The Dead Road
An apocalyptic short by @KingBritain
Samuel Harper put the whiskey to his lips and necked the whole drink back. Even after thirty odd years, the good stuff had a damn fine kick to it. He scoured his throat with a cough and beckoned for the barman.
'Another.'
The barman wandered over and pulled a bottle of whiskey out from under the counter. Harper's tongue went fat with excitement, eyes bulging and lidless as the barman poured the whiskey. With a hand that had held maybe a thousand different glasses, Harper reached out, took and swallowed the drink whole. His stomach heaved. God, it felt good.
'Another.'
This ritual was repeated some number of times. Samuel Harper felt his legs go weak, felt the bruised light of the stinking bar dim till it seemed it were only him in there, sitting at the bar, drinking himself into a stupor, alone. Just how he liked it. The music coming from the grimy speakers faded away into a hubbub of noise, then ceased entirely. Very soon, Samuel Harper was drunk.
The barman came up to him, wiping the counter with a mangy cloth. 'Maybe you should quit while you're ahead, old man.'
'Don't tell me what to do.'
'I ain't telling you to do anything,' the barman said. 'I said maybe. Maybe you should quit while you're ahead.'
'I'm fifty-three.'
'What?'
'I'm fifty-three years old. Don't be calling me old man.'
The barman scoffed and shook his head. 'Fine. Either way, you've been getting mighty drunk.'
Samuel Harper nodded. 'Yes. I have.'
'You're going to wake up with one hell of a hangover.'
Harper slammed the whiskey glass on the counter. 'Another.'
The barman laughed again, huge yellow teeth snapping up and down. Harper's fingers twitched into a fist. 'You're crazy, old man. Oh, sorry. Young man. Or would you just prefer–'
Harper slammed his fist into the barman's jaw. Blood squirted out of his mouth like juice from an orange. The barman staggered, wheeled over, and collapsed into the bottle laden shelves behind the bar. Glass exploded everywhere, and the sound was absurdly like gunshots. Suddenly Harper was being hurled back through time, back to the sounds of dying people and the red sky. Bullets everywhere. Flames leaping. Blood soaking the ground. A woman screaming for her child.
David! David! David!
The child was watching him, clutching a mouldy teddy bear. He was crying and in his wet eyes the flames were burning–
Harper blinked hard and pushed himself off the stool, grabbing the whiskey bottle. His legs were drunk but he'd learned how to use his drunk legs better than his sober ones. Swaying gracefully, Samuel Harper slipped out through the door, whiskey bottle tilted at his gaping mouth.
The air was hot outside. Sand itched his feet. Harper sucked greedily at the bottle, his throat retching, his stomach flipping, his head pounding. Harper slurped and coughed and spluttered and drank.
And then the bottle was empty. He threw it away, into the endless, burning sand. Like a huge red skull, the sun vomited heat down on him. Samuel Harper looked up, shielded his wrinkled eye – one being covered by an eyepatch – then keeled over and emptied his stomach.
A foot collided with his heaving belly. Harper flew over on his side, his drunken brain barely understanding what was happening. A figure was standing over him, blood pouring out of his mouth, screaming something, something about an old man, about how an old man was going to pay for making him look stupid.
As a drowning man may bob up for breath every few moments or so, a drunk man may endure flashes of damned sobriety. In the moment that the raging barman withdrew his knife, Samuel Harper endured sobriety.
He moved his leg up hard and crushed the barman's testicles. Falling over, clutching his groin, the barman dropped the knife, which Harper grabbed and plunged into the man's heaving stomach. Hot blood poured out onto his hands.
Bastard.
He wrenched the blade free, turned over onto his back, and welcomed the waves of drunkenness to wash over him.
And wash over him it did. Harper wallowed there, his mind clouded, his heartbeat distant, the memories of that damned night when he'd killed all those people just as limp and lifeless as he was.
'Sir?'
