Post-Peak Short Story
Posted: 2007-11-21 05:58pm
Back for maybe a few days; thought I'd share a little thing I wrote, just in time for the start of the holiday season.
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“An Old Man's Christmas”
It was the winter of '13 when Chicago fell. The couple had been there for the past year and a half, since the start of the war, him doing manual labor and running errands for hire, her cleaning houses and caring for babies, nursing sick children aas the flu pandemic made its pass through the Midwest and the war-wracked rust belt.
November of '13, the radio announced that rolling evacuations of the southern suburbs of the city, or what was left of them, were to begin. They were mostly Obamavilles, with people scavenging wood from the abandoned McHouses to burn for heat in the brutal Lake Michigan cold. The couple knew “evacuate” meant “get the rich enclaves out and blow up the tracks and the roads.” Neither of them was essential – they were sleeping in a cold-but-dry abandoned parking garage west of Michigan Avenue.
Their meager savings went to buying hard bread and two sacks of grain from an official with a not-so-savory reputation. From her current employer, they got rags and, by the kindness of her heart, new shoes and two pairs of heavy woolen socks: an obscene luxury. It was December 12 when they set off.
He remembered that day ever after. The sky was perfectly blue and a freezing breeze was whipping through the deserted concrete canyons. Her beautiful, long auburn hair was flying in the wind as she tightened her thin hat down on her head; her blue eyes twinkled as she grinned at him. They were both dressed in ankle-length coats, heavy mittens, scarves, and hats, and wore heavy packs. They took each other's hand and started walking south and east, toward Indiana. In the distance, artillery thunder punched the sky.
The trains weren't running – electricity was diverted for the war effort – and of course there were no cars. The first day, they got to Hyde Park and spent the night in an administrative building of the University of Chicago. The second day found them picking through the ruins of southeastern Chicago, and by the third day they were making their way towards what was once I-65.
They moved slowly and carefully, and kept out of sight. No fires at night; sporadic gunfire echoed in the distance and once bullets pinged off a nearby building. She buried her head in his arms, and he rocked back and forth, murmuring to soothe himself as much as her.
They had family in Lafayette, Indiana, who had offered them a place to stay, food to eat, and work to do. So all they had to do was find their way to I-65 and follow it south for a week. Easier said than done: the winter was cold, the war was brutal, and roving bands of robbers and deserters were a constant threat.
It took them another week to find the old interstate, a crumbling ribbon of asphalt and concrete winding south. They were two days' journey north of Lafayette when everything went wrong.
A man blocked their way down the highway. They moved to the opposite side; he moved to stay in front of them. They tried to shoulder around him, and he said, “Stop.” They looked down; he was pointing a pistol at them. For a minute they stood there, facing each other under the iron-grey sky, on a highway stretching ou tinto the distance, surrounded by a blanket of dull white as far as the eye could see.
The man spoke first. “What do you want?”
Someone behind him said, “The woman.” The man turned. They were surrounded by ten or fifteen men, all armed with rifles or pistols. His temper flared.
“No!”
The man stopping them leered at her, then turned to him. “Well, we're taking her, and there ain't nothin' you can do 'bout it.” And he raised the gun.
Cold fear, colder than the wind, surged through his veins. He sagged, gasping. “Please ... no ... .”
The man in front of them smirked, and reached for the woman. She drew back, into the arms of the highwayman behind her. She screamed.
The man didn't do anything. A robber behind him pushed him, sending him staggering forward. “Go on. She ain't yours no more. Don't look back!”
Step by heavy step, the man trudged south along I-65.
He reached Lafayette two days later and found his family, but didn't tell anyone what had happened. “She stayed in Chicago,” was his only response for fifty years.
“Grandpa! Wake up!” The little boy's excited voice stirred the grandfather out of his sleep. “It's time to open presents! Come on!”
As he shuffled away from his memories to join the rest of his children and grandchildren, iron-grey clouds hung low over the dull cold snow of the Indiana winter.
-------
“An Old Man's Christmas”
It was the winter of '13 when Chicago fell. The couple had been there for the past year and a half, since the start of the war, him doing manual labor and running errands for hire, her cleaning houses and caring for babies, nursing sick children aas the flu pandemic made its pass through the Midwest and the war-wracked rust belt.
November of '13, the radio announced that rolling evacuations of the southern suburbs of the city, or what was left of them, were to begin. They were mostly Obamavilles, with people scavenging wood from the abandoned McHouses to burn for heat in the brutal Lake Michigan cold. The couple knew “evacuate” meant “get the rich enclaves out and blow up the tracks and the roads.” Neither of them was essential – they were sleeping in a cold-but-dry abandoned parking garage west of Michigan Avenue.
Their meager savings went to buying hard bread and two sacks of grain from an official with a not-so-savory reputation. From her current employer, they got rags and, by the kindness of her heart, new shoes and two pairs of heavy woolen socks: an obscene luxury. It was December 12 when they set off.
He remembered that day ever after. The sky was perfectly blue and a freezing breeze was whipping through the deserted concrete canyons. Her beautiful, long auburn hair was flying in the wind as she tightened her thin hat down on her head; her blue eyes twinkled as she grinned at him. They were both dressed in ankle-length coats, heavy mittens, scarves, and hats, and wore heavy packs. They took each other's hand and started walking south and east, toward Indiana. In the distance, artillery thunder punched the sky.
The trains weren't running – electricity was diverted for the war effort – and of course there were no cars. The first day, they got to Hyde Park and spent the night in an administrative building of the University of Chicago. The second day found them picking through the ruins of southeastern Chicago, and by the third day they were making their way towards what was once I-65.
They moved slowly and carefully, and kept out of sight. No fires at night; sporadic gunfire echoed in the distance and once bullets pinged off a nearby building. She buried her head in his arms, and he rocked back and forth, murmuring to soothe himself as much as her.
They had family in Lafayette, Indiana, who had offered them a place to stay, food to eat, and work to do. So all they had to do was find their way to I-65 and follow it south for a week. Easier said than done: the winter was cold, the war was brutal, and roving bands of robbers and deserters were a constant threat.
It took them another week to find the old interstate, a crumbling ribbon of asphalt and concrete winding south. They were two days' journey north of Lafayette when everything went wrong.
A man blocked their way down the highway. They moved to the opposite side; he moved to stay in front of them. They tried to shoulder around him, and he said, “Stop.” They looked down; he was pointing a pistol at them. For a minute they stood there, facing each other under the iron-grey sky, on a highway stretching ou tinto the distance, surrounded by a blanket of dull white as far as the eye could see.
The man spoke first. “What do you want?”
Someone behind him said, “The woman.” The man turned. They were surrounded by ten or fifteen men, all armed with rifles or pistols. His temper flared.
“No!”
The man stopping them leered at her, then turned to him. “Well, we're taking her, and there ain't nothin' you can do 'bout it.” And he raised the gun.
Cold fear, colder than the wind, surged through his veins. He sagged, gasping. “Please ... no ... .”
The man in front of them smirked, and reached for the woman. She drew back, into the arms of the highwayman behind her. She screamed.
The man didn't do anything. A robber behind him pushed him, sending him staggering forward. “Go on. She ain't yours no more. Don't look back!”
Step by heavy step, the man trudged south along I-65.
He reached Lafayette two days later and found his family, but didn't tell anyone what had happened. “She stayed in Chicago,” was his only response for fifty years.
“Grandpa! Wake up!” The little boy's excited voice stirred the grandfather out of his sleep. “It's time to open presents! Come on!”
As he shuffled away from his memories to join the rest of his children and grandchildren, iron-grey clouds hung low over the dull cold snow of the Indiana winter.