The Last Stand

         Rain was one of those awful nuisances that pooled into your eyes without an umbrella. What Jim wouldn't give for an umbrella right now. But that was a luxury of what seemed to be the distant past. Relics of a bygone era. For a man of his time, he was lucky. He had a farm, a couple of chickens, a few tomato plants. There was nothing special about it, but god dammit it was his. Jim had carved out his own little stretch of land in the wreckage of the Aftermath. It was sheer luck he had been granted the opportunity. While out wandering the wastes, picking clean the remains of an old 2008 Chevrolet something or other, he met the woman that would become his wife. Turns out, the car was Mary's and the supplies he was scrounging were hers. She let him keep one of those dollar store packs of stale crackers and that weird whipped cheese shit. Though she had a revolver pointed at his head, Mary didn't pull the trigger. It was a good start. For a brief moment, Jim thought those crackers were the best damn thing he had ever eaten. Maybe he was in love that early or maybe he was just half dead from starvation. Either way, he wrote a history with Mary. Or at least he called it that. Their romance wasn't heroic or special or anything like that, but it was for them and them alone.
         The Nosler felt cold in his hands. Jim was never comfortable with pointing the barrel of his rifle at anyone. Mary had always thought it to be one of his good qualities. Lord knows his forehead was large enough, his nose crooked, and eyes shaped a little funny. No one could say she fell for him for his looks. Maybe it was because he was nice, or so she said. Mary was a one of a kind girl, the type to offer vagrants food while carrying around gun without bullets. Jim double checked the safety. Someone was out there and he wanted to be ready. A queasy feeling had begun to settle in his stomach. Tyler was inside the shack hiding. Why was it everyone had to hide nowadays? It wasn't so long ago people could talk to one another without fearing they'd be robbed, killed, or worse. Hell, they even had the audacity to take that fearless face-to-face banter for granted with their cellular devices. Tyler deserved something better than fear from life. He deserved companionship, happiness, and a world that wasn't obsessed with trying to kill him and take his shit. Jim allowed himself to cautiously clear his throat.
He once saw a man bash open a crab with his old cell phone. It was funny what things become less important when you're hungry. Of course, he had been the last one in his first group to think the government would rally. But instead barbarism triumphed where senators failed. The man eventually relinquished his hope for the more practical desperation. And that was okay. Things were one hundred percent worse now, but at least they were simpler. When God closes a door right? Something wasn't quite right with him after that. Didn't matter for too long, he got himself robbed and killed by roaming bandits. It was a little cruel to have a man die shortly after he abandoned hope. Something was particularly dark about that. The night after the man's death, Jim packed his shit and left camp. He never ran with a group again.
Rumbling groans of thunder startled Jim and he nearly missed the movement on the opposite site of his ramshackle fence. There was definitely someone out there. Weeds had grown so tall, it was nearly impossible to see between them; and the rain certainly didn't help visibility. Jim felt cold. What if there were more than one? Jim and Mary had taken every precaution to evacuate the city when everything went dark. Going was slow and it took nearly a year for them to safely flee. It figures others had finally caught wise. Surprising that it took people this long to conclude their homes were lost causes. Lucky for Jim, the countryside was expansive and people rarely happened upon his little oasis.  In the eight years he had tended his small farm, he only had to defend it twice. That wasn't bad considering the roving bands of marauders that circled the cities and suburbs. There was less access to supplies in the rural regions, less reasons to attack. Leaving the city was the only option once they had Tyler. Maybe if Mary had survived the pregnancy he could have stayed in the city, but he couldn't raise a boy in that kind of environment alone. That and babies are loud. Expensive.
         Visibility was nearly non existent in the downpour. He was almost certain his gun would get waterlogged and  jam. Jim was so focused on the moving weeds, he did not notice the small hands clutching at his over coat. Tyler didn't speak to his father. He knew better. Death wasn't the kind of thing a seven year old should have to understand, but he did. Too well. It was frightening, the first time Tyler saw his father kill a man. Choked the life out of him with his bare hands. Tyler remembered how the man's face had turned purple and how he gurgled as he died. You have to be prepared to kill if you want to go on living. That was the way of things. That's what his father taught him and that's why he kept quiet. Tyler didn't want to be like the purple faced man.
