Broken Orbit | ONC

Commodity

   At first, the motor wouldn't start. I pulled on the cord as far as I could and it coughed and spattered. After three goes, it refused to start running. I bit into my lip and my heart began to sink. Would the day spent building this be wasted? My worrying was pointless, however, because it started after another two tries. The rods immediately began to start turning and the tracks rotated across the pots. I released a small laugh of disbelief. It was actually working. I hadn't been able to test it once, but it was working.

   With as much as I'd done to stabilize the bike so it wouldn't fall, I hardly wobbled as I got onto the seat. The speed slowed dramatically. It moved about as fast as I could trudge, but it rode the top of the ice instead of plowing through.

   However, there was one oversight. The motor was loud. Even in the wind, it was noisy. Even though I only had enough gas for a day or two, it was going to draw attention. This was the most danger I'd been in since Lover's arrival. I kept my eyes moving across the barren city landscape as I slowly chugged through it.

   Seeing a city covered with snow without any sign of life was eerie. Snow piled on top of the buildings and signs. Some cars sat along streets, abandoned. There used to be a bustling city here. Now, there was nothing. It was a shell. Nothing but the remnants of what humanity used to be.

   We cleared the city by midmorning and slowly chunked down our way down the opposite side of the road. The side of the road heading south was packed full of empty cars. Nearly all of them had broken windows from people trying to loot the insides. Clearly, this town had been trying to flee to the Equator, and the road jammed permanently.

   Chance alternated between watching and sleeping in my jacket. A few times, he'd wriggle because he needed to potty, and I'd let him out of my coat to jump beside the bike to relieve himself. He was able to keep up with the bike easily. After hardly a minute, he'd jump at my leg and practically scramble to get back into my coat. He didn't seem to mind being bundled up into a burrito anymore.

   Night began to fall as I reached the nearby suburb. It was comprised of about three houses on some ranching property. I got up to one house and pulled my frozen body off of the bike. It had done well. The moment my feet hit the ground, my ears picked up on a faint sound. Chance screamed as something stabbed through my shoulder.

   A choked cry escaped my lips and I stumbled forward, my hand reaching for the wound. It touched something sticking out from my back and pain shot down my arm. It was an arrow.

   The shooter became visible as they approached. It was some middle-aged man, likely close to around forty or fifty. He wore a thick coat, multiple scarves around his head, and held a bow in his hand. All I could really see of him were his eyes. He could easily be the age of my father.

   "Don't give me that look," the man growled. "I've got grandkids to see. You're lucky I'm putting you out of your misery. Thanks for the bike, though."

   "Y-You're going to kill me?"

   "Just thank me when we see each other in hell. At least you'll be warm before I will." He pulled back the drawstring to the bow.

   Agony screamed through my right arm and the gunshot rang through the blizzard. The man gurgled and the bow fell from his hands. He looked down at his chest and the bullet in his heart. Blood spurted from his scarf, his lips, and then he collapsed backwards. I let my arm fall and hit the snow, the gun tight in my grip.

   The arrow in my back tore at my flesh. I sat there, awkwardly propped up to keep the arrow from hitting the snow. I had shot people before, but never so quickly. Being a cop meant I had to use my gun. Normally, I would have tried to talk him down, but in the cold world, that wasn't an option anymore. He was going to kill me. I had to kill him, first.

   I didn't like violence, but it was that kind of world nowadays. I just hated that I'd been forced to participate in the bloodshed. Chance's whining forced me to sit up and see if he was okay. The arrow hadn't gone out the front of my shoulder. In fact, it was rather shallow. I was able to pull it out without much effort, though it hurt enough to make me yell.

   The man had been too weak from the cold to hit me hard enough. I grimaced. He wouldn't have been able to kill me unless he got several steps closer. He hadn't actually been a threat. And I'd just taken away his chance for a retribution.

   He'd been willing to kill me – a complete stranger – in order to survive. Now that the world was frozen, warmth had become a commodity. It was becoming quite clear what people were willing to do to have that commodity.

10,176 total words.