For A Future (1700)

Derity crouched with his back tight to the petrified tree. His jaw had been grinding his teeth to stubs for well over an hour in anticipation. Oh God, it’s happening. There wasn’t fear, there wasn’t panic. The feral man drew his pistol and silently cocked the hammer back. Tension throttled his hand as he delicate lifted the small mirror from the precious cover. He could see the hearthened clearing through the murky reflection, the can of food still there. He hadn’t minded it until he heard the shot.

A month and half. Someone had followed Derity for a month and a half. Maybe even longer. It had spooked him at first, could always feel them lingering just at the shadows of his campfire. Could feel them watching, could feel him trekking in his foot steps.

Derity shot a man at the crossroads of a ghost town. Didn’t think much about it, man wanted his clothes, his food and his body. Just made the mistake of thinking a crowbar won the upper hand. That was when he had his first suspicions. Man had asked him ‘Where the other was,’. So he’d doubled back on the body after supplies and found it lighter some clothes and just the faintest nibble taken out the arm.

So someone had been at his heels. A boy, the weathered survivor figured, living off the scraps left in his wake. Chunk out of the stiff’s arm was the size for it. He stood there amongst the cobbling streets and blown out store fronts. He made it look like he took no head. Like he was all the duller for it. He’d eat half rations and drink half portions only to “litter” his campsite upon leaving. He’d “drop” food on the obvious trails he blazed. It was a brazen move. It could’ve been anyone, but he was certain it was a boy.

Not a good world for a kid. As an adult, even Derity’s faith faltered. Days lain anywhere he thought would be his final resting place in the fits of starvation or thirst. The countless men he’d killed just to draw another pathetic breath. He’d stabbed men in all sorts of manners. He’d strangled , bludgeoned and beat many men. It had worn ridges into his face, a guilt that showed how shameful it was just to be human those days. He’d done this as a man only to never be able to fathom doing it as a boy.

To no ground gained, he even tried to catch the little bastard. Derity would barrel into the darkness only to clutch shadows. Always giving him the slip. He’d tried to passively invite the boy to join him. It’s not like he was a pederast or anything. That bit of goodness still existed in him if not the rest of the men. The kid was cautious enough. So Derity did the best to help the kid from a distance.

The days now, the days without honor….the days after man. They were no place for a boy, no matter the age. Herity knew the situation. With women endangered and man killing and raping and eating each other, every life that could bring any promise of a future...any life, was precious. Sacred.

So from a distance, he nourished this life. Always clearing a safe path, never inviting harm. His footprints in the blanket of soot a constant reminder. Stand here, you are safe. Derity would forgo the warmer clothes for his worn rags. In his wake nothing was scavenged thoroughly. Rocks were left unturned. There was purpose for life. There would be no more reason to give up, no choice of resignation. Where others could opt out bullet or rope, Derity now had a driving force to stay alive. Another life depended on him.

His shadow had followed him well into the north. The dead forests through ash covered passes. The skies in that place were forever gray, raining soft flakes of soot down in an endless blizzard. The trees stood immortalized in stone to testify man’s drive to end life. Thick clumps of ash churned each step like fresh snow felled to the shin. Those were cold, hungry days. He did not eat, he did not drink, he did not survive through the fool-hearted decision to bring them north.

It was safety he was leading them towards. The promise of a dead north. They had died so quickly, he had heard, so quickly they practically left food on the table. Hardly anyone survived this way meant hardly anyone would be alive on the other side. He would head towards a safer place, he would lead them there. They would eat bountiful canned goods and drink the plentiful bottles of water together even if they would never meet.

Fantasies. A reckless notion he had given into. Had he been that starved of human contact? So starved to lead a stranger after himself. It was his own failure, his own misconduct as new man. To trust, to give into a weaker voice….to believe that this world still had a chance.

Derity had come to his end. His shoes had given way to raw flesh caked in the black ash and leaking blood. This eternal snow. His clothes had ran themselves to rags, letting the smoldering winter invade his bones. It started to creep in on him like the dawn that never came through the ever lasting smoke clouds. They were going to die out there.

