The Unrelenting Charge of Desolation vs Craig

It had been like a generation since probably China tantrum’ed out a buncha nukes like a wet dog shaking off after a bath; billions were dead, America was in ruins, and grocery stores everywhere were on the brink of collapse. Craig Bierderger was a 6th generation owner of a chain of stores in what was left of Missouri and he was told that they were doing quite well, all things considered, when suddenly they lost contact with the Kansas City locations. This was one of the worst years ever for radioactive superstorms, leading to razor-thin margins and dozens if not hundreds of workers suddenly disappearing in the only other surviving Missouri city could cripple the company. Craig decided to go out there personally and straighten things out. It's 250 miles across a state that was a desolate, mutant-infested, wasteland even before the war but Craig was optimistic, fearless, and bored, so he drug his dog Candy into the back seat of his smart car and headed west. All he had to do was make it to Kansas City.

The first twenty minutes were esolationgreat. Craig selected a playlist of music meticulously curated to maximize his positivity while knocking back energy drink after energy drink and texting his friends. He set the AC to 60, the speed to 100, and reclined his chair to take a quick mental break. He was so relaxed that he barely noticed when the engine stopped making noise, gently coasting to a soft stop in a dead silent world. There were no other cars, no buildings, no streaming audio, no nothing. Craig sat perfectly still for several minutes, futily attempting to reboot his overwhelmingly dead vehicle several times but the situation refused to fix itself. He had to get out. After an eternity of loading his cell phone told him that there was a gas station about eight miles ahead.Craig prayed for the first time in years.

The back door was barely open when Candy exploded out with a force so hard it knocked Craig to the ground and she shot off into the woods like a cruise missile. Craig was furious, that dog was specifically bred to Craig’s exact specifications and cost a goddamn fortune and it was just gone. You know what, good. The handful of mid-state survivors were so inbred and irradiated that they were only capable of feeding and breeding and as far as Craig was concerned they could do either or both with that ungrateful rodent.

Craig quickly sweated through his t-shirt and was beginning to dampen the sports jacket worn over it despite the midday summer heat. He walked ever-staring at the device in his hand, watching his progress in real time on the directions app. It had been about a mile when Craig, exhausted in mind, body, and soul, truly understood what the mutants that inhabited this region went through. At least those that died in the nuclear holocaust were granted the peace of death and not cursed to endure the relentless torture of existence ongoing in this humidity. For the first time in his life, Craig really felt a connection with those people. He was taking pride in his epiphany when his cell phone chirped, announcing a shortcut.

“Fuck yeah!”

He was going to save a mile by cutting through some woods. Craig’s got this.

Craig absolutely did not got this. He soon found himself crambling through a thorny mess of a state in 90 degree heat, his silky black socks sliding in his tactical business sandals, slowly summoning a blister like a witch conjuring a demon. He again glanced at the cell phone in his hand, It was getting harder and harder to connect. Craig turned it off and back on again. He needed water. He needed shelter. He needed internet. He needed to make it to the gas station.

His fantasies evaporated in an instant with a sucker punch from reality when Craig peeked up from his phone and saw a young girl. But not like any human Craig had ever seen before. Jesus Christ, maybe exhaustion was causing hallucinations, but this eight or nine year old lovecraftian horror had all of her face parts randomly scattered across her head like God had sprinkled facial features out of a salt shaker. Craig wanted to run but was paralyzed in terror, something the girl misinterpreted as calm friendliness. Craig heard her speak but it was just a series of syncopated whistles and clicks and the occasional string of thirty or forty unrelated consonants.

She approached him cautiously but with cheerful reassurance. Craig was confused, this genetic aberration should be in a bloodlust, tearing through his flesh with her chainsaw of a mouth but instead she picked a flower and handed it to him. She had an ancient-looking leather satchel at her side from which she drew what looked like a mayonnaise jar filled with water. Pure and clear, so cold that condensation was streaming down the sides. She unscrewed the lid and handed it to him, he took a sip. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted. It literally saved his life. They shared this spring water communion in silence.

Craig’s eyes flooded with tears, soft streams began leaking down his face and quickly devolved into full-on, ugly-cry bawling; he was overwhelmed with emotion. In this alien world she had all the supply and he had all the demand. She could have charged him anything, literally anything, and he would have graciously paid but instead she just… gave it to him. Out of kindness. Like a fucking idiot.

He checked his phone. No signal. None. Not even the comforting lie of a pinwheel spinning, bearing false witness to a page it knew would never load but didn't have the heart to tell him, just nothing. The girl smiled. She couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through, he didn't know whether to be sad or offended but it didn't matter because at that moment her walking abomination of a father erupted from the woods and Craig peed himself instead of finishing the thought.

