Don't know what FTCTW is? Click Here to join the revolution. This installment of FTCTW's author is Silverwolf.

Author's Comments: I originally began this story back in high school, with the image of a some guy riding a bus across a post-apocalyptic America. I revised it for several years, then finally finished it to my own satisfaction last year. I think the title came from a quote that I heard somewhere, which I seem to remember being "On every life, a little rain must fall", but I could easily be misremembering that. I'll grant that its a little cheesy in parts, but I likw it. I was also going to expand on some of the characters at some point, particularly the ex-army guy, but never did. I actually had a whole post-apocalyptic history planned out, which I may dredge out of the depths of my mind and use some day.

Rain Will Fall : By Silverwolf

The beat-up old bus rattled and clanked down the highway, seeming as if, any second, it would disintegrate entirely into a cloud of dust. Why is it that we can put a man into space, but we can’t build a sturdy bus?

I sat watching the soft rain blow in off the fields, lost in thought. I’ve always liked rain. It heals the soul and soothes the mind. Not the cold, icy rains of fall, nor the deluging thunder storms of high summer, but the warm, gentle rains of spring, the kind that bring the children out to romp in the puddles, cause young lovers to walk hand in hand, and are always followed by a rainbow.

My transportation was a truly amazing vehicle, the amazing part being that it still ran after over a century of operation. This bus had seen World War III, the Revolution of 2012, and the countless skirmishes and battles that had followed the fracturing of the country. Its windows were cracked and yellowed with age, covered in a greasy film of dust and grime. The seats were only semi-comfortable, the padding having long since been worn thin, and the once-bright colors now faded to dull shades of gray. While the driver and I were the only two-legged passengers, the bus seemed to play host to a whole horde of other creatures, cockroaches being the most numerous and visible of these. In the back of the bus, a thin stream of water trickled down from the ceiling to pool on one of the seats with a monotonous dripping noise.

But it was warm, mostly dry, and the only safe way to travel cross-country in these chaotic times. My only other companion on the journey was the bus driver, a dour, uncommunicative soul with heavy, drooping eyelids and large jowls. He was a heavyset man, with hair mostly gone to gray and falling out on top. His face continually showed a few days growth of grizzled beard, but I had never once seen him shave. He constantly wore his dingy, slightly soiled grayish-blue bus driver’s uniform, with its matching cap that was too small for his head. In short he was another faceless entity in my life, unknown and soon forgotten. For a time I attempted to amuse myself by making up stories about him, but it didn’t last long. The best I could do was that he had graduated high school, gotten a job as a bus driver, and never looked back. Nothing else seemed to fit for this dumpy specimen of humanity.

The trip had started two days earlier in Philadelphia. I had gotten on the late bus, leaving town at midnight. The city was becoming far too dangerous for my tastes, with the gangs getting stronger and the Warlord Mayor fast losing power. I had heard rumors that in the west, in Washington and Oregon, some semblance of order had remained. That region had been relatively untouched by the nuclear fallout that had affected most of the country when New York was bombed, and when they withdrew behind the mountains no one paid any attention to them. But now, it seemed that if peace reigned anywhere in the U.S. it was there.

And so I went west.

We had apparently avoided the gangs in the cities, and the roaming bands of hill folk that now jealously defended the Appalachian Mountains. That, or respect for the neutrality of the buses brought us some measure of safety. The bus system was an interesting thing, an anachronism from a more peaceful time before the wars. Still the battered vehicles, powered now by hydrogen, made trips all over the country. They were practically the only way to travel, with gasoline being either prohibitively expensive or simply not to be found. Now we were driving across the wind swept plains of northern Illinois, and I watched the grass waving in the wind beneath the black and stormy sky.

I was jolted out of my reverie by deceleration as the bus slowed and ultimately stopped. The doors hissed open, and a man climbed on slowly, creaking up the stairs and handing the driver his ticket. He moved strangely, as if pained or in a trance, as he walked down the aisle. He hefted his bag up into the overhead luggage bin and took a seat across the aisle from me. I took this opportunity to study my new traveling companion more closely.

