AFTERMATH
Anthropogenic thunder rumbled off in the distance, a deep rolling bass trundling across apocalyptic landscape. A chill breeze followed in its wake, scattering black and gray ash across the concrete and needling its way into our souls. A pack of feral dogs trotted across the now abandoned thoroughfare, barely pausing to glance at us as we marched. Not even running from the rumble of the distant bombs.
They were too desperate to be afraid.
We were all desperate and I was especially afraid.
The world was broken in a matter of months. Simple miscommunications and unprovoked escalations were the death of millions. In a matter of seconds, entire generations were scorched from existence in radioactive fires. The fallout, famine, and disease that followed were the death of a billion and counting.
Our column moved with the trundling thud of a hundred boots on crumbling macadam, surrounded by the burnt-out husks of office buildings and industrial warehouses. The edge of a once proud and populous city, now reduced to ruins and inhabited by ghosts.
Was I a ghost? A phantom struggling to maintain a futile grasp on existence in the tangible world?
"Private Collins, wake the fuck up!" Sergeant Fuentes barked, snapping me back into life.
I had not even realized the rest of the company had stopped, taking up positions on either side of the street. I stood alone, dumb and oblivious in the middle. A bullseye painted on my chest that screamed for a raider's bullet.
"Fuck," I said, diving for the cover of a rusted-out Tesla just as the fusillade of lead whistled past my body. I slammed into the bed of ash, smearing my already tattered uniform, but glad for the cool comfort.
My company responded with a barrage of small arms fire in the general direction of our adversary. Our bullets smashing into fallen walls of brick and mortar, sending up wispy clouds of ash and dirt.
"Hold your goddamned fire!" Fuentes swung her arm up and down, palm outward, in front of her face. "Quit wasting your fucking ammo!"
Sergeant Fuentes glared at me. "You ok, Collins?"
"Roger, Sergeant."
"Fucking fantastic. Are you goddamned stupid? You do that again and I'll shoot you myself, even if it's a waste of a perfectly good bullet."
"Yes, Sergeant." I nodded, fully knowing that she would not shoot me. Bullets were too precious. Fuentes would use a knife.
I eased myself further up the broken Tesla's side and shot a glance out into the bleak street ahead. My eyes darted every which way, like a prey animal that sensed a predator nearby. Somewhere ahead there was sniper, waiting and watching for us to make a mistake. He most likely had already sent a warning to his comrades and they would be on us soon.
Fucking raiders. The worst parts of society unleashed to do as they wanted without recourse. It started well before the fall, when government officials wanted votes from anyone anyway, just so they remained in power. The very same bureaucrats that got us into the war and ended the world.
A whole hell of a lot of good those votes did them now. They were some of the first to be fried in a terror attack on the capital. Some made it out and went into their bunkers, directing the fall of the country in secret. Chaos and anarchy with a sliver of civilization skittering around trying to staunch the bleeding artery.
Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. My family told me not to join the army. I should have listened.
Here I was, still serving my country in the apocalypse.
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