No. Not there. She's not on the moon.

by waste

sawed off

The road trails out into small sparks of growth. Fewer road and more greenery. The white and yellow paint on the road faded out, then soon the rough dark of the road fading.
No more road.
There is no gate, no portal, no blackout, no stretching of matter, no piping sounds of reality breaking. No indication of travel from one world to another. As if a universe could drift away and be left behind, then thin into another. That the earth could blur away and onto something else, not a journey but a change. An omen of how things are.

The pair no longer on earth but engulfed in a forested day languishing into night.

The truck controlled in the whorled grassiness, the suspension swimming in bumps of land. She’d pull the clutch then change the gearing. She keeps an eye on fuel and on him.
She doesn't look back at vanished roads.
“Hayden. Its time to stop okay?”
“Yes ma.”

She would stop the truck then pull the hand brake. Hands on her face. Wipe off the sweat and stress. Exhausted she would check the back, a miscellaneous pile of tools and all the food she could pack. On the passenger seat a single shell. The elements last gift, a shotgun shell multicolored and unfunny. She places it in her palm, then slips it into her left pocket. She unbuckles the seat belt.

She opens her door. Steps out, pulls the handle of the rear left door. He steps out saying mama. She holds his hand. Hugs him. From the truck she takes a small knife, then takes a tacky compass and a zippo lighter. Finally a worn spade in her hand.
“Follow me okay?”
"Okay ma"

They step into untracked forest. She takes a handful of subpar kindling. From dry plants and fluffy growths. The duo find a dead log. She hacks off a third from the top. Carries it five feet in front of the truck. They dig a pit, earth clawed by the spade. She lights the kindling with the zippo. The log hacked into four with the spade. A squat pyramid of wood on top of the lit kindling. They would silently watch the fire spill on to bark, the consuming heat.

She goes to the truck and finds her husbands gun. She lifts the shotgun. Chrome wrapped in wood. Too heavy. She takes a viscous looking saw and then the shotgun. Both of them in her hands. She walks towards a fallen tree. Sets it all down. Hayden follows her at her urging. “Cmon Hayden. Good boy.”

The shotgun is half disassembled and she blows through the barrel, a shake of her breath comes out of the loader. She would pump the shotgun to check the loading mechanism. Still working. Damn reliable. She took the saw and cuts off the barrel to the tube magazine. Next she goes back to the truck to fetch a well used file. The sawed edge filed off and raw. She blows off a cloud of disintegrated metal and wooded dust. It launches from the top of the freshly cut barrel, wheels to the forest floor. Unnatural compared to the dissipated green darkness of the forest.

“Mama. Mama.”
“Hmmm. Yes? Yes Hayden?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Okay. Mamas busy right now. In a sec. Okay?”
“Okay ma.”
She reaches over and kisses his hair then ruffles it. He giggles. Sweet smile stretched on his face. He becomes silent. His eyes follow his mother’s work. The stern look of focus all six year olds use. Her hands resume movement. Her hands that tapper to sturdy fingers and smooth worked skin. Moves with confidence.

Next she saws the stock off the shotgun. She files the cut. Like a sculptor it seems as if the cut is made perfectly. Rounded and torsional, a durable pistol grip. Stockless and with a sawn off barrel the shotgun is leaner. Predatory, Lighter, able to fit firmly in her hands. She shakes it. No clicking. No looseness. The want of killing poured into all the cracks and small slips in the shotgun.

She takes an extent of hand loaded shells. Enough shells to possess her hand. The unruly clunking of shells in to the loader. The shotgun smugly swallows five shells into its stomach. Her hands remember her husband’s hands that must have touched this gun and these shells. A remembered world shoe-boxed behind a vast and anonymous distance. How far away was earth? How much did she want to leave it?

Quite a lot apparently.

She leaves the saw where it is and holds the shotgun in one hand.
“Mama?”
“Okay. Alright. It’s time to eat. Up you get”
She hauls him into her embrace. He’s held in her arms his head popped over her shoulder. She’s going to have to stop doing this soon. He’s going to get embarrassed. Yet Hayden clings tightly to her, one hand a fist of her clothes, another hand entangled in her hair. Hayden might never meet another to be embarrassed around.

The pair gravitate towards the truck. She reaches into the back and pulls out a tin of powdered milk. Clumped, flavoured she drops a handful of the powdered milk into a battered looking camping pan. She puts in a good amount of water. Milk forming in a paste or mess. Leaves the rest of the water on the side. Milk would be warmed with a handful of oatmeal from the truck, a strongly flavored porridge. The rest of the milk warmed and placed into two flasks. Finally she takes four strips of dried beef jerky she found in a packet in the glove-box. Hayden sits cross- legged next to the fire fidgeting. She gives him a flask then places the porridge in between them. She hands him two strips of jerky but stops him before he can eat it.

She says grace, and thanks the lord.

They eat the food.
After a half hour she falls asleep next to the fire, only the milk left un-drunk. Her Limp hand with a flask. Hayden picks up the flask. Wakes her.
“Mama you need to drink this. To grow strong.”
“Huh. Okay Hayden.”
The meal is finished and he tucks himself into her arm.
“We can sleep by the fire mama?”
“Yeah. No sleeping bag needed.”

her son is close and so is the shotgun.

Comments

[Rarelygood]

This has my attention.

[waste]

963869
hope your attentions long friend.

[Rarelygood]

964015 Trust me it will be hard to make me loose it

[Gypsy]

964015>>964159

lol phallus joke

[waste]

964318
oh you!

[Gypsy]

964347