy. He had to pull with both hands to get it out of the dirt. This time, for the first time, there would be something inside.

  He sat back, just staring at the box in the dirt. There was no lock on the box, just like the others. The very last trip after ten years of digging and this time there was something there for him. Why? He wondered what his mother would say. After staring at the box for what seemed like forever, Ahmed knew what his mother would say. He did his duty, and opened the box.

  The writing on the case was Arabic, and a phrase he understood well. Ahmed smiled, and felt an anticipation in him than he hadn’t felt in years. His loyalty had final
ly come to fruition. Today was the beginning of a whole new life for him … and others. Not much longer would he breathe this earth’s air, as he moved closer to his one true salvation. He started chanting the phrase written on the case over and over. Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar. It rolled and danced off the tip of his tongue. His heart swelled as he chanted it louder still, while he packed the case away and climbed onto his cycle. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Ironically, his chanting was drowned out by the sound of his American-built motorcycle racing across the desert. Ahmed couldn’t have cared less; irony was not something he believed in.

  Chapter 5 ~ Dungeons & Cruises

  “C’mon, Maggie, it’s not that much money. An extra five thousand, is not really that much in the large scheme of things. Think of it as an investment for the future. For your kids’ future,” Jake said.

  “An education is an investment. A home is an investment. Stocks are an investment. Hell, buying another computer that’s going to be obsolete before we figure out how to turn it on is more of an investment. Haven't you dug enough holes out there? The whole back property must be on the verge of collapse with all the digging that's gone on,” Maggie said.

  “That’s not true. Everything I’ve done is structurally sound. If anything, I’ve over-engineered the hell out of all that stuff back there. Nothing is going to collapse. Don't worry, there won’t be a sinkhole in the backyard anytime soon.”

  “You can’t say over-engineered. You’re not an engineer. You’re a retired librarian. You don’t build buildings, you don’t build bridges. You never went to engineering school. What makes you think you’re qualified to say you’ve over-engineered anything?”

  “Research librarian.” Jake corrected. “I’m an educated man, Maggie. I can read, and I can learn. You’re going to thank me for all of this at some point. There’s going to come a day where all hell breaks loose around here, and everyone is going to be looking for a place to hide. All those neighbors of ours are going to become some scary-ass people very quickly.”

  “Now, you're clairvoyant as well? You don’t know that. You don’t know how people are going to react in a given situation until you’re actually in that situation. People are basically good at heart. They’re not going to start scratching each other’s eyeballs out for a can of green beans. Real people don’t act that way.”

  “You’re right, that’s not normally what people are like, but I’m not planning for a normal situation. None of us have ever had to live in the kind of situation that I’m planning for here.”

  “Maybe,” Maggie smiled, “that’s because the situation never came up, and never will come up.”

  “We live a sheltered life here, Maggie. A very fortunate and blessed life, in the greatest country on the planet. War and hunger and starvation and crime are distant concepts in our lives.”

  “That’s not true, you old fool. Have you read the newspapers? I have. I still watch the news while you’re sitting there all night long reading crazy conspiracy stuff on the Internet. I know what’s going on. My life isn’t that sheltered.”

  “Knowing about something and actually having to survive your way through it are two totally different things. Just because I’ve read about the First World War, doesn’t mean I know what it’s like to live in the trenches and wonder if I’ll ever make it home to my family.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Jake. Of course it doesn’t. I’m just trying to tell you that I know what goes on in the world. I know there are horrible things happening in it, and I know they happen closer to home than we’d like. And yes, it scares me, but I’m not going to let it rule my life. I’m going to enjoy the time I have left in this world, and I want to enjoy it with you. I don’t want to spend money digging holes so I can live in the ground someday. I’ll live in the ground when I’m cold and dead. For right now, I’d rather take that five thousand and go on a cruise with you somewhere. Is that so bad?”

  Jake was silent for a minute. They both were. This wasn’t the first time they’d had discussions like this. As much as they still loved each other and wanted to be together, it was getting harder. Harder, because they were growing to see the world through different eyes. Like much of the country. There were those that believed it was important to do everything they could to prepare for the inevitable. At least their version of the inevitable. Then there were those who just blindly kept on doing what they were doing. Maybe with a blind eye, and maybe with eyes wide open. Eyes wide open, that were connected to a brain that decided it didn’t matter. If that’s the way things were going to end, then so be it. If the zombie horde, or the starving neighbors horde, showed up at their door tomorrow morning armed with pitchforks and toxic venom in their saliva, then so be it. Bring ’em on and let the chips land where they lay.

