A Trip to the End

Defeat In The Beginning

I stumbled through the mess that was once a recognizable little town, now littered with the bodies and faces of those I once knew, and called friend. The dust stung my eyes as I took a seat on a doorway step, exhausted. In the air, the stench of death was pungent as ever. It made me gag, but all I could muster was the dry heaves, I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. I let my head droop, my neck too tired to even hold my head up anymore. I wanted to just fall asleep right there, but couldn’t.

In the distance, somewhere in a part of the little town that wasn’t burning, the resonating sounds of gunfire, echoed. Voices along with the gunshots, could be heard, but they were only the cries of pain. I was too tired to even grip the handle of my revolver, it just barely hung in my hand.

So much had been fought for, and so much had been lost in this little town. Was it worth the cost, so many of us fought for? Who could honestly say. Someone ten years from now may say it was, or wasn’t, but they’d be just as wrong then, as anyone saying it tomorrow.

Somehow on that doorway step, I finally mustered the energy to get back to my feet and move. Maybe it was the sound of gunfire, maybe it was just the fear of staying around to be surrounded by a town on fire? Either way, I picked up myself and started to move.

Gunfire and voices continued to echo through the streets, but now it was the gunfire and voices of just one side; the winning side, not my side. It was the moans and cries of pain, that had become my side.

At the edge of the little town, just a couple blocks away from where I’d stopped to rest, I noticed a car which seemed to have been barely touched by the chaotic fighting. It seemed like the greatest stroke of luck I’d had all day. With a car I could get out of town, quick, leaving all I’d experienced behind me. But as I came upon it, eager to start it up, I realized this stroke of luck was nothing but a tease. The two rear wheels were gone, and whoever had owned it, had set it on bricks.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself, collapsing to my knees defeated completely in the end. Tears filled my eyes, washing some of the dust from them.

I cried even more, as the sound of gunfire and the voices of the winning side, grew closer.

“Hey!” A voice in a raised whisper suddenly called.

Slowly I looked around, afraid that it might be a trap, and simply just an enemy looking to pick me off.

“Hey!” The voice said again.

Suddenly I spotted a hand, and half of someone’s face behind a garbage can in an alleyway. They had a smile, and on their arm, an orange armband like myself. It was our mark, a mistake, but maybe not.

“Hey!” It said again. I squinted to make whoever it was, out better.

Stupidly I waved back, it still could have been a trap as the figure waved me over urgently. I took notice that it was a man long past his prime, with the typical male balding pattern.

“Come on!” The man cried. “Come on!”

I picked up my feet, not caring anymore whether the man was friend or foe, I had had enough. My entire body ached and was tired. I wanted to give up, to surrender to whatever was before me.

“What’s your name?” The man asked, as I knelt beside him.

“What’s yours?” I asked, cautious.

“Listen friend, I asked you first. Besides, we’re brothers, see.” He tapped his orange armband, smiling at me.

“Nate,” I told him, “I’m Nate.”

“Nate what?”

“What’s your first name, [censored],” I said irritated, I wasn’t about to give out my entire name, even if it was just a fake name, to some stranger without knowing his real fake first name, first.

“Roger,” he said holding out his hand. “Roger Graham.”

“Nate Russell,” I said shaking.

“Hello, Nate Russell.”

We shared a moment, at least he probably thought so, as the sound of our mutual enemy grew closer.

“Come with me,” he said, “I know a way out of this hell hole, we’re getting out alive.”

I picked my weary self up again, and followed behind. Roger was armed with not one, but two pistols and a revolver. The pistols he kept in his hands, while the revolver hung on a lanyard around his neck.

As we hurried through the alleyway, into a nearby thicket of trees, we stopped to take a look at our surroundings.

“Have you got any ammunition for that revolver?” He asked me.

I wasn’t even sure anymore. Had I fired all six shot?

“Just two shells left,” I told him, ejecting out the spent casings.

“No, no!” He exclaimed, “Keep them in. If we come across trouble, you can act like you have more than you really do.”

I nodded and picked up the spent casings, putting them back into the old Colt Single Action.

“Where’d you get that anyway?” He asked as we picked up again.

“An American I once knew,” I told him. The first honest thing I said.

After a little ways of moving, we stopped again, crouching down behind a couple of bushes grown together. On the other side, down the little hill, was a camp. It wasn’t really a camp, more of an assembly area -- or had been. It had been made quick, and was in a bit of chaos.

“Thunder!” Roger called.

“Flash!” Another voice down the hill, replied.

“It’s okay, they’re friends,” Roger said, standing up.

I realized taking a better look, that the assembly area was made up of nothing but people like me, each with an orange armband. Why they had a place this close to the hell behind us, I didn’t even ask.

“Anymore?” A man revealing himself from behind a tree, asked.

“No,” Roger said, he looked disheartened. We all were, what had happened back there was not something we’d expected to happen at all.

“We’ve got to go then,” the man said, “we haven’t got time to waste here anymore.”

Roger nodded and I simply just followed. It seemed our first real open battle, had gone like so many others before us. Bloody, failed, and in the end, those still alive, disheartened.

The assembly area was quickly gathered up. Not a can or lid, nor shoe or bullet casing, was left behind for the enemy to find. It was left spotless as we hurried away, deeper into the forest.