Samuel Harper opened his eyes. Another body was standing above him. A man – well, a very young man. Maybe twenty. He was slight and short and looked to Harper like a man that wouldn't survive to twenty-one if he didn't leave him well alone.
'Can I help you up?'
Harper blinked hard and shifted up onto elbows. 'What?'
'Can I help you up?' The young man held out his hand. 'You look hurt.'
Harper spat in the sand and dragged himself up from the ground. 'You better leave me alone, boy. I'm not in the mood for trouble. See what happened to the last guy who–'
'I saw,' the young man said. He seemed incredibly calm. Standing up, Harper could see that the young man was wearing a C.T.C. jacket. Ah, his drunk mind spewed. A trader. C.T.C: California Trading Company.
'You wanna walk the Road?' Harper wiped thick, gloopy saliva from the corners of his mouth. 'Is that it?'
The young man smiled. 'Yes, I do.'
'Where you got business?'
'New Silvertown.'
Harper laughed a drunk, hawking laughter. 'That's four days away, boy.'
'I know.'
'You ain't gonna last one day on the Road. Let alone four. There are raiders out there that'll skin you as quick as see you. They'll come at night, they'll come at day. They'll come when you've got your trousers round your ankles and they'll shove–'
The young man smiled again, and in it, even through the shimmering fog of alcohol that kept most things in the world at bay, Samuel Harper saw something terrible within it. 'The Road is dangerous. I am very aware of it. That is why I'm talking to you. Mister...?'
'Harper.' Samuel rubbed the sand from his bloodshot eye and put out his hand. 'Samuel Harper.'
The trader took Harper's hand and shook it. 'Pleased to meet you, Mister Harper.'
Samuel dragged his hand back and spat. 'Yeah, whatever. I know what you want.'
'Good. Then we can leave immediately.'
'Don't you wanna know?'
'Know what, Mister Harper?'
'How many times I walked it? The Road?'
The young trader laughed. It was a confined, delicate laughter. Not the laughter of those who lived along the Road, or at the ends of it. 'I do not care how many times you've walked it, Mister Harper. Just that you walk it this one time, with me.'
The endless sea of sand stretched on for infinity on either side of the Road. It seemed impossible, when looking out at such a desolate, inhospitable place, that somewhere, out there, people lived. Hell, he'd been one of them, long ago, and that seemed the most impossible of all. Samuel Harper put his hand – a hand that was beginning to regain control from all that whiskey – over his gaze and looked out over the distance, wondering where they were, all those people that made this road the most dangerous road in all creation.
'Mister Harper?'
Samuel span on his heels and looked back at the trader. He wasn't wearing his blue C.T.C. jacket now. He was stripped down to a grimy white vest that was impossibly heavy with sweat. It sagged down over his pitiful frame, revealing grey white skin that had never seen such a fearsome sun as the one hanging over them.
'What is it, boy? Regretting asking me to take you? Most folk want me to turn around and take them back where they came from right about now.'
The trader stopped and dragged his forearm across his forehead. As quick as the sweat was gone, it came back, dripping out of his skin like blood. 'No. No, I'm quite alright with our current arrangement. I was wondering. How did you lose your eye?'
Harper's dry lips turned upwards in a smile. 'Took you a while, boy. Most people wanna know about the eye patch straight away.'
The trader wiped his brow again. The sweat came back, again. 'We have four days travel ahead of us. There's no need to rush.'
Harper reached up to his eye patch and flipped it upside down. From looking in mirrors, and the horror on people's faces when he showed it off, Samuel Harper knew what the boy was seeing. A murky white ball, with scorched dead skin all around it.
'Happened maybe thirty years ago. I was about your age, living out near Silvertown, before it was New Silvertown. Back then, the Road was safe. Silvertown men patrolled it. Kept it clean. You could go all the way from Silvertown to Vegas and not hear a peep from anyone.'
'What happened?'
'The war.'
'Which one?'
