Jack

         The Mojave was never particularly pleasant. Over the centuries it has maintained a reputation for draining men of their water and souls. A reputation, Jack found, that was well deserved. The desert has always made men hard. Desperation is the law of the land. You can see it in what little life does spend its existence in the damned flats of the waste. Creatures adapted by the hand of god to survive Hell on Earth. Creatures like the scorpion - small but deadly - and the jackal… The jackal travels in a pack, a gang, for protection. Predators are less likely to attack so many at once. The pack also hunts together. With a large enough pack, almost no prey is too large.
         So it was for Jack, a simple matter of logic. The world that was, is gone. There is, as far as anyone can tell - and there are few enough people sitting around jaw-jacking these days - little or no future to speak of. So, what does a young man do with himself? If these were the old days, Jack would have been a good fit for the world of finance and greed. He could have had a pretty trophy wife, two spoiled rotten kids, and a mistress named Bunny on the side. Yes sir, that woulda been just fine with Jack. But, Wall Street is long gone buddy boy. Guess Bunny is just gonna have to wait till the apocalypse is all over for those new tits she wants. So what does a smart, young go getter do with himself? Jack found himself doing just whatever the Hell pleased him. He rode with a gang.
         Like a lot of folks near the beginning of this crash course on Biblical theory, he just wondered around like a punch drunk boxer. It’s not like he - or anyone else - wasn’t used to tragedy or the horrors of war… It was War that really shook them up. Young men coming home from the front legless, with stories of tac-nukes, and cyborgs, and Sykers (oh my), well, that was one thing. But folks just couldn’t swallow the idea of the Four Horsemen of the flipping Apocalypse traipsing around the U.S. No sir, it wasn’t until Death himself (pale horse and all) came strolling through their front yard that people began to get the idea of just how fucked they were. Revelations had been getting tossed around plenty in those days. What with the bombs being dropped, and people dieing by the thousands. Not to mention famine, death, war and pestilence all at an all time high all by themselves. This was just too much for all of them. It was the righteous hand of God, in 3D and no denying it. It wasn’t long after when people began to doubt it had ever happened. Jack had been part of this majority. The war was over, cities leveled, the population decimated, and no one really knew what to do next. Time to rebuild was the common sentiment. But, rebuild what? And why? Just so we can do it all over again?
         These, and a few other philosophical gems, were the questions Jack occupied himself with in the first months after the rapture. At first he would hang out around the old neighborhood. No need to go getting lost. Even if he didn’t think rebuilding was possible or important, it was best to just stick with what he knew best.
Jack had a family once. He had a dad, dead from one of the biological agent attacks. A mom who bit it when the 7th armored Calvary came to town. And a brother and sister who both got a hero’s death in the fighting. Jack was the youngest, and by ten he was already orphaned. it was only a year later when the last bomb dropped and The Man came around, as Johnny Cash had promised.
Jack wasn’t what you would call cold, or unsentimental by nature. He was actually a very sensitive young man, and the apple of his mother’s eye, but he didn’t really mourn the death of the world. For him, it was just the logical conclusion to the tragedy that had been his young life. It can be said that he was a little disappointed that he had survived the war. Again, not that he was depressed or longing for death, but just anticipating what he thought was a logical progression. Jack did survive, however, and once he had accepted that fact, he went on with the monotonous task of living. Food processing had reached a pinnacle before the war, so there was no shortage of prepackaged, nonperishable food. He had his first beer – a warm Heineken – in Liveries, a quite place on the corner. Real quiet in fact… Jack hadn’t seen anyone in months. That’s how he lived in those months after the fact.
Time wore on, and Jack lived a mostly meaningless existence, waiting for something to happen to him. There were plenty of viruses and other bio-agents still floating around on the breeze, not to mention nuclear fallout left over from the grand finale. Jack was pretty sure that his little corner of the world, though worthless in all other accounts, would be like shit to flies once word of his great stockpile of food and supplies got out. He was fortunate enough to have a Wal-Mart warehouse in his hometown of Sun City, Arizona. He wondered when scavengers would descend on him like a Viking horde. He wondered if that would be how he got it. Would they accidentally shoot him, thinking he was some sort of mutant remnant of the war? Maybe they would shoot him out of plain old meanness. This is a thought he had often. He imagined wild gangs of miscreants, no longer constrained by the laws of man, ravaging the countryside dressed in absurd clothing and wearing their hair in savage mohawks. However, even if they didn’t kill him with brutality, they would likely take his food, and it wouldn’t be long after that before he just faded into the ghost town he called his home. He could be just another dried out corpse, eyeing the last survivors of humanity with hungry eyes.
Jack was not alone for long. The city of Pheonix was destroyed in the last war. It got it’s very own, customized, one-of-a-kind, holocaust inducing, enriched Ghostrock bomb. Jack lived in a small commercial city, 45 miles outside of Scottsdale. This was the land of working class men, three-flat apartments, and boring, nondescript warehouses. No, it was not the metropolitan district that Pheonix was, but that did not save it from some manner of destruction. Before the 7th Armored Cavalry had its way with the town, the Mexicans saw fit to spread a little viral love. It didn’t kill everyone. Most of the elderly and infirm died early on, and the young were taken only a little later; but it didn’t end there. The virus mutated a few more times. Before the vaccinations could make their way down to Sun City, 75% of the population was laid out. The convoy carrying the vaccines was not met with a mob of anxious citizens, relieved to be receiving salvation, but by a small collection of apathetic survivors. Jack got his shot, choosing survival because it was what seemed right.
Jack got his vaccine on September 9th. The desert air had been crisp and cool that morning. The medical team had arrived the night before, but they received few clients. The announcement on the loudspeaker declared that tomorrow would be their final opportunity to be vaccinated. Sun City was on the last leg of their trip across the nation. Last stop before they had to drive back to Richmond to re-staff and re-supply.
