Carrion fowls perched along the far walls’ parapets and cawed vaguely with their red wetted beaks in whatever direction; other scavengers supped at the puddles or pecked along the softened flesh of the dead. The birds, variable vultures, hopped across the rubble and curiously side-eyed corpses and pierced the bruise-blackened bloated skins and stripped away long muscle threads and tossed them to catch, to choke back on what they’d done.

The birds which stared, looked dumbly from their perches, and watched Boss Maron (what was he a boss of anymore?) stumble around where he was. His shirt was tattered and bloodied-marks or claws shown across his forearms and his belly. He moved like a drunkard with his feet wide apart. In some commotion, he’d lost a boot and swiveled as carefully as he could when putting his bare right foot forward. My brother seemed to spawn from the mess, to arise only from his slumber at the sign of my approach and I wondered about destiny or fate and as I saw him there, as terrible as he was, he was no match if not for the pistol which hung from the holster on his hip.

In getting closer, I saw the band from his hat had burst and so hung stringlike from the brim and dangled with his footfalls by the eyepatch he wore.

A series of collapsed, nearly unrecognizable apartments had fallen and been flattened or forced to bend in jagged directions; old catwalk rails jutted from the spot of destruction like a mad spider’s legs—an unsettling image. This seemed to have been the place Maron took refuge from the attack.

Wherever I went, it seemed that death was either fast approaching or near ahead so I never could tell from what direction to expect it; but expecting death itself was sometimes enough. I took to a white and curved piece of stone dilapidation—likely a piece from the hydro towers—and used it to purchase higher ground and saw Maron stumble nearer. Through the new byways created by the destruction, he remained slow and struggled and remained so far out that I was uncertain whether he saw me.

The hiss of spitting broken water pipes filled the lulls between the bird calls. The sun was deep yellow against the red sky. The wind was cool and held me aloft like a puppet.

Precariously, I hunkered at my elevated position and rummaged through my satchel but found nothing. Instead, I left it there in that spot and climbed carefully to the earth and unbuckled the belt from around my waist and held it whip-ready, opposite the buckle-end; it was a thin and cheap thing but perhaps good enough. I moved toward my brother, openly. Whatever would be.

Forty yards separated us and there was enough of an area of open earth among the piled collections of destruction; he still looked like a shadow, like a half-illusion of a man against the backdrop of interlocking wreckage.

“Hey!” I called.

Maron stopped where he was and craned his head forward; dust rose from around his feet then settled. “Harlan?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t see you too good, you know.” Maron scratched his right eye with a rotating knuckle; the skin seemed irritated. “Those bugs itch like a bitch, don’t they?”

“So they say,” I spat between where I’d spaced my legs.

He placed his hand on the handle of the revolver which stood out on his hip. “I could kill you, Harlan. I’ve got a clear shot here.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d deserve it, especially after what you did.” His voice was gravelly; he coughed and wiped his mouth with a forearm.

I took a small step forward and Maron removed the revolver from its holster but kept it pointed to the ground.

I shook my head and remained still again. “What about after all you did?”

“Me?” he laughed sickly, “You’re one to talk. I guess there’s no hiding it anymore. I was ashamed of you. You—cavortin’ with demons—that’s all you do. I think I saw you speak to them a couple times. I feel like you whisper to them in your sleep. I knew what kind of man you were all this time and I let you go on.”

“You let me, huh?” I glanced to the sky and breathed deep and listened to the birds. A tight-lipped expression pulled my face almost like a smile and I gritted my teeth. “Here I thought I let you.”

Maron laughed again wetly and remained with his gun down. The gunmetal shone bright as silver from either cleaning or handling; it was good to know he’d taken care of it at least.

“I cried about you,” I said—some roiling thing rolled over in the pit of my stomach.

“So?” he asked the sky.

I closed the space between us by a quarter or more and stopped. “So, did you ever cry about me? Did you ever cry about them?” The trailing end of my sentence nearly broke my voice, and I abruptly finished the words to protest it.

Maron shrugged. “’Course I did. All the time. For them. For you?” He shook his head. In the light—just so—his right eye glowed white; blood trickled from around the bottom eyelid from over-rubbing while yellow infection oozed from the bottom of the patch over his left eye. “Somethin’s wrong in you. You did something. I know you did. Maybe you prayed to them things. Maybe you asked for it—Lady did weird seances before she,” with his free hand, he twirled a finger by his ear. “Maybe you spoke to them and did what you did. All that good and evil talk that Jackson went on about doesn’t matter anymore,” Maron shrugged then nodded and wriggled his mustache in thought.

“You used to call him dad,” I said.

“We didn’t have any dads, you and me. Looking back now, I see our mother—if she was—was the worst about it. We were some ragtag bunch of monster hunters? There ain’t any good and evil in this world and that’s a fact. It’s all just livin’.”

“What made you that way?”

“What way’s that, Harlan?” He sighed.

