The Desolate

My years in this place had done little to curb my hatred for it. The almost constant heat and dry weather along with the cavalier attitude towards the life of most people just didn’t sit right. Not that I can count myself innocent there. I had committed many evils myself over the years, contributing to the very thing that left such a sour taste in the back of my throat. Forgiveness and redemption are rare occurrences now, very few people get a second chance in this world. Still, these settlements were good for trade, especially when it came to finding weapons and tools that were at least usable. I could wander the desert for a thousand lifetimes and not find half of the things available in New Alice.

It was a shit hole though, the temperature barely cooled down even after sunset in that place. And the near-constant smell of shit, piss, and death made it hard to let your guard down. I figured sleep would be illusive despite having a meeting scheduled with a trader early in the morning. So, I decided to go downstairs to the bar and get a drink, figuring I’d enjoy one of the few luxuries I allowed myself to indulge in one last time. Staying in the central hotel in New Alice certainly had its advantages, and it probably served a similar purpose long before the collapse. I made my way out of my room and down a candlelit corridor to a wooden staircase that was far older than the collapse, before sitting down at the still-open bar. I pulled out half a dozen rounds of ammunition as payment, and said to the bartender, “What whisky had you got, Mick?”

Ammunition was currency these days, with different calibres and sizes valued similarly throughout the settlements. An older man, with leathery skin and a grey beard offered a small smile before speaking, “I got my hands on a couple of old bottles of scotch whiskey, I reckon that might help wash down the taste of this shit hole. Otherwise, it’s house whisky tonight, Jack!”

I gave him a small nod of approval and joked, “I dread the day the world runs out of good liquor!”

Mick chuckled, and replied, “Yeah, I’m not sure we will ever be able to make good whisky again, not this far from the coast!” Explaining, “It’s the shit corn we get is from the salt lakes, there’s no taste in it. That shit the lake-siders call liquor doesn’t deserve the name. But it’ll get you fucked up just the same if that’s all your after.”

I laughed in response, agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiment. “Yeah, it seems like the whole world is going the same way! Every year, it smells more like shit and tastes even worse.”

“Here, here!” Mick replied pouring a glass from the old bottle for both of us.

I quickly swallowed the contents and had him pour me another as my mind quickly drifted to more immediate concerns. My meeting the next morning was with a man named Rick, a trader I’d dealt with many times. I hesitate to call the man a friend even though I’d known him for years, but he was a fair trader, and that's all that really mattered anymore. He was honest, and good with his prices, even if I was not at all interested in his most profitable commodity, slaves. He often had too many and would even try to discount them before selling them on to the northern settlements. I figured it was his way of clearing his own conscience from any guilt or remorse. Those were the worst days, and I tried to avoid them as much as I could, God knows I had enough regrets in my life already.

Still, a trade session with Rick was my last stop on the way out of town for what I hoped would be the last time. He mentioned having a plentiful supply of ammunition for my rifle, preserved foods of various kinds, and bottles of distilled water – pretty much everything I would need for the road. The ammunition was my main goal and enough water to get me at least a few days’ walk from New Alice and maybe a new hunting knife depending on how much he was willing to offer for old-world jewellery. “High-quality steel from one of the northern tribes!” he had declared when I expressed an interest. The implication that Rick probably had traded slaves for them made me uncomfortable, but I had learnt long ago to keep quiet in these parts when it came to moral questions. Besides, who was I to criticise the man, I’d been no saint myself over the years. New-world steel rarely passed for anything resembling quality, but they did look pretty good, and I began to wonder if Bishop’s promise to establish better trade relations with the northern settlements was beginning to pay off at last for the New Alice traders.

My mind was focused on the task at hand, reflecting on my plans for the journey ahead, and what I thought would lead me eventually to my final resting place. After all that I’d seen and done in New Alice, I just wanted one last moment of true peace before surrendering my life. To see the home I once knew, and maybe find the very place I’d last seen my father. Of course, they were dead by now, it had been more than twenty years, and that place was certainly in ruins by now. But I still wanted to see it just one last time. I swallowed another glass of whisky and ordered another, this time sipping the glass more slowly savouring the taste, and the moment of calm as a hint of inebriation seeping into my mind.

