Lake of Fire

a post apocalyptic view of life and religion.

I wish I were older back when the end of the world happened, and that’s the tragedy of it. To pass the time people used to ask me what decade I wish I lived in, and that was always my answer.

I want to be back in the decade I did live in. I just wish I were older. And it’s not like people only live until they’re ten.

People nowadays don’t live as long as they used to though. It was predicted that we’d all die off ten years from when all the s**t went down. It’s been fifteen so far, but there aren’t many of us left. There are people with extra limbs, and it’s gotten past the point of surprise by now.

I met a man with a tumor growing out of the side of his head just last Tuesday. I asked him if it hurt and he said yeah, a little, but it didn’t matter. He was going to be able to file for some of that government money.

I wondered what use he could get from money at a time like this, but I don’t ask him.

I think what one of the nuclear scientists for the government who survived the end of the world said was that no one would be able to produce any longer after the fallout- the human population would end within a few years of the initial bombings. Most of those nuclear scientists just let themselves be taken in the fallout. If I had known what was going on, I would have too. We’re the last generation of people to ever inhabit this planet, and those who are part of it are proud of that fact, flaunting the fact that their genes were superior to those who had died in the blast, or even those that died soon afterwards. The fact that they basically eat cancer for breakfast doesn’t occur to them as disturbing in the least. If it did, they would have killed themselves years ago.

I was four when the blast happened, so there was not much I could do in the way of surviving. My father was a construction worker and had hid me in the vents of some rich guy’s house that was still under construction. Who knows where the hell that guy is now or what his fortune is doing for him. I think I was the only one to crawl out of that mess within a ten-mile radius of that house. A passing SUV caught sight of me, and some army men picked me up. My name is Mouse.

The tumor guy, his name is June. When he introduces himself, he says, Hello, I’m June Happy Birthday. That’s his full name. He says when the army found him, the only thing he said was that it was his birthday, which was in June, and that’s how he got his name. Other than that, June Happy Birthday is not much of a fun guy. We go to the Lake sometimes to smoke cigars hoping that we can get killed off faster. This lake is infamous for redneck activity and Molotov cocktails setting it ablaze. We call it the Lake of Fire. It’s more of a cesspool really.

It was just a normal day, with the sky red as always. June Happy Birthday and I went to the Lake of Fire. There were those goddamn rednecks with their pickup truck, and their laughs where they snort and sound like idiots. I take a sip from the army-grade draught listen to June Happy Birthday drone on about how these rednecks “have no respect” and how this draught tastes and smells like piss, just like PBR used to. He seems to find solace in the fact. I am only half-listening to his words.

I notice that the rednecks take notice of us and talk in their group, looking over at us as one of them says something. It is more than obvious that they’re talking about us. I take another sip of my army grade PBR impersonator and turn my eyes away from them, staring instead at a house near the lake. It had been a house, once, and for a blast survivor, it had held up pretty well. The paint had deteriorated off of the exterior of the house, and it was basically torn to its core. The roof was still in tact for the most part, but it looked as if a meteor had come down from the sky and torn through it- exposing the inside of a room. I wondered who had been in that room with the view of the lake before the fallout. Maybe it was a kid’s room. It could have been a kid my age….

“You know, I’ve always thought, we must have killed the second coming of Jesus by now. That would explain it. Jesus was born, lived to be about 5 or 6, and then he died. So now what?” June Happy Birthday drones on.

“You know I’m not religious.” I say in my monotone as I continue staring at this skeleton of a house. Maybe it was a summerhouse. That would explain its location on the lake. I had heard stories of people vacationing to lakes and beaches with their family. I imagined I had probably done that once. I don’t really remember.

Knowing that I had probably done this and not remembered made me depressed. I looked down into the carcass-infested dirt and took a puff of my cigar.

“We should go to that house, and see what it’s about.” I said finally.

“Why would we want to do that?” June says. He has a reputation for being a buzz kill.