“I thought you’d be a good man. You were a sweet boy.”

“I guess.” His blind gaze trailed away, watched the birds on the far walls, and his uncovered bleeding eye blinked slowly and with effort; he rubbed it again and smeared blood across his cheek and blinked more and seemed to focus. “What makes you sure you’re a good man?”

“I ain’t.”

“I didn’t figure you were.” His eye traced the scenery, seemed to look everywhere and beyond me even. “You do all this too? You call down your buddies for all this? I was afraid of you for a long time. Now I know I was right.”

“Mm. I didn’t.”

“Quite the coincidence that you’d hang and then all this happens to stop it. Nice for you. Look around at all them bodies. Tell me it’s worth it. I know you and I know what you are. Harold didn’t believe it—hell I didn’t want to believe it. Here we are.”

I shook my head and felt silly standing there and holding my belt like a dead snake by my side. “It wasn’t too long ago I thought similarly of you. I thought you’d been some possessed thing, something that wasn’t my brother anymore. Like you said. Here we are. I was blind for so long and I thought it couldn’t be that you’d be this way all on your own. I saw you grow into something unrecognizable,” My shoulders rolled with a shrug. “What’s it matter? What’s any of it matter? You thought I was some witch and I thought maybe some demon hijacked your body! What’s it matter? It doesn’t. I don’t care if you are who you are because of me or because of this world—it’s over. And here we are.” I took a gulp of air; it was rotten. “I loved you. I saw something change in you and blamed myself, blamed the demons; maybe you were a mutant! Bah! It’s just you. Whatever you are is just you—doesn’t really matter what made it. I don’t know how I could cry over someone like that. I just don’t know.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Maron nodded at me, and I took a step forward; the Boss sheriff leveled the long barrel Colt in my direction. The sun beat down and I took another step forward and another until I was pacing, shoulders moving in tandem with each step—though my left knee twinged, it wasn’t pain; there was too much adrenaline for pain. The gun erupted, broke the dead air, a few birds cawed and flapped away but mostly remained and looked on with apathetic curiosity. I stood still. Maron missed, took aim again, and I began to further close the gap.

The pistol rang again; my imagination insisted I felt the breeze from the bullet. I did not care. Here we were and here it would be. Again, twice more, the gun cried out; the last of that duo spiked the earth up at my feet and sent dust into the air; I passed through it.

With Maron nearly in arm’s reach, I reared with the belt—remaining with my right leg on the backfoot—I swung the strap out like a whip and felt the belt slack as the buckle met Maron’s nose.

He stumbled backward, fired another round into the air and my ears rang and I launched into him.

With him being weak and feeble and ill and tired as he was, he fell slowly in the way that people do when they attempt to stop themselves from going. He spun on his naked heel and landed on his knees, hands in the dirt, revolver hilt loosely clamped in his fist. I sent a boot to his stomach and from seemingly nowhere a wild scream came from me—it was a moment of human satisfaction.

He laughed there on the ground, and it was so like gasping for air that I wasn’t sure that’s what I heard. “I hit you once, I see only just a bit out of the right and I still hit you!”

The numbness forgave a moment of pain—a jolt ran up my left arm. Without a moment afforded to inspect myself, I launched another kick just as he came around to raise his head. My boot caught his chin and clicked his teeth together; blood ran like a spigot from his mouth while the cowboy hat tumbled off the crown of his head and landed in the dirt beside him.

His eyepatch came unplaced from his left eye and rested over his brow before the strings came loose and the object fell off him. The black hole there in his head shone starkly when he calmed his head to look up at me; the other eye was milk white.

“I’m dying,” he said, “I’m dying, but I’m a pretty good shot, ain’t I?”

I didn’t say anything and placed my heel on his shoulder and propelled him over, so he fell onto his back. There on the ground, the pistol lay. I bent and dropped the belt and lifted the pistol— a single shot left. The thing was heavier than the metal it was.

Maron lifted up again and spoke, “I’m dying,” he repeated, “I’m dying.” His head rocked forward and back in exaggeration.

I shoved him down again, remembered the bodies he hung, remembered the people he assaulted, remembered the tortures—with him looking up at me though, I briefly remembered the boy behind that man’s face. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t.

“I see a little out of the right, Harlan—like I said. C’mere a minute. Just a minute. Or a second even. All I want is a second. C’mere and let me see you a little clear for just one second.”

I never was a good shot anyway, but that wouldn’t have mattered; I angled the revolver out from my body. He craned his head up for a better look maybe—like a varmint from a hole—and when he did, I fired the last shot and even though he’d grown so large in my mind, he still fell over like any man would. Blood spurted then trailed from his head; I swallowed a noise back.

Warm pain radiated from my left bicep, and I knew what it was; I threw back my jacket, so it hung only off my right shoulder and examined the spot. The notch was swollen, the flesh was gnarly and leaked. I cupped the heel of my hand to the wound while still holding the revolver and felt my heartbeat in it. Nothing stitches wouldn’t fix. So, Maron was a good shot. I lumbered over the corpse and stared into the one solid eye. Even blind, he got me once.

