The Weight of the World ch 4

Clack, clack, bump. The military style canvas covered truck seemed to hit every pot hole on the road, adding more nausea to Dalton's already churning stomach. Boxes slid around his feet. Sitting to his left, to his right and across from him in the dim light were nine other trained workers from the Reserve. They had all done this before, they were all calm. Most of the workers were teen agers because the war killed most of the adults and at the time they were kids so they were spared. He gulped, trying to clear the lump from his throat, and clutched his knife tighter under his cloak. He could barely wield a weapon but having a big one always made him feel better and this time he wasn't even aloud to use the small little knife.



That was the scariest thing about this mission. It wasn't that Dalton hadn't been off the Reserve in over a year or that he would face people who wanted him dead; it was the fact that he wouldn't be able to defend himself against them. On peaceful missions-they hardly ever go on missions that aren't peaceful-like this one they weren't aloud to fight anyone even if provoked. Sometimes that meant standing there and just taking a beating. Pri said that if they fought back, as bad as law enforcement is now, some people would take that as an excuse to through them in jail or worse; take away the Reserve.

Dalton had seen some people come back to the Reserve black and blue and some come back covered in bloody bandages. If he had known what he would witness on that particular trip he would never have begged Pri to go. He would have probably forced Pri to cancel the entire thing altogether.

Even though the others had done this before it wasn't going to be a picnic so none of them talked. He desperately wanted Pri to be there holding his hand but she was in another truck. There were three trucks in all in the small caravan. All were filled with netting, food, antibiotics, bandages, clothes and a dozen people.

Their small caravan was going to a once thriving city nobody even remembered the name of that had been stricken with poverty. They would hand out supplies to the people and bring supplies to the crumbling hospital.

Usually nobody bothers the Reserve workers but there are those rare occasions where people try to rob or hurt them. On those occasions nobody is willing to stand up to the thugs and bullies. One of the side effects of the nuclear war must have been everyone on earth except the big jerks losing their back bone.

The truck came to a lurching stop and nobody dared to move or breath. There was the sound of someone undoing the latches outside and then the back of the truck opened to reveal a grim, determined Pri. Light streamed in and Dalton shielded his eyes. Pri was usually very light hearted but she was solemn with foreboding.

*****

After only one day Dalton was exhausted. He flopped down on the grass and was soon asleep. He didn't even take off his mouth covering, there was no point, air is just as unbreathable in sleep.That night he had horrible, unsettling dreams but he couldn't remember them when he woke up. He woke early with cold beads of sweat on his brow. He rubbed his gritty eyes.

Slowly his sleeping comrades came into focus. Across from him Pri lay wide awake, watching and waiting. She got up and Dalton followed. Acid rain clouds hung overhead, waiting to shed their heavy burden. Pri handed him a heavy bag to carry,took one herself and started walking.

Neither of them said a word as they walked through the deserted gray streets. It looked like rain. Dalton could tell Pri was taking in the peacefulness, the emptiness. The same emptiness that drove most people insane. Pri was different though, she had the whole world resting on her shoulders. And they were screaming at her from their cozy perch so silence seemed relaxing to her. Sometimes Dalton felt like screaming at the world. 'Fix yourselves,' I would say 'You have just as much capability as my teenage sister and you choose to let her do everything and then you don't even support her!'

Pri didn't mind though. Her patience was one of her most admirable qualities. Sometimes, however, the world doesn't need patience thought Dalton.

Pri came to a stop and before he even knew what was going on people started coming out of no where. It's as if they had come from the shadows. There must have been hundreds of them, mostly women and children and all hallow. Like somebody had taken out all their hope, pride and happiness and just left their shells to go on living as if nothing had ever happened. They were all scrawny and pale like zombies. Most of the women had just given up on looking pretty. They had the most depressed expressions and sunk in, tired eyes Dalton had ever seen.

They must have been in the town square because boarded up shops lined the streets and there was a huge rusty, old fountain. He was scared but reassured by how calmly Pri started handing out things from her bag with a sympathetic smile plastered on her face. On the inside she was crying but she didn't show it. He opened his bag to find second hand and sometimes third hand clothes next to military like ration packs. He handed them out but unlike Pri he couldn't hide his emotions. Tears came but it didn't matter since it started to rain.

Some of the children cried and mothers rocked babies back and forth or ushered small children back inside. In some cases they could only put one arm protectively around them, they had no place to go inside.

Then suddenly Dalton was drawn out of his thoughts and in that instant his life would change forever. A thug came barreling out of a side alley and grabbed Pri by the hair and pinned her arms behind her back. She went limp.

"Please let me go sir," she said more for the benefit of the crowd because she knew he wasn't going to let her go. If she could get someone on her side though maybe, just maybe, someone would stick up for her. if they didn't she was going to end up looking like every other worker he had seen come out of this situation. His heart jumped into his throat and he couldn't swallow.

Dalton took off at a run. He didn't know what to do; he had to find David.

*****

Jasmine was washing dishes when it started. The animals had been restless all day and she thought it was because of the rain. The dogs started barking first and then the jungle cats took up the cry. it continued like this until the entire reserve had gone berserk. She heard crashing sounds and the ground shook. The glasses she had been washing, all lined up in rows, cracked and shattered.

