aborted fiction blog

ABORTED FICTION BLOG
Yes, already.  I'll blather more on this another day.  For now, the two days I had already written.  Rated R, profanity worse than usual.  My usual article posted the usual time.
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FICTION BLOG


DAY ONE

THE OFF RAMP

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It was Joe and Ralph’s day at the off-ramp. They didn’t really mind, even if most considered it shit duty. There was the roving patrols on horseback. Those weren’t too bad since you had mixed gender patrols, it being thought that with no heavy pack to wear females wouldn’t be hindered with their lesser upper body strength. Plus, being of lesser weight themselves they could ride back faster with any alarm. The radios that had been hoarded turned out to be useless within months. Their solar rechargeable batteries were fought over endlessly for everyone’s personal use, so the few that were begrudgingly loaned out were overused and mistreated. A typical tragedy of the commons thing. So the one’s left got overused on official business and soon were worthless. So it was back to hoofing it for messages. There wasn’t enough copper wire for messages, either, being one of the first casualties of the economic collapse. China was buying copper until the ships stopped sailing. And the thing about mixed gender patrols was that eventually, if you were partnered up enough, nature took its course and you had yourself a spouse.

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But Joe and Ralph weren’t the marrying kind. They had the official Pleasure Brigade for their physical needs. And the thought of curtain climbers, rug turds, little people or chillins wasn’t too exciting to them. Far better to stay away from ambitious females, partnering up at the off-ramp duty. The thing about the off-ramp was, you had to snipe people. And it was felt that the natural female nurturing inclination would interfere with the need to kill a husband or father. Who would take care of the helpless mother or children? Men, in general, being the unfeeling pigs that they were, could be trained, or in some instances came about naturally, the ability to shut off that little nagging voice not to put some lead into the bastards oh so deserving head. Oh, there were plenty of men who couldn’t bring themselves to kill anyone. If it wasn’t in self defense they wouldn’t open fire. Joe and Ralph had no such hang-ups. They in fact loved to shoot anyone. Joe had several notches started in his rifle stock, and Ralph was madder than a cornered badger that he had yet to do more than injure a trespasser. You only got credit for a kill if the fool died right then and there. If he hung around for a few hours all hooting and hollering in pain, it tended to get on ones nerves. If the relief team showed up when that was going on they really got pissed. You couldn’t waste a bullet shutting them up, and you couldn’t desert your post by going down to cut their throat or bayonet them. Hell, when you shot them the first time you had to justify using a round of ammunition. So, while it was fun to shoot people, it did involve paperwork ( God forbid that was ever in short supply ) and if you screwed up it could be either nerve wracking or worse get you heckled by your squaddies.

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It had been quite awhile since that duty post had seen any action. The immediate aftermath of the war, in which the US had invaded the Saudi oil fields after the new King had started seriously courting the Chinese, causing the Chinese to lob a few dozen EMP and computer net bombs, who were in retaliation attacked by south Pacific based nuke packing subs, causing the Chinese to fire dirty ground burst at a lot of US cities ( largely unopposed due to our electrical/computer outages ), saw millions of civilians burst from the urban areas and descend like locusts into the countryside. The off-ramp sniping team, being inexperienced and unbloodied, performed well enough to stem the tide but as might be expected was less than proficient by today’s standards. They hadn’t even been the first response by the town. They had started off with junked cars and roadblocks. Which predictably led to a lot of casualties on the side of the town. And a lot of wasted ammunition. Eventually some bright boy on the council had decided on junked cars to slow approach combined with a sniper team. Which of course was what had been recommended by the non-police members ( or even the ex-military members- tradition of mass firepower dies hard ) all along but they weren’t listened to until it was almost too late. After a suitable weakening from death and ammunition usage.

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But tonight there was a bit of promising activity. Joe spotted movement through his binoculars. He readily agreed that Ralph should take the shot. If only to keep his sanity, what with the never ending twelve hours at a stretch bitching and complaining when he got razed once again for the last sloppy kill. The guy hadn’t bled out for three hours and raised such a fuss they incoming team had heard it long before their shift started. So, by some mysterious process of strange logic, it had somehow become Joe’s fault. Because Joe had tired him out by insisting Ralph stay on the lookout for several hours and was unable to steady his aim. Or, it could just be Ralph was a crappy shot. Good enough to get the post, bad compared to everyone else. So Joe tried to make it easy for him. The shift was still young, they had a full belly. Ralph should be nice and fresh and able to take a clean shot. Which of Mother Fucking course he fucked all up. Winged the guy, his bitch started screaming and grabbed the poodle shooter and started firing into the dark, and before Joe could say a damn thing Ralph cycles his bolt and shoots at the stupid fem. And doesn’t get a clean kill AGAIN. Stupid worthless fucking twat.

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And, unbelievable, Ralph gets defensive again. They moved at the last second, his fingers were cold, whatever. Joe tunes out his bullshit. Until Ralph decides he ain’t going to take any more ribbing from the guys. He is going to go down there and finish both of the fuckers off. Which is totally against regulations. It puts the team in danger, and there is always the likelihood of unfair loot hoarding. Joe can’t believe his fucking ears. As Ralph clamors out of the dugout and starts running down the hill. Crap on a cross, this sucks. Joe can’t believe this shit. Why does he need this aggravation? He is pondering what to do, whether he should report his inconsiderate partner, when Ralph gets to the bodies, still twitching and screaming. He stabs both repeatedly. At least the noise is over with. But, what the fuck? What is the stupid shit doing now? Joe can’t believe his fucking eyes! Ralph is yanking down the female corpses pants, and his own. Is that sick fuck going to bang a dead chick? Holy shit!

