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Here's something I'm working on
Sep. 4th, 2012 03:08 pmYou wouldn't be able to tell the world had ended at a glance. It hadn't ended with fire or ice, a bang or even a whimper. It ended with silence. That was how you could tell. As the hours slipped by indistinguishably, you'd mark that the sun never glinted off a passing car, no radio being worked up and down the dial to find a companionable blare, no cell phones to replace the silence with custom ringtones or puzzle games or whatever you called a movie when it was played on a screen the size of a postage stamp.
Noise was man's distinguishing characteristic. Every other animal held its tongue; humanity had made music and poetry and Mamet plays/and whatever you wanted to call Randy Newman. And wouldn't they be missed.
Or so Bobby Johns mused. He needed to think of something that wasn't the ground under his feet and the ground that had been under his feet. He'd walked a hundred miles, or something that felt like it, and he was too old. He'd done enough running as a boy and enough walking as a man, now he was a senior, fit for a bed and a disinterested young nurse to annoy. But all there was, was walking. He couldn't even rest in the shade. He gave his body respites, but his mind kept whirring like it was trying to escape his skull. He looked for monsters in every shadow and wind-stirred plant. It wasn't that he'd be able to outrun anything, he just didn't want his death to come as a shock.
He stopped, drank from his canteen, gave his body thirty minutes to stop hurting. His canteen was going dry too. This wasn't the desert, he could refill at any river, but the thought made him neurotic. An ancestral fear of predators at the watering hole.
Something animal sounded nearby. Bobby started walking again. His limbs jogged with renewed pain. He tried to kick his mind away from the pain. He needed to muse on something, but the only things in his head were what he missed. It hurt, but he'd take it over the arthritis. He missed car alarms, crying babies. He missed shitty movies in January. He missed tailgaters.
The voice blew him out of his reverie like a bomb. "No moves. 'Specially not real sudden like."
Bobby did as told. He didn't even turn his head, but rolling his eyes in their sockets gave him a glimmer of a figure to his left. He couldn't make out a face, but it was hard to mistake a bow and arrow.
"Way good call." The Southern accent was thick, glacial, like it had come down from the Ozarks without meeting any warmth on the path. "Now let me hear them dulcet tones."
Bobby took a deep breath to flood his mouth with words. "I'm Bobby—Robert Hewitt Johns. Bobby Johns."
"That'll do." Bobby heard a catgut plink as the bow was eased down. He turned his head, still not daring to face the man head-on.
It was a boy, lean and tall like beef jerky, still young enough to think his hand under a chick's shirt was pretty goddamn grand. But that wasn't enough to make Bobby take him lightly. He held the bow like it was no hard task to use it, and on his fellow man too. And while most everyone still wore the last ensemble of their old life, he wore a sort of uniform that actually seemed to fit their fucked-up new world. From the ground up, he looked both prepared and tested: muddy hiking boots, camouflage pants like men wore back when they were hunters and not prey, a well-laden toolbelt, a heavy flannel jacket, and a black ballcap. Bobby registered the letters FBI on it.
"Take it you're looking for the Gardens?" the boy asked, voice lighter, returning the bow to his shoulder and the arrow to a quiver on his belt.
"I guess… the others were headed this way. I just followed. I'm the last one…" Bobby sat, his legs immediately congratulating him. Even the tiny safety of another pair of eyes gave him permission to be weary. He felt if he tilted back and let his head meet soft grass, that he could sleep so long all of this would become a bad dream.
The boy readied himself for battle with the reassurance of habit. He pulled a pistol half out of its holster to check the draw was unencumbered, tightened the strap on his quiver, turned his cap backward so the bill didn't obscure his vision. "Were you followed?"
Bobby shook his head.
"I said is someone following you!?"
"No! I'm alone."
Satisfied with his check of the area, the boy took his hand off the butt of his gun. His fingers held the shape, like he was pretending to still grip it. "Mighty comfort there. The Garden's where you're headed, because there ain't shit else to go. It's an hour's walk. You'll manage that?"
Bobby nodded, then said "Uh-huh."
The boy patted him on the shoulder. "You wanna sleep, die. You wanna live, up."
Bobby rose. Now it was easy to ignore the pain. Just an hour and he could sit and sleep and maybe even eat something.
"Help me with this," the boy said, picking up one end of a walking stick. He was referring to the other end. In-between, a stag had been strung up, bike chains tying the hooves to the stick. An arrow jutted out of blood-matted fur on its neck: a kill so clean the stag almost looked alive.