I ignore him and throw my spent cigar into the lake. There is a small flame where it hits the surface, but it goes out after a second. I headed over to the house, not caring whether June was following, but knowing that he wouldn’t want to be left alone with the rednecks. Sure enough, he called out to me, and aggravated that I didn’t answer, ran to catch up with me.
We trudged through the ragweed, one of the only plants that would grow after the fallout, and I stared up at the half-concealed house. Skeletons of trees guarded the front of the house and the roof itself had a huge hole in it- as if a meteor had hit it. Through the hole I could see the remainders of what would have been a room. I immediately imagined it to be a bedroom- someone staring out the window at the lake as kids splashed in the water just outside.

June shook me from my reverie as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I said. I walked through the ragweed and opened the front door.

The house was grey inside- rotten, decaying wood floors that were uneven- parts of it were sticking out precariously from the ground. Insulation hung from the ceiling and the place reeked of decay and mold. We were staring at the living room. There was a broken television, face down on the floor with glass sprawled all around it. There was no couch- I suspected that it had been stolen. Everything had probably been looted long before we had gotten there. I walked to the left, where the kitchen was. There was an empty hole in the wall where a microwave must have been. The oven was rusted and stood lonely staring at the sink. The rest of the cupboards had been decimated- their contents, stolen. That’s when I saw a small glint in the corner of my eye. It was broken glass on the floor that glittered from the sunlight, and the remains of a picture frame I bent down to pick it up as June talked about how the house must have been at the edge of the bomb or something, since it was not in complete shambles. I pried open the prongs on the back of the frame and found a yellowed picture, burned at the edges. I turned it over, and saw a two people smiling, with their arms around each other with the lake as the background. There was a man who was handsomer than any I had ever seen- he had beautiful blonde hair and dark skin, like caramel. He was shirtless, and I noticed that he had some sort of short necklace around his neck. There was also a woman, a little shorter than him, with long, light brown hair that fell dead straight to her shoulders. She had thin lips that framed her perfect, white teeth, and her eyes were almost closed with laughter and the brightness of the sun. They looked about the same age as I was now. They looked so happy and unsuspecting- like all they were thinking about was the great weather and their vacation. I was insanely jealous, even though they were probably dead. What had encouraged envy in me had a nostalgic effect on June,

“You know, I was about that age during the fallout.” He said. I said nothing, but stared at the smiling faces of the two people smiling, enjoying the sunshine and the sparkling lake behind them.

Their faces seemed to call out to me, trying to assure me that their deaths weren’t painful. I couldn’t handle looking at the picture anymore, and I handed it to June. He folded up the picture and put it in the pocket of his jeans.

I meandered up the stairs, tapping my fingers on what was left of the railing. I was going up to the room with the broken ceiling. It had peaked my curiosity ever since I had laid eyes on it- I had to know what was up there, although part of me suspected that looters had already been there. They hadn’t taken the picture from the kitchen though, which made me hopeful. I half wanted to see more into these two lives, and half of me wanted to turn around and leave, and never think about this house again.

The sunlight trickled in from the hole in the ceiling, casting uneven shadows from where the roof collapsed all over the walls. The room was depressing, yet ethereal. I felt like this was the last slice of earth as it was before the fallout. And I didn’t know why I thought that- everything was just as dank and depressing as the rest of the house. There was a little dresser right below a square hole in the wall that had once been a window. It was in marvelously good shape compared to the rest of the house. A burnt up bed frame sat across from it, fragments of charred mattress glued to the brass frame. I ran my finger on the top of the dresser, and saw that it had been collecting dust. I opened the drawers, and my hunch had been right. Most everything had been taken out- all that was left were lint and little pieces of trash that form in the corners from forgotten trash left in the pockets of jeans and pants. There was a tee shirt or too every so-often, in men’s sizes, surprisingly good shape. I offered them to June, and he seemed non-chalant about receiving them. I was looking for another picture, another chance to live vicariously through the lives of the people I saw in the photograph.

There were none. I sighed, tired from my search, feeling weary and dejected.

