Last Harvest.
A short story
I’ve strayed from my fiction exercises lately. I have to remember not to do so. A complaining, topical writer who only finds the surface of trivial things is not something I intend to devolve into. One of my favorite writers suggests I go darker. This is a return to fictional form. Read on. Reader discretion is advised.
“Wait until they stop moving, then fire.” He rasped the words out. The first sounds from a throat parched by dehydration and time.
“The head?” I replied with the same strain, there had been no speech in hours.
“Largest available target.” He paused, swallowed and licked his lips slowly. “Too far, the largest available target. The body, the chest.”
Sounded right. A good shot there would be fatal, and reduce the chance of a miss. There wasn’t anywhere out in the field that one could run off to with a bleeding hole in their chest, we wouldn’t lose them. The two of them continued milling about in the field under the tree. Moving up and down, nosing through the long grass for fallen fruit. Too bad, it seemed the trees here had not produced viable fruit in many seasons. A shame really, that they would die so we could live.
“How far you think they came?”
A long sigh from the old man behind the big lens. “Don’t know, really. Bit dark for this time of year. Maybe they followed the river up from further south.”
“Mhmm.”
“Wouldn’t worry that much about it.”
He was right.
I relaxed into the old rifle, the wrinkled duct tape holding the stock together had pressed an imprint into my cheek that stung when I moved. Good rifle, though. We had found it last year, hidden in a little hiding hole underneath a grain vat in a half fallen barn. Tucked next to it was a thick metal box with a sealable flip top lid filled to the brim with bullets. Must have been hidden by someone from the old militaries, all gone now. It had a long cylinder at the end of the barrel, he told me it was for making the shots quieter. I couldn’t tell. The loud crack the rifle made when fired still hurt my ears, not I had never heard any other guns go off. Guns and their respective bullets were rarer than food. We dared not fiddle with it the cylinder or take it off, I don’t think we had the tools to put it back on properly. I had stared a bit at it when we found it. “Very good hunting rifle...” He had said when I showed it to him.
Thank god for that rifle, food was so hard to find. Hunting was the only option now. Even that was getting harder and harder. Once we even used the rifle to defend ourselves. Some men had seen us searching for fruit under the old trees, just as our prey was now. Two of them, they had come out from the high grass at the edge of the field and run straight at us. They must have planned it, they didn’t even talk, they just sprinted for us under the tree. I still remember the looks on their faces. Hard, angry downturned mouths, gritting their teeth as they ran, wide eyes locked on us. One had a thick solid stick and the other a length of old heavy chain. They were dirty, thin.
I stood numb wondering why they would not answer me when I called out. He had grabbed the rifle from behind the tree where we set it and worked it, firing it at the man closest to him. The first man fell like a sack of dirt when the shot hit him in the chest. The other man was ahead of the other who fell and seemed to ignore the sound and the loss of his partner. Maybe he was just too focused on me. The gun fired again as he was almost at arms reach. He clutched his belly and fell at my feet, his momentum sliding him right up to me as I jumped back. He let the heavy stick go and it bounced and rested on the ground. I remember seeing that it was blackened with old blood. The man breathed hard and began to turn and reach out as the gun fired again. He grunted loudly as the bullet struck him, and his movement slowed and stopped. I did not know what I would have done if he had made it to me.
It was after that, he had said. “You need to learn how to use the rifle.” I told him I wouldn’t have known what to do, and he said it was because his hands were beginning to shake to much. He could not make a straight enough shot on the second man.
After that, it was I who did the hunting, and he would look through an old telescope and tell me what to do. We hunted as often as we could now. We were tired. It used to be a day or so in between hunts where we could get meat. That time grew quickly, days turned into a few days, then a week, then weeks. We had to find ways to make it last. He said there used to be ways to keep good meat, places to store it that stayed cold, apparently that worked very well, but no more. Nothing like that worked without electricity anymore, he said. We went many days without eating now. We used the sun to dry what we could not cook and eat at once, what little sun there was that made it through the greasy clouds. He knew how to tell the seasons, but I still could not. The sky always looked the same, parts of the year just seemed much colder.
“Hold on” He spoke again. I turned my head and looked at him. He was laid down next to me with the telescope on rocks and his old bag. He leaned on his shaking hands. It had gotten worse, he couldn’t hold the long telescope steady anymore. He unfurled his knuckles and feebly scratched at his face with those hands, his finger tips and knuckles darting around like the movements of flies. He was much thinner now, so was I, as thin as the men that tried to get us back then.
His eyes caught mine and he winced. “There! Keep looking through the glass!” I quickly went back and searched for them in the rifle telescope. They had slowed, become more relaxed. “Almost. The one on the right first.”
