To Simply Survive, Chapter 9.

Purpose

The night turned overhead— countless points of silver shining to adorn the sky, one so honest in its obsidian austerity. A half-moon hung high, so red like blood, and the thin and wispy clouds hovered in the radiance to take its hue. And on the ground, in the middle of the clearing stood Elizabeth— enveloped in a low-lingering and dense fog, looking out towards the hedgerow.

Charon was looking out on her from the open doorway thinking about what she had said. Kill some people. And still, even knowing her blunt and simple reason, he asked himself, Why?

He reached back to pull the handgun from the waist of his jeans. He looked down at it, hand wrapped around the grip, trigger finger stretched out over the side of the steel barrel. He then looked up at her, still in the waist-deep fog, hair curling down her shoulders and back. He put his left hand over the slide, pulling it back to check the chamber, and he looked at the single brass round— so gentle in its repose, waiting patiently to serve its deadly purpose.

Looking out again, he raised his thumb to the safety ahead of the trigger guard and touched the small button. He saw her, just as he had through the scope in the desert— blonde hair curling over those narrow shoulders and down her back. He wondered if she knew his eyes were on her, he wondered if she would turn to see; and, again, he wondered, Why? He dropped his thumb and laid the gun on the counter beside him, and then he stepped outside.

Waling quietly though the fog, he came to beside her. Looking up and allowing his eyes to wander the open sky, he said: Ya’ know, there’s a falcon, nests somewhere west of here. Every once in a while, it comes around, flies circles overhead. I sometimes think its watching out for me…or, maybe it’s just waiting for me to die…He let the words float for a while before looking over at her and speaking softly, his words dressed in a soft and unfamiliar empathy.

Ya’ know, killing these people won’t un-kill your family.

Elizabeth didn’t respond, she just continued her stare ahead.

After a few moments, he said: I just want to know why.

Without deviating from her course of vision, she asked: Why what?

Why the risk?

Elizabeth turned her head ever so slightly and paused. He could see her mind moving through answers before she turned both eyes on him and said, Justice.

Charon sighed and looked to the ground. Raising his head and looking out towards the willows, he wondered out loud, Whatever that is…

She kept her eyes deadly on him, until he turned and looked at her, and in matter of fact frustration, he said: Justice is a societal thing, a function, carried to keep order. Look around you. These things, society, justice— even family. They’re all just artifacts. Fragments of more complex times. He turned again to look ahead. They serve no purpose now.

She shook her head and looked up at the sky. You really believe that?

He turned to her again, Elizabeth, As she met his gaze, Charon raised a hand to gesture towards her and back to himself, and he spoke definitively, We are a death rattle. We are the final breaths of life in a long, and slow, extinction. Once we’re gone, it’s all gone. There’s nothing left.

What about others?

His chest rippled with silent laughter as he looked straight up at the sky above and she could sense the sarcasm in his voice when he spoke, Oh, this is a bigger thing? Like, there’s some greater good?

Isn’t there?

He leveled his gaze and shook his head, You’re no arbiter. You’re not…doling out fate in the name of humanity. There is no humanity. You know, as well as I do, we made it this far by thinking about ourselves. And, if there is anyone else out there, then trust me— same goes for them.

They were quiet, both looking up at the sky. The crimson half-moon appeared still in it’s hazy lunar halo among the scattered stars. After minutes, she looked over and responded in resolute conviction, There is still humanity, it’s here. I can feel it in me. And, as much as you would like to believe otherwise, it’s in you too.

With those words, he looked over, locking his own eyes with hers.

Charon, you’re right. In my travels, I have looked out for myself— myself alone. But, before that, years ago, my family looked out for me, and that’s why I’m here now.

You, me, anyone else, we’re not alive by way of benevolence— I have no illusions about the lack of humanity on this Earth today. But, if I’m the last of it, then I’m gonna honor it— And, humanity deserves this retribution. And, I think somewhere, somewhere behind all that nihilism, you admire that. And, you agree with it.

