Downfall

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This first chapter is going to seem trite.  And it probably is.  But I thought storytelling might be a fun thing to do on Digger.  And I need to set things up.  Please be gentle!

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Downfall

Chapter 1

Drums in the distance. Could this be salvation?

With a dull thud of unwanted reality, Sonya spasmed into wakefulness.  “Come on honey, we have to move”.  She poked Marco in the ribs.  

“Wh-where are we?” Marcos bolted awake.  He looked at Sonya with those eyes, those wide, terrible brown eyes of fear, where there had only been confidence and love a year before.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Somewhere in Montana, maybe.  There’s mountains.  And it stinks in here.”

She groaned out of the car.  The shantytown spread around her, the smoke of fires of the tents mingling with her breath.  There wouldn’t be any coffee, or bagels, or Starbucks.

There might be something, though.  

There it was again.  The drums.  Only this time, preceded by a telltale whine beforehand.  

And not drums.  Booms.  Getting slowly closer.

She looked back at the car.  Marcos was still dazed, groggy.  She lumbered painfully over to the driver’s side and opened the door.

“Let me drive, you’re not ready,” she told him.  

“I’m fine,” he said.  “Let me just wake up for a minute”.

“GET OUT!” She screamed, ungainly dragging his bulk out of the driver’s seat.  “We have to move!”.  

“Okay, okay.  But we don’t have no gas, baby.”  Marcos pulled himself off the gravel.  “And where are we?”

It had been a long night of crazy high driving, giggling in terror from one unlit country road to the next, driving at 90 mph most of the way.  It turned out weed was much easier to come by than food.  And weed and alcohol made good trade items.

Sonya started to get in the car.  And then the man appeared.

“THE” man, she wondered?  Then she remembered.

“Mornin’, folks,”  the man said as he sauntered over.  “Would ya be looking for some breakfast?  It’s that tent right over there,” he pointed to one of the smoking tents.  “‘Course, it’s not what you’re used to, but then nothing is these days.”  

“We just want to leave,” Sonya said in her most reasonable tone of voice.  “Do you hear that?  The rebels or the government is getting closer.”

“Maybe so, maybe so,” the man grinned.  “But there is the matter of payment.  Now we let you in here way after dark on the promise of payment.  What you got to trade?”

“Fuck!” Marcos ejaculated.  “We ain’t got nothin’, we need gas! And this muthafucka wants more from us?”

“That’s a particularly unripe-“ the main started.

“Shut up,” Sonya replied calmly.  “Look, we got some weed.  The best.  Made fresh with stuff from before the war”.   

“We grow weed all over the place hereabouts,” the man said.  “What else you got?”

“Uh, we also have booze we brought with us.  Jack Daniels, Budweiser.  Even a little bit of coke, man”

“Some o that might interest us, but we’re looking for something more valuable,” the man grinned again.  “What you got in the way of … spare parts?”

“Spares?  We got no spares, man.”

“Everyone has spares, only they just don’t know it.”  

As he spoke two men emerged from the rear.  “Open the trunk, bitch!” The man said calmly.

Sonya knew better than to argue.  She gave him the key.

“My my, look at what we have here.  Jumper cables!  And a socket set!  Tell you what.  Let me take the hood off your car and the two rear doors and seats.  I’ll give you ten gallons and send you on your way, WITH breakfast.  Name’s Mark.  Do we have a deal?”

Sonya knew from the tales.  Her vehicle would be slowly cannibalized for all non-essential parts as she travelled.  And finally the wreckage would be confiscated and she and Marcos would be enslaved.

But then, the booming resumed.  In the distance, a plume of red and black rose.

Mark suddenly looked nervous.  “Do we have a deal, bitch?  And I want that coke, too.”

“Okay, but you should really think about getting —“

“Go!” Mark shouted.  And in just a few minutes, her car was Mad Maxed out.

Gravel road smashed in the direction of the boom, as Sonya and Marcos headed the opposite direction.  The shantytown let them out.

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