Base Camp at the End of the World

The pinecone is a walkie talkie, the bit of old street sign is my gun. Our foxhole is two wooden pallets we dug into the hillside, one for a wall, one for the floor.

We’re the Soldiers, guarding against Enemy invasion

“Come in, Raptor Overwatch, are you receiving me? Over,” I say, looking up into Obi’s tree.

“Raptor Overwatch. Five by five,” he says.

“Bullpucky, you’re bird watching. You know I hate when you stare at the sky.”

“It’s the Apocalypse, Astrid, the least you can do is swear like a damn grown up.”

“Don’t talk about the grown ups. You’re supposed to be watching for the Enemy.”

“I am.”

“Then tell me why your feet are pointing skywards? Or did someone rip ‘em off and sew them on backward?”

“You think they know? The birds?” When I’m quiet, he comes right out with it. “About the dying.”

“Some of ‘em must have eaten the bodies, so—” he lands from the tree with a two-footed thud, scowling. Baring his teeth at me, with the canines that cross the front ones a bit. “You’re the one who taught me crows are carrion eaters,” I say.

———

The barracks is two rows of bush-crafted log beds under a tent flysheet stretched between four trees. Room for more Soldiers than just Obi and me. The mess hall is a ring of logs around a fire pit.

We’re the Soldiers, ever resourceful.

Obi turns a pebble between his hands, sitting by last night’s cold ashes and looking at a wide puddle nearby. All at once, he gets up and presses the stone into the mud at the bottom. He finds another stone, and another. Lining the puddle, forming a bowl in the earth.

“What are you making?”

“A birdbath.”

“Why?”

“Gran had one, before… All kinds of birds used to come. She’d sit in her garden rocking chair, watching. Telling me these little facts about them. I thought it was dead boring.” He gets a funny look, like the past isn’t the past in his head anymore. “Stupid,” he adds in a whisper. And I think he means himself, not the little bird facts.

———

Our tank is the crown of a boulder near the barracks with a good view down the river and, in the other direction, back to what used to be town. My helmet is a grey beanie hat.

We’re the Soldiers, watching. In case others come to join our ranks.

“What are you staring at?”

“Nothing. I’m manning my firing position.” I catch him rolling his eyes. Pretend I haven’t. Swing the tank’s turret gun toward him. Take aim. Hold fire.

“No one’s coming,” he says.

“You don’t know that.”

“Teddy’s never coming back, Astrid. You know he got too old.” He stalks away, looking suddenly, awfully tall and broad to my eyes.

“Fire,” I say, to no one but myself.

———

Our camouflage is nothing more than the mud and moss stains of the forest. We have no uniform, but we’re still the Soldiers.

“Heads or tails?”

“Tails,” I say as the coin spins, winking silver flashes of morse code as it catches the firelight.

“Damn,” he says when it lands my way.

“I’ll take first watch. See you at zero hundred.”

“Roger that, Sergeant Astrid, Sir.” Obi’s salute turns into a palm to my forehead that shoves me backward off my log.

“Insubordination!” I waggle my boots, trying to make him laugh. “I’ll bust you down to Private. Send you to the brig.”

“We don’t have a brig.” But I hear him grinning.

———

My night vision goggles are a pair of ray bans with a chip in the green glass of the left lens. The rocks are grenades.

We’re the Soldiers. And Soldiers are not afraid of the dark.

“Raptor, this is Nightwatch,” I say into the pinecone, though I know Obi’s asleep. “They’re here.”

Every night, they come. Drifting between the trees like fallen scraps of the moon. So every night we keep watch. Keep the fire lit.

Ghosts never come into the light.

I snatch up a rock, throw it beyond the circle of firelight. Imagine the explosion. Imagine the ghosts burning. Burning up like white tissue paper.

I tell myself it’s alright to imagine it. They’re not those people anymore. Not my parents, or Obi’s parents. Not our neighbours. Or Obi's Gran. Not our teachers, or the family from the corner shop. Not any of the adults we knew.

Not Teddy.

———

Our rations are tinned beans, and granola bars. We finished the beef jerky weeks ago.

We're the Soldiers, but you can’t imagine hunger away.

I wake from a nightmare about the sky to find Obi watching a small brown bird splashing in his birdbath. I wait for it to finish before joining him.

“Sergeant Astrid, Reporting for Resupply Mission Sierra Foxtrot Niner.”

Obi explodes, more ferocious than my rock grenades.

“Astrid, stop! Just… stop, damn it! I can’t take anymore. Enough alright! Enough playing Soldiers.”

“I—”

“Don’t you get it? There’s nothing to fight!” His face is blazing, eyes glazed with helpless tears. I can almost see the weight of Time pressing down on his bowed shoulders as he tries to catch his breath.

“Obi—”

“No, Astrid. There’s no Enemy. Nothing we can kill. There’s only the Radiation, waiting…” he waves upward, but keeps his head low. “Until we’re old enough to see it. And I’m sorry. God, I’m so bloody sorry, you don’t even know. Sorry I can’t pretend, and sorry I’m older than you. That Teddy was older than both of us. And that no one else has come, and you’ll be alone to see me get—”

I fling myself at his chest, wrapping him in my limbs like he’s a tree and I’m a strangling ivy vine.

“Don’t say it.”

“No. Ok.” There’s a long stretch of deep, breathing quiet. I wonder if he’s crying but can’t make myself look, and then, “permission to return to duty, Sergeant Astrid, Sir.”

“Permission granted, Private Obi.”