White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

I miss those ham-handed fools. I’d almost pay taxes to have them back.

Two days ago, I got a little jingle over short wave from some Drinkin’ Bros holed up in the south of France. A group of Army boys in Vincenza, Italy, 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion combined with some paratroopers out of the 173rd Airborne Combat Team to run a Patrick Swayze, Red Dawn action against ISIS in France. Fighting from the mountains above the city of Nice, these Army guys are taking down ISIS convoys, terror patrols and have run a few assaults into the city of Nice itself. Fuck yeah, boys! Give ‘em hell.

WOLVERINES!!”

Lower Barricade

Oakwood, Utah

All Cole’s years of advanced education and everything he’d ever invested in becoming a smarter, more-talented person, all boiled down to this single question: where should he abandon his baby?

As devastated as Cole felt, having already consigned himself to death-by-starvation, the shrinking, rational part of him that remained had to give credit where credit was due. He and his baby had survived a lot longer than he would have imagined. After all, he taught music theory at the university and was the exact opposite of a “tough guy.” Cole had always joked that he would be the first to die in a zombie apocalypse, no doubt a scrumptious, marbled morsel of man flesh for the infected to devour.

Back then, he’d been soft and fat, and had harbored no illusions about his masculinity. His value to the human race, and his value to his wife for that matter, had been entirely aesthetic. Cole had no problem admitting it. On balance, he’d been lavishly talented. That counted for a lot back in those days.

If he could’ve seen how long he would last after the total collapse of everything civilized, he would’ve been proud of himself and more than a little surprised. When it came to taking care of his darling baby boy, Cole discovered a part of himself he’d never known: his inner survivor. His cleverness bought them over two months of survival while almost everyone else lay dead or dying.

Cole’s best friend, beside his wife who’d been traveling in Italy when the stock market crashed, had been a lab assistant at the University of Utah, running clinical trials for anti-diabetic drugs.

He and Cole would often hang out in the lab with the test bunnies and test rats during lunch break. They enjoyed the poor little critters. For amusement, they named them after Star Trek Deep Space Nine characters. In a passive aggressive protest against animal testing, they’d sneak the animals snacks, feeding Warf, Sisko, and Odo tidbits from their sandwiches and chunks of fruit, no doubt screwing up the scientific baseline in the process. Nerdy gentlemen had to get their lulz where they could.

Within a few days of the bombs and the stock market crash, Cole ran out of food in his downtown Salt Lake bungalow. Luckily, he had a back stock of formula because Baby Johannes had been weaning himself off the bottle at the time of the crash. Since Cole had his own key to the laboratory, he put together camping equipment, packed up Baby Johannes and hid in the lab with the bunnies and rats. Nobody else, apparently, had considered eating lab animals and his best friend never showed up to claim any of the bounty.

Cole powered his way through the learning curve of killing and butchering rabbits, and cooking their bits on the little backpacker stove his dad gave him for Christmas. Eventually, he and his son were forced to eat the rats as well, supplemented occasionally with rabbit feed. Little Johannes had made the transition from formula to solid food on rabbit and rat flesh.

Cole’s bit of cleverness in raiding the laboratory bought he and his son two months of survival. With all the animals and feed gone, they’d been forced out of the lab to forage elsewhere. Of course, just about everything in the world had been consumed. At a refugee camp in a park above the now-defunct Shriner’s hospital, Cole heard rumor about a neighborhood hiring workers.

He and Johannes made their way to that neighborhood. A line of people formed outside a big, green tent with big dry erase sign clipped to the side.

Will Trade Bread for Work as Security Guard. Looking for: former military, trained in firearms, tradesmen (wood, metal work, mechanical.)

The list made Cole laugh. He stood in line and interviewed with a gruff guy who reminded him of the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Cole made a joke about how being a classic violinist technically qualified him as a “wood worker.” The sergeant, apparently, didn’t find it amusing. With no food and with a one-year-old on his hip, Cole exited the tent to face unavoidable reality.

A. He was going to die.

B. A baby without a father would die too.

C. A baby with someone other than a useless father had a chance.

Not willing to sacrifice even one second of time with his son, Cole refused to be sad. He had plenty of time to be sad after he walked away from the tiny, sweet-smelling, owner of his heart. While Cole scanned the area, looking for the best place to abandon Baby Johannes, he cooed and smiled, tickling and hugging his son, burning into his memory the way the boy felt, the way he smelled and the sound of his dulcet coos.

Cole made a deal with God, right then and there—no matter that he had been an atheist for ten years.

If you take my son into your arms, and guard his life, I will hold only love in my heart until the moment I die. No need to give me a sign or anything. I’ll take it on faith that you’ll keep your end of the bargain.

Cole watched a young lady carom down the road in an off-road vehicle. Her long blond hair and angelic face stood out against her camouflage fatigues, bristling weapons and loaded military vest. If he could’ve selected Joan