Then as soon as it had started it ended. Jasmine went outside to find out what was happening. If animals could cry then they were. Birds had stopped singing, dogs whimpered, baboons screeched. To put it bluntly: everyone had gone nuts, off their rocker, wacko. Workers stumbled out of the tree line and came to stand with her. Their looks told her they wanted answers but she didn't have any. She took the animals' outburst as a bad sign, a very bad sign.

*****

David sprinted through the rain along the slippery streets in front of Dalton and the others. His gut twisted with anxiety. The man could do anything to Pri and get away with it. Anything.

When Dalton had come to get him he had been cleaning up camp. David had dropped everything and just started running. He didn't know why; even once he got there he wouldn't be able to do anything. He just had to be there though. He stopped at the edge of the town square. A huge man had Pri in front of a long useless and rusted fountain and a crowd had gathered but they stood a good distance away from the man. At the edge an unusual number of cops looked on with interest but showed no signs of planning to intervene. All the supplies Pri and Dalton had been distributing had been taken.

He pushed his way through the crowd and the others followed. They stood in front of Pri and the man, looking lost and not knowing what to do. He was rambling about how their cause was hopeless and they were waisting their time and energy. David had heard it all before. The man saw them and he started directing his words towards them with more bitterness and acid.

"You are fools for fallowing this silly girl. She is leading you to your deaths," he said to me "You need to evolve, accept the new world and not try to get the old one back. It's gone and that's that." David wasn't listening though; he was looking strait at Pri.

She was warning him with her eyes, telling him to take the others and leave. She glanced at Dalton; she didn't want him to see this. The entire world could turn their backs on Pri but he wasn't going to leave her if it meant it would save his life. He shook his head no and she started to scream, interrupting the man's rambling.

"Get out of here!" she screamed "David, just go! Please! You have to go, you can't do anything!" A few of the workers heeded her warning and ran away.

"Why you-" said the man as he hit Pri across the face. David heard a sickening smack and a crunch as he broke her nose and he tensed. Dalton moved with his knife clutched in both hands as if to attack. More thugs emerged from the crowd and grabbed them. David could've taken out the guy holding him in two seconds but there were too many. He could handle them for sure but he couldn't start a riot, it would only make their popularity plummet and their over all situation worse.

He struggle to keep in control as the man moved to grab Pri again. He had an overwhelming urge to do something, to protect her. He could snap his head back and smash in his guy's face and then he could take out the ring leader holding Pri... He wished he could take Pri's place up there and take the beating. The beating would have been better than watching her suffer it.

"This girl knows nothing, I bet she doesn't even know how to sign her own name," said the man as he held up a knife for the entire crowd to see. He began to carve it into Pri's skin. She drew in a breath. He carved an 'x' into her left arm repeatedly and blood flowed rapidly mixed with rain water.

"Now you will remember how to sign an x sweetie." Everybody in the new messed up world understood what it meant to be uneducated and have to sign your name with an x. Not only that but to have to sign it on a job application for an underpaying and rare job at a smoggy factory or a mine. That little 'x' symbolized so much pain and suffering. It said that they should just give up.

"I know that nothing's going to happen unless we make it happen," said Pri through gritted teeth "Every moment counts. History could happen in a-aa-ah" The man pressed his blade harder into her skin and she cried out in pain. David knew this speech of her's though.

"History could happen in a moment so live each moment like it's history. How would you live it differently for yourself, your family, the world? We make our own history, we are history!" Pri nodded at me and then she let herself drift off into unconsciousness. The ring leader glared at him and he spit at the thug's feet. He snarled and raised his knife as if to strike. He paused as he thought better of it and turned back to Pri. With one swift movement he cut another 'x,' with more force this time, into her right cheek.

Big mistake. David smashed his head back and his guy lost his grip on David. In a moment he raced forward and punched the ring leader in the gut. He grabbed the knife from the guy's hand and punched him in the jaw. He kicked him in the chest and he fell to the ground. People gasped and someone screamed.

David picked up Pri's crumpled,drenched form. The blood was gruesome and frightening. It looked like a lot even for being mixed with water. he stroked her damaged cheek and tears welled up in his eyes. Momentarily stunned cops and thugs snapped out of it and rushed to intervene. Before they could reach them the other workers had broken free and they were gone. Years of living with jungle cats and other beasts had taught them to move quickly.

*****

Pri's head pounded, her arm felt like liquid fire and her face was completely numb. She pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek and pain shot through her entire face. With a jolt she remembered the events that had put her in this state and gasped. Then she started gagging and spitting out blood that had leaked into her mouth and down her throat.

"Thank god," said Dalton. She opened her eyes and realized she wasn't alone. She was laying on a few rain ponchos in the middle of one of the Reserve's trucks. She was kept from sliding around by crates surrounding her makeshift bed.

"The author atees werrrrrr briiibed," Pri slurred "Where-" she coughed up more blood and Dalton gave her a concerned look. Everyone in the truck was crowded around her now.

"David? He... well he attacked the [censored] jerk that [censored] attacked you," said Repentance. She's a nice girl who can swear like a sailor. Nobody knows where she came from exactly or what her name is and she won't say. All they knew was that she felt like she needed to repent for something she had done and so they had started calling her that. "We got back to camp but he wouldn't come with us. He gave himself up to those [censored] police."

No injury hurt more than that.