A Quarter Life Crisis

COAST, JOCKY, SMELL, GIRL

By Alexis Halloran

Before the apocalypse, life was simple. Bradley had lived a mundane life, high school was the peak of it all, his peers wanted to be him and girls wanted to be with him. If he thought hard enough, he could still smell the freshly mown grass at Practice, in the early morning on the weekends. But now only the stale cold smoggy air penetrated his nostrils as they walked toward the remains of their newest city.

The world had already been dying, pollution had taken its grasp on the atmosphere, the oceans were over fished and forests over hunted. Humans had destroyed the world already, but COVID took out the rest in 2022. The few that remained, scavenged over what was left. Their greed over each other would be what destroyed them in the end.

Now he trudged along in the remains of a city where he had once thrived, with nothing to show for it except a few football maneuvers. He thought to himself, is this what they call a middle aged crisis? But I’m so young still, maybe if I die at 50 that would be the case. It was a scary thought. He didn’t entirely have nothing, he wasn't alone, there was a girl. One which no matter his efforts, refused his charming advances. It seemed even if they were the last ones on earth, she would still deny him affections. Then again, perhaps they were the last.

So they walked through the bends of the city, looking for nowhere in particular, if only to survive the next day. Bradley still wore his athletic gear as though he left for the gym the day the world went sour. And Cynthia was exactly the opposite, in black from head toe and a personality to match. She was stone cold since the day they met and hardly spoke in turn. But she was a farm girl and she had the shot gun, so he kept her around. Besides she wasn’t all that bad to look at, her style was less heavy goth and more of an indifferent grunge. Bradley was starting to think it kind of sexy, or maybe that was what happen when there was only one girl left on earth.

It had been at least an hour since she spoke between his ramblings and he was getting frustrated. “Where are we going?,” He asked, “where do we even have to go?”

She shrugged but again no answer.

He tried to evoke a response again, “so what school did you go to?”

“We don’t have to be friendly you know,” Cynthia stated cool as ice.

“Why not, if it just going to be the two of us for the next while, we might as well get a little more intimate.” He gave that wink, the one the cheerleaders used to melt over when he ran back to the bench.

But she only scoffed and looked away disgusted.

Another five minutes went by and Bradley could no longer hold back his annoyance, “if you hate me so much, then why are you even travelling with me?!”

A fleeting look of sympathy passed her eyes, but didn’t last long. Cynthia was never one for soft glances, or emotional talks. She stated simply, “because you’re entertaining. Because its hilarious to watch you stumble around in a treacherous world that you so obviously don’t belong.”

“Hey I was getting along just fine before you, thanks.”

“Oh Pu-lease,” She exaggerated, “I know your type. Privileged jocky little white boy, probably got everything from Mommy and Daddy. I bet you could barely wipe your own ass, before the Apocalypse and now you’re attempting to get along, to no avail. I would bet big money, you were banking on a full ride scholarship to college. Because let's face it, those brains weren’t gonna get you there.”

“Oh she’s got bite, and she can say more than two words. Well I’ll have you know, you’re not entirely right. I already lost my scholarship because I tried to throw a party in the school at midnight.” He sighed dreamily, “it would have been the perfect grad prank.”

She shook her head perplexed at his idiocy, “so what you’re saying is I assumed correct? And you gave up a privilege that most people would have killed for, how funny that you’re in a world that can do that now.”

“Whatever,” he shifted uncomfortably, and they walked on in silence again.

About a half a mile ahead they heard voices and rustling in the giant piles of refuse, left over after the garbage collections shut down completely.

“Scavengers,” Cynthia whispered, “get behind me,” and she aimed the barrel of the gun ahead.

“Oh ya like I need a girl-,” he started to say.

“Shut your mouth,” she cut in.

“you did not just say that to me,” Brad scolded.

“I did, and if you don’t, a hell of a lot worse is coming.” But it was already too late.

A group of men enclosed from the corners of the abandoned intersection whistling and calling to them. They presented with streaks of dirt on their cheeks and various weapons in hand; Bradley suddenly felt very vulnerable without one. Although they all had knives, guns and chainsaws, they surprisingly were very smartly dressed; something only he would notice in an ambush. One of the men leaped up from behind him and grabbed ahold in a tight bear hug.

Another went for Cynthia, she fought hard, knocked the guys teeth in. But there were too many, and they managed to pry the shot gun from her hands.

“Hey tootsie, how ya doin?,” a confident leader type asked. “Girls are hard to come by now a days, and it looks like this guy ain’t doin it for ya. Wanna come with us instead?”

“Fuck you,” she spat. Then stomped on a foot and broke another guys nose with the back of her head. She had spunk, he’d give her that, and he couldn’t resist a little flush of pride.

