For A Promise

He awoke as the temperature around him began to warm. Dawn had just passed and it was time to start moving. It would be another long day trying to move quickly. His wounds would make it hard to stay vigilant and avoid the dangers of the road ahead. As he sat up, he pulled the necklace up over his head and placed it delicately in his hand.

Kraeger’s ran his rough fingers across the smooth gold in his hand. It seemed so small in his coarse hands. He could barely remember when his hands were as smooth, not covered in dirt and calluses. His hands seemed to stumble as he rolled the heart in his hand and remembered his early life.

How comfortable and easy everything seemed then. A house, a family, and a job were easy to maintain. The only time his hands got dirty was when he chose to work in the garden, or go camping.

The thought of how he used to see camping as “roughing it” made Kraeger chuckle. Tents of thin material and flimsy poles carried from a car to the campsite seemed like a life of luxury compared to the depravity and squalor that were a part of his everyday life. To live, it was no longer possible to merely go through the motions. Life had certainly slapped him across the face and forced him to face his own weakness and failings.

The locket in his hand was just another reminder of his failings as a father and a protector. How could he think of himself as either after what had happened to his daughter? He had sworn to Elise that their daughter would be safe. Yet here he was, following after those who had stolen her from his home.

He had stood in the way and they had knocked him down as if he didn’t matter. Even when he had fallen, they didn’t stop their violence. They continued to kick him, seeming to take extra sadistic pleasure in bringing their boots and gun butts in contact with his head. Their laughter and swearing being the last sounds he would ever hear.

When he woke up, the world was silent. At first it seemed as if everything was merely holding its breath, but instead there was nothing. No insects, not birds calling, not even the sound of wind moving through the trees. Now this oppressive silence was a constant reminder of his failings. Another sign of weakness in a changed world that extinguishes the maimed and frail.

Now, deprived of sound and its comforts, Kraeger was feebly attempting to not fail in his last promise to his wife. He would protect his daughter. If his life was the price that would be required, so be it. He would not be a failure in this, the only thing that he had left.

Kraeger slipped the golden heart back around his neck and began to stretch out his legs. The night had been cold and the ground uncomfortable. Five years had still not dulled the discomfort of a lifetime of comfort and ease. He felt older than his years. Worn and ragged, like the bottom of a pair of old jeans, he had been dragged across life. His luck seemed to catch him on every sharp point sticking out of the proverbial road of life.

As he stood, he looked around himself to take stock of the small cove of trees, looking for signs of movement or night visitors to his most recent, temporary camp. This would take getting used to instead of relying on his ears as well. The birds in the trees let him know that there were no immediate concerns. As long as he moved slowly out of the trees, they wouldn’t give away his position either.

He needed a dog. In this difficult and harsh world, being limited in sense could become a liability to himself and any community that would take him in. His multiple degrees and education would not be enough to get others to accept his liability.

Those things didn’t matter anymore. Survival was all that mattered now that the world was different. People no longer had the rule of law or civilization to maintain the safety of the masses. People did horrendous things to survive. He had been lucky. He knew that many had made choices in their attempts to survive that would go against their very nature. He had not. But now, it wasn’t about his survival or even his soul, it was about his daughter.

The cold metal of her necklace around his neck reminded him to get moving. She was somewhere north. He would follow the destruction and the hollow gazes of the small communities that he passed. Their broken spirits and lost stares, tracks of the marauders that had moved through the valley.

He shouldered his pack and began to move. His walk turned into a slow trot along what was once a highway. Broken down cars, many starting to rust along the shoulders, marking the edges of the path forward. At least the mile makers would help him keep a better count of the distance he would travel.

The moon may have cracked, the world may have fallen into chaos and disorder, but Kraeger would keep his promise. It was all that he had left. He was broken, beaten, bruised, and tired, but not defeated. Not yet. He laughed sadly to himself as he thought of what his wife would think of him now. He used to hate running. He used to hate any kind of exercise. Now he had the muscles and healthy physique of a retired athlete.

The gold heart thumped against his chest, keeping time with his stride as the miles slowly passed by. It is crazy what the world falling apart can make you become. All for the love of a daughter.