Deadly purpose cloaked Jacob Eugene
O'Carol.
Scaly Jake, as he was professionally
known, was no stranger to having his back against the wall. He was a
survivor of the last stand at Matamorosa, and seemingly a thousand
other battles in the last great war. Death itself was an old friend
of Jake's. When came for him this time, he would look it in the eye
and say, “Long time, no see.” But he would say that while holding
his old service flamethrower and fighting for the life he had made
for himself.
Jake's service station was known to
those who traveled the waste as the best garage in the north, and
Jake's wife served up some damn good pie.
The old flamethrower that Jake had
carried through Hell and back was in a neglected corner of his shop,
near an even older refrigerator that held a six pack of cheap beer.
Both the brews and the weapon had seemingly been waiting for a day
like this and Jake had touched neither since he came home from the
war. He needed both of them now.
He and his wife had been walking
through their cold morning ritual, eating breakfast and watching the
morning news to combat the pregnant silence. They were lizard people,
and made lifemates through culture and biology, but any love that
they had once felt for each other had faded through the years. What
the news anchor had to say that morning made both of them stop in the
middle of the motions that replaced their intimacy, and begin to
tremble.
“...a massive creature has virtually
destroyed Kurgisburg and is making its way south.”
A projected path of the creature
displayed on a map put Scaly Jake's Filling Station and Garage
squarely in its path. Shaky, grainy, video showed a massive shape
making its way across the wastes. It was impossibly large and death
strode with it.
An hour later, he and his wife had just
finished packing their old station wagon. Their work completed, the
pair stood facing each other, neither one moving.
“Get in the car, Jake.”
Jake paused, “No, I don't think I
will.”
“What do you mean, Jake? We've got to
get out of here!”
“No, we don't. You do. I'm gonna
stay.”
His wife's jaw hung open.
“Woman, we've been here twenty years,
and you've been hating it for at least fifteen. You don't love this
life, but I do. I love this service station, I love my work. Hell, I
even love those damn dirty dwarves who come through once a year. And
working on that fancy car them boys brought in last week, well, I'd
rather be dead in the desert than stand by and let some random
leviathan step all over my dreams. I'll stay, and I'll fight, and I
might die. Most likely I will. But I'm glad to die for that which I
love, even if it's only a run-down gas station in the middle of
nowhere that ain't worth a damn.”
Tears were in his wife's eyes. They
began to stream down her cheeks as she spoke.
“There you are. Here's the lizard I
love. You've found your fire. I'm so happy I could see you again
before I die.”
“Betsy?”
“I'm staying, Jake. I'm staying.”
They made love then and there. On the
hood of the station wagon, on the cement floor, and in the dust out
front by the full service pumps.
When their passions were finally spent,
Jake unpacked the flamethrower, minigun, and grenade launcher and
stacked them neatly against the station wagon. When the shadow of the
colossus finally darkened his property, he met the beast on the land
that he loved, with the woman that he loved.