He was an older man, well into his forties or fifties, although he was still in good physical condition as far as I could tell. He wore a drab, dull green trench coat and had a duffel bag of the same color. Despite being faded and much patched, I could tell that the bag had once been military issue.

The man himself was tall, standing just over six feet, and broad of shoulder. His face was pleasant, clean shaven but worn with age and care. His eyes were a clear, light blue, and seemed strangely young, but possessed of deep, untold sorrows. His long, gray-black hair cascaded around his shoulders in lank strands, only somewhat kept in place by the wide-brimmed hat he wore pulled low over his face. His long, dusty coat was faded and patched, his pants in a similar state of disrepair, and his heavy black leather boots scuffed and creased. All in all he exuded a sense of age, care, and weariness.

He sat in the seat across from me, leaned his chin down upon his chest, folded his arms and seemed to go to sleep. I watched him for a few moments more, wondering if he would speak to me or not, at least in introduction, but with no motion or speech forthcoming I turned back to watching the golden-brown sea go rolling by, lost in my own meditations and worries.

Foremost in my mind was my destination. Did it still exist? Was it the haven of peace I dreamed about? Or was it just another place that had been ripped apart by war, crowded with hungry people whose only goal was survival? I wouldn’t know, couldn’t know, until I arrived, but still I wondered. I had had family there at one time, an aunt and uncle and their children, but I had not had any contact with them since before the civil war tore the country into pieces, and drove the final nail into the coffin. I didn’t know where they were now, or even if they were still alive. Another piece of information I would find out in a few days.

It is an interesting facet of human behavior that the things we worry about most are the ones we have the least control over. Here I was, sitting on a bus crossing the plains of Illinois (or what used to be Illinois), less than halfway through my journey, thinking about things that I would not know for another week, and had no control over whatsoever. Whatever the state of conditions in the west, and whatever the disposition of my relatives, that was my destination. I ha left the east to its anarchy, and was now leaving the Midwest, which had some peace in its primitive agriculture. But that was no life for me. I desired true civilization, a place where conditions existed much as they did before the revolution. I clung to this hope the way a drowning man clings to a life raft.

A soft noise to my right brought me out of my reverie, but it was a few moments until I realized that it was the old man, now awake and alert, talking.

“Did you ever have something that you needed to tell to someone, anyone? Some story or secret that would not stay pent up inside you? It is a terrible feeling to have, like you’re going to explode unless you let it out. Sometimes you just have to fuck the consequences and get it the hell over with.

“I was like you once, a fresh-faced kid out to take on the world, with nothing but his bare hands and an optimistic load of dreams that mean as much as a pile of shit steaming by the side of the road. I had just graduated high school when the war broke out, and before the draft started I decided to join up. Why the hell not? I thought to myself. Make some money, see the word, and fight for my country. Ha! It’s all a load of bullshit, kid. Those at fucks in the capitol didn’t give a fart for us. They just needed more money, so they decided to take it.

“I originally went in as a marksman – a good place to be, let me tell you. You hide somewhere in the back and take out important targets before the infantry moves in. I was a good shot, to. Well, I suppose that comes naturally. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, grew up hunting, joined the Boy Scouts, made Eagle. The army as a shooter was just the next step for me.

“Anyway, I was one of the best snipers in the whole damn army, and so of course the grand high muckety-mucks at the Pentagon took notice. It was 2009, the fourth year of the war, and the second of stalemate, when I got called to Washington. Myself and five others, from all branches of the service, were brought together to form an elite, top-secret strike force. If the bastards in D.C. still had any power, they could kill me just for fucking telling you this. But they don’t. They fell, hard as fuck, just like the rest.

“So there we were, six military types all thrown together into one team. They gave us all codenames and a specific duty as part of the team. Mine was Sniper (military creativity is about as worthless as shit) and I was, of course, the fucking sniper. The we had Shadow, our point man; Hacker, the computer whiz; Dynamite, a demolitions genius; Nimble, the locksmith; and Wolf, our leader. He was the alpha male, without question, and we were his pack. We even called ourselves the Wolf Pack as a joke. And so then we were ready to go out and protect the Free World, such as it was at the time. And we did it well. We took on every job they gave us and asked for more. High profile assassinations, sabotage, espionage, we did it all. It was us, and a few other groups like us, that ended the stalemate, and ultimately won the war.