It’s strange how something so small can change everything in an instant. My only company was the man behind the bar and several others seated at a corner table playing cards by candlelight, each of them with a glass of clear alcohol of some kind. It smelt cheap and nasty, and I can’t say the men drinking it looked much better. But in my moment of inebriation, without realizing what I was doing, the tall bald man in the middle caught my attention I stared for a long moment. He looked familiar, which wasn’t entirely unusual in New Alice. But it was his tattoos that fascinated my slightly drunken state. They were extremely rare these days, and his long narrow face and scowl made me think of a character from one of the books I had recently read. His demeanour was of a man who was not to be messed with, but his appearance conjured an image in my mind of a character from a comic book. And at that moment, the image in my mind made me chuckle slightly. The group of them were probably in their late teens or early twenties, a few years younger than myself, but it was hard to tell these days. The desert was cruel like that, and it often aged people far beyond their years. He seemed to realise I’d been laughing, and his eyes suddenly locked on mine, his scowl became more pronounced on his narrow eyes, and he slurred, “You get a fuckin’ problem?”

I just shook my head and turned back to my drink, trying to avoid creating a scene on my last night in New Alice. But it seemed like they weren’t going to drop it as they all stumbled drunkenly to their feet. “Hey, you piece of shit…” One of the other men growled as he stumbled over his own chair, seemingly attempting to move in my direction, which only made the smirk on my face harder to hide. “My brother here asked what your fuckin’ problem was?” I sighed and glanced at Mick behind the bar, who rolled his eyes.

“Sorry!” I whispered to him apologetically as he backed away from the bar slightly.

I quickly swallowed the rest of the glass in my hand and did not want to waste such fine whisky before sliding the glass to the barman and turning to face the men as they stumbled drunkenly in my direction. Zombies were more coordinated than this lot. It had been a while since I was last in a fight, so I took in a deep breath and steadied myself. Before noticing the bartender, a man in his early forties raising a shotgun over the counter. “Not in here, gentlemen! If you want to fight, take it into the street. You know the rules.”

The four men stopped suddenly holding up their hands, before they started trying to goad me into following them outside. But they were armed, which was not at all unusual, sporting pistols on their hips, and probably no shortage of bladed weapons under their dirty clothing and leather armor. When it was clear to them that I was not that stupid, the tall one I’d been laughing at walked over casually, growling in a low voice, “You’d better be gone by morning, or I’ll kill you slow.”

I smiled darkly at him, as the man glared, his rage seething just below the surface. My reply came out calm and cold, intended as a warning, “I don’t take orders from anyone, if you come and find me in the morning, you will die.”

The man growled and went to reach over to grab my neck, but I was too fast for him, grabbed his wrist, twisting him over in a single movement and slammed his face into the bar. Busting his nose into the hard surface. “You’re fuckin’ dead!” he roared, as he spat blood across the wooden surface, struggling in my bear-like grip as I pressed him down hard, threatening to break his arm next.

My voice remained calm, and my words were ice cold, whispering, “You’re not the first to try it, and you won’t be the last—I’m sure of that!” I glared up at his friends who were standing by the front door of the bar frozen, terrified at what they were seeing, and how easily I’d taken down their companion. “You and your friends over there are full of nothing but piss and vinegar. I promise if I see you or your friends again, you will die.” I slowly stepped back, releasing my grip slightly before pushing him towards his friends. The four of them didn’t say anything else as they rushed out of the bar pissing themselves in fear. I had no doubt they would try something at some point, but it wouldn’t be tonight, and I wouldn’t be around long enough in the morning to find out anyway. The laws of New Alice were strictly enforced in the central district, no gunfire was permitted for any reason except by the on-duty guards.

“Sorry about that, Jack!” Mick said, sliding another drink my way. “Have that one on the house, I’d rather those idiots drank elsewhere anyway. The sour fuck’s drive away everyone else and drink cheap shit anyway.”

