Wizard of the Wasteland: a post-apocalyptic adventure by Jon Cronshaw

Author:Jon Cronshaw [Cronshaw, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: No World Press
Published: 2017-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

12. Apples

Abel squints against the setting sun, his teeth grinding. Air whistles through his nostrils, knuckles white as he grips the reins. Dark clouds edged by purples and reds drift in swirls above as the mule plods west. Pip chases something along a line of nettle bushes clustered in a tangle to the left of the road.

A loud bang comes from inside the cart. Abel looks behind him and pulls on the reins, bringing the mule to a stop. Holding his breath, he steps down from the seat and hops to the ground, stumbling as his right foot lands awkwardly on a stone.

“There’s a place we can set up for the night, not too far from here,” the wizard says, leaning from the back of the cart.

“Yep,” Abel says, abruptly. “Anything else?” But the wizard has already slipped back into the cart.

Shaking his head, Abel pulls himself back into the seat and takes up the reins. The mule grunts and moves forward.

Tiny swarming insects clutter the air when Abel signals for the mule to take a left off the highway. He flaps frantically with his left arm as he pushes bugs from his mouth and blows them out of his nostrils. The pungent stench of fermenting apples leaves a sickly taste in the back of his throat. The wheels slip and slide beneath the cart as it struggles to gain traction along the carpet of decomposing fruit.

Fewer insects harass them when they reach a clearing. He brings the cart to a halt. “I’ll get a fire on,” Abel says. “Hopefully, we’ll smoke away some of these damn bugs.” He looks around at the fruit and sighs. “The apples are down early this year,” he mutters.

He skirts around the edge of the clearing, searching the dried grasses for anything useful as he gathers fallen branches. He turns to see the wizard glaring back at him. Taking the branches over to the centre of the clearing, he drops them between a pair of tree trunks, arranging the trunks in a V-shape and placing the smaller branches at the base.

Getting to his feet, he wanders over to the cart and climbs up to retrieve his backpack from next to the seat.

“What you doing, man?” the wizard asks. “Get down from there.”

“Just getting my pack,” Abel says through gritted teeth.

“Yeah? Well, ask next time.”

Abel drops his backpack to the ground and squares up to the wizard. “What’s the problem?”

“You’re the problem.” The wizard makes a sidestep and walks towards the mule.

Abel lets out a long sigh, shakes his head, and reaches into his backpack, tearing out a page from the ancient newspaper and ripping it into strips before laying them out beneath the logs.

After a few minutes, the flames take hold. A line of white smoke drifts up towards the emerging stars.

The wizard barges past him and places an open tin of beans within the flames. “These are mine,” he says. “You can sort your own.”

Wordlessly, Abel gets up and moves away. He calls

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