Village

        It was a warm day, to say the least. A pleasant eighty degrees. Well, it would be pleasant, were it not for the patchwork leather jacket I wore. I walked with ten other men along the dirt path through the center of our small village. We were flanked on both sides by wooden huts and green military tents; our homes.
         The village was extremely small; only around thirty residents. The size was our blessing and curse. Although every man and woman in the village knew one another, we had far too few people to maintain a decent sized farm. Thus, for food we relied almost entirely on trading, filling in the gaps with a small a garden and a few dedicated hunters.
         However, we rarely went hungry, as we had one thing the rest of the world was willing to trade for: gasoline. Before it all ended, three large tanker trucks were hidden in our part of the woods in order to spare them from the attacks. They sat unattended for decades before my people discovered them.
         Normally we would only conduct small trades, a few gallons of gas for a few dozen pounds of food. But when a new merchant stopped by our town, he offered to arrange a meeting with a contact of his whom was willing to pay handsomely for gasoline.
         Of course, there was protest. We had never conducted a trade of such a substantial size, and no one had met this contact before. But times were desperate, as bandits had made the western road far too dangerous for any of the regular caravans to travel.
         Our leader selected eleven of the strongest men in the village to make the trade. Many argued that this act would leave the town open to attacks, but we could not afford to leave the huge amount of fuel unprotected on the road.
         We had reached the town's border. Along with the wooden cart containing the gasoline, our families waited to wish us luck. I approached my wife, Vanessa, who held my three month old son, Haiden, in her arms.
         “I don't like this.” She said, rocking Haiden back and forth.
         “I don't either, but what choice do we have?” I responded. “If we don't make this trade, our people will starve.”
         “I know.” She replied. “I'm just worried. We don't know anything about this man.”
         “We know all we need to; he's very generous. Who else would offer one thousand pounds of food for sixty gallons of gas?”
         “I know, I know. Just... be careful, okay?”
         “I'll be careful, my love.” I replied. “I promise.”
         I pulled her in close before giving her a deep kiss. I grabbed her hand and placed it on the necklace I wore. It was a piece of bone, painstakingly carved into the shape of a heart. Vanessa had worked all day on it while I was out hunting. She stayed up the entire night until I returned just to give it to me. I looked her in the eyes. “I promise.”
          Looking down at my son, I placed my hand on his silky cheek.
         “I'll be back to see you before nightfall.” I said, kissing his forehead.
         “Alright everybody, its time to go!” Our town's ambassador, Francis, called. I kissed my wife once more before making my way to the wooden cart. It was filled with an assortment of containers, each filled to the brim with gasoline. The small, hand pulled cart would be pulled by an unarmed sixteen year old boy from the village.
         And so our caravan set off. The meeting site was only a half mile outside of town, but progress was sure to be slow, as the cart could only move so fast.
         After ten minutes of walking, another man in the caravan, Johnathan, spoke up.
         “Hey, man.” He said. “Do you have any food? I'm starving.”
         I sighed, reaching into my pocket and retrieving a homemade granola bar, wrapped in the page of an old beauty magazine.
         “Thanks.” he said, adjusting the rifle on his back. It was an ancient muzzle loader, only able to fire one shot before reloading. Weapons of that kind had found a renewed value, as the spherical ammunition could be crafted easily.
         Every man in the caravan, save for the boy pulling the cart, was armed more or less. Most men held old hunting rifles or muzzle loaders. At least one man had a bow on his back, and another with naught but a wooden spear. I personally had a massive revolver on my belt. The gun fired balls of lead with  fearsome power, but was almost useless beyond intimidation purposes, as I only possessed three bullets.
         The trip went by quicker than expected, and we arrived at our destination in a little over an hour. The contact, a middle aged man, was waiting with his own men.
         The contact and his men stood atop a small hill, looking down at us across from a shallow creek. He was dressed nicer than most could afford at the time. He was surrounded by at least twenty men, each wielding a fully automatic rifle.
         “Ah, I'm glad to see you could make it.” The contact spoke.
         “Right at three, just as agreed.” Francis replied.
         “I see you brought the gasoline. I trust that it is the correct amount?”
         “I saw to it personally.”
         “Good to hear.” The contact said. He gestured for two massive men to collect the cart. They both wore orange bandannas over their faces, as did the rest of the men. The two brutes wheeled the cart up the steep incline with ease.
         “Now, I'm afraid we're going to have to renegotiate the terms of our agreement.” Said the contact. I looked around, trying to spot the food that was promised to us.
         “What else do you need?” Francis asked, putting his hand on his pistol.
         “All of the gasoline.”
         “You know we can't do that.”
         “I don't need your permission.” The contact hissed. In the same moment, his men raised their rifles, letting out a hail of lead. Francis, along with three others, dropped immediately.
         Without thinking, I drew my handgun and fired a shot before diving behind a fallen log. When I raised my hand to fire another shot, a fiery pain shot through my arm. I noticed blood was pouring out of my wrist; I had been hit.
         Ignoring the pain, I squeezed off another shot. The agonized scream that followed confirmed that my bullet had found its mark.
