Invasion - Picnicus Interruptus

The war was over, had been over for decades, but everywhere we looked there were remnants to remind us of how close we came.

I spread the picnic blanket out and Sam put the basket on one corner. Our perch gave us a bit of a windbreak if we sat down, but a freak gust could still flip the checkered plastic fabric up. Better safe than sorry. I stood and stretched my long limbs, luxuriating in the bright sunshine. The plains stretched out as far as I could see. I knew they went on for miles at least. Mountains were a gray blur at the very edge of the horizon going east.

"Hey." Arms came around me and Sam's body heat radiated into me, chasing the chill of the cool breeze away. "Whatcha thinking about?"

I grinned. "How lucky I am to have you in the midst of all this." I turned and we hugged until the embrace became lingering kisses.

Sam giggled into my mouth. "We do this too much longer and the food is gonna get cold."

"Can’t let that happen." Things were still scarce and good food was one of those. The waving grain forty feet below was testament to the fact that food production was coming back online. This generation was the first to come up looking like something worth eating.

We sat in the bowl made of the mecha's gun platform. The soy noodles and sauce were still warm. Freeze dried veg made up the bulk of the nutrition. Clean water from a jug tasted better than any wine and my appetite was whetted by the fresh air. We ate and drank noisily, slurping and smacking. I leaned back against a console and belched loudly.

"Gross. And thank you." Sam grinned at me, mouth and eyes wide. A flash of red light reflected in those pools of green and white.

The roll of what sounded like thunder rumbled across the open sea of grain. It wasn't thunder, though. The sky was as bright blue as it ever was. I popped my head over the metal lip. "What the hell?" A massive ship of some kind was landing about a mile away. I'd lived on these flat lands long enough to know my guess of distance was good, even if just a guess. "Give me the..." The telescope slapped into my outstretched hand. I brought it up to my eye and focused on the thing.

It was all shards and angles, like some broken glass and barbed wire sculpture. Not human make, at least not any human I knew about. There were stories about aliens, we told over the campfires. Could this be them? Fire licked at the grass around the landing site. It would soon become a blaze eating up so much of the precious resource. Of course, if whoever was in that ship wanted us dead, it wouldn't much matter.

"What is it?" Sam's voice was afraid, but not terrified. We were both soldiers, or as close to it as anyone was. We'd fought hard for our supplies and our home, killing when we needed to.

"Hard to say. A ship obviously, but I don't know who or what..." That's when I saw them start to crawl out and down. They had four limbs, like we did, but they were attached at odd places, nearer central mass than the four corners. "Can tell if they're creatures or 'bots." Either way, this meant our picnic was over.

Art Source: Summer Love on http://www.simonstalenhag.se/
Story and Characters (c)/by Scott Roche

#action, #Suspense, #PostApocalypse, #Invasion, #Love

There was once a great place called America.

There was once a great place called America.

It was a good and noble place, filled with concepts like freedom, democracy, liberty, and justice. It was a place that was founded upon belief in God, and with that, came a sense of protection, and grounding, and right standing. Good men and women died defending that concept and they died knowing that it was something that was well worth fighting for.

Sure, it had it's problems. Hell, nothing that men do is perfect. But America was pretty darn close.

But then, the concept that was America drifted away from its moorings. It came unhinged from the concepts of God, morality, equality, goodness, decentness, and liberty. Things went downhill fast. It did not take long. Compared to the time it takes to build a tower, the time it takes to bring one crashing down is almost nothing.

That was the way it happened for America, and War followed soon after.

The War was bad. War's bad enough on its own, without adding any complications, but this War was even worse, because this was a War Without Hope. Understand, when you take away those moorings, when you remove the foundations upon which America was built, then you also remove the framework for hope. That was the one thing that no one saw coming, and that was the one thing that made this War the Worst That Had Ever Happened.

There's not much left now. There's not much left that's worth fighting for. Or, at least there wasn't, until I found the Books. I found the Books that everyone stopped reading, and stopped believing in...there's just a few of them, but I found them and I read them.

And now I know.

And I have something worth fighting for.

There was a man in some of the Books--a Great Man--and I read all about him. It changed me...forever.

I've become a man of the Books.

I've taken on his mantle.

I've got hope.

My name is Captain America, and now I'm going to restore that which was great.

God Bless America.

Art Source: "Captain of the Wastelands" (c)/by Christopher Stevens

Story: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #AlternateComicBookHistory, #PostApocalyptic, #CaptainAmerica, #cooltwist