“Let’s go.” June suggested. I acquiesced, and we started to walk out of the room. Just as we were leaving though, I stepped on something that I knew wasn’t just another piece of glass or another tee shirt strewn on the ground by looters. I looked down at my feet.

What I saw was a small loop made by a rope, at the end of it was a little silver medal, about the size of my thumbprint. I picked it up.

Etched into the medal was a little man with long, flowing robes; he was holding a walking stick in his hand. On his back was a small, infant-sized child.

“What do you have there?” June asked.

“I don’t know I said, as I held the medal gingerly in my hands. June picked it up and examined it.

“It’s a Saint Christopher medal. He’s the guardian saint of traveling, I think.”

I looked at it with dead eyes. It was the necklace I had seen around the man’s necklace in the picture, looters must have overlooked it.

I felt tears growing in my eyes and the back of my throat become numb. June watched me for a moment, as if trying to understand. He never would.

He adjusted the little rope and put on the necklace over my head, tightening it once it was around my neck. The rope was smooth as if it had been worn a lot, and worn by someone who was often in the water, in the sunshine.

June pulled me close and kissed me on the nose.

I don’t know how long I stayed in the room, staring out of the hole in the ceiling, but I eventually found myself outside, where the rednecks had come over to see who we were and what we were doing.

“You guys wouldn’t care if we burned this house down did you? Only the prostitutes and thieves ever go in there. Not that we mind, but its really a hazard and an eyesore, we’ve been meaning to burn it down for days now. “

“Go ahead” June replied. 

Reviews

[E.H. Monroe]

I wish I were older back when the end of the world happened, and that’s the tragedy of it.
-I wish all stories started this way.

The fact that the s**t mill keeps spinning and even freaks with mismatched limbs are getting government money shows that there will always be a 1st and 15th crowd waiting for checks.

A passing SUV caught sight of me, and some army men picked me up. My name is Mouse.-
Your stuff, this speaks for the poems as well, actually has an audio accompaniment. A voice track that always sounds like it was plucked out of a movie. That’s the best part about writers who don’t follow some fucked formula for writing, but do it because their style is abundant.

The lake of fire deswcription was tight and drenched in that “Ali” style. Redneck activities and Molotov cocktails…sounds like every woods party in upper NJ I have ever been to.

The real kicker is that the hum drum of redneck nonsense survived the nuclear blast, like roaches.

The house description, and the piece itself took me to Bradbury’s “There will come soft rains”, but it’s not machines that are left, it’s the dregs.

When mouse speaks I hear it in Monotone. When you wrote it for some reason I thought you wrote it already. I’d almost not even use it because (stylistically I assume) the real readers in the audience can already hear it.

Your knack for real description, not overworded bullshitted nonsense detail that people don’t give a hunk of s**t about, but your REAL description, like the smile that framed the teeth and the couple itself or even something like the ragweed reinforces the sheer strength of your reading style.
The reveal of Moouse’s characterization, her inability to look at the picture is the first sign of her real frailty. Excellent addition.
I’m not sure if you meant it, but the fact that you chose saint Christopher (of course the idea of travel like the duo presented) but he would be the saint presented due to the fact that that b*****d was sacked by the Vatican and de-sainted. This only reinforces the end of days. The only medal left was some poor shlep who doesn’t even carry the title.

Another head thumping write. Full of iconic and terrible and Ugly images and hard fought emotion.

[Tommy]

This was very captivating, and creative. I liked the humor and irony used to depict it. I think you should give it a good look over and do an edit on it; I did see a few mistakes in grammar, but that truly is small beans in light of the story told, which is told well.

All in All I Found This To Be A Great Write!
RLG,
Tommy

[Alphachad]

I laughed my a*s off when i read this "Hello, I’m June Happy Birthday. That’s his full name. " What an interestingly strange couple and hatred for rednecks. It's dark and purely dystopian, but that ending was definitely heartwarming. It was a good read even for someone not religous or superstitious like me. I'm glad i read it. Thanks for sharing