There were plenty of moments in my life when I wished I was living in the times before the Great Sickness, in the times before the Sybaris ruled the Earth, well, for their second reign.
There are moments when I wish I could have parents to argue with, wear clothes that were subjective, get something called a driver’s license, because teenagers made such a big deal over them.
People my age made a big deal over a lot of things.
I have seen almost every single television show they had in the recondition bunker. Maybe not all, I left out the black and white ones, started with ALF, Saved by The Bell, and Fresh Prince and made my way into the next millennium.
Those shows aided in me desiring those moments. I wanted to go to that thing called high school, have friends that were strange, and be the cool guy that helped kids who wore their pants too high. How awesome would it have been to have the kick butt hair and a dance called a prom.
They had dances in those days. They laughed and they smiled and while only television programs, I was certain it was true because of stories Davis and others shared about their former lives being generally good and happy.
Not that it wasn’t happy for me at all. It was. A different happy, though.
Christmas wasn’t a bunch of toys around a lit tree, it was gratefulness to be alive. I learned to run fast not because of track and field, but because I ran for my life one too many times. I shot a gun before I was ten and that wasn’t by choice. No one was around to help me. I never feared the dark, but was always leery of it.
My mother is dead and I barely remember her or my father, but I remember the day they died. The slaughter that took place, them hiding me and saying. “Don’t make a noise, Tanner, don’t breathe, don’t cry, don’t move.”
Through my hiding spot I watched them die. Davis was an angry man that day. He fought and slaughtered like I had never seen him do, then he took hold of me and cried.
“I’m so sorry this happened to your parents. I am so sorry. I’m here though, I got ya,” he said.
And he did.
He told me I saved his life that day because he was battling to the death, literally. He wanted to fight until he died, and then he saw my parents die and he always told me when he witnessed that he thought of me. I became his focus. He tried to give me a normal life, but the circumstances hindered that. I can say with certainty that the Battle of Exit 84B was not one of those moments I wanted to live in any other time. The once four lane highway was reduced to a single lane, if it could be called that. There were bald spots amongst the green; our travel down that single lane inhibited the growth, though everything else was overgrown. Trees reached out across the road, forming a natural tunnel. It was thick and high, and a part of me was worried that the Day Stalkers would be concealed within.
However, there were far too many and they moved in droves. One big giant group.
There were twenty of us.
Davis raised his rifle. “Gentlemen, wait until you have a clear shot and on my call, fire.
It was only a few minutes, though it seemed like longer for the first few Stalkers to appear. My finger was on the trigger waiting. The plan was to shoot, take them down, and keep taking them down.
Mark was on the back of the truck with a grenade launcher. He would fire into the center of the group.
“Hey, Davis!” Mark hollered out. “There’s a ton of them!”
“Define a ton.”
“Hundreds.”
Davis acknowledged it with little worry. “Just wait for my call.”
The large group neared closer and then finally, Davis ordered us to shoot.
They were nothing but slow moving, easy targets.
We took them out one by one and the rest kept coming, all at the same pace. Some tripped over their fallen cohorts, but for the most part, they all fell.
Mark launched one, two, then three grenades. Like toy soldiers or dominoes, the Day Stalkers fell. Those who didn’t kept coming.
Next to me, Davis lowered his weapon.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“This is tiresome, not to mention easy and boring.” He leaned his rifle against the truck and pulled out a machete.
He was going hand to hand, and when the others saw Davis grab another weapon, so did they. I too followed Davis into battle.
A few men stayed back to man the guns in case there was trouble.
They weren’t even a challenge. We cut through them like vines. Sometimes they were tough, but in the end they all succumbed.
Limbs sailed, heads rolled, blood splattered.
We cheered like Vikings.
It was an orchestration of superiority and we as men were superior over the Day Stalkers. No matter how vulnerable we thought we were to them, we were human, we had heart and soul. And like the battle of exit 84B, we would remain superior as a race and win not only the remaining battles, but the entire war against the beings that had subdued us far too long.