“Thanks, Mick!” I said, offering a grateful nod as he poured himself one.

He shrugged, and said, “I’ve known those assholes for years, and all they do is cause trouble around here. Of course, no one will do shit about it because they’re tightly connected with the boss-man.” He drank the glass in one gulp. “The blonde one,” He continued, gesturing to the group of men that had just left the bar, “he’s old man Malcolm Bishop’s son, third in line to run this place one day, so you stay clear of that one. If they do come after you, kill the rest, and leave him tied up somewhere.”

I shook my head and tried not to think about it. Finishing the glass of whisky before replying, “Good thing I’m making tracks first thing!”

“Yeah, it’s probably a good thing, I doubt this will be the end of it otherwise.”

I nodded in agreement and straightened myself up, before making my way towards the stairs once again. “Have a good night, Jack!” Mick called out as he started getting ready to close the bar for the night.

“You too, Mick, take care!”

I doubted I would stay long after my trade in the morning anyway, so the confrontation didn’t seem likely anyway, nor did it play on my mind too much either. I had no fear of my own death, and if they got the better of me, then so be it. After all, I had plans to end it all myself in the near future. My plan was to get most of a day’s travel in any way and get back to the cooler weather of the coast as soon as possible. And this was just extra motivation to get the hell out of New Alice.

It was summer, which was bad enough on the coast, but in the desert, that kind of heat could be deadly. And since it had not been so bad the last few days, I wanted to get a move on. The idea of being stuck in New Alice for a few weeks waiting for cooler weather was not appealing in the least. I didn’t enjoy fighting, I hated the heat, and I missed the water—all of which made me even more eager to leave first thing in the morning. I didn’t mind the zombies so much; they were slow and clumsy most of the time, and generally easy to deal with if you know what you’re doing. Most of them moved in herds these days anyway, following a relatively predictable migratory path, so avoiding them was not an overly difficult process.

It was getting late in the evening with the sun having long fallen over the horizon, but the candle in my room still had some life left in it. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I pulled out my pistol and rifle, to clean the weapon thoroughly before leaving. It had been a little while since I had the chance to do so, and thankfully, I hadn’t needed to use it in quite a while. But they were still filthy with dust and sand from the desert winds—the grains were so fine that they easily got into everything. I would have to find an opportunity to clean it again when I got back to the coast, no doubt, but it didn’t take too long to clean.

My rifle was an old military-issue weapon that had been discontinued decades before the zombie plague. I’m not sure what it was called in the old world. But apparently, the military had a ton of them lying around when the collapse happened, so they dropped them with supplies to surviving groups in the early days to ‘help’ since they couldn’t do much else. But the one I had was sentimental, it belonged to my old man and it was the first rifle they’d found. My mother handed it to me when I was six years old after teaching me how to use it, but sadly she didn’t live long enough to see me use it for real. This rifle and a small gold chain that hung from my neck were all I had from them. I kept the rifle despite having come across many ‘better’ weapons over the years. The fact that ammunition was easy to come by thanks to the old-world military meant it was a reliable weapon, and not much ever went wrong with them as long as they were kept relatively clean.

I then repacked my bag f, stacking the few days of preserved neatly inside before collecting my loose ammunition into a small leather pouch for trade in the morning. It was a pretty decent collection of assorted rounds which would undoubtedly go over well with Rick, but I was still a little unsure about the bag full of jewellery and other vanity items. These things had been worthless for so long until these settlements. But now the notion of ‘luxury’ was beginning to return, especially amongst the ruling elites in New Alice and elsewhere, as they sought to display their wealth and power. Some things never change about us humans.

The candle burnt out a short time later, and I soon fell into an uneasy sleep with my pistol resting under my pillow. People made me anxious at the best of times, and trust was certainly not something that came easy. My paranoia had long kept me alive in this world. In any case, the bed was comfortable compared to the rocky ground of the desert, and sometime in the early hours of the morning, a cool breeze began filtering through the small open window offering a little comfort to my mind.