Jim breathed. What he wouldn't give for a few episodes of Wings and a cold beer right now. The past was always so inviting. He had seen people get drunk on nostalgia a few times. It always got them killed one way or another. Usually, they died bloody or they died begging; or some combination of both. A pit had grown in his stomach. Anticipation. Come on out, you mother fucker, he thought. Jim felt a kind of nervous itch run through the entirety of his body. He was nestled behind the remnants of old horse stocks. No way in hell could an attacker see him, unless they had been casing the area for a while. That thought made him nervous. Jim allowed himself the luxury of remembering a movie from his youth, some old space opera that was essentially a rip off of samurai movies. The name escaped him. It had been so long ago, the parts of his brain that compartmentalized leisure had all but dissolved.
Initially, the gunshot sounded like another thunderclap. It took a second or two for Jim to realize what was happening. He ducked. Tyler seemed dazed by the sudden commotion, but he followed his father's lead. Children had to learn to become more resilient and Tyler was just that. Jim glimpsed upward as a bald head peek over the growth of weeds and took a shot. The head disappeared with a pink spray. He's dead'nr shit, has to be. Suddenly, a group of anguished groans sounded over the weeds. There had to be at least five of them, probably more. Jim didn't have enough bullets for that.
"It's time to go," Jim didn't recognize his own voice. Eight years. Eight years of labor, sacrifice, and normalcy washed down the drain. What a waste of time. Silently, Jim motioned for his son to make a run toward the furthest treeline of the property. Another volley soared over their heads. Though frightened, Tyler darted from the stocks and began running for the forest. Jim stood and began firing in the general vicinity of the gunshots. Cover fire was only something he had heard of in the old movies. He had never thought to put that knowledge to practice. It was just more nonsense from the past. Jim shook his head, had to stop with the dangerous thinking. If his mind got caught up in the past, he'd be dead any moment. But the past was difficult to forget of late. He missed Mary. He missed movies. He missed being safe. The remains of what used to be had become particularly inviting. Voices of angry men sounded over the weeds. They had moved forward, attempting to encircle the farm. Cursing, Jim made a break for the forest.
The rain had dissipated by the time he caught up to Tyler. A beam of sunlight shined down from the tree tops into the clearing where his son stood. Mud sloshed against his boots as Jim trudged passed the clearing and under the cover of the dense trees. "Dad?" was all Tyler said and it was all Jim needed to hear to convince him to drop his rifle. Jim knelt and threw his arms around his son. He was warm. If he had met Mary before all this, he could have raised the boy in a better place. But it was dangerous thinking; wanting to tuck him in at night, read him stories, pick him up from school. Jim let himself laugh for the first time in years. Sleepovers. The kind of wishes that could, should, and would get you killed. But right now in the clearing, as men razed his home and laid claim to all the shit he fought over for almost a decade, it was all he could think about. There could be more gardens, more chickens, and they could start again somewhere else. Somewhere safer. He could find some books. Read to the boy, teach him to read, to write. Jim wasn't the smartest man in his time, but he knew letters and he knew some numbers.
Jim felt something warm trickle between his fingers and spent a few moments attempting to discern the origin. Too viscous to be rain water. Jim didn't realize what was happening until his son collapsed into his arms. All at once, the entirety of every aspect of existential dread flowed into Jim's body. He froze, he didn't want to let go, but he had to see. Tyler's eyes were closed when he placed him on the ground, almost like he had simply gotten tuckered out and fallen asleep. He always thought people were full of shit when people said the dead looked peaceful. They weren't wrong. Jim could scarcely see a hole poking through the left side of the boy's stomach through his tears. There was nothing to be done. Jim placed Tyler's hands gently on his chest. That's the kind of thinking that'll get someone killed.