Jack woke up early, before the sun came up. Going to his mother’s room he gently tried to wake her.
“Come on Ma, we gotta get our shots”. She made no sound. There was just the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.
         “Ma. We gotta go now, before they run out.” He gently placed a small hand on her shoulder. Her body was warm, almost hot, beneath her silk pajamas. Now she stirred. She mumbled something. Jack thought she called him John. She thought he was his father.
         Jack crawled into bed with his mom. The heat of the bed was almost overwhelming after the coolness of the Arizona night. His feet were ice cold, and when he tucked them in close to his mother she gasped.
         “Jackie?”
         “Yeah Ma.”
         She put her arm around him and pulled him in close. The heat of the bed was no longer overwhelming, it was just right. They lay together, and Jack eventually drifted off to sleep.
         When they awoke, it was nearly one o’clock. They both hurried to get dressed, and rushed out the door. They raced down the street to the hospital. The town was empty. Many of the storefronts were closed, and no cars could be seen, and no one was going about the usual business of a Wednesday afternoon. The hospital was equally dormant. The lights were on, but there was no urgency, and purpose. The town of Sun City was eerily devoid of the buzz of traffic.
         Jack was afraid that they had missed it. They left already. They were swarmed as soon as they opened, and now there are no more shots left. They walked into the hospital to find the medical team set up in the lobby. Jack saw no throngs of people fighting for a place in line. The only people present were the army medical team. A tired, but pretty nurse saw them approach. She tried her best to smile, and for the most part succeeded, but it was a tired smile. One she had many long hours of practice performing.
         “You here for your vaccinations sweet pea?” She had a warmth to her voice that made Jack smile. Her thick Virginia lent itself to her warmth. When she turned her smile at Jack, he blushed and looked at the scuffed, tile floor. “Come on over here honey. You want some coffee?”
         “Yes please”, she said shyly. Too shy for Jacks comfort.
         The injection left a large welt on Jacks buttock. It felt like he had a golf ball in his back pocket whenever he sat down. They walked the lonely streets back home, and when they got there they had grilled cheese and canned soup. It was a good day for Jack, one of his best in a long time. His mother pampered him, and he pampered her. They were, for the first time in a long time, simply happy. Happy to have each other.
         Jack was vaccinated sometime in early September. On the first day of winter, Jack went about his business of enjoying the mild desert morning. He skulked to the fallout shelter to see if the towns supply master, Jeff, might let him have a pack of gum, or some granola bars. The shelter was really just a hole in the ground. If you didn’t know where to look, you would probably never find it. It was comfortably nestled in an alley between a large Cineplex, and a bicycle shop, right in the middle of downtown. They were all encouraged to spend time near the fallout shelter. Jack guessed that they wanted them to feel comfortable around something that suggested that the end might be nearer than they thought.
         Jeff was a slim and fit man of about thirty. Jack wasn’t sure if it was the beard, or if it was his odd way of staring off into the distance when he talked to you, but he looked a good five years older than he was. He dressed in a jumpsuit, which to Jack, looked like what the NASCAR drivers wore.
Jack was very fond of Jeff. They didn’t spend time together or anything, but he just liked him. In fact, he was sure Jeff didn’t even know his name. Jack supposed that if one of the nukes fell on Sun City, they would have to hole up in this fallout shelter for at least a few months. He imagined Jeff, his mom, and himself all sitting around an electric lamp in an otherwise dark cavern. They would sit there and talk about life, and politics and music, but not the war. There would be good music too. His mom liked to listen to the old stuff. Not music from when she was growing up, but really old stuff like Alice in Chains and Nirvana. He also imagined that Jeff played guitar, and that he would teach him how to play. By the time they came out of the shelter they would be like a little family. A family that played music together and that didn’t need the world to be there for them when they came out, because this new place was even better. There would be no more wars, no scandals, no drunken or high celebrities, and no more dieing until you were good and old.
He got his gum from Jeff, and went to the park near his house. He couldn’t see his house from the park, but if his mom called, he could hear her. That was the deal they had made. Jack could go out and do pretty much what he wanted, as long as he was close enough to hear his mom calling. She didn’t know about his visits to Jeff, though Jack didn’t think she would be that mad.
The Afternoon had warmed up considerably. Jack had to take off his windbreaker, and had to wipe the sweat from his forehead every minute or so. The park was abandoned as always, so he had his choice of the playground equipment. He tossed his windbreaker onto the ground, and ran to the swings. He jumped, belly down, onto one of the swings and arced up toward the sky like superman. He let the momentum swing him back and forth until he started to get dizzy, then he ground his feet into the woodchips to stop. He lay there letting his head hang down. The blood rushing to his head added weight to it, and he imagined his head falling off from the strain. He chuckled at his little fantasy, and lay peacefully alone, listening to the rhythmic pounding of heavy construction equipment. He had always been fascinated with big machines. He liked the way that they looked so implacable. He liked how their yellow paint jobs were always chipped and discolored. He had always wanted to see what they looked like right off the assembly line.
      The equipment was getting louder. It made a grinding, whirring noise, followed closely by a crunch that he thought must be concrete.
      "Sounds like there’s a whole bunch of ‘em out there".
It wasn’t until well after the first thundering gun shot that Jack had realized how dumb it was to think that there would be road construction in his town. All at once the streets were filled with the deafening din of a mechanized assault. Jack fell to the ground, head swimming as the blood drained from his beat red face. Through the stars in his vision he could make out monstrous shapes moving through the streets of his neighborhood. Some of them stood twice as tall as his father, who had not been a small man. Over the gunfire, he could hear his mother calling him home. His gum and windbreaker were left behind.