The Post Apocalyptic Blues Rider

Suspense Stories | Mar 6, 2013 | 4 min read
84 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
Suspense Stories

The Post Apocalyptic Blues Rider

…Evasive sounds of music sipping through the old radio: more than enough to make him warm inside. There was a time… Indeed there was: a distant memory echoing in the emptiness of the desert just like the husky voice of the nameless singer (you must be pretty dead by now, old buddy). There was a time… Time that is no more because we killed it… replaced it with one prolonged (and as added bonus quite radioactive) moment of agony: survive today just to die tomorrow. Be it the New Children, the degenerated and starving refugees or loyal remnants of a government without a country – someone will get you… sooner or later…

Still, there was no fear in his heart: right now, right here it was only him, his car, his dog sleeping in the back seat and the melancholic sounds of the blues coming from the rusty and oh-so-nostalgically retro radio receiver. The road ahead was empty - the breeze was blowing in, clearing his brains from the thick nuclear clouds inside. We killed the heavens and obliterated hell leaving just little islands of meaning in our own homemade chaos - this 2046 Chevy-Nu with a gently humming reactor and a (pretty voluptuous) sea siren on the hood was one of them.

It was certainly a thorny way to get to this point - a lot of people had to die (quite painfully). Was there a choice? Maybe there was, once and humanity already made it, arrogantly going all in and losing it all…

Those naïve savages! He smirked remembering how the residents of the small settlement were so protective of their Blues God that inhabited the car. Only the elders had the right to operate the mystical mechanism that released the infinite wisdom of the resident deity. The legend said that a lonely messiah had brought that mechanism to them before disappearing never to come back again. It was hard enough to trick the fools to let him see the "heavenly chariot": infinitely suspicious, they even tried to search him lest he carried any heresies that could damage the divine aura: should have looked for something more real and practically deadly instead, like his .45 magnum hidden in his right boot…

Finally, after endless ceremonies, chants and prayers he was led to the holy site of the car. The Great Elder, accompanying him froze with his mouth half open, his eyes fixed on the sky. This is when he pulled out the gun and fired point blank into the man's face. As the old fool collapsed to the ground in the growing puddle of his own blood, the radio receiver of the car somehow came to life spreading around the haunting sounds of blues. The tribesmen around him were confused and bedazzled by what just happened (welcome to the real world, fellows!) and while some reached for their spears, others stood still with a blank expression of surprise and awe frozen on their heavily tattooed faces. He was absolutely calm: he fired methodically and precisely – shooting to kill. He didn't need any survivors and anyway he was doing them a favor, liberating them from their pitiful half-existence. And what a great way to go - .45 caliber Desert Eagle gave them the most colorful, explosive death they could ever dream about. As he reloaded the gun, he could see the beauty of the mayhem he was creating: bloody corpses, torn away limbs still sprinkling out blood, people running clumsily for shelter only to be caught by one of his bullets - all this beauty under the enigmatic sounds of blues.

Soon, perhaps too soon, it was all over. As the smoke around him cleared, he once more appreciated his work and holstered the gun with the professional pleasure of a job well done (headshots are the house specialty, ladies and gentlemen!). After a moment of uncertainty, the old reactor of the Chevy-Nu gave out a welcoming bark and the car started. This was his lucky day. As he was driving out of the settlement, his dog Barks appeared from an abandoned shack and jumped in, immediately starting to lick his owner's stubbly face. Poor Barks… He knew how hard it was for his favorite K9 to leave behind so much fresh meat. There will be more, boy, there will be more (we are, after all, living the nightmare of the world of tomorrow)… But before that, there is the blues…

The peaceful flow of his thoughts was suddenly and rudely interrupted: a deep crack appeared on his windshield with a small round hole in the center. He looked at the windshield, the crack, the hole – it was right above the steering wheel. He looked down at his chest where a small nuclear mushroom shaped cloud was starting to bloom. Ripping his shirt open, he saw a small hole on the left side of his chest. His vision blurred, he tried to close the wound but the blood still sipped through his fingers. Feeling his senses leaving him, he slowed down; the car swerved off the highway and gently glided into the sands of the desert, gradually grinding to a halt. The gentle collision awakened the dog: it jumped forward and looked at its owner, head bent to the left. It was clearly puzzled. He couldn't see much anymore; he felt how life was trickling out of his veins, one drop of blood at a time. There wasn't much he could do. There wasn't much he wanted to do. As he closed his eyes and let the darkness swallow him, all he could care about were the majestic sounds of blues coming from the old, rusty and oh-so-nostalgically retro radio receiver…

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Vardan Mar 6, 2013

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