The End is Coming

Chapter Sixteen

“Whatchya think that is, over yonder there, Bob?”

Bob raised the binoculars he’d stolen in a fight days after The Night of The War—binoculars stolen from a five and ten cent store they had been looting in Commerce, Georgia. The man with the rifle in the store—not a very big man—had been tough enough and good enough with a gun that twelve of Bob’s friends—he thought of their names now—had died. Command had sort of de-volved to him—Bob—and he had ordered a with-drawal. The little finger of his left hand was gone, shot off. A parting gift from the owner of the five and ten cent store.

He stared through the binoculars now. They weren’t made for using at night, at least he didn’t figure they were. He’d thrown away the box with the owner’s manual. All he could see were dim shapes—what looked like some burned buildings and a white fence that almost seemed to glow. He put down the binoculars, saying to the man beside him, “Dunno, Lyle—maybe jes’ some folks hiding out from guys like us—don’t think they’s no Russians. Maybe some of them Resistance he-roes—hell,”

and he spat into the grass in front of his engineer boots.

“I saw me a light for a second—like some door was bein’ opened. Hey—lookee there,” Lyle rasped. Bob followed where Lyle pointed—with his eyes.

Near the white fence—someone was walking.

“They’ll be a guard or two, betchya,” Lyle said.

“If it is them Resistances, we can get us some food, some more guns and stuff— shit—”

“We gonna take ‘em, Bob?”

Bob looked at Lyle, then up the defile behind them. He had forty men—all of them with guns of one kind or another—and all of them pretty good with their bikes.

“Fuck, yeah—yeah,” and Bob spat again be-tween his boots.