“Common let’s take her. Leave the boy.” And before Bradley could protest, they knocked him out against the brick wall.

When he awoke he remembered exactly what happened, he leapt to his feet and broke into a run. They tried to knock him out to keep him from following, but he saw the loose tag on the man clothes who had been holding him back. Jack and Jones, and there was only one of those in the whole city. It was why they all had the neatest clothes instead of living in squalor like everyone else. They were hiding at the Mayflower Mall.

The plan was simple, break into the tactical store, steal the armour and weaponry, then fight their way out. There was no way Cynthia could call him brainless after that. She would practically be melting in his arms once he saved her, that’s what happened in all the movies anyway.

He kicked down the Military shop door with all the heroics of a knight, and entered a shop that was unrecognizable. Nothing remained, the Scavengers had obviously beat him to it. He cursed under his breath. There had to be something remaining, anything, he scoured every trace of the store. Finally hidden under a shelf, he found it, the ultimate weapon. With the shape of the largest grenade he read it aloud, “‘Marvin’s Massive Deadliest Stink Bomb’, perfect.”

It wasn’t hard to find them, they hollered and shouted from the depths of the mall. The rest of the place was empty so anyone could hear their echos from the food court. A rip of a chainsaw and a girls screams made him run faster then he had during any game. Coach would have been so proud.

Then he approached, they had a fortress built from piles of random objects around the mall, cafeteria chairs, expensive merchandise, and even a register sat among the cornucopia of items.

“Hey!” Bradley yelled to the fifteen or so men with machetes and every sort of tactical armour. “You better let her go!”

They all turned to look, even Cynthia with relief and surprise at the highest point of the mound.

“Oh ya? Or what?” One cooed.

“Or I’ll release this bomb.”

Their frozen faces quickly shifted into laughter, even the girls eyes rolled to the ceiling.

“I’m serious if you don’t, you’re going to regret it.”

“Get rid of this kid,” the leader shooed and suddenly all the men ran in his direction.

That was when he released the clip and threw it. There was only darkness after that, but unlike being knocked by force it felt like his senses had been pulverized instead. A smell worse than all the piles of manure, dead carcasses, and fifteen thousand farts burning of rotten eggs hit them all at once. Men were writhing on the ground and no one could see through the dense brown fog that covered the air. A chorus of coughs and gasping sounded through the food court, so Bradley took his opportunity.

He would have wanted to say the rescue was more heroic, but that would have been a lie. He dove through the bodies of crying young men, “my eyes are burning,” they screamed. And Bradley stumbled through tears, but refused to give up on her. He ran up that mountain of merchandise like he were running the football to the end zone, and it was the championship final of a college game he would never play. The bodies he checked must have flown meters away with impact.

Fighting through tears and coughing fits, at the top he accidentally connected with a body dead on. It released the sounds of a sadistic young woman somersaulting through the air. He heard the sound of her body roll and thump at the bottom, and then he struggled to trace where he heard her collapse. When he finally felt the body he unfortunately grazed a boob, which would have been better if she were awake, then again it could have been a mans privates and that would have been so much worse.

Whatever happened after that was a blur, the saving her part of course. He started to wonder if this saving her thing, looked worse than it seemed, as he dragged her unconscious form up the stairs and took her into a firefighter carry. Finally he plunked her down far away from that place, panting and grateful to football for the endurance, because she must have weight a ton, well distributed of course.

And that was when she awoke, eyes puffy and swollen, voice raspy from the horrid chemicals that seared them shut, and asked, “whats going on?”

Bradly answered fearing perhaps he made everything worse and she would still hate him after all, “I saved you from those vigilantes! God knows what they were going to do to you!”

“What did you use?” She rubbed her face in pain.

“I had to release a stink bomb in the parkade, it was the only way to save you.”

Cynthia groaned, “then why do I feel like I was hit by a train?”

Bradly flushed, “oh ya they beat you up pretty bad after the bomb went off, they were psychos really.”

“Oh fuck, well thanks for getting me out of there.”

“Ya no biggie, someone had to save ya,” he shrugged nonchalantly.

“Hey well maybe you aren’t a complete useless dingbat jocky after all. I could keep you around I guess, wanna be apocalypse buddies?” She said almost without sarcasm.

“Sure, whatever, if you can keep up I guess.”

She punched him hard, “but if you don’t quit being a douche, deal’s off.”

“Ouch, fine, I promise. Oh and those bruises are from me by the way, I couldn’t see anything and might have given you the best tackle of my career.”

She sneered at him, gave another hefty punch. Then they both laughed their asses off at the ridiculousness of it all.

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