End of the Road (35 page)

“
Well they do exist!” he
continued to yell with both his voice and the anger in his eyes.
“This cabin has been in my family for over a century, and if you
paid
any
attention
to anything
I’ve
been telling you for the past six months, you’d know
that!”

He practically threw our duffle bags into
the living room area, before grabbing one of the five-gallon
buckets sitting under the makeshift kitchen sink. What a joke to
even call it that! Someone decided to install a camper sink into a
rustic looking countertop and call it a kitchen. The buckets
sitting below the sink were positioned so that one could catch
water as it filtered through the small sink hole, while the other
was used for clean water. The catch bucket was dirty with grimy
soap residue. This was barbaric!

“
I’m going for some
water.” Brad headed for the door and took a long handled ax propped
against the wall with him as he started outside.

“
Wait! It’s freezing in
here! You aren’t just going to leave me here are you?” I looked
around the small cabin that was really just one big room. There was
no way I was going to stay here, and definitely
not
by myself!

The space had been separated into several
small living areas with different functions. The tiny kitchen, or
rather, the wannabe sink with a two-foot square tile-topped cabinet
sitting next to it, was adjacent to a sitting area complete with an
old lumpy sofa and a round table with a few folding chairs. There
was a raised sleeping platform with two rough-cut wooden beds built
into the walls in the shape of an L, just beyond the back of the
sofa. An enormous pot-belly woodstove, with a cooking surface and a
small oven built into the cast-iron metal, was oddly stationed in
the middle of the whole thing! I’d probably burn my ass just trying
to get around it to any of the furniture!

I’m sure Brad could tell how disgusted I
was by the expression on my face as I asked him my question. He
hesitated, but didn’t answer me. Instead he got a mischievous grin
on his face before slamming the door as he continued to go outside.
I wanted to scream!

We had been seeing each other for a little
over a year and somewhere along the line, this ruggedly handsome,
dark haired, blue eyed man that I thought I was falling in love
with, was slowly being replaced by a person I didn’t know. He had
been so attentive at first, doting on me with surprise visits to my
St. Paul, Minnesota office with offerings of my favorite coffee,
and impromptu picnics full of my favorite foods and plenty of
romantic spice.

The fights had started a few months ago.
They had been small at first, just disagreements really, over silly
things, like where to have dinner or what movie to see. The typical
kind of thing one would expect to find in any relationship after a
while.

But then they started to
get worse. Brad seemed to almost
try
to find things to annoy me. Stupid things, like
leaving the toilet seat up! I mean who does that? Isn’t that a
guy’s cardinal rule for dating or something? How simple can it get?
Rule number five - never leave the toilet seat up when your
girlfriend sleeps over, or when you are staying at her place. It
should be right there alongside other basic stuff about dating.
Like never forget to brush your teeth if you expect to make it to
first base.

The toilet issue escalated
into other neglectful habits, which Brad chalked up to moments of
temporary forgetfulness. Those flashes of temporary forgetfulness
were starting to really ruin our relationship! Brad would
conveniently forget to tell me something. Or worse, swear that he
had, when we both knew he had not! If I voiced my annoyance or
displeasure over the incident, or displayed
any
type of negative emotion over his
lack of communication skills, he acted like
I
was the one in the wrong and would
accuse me of being unreasonable and selfish!

We had all but called the relationship
quits. This weekend was supposed to be a chance for us to try and
work out our differences. To try to see what the underlying problem
between us really was. We were supposed to go away somewhere where
there wouldn’t be any outside distractions. Someplace where we
could focus on each other and not be influenced by anything
else.

Did he really think I wouldn’t be
influenced by freezing my ass off each time I had to visit the
little girl’s room? And what about the necessity of proper hygiene
if he hoped to have sex? Wouldn’t that be another one of those
rules in the dating handbook? Rule number one - take a freakin’
bath if you expect to get laid!

