It is post-apocolyptic America. Sometime in the 21st century, months after a thermal nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States, when nuclear winter had settled and that dark, thick veil over the sun had thinned to the point where our daystar was merely a glow. Gone was radiance from our daystar, gone the crops across the world, gone billions of human beings. They say now from all the billions corpses without a grave, the temperature rose a little, but this winter in summer was frigid beneath that glow in the sky.
Animals, felines, canines, and wildlife of all kinds did not fare any better. There was a town in the middle of all this; Hampden, Massachusetts, once a center of country culture and family-oriented, once with American flags fluttering in the wind on every telephone pole in a symbol of pride, now these flags are shredded by powerful winds and those shreds of the red, white and blue are carried in the constant, polluted breeze. So polluted, even healthy people cannot trek on for long without gagging.
Hampden, if seen on any surviving map of the town, appears like spokes of a wheel, all roads converging into the center of town. Now, these roads host no traffic of motor vehicles but foot traffic. The town’s river, the Scantic, still flows as a river should, only now congested with garbage and the decomposed corpses of the townsfolk. And still, survivors of the nuclear holocaust flock to this river to gather water in buckets, carry home to boil over a campfire in their yards, and sip the sustenance of life.
Though, life is going on. Life only mirrors what has been written in past science fiction and horror novels. The unreal has blended into the real.
There is quaint, small cabin in the woods not far from the Hampden town hall. Timber log cabin with small windows and a stone chimney that billows a thin plume of black smoke, which thins in the steady breeze until it vanishes.
Gwendolyn and her little girl emerge from the front door, empty buckets in hand, the little girl’s wheat-blonde hair braided in pig tails sway in the wind as she swings her little bucket playfully.
“Chloe, mommy’s gonna take us to the river today, we need to fill our buckets with water, baby.” To this, Gwendolyn planted a kiss on Chloe’s forehead and Chloe jumped playfully to plant a kiss onto her mama’s lips.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
“What is it, baby?” Gwendolyn asked nervously while looking around.
“When can we get food? I’m so hungry I can eat a whole chicken pot pie!”
The moment brought Gwendolyn instant tears, to which she turned to hide from her little girl. A mother’s strength must be shown to her little one and lead by example. “We will find food, baby, mommy promises.” Gwendolyn, of course, did not know if she was flat out lying, or maybe there is something in town they could find. If the latter be so, the mother she is would give it all to her little girl. Even if only one bucket were filled after fetching it from the river, Gwendolyn knew she’d take mere drops onto her tongue and the rest given to Chloe, filling her little tummy with something.
“I want McDonald’s, mommy! I want a happy meal with a toy!” Chloe believed she could entice her mother to let them trek to whatever McDonald’s was left.
Gwendolyn sighed as she stooped down, eye to eye, with her little girl and said softly, “baby, there are no more happy meals with a toy.” Gwendolyn’s eyes glazed over. And after noticing it, Chloe dropped her little bucket and wrapped her little arms around mama.
“Mommy I’m hungry though.”
Gwendolyn also dropped her bucket and embraced her daughter. Then there was a shudder between them to the thunderous sounds of gunfire. Chloe drew back and looking all around asked, “mommy what was that!”
Gwendolyn had the look of knowing for sure as she answered with tears in her eyes, “Oh baby, it’s fireworks! Just firecrackers!”
Chloe’s eyes then darted to her mother’s as she asked in a whisper, “the bad boys, again?”
Gwendolyn choked in tears as she answered truthfully to her little girl, “Yes baby, the bad boys again.”
“Mommy, what we going to do!” Chloe had panic in her face and turned to look at their home and added, “mommy can we go home, now?”
Gwendolyn’s legs were still buckled at the knees as she remained stooped before Chloe. “We need water, baby.”
Chloe then reached with both hands and grasped both of her mother’s arms pleading, “I don’t care! I wanna be home in bed with you, reading a story, mommy!”
“Storytime is later, baby,” Gwendolyn clasped Chloe’s hands in hers and added, “when we get back home with water, we will read your favorite book, baby.”
Here, Chloe’s lips curved into a smile and she responded, “can we run, mommy? I wanna get back to bed soon!” Chloe skipped about and twirled as she danced to impress her mama.
“Sweetheart!” Gwendolyn exclaimed.
Chloe stopped abruptly and asked, “Yeah, mommy?”
“We don’t have much time.”
Gwendolyn picked up her bucket and pointed to Chloe’s. Chloe scoffed and sloggenly made her way over to pick it up complaining, “whatever.”
The sun, lower to the grey horizon now, still merely a glow, enough light to dim the surroundings as all color now seemed muted. As they began their walk hand in hand to the river, Gwendolyn noticed Chloe scanning the ground they were walking on.
“What is it, baby?”
“Mommy I’m counting the bullets on the ground.”
Then Gwendolyn stopped and peered down to the ground and became wide-eyed as she said, “those are spent bullets, sweetheart. Shell casings. What a smart girl you are!”
“The bad boys, mommy!”
Gwendolyn didn’t respond. Instead, she looked away and about their yard. Then her eyes scanned the treeline of the property which was now covered in a layer of summer snow from the nuclear winter.
“Mommy, remember the bad boys were here?”
For answer, Gwendolyn looked down at Chloe and gave a reassuring smile, “mommy remembers.”
“Will God keep protecting us?”
Again Gwendolyn reassured her little girl, “if anything happened to us, we would be with God and the most beautiful angels in the heavens high above the stars. A better place.”
Chloe dropped her bucket and let out a heavy sigh, “so what’s this place, mommy?”
An expression of both confusion and anger in her face, Gwendolyn answered truthfully, “baby, this hell. It is not the nice place mommy knew when I was a little girl.”
Chloe’s eyes bulged, “so where’s the devil?”
The question instantly evoked an image of a man that seized power in the area, following the nuclear war. There was a total breakdown in all local, state and federal government. And this devil gathered enough followers so he could ascend to power. It was only a region across Massachusetts and bulged into neighboring Connecticut. However, it encompassed what was left of millions of people. The Devil, he’s known as. No one knows his real name. And unable to teach a little girl about such a man and what had happened to the country, or even their town, Gwendolyn again knelt before Chloe, “The devil doesn’t truly exists. But God does!”
Chloe pretended to understand and she picked her bucket back and said, “I’m thirsty, mommy!”
Gwendolyn kissed Chloe, and again they were hand and hand, smiling while slogging through the snow. Proceeding up the road in near darkness as the glow of the setting sun had vanished behind the dark grey of the horizon.
To be continued…