  “I love you very much too,” Jake said. “Can’t you see that you’re the reason why I do the stuff that I do. The thought of you or our kids falling prey to those horrors is more than I can stand. It’s what keeps me awake at night. I know it's old fashioned to say so, but I’m your protector. That’s my job. I’m the man here, and I’m your husband. It’s in my DNA. It makes me happy, and it’s what I want to do.”

  Maggie smiled, and brushed away a single tear as she hugged Jake. “I know dear, I understand why it’s important to you, and I love you for it. But, maybe, just maybe you’d sleep better at night if you were on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean, thousands of miles away from your hunger-crazed zombie neighbors?”

  Jake chuckled, as he shook his head in disagreement.

  Chapter 6 ~ Harish

  Harish didn’t mind cleaning public bathrooms; at least it was a job. Not something that everyone had these days. The work was really quite peaceful, given that none of his other colleagues seemed interested in the task. The fact that he was willing to do the work spared them from having to get their hands dirty. He put on the long, thick rubber gloves before getting started. The washrooms were his favorite part of the job. He didn’t have to deal with the public, and there was no one to make disparaging remarks about his ethnicity.

  He moved from urinal to urinal, spraying each with disinfectant and wiping them down with the long-handled brush he pulled from the pail of watered-down bleach. If the little blue deodorant pucks in each had melted or were too small, he replaced them with new ones. He’d suggested to his manager that if he just moved all the small pucks to the urinal furthest from the door they would last longer. It seemed to get the least use. His manager told him to keep doing things the way he’d been instructed, and to stop thinking so much. It occurred to Harish that it was hard not to think doing a job like this. Thinking was what he did all the time. Thinking about a better place to live mostly. He’d held this job for a month now, which was almost a record for him.

  It looked like things might be finally turning around. Nothing to get too excited about, given that he still lived in the basement of an old house in the Greenspoint neighborhood of Houston, Texas, an area that even the crack dealers avoided. It simply wasn’t worth the risk on their investment. Having been unemployed for two months prior to this job had him worried. He hadn’t been able to even pay his rent, and he realized that the only reason he wasn’t out on the streets was that his landlord hadn’t been around for a while. That wasn’t too strange in and of itself, but it was strange that the power and water were still on. The last time his landlord disappeared for this long, the utilities got shut off. Given his financial situation, it was a blessing this time as long as the utilities stayed on.

  Harish finished the last of the urinals, then moved towards the stalls. He liked to do the sinks first, then the urinals, then the stalls. He figured that way he’d get adjusted to the smell of the place before moving on to the worst of it all. Not that the smell was ever that bad in here. He’d certainly been in worse places. That last foster home he lived in before turning eighteen and moving out on his own came to mind.

  Today though, the washro
om had a slightly rotten smell to the place. Kind of like the alley behind the butcher he used to pass by on the way to high school. Not an alley you wanted to walk down on one of those one hundred degree-plus Houston summer days. Truth be told, it wasn’t an alleys you wanted to walk down on most days. Knowing where to go and where not to go was all part of growing up in the Third Ward of Houston. It could be a tough area for most kid and especially for one that’s a little different.

  “Well,” Harish said out loud. “Let’s see what’s behind door number one, shall we.”

  He pushed the door open and wrinkled his nose at the sight within.

  “Hmm. Looks like someone couldn’t hold their booze,” he said, as he was confronted with a stall decorated with stomach bile, regurgitated malt beer, popcorn and pepperoni.

  He heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see Lucy, his manager, covering her mouth as she tried to suppress her gag reflex.

  “Hello, Lucy. What brings you here to my office on this cheery Sunday morning?”

  Harish flashed her the nicest smile he could muster. Lucy was his manager, and the prettiest girl he got to talk to these days. She actually talked back to him, which was a real bonus. The fact that she was his manager didn’t deter Harish.

  “Geez, how can you stand the smell in this place?”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad … you kind of get used to it. I’ve smelled worse.”

  Lucy half smiled. “Really?” Lucy tried to control her gag reflex. “The owner is in his office, and he wants to have a word with you.”