As the utensils hanging on the wall and the
small kitchen window shook with the slamming of the door, I took a
step after Brad, but then paused when I heard the snowmobile engine
being fired up outside.

“
Thank God!” I said to
myself, and went to retrieve our bags from the small living room
area.

At least it seemed like Brad was finally
coming to his senses and was planning to take me back down the
mountain to the cute little town where we rented the snowmobile! I
couldn’t wait to get into a decent hotel room! He should have just
booked a room there anyway! It was a sweet little town, lots of
cafes and small restaurants and cute little tourist shops.

I took a deep breath and tried to remind
myself why we were here. We could certainly still try to salvage
the weekend. I was willing to begin working out our communication
issues. Broaching the subject of our differences of opinion in
regard to this cabin seemed like a good place for us to start.

Why had he insisted on
making us stay
here
? Sure it was closer to the trails than staying in town. We
both wanted to be able to do a little snowmobiling to break up the
angst of possible emotional barriers while rekindling some romance,
but with no bathroom? This place wasn’t romantic at all!

As I made my way to the door, I heard the
snowmobile speed off into the distance. I immediately dropped our
bags and ran outside. Brad was disappearing in a cloud of dusty
snow as he fishtailed down the trail and vanished from my
sight.

“
Brad!” I called out to
him as I ran, but he just kept on going.

The ground was slick and snow packed, and I
ended up slipping on the glassy surface outside of the cabin door.
My legs flew out in awkward angles and the left side of my butt
cheek hit the ground with a hard thud. My left hand burned when it
came into contact with the icy ground beneath it, as I
automatically tried to brace myself from the fall. I immediately
snatched it into my body, hoping for some warmth. I had taken off
my gloves when we first entered the cabin, and now my bare skin
against the ice was like touching a searing hot frying pan! No
wonder scientists in movies always used tongs to pick up blocks of
dry ice! The cold ground beneath my backside instantly crept
through my nylon snow pants and I tried to get to my feet quickly,
before the material had a chance to freeze to the ground!

Brad and the snowmobile were now out of
sight. I could still hear its engine as if it was right next to me,
but I couldn’t see it. Sound at sub-zero temperatures is funny like
that, and I silently cursed its deceit.

It was only 4:30 pm, but the sun was
already starting to set behind the mountains, and I had to squint
to look down the trail in the direction that Brad had just
disappeared.

I wasn’t exactly sure how many miles we had
actually traveled to get out to this cabin. I had been too
preoccupied with looking at the scenery, and trying to keep myself
from falling off the back of the snowmobile on the way out here to
pay much attention to the time. I was pretty sure that there was no
way I’d make it back to town before dark on foot, and it was too
cold to try and walk anyway.

“
I hate you!” I screamed
down the trail. Hopefully the cold would carry my anger to Brad’s
ears and slap him with the sound of my voice.

Tears welled up in my eyes, as my anger
finally overflowed, and I worked frantically to brush the moisture
away before it could spill onto my face. It would probably freeze
in tiny rivers down my cheeks and I’d have to pry them off of my
skin like icicles!

When I turned back to the cabin, I saw the
bucket and the ax sitting near the side of the door. A small piece
of paper was pinned under the ax blade and I pulled it out with my
half-frozen fingers to read it. The paper was already rigid, and
tiny crystals of white were starting to form on its surface.

“
I
am
just going to leave you here! Let’s
see if your selfishness will be enough to get you through the
night,” was all that the note said.

I crumpled it in my hand and burst into
fresh tears. The paper felt like sharp metal cutting into my palm,
but I didn’t care. I no longer cared whether my tears froze on my
face or made it impossible for me to blink. Something within me
snapped.

I picked up the ax handle feeling the
weight of the bladed instrument in my hand. An excited tingle ebbed
throughout my body and I started to smile. I hadn’t felt this kind
of sensation while holding a blade in a long time. Not since I was
twelve.