I had a good shot lined up. The one on the right was facing away, the other turned and mad a few soft steps to peer up at the barren branches. I readied myself, felt the trigger with my finger. It was almost time.
I had found him, or rather, he had found me some time ago. I was left alone when the people I was with did not come back. I do not remember it very well. He said he knew me, knew the people that had made me. My uncle, he had said. I was very skinny then, too. He had fruit that he had collected, saw me peering at him from inside the broken window where the others had left me. He held it out in his hand when realized I was staring. I did not know what to do, where to go, what to eat. I was glad. I cried for a long time, but never since then.
“Oh, almost there.” He rasped again.
He had shown me lots of things. How to find clean water, what things to eat, where such things could be found. We travelled until we arrived here. There was enough here, he said, to rest for a while, he was getting more tired. Our rests lasted longer and longer. I didn’t think we had gained back any strength this time. If we never got any stronger, I didn’t think we would be able to continue. We had been here in the old shack near the field for I think two seasons. It was hidden out of view down in a hollow. Any passing by never saw it.
Through the telescope on the rifle I watched the one turn, step out into the grass unshaded by the tree facing away.
“Now… the near one.” He spoke quickly
I steadied on my target. A spot just under the shoulder blades. I felt the smoothness of the trigger and the little chip on the outside edge that dug into the pad of my finger. I relaxed on the rifle, just as he had shown me, and squeezed.
There was a shudder, and a flop as I absorbed the mild recoil of the gun and immediately settled. The familiar high pitched crack that struck my left ear. I watched a puff of wind press against where I had aimed and she fell forward immediately, slumping, legs relaxing and unfurling from the sitting position she fell from. I worked the rifle’s mechanics.
I returned my view to the other. He had heard something, straightened and was focusing out into the field. “They can’t tell where the sound comes from, because of the suppressor. It sounds different out there.” He had told me once, referring to the long cylinder on the end of the gun. I knew I had to be quick, but not so quick that I flinched and missed. I steadied again. The same spot on the second target. My finger tightened on the trigger. He turned to his left, and saw what had transpired behind him, but it was too late. The rifle jumped again in my grasp. The same puff of wind struck the other and he fell as well.
“Good! Quickly now, let’s go.” He said. We stood uneasily and made the first steps. The both of us were slow, joints stiff from waiting. I heard the soft crack of ligaments and cartilage and a guttural, “Ooof…” From my partner as he slowed a bit and worked his legs. I myself was low to the ground, not being able to hold myself straight. After these periods with no food I felt slow, sticky almost. Like my muscles wouldn’t move the way I wanted. Usually I would loosen by the time we arrived at the tree. We made the distance quickly. It was better that we checked now rather than waited. As I closed I slowed and put the rifle up to my shoulder again, just as I was told. “Just in case,” I learned. There was no movement.
I slowly stepped closer to see the first, the woman, still laying where she fell. She was thin, far older than I but not nearly as old as my partner. Ragged clothes, dirty brownish straight hair flowed from the head spread out on the ground like a fallen mop, a pool of red soaking into the dirt and dry, flaking grass. She was quite still, the body has a certain quietness when dead. I learned it fast. Sometimes you don’t realize how much we move even when sitting still, just breathing, adjusting, supporting. When it is gone, we are nothing, a pile of weight and sinewy connections, totally still. Just mass piled on top of the dirt. It is easy to see.
I looked to where the other should be and heard a sound, wet air escaping. He had rolled over. When he turned before I fired I must have missed my mark just slightly. A shame. At the sound of my steps his eyes turned toward me. He was a dark skinned man perhaps near the age of the woman. Short black matted hair under a dirty hood, torn materiel clothing, his knees. He tried to focus on me, raise his hand. It would not be long. There was a sigh from behind me.
“Ah, sorry, friend.” He walked up next to me, speaking clearly and gently putting his hand on the rifle and lowering it from my shoulder. We stood and looked. He sighed again as the man opened his mouth and tried to speak.
“Wha…” The faint word started out as communication and turned to a mild sigh as the breath left his lungs, ending in a gurgle. The hand he lifted fell back and rested in the dirt.
“They are thin.” he said. I turned to face him. “Even thinner than us.” He finished.
“What’s that mean?” I asked. It had been weeks since we had eaten anything substantial. It was hard to think and react to his words. The sore stickiness of my muscles had not gone, even in standing there I could feel myself drifting back and forth, almost being blown by the light breeze. When I said the words, I realized it. My mind in its state had finally made the connections and thought the thoughts. I knew what he meant. This would be the last. No more would come. Perhaps there were no more anywhere. Maybe we were the last.
We did not speak. We gathered ourselves and our meager prey, and returned to the shack.