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Well, at least that makes it a bit easier. Joe just shoots Ralph- and with a clean kill, more than the pervert deserves. Hardly any paperwork on this one. Clearly his partner acted against clear standard orders. The pants around his ankles would add to the charges. Joe rooted around Ralph’s ruck and took out his remaining food and started eating.

END

DAY TWO


TATERS

The potato farm was doing quite well. The Tater King, so called by his disrespectful and juvenile humor inclined men, was not doing nearly as well. In short, he was mother fucking sick and tired of eating potatoes. When there was cooking oil, breakfast was hash browns. When there wasn’t it was potato pancakes, boiled potatoes or roasted potatoes. In fact, all three meals were some goddamn variation of that theme. Sure, when there was a shortage of meat you made a gravy and had mashed potatoes. When there was a lot of meat you could eat your fill of protein, but to really fill up you needed to add some fucking potatoes. Plentiful meat being a relative measurement. When they could find enough barter goods they could trade for some cheese or butter. That varied the menu. And once or twice they’d liberated a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Now that was some variety. You seared the taste buds and they didn’t understand right away that the were facing potatoes again. He imagined that if they had some regular woman-folk to cook for them they could actually see a regular menu, or at least an improvement, but these fucking potato eating sons of fucking whores didn’t want to do anything but cook bachelor style, drink vodka, use up their female slaves until they were useless, and then go out and find some more. Crap, didn’t the Vikings settle down and have little Scandinavian babies to perpetuate the raiding and pillaging line? Get married? Obviously there were enough blond haired Russians around to lay claim to the lads getting a little strange on the side while away from the haus frau ( or was it hut frau? ). They could have the best of both worlds, someone to cook and clean for them, someone to keep them warm at night in the winter ( there was no overnight heat, and precious little in the day ), and while away on raids they got to get a little strange.

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The King really had no idea why he took this thankless job. The men were goddamn pigs. They didn’t listen for shit. Even something as simple as a rotating cooking and cleaning schedule was hotly contested and argued about. And that was with everybody doing equal shares, even including the King. What was to argue about? But of course these anal lickers could fuck up a wet dream, waking up and jerking off. One guy would bet another in a game of cards for his share of kitchen duties, lose the bet, conveniently forget at the appointed time, the shift supervisor would hold the original appointee responsible, all three would end up in a physical altercation. The meal was late, often having some blood or even once a part of a tooth in it, the guys would sulk and/or be laid up, guard duty later would be short people, etc. What the fuck good was being king if nobody listened to you? Sure, he got an extra share of the loot. And first dibs on the babes. But was it really worth the hassle? Hell, the last time he thought he was getting some prime stuff but once the bitches got undressed it was all skin and bones with obvious fake boobs sticking out obscenely. It looked like bulimic zombies fresh from the plastic surgeons. Gross!

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Nasty bitches, potatoes and nothing but potatoes to eat, and an alarmingly dwindling supply of fresh parts for the Hogs. He knew from the beginning that they couldn’t keep riding forever. The potatoes were the best crop for go-juice, especially considering their location ( not like they could grow sugar cane ). It fed them, fed the slaves and fed the machines. And kept them drunk. It had been a bitch getting everything converted over to ethanol. Something about the synthetic rubber corroding. He thought. Not positive, that was the mechanics job. His was organizing this drunken mob into some kind of pirate group resembling a military force. In a way, it did his heart good. Secretly, despite his lifelong profession of parasitism, he had always secretly longed to live in an anarchistic society. And this was as close as it got realistically. The group of individuals only grudgingly ceding any control to a nominal, temporary power. He would have been a Captain, had they been on a ship, but they were far from the sea and some asshole had dubbed him Potato King even before the first crop came up. The name had stuck. And despite his bitching about control, and the appearance of military structure, he was merely head of a motley pirate crew of anarchist Vikings. Oh, the beautiful mix of anachronistic legends. Perhaps that was why he stayed at the job despite the headaches. It was a great way to live. Far better than the old world of corporate ass kissing, unreturned loyalty, untamed wives that castrated you, cheated on you at a whim, left you and raped your wallet for a third of your life. He supposed there was a hint of revenge in it all. Enslave the old lawyers, politicians, corporate bosses. Bed the women, mostly soft and worthless former soccer mom Yuppie bitches.

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He knew it was unsustainable. The bikes would run out of parts, even with the computer running on solar panels and controlling the machining tools. When that broke, or crashed with a Blue Screen, what then? Tires were even worse. The beat to shit, mortared and tank track damaged roads chewed up the tires. They had started out with twenty one bikes, bartered for every part they could, trading scarce silver, less than scarce bitches, even some rimfire ammo ( never the bigger stuff, of course ). It was a losing battle, with only eleven bikes on the road. In only two years. They had to double up, dismount the extra riders for the much weaker anvil now on foot. Before they could come in several directions. Now, especially given the enemy time to fortify, it was a lot harder to attack in force. They were running out of soft targets. The bitches were getting scarce, fought over even. They were kept longer, long after the fight had gone out of them. Long after they started to die from mistreatment. The fucking potato fields weren’t getting enough labor. He knew, deep in his heart, they were just buying time, living off the surplus. He had no idea the surplus would be used up so damn fast. Well, despite it all, this was far from over, and far more exciting than it ever was writing traffic tickets in the Sheriffs Office.

END