"Dinner," he explained, grinning, when Bobby helped him lift it. He didn't stop grinning to say "If this is a trick, you'll find out how slow someone can die."
( Read more... )
Noise was man's distinguishing characteristic. Every other animal held its tongue; humanity had made music and poetry and Mamet plays/and whatever you wanted to call Randy Newman. And wouldn't they be missed.
Or so Bobby Johns mused. He needed to think of something that wasn't the ground under his feet and the ground that had been under his feet. He'd walked a hundred miles, or something that felt like it, and he was too old. He'd done enough running as a boy and enough walking as a man, now he was a senior, fit for a bed and a disinterested young nurse to annoy. But all there was, was walking. He couldn't even rest in the shade. He gave his body respites, but his mind kept whirring like it was trying to escape his skull. He looked for monsters in every shadow and wind-stirred plant. It wasn't that he'd be able to outrun anything, he just didn't want his death to come as a shock.
He stopped, drank from his canteen, gave his body thirty minutes to stop hurting. His canteen was going dry too. This wasn't the desert, he could refill at any river, but the thought made him neurotic. An ancestral fear of predators at the watering hole.
Something animal sounded nearby. Bobby started walking again. His limbs jogged with renewed pain. He tried to kick his mind away from the pain. He needed to muse on something, but the only things in his head were what he missed. It hurt, but he'd take it over the arthritis. He missed car alarms, crying babies. He missed shitty movies in January. He missed tailgaters.
The voice blew him out of his reverie like a bomb. "No moves. 'Specially not real sudden like."
Bobby did as told. He didn't even turn his head, but rolling his eyes in their sockets gave him a glimmer of a figure to his left. He couldn't make out a face, but it was hard to mistake a bow and arrow.
"Way good call." The Southern accent was thick, glacial, like it had come down from the Ozarks without meeting any warmth on the path. "Now let me hear them dulcet tones."
Bobby took a deep breath to flood his mouth with words. "I'm Bobby—Robert Hewitt Johns. Bobby Johns."
"That'll do." Bobby heard a catgut plink as the bow was eased down. He turned his head, still not daring to face the man head-on.
It was a boy, lean and tall like beef jerky, still young enough to think his hand under a chick's shirt was pretty goddamn grand. But that wasn't enough to make Bobby take him lightly. He held the bow like it was no hard task to use it, and on his fellow man too. And while most everyone still wore the last ensemble of their old life, he wore a sort of uniform that actually seemed to fit their fucked-up new world. From the ground up, he looked both prepared and tested: muddy hiking boots, camouflage pants like men wore back when they were hunters and not prey, a well-laden toolbelt, a heavy flannel jacket, and a black ballcap. Bobby registered the letters FBI on it.
"Take it you're looking for the Gardens?" the boy asked, voice lighter, returning the bow to his shoulder and the arrow to a quiver on his belt.
"I guess… the others were headed this way. I just followed. I'm the last one…" Bobby sat, his legs immediately congratulating him. Even the tiny safety of another pair of eyes gave him permission to be weary. He felt if he tilted back and let his head meet soft grass, that he could sleep so long all of this would become a bad dream.
The boy readied himself for battle with the reassurance of habit. He pulled a pistol half out of its holster to check the draw was unencumbered, tightened the strap on his quiver, turned his cap backward so the bill didn't obscure his vision. "Were you followed?"
Bobby shook his head.
"I said is someone following you!?"
"No! I'm alone."
Satisfied with his check of the area, the boy took his hand off the butt of his gun. His fingers held the shape, like he was pretending to still grip it. "Mighty comfort there. The Garden's where you're headed, because there ain't shit else to go. It's an hour's walk. You'll manage that?"
Bobby nodded, then said "Uh-huh."
The boy patted him on the shoulder. "You wanna sleep, die. You wanna live, up."
Bobby rose. Now it was easy to ignore the pain. Just an hour and he could sit and sleep and maybe even eat something.
"Help me with this," the boy said, picking up one end of a walking stick. He was referring to the other end. In-between, a stag had been strung up, bike chains tying the hooves to the stick. An arrow jutted out of blood-matted fur on its neck: a kill so clean the stag almost looked alive.
"Dinner," he explained, grinning, when Bobby helped him lift it. He didn't stop grinning to say "If this is a trick, you'll find out how slow someone can die."
( Read more... )
