Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors (4 page)

“Look, I already did this once today.” Roy thrust a thumb at the nomad in the distance. “What the hell do you want?”

“I’m a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. And you’re going to need my help.”

“Look. I’m going to tell you what I told the last nomadic warrior that came through here. We don’t have any problems. There aren’t any roving gangs. There aren’t any sinister people out there looking to do us harm. The biggest problem we seem to have is that the damn doorbell still works.” Smiling, he reached out of the gate and hit the button several times.

Logan smirked. It never ceased to amaze him how citizens felt safe behind their walls. Communities had banded together and labored to drive stakes, weld joints and fortify these barriers to feel sheltered, to define themselves as a people set apart from the rest, never realizing for a moment that they were building a prison for themselves.

Explaining this could take hours and result in a slammed door. Today, Logan had no reason to argue.

Without losing the man’s gaze, Logan reached into the worn leather satchel and withdrew a cracked and cobbled Flip video camera. Its case was all but shattered; duct tape held it together, as it did so many things in the new world. Spliced wires ran to several batteries that had been bundled together to replace an internal power source that had long since died. The patchwork of wires and Arkansas chrome wasn’t an elegant solution, but it worked.

Logan pressed play.

The councilman watched unmoved. A moment later he tore the device from the man’s hands, drawing the tiny screen closer to his face.
 

“What town is this?”

“This was Vita Nova. Not far from here.”

The councilman strained to push the door open further. “Come in. Bring the camera.”

THREE

“Vita Nova … sounds nice,” the nomad held the map page out for the dog to see.

He had traded a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and an issue of Mad magazine for the worn atlas page when he came across a scavenger a couple of weeks prior.

The scavenger had been covered in scabs and sores. The peroxide was what he needed, but he seemed more excited to do the fold in on the back cover of the magazine. Coughing and chuckling, he had scored the page and laughed uproariously when the image revealed itself.

It was a toilet.

Information was not given freely on the road. In a world where so few had so little, everything had become a commodity. Water sources and the location of supplies, were the most valuable, if their existence could be verified. The location of towns was not as valuable, but he was still surprised to get the map for such a price.

Only the eastern half of the state was included in the deal; it had been torn from a two-page spread in an old road atlas. By its very nature, any information on the hand-drawn map was suspect, but even general locations would help any one forced to travel the roads.

Amateur cartography had fallen out of vogue long before the apocalypse, so he was surprised to see that this map’s maker included something as basic as a key. The scraggly drawn box in the corner indicated symbols that had become commonplace in the new world. Like a post-apocalyptic hobo code, scrawled symbols on rocks and roadsides warned travelers of poisoned wells, irradiated areas, and dangerous creature habitats. These symbols had permeated the culture and spread across the continent by roamers, scavengers, and people that crossed the great wastes in hopes of finding some mythical city that had survived the bombs.

New settlements and unique landmarks were marked by hand: towns, trading posts, radioactive hot spots, and more were hashed onto the old paper. The nomad made a mental note of Vita Nova’s location, folded the map, and shoved it back inside his duster.

Chewy barked.

“Well, as nice a place as any.”

The massive dog barked again, then whimpered.

“I know. They didn’t even let us stay for dinner. At least you got some fresh greens.”

He scratched the dog’s large square head. This affection was reciprocated with a moist tongue on his fingers.
 

“Don’t worry. There’s food in the truck.” They had been walking for forty-five minutes and he began to regret parking so far from the town of New Hope. The walled settlement was no longer visible and they still had a fair distance to travel.

It was quiet. Even the ceaseless sounds of the cicadas had ceased. Despite his dog’s presence, he felt very much alone.

New Hope was the first real town they had found in weeks. Chewy was a good friend, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to a person about the weather, the apocalypse, or some other manner of small talk.

It was true that almost every city that had not been wiped out during the apocalypse had at least one resident. More times than not it was a crotchety man that refused to leave his home. Years of solitude, however, tended to drive these hermits insane. Insane people made for poor company and were difficult to talk to as their imaginary friends kept interrupting.
  

Chewy and the nomad had spent days outside of New Hope before he had mustered the courage to approach the town. He had considered a ruse, posing as a farmer, a douser, or scavenger—anything but a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. It would have been easier, few resisted the help of a skilled douser, but it would not have been honest.

So, now it was on to Vita Nova, another town, another chance to help, and another chance at fresh food and some company.

Distance was no judge of time. It was hard to say how long the trip would take just by looking at the map. Vita Nova wasn’t far, but road conditions were unpredictable. Evacuations had been poorly planned and were sporadic at best. This left one to only guess at where the shells of rusting vehicles would be clustered on the roads. Bridges could be out. Barricades could be left intact. It could take a few hours or several days before they reached the town.

