Gauntlet

My Day At The Beach

Qualifying story for SmackDown: The Second Coming by Ooorah
(Prompt: post-apocalyptic, 495 words)

"Sunblock," said El Gordito.

"Check!" said Pipo, "A dozen rations of SPF100, just like you ordered."

"Drinking water."

"Check!" I said, inspecting the gallon-sized containers in the rear hatch of the armored scout car.

"Ammo."

"Check!"

"Then we're all set," said our patrón, "Let's hit the beach, aceres!"

*

The car was an old Soviet BRDM-1, sold to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias shortly before the Great Trials. El Gordito had souped it up with reinforcements over the decades but its age showed. I felt every last bump, as the hydraulic platform lifted it to surface level from the depths of the bunker.

My body soon got used to all the shuddering, once the rust bucket hit the gravel. I quickly learned how to take siestas, even while keeping my Kalashnikov at the ready.

Our journey took us from the compound in Gitmo to the Playas de Este, just beyond the ruins of Havana, via the ashen remains of the central highway. The passage was mostly uneventful. We clashed with the usual radioactive mutantes. There were skirmishes with wandering bands of ladrónes, but even their "magickal" cane knives and ritual amulets were no match for our sheer firepower.

By daybreak on Sunday, we found exactly what we came for. Rows of whale carcasses littered the coast at Varadero, beached along the toxic sands.

*

I began carving up the blubber, just like I had been taught. I applied the techniques I had learned from the workshop ¡Joder! The fat sliced right off the hide! But no amount of classes could have prepared me for the scent of the decaying adipose.

Once we had collected enough blubber, we loaded it into the car and prepared to find a campsite. That's when the ambush happened.

*

I was shocked to wake up at all. Last thing I remember was running from bárbaros wielding poison-tipped spears. I almost reached the car but I swear that cabrón Pipo shot me on purpose, to help their getaway.

When I felt the comfy fleece blanket against my skin, I thought I must have gone to Heaven. Indeed, my rescuer would have seemed like an angel, if she wasn't pointing a Beretta pistol against my forehead.

"Tell me, intruder, why did your comrades need all that blubber?" she asked, speaking in the Yuma tongue.

"Snacks. And lighting," I managed to stammer the words, pronunciation be damned. "For the Endurance Day fiesta."

"Endurance Day?"

"To remember the Great Trials."

" ... "

"I think your people called it the October Crisis... Karibski krizis? Cuban Missile Battle?"

She nodded and instructed me to follow her. The bedroom was lofted above a well-stocked bodega. Nobody else around, it seemed.

She led me to a makeshift kitchen area, where she heated a mixto sandwich using a crudely-rigged solar oven. She cut off a meager portion for me.

"Liberación Saavedra. Call me Libby."

Then she took a pitcher from an ice bucket and poured a mojito.

"To Endurance!" she toasted.