And, with those words, she had found the way in.

Charon could feel her gaze raking over his skin, slowly tearing, digging deep into his being. There was a welling deep inside of him, rising through his chest— familiar, all but forgotten in its antiquity. And, as Elizabeth turned away to walk back towards the cabin, he knew she was right— he did admire it, and he did agree with it.

Charon wondered now if his continued existence could justify his way of survival. He wondered now if, in all of his rigid intention, he had boiled the life out of living. And, as surely as he wondered why she had risked her life to come here, he wondered now why he had given his own to remain.

Again, he looked up into the night— every star flickering a foreign sun. He thought to himself that somewhere, out there, there was still life. And maybe it walked beneath an alien sky, and maybe it grew in the light of one of those foreign suns. Maybe it was part of a community, and maybe that community was just one in a whole civilization existing. And, lowering his head to look towards the hedgerow he thought maybe, out beyond this canyon, there was more life left to live.

He calmly raised his voice. Elizabeth. And he turned to see her having stopped. He approached her as she turned to face him. Stopping a few short feet in front of her, he asked: Do you think they’re out here?

Elizabeth replied with confidence, Yes.

He looked to his right and let out a huff, Do you have any idea? A point of interest, an intended location?

After they executed my family, they drove off west. I started riding a couple of days after, west to follow. I found their truck about two weeks after that, broken down on the interstate. I just continued west, and I have a feeling they’re close to here, and I’m not far behind.

She could hear his confusion as he asked, How long did you say you’ve been riding?

Two years.

In partial jest, he said, Hell of a ways to ride on a hunch, Elizabeth.

Well, I didn’t have much else going on. She smiled over to him, and he stifled his laughter in an uneven exhale.

She said to him, Look, the fact is, you know it out here and I don’t. I could use your help. It’s rugged, remote, I need a navigator.

He nodded, Well, you’re right about all of that.

So, will you help me?

He looked again at the hedgerow, those willows waving softly on the canyon breeze. And, after a few moments, he answered: Okay, you said you’re here to kill some people. Let’s go kill some people.

And, blank faced, Elizabeth nodded in thanks.

We leave in the morning. Charon stepped around her and started back towards the cabin. He would walk quietly into the shelter, pulling another off-white pillar candle out of a drawer beneath the counter and pushing it down into the tin candlestick. Picking up the matchbox, he pushed it open and pulled out a single stick of wood, and with a single flick against the phosphorous strip, the tip ignited. Putting the match to the wick, he felt comforted by the light burst forth, and he looked around from the small circle of illumination in which he stood before placing the candle down on the small round table.

He walked over to the weapons cabinet by his bed and pulled the Browning .30-06 from its standing, and he walked back to the table to sit down, disassembling and meticulously cleaning the rifle and all of it’s components by candlelight. Once it was reassembled, he took the weapon off of the table and put the butt to his shoulder. Lowering his right eye to the scope, the glass cleanly caught the fluttering light of the flame in the darkness. The weapon was ready for a journey.

After he put the rifle back to stand in the cabinet, he reached his right arm up and across his body to run his fingers over the sugar in his shoulder, tender to the touch. He turned his head and, looking down at the packed cut, he could see the crystals were dark, near black— they had done as much as they could.

Elizabeth walked into the cabin to find Charon sitting at the table. He had his shirt off, and he held in his right hand a pair of needle-nosed pliers. Holding the tool open, he passed both flat jaws repeatedly through the candle’s flame. She turned to the counter and put both hands down on its edge, hoisting herself up and turning to sit on the wooden countertop.

He pulled the pliers away from the candle, holding the apparatus in front of his eyes and inspecting the narrow silver jaws in their slight orange tinge. He let out a long exhale, one for the coming pain, and then he brought the pliers to his shoulder. There was a noticeable hiss of steam that permeated the silence between them as the hot jaws made contact with the saturated sugar. Charon winced and quivered and sucked in air through clenched teeth as he closed the pliers and lifted out a large black chunk of the packing agent, placing it down on a small white plate before him.