Looking west, he determined that it would not be today. Threatening clouds were building in front of the sunset. Winds blew the red dust of the West in front of the coming storm. They would hole up on the road somewhere in a few hours, wait out the storm, and strike out again in the morning.

There was no doubt in his mind that when they arrived at the town, he would find something very similar to the town he had just left: big walls, wary citizens, and a chance at redemption. He could draw a layout of the town, site unseen, and the sketch would be 90% accurate. All towns were the same.

Parking out of sight, he would approach on foot to appear less threatening to the timid, and less of a target to the bold that saw visitors as a chance to resupply town wares.

This time he wouldn’t wear the false confidence. It had failed in New Hope. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t comfortable with it, and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere. No, he would humbly offer his help to the people of Vita Nova and pray that they would accept his offer.

“Come on, Chewy.”

The large dog huffed and strolled ahead with a cautious ear to the wasteland. The nomad followed, thankful for his dog’s companionship. Having her as a friend made leading a rough life on the road a little easier.

After a moment, he called ahead to her, “Girl, do you remember where we parked the Winnebago?”

It wasn’t really a Winnebago. It was a Bounty Hunter motor coach that had been used by off-road enthusiasts before the apocalypse. He rarely felt the need to be brand specific; there weren’t many people left alive to argue the difference between the toy hauler and a Winnie.

Motor homes had always fascinated him. Even before the world ended he had dreamed of epic cross-country journeys behind the wheel of a forty-plus-foot land yacht.

He had traveled little growing up, his family always choosing to use vacation time for family reunions, weddings, and other general family visits.

Dubbing these trips as “oblications,” he resented the fact that, even after graduating, he felt it necessary to join the family twice a year instead of setting off on his own adventures.

Whenever he passed a large motor coach on the road, his mind wandered to the driver’s seat. He saw himself behind the wheel with a map stretched out in front of him. Destinations would dance in his mind. They appeared as postcards and bumper stickers to be earned and pasted with pride on the back of the luxury camper.
 

Famous landmarks often topped his list: Mount Rushmore, the Mall in DC, and the Golden Gate Bridge. These and many more filled a hopeless itinerary of places he longed to see. After the apocalypse, he figured it was as good a time as any to get started.

During one of the more severe locust swarms, the two travelers sought shelter in a storage facility in Oklahoma. The behemoth had been waiting there for them; the keys were hidden behind the visor.

Chewy had claimed the passenger seat for herself and curled up before he had even turned the ignition.

Regret hit him at every stop. Few of the landmarks retained their former beauty. If the apocalypse had not taken its toll on America’s greatest treasures, survivors had.
 

The Golden Gate Bridge had been transformed into the town of Hope Gate. This sprawling shantytown marred the majesty of the former record-holding bridge. Though disappointed, he couldn’t fault the people of the town. They had little choice but to settle the span as most of the land around it had been consumed by the Pacific Ocean.

On the National Mall, someone had stolen the head of Thomas Jefferson, chiseled the beard off of Lincoln, and scrawled ‘it looks like a penis’ on the Washington Monument.

A surviving group of plane fanatics had taken over the Air and Space museum and spent their days sitting in the cockpits of historic aircraft making machine gun noises and talking about modeling.

Due to the remote location of Mount Rushmore, he had been certain that it would have remained untouched. It was perhaps the greatest disappointment. The once impressive monument had been set upon by a clan of artists that had changed the likenesses of the former presidents into a massive tribute to the Muppets. From left to right were Fozzie, Beaker, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and, the closest in resemblance, Sam the Eagle.

When he had pressed the artists for a reason for their actions, they simply answered ‘irony’ and attempted to sell him a postcard.

Carved into the granite in the middle of nowhere, he had always assumed that the monument would outlast mankind itself. His hopes dashed, he bought the postcard and a bumper sticker anyway. He never understood the irony.

Traveling the country in the coach had given him ample opportunity to customize the vehicle to the demands of the wasteland. This included an exterior paint job that was designed to hide the massive machine in the shadows.

Matte black paint covered the majority of the motor coach; the chrome bumpers had been removed and replaced with steel rails and brush bars that matched the color scheme. The only exception to the dull exterior was a high gloss script of the vehicle’s christened name, The Silver Lining.

The christening was performed with a 40 of the High Life. He had given the Bounty Hunter the optimistic name before he had set out on his cross-country journey. His plan back then was to spread a little optimism on his tour. Now, he hid the vehicle before approaching any town.

The old service station’s canopy had collapsed on one side. This post-apocalyptic lean-to had made the perfect garage. Shadows cast by the dilapidated building blended with the custom matte black paint and helped prevent the coach from being seen in a passing glance.