It was massive, at least nine feet tall, with cords of stringy steel muscles wrapping around his body like a herd of blind anacondas trying to start an orgy under his skin. Instead of talking its mouth gurgled and blooped like a stopped up toilet in a bad part of hell. In any other circumstance Craig would have froze but his scale of unimaginable horror had just been reset and Craig sprinted into the woods. It didn't matter which direction, every direction away from that lumbering junkyard of a man was a good one. He ran for what seemed like hours.

He was lost. Scared. Overdrafted on spirit.

Worse, the cell phone in his hand was dead. When he was at the office this morning he was one with the digital aether and even in the wilderness his car had been a bubble universe of calming civilization but now, in his most desperate moment of need, he was abandoned. His umbilical cord to humanity was cut, his anestesia of information gone. Craig was alone.

He was forsaken by the old world and repulsed by the new. His digital Gods behind him were absentee landlords and the blasphemous miscegenation of humanity and whatever hillbilly communist nonsense those monsters practiced was ahead. He sat down and pouted. He wished he was back at work. He could call a meeting and all the store managers would come tell him that he was great and his ideas were great and this sports jacket looked awesome and he could just luxuriate in the warmth of their recognition like the first sip of sexy new wine. But instead he sat, wineless, clinging to a dead phone and being actively hunted by monsters.

Craig surveyed the scene. A hundred yards away was a road and on it a parked car. His car. And next to his car was the monster family, just sorta hanging out. His shortcut through the woods had actually moved his AWAY from his goal. His soul ached for a moment but that fuse was long since blown. Maybe he’d be safe if he could just make it inside his car? He sneakily inched towards his property like a suburban ninja. He had no idea what he’d do when he got there, his instincts would kick in when the time was right.

He was five yards away when his cell phone rang, startling everyone. He had been gripping it so tightly that he'd accidentally hit the power button, bringing it to life just long enough to get an instant of service. Craig awkwardly swiped ignore and put it in his pocket.

Craig was a self made man, he'd gotten to the pinnacle of his industry by relying on instinct, logic, and hard work, and thats how he’d survive this nightmare too. He targeted his unwavering gaze at the giant beside his vehicle. Old Craig would have let some vice president handle this, but that Craig was dead; this Craig handled his own business. He was the Chief Executive Officer of a multi-generational corporation and this brute was regional director of sticks and rocks. Craig had gone mad with self-confidence, drunk and delusional with a rush of newfound adequacy. He was chest to chest with the creature, each thinking that the other smelled offensive. Craig pulled a weapon from his back pocket and opened it. His clenched fist shot towards the mutant’s opened hand, into which Craig slapped seven hundred dollars. A moment the size of the universe hung pregnant in the air, the humidity pulpy with tension. Neither moved. Time for the knockout blow. Craig reeled back, reloaded his fist with everything he had left and swung again, slam dunking onto its chest five, maybe six thousand dollars. It was a fortune, more than any two of Craig’s employees made in a year. The beast took a deferential step backwards. It worked. He’d done it, Craig had saved his own life.

The vehicle was still very dead. New Craig smashed the window with his traitorous cell phone, shattering both. He reached into what was technically his wife’s car and looked for one last tool. With no world he could return to and none to walk towards, his only option was to create a new one. In the glovebox he found exactly what he needed. Years ago he’d gotten his wife a heart-shaped locket made of pure gold with his picture inside, insanely expensive and never worn. He returned to the admittedly sweet excuse for a girl and dangled it in front of her, letting her eyes sample its shine before gently placing it around her neck. She smiled. He knelt down and opened his arms wide to her, allowing her to enter his embrace and him to take the leather sack off her shoulder and stand up with all the water she’d been carrying. That locket alone probably made her the tenth richest person in Missouri and yet it was worthless compared to the water. Craig was a goddamn business genius. He started walking down the road, not knowing what to expect but determined to meet it on his terms.

*****

“Daddy, what was that man doing?” Layla said to her father in Spanish.

“I don't know honey. Let’s go home. Tomorrow we’ll go find his body and give him a proper burial.” He kissed his beautiful girl on the forehead.

What a strange afternoon. Layla was a little sad at losing her water jars, filling them was easily her least favorite chore, but there were plenty more at home and its not like the spring was going to run out. Plus she had gotten this pretty thing from that guy that looked like a six foot tall naked mole rat with a bad attitude. She figured that she could probably trade it to her friend Clara in exchange for water duty tomorrow. What a good deal.