Harper grinned at that. It was a tired grin. 'Yeah. Which one, indeed. Been so many, I don't even keep count any more.'
The trader pulled off his backpack and dug out a bottle of water. Harper thought that the clear liquid could easily have been vodka, and suddenly the urge to just run back to that bar and drink it dry came over him. He licked his dry, cracked lips, and an ache suddenly throbbed in the middle of his throat.
'Well, Mister Harper? What happened?'
Harper wiped his lips and flipped the eye patch back down. 'I was in a fire. Whole town was burning. Whoever set fire to it – I don't know. Could have been Silvertown, could have been Vegas. I tried to fight, but I fell over, and when I got back up, my face was on fire. Burned the sight in my eye right out.'
The trader slipped his backpack on and tightened the straps. 'God. I'm sorry, Mister Harper.'
'It's alright. I'm over it. Lived longer without it than with it. But since we're talking history; where you from, boy?'
The trader smiled. 'Couldn't you tell by the jacket?'
'I would have said California, if it weren't for the accent. You're local, aren't you?'
'Was.' The trader stopped smiling. 'I was local, just like you. Lived not far from here, along the Road. My family died when I was a kid. Only place for me where there wasn't a war going on was California.'
'And you joined the Trading Company?'
'I did.'
'They just took you in?'
'Is there anything wrong with that, Mister Harper?'
Samuel sighed and shook his head. 'No. Nothing wrong. I just ain't ever heard of a Road kid joining the Company.'
'Well, now you have.'
Harper held the boy's gaze and felt that steady malice coming out of his eyes once more. He'd seen such eyes before, and that hadn't ended well. 'Yeah. Guess I have.'
There was no trouble on the second day of their journey. The trader rose from his sleep and found Samuel Harper sitting up against a rock with his boots sank in the sand. He was smoking but didn't look to be inhaling – the small white strip of paper just rested in the corner of his lip like a lolling tongue. Ahead of them, across the scorched sand, lay the undeniable strip of concrete that was the Road. They'd left it in the night and sought refuge amongst the rocks. 'They'll look for us here, too,' Harper had said. 'But we'll at least have cover.'
They went back to the Road and resumed their journey, the blue sky above them and the sand laden ground beside them never changing, never shifting. Walking along the Road long enough, you would go mad. You would start to wonder whether you were moving at all, whether there was an actual end to the highway you'd started along.
It was a long day, with the sun beating down on them hard. Only three times did Harper allow them to rest, and each time not at all well. When the trader complained, Harper had shook his head and stomped on ahead. 'You can sleep in New Silvertown,' he'd grumbled. 'Now keep up.'
He didn't see any clouds, or animals, or greenery. Just the domed blue sky, the flat orange sand, the occasional cluster of red rocks that might have signalled something long ago. After what seemed an eternity, the sky grew purple, then black.
'I can keep watch for a few hours,' the trader said. 'If you want a few more hours than last night.'
'Didn't sleep last night,' Harper said. 'At least, what you'd call sleep.'
The trader stood up straight, his brow furrowed in confusion.
'You can't sleep on the Road,' Harper said. His grey-black beard shifted down into a frown. 'That's just asking to be killed.'
'I can stay up with you,' the trader said. 'Keep you company.'
'I don't want your company. I want your money. That's the only reason I'm doing this.'
The third day began with the choked cries of a busted engine, and the maddened wailing of what seemed to be four heavily armed people.
The trader sat up blinking, his exhausted mind struggling to understand what the noises meant, and the dangers they would bring. He scratched his head and rolled his fat, dry tongue around in his mouth. Then the first coherent thought came: my throat hurts. I need to drink.
He reached out for his water bottle and a hand grabbed him. It was attached to Samuel Harper.
'They're here,' the old man whispered. 'Shut up and do as I say.'