He had led someone to their death, a kid. There was still a can of food in his pack, a few drinks of water. When he came to the clearing, Derity just fell to the ground. In time the ash just piled over him. Apathy, maybe it was the best. This was no place to survive. A world where the birds were no longer left to sing or the crickets to strum. A land where nothing green existed. Maybe it was better neither of them existed. If neither of us make it kid, I’ll find you in the next llfe.

With what felt what the last of his strength he scrawled his swan song on a piece of frayed paper. It told of his gun, and the meek provisions. Even giving subtle consent for his consumption. Shook the brim off too appear more visible for when he went.

Then that single shot. It shook the blanket of dust loose and put him to attention again.It was an agonizing moment as he wondered if someone had done the kid….maybe he had done himself. If he was laying there, bleeding his short life away. It was gut wrenching. He almost ran off into the petrified forest, gun blazing. Using his few remaining shots to bring justice to a life he had never met.

Then came the light sounds of movement in the distance. The familiar noise of his own shadow at his legs. It was a fear that came on him like the endless ashen storm. The boy was still out there. He was armed, probably desperate. There was no telling if he the shot had fed him. If it hadn’t, then just maybe the next shot was his. In that night of waiting he figured it was time to meet. This little tick was ripe for the plucking.

Derity waited against the tree. His breath was slow, the ash had already built by the inches in his stillness. Waiting…..waiting…...waiting. He knew the kid would go for the canned food in his mock wake. Suicide was leaving it be. So Derity waited. He watched as his breath made a slow cloud in front of his face as his teeth crushed together.

CHINK!

Herity spun from his cover, pistol raised at his capture before he had even heard the high pitched wails. The leg-hold trap had worked wonders on human wrist. What he discovered shocked him though. An electricity that shot from the realitiy forced his gun down.

Long knotted hair. Narrow, defined features. A long, thin body mostly starved. It was a woman. Derity was frozen in sheer wonder. How many years had it been since he’d seen a woman? She cradled her snared wrist at her chest between shrieks and raised her pistol to him, a dumbfounded look on his face. He raised his hands and dropped his piece.

“My God,” he stammered in disbelief, “I’m not going to hurt you. Just don’t kill me yet.”

“Ple-please….get me out of this fucking thing,” was her enraged reply.

He rushed over and dove to his knees, daftly relieving pressure on the springs that crushed her starved bone. The skin around the trap’s jaws let go with a steady sacrifice of blood on her part. He freed her wrist and then just fell to his trance once again.

“I won’t do nothing to hurt, in fact if I ain’t much long for this world myself,” he explained in a weak raspy voice, “A woman, thought ya’ll were gone on, I’m sorry.”

She shyed away from him with a feral instinct, “Were you the one leaving food?” she regarded him with suspicious eyes and a dirty face. She rung the raw part of her wrist in an anxious hand.

“Reckoned you to be a boy. By God a woman?” Derity had yet to let go from disbelief that even a single woman had survived and he had seen her, “Thought I’d see a unicorn first.”

Derity sank a little, a reason to let go had once again presented itself, “I’m dyin’. You need to live. Too many men, no women,” the grisled waster distantly explained, “You got to use me to survive. I even got some food you can save.”

“I found a town, a mile or so, plenty of food. It’s all untouched. Tried to get you to follow my shot,” she pleaded as he slumped into her, “You gotta’ get up, we gotta’ get there.”

“By God a woman,” His chuckle was distant, lethargic, “ I got a gun……” he trailed off, “Yo- you gotta’ live.”

She had already begun to drag him the direction she had come, "Don't be a damn fool!" she groaned against the stubborn load, "We have to survive."

I don't hope for critiquing for this one or anything like that. I'm trying to make an effort to raise awareness for Madeline's House, a shelter for women and children who have faced 'adverse, conditions. Madeline's House.