Elizabeth asked from across the room, Hurt?

Charon lifted his eyes in anger, feigning strength in a moment of vulnerability.

She was but a dark figure, untouched by the wavering light of the flame. He could see her legs dangled from the counter, and she had her hands folded on the wood between her thighs. He thought about her face and again took note of the scar on her face. It reminded him of a Glasgow smile, albeit just a bit too severe in angle, and he followed in his mind the line of folded skin from the left corner of her mouth, up and over her cheekbone to where it met the outside corner of her eye.

After a few seconds of staring sharply at her, he looked back down at the wound, now mostly open to the air. As he put the pliers back in the cut, he said, Where’d the scar come from?

She didn’t respond— an ominous black form beyond the unsteady glow in which he sat. He felt her silence unnerving as he pulled another hard bit of congealed blood and sugar out of his shoulder. He raised the pliers to his face, turning his wrist and inspecting the small chunk of opaque crystals within the tool’s jaws. He let out a hard breath as he placed the black chunk on the plate, and then he let his arms fall down to his sides and said: Looks like you’re lucky to still have your eye.

She nodded in agreement. It was a close one.

He made a final pass through the now open wound and then held forth the pliers, his hand quivering as it opened to drop the tool on the plate along with the extracted matter. He closed his eyes and opened them to look at the ceiling as he relaxed his neck and let his head fall backwards. After a few deep breaths, he flung his head forward, put his hands on his thighs, and slowly pushed himself up to standing.

She asked: How does it look?

Looking down towards the wound, he said, I’ll have to cover it, it’ll still wanna bleed. But, It’ll be alright. Good thinking with the sugar. And he stepped from the light of the sputtering flame.

Slowly pacing the length of the cabin twice, Charon finally spoke, Okay. We’ll leave here at sunrise, we’ll head west. He stopped in the shallow light and looked over towards her. Where’s the horse?

He’s nearby.

Well, saddle him up. Make sure he’s watered, give him some of that dried meat, make sure he’s ready to go.

Her form was still, however he could feel the air change slightly in the cabin— those words had drawn from her a small tension.

After a short moment, Charon said to her, What? You don’t think I saw you pocket some of it?

She nodded and looked away. Putting both hands on the counter, she slid herself forward and let her feet hit the floor, turning to walk towards the open doorway. As she stepped towards the outside, he calmly called to her, Elizabeth.

Her dark form turned in the frame.

Sternly, he stated: You get me for three days. We don’t see ‘em by then…

Charon looked at her ghostly figure, silhouetted and still, and after a few seconds she turned and left.

He sat back down at the table. Picking up in his left hand a small aluminum box, he pulled free the lid and looked inside— several hastily cut squares of white gauze and a roll of medical tape. Placing down on the table the lid and the open box, he reached with his right hand for a brown bottle. Unscrewing the cap, the stinging smell of alcohol drifted from the open spout. He let out a long breath, closed his eyes, and reached across his body to slowly pour the alcohol over the open cut. He couldn’t ignore the sharp stinging enough to hold back a short groan of sincere agony, and he felt a short wave of lightheadedness come and go as he put the bottle back down on the table. He then picked up a clear bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, and poured it haphazardly over his shoulder— savoring deeply the cool relief. With a dry washcloth, he then delicately swept the skin around the wound, and then he placed two stacked pieces of the gauze over his shoulder and taped them down.

He would then stand and begin to clean the cabin. He cleared the table of the box, the bottles, the pliers and the plate. Using what water was left, he would rinse clean over the sink the couple of dirty dishes before putting them back in one of the hanging cabinets above the counter. With the firearms ready and the room clean, he laid down on the made bed. As the adrenaline of the last days and nights wore thin, he wondered what they would find out there, beyond the places he knew so well. And, before long, he found sleep.