The trader nodded and climbed up on his knees. They'd moved up from the Road to rest again and had hid behind the rusted black skeleton of some old car. Doubtless any one moving along the Road could have seen them, but as Harper had said, at least they had cover.
A black square was thrashing down the Road, dust erupting in its wake. The sun was half eclipsed by the horizon, casting long black shadows behind them, the oncoming raiders, and the hunk of rusted metal they hid behind.
'They know we're here,' Harper grumbled. 'You ever used a gun?'
The trader looked at him madly. 'A gun? No! Why do you think I employed you? You're meant to use the guns! I can't use a gun–'
'Shut up,' Harper hissed. 'I get you. Fine. Just keep hidden, okay?'
The trader was wailing. 'Can you do it? Kill them?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, God, what will they do to me? Harper, you have to kill them!'
'I will.'
'Please, Harper, I can't die out here–'
Samuel Harper grabbed the trader by the throat and pushed him up against the dented car door. 'Shut your mouth, or I'll fucking kill you.'
The trader wheezed, his eyes huge and wet. Harper could see himself in them, a tanned middle aged man with grey hair and a scraggly grey-black beard, one eye clasped behind a dusty black eye patch.
Harper yanked his hand away from the trader's throat and glanced up over the car's bonnet. The raiders were halfway down the Road now, the knackered truck they were screaming from swerving all over the Road. Harper saw tanned arms pumping out of the windows, fists with pistols clenched in them, honking a screaming horn loud and hard.
'Oh, God, Harper, I–'
Samuel clouted the trader around the head. 'Shut up!'
He rose from his knees and took a shot at the oncoming vehicle. His bullet went wide. The truck approached, relentless, with the promise of hell on earth within it. Harper heard their maddened cries and was suddenly transported back twenty years, running from the red sky, blood clumping the sand into hard red rocks. He was standing with the barrel of his gun pointed at a weeping woman's
David! David! David!
head. A child was watching on, clasping a huge teddy bear covered in green grey mould. Harper was pulling the trigger, and blood and brains and skull was exploding all over him, and the child was crying, screaming for its mother–
The truck swerved right and screeched to a stop some twenty feet from them. The raiders – three of them men, one a girl – clambered out of the truck and scurried behind it. They were yelping with laughter.
Harper flashed up from behind the bonnet, took another shot. The right rear window exploded in an ecstasy of glass. The raiders screamed with laughter again. Harper knew that they were probably drugged up, that this was just something to do to pass a couple of hours. He knew because he'd been like them, because he'd raided along the Road too, twenty long years ago.
'Come on, old man!'
'Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!'
'Gonna die today!'
'Come on, baby, you want me, come get me!'
The raiders popped up from behind their truck and unleashed a barrage of gunfire at him. Harper ducked, put his hands over his head, heard the wailing bullets sail over his ears. The trader yelped beside him like a beaten puppy.
'I'm giving you all one chance,' Harper shouted. He checked his rifle over, trying to occupy his hands so they wouldn't start shaking. 'One chance! You hear? Get in your truck, carry on down the Road, and I'll let you live.'
The raiders screamed helpless laughter. He heard their feet stomping the ground, like a group of little kids. 'Sure, grampa,' one yelled back. 'We'll be on our way. Just gimme a sec to stand up–'
A bullet tore through the rusted car door they hid behind, hitting the baked sand with a dull thud. The trader was cradling his face, probably weeping. Harper crept around to the rear of the car and leapt up from cover. The raider who'd fired the last shot was still standing, expecting Harper to be where his voice came from.
Samuel Harper put a bullet in his head.
The three remaining raiders yelped and screamed.
'Gonna kill you, old man!'
'Fucking rip your head off!'
'You hurt me, baby, now I'm gonna hurt you!'
Three more bullet holes appeared in the rusted heap, two on either side of the trader. He looked at the holes hopelessly, trembling. The other appeared right beside Harper's head. He knew that it was only a matter of time before they hit something.
