Desperate
The tires crunched over the dirt road as the “Number Two” bus rolled at a respectable thirty kilometers an hour across the barren wasteland. Jonathan Richter sat on the floor, his pack sitting next to him, his back to one of the rusty walls of the old bus. The driver and the rear gunner ignored the passengers while they were moving.
The tires threw up dust and much of it hung in the air inside of the bus since all the window had broken out years ago. Once upon a time these things had row after row of comfortable seats, but those had either been stolen or rotted away way back. Now the passengers sat on the floor, where a thin worn carpet barely covered a floor that was rusting away.
The other passengers included an old woman closer to the front who carried an ungainly suitcase and a wooden chicken coop, with chicken. No doubt this was a new purchase and she was returning to her family with the prized possession. She had one of those paper masks over her face that had been used too many times.
There was an older man, staring as if blind, and a woman who appeared to be in her thirties. Jonathan had heard her call him “pa”, so she must be guiding the blind. She had used some precious water to wipe the dust from his face the last time they stopped for a break.
The others included a woman with two children, one a girl. The reason Jonathan noticed the females is that they stood out. They were more rare and precious than gold these days. The other passengers were mainly nondescript men wearing jackets with cloths over their mouths and noses. Some of them were coughing more than seemed normal.
Jonathan didn't like to be reminded of the plague. The plague had killed his Belinda, the mother of his children. He didn't understand how it had gotten her and no-one else in the family. It wasn't easy to protect his children while making a living for them alone.
Sometimes he had the irrational thought that Belinda should have lived and that it was himself who have gotten sick and died. His eyes moved back to the woman with the two children. Then he moved his hand over his eyes, don't let them see a tear fall. This world was no place for a single mother like this one.
Donny had been kidnapped by the gangs a couple years after Belinda died. They either called it recruitment or the draft. It didn't matter. His son might be alive or he might not, either way there was little doubt it was a horrifying experience. The rumors of what the older boys and men did to younger ones was painful to contemplate.
He let his hand fall from his face and rested his head back against the rusted wall of the bus. His hand landed on his pack. The image of the rag doll entered his mind. Jonathan had found it among the rubble of one of the old cities, destroyed in the cataclysm. Somehow the rag doll had been preserved in pretty good condition.
It was destined for his daughter, April May Richter. April May was waiting for her father to return from the expedition to the city. The scavenging trips were getting less and less fruitful, most of the useful things had already been harvested years ago.
Jonathan rolled to his knees and rose to look out the window at the passing desolation. This whole continent except for the southwest had once been fertile and green, now it was just dead. The moving air felt good on his forehead, it was cleaner than the settlements too.
Suddenly he was alert. Something had moved on the horizon. He scanned it quickly but couldn't tell what had changed for a moment, then he noticed something moving fast toward them leaving a white contrail behind it.
“Missile!” He had time to think, but not say out loud before the explosion occurred.
Jonathan was deaf, he covered his face from the heat and flash and felt himself falling. He hit the ground on his side, his right shoulder taking most of the impact but lessened because he had rolled. He hadn't rolled on purpose, of course, it's just how he landed.
When he stopped he lay there breathing hard, arms underneath his chest, fingers gripping the ground while his legs lay spread out. “Attack. We were attacked!” He thought to himself, he looked around and saw no attackers.
Finally he looked back to find the bus. Instead he found the wreckage torn into pieces, especially two large chunks. His hearing started to return and he could hear the cries and pleas of other survivors. Probably thrown clear the same way he had been, when the rusty bus was split into two like an egg.
Jonathan found the single mother crying over the body of the boy child. “Please help me, somebody save my son!” she cried, her own legs bloody. The boy was already dead, though. She should be more worried about finding the girl, Jonathan thought to himself. He shook his head and walked away.
He found his pack and hefted it over his shoulder. The survivors were starting to crawl together in a huddle. He saw another man picking up several bags and packs and running off away from where the missile had come. “Smart.” Jonathan told himself.
Only an idiot would stick around until the marauders who had fired the missile finally arrived. These people could not be saved. He could already hear the whine of an engine in the distance. It was time to get as far away as possible.
Jonathan moved toward a nearby hill, hoping to find a cave or something he could hide out in and get some rest, before moving again when nightfall came.
“May God have mercy on you all!” He said before getting as far as fast as he could.
Jonathan was able to reach the boulders in front of the hill before the marauders had shown up at the explosion site. A two-wheeled vehicle and a six-wheeled truck with a double-cab carrying a big cage in the back. At least five large men with weapons sifted through the remains, digging through bags and packs.
Then they shot the wailing woman who fell atop the body of her dead son. The marauders then took two younger men as prisoners. Jonathan was confused. He had been certain the woman and the old blind man had survived, where were they? These guys would have whooped it up and had a good time raping her, they would kill the useless old man.
Then Jonathan wondered where that little girl had run off to. He hadn't seen her body, but surely she had been killed too. It was mostly a wide open wasteland, where could these people have run off to? Where could they have hidden?
As he watched the driver crawled out of the front of the wreckage and pulled a pistol. He shot one of the marauders in the back at close range before the others had shot him down. They put several more rounds into the body to make sure, then they took the pistol too.
“Nothing I can do.” Jonathan told himself as he sat with his back to the boulder.
“You didn't exactly try!” A complaining voice said, Jonathan opened his eyes to see April May Richter standing there with her hands on her hip. “I'm very disappointed.”
She wasn't real, this was part of his imagination. She was wearing the flower-patterned dress, her favorite, except this one was clean as new.
“How would I fight those guys off? I'd be dead too.” Jonathan explained.
April May stamped her foot. “You could have led some of them away. Brought them with you. They weren't all helpless, just in shock.”
“I'm no hero.” Jonathan told her. “I'm just trying to survive. If that makes me a coward then so be it.”
The look on April May's face softened. “You are so much better when you aren't alone. You act like a real man when you have something to protect.”
Jonathan wanted to say something in reply but the imaginary girl was no longer looking at him, she was looking off to his right. He followed her gaze and was shocked to see a woman, a little girl and the old blind man hiding behind the next boulder. The girls were staring at Jonathan Richter as if they expected something from him.
April May was gone.
