Last Chance

One agonizing step after another leads me to my possible salvation, an abandoned gas station on the scorched horizon. I believe that the aluminum gas station sign glowing in the distance was a sign given directly to me by God. You have to find some sort of hope in this devastating landscape to constantly push away the screaming voice inside of you that tells you you’re going to die.

In the sweltering, midday heat, my deep red sunburnt skin continues to sizzle and peel away. No amount of scratching with my filthy, dirt covered fingers will quell the itching sensation all over my body. I feel my soft, sticky stomach slithering around within me, desperately searching for something to digest. My tongue and throat, nearly as dry as the apocalyptic desert around me. It has been nearly a week since I found any food or water, and I do not know how much further my feeble and mutilated body can carry me.

When the first bombings of the war began, I thought that I was clever. I anticipated the war while my friends doubted me. They thought that my food stockpiling and mass purchases of weaponry were ridiculous, but I was not going to sit around and wait for disaster to strike. I was a father and I had a wife and children to protect. I failed them anyway.

I pause and stare at my last image of us together. A tattered family photo from when Charlie and Amanda were very little. I like to remember them like this. Charlie in his favourite blue and grey striped sweater and Amanda with two pigtails in her hair and a few missing baby teeth in her big smile. My wife, Serena, stands beside me wearing a soft, sage green sweater and grey trousers. Her head rests on my shoulder. The perfect family.

I keep walking. I have to make it to the gas station. There must be something. Some nuts, a can of fruit, an old Coca Cola can. I’ll take anything I can get.

Our stockpile ran out in only months, forcing us on the road. The bombs and the war had destroyed civilization in a shockingly short amount of time. Much shorter than I ever thought possible. People also lost their humanity even faster. When our neighbours that we had known for over ten years, found us and held us at gunpoint I thought that we could come to an agreement. They could take some of our supplies and we could all carry on together.  When the bullets began to fly, I knew that no word could change their savage hearts.

Can you ever forget the sight of your children collapsing to the earth and your wife being torn away from you into the night? I don’t know if you could or if you ever should. The worst part is that I did not even have the strength to follow. My wife could be alive and I will never know.

Finally, the door of the gas station rests before me. My salvation. Most of the windows are broken, with glass shards decorating the pavement. Those that aren’t shattered are covered with old advertisements and posters coated in a thick layer of dust. My hand shakes as I reach for the handle and swing the door open.

I take a step inside and am startled by a small bell being rung above my head. An old, vintage doorbell dings and resonates throughout the store. In a flash, a man pops up from behind the counter on my right. His skin is pale white and glistening with sweat. His thin, straggly gray hair falls in thin, wavy pieces over his maniacal eyes that burn with madness.

“Finally,” he says with a hoarse voice. His teeth are grey and as warped as a line of old tombstones. I spot the glint of a small, steel dagger within his thin, weathered hand. “Meat.”