Hardin’s War
By A.S. Morrison
Copyright 2013 A.S. Morrison
I
I remember the day it started, the day that everything changed. Dark clouds formed in the sky once again. I wondered how long it would be before it started raining, probably an hour, maybe two at the most. The barren landscape was already damp from morning rain. The ground was muddy; we stepped carefully, not wanting to make a sound. I looked back at the man behind me. He was busy concentrating on his footing, the same thing I should have been doing. He looked much older than thirty. The signs of age were clearly seen on his worn face. I wondered if that’s what I would look like in nine years. Most likely, everybody in Humurom looked older than they really were. It was the stress that caused it; the stress of an endless war with no end and no beginning.
I could see the church in the distance, or what was left of it. The walls had giant holes in them and the ceiling was almost completely gone. It stood out as the last remaining building in sight to not completely fall. It was also our evening hideout. Every day on our way home we would stop there and wait for the sun to go down before making our final walk home.
We were hunters. Assigned by our leaders in Humurom to do the most dangerous job there was. The Hunting Grounds were a mile away from our home, and were dangerously close to the enemy’s zone. Anybody who got stuck with that job knew that there was a good chance they wouldn’t be coming home at night. But I managed, with the help of Milton. We were partners. I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
We made it to the church without being seen and dropped the large silver cases we had been carrying to the ground and sat on a large piece of fallen roof. Nothing remained inside from when the church was in use. I wondered what it must have looked like then. When people came and went on Sundays, chatting away without knowing true fear. It must have been nice. A strange feeling came over me. I waited to see if I could place it, and then when I did I became very aware of my surroundings.
“I have a feeling we’re being watched.”
“We’re always being watched, Hardin.” Milton said quietly.
“No, we’re always being followed. Watched means there’s someone nearby.”
“Geez, I wish you would stop saying things like that; you’re always making me paranoid.”
“Shouldn’t we be? If they catch us—”
“I know what they will do.”
“They” were the Cityers, a group of people that also lived in our torn-apart world. We Humurom’s were taught from an early age that the Cityers started the war that ended up destroying everything we ever knew. Because of this we lived in a bunker. That was a long time ago. This was year one forty-seven, one hundred and forty seven years since the war started. The Cityers lived in secret, we rarely saw them. Some of our hunters had been killed over the last twenty years or so and we know it was them.
“They may not do anything, actually.” I said optimistically
“What makes you say that?”
“I have a feeling.”
“Don’t go telling me about your feelings.” Milton said, setting himself higher on a large piece of concrete.
“I have a feeling that they aren’t any different than us.”
“I doubt that.”
“Have you seen one of their cities?”
“Of course not.”
The piece of roof was very uncomfortable. We readjusted ourselves many times. I looked around constantly, always expecting somebody to jump out. I had only become a hunter the month before. Milton was assigned to train me. I could tell that he found my anxiety annoying.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way, Mil. I wish we could go off and find a place, just like in that story about the mice and the men.”
“That’s enough of you reading, it always gives you stupid ideas. Besides, don’t you remember how that book ends?”
“It may end differently for us.”
“Yeah, worse.”
“We could bring our families, maybe a few extra.”
“That’s enough of that . . . can you imagine all those people moving? It’d be a migration; we’d get blown away just like all the others.”
“I’m tired of this, the Cityers always about, attacking, they want us all gone.” I almost yelled. Milton shot me a stern look and I shut up.
“Of course they do, that’s what each side wants in a war.”
“It’s never been a war; in a war each side has a chance.”
“Yeah, we’ve barely had a chance, but they’ve always hated us.”
“But we’ve also always hated them,” I pointed out, “we learned from birth to hate them.”
The sun began to set. I could see it through the giant holes in the walls. That building was not really the best place to call a hideout, but we were used to it. I wondered what the other hunters were doing at that time. Some were sent on gathering missions, others to merely go somewhere. Everybody in Humurom over sixteen had to have a job, but there was not much to do, so some had jobs that cannot be considered work. The small library had people who sit and read since there is nothing else for them to do. Even though that’s safer I don’t envy them. If there’s anything I fear more than being outside its boredom.
“Wait till they see what we have, two cases of food, I bet there’s meat.” I exclaimed.
“Just don’t tell anybody where we found it, if anybody finds out we were in their zone again, you know what would happen.” Milton warned.
“But that’s where all the food is, I don’t get why we’re not allowed there, nobody needs to know we attacked them.”
“They don’t want us there because the Cityers are always patrolling. We’ll tell them that they left it in our Hunting Grounds, that way nobody gets in trouble and everybody gets some meat.”
“Not everybody, there’s not enough for everybody. Hey Mil, we should cook a little up right now, just to make sure we get some.”
“A fire would be seen for miles, it’s almost dark, and we need to be getting back.” Milton said patiently.
I decided to change the subject. “Do you remember how you attacked that guard?”
“Of course I do, it just happened.”
“That was great with the trap, and then knocking him out, by the time he gets up we’ll be back home. That was great!”
“Shush! You get excited too easily.”
Milton threw his club into the air and caught it. It’s the only weapon we had, but we didn’t complain.
“It’s hard not to with all this food, they should let us work the files for this, send someone else out to hunt from now on.”
“They only let really smart people work the files, you know that. They wouldn’t let just anybody deal with our history.”
“But I’m so tired of hunting – every day we chance getting blown up.”
“And you’d rather be stuck underground for weeks working the files?”
“It’s safer.”
The sun disappeared below the horizon. There were only a few minutes of light left.
“It’s almost dinner time.” I whispered.
“And we’re still here.”
