The Old Blog in the Desert

It began as a distant rumble and a few bangs. Before anyone knew it, Zaxxers were racing through the neighborhood, burning homes, killing people, and looting everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Gene Arlo lived alone and didn’t have much worth stealing, still, they came, smashing in his front door, chasing him out the back. On his way out, he grabbed his 30-30, his bag of ammo and other necessities he kept handy, then retreated to his elm tree where he’d built a platform for bird watching a couple of years before.

“Are you crazy?” a neighbor asked as Gene pounded in the nails holding the platform in place.

Another chided, “You’re gonna fall and kill yourself.”

“But not today,” Gene thought, as he casually took aim at one Zaxxer after another.

By then several people he knew and lived near were laying in their yards, their driveways, and in the street, each dead. Houses, up and down the many streets, were burning and he could hear the agonized screams and cry of survivors.

Gene Arlo laid on his perch, watched his home burn as the military picked up the dead bodies, then after nightfall, he silently disappeared into the rocky desert.