“But then came the Revolution, just on the heels of victory. First those damn Armadillos in Texas rose up against the government, and then the fucking hosers up north. They had begged to join us in ’08. More states followed, until it seemed like every bastard with a gun and two brain cells to rub together was calling himself King, President, Tyrant, Grand High Poobah, or whatever the fuck other title he fancied.

“And with all of this brother siding against brother shit going on, it was inevitable that some troops would switch sides, or just go rogue. But when one of the Black Forces (that was what they called us, except they never officially recognized our existence) teams hit the vice pres, we knew the shit had really hit the fan. One by one, they all turned their coats. Except the Wolf Pack. Oh sure, there was some grumbling about fighting our countrymen, but Wolf quashed that pretty damn quick.

“Up higher, though, there were some nervous jitters. They all knew we were the best. They sent us after the other teams, and we took them all out, one by one. We destroyed our own comrades for those motherfuckers, but they were still worried. So they sent us after one of the local warlords, the most powerful in the northeast. We were to infiltrate his compound, take the bastard out, bring down their computer systems with a virus, destroy their stores with explosives, and get back out again. Perfectly routine, in our line of work.

“But the night of the mission, something went wrong.

“I was to go in through a side door with Nimble and Shadow, break into a maintenance shaft, make my way to the warlord’s bedroom, take him out, and exit the building alone. While we were doing this, Wolf, Hacker, and Dynamite would be taking care of our other objectives, with later assistance by Shadow and Nimble.

“My two companions and I scaled the fence around the compound, an old warehouse that had been hastily converted into a fortress, and concealed ourselves by the side of the building. Shadow and Nimble went to crack the door while I waited a few minutes. After a good interval, I headed in.

“As soon as I entered the doorway, I tripped over something soft, and it saved my life. I felt and heard the flight of bullets brush by my head as I landed heavily on the floor of the hallway. Flipping on my nightvision, I turned to see what I had tripped over… and found a body. It was Shadow, his head and upper torso riddle with bullets. A little farther down the corridor I found Nimble, bleeding heavily through a hole in his throat and trying to cry for help. I held his head in my lap as he died, and then fled the building. It had been a set up, and we had been played for fools.

“Wolf and I were the only ones who made it back to the rendezvous point, and as we waited for the pick up plane, until well past the appointed hour, the truth dawned on us. It was a charade. We had never been meant to come out of that fortress alive. Our own government, who we had fought and killed for, had betrayed us, tried to shoot us like a rabid dog. Two of us survived, however, and could have created serious problems for any government we chose. But I didn’t.

“When dawn broke, Wolf and I went our separate ways. I dropped out of sight in the big cities, moving around a lot, and doing as much as I could to stay hidden. Wolf… well, you remember that failed assassination attempt on the president back in 2025? That was Wolf. A few years older, to be sure, but just as good as the day they picked him to be our leader. He killed thirty-five men that night, and almost got his target. They shot him the next day.

“Since then I’ve been making my way west, never moving very fast, and keeping my head down. I’m heading for my niece’s farm in Iowa, where I hope to live out the rest of my years in peace.”

By the time he finished, the first light of dawn was creeping up over the horizon, making the rain-covered landscape catch fire with red and gold. There were tears in the old man’s clear blue eyes, sparkling like jewels in the light. I could not think of anything to say, so in a breathless way said simply this.

“Thank you.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes, watching the sun creep up into the sky. Suddenly my companion pointed and I saw, directly in front of us, the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. It stood tall in the sky, arching from one side to the other, its bands thick, its colors bold and bright.

“Well, I believe this is my stop” my newfound friend said, signaling the bus driver. He stood to gather up his bag. “Remember son,” he added, turning to me, “there is no night so black that you will not see the dawn, and sometimes, after the rain falls, you get to see a rainbow. Thanks for letting an old, done man get a few things off his chest. Good luck.”