“Why are we still here?”
“You know why.”
“Because there is large unexposed land between here and our entrance to home.” I mimicked.
“We need to get going soon, they’ll be expecting some kind of meat from us.” He lifted up the case. “Thankfully we got it.”
“We don’t need to eat meat, Mama hasn’t in years.” I said.
“That’s because she always s gives her portions to you. She’s got an interest in making sure you’re fed, that you’re alive.”
“And you
don’t?”
“My interests are in keeping myself alive, meaning I have to keep you out of trouble.”
“I don’t get into trouble.” I said, offended that he should think that.
“That’s because I keep you out of it. Don’t you remember that time I stopped you from running out in the open just because you thought you heard your mother? I mean, what would she be doing out here? Geez, how did I get stuck with you as a partner? I could have gotten someone stronger, or someone smarter. And then we might be bringing back five cases.”
Milton got up to leave, but sat back down when he saw I didn’t move.
“How did the war start, Mil?”
He sighed; I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. But he wanted to get me going so he talked. “I don’t know. Everyone who was there is dead, and everyone here doesn’t care.”
“Maybe that’s our problem.”
“What?”
“If we can’t remember our past, then we can’t create a future.”
“Where did you get that?”
“A book.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stop reading?”
“You just did tell me.” I said.
“Well stop thinking about things you read. What are you always reading anyway?”
“Anything and everything, the library has all the books you would ever want to read; books on science, philosophy, fiction, and everything else.”
“If one of the leaders heard you they wouldn’t be happy.”
“That’s why I said it to you.”
“We should get going.” Milton said.
“How do you think it started?”
“Why do you want to talk about the war when we are right in the middle of it?” He stood up. “Just wait until we get back.”
“I want to know, besides, they won’t let us talk about it there.”
“Alright, if it will shut you up. I’ve always imagined that the Cityers were running out of food, and we had it, so they attacked, and the rest is what you see here.”
“It’s dark, I can’t see anything.”
“I meant that figuratively.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So you think it all started over food?” I asked.
“No doubt, what else is there to fight about? Why do you think they patrol their zone? They don’t want us taking theirs.” He looked around quickly to make sure everything was alright. “And anyway, you know how crazy people get when they’re hungry.”
“I always imagined it had to do with more complicated but less vital things that we have forgotten about over the years.”
“You have too much time to think, it’s unhealthy.”
“What do you think is going to happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“In the future.”
He sighed. “We don’t need to be thinking about the future.”
“We could, just this once.”
“Alright just this once.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” I looked up through the hole in the roof and flinched, as if remembering a particularly vivid nightmare.
“How should I know?” He said.
“But what do you think?”
“I think . . . I think things are going to get better.”
“The war might end?”
“The war will end, and we will win. But for now we have to get home and show everybody this food. Because of this the night will be ours. Everyone will want to get our attention just so they can get a piece before everyone else. They’ll want to do things for us, and we’ll be treated like kings just for the night.”
“And then what?” I was feeling better already.
“And then we’ll go to sleep and wake up early tomorrow to begin a day no different than this one. And we’ll hope that it will be as productive as this one, and as lucky.”
“So nothing is going to change?” I asked, disappointed.
“Not tomorrow, but maybe the next day, or maybe the day after that, for now just live in the present, we are happy, safe, and about to eat and nothing can change that.”
We left the church and began the trek across the rubble field toward home. Single walls and dead trees could be distinguished in the near darkness. There were no noises save for our footsteps. That didn’t keep my brain from creating sounds that my mind translated into evil creatures.
“Mil?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever think of things from their point of view?”
“What?”
“Do you ever see things the way they would?”
“No, why should I?”
“They are no different than us. You have to look deep to see that they probably live in ruined cities that we destroyed. We will always be enemies because nobody can see that. But if you really got in their heads do you know how you would see the world?” I asked.
“No.”
“Exactly as you and I see it. They are us, we are them, but nobody cares. In the end we all will probably kill each other off, force us to hide again and again. It’s the greatest game of two beached whales trying to fight till the end, it doesn’t matter who wins they won’t have any time to enjoy it.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if we fight.” He deduced.
“That’s what the leaders say. You don’t have to follow their lead, you can think differently if you want.”
“They don’t like that.”
“That’s why we are talking out here. The only way to end this war is to join them, the ones that are like us, the ones that can see past everything around us.”
“Geez, if you were going to go off like that why did you ask me all those things?”
“I wanted to know what you thought.”
“I’ve never seen you like this, man, it’s crazy, but why now?”
“I didn’t want to tell you yet, but I’m leaving.”
I wished I could have seen his reaction, but it was too dark.
“Where are you going to go?”
“I haven’t decided yet, but I know that when I get captured the right words may help us all out tremendously.”
“So that’s it, you’re just going to leave? It’ll be dangerous.”
“I know, but somebody has to do something. If we keep living the way we are now then nothing will ever get done. I may be able to change things for the better, remind the Cityers that we are all the same and have the same values and fears.”
“And what of your mother?”
“I will tell her tonight or maybe tomorrow. I know she will want me to do this if I know that I can help.”
“True.”
“I will leave first thing in the morning when we go to hunt. You have to tell the leaders that I was captured; it’s the only way they won’t come looking for me.”
“You really are a different person when the sun goes down, aren’t you? I’m going to miss you, man.”
“Don’t go doing that, I’ll be back before you know it.”
We made it back to the cliff right as the last light disappeared. We felt around for the metal ladder and climbed up. At the top we knocked twice on a large metal door that blended in to the side of the cliff. It opened and we entered.