I sighed and half-straddled the corpse and ripped the gun belt off his waist and shoved it under my armpit then waddled over the dead man to the hat that’d fallen in the dirt. Our mother’s hat fit loose on my head, but her old belt slotted around me snug.

The wound didn’t clot, and blood ran in webs down my forearm and across the back of my hand. I shifted to look to the place I’d left the satchel and I saw an audience there—the underground survivors followed me out; they were arranged like tin solders frozen among the rubble outcroppings. Mal was there and nearest me. She called something out, but I didn’t respond. I shook my head as if to let them know I didn’t care and began to walk towards the piece of white rock. The broken band of the hat fell into the periphery of my left eye like a wayward strand of hair.

I slung the revolver into the holster on my hip and kept my right hand to my left bicep and gritted my teeth at the growing pain. Ointments were in the satchel and bandages and a bit of liquor—wizard brand.

Mal rushed out to me and slammed into me, and nearly put me over and the others too began to clamor off their perches—how they looked at me just like the birds.

Mal slammed her hands onto my shoulders. “You just killed and robbed him.”

I laughed. “Alright.”

“Why?”

I saw the boy—William—too had come and he remained among the small crowd that came around me.

“This needs treating,” I angled my head at the wound I held.

“What’d you kill him for?” asked Mal, again.

I ignored her, pushed beyond, and whispered something about going home.

The levels to the satchel were slow going and the people spoke amongst themselves, and I slammed my bottom onto the flat elevation and began to clean and wipe down. I fumbled with my right hand and kept my neck twisted just so and pried the wound a bit with my index finger and thumb. Blood ripped out of the spot, and I laughed and stopped and rewiped. Inside of the satchel there was a handheld staple gun. I put it to the spot, trying to keep the swollen opening closed. After a few overzealous clicks, I sighed and dropped the staple gun into the satchel.

From where I was, Maron looked small.

Like a whisper on the wind, I heard, I brought him to you one last time. Bravo! Well done!

I twisted around lackadaisically searching for the point of the voice and didn’t find it. “Stupid,” I whispered to myself.

Then I popped casually to my feet, felt the mild blood loss send me dizzy and I momentarily felt like I’d fall over and break my neck in front of all those fine people—what a laugh riot!

Mal’s incredulous expression was obvious even with the distance. “Hey!” I called out to Mal, to all of them, “I’m going home.”

“Where’s home?” asked someone.

“C’mon with me if you want.”

Some wanted and some didn’t, and we gathered twenty strong and Mal and William were among them. Lady surprisingly decided to fall along with those of us that left. Those that remained certainly died, but who’s to say?

All the horses were dead and even in searching for the oil wagon I’d rode in on, I couldn’t find it. Walking never bothered me anyway. When I grew tired, I used some discarded metal post as a third leg. We walked it and I thought it felt like a pilgrimage—damn all other religiosity. I hoped for the one and true religion: love.

Seven died westward. William succumbed to the skitterbugs and I managed to bury him even while others regarded the practice with apathy. Mal went quickly by a skin taker, and yet Lady remained; she was a hanger-on.

The only one that mattered to me was the one waiting for me—if they still waited. I hoped they did.

We saw Alexandria at dawn after many days of travel. Upon the sight of the arch along the skyline, whispers came over our group and one fellow wondered aloud if the arch was the source of all the magic the wizards knew. Lady rebutted the claim and cursed at the thought of it. Still though, she followed. I mindlessly told them it was the gateway to the west but that didn’t mean a thing to anybody at all.

Point-hatted scouts saw us and let us through while the sky was still waking. The nerves in my body danced like bugs. Whatever negative providence that’d taken over my life was gone at last. Though the weight remained, perhaps I could let it go with time. I wanted to.

Seeing Suzanne like that, still tired and yawning and even brow furrowed, I stumbled into them and pressed their face to mine, and I told them I’d never let them go and I told them it was over, and Suzanne asked me where the wagon was.

I didn’t have an answer for that and instead buried my nose behind their ear.

All they asked me then was, “Really, it’s over?”

“It’s over. I’m better now. Well—I might not be better, but I will be.”

A fat dog brushed my leg, and it was Trouble—the animal was kept on a lead by Gemma which tugged on the collar just a bit to keep the dog from tangling the lead around our legs. The girl beamed and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her so genuine as that. Her face was rounded from health.

I pulled Suzanne into another hug and hushed, “My legs are tired now.” We kept our arms around each other; I hoped they didn’t want to let me go just like how I didn’t want to let them go. The only thing that hurt was knowing I’d hurt Suzanne.

It felt ridiculous because it was, but I was an optometrist finally. It wouldn’t be easy, but I saw everything very clearly.