For want of a nail...

Here's a shocker: Ben's written a post-apocalyptic story again. (Gasp) Rather than just rehashing my old territory, however, I tried to at least utilize a new theme. This one is called "For Want of A Nail", and the difference is this. Not only are both the protagonists and villains responsible for the apocalypse, they're still at it. Tell me what you think. I'm a little worried because this is my first attempt at a "political" story (and really, if you need me to explain where I got the idea of a never-ending war, I've got some seaside property in Arizona to sell you), and I really hope it's not too heavy handed. Anyway, do me a favor when you've finished reading it, and follow the advice of one of our greatest philosophers of the modern age when she said "Holla back, girl."

For Want of a Nail

We're finally winning this thing, but to look out at it, you'd never know it. Yesterday, we engaged in house to house firefights, suffering heavy casualties on both sides, but I know for a fact that they got it worse. I personally took out two of the bastards for every one I saw them take out. I took three for Benny, and would have taken more if I could've. Benny was a good kid, and nowadays, those are in short supply.
It's funny. Ten years ago, this was one of the busiest cities in the world. New York City, home of the elite, the criminal and everything in between. Now, there's an encampment of us, maybe two hundred people left in all of the city, us and them. We're in Central Park, close enough to the Zoo that we can hear the animals pacing their habitats. Every now and then one of them will yowl for food, but the keepers aren't rattling their keys around the park anymore.
Aside from the zoo, there aren't many animals around either. That was one of the demoralizing tactics they used once they finally landed on American soil. They drove around like greaser kids bashing in mailboxes, with whoops and hollers and much drinking of beer, only their target wasn't a mailbox. They would take aim from a moving car and pop rounds into the family dog, or cat, or whatever pet you owned that you left outside at night. After a while, people stopped leaving their pets outside. And shortly after that, most people just stopped, and never started back up again.
The raids only happen at night. Its an unspoken rule between both sides, but it's cast-iron nonetheless. The days are spent trying to get some uninterrupted sleep now, but at the start of it all, we spent days taking shifts on corpse duty. It might seem like a waste of time to somebody out there reading this, but it's mindless work. You tell yourself that it's no different than hoisting sacks of grain onto pallets, and you don't think about things for a while. You especially don't think of the fact that there are over eight million corpses in the city, with summer due to rear its pretty little face in a few weeks.
At night, though, the treaty ends, and we work out some of our anger and our not-thinking by killing anything that isn't American. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, amen.
Tonight we've got a raid planned, a counter-attack on these bastards. Everyone is sitting around the campfire, making preparations and pretending they're not nervous. I know they're nervous, though, because I'm nervous. I saw what happened to Benny, and I know from the looks in a few eyes that I wasn't the only one to watch Benny's head disappear, as neatly as if clapped between two books, into a fine red mist.
One of our scouts came back while we were still licking our wounds from last night. He was dirty and covered with six days' worth of beard, but he said he'd found out where they were staying. They were staying in Carnegie Hall. I guess they'd been practicing.
We geared up, leaving nothing to chance, and started walking towards Carnegie as soon as it started getting dark. It's only a little under a mile from where we started, but between humping all our gear and trying to be quiet thrown into the bargain, it took us nearly an hour to get there. By then, it was full dark, and we switched on our night-vision. Immediately, the hall floated out of the darkness at us, illuminated in a ghostly whitish-green. We could see the hall clearly, could even see posters advertising long-dead people playing sold-out shows to nobody. But there was no patrol, no one guarding the entrance. Looking back now, I should have taken that as a bad sign. But I didn't.
I split the team into two squads, one to cover both entrances. Bravo team took the main entrance, while my team took the 7th avenue doors. Both teams paused at the doors, waiting expectantly for me to issue the go code. I did, and we broke in fluidly. Within seconds, we had the entranceway clear and were moving down the escalators towards the foyer two stories below. Bravo team was meeting with similar results, judging from the radio chatter in my ear.
I didn't intend to take the cushy job when I'd suggested we take the 7th avenue entrance. But the doors on 7th led to Zankel Hall, which could seat about six hundred souls in the way back when. Six hundred seats isn't exactly an intimate gathering, but I much preferred those odds to the three-thousand seat, five story monstrosity that was the main hall. Bravo team would have a hard time covering all the angles in there with just the six of them.
But we weren't in the auditoriums yet, either team. Even now, the foyer was impressive. The crumbling marble walls and chipped pillars gave it an archaeological feel in there, like we had just found the Coliseum, say, or maybe the Parthenon. Our team split up for a second, one covering the mezzanine level before regrouping. As one, we entered the auditorium.
Most of the seats had been ripped out or broken. The hall was a mess of broken wood and torn seat cushions. As soon as we entered the room, we had to take off our goggles. Someone in there was having a fire. A little bit further in, and we could see who.
They were sitting around a fire started with the seat backs and probably a few splashes of the swill they were passing around as an accelerant. One of them was standing up, gesturing with the bottle and having trouble keeping his balance. He said something in his guttural language, and wandered away from the campfire.
A hand over his mouth and a knife over his throat ensured that he wouldn't be wandering back to it anytime soon.
This was it. We'd found the central infestation and were going to eliminate these bastards once and for all. I gestured to the men to take aim, and they raised their rifles as one.
And then a burst of gunfire came chattering out of my radio, followed by someone shouting that we'd been compromised, and they stood up with their guns ready, sober as the day they were born.
The fighting went on for hours, and in the end I was the only one to make it out of there alive. I felt good, convinced that me and my men had just ended this goddamned war after so many years that most people had forgotten what peace looked like.
But the next night, there was a counterattack. There were heavy casualties on both sides, and there can't be more than a handful of us left in this whole godforsaken city. And whether it will be us or them that will emerge victorious, I can't honestly say. But I can say one thing.
We'll continue fighting, for as long as we can. We'll fight to the last man.