He shot up from behind the car and fired three times. All three raiders were still standing – their doped out minds making them a little slow – but Harper was shaking and his aim was off. Only one bullet hit, tearing through the young woman's throat. She staggered back, clutching her neck, blood pumping out of a big red hole.
Harper scrambled back behind the car before they could get a shot on him.
'You killed her!'
'I'm gonna kill you! You hear?'
Harper ignored their threats. It was good that they were shocked. Scared. It meant he had the upper hand, that they were the ones fighting for their lives, and not him.
One of the raiders started screaming, and suddenly he was running around the truck. Harper glimpsed out from behind his cover. The raider was maybe twenty five, with a thick black beard covering his lower jaw. Tears were streaming down his tattooed face.
Samuel Harper stood, fixed the gun at his head, and shot it off.
'Oh, God,' the last raider screeched. 'Okay! Okay! You can go! Crazy, old man, you can go!'
Harper stood, pulling the rifle up with him. The raider was hiding behind his truck, weeping. Samuel went around the rusted car – so full of bullet holes it was a wonder they hadn't been shot – and walked around the raider's truck.
'Oh, jeez, man, please don't–'
Harper blew his face off. Blood splattered his hands. The faceless body of the last raider, sat up against the truck, fell sideways and went limp against the Road.
Wiping the blood on his trousers, Harper turned around and shouted for the trader.
'Right here.'
The trader was standing behind him, one of the raider's pistols in his hand. Harper took a few steps back as the cold malicious gaze he'd seen flashing in the trader's eyes finally broke out completely. His face was cold, his lips thin, the hand gripping the gun completely still.
'What did you do?' The trader pointed the gun at Harper's head. 'Before you took people up and down the Road. What did you do?'
Harper opened his lips to speak, but only a squeak came out. He didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to react.
'Answer me, Harper.' His voice was angry now. 'Twenty years ago. What did you do?'
'I...I...'
'You were a raider, weren't you?' The trader took a step forward, the gun in his hand like the point of a sword. 'Twenty years ago, before you whored yourself out to any trader that needed protection, you were a raider.'
Harper's heart was in his throat. For the first time in years, he felt helpless. Truly, utterly, helpless. 'Yeah,' he wheezed. 'Yeah, I was. But–'
'Twenty years ago, you and your friends went up and down the Road, killing and stealing. Right?'
Harper felt underwater – felt drunk. What on earth was happening?
'Right?'
Samuel nodded. He couldn't speak.
'Twenty years ago, you burned down a village, didn't you? Twenty years ago, you burned down a village and stood in the sand with your gun pointed at a woman's head. She was screaming, but you didn't care. You put the gun against her head and looked up and saw a kid, a kid with a teddy bear, and still you fucking fired.'
Samuel Harper's eyes became lidless. The hot breath in his throat went cold and lifeless. Even beneath the writhing flames of the sun, he felt ice in his heart.
'My name is David,' the trader said. 'And twenty years ago, you killed my parents.'
Samuel Harper made for his rifle, but David was quick, and calm. Deadly calm. He squeezed his trigger and Harper's tanned, wrinkled face, erupted in a cloud of gloopy red blood.
David turned away. The bodies around him made him feel sick, all of them expect one, of the bastard who'd rocked up into his home and burned it all down. But now he was dead, and that was all he ever wanted. David could have killed him early – could have done it the first time he laid eyes on him – but Harper had been a man built for killing, and would never have felt more alive than in the moments after a hard won fight. That is when David had decided to kill Samuel Harper – when he was most alive.
David grabbed his backpack, pulled out the California Trading Company jacket he'd stolen, and yanked it on. He fastened the straps around his stomach and looked up at the sky. A single pale cloud, fluttering like a white flag, sailed across the sky.
David turned and faced the Road. He put one foot forward, and then another. New Silvertown awaited him, and so did Harper's old friends, the ones that had burned the village down with him. David would kill them all, if it was the last thing he did.