And with that he climbed down off the bus and was gone.

I sat long and pondered his words, staring blankly out the window as the flat expanses of the Midwest rolled by. Was what he said true? The more I thought about it, the more I wished to get an answer. The sun may come up every day, but we are never sure that it will, or that we will be awake to see it. One day, all men must die. But is that missing the dawn, or awakening to a greater one? I never claimed to be overly religious, but it seemed to me that there must be something else out there. Human life is, after all, “nasty, brutish, and short,” as one old philosopher put it. Especially in these troubled times. With these thoughts and more swirling around in my head, I slowly drifted off to sleep, soaking up the warm rays of the early morning sun.

When I awoke – whether hours or minutes later I couldn’t tell – I saw a battered and bullet-ridden sign proclaiming Des Moines, Iowa. The population number had long since been torn off, and as we rolled through the debris of what must have once been a prosperous city, it struck me that the sign was correct. No one still lived here. The buildings had been reduced to rubble, only crumbled and broken walls surrounding piles of wood and masonry. Several showed signs of burning, and as we neared the center of the city these became both more common and more severe. Some buildings even appeared to have melted under intense heat. An immense explosion must have occurred in the city, most likely during the Revolution, but possibly in the upheaval afterwards. Many cities had faced worse, even tactical nuclear weapons.

We were passing through the center of the city proper, having to circle around an enormous crater that sat squarely in the middle of the town, when a dark figure darted out of one of the ruined buildings, waving frantically at the driver. He stopped, and the man scrambled up the steps, breathless, paid the driver, and collapsed into a seat. I hurried over to make sure he was alright, and saw our stolid conductor looking at the buildings somewhat nervously as we continued on.

The young man, for so he was I found on closer inspection, seemed to be uninjured, just underfed and out of breath. When he recovered somewhat, he turned to me with an embarrassed grin.

“Whew! Wasn’t sure I would be able to catch this one. I’ve been stuck in that ghost town for over a month now, and the first two buses that rolled through went by before I could catch them.”

I chuckled in spite of myself, and we made our introductions. After this there was a pause in the conversation to allow him to recover himself better, and I took this opportunity to study my new friend. He was younger than I by a few years, looking still in his early twenties. He had curly, light brown hair and green eyes set in a handsome if somewhat plain face that smiled well and easily. He wore rugged denim jeans and a torn shirt, over which he had on a long, dark brown coat that seemed to have a limitless number of pockets. On his feet were dirty shoes of a pre-war style, and his eyes peered out intently from behind wire-frame glasses.

He pulled some candy bars from one of his pockets and began to gnaw on one hungrily. He offered me one as well, but I declined politely. I had come well-stocked with food, and this young man seemed to need it more than I did. I asked him what he was doing in such a desolate place as this, and he was eager to tell me.

“I’m actually participating in a post-Revolution survey of the former United States for the University of New York, one of the few institutions to survive the violence, although unfortunately the campus did not. The city has its problems, of course, but some measure of order has been reestablished, and the University has been a large part of that” he told me with no small amount of pride “I myself am a student of politics and history, and hope to one day be a part of the city’s government.

“Anyway, this year, as the worst of the fighting has been over for some time, the University sent people out to assess the state of the country.”

“So you’re not working alone?” I asked, interrupting him.

“Oh my goodness no!” He replied “That would be much too large of a task for one man. No, the School Elders asked for volunteers to fan out around the country and visit all of the major towns. I was assigned to the northern east-west bus routes, and so here I am. I spent a few months in Chicago, traveled north to the big cities of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and Madison, that is – and from there came to Des Moines. Before that I visited Columbus and Toledo, in Ohio, and Indianapolis. I would have made a side trip into Michigan, but its far to dangerous for outsiders.”

“Sounds like quite an adventure” I said “but why did you stay so long in Chicago?”

“Oh, you know, this and that” he responded, laughing a little nervously. “It is a very big city after all, and…” