The dirt is the only thing I count on anymore. It tucks under my nails, coats my skin, pushes between my lips. It’s inevitable. A constant reminder: when my life gets flickered out, it will reclaim me as its own.
The airbike hums between my legs as the sky blooms hot red; sun flirting with the horizon. Dirty wind blows through my shorn hair. Grains of sand hit my helmet and my arms. See? Always trying to be near me.
The airbike cruises across a cracked ground in silence. My bike runs on the power of the sun. The engine’s built into the steering system, so a single piece hinges the whole damn thing. It’s hard to hit, but a well-placed rock means a lightshow brighter than noon.
I’ve seen others flame out. Their bodies torched in a moment. A life here, then gone. Protein to ash. That’s how Bet died. I watched him go. Couldn’t even shout his name before he was cinders. Bet was like the sand. He was constant.
I ride toward the spot I’ve been calling home for some weeks now. Longest I’ve been in one place. There’s a natural spring underneath all the mud. It’s a gift. One I don’t want to share.
The junkyard appears out of the horizon. It’s a haunted place. Stuffed full of metal bodies that no longer run. Rust is a virus, dissolving the frames. The scent of oil hangs in the air; blood of the old world. I park my airbike and leave it in the low light. It’s biolocked. Connected only to me.
As I walk, I look up. The rising moon’s bright tonight, glaring like an extra sunray hit it. Bet told me stories about the moon. He said it controlled the tides. He spoke of water as vast as the desert. I said he was crazy. He laughed. “I’ll show you,” he whispered later, his voice soft and quiet, just for me. I’m thinking about Bet and his silly stories as I step toward camp and near fall out my boots. There’s a ghost. A mirage of dirt and wind. In the seat that once belonged to Bet, a man now sits.
He laughs. It’s grating. A loud, long laugh that punctures the twilight, dampens the moon. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but he’s not alone and their voices are loud. I duck behind a stack of stinking rubber. Force myself to breathe.
Bet was the talker, gifted with an infectious energy. Together we would go to a little town built around ruins of the old world. Former gas stations, hotels, or shops turned into havens. Bet would say something sweet and we were making deals. It was hard to stay hungry for long with Bet. He was too good at negotiating.
Then they would look at me. Scars emphasize my glare and they would recoil, shooting Bet a wary look. My ma made me so I was too ugly to be touched, that’s what she always said. It was an act of protection. She was a surgeon, so she knew right where to cut.
I carved our camp out of a circular formation among the rusted metal skeletons. The hunks proof of life long since abandoned. I sleep in a wide-mouth structure with all its doors still attached. A few of my belongings pepper the space. A semi-circle of metal frames make up the rest of the space, each big enough for one or two people to sleep in. Bet preferred those spots, so he could sleep beneath the stars.
In the middle, I made it fancy. Added a firepit and a chair. Now, I face the back of that chair and the man seated on it. With a slow hand, I unsheathe the weapon made of scraps at my back. The cloudy blade revels in the light. I wrap my scarf tight around my face, inching closer with the same calculation I’ve seen in scorpions.
“Whose chair ya think this is?” The man slaps the armrests with massive hands. He has goggles on his forehead and stands much larger than Bet. His voice deeper too.
“I dunno. Squatter, most likely.” A tall one. His arms are long, and he wears a top helmet. Scruffy hair is tucked into a scarf that wraps half his face.
“They here?” A third voice calls out, only a few years out the dirt, voice laced with the pitch of childhood. His shadowed figure searches the structure I’ve been sleeping in, picking through my stuff. My shotgun is in there.
When the fire dances, my heartbeat moves to my teeth. He’s got a patch of dark hair and an ovular face. It’s him. It’s Bet. A version of him. Not-Bet holds up Bet’s jacket. The black leather reflects the firelight.
A rustle. “There’s a bike here.” A woman’s voice. My time to examine Not-Bet is out. I lunge, snatching her long hair. My blade swings up tight against her neck. She’s fast, too. She kicks my knee. I gasp, but don’t let her spin away. I slice against leather and metal before the weapon finds flesh. She punches me. I dig the blade in deeper. It’s messy. Her blood is hot. Sand turns to mud. She chokes as she falls.
I cling to my weapon, to steady my trembling. Hard to keep my body quiet when I hear her blood dripping into the sand.
“Val?” The man in the chair stands, turns. Our gazes lock. His hooded eyes narrow. Small, dotted tattoos spiral around his eyes. Each dot closes in on a dark pupil. He’s a coyote. He wants my place for himself. That can’t happen. This is the last place Bet touched. I won’t let them burn him, too.
I don’t wait for Val to finish dying. I charge the lanky man. He laughs. A new desperation propels my swings. My blade is thirsty. A shadow flies by my face. The man changes direction. With a long arm, he grabs my scarf. A yank. I’m pulled toward him. I twist out of the fabric, exposing my scars to the moonlight.
He smiles. I pounce. Turn my weapon around. Use the heavy handle as a sledgehammer. I slam against his arms, his chest, his head. He scrambles back, scowling. I knock his helmet off. Another shadow narrowly avoids my nose. He swings, stretching toward me, but I dart back – pounding the blade’s metal handle into his skull. Once, twice, three times. A crack. He collapses. I kick him, making sure he stays down.
When I turn, I’m breathing heavy. No point in trying to stop the shaking now; a sandstorm moved into my bloodstream. The massive man’s face twists into a weathered scowl. His forehead glistens. He clutches a loaded crossbow pointed center at my chest. Fear slithers over my skin something icy, moving from the base of my hair down to my fingertips.
Everything happens within a breath.
I step forward. There’s an explosion. My vision is blocked by blood and brains. It drenches me. I don’t understand what’s happened, even as the giant drops. Behind him, Not-Bet stands with a shotgun. My shotgun. I’m staring down the barrel. He’s asking me a question, has been repeating the same word over and over.
“Bet?”
I study him: black hair, almond eyes, thin lips and sallow cheeks. He’s younger with some tattoos, but by looking at him I’m looking at my friend’s ghost. This boy has the beginning of a spiral. A few dots right below his eyes. He’s being trained to be a guide. Sniff out remaining patches of humanity and ruin them.
Before I answer his question, I retrieve my scarf from the corpse’s hand, wiping my face clean. I sheathe my blade and stretch my arms wide and empty, trying to show I’m not a threat, “Bet’s dead.”
The boy watches me with a hollow, hungry stare. His expression is fragile, but he stays motionless. Once I’m sure he won’t shoot, I lumber toward the dying fire.
My knee aches and I fall before the embers massaging it. With a free hand, I toss sand into the cracking flame until only a tail of smoke remains. I drop the filthy scarf and pull a cleaner one out of my bag, wrapping it around my head. While I move with slow intent, my mind races. I will have to leave and never return. Coyotes are known for paying their debts. And I have racked up a debt tonight.
But for now, I rest near the smoky discharge, watching the kid close as he clutches my gun. Its barrel wavers at the sky. Aims listless at the bright stars. I summon him to me with a wave. He comes over, his face ashen, gaze lost.
We sit together in a graveyard. The smell of iron hangs heavy between us. Coats me the same as sand. Not-Bet stares at the blood on his unmarred hands. Probably a remnant of their leader. I sometimes forget how much blood makes up a man.
I never did talk much, but as we rest among the dead, I recognize this boy’s sacrifice. While his tattoos match the remains around us, my heart still beats.
“His voice was smooth.” I break the silence something fragile. “Felt like riding an airbike, listening to him talk.” I was never good with my words, my ma told me that. But Bet deserves more than to be lost among the sand.
“He told me stories.” My voice feels thick as mud. “He said the stars and the moon were watching. Said they were something bigger, something more. They tracked our debts… our sacrifices… our suffering.” Next to me, the kid is watching, rapt. His eyes have a gleam. In the boy’s face, I see my friend; his ashy bones inhabiting a stranger.
“He told me about God.” The words are raw. Bet would pray before each meal, after every kill, his devotion tangible as his fingertips. “He said this world was born of suffering. Now is our chance to experience it.” His words were a salve. My ma made sure I had my fill of suffering; knew I would never forget the taste of my own blood.
“We have to suffer in the dirt, but then we are spared in the stars.” I glance next to me. Two trails of tears clean the kid’s dirty cheeks. If anything’s for sure, it’s that I will never see salvation. “Bet thought we would all be saved. That we all deserve to be saved.” My voice fractures. It’s hard to think of him. I never did believe him. But sometimes, late at night after the stars slept, I hoped he was right.
The boy nods. Bet’s memory is heavy between us. For just a moment, we carry the load together. For a few breaths, I understand Bet’s devotion. His insistence that our lives mean more than to be shitstains on this little dying planet.
Then I taste the blood in my mouth. The rusty, metallic flavour a reminder. The cactus needs its needles or else anyone would take its fruit. A lesson my ma scraped into me, punishing me for forgiveness. I reach for my blade, hand quiet as the breeze.
The boy’s lips tremble in silent prayer. His profile is identical to Bet’s. My heart thumps something painful. But the dots under his eyes are proof of the coming chase. He won’t rest now that I slaughtered his pack. I only have the one airbike. I don’t have enough food for me most these days. My body is weary.
I lick my dry lips. Smoke slips into the starry sky. Bet is not here. He is gone. A man turned to sand. My hand tightens around the weapon.
“How?” The boy’s quiet voice cracks through my focus, his eyes closed.
I’m back to that day. The sunshine stings. Two airbikes ride parallel through an endless desert. Dirt billows in a cloud around us. I pull ahead, coating Bet in dust, laughing. A pebble kicked up by my bike. An explosion I feel behind my teeth. His scream strangles me.
“A rock hit his bike's trigger point. It was instant.” My voice is low. Can he hear my guilt?
Bet’s phantom nods, his eyes still shut. My ma taught me survival. Said the only thing I can trust to keep my secrets is the sand. And tonight, dust dirties my fingernails. There is a trail of blood, and I don’t need someone already on my tracks.
But I hesitate.
Bet dreamed. He told me about a future of abundance: plates piled high, enough water for a lifetime, a place to call home, permanently. He gave me hope in a starving world. I wonder if he carried my mistakes. He took on everything else. The only thing left for me was our arrogance.
“I remember his hands,” the boy’s voice splits the night. He holds up his palm to me. I release the weapon and hold his hand in mine. It’s filthy and flecked with blood, but the flesh is soft. He studies our clasped hands. “They were like mine, but bigger.”
I tilt my head back, exposing my neck to look up. Scattered across the sky, the stars remind me of sand. But I can’t rely on them, not like the dirt. The stars didn’t spare Bet.
As I clutch the hand of this boy, I wonder if I am wrong. I’ve been clawing my way out of graveyards since I’ve had nails. But maybe the sand does more than collect bones. It is steadfast. In the silence, I make a vow.
“We leave tonight.” My body moves before my mind. I gather jugs of water from the little wellspring and pack my few belongings into a worn knapsack. I pick through the dead’s things, grabbing the top helmet and some extra food. I leave their bodies otherwise untouched, an offering, a trailhead to the next pack of coyotes thirsting for a fight.
Not-Bet watches me. I put the top-helmet on his head and scrub dirt over his hands to clean off the blood. This was the last home I shared with Bet; I feel cavernous.
“Come.” I hold out my hand. The kid takes it, his eyes not leaving my face. Fear squeezes me tight. It’s near too much to take on another person, but I can’t leave without Bet’s shadow. The coyotes would slaughter him. Not even my shotgun would save him.
Before we leave, I pull Bet’s jacket from my bag. It’s the only thing of his left. I tuck it around the boy like a blanket, feeding his arms through the oversized sleeves. If there’s a chance Bet is right, if there is more to this existence than dirt and we are reunited, I hope he is satisfied.
I walk over to my airbike and start the machine, placing the boy in front of me. By the time the sun rises, my former oasis is nothing more than a smudge on the horizon, a memory coated in sand, teeming with ghosts.
Ashley Clemens lives in Minnesota and works as a lifestyle TV producer. This is her first published piece of work since Syracuse University’s student literary arts magazine, Perception. Ashley likes to collect hobbies. Right now, you can find her reading, writing and making her sourdough just a little over proofed.