         There was a dull thump beside me, followed by a hissing. Looking to my left, I noticed a short length of pipe on the ground a few yards away. I stared at the strange object for a moment before the realization dawned on me. Before I had time to react, I was knocked back by a huge explosion.
         
         Every inch of my body was in agonizing pain. My mouth, filled with dirt, was arid. My wrist was throbbing with pain, dried blood sticking to the skin. I felt something tugging at my pockets, but I ignored it. I wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep, to make the pain go away. Something was inside my jacket; I didn't care. In the process of protecting my face from the blast, my hands had been burned to a crisp.
         Something jerked on my necklace.
         I snapped awake, snatching my gun off the ground and aiming it upwards. The barrel found itself pointing at a filthy excuse for a man. A greasy white beard and long, tangled hair hid the majority of his face, only pale eyes and a scabbed forehead showing.
         The man, who was wearing a bloody leather jacket I recognized as belonging to Francis, stumbled backwards, swearing about the dead returning to life. He got to his feet and walked off, looking back and swearing.
         Darkness had fallen on the forest. Through the moonlight I could see death in every corner. Not one of my people had survived the massacre. Francis lied face down at the bottom of the hill, dark stains spread across his undershirt. A few feet away from me was Johnathan, spread unceremoniously on the grass. His rifle was still cocked; they had cut him down before he had a chance to fight back.
         A thick smell of smoke hung in the air. I was trying to place its origin when I thought back to the contact's words.
         “Oh, please God no.”
         I pulled myself to a standing position, my legs threatening to give out from under me. Gritting my teeth I began to walk in the direction of my village. Every step shot bolts of pain throughout my entire body, but I forced myself to continue.
         The smoke became thicker as I drew closer to the town. I prayed to God that I was wrong, that a tree or something had caught fire somewhere else in the forest. The first licks of flame in the distance proved, sadly, that I was right.
         I arrived in hell. Huts were burning, people were screaming, bodies littered the roads. I heard gunshots in the distance, followed by an agonized scream. Holding my gun at my side, I began walking towards my house.
         I stepped over more bodies than I could count. People I knew; my friends, my family. Johnathan's wife, Jennifer, was lying in the middle of the dirt road, bullet holes up and down her back. One of our hunters, Micheal, was sitting against the side of a wooden hut. Blood was leaking from his open mouth onto a single barrel shotgun, staining the rough wood stock.
         The smallest hint of smile formed on my face when I came across the corpse of one of the contact's men. The brute of a man was lying in the road, a single bullet hole in his torso. I attempted to spit on the body, but my bone-dry mouth could produce nothing.
         The dreaded moment had arrived; I came to my hut. My heart dropped when I saw the flimsy door already open. I wanted to run, to run away from whatever waited inside.
         I approached the house, gun at the ready. Just inside the door I saw another of the contact's men dead, stab marks covering his torso. Just past the body I saw my wife in the corner of the hut. With a bloody knife in her hand, she sat unmoving in a crimson pool.
         “Vanessa!” I cried, running to her side. I lifted her head to see a pair of lifeless eyes looking back at me. They bored into my soul, burning that image into my mind. My hand dropped to my side as a began sobbing uncontrollably.
         I continued to cry for a few moments before a thought hit me like a falling tree. Slowly, I turned my head, terrified of what I might find. In the corner of the hut I saw a small, bloody corpse.
         I could no longer remain standing. My knees gave out, and I dropped to the floor. My entire body convulsed as the sobs escaped my lips. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, mixing with the dried blood that clung to my face before falling to the floor.
         A woman's scream pierced the air, followed by angry shouting. Using all the strength I could muster, I pulled myself to a standing position. Stepping outside, I saw one of the contact's men dragging a young woman by her hair. She was screaming for help while he shouted back for her to shut up.
         The thought raced through my head. Did they do this to Vanessa? Did they humiliate her, taunt her? What did they do when she fought back, when she killed one of their men? Suddenly, I was filled with a burning hatred. With a loud scream, I raised my gun, firing a shot at the man.
         The bullet obviously hit home, as the man stumbled backwards with a scream. He responded with a burst of fire from his own rifle. Several of the burning hot bullets tore through my flesh, forcing a pained cry from my lips. I stumbled backwards, falling through and breaking the flimsy door of a neighbor's burning hut.
         I fell against the wall of the hut, all of my strength gone. Blood was pouring from my wounds, the warm liquid seeping into my clothing. The fire in this hut was already well underway, as most of the wood was licked by red and orange flames.
         It wouldn't be long before the flames consumed me. I was far to weak to walk out of the hut, not that I wanted to. Everything I had ever loved in this world was gone; my home, my village, my family.
         I was terrified by the thought of burning to death, of my last breath being filled with smoke, my last sight being my own burning flesh.
         I gripped my revolver a little tighter.
         Somewhere in the town, there was the scream of a woman, cut off by a single gunshot. Something exploded in the distance, the shock wave shaking the hut. Squeezing the bone necklace tightly in my hand, I cocked the hammer on the revolver, putting the barrel against my head. The cool metal felt good against my skin, a small relief from the unrelenting flames that surrounded me. Slowly, I began pulling the trigger, waiting for it all to be over.
         *Click*