I looked at my hands and immediately my
mind saw the blood that was once there. It hadn’t been an ax then,
it was a meat clever and before that a kitchen knife.

Running the ax blade over the back of my
other hand, I cut a thin strip in my skin. The lovely red line lay
against my white skin in glorious contrast. I wiped the edge of the
blade in the pile of snow by the door and watched as the icy
crystals instantly absorbed the red. It was magical! Like watching
a flower unfurl to a new awakening through time-lapse
photography.

I took the ax and went back into the cabin
to build a fire and wait for Brad to return. I knew exactly what I
was going to do whenever I saw him again.

The therapist had convinced the judge that
I was only defending myself, that I wasn’t responsible for my
actions due to the abuse that my father had put me through. Years
of mental treatment and psychotic medication had all but erased
those horrible memories of his death from my mind. But it was time
for some new therapy. Neither Brad nor anyone else would treat me
like I was an idiot ever again!

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Chapter 28

The End of the Road

By Saxon Andrew

Eric waited for a good moment to make his
break. He hid behind a huge shelf that had been blown over in the
blasted supermarket for a flash to light up the street; he needed
to get a good bearing for his sprint. He pulled the black ski mask
over his face and threw the backpack over his shoulder. He put the
Glock in its holster and glanced at the body lying at the end of
the long shelf and shook his head. The simpleton should have just
let him come in; fill his back pack with canned goods, and leave.
But no…he had to defend his territory against all comers. He should
have known that anyone who had made it this far was prepared for
any eventuality. Now he was just another dead body stinking up the
landscape.

He watched and waited. It shouldn’t be
long; the aliens were somewhat prolific in using their blasters. He
watched the street closely and slowly shook his head and waited.
Humanity was just so stupid. It sent messages out into space
assuming that some peaceful species out in the stars would one day
hear them and decide to come and throw flowers out to their new
friends. At the same time wars raged everywhere on Earth. We were
just so arrogant and stupid. Stephen Hawking was right. Any alien
species that was traveling the universe were doing it for a reason.
The most likely reason was real estate. Habitable planets were rare
and it all boiled down to location, location, location. Now
humanity was being systematically removed as blight on the
neighborhood. This was urban renewal on a massive scale.

Suddenly, darkness was lit up with a flash
that turned night into day. Eric saw the overturned tanker and
sprinted out of the store and slid under the tractor. He crawled
quickly over to the far side of the huge truck and crouched beside
it counting mentally. They always fired a second shot to make sure.
It should be just about…now! Another flash lit up the night and he
sprinted into the alley fifteen yards beyond the truck and pressed
himself against the wall. He slid along the wall toward the far end
of the alley and waited for another flash.

The alien’s eyesight did not recover as
quickly as human’s eyes and there was a brief three second period
where movement was possible before they were able to see again. He
looked out at the skyline of Washington and saw that most of it was
gone. The Washington Monument was nothing more than a stump
sticking out of the ground and the Lincoln Memorial was flattened.
What amazed him was the building was gone but Honest Abe still sat
in his chair out in the open. How it survived the blast that blew
away the building was a mystery.

He waited and thought about the aliens
arriving in orbit two months earlier and flashing the planet with
blue beams that neutralized every nuclear weapon on the planet.
Humanity’s most powerful weapons were taken off the board before
the first hostilities kicked off. Once they were gone, the end was
a foregone conclusion. Even F 22 Raptors were no match for attack
craft that could fly at double their speed and stop on a dime. It
only took a week before the Air Force stopped sending jets at them.
Most of the military forces on the planet were hit from space and
then the real fun began with the aliens landing millions of ground
troops that began systematically killing every human on the planet.
Humanity was being exterminated and the end of the road was not far
away. Eric shook his head and rushed across the street as another
flash lit up the night. He arrived at another alley next to a
building and ducked under a blown out wall as he took off his ski
mask and walked down a corridor to his apartment.