Robert Freund

June 5, 2003

Creative Writing

Period 2

A Man Now Broken

Chapter Two

Jack spent the rest of that day bartering for supplies; we’d need as much as we could carry for what we were about to undertake. I don’t know where he had come up with it, but the dream of reaching the West Coast was drilled into his head; of fame and fortune and accomplishment. A voice somewhere inside of him whispered of more to be had across that vast wasteland, in an area that only a handful of adults amongst us had seen but we’d all heard about in campfire legends. I remembered faintly the classroom teachings of western states like Oregon and California, and wondered if somehow they still existed in all their former glory. Shining as a promised land beyond the horror we would soon enter.

Not everyone believed it was even there. We had no idea how much land lay between east and west, and not a soul had ever crossed them alive to our knowledge. It’s not like we had anyway way of knowing though. The world was still just as big as it had always been, but it had become far emptier.

We left the following day during another gray dawn, moving westward towards the nearly fictional place at which all of Jack’s ambition lay. My Springfield over my shoulder, I sat atop the cart, blinded by my own joy. Why I was so happy, I will never be able to say. I can only speak these words now, having been through it all: One cannot begin to fathom the brutality of the wastes, the hopelessness, until one has walked them alone.

Our journey would not bring us to that place for over a week however, but when that border was reached it would prove stunningly thin. I was in a hurry then to get on with the journey; today I would have done everything in my power to delay it. Youth is eager, and with that comes a serving of ignorance we can only taste after years have gone by, when it has already passed through our bodies. I suppose that I simply hadn’t realized where we were going. Jack’s hastily related tale of the ambush on his caravan hadn’t worried me. I had thought my town was a living death, so hearing about people actually dying didn’t phase me.

Humans do enjoy fooling themselves, after all.

The details of the trip before the waste were too boring for me to pay attention to at that time. Suffice to say that I wish I had seen a little more; noticed the gradual progression from civilization to nothingness. The final stop on the long journey was a town with a wall around it, this one constructed of various metal scraps and topped with spikes. We crossed under the archway at the entrance, looking up to the welcoming sign. “Blue Mound, Illinois”. My mind raced back to childhood days spent in a classroom. Illinois was once an American state. One of fifty, or sixty. It didn’t matter on that journey, nor does it matter now. The United States exists only in memory.

Honestly, the place depressed me. When we rolled in, we could see the battlements along the wall, the occasional machine gun and flamethrower mounted atop it. The further we got into the town, the worse it smelled. At the time, I had no idea what scent it was that hung in the air. It was unfamiliar, yet something about it told me I should have known what it was.

There I was, eager for excitement and adventure, in a Podunk village exactly like my own. More trade went on, Jack and his small team of assistants handled that business. For the rest of us, the guards, it was time to relax. It was also time for me to get to know the other guys.

Including myself, there were twelve guards. Most of them had their own special talents, and a good deal of those talents were mostly useless where we were going. One man, for example, could shuffle a deck of cards in all manners, sending them through the air deftly from hand to hand. He also happened to be the leader. They were all linked by one common talent, however. They were all warriors. I had thought I’d known it when I first joined up with them, but I didn’t know what fighting \truly was. Later on, I would understand what it mean to be a warrior.

Weapons and ammunition had been pretty evenly spread amongst the lot of us, though I got all the .30-06 rounds seeing that my rifle was the only one that used them. Each man’s personal preference for armament was met as best as it could be; Jack had quite an arsenal aboard his trailer of goods. The aforementioned leader had taken care of this task, working with efficiency and competence I’d never before seen in my life. We knew him only as Reno, a name that was vaguely familiar to me. I could never put my finger on it, however. As far as soldiers go, Reno was the best of the best. A crack shot, a tactical genius, and a leader who could inspire confidence and loyalty in his men. Those are some of the things the others had told me about him. It all sounded good, but I wouldn’t see what it mean until we entered combat.

That afternoon was spent chatting around the trailer whilst cleaning weapons, checking ammo and supplies, and mentally preparing. I couldn’t do the last very well, as unlike most of the other guys I’d no idea what we were about to walk into. I was quiet, content on simply listening and doing my business. My rifle was my first love, and I was sure to take care of it.

We’d find out why the town was so heavily fortified that very day. A cry went out from the wall. “Twenty incoming, western side!” It was followed by a hum of activity, townspeople rushing into their homes while several well-armed men made way to the wall. They scaled the ladders quickly, as though it were second nature, taking up positions along the defenses.

“Can you shoot that thing, kid?” somebody said to my left. I blinked, looking to the source of the question. It had been Reno. I nodded slowly in response, in awe that he would talk to me. “Good, then let’s get to this damn wall…we’ve got some target practice today!”

All the guards were already moving towards it save for two; they were to remain with Jack and the caravan as the rest of us filled in empty places along the wall. We didn’t know the town’s defenders; or at the very least I didn’t. But they looked happy enough to see us. I rested my rifle upon the wall before me, mounting it securely. My hand slipped around it, finger lingering near the trigger. My eyes looked out over the stretch of open land before the town. All I could see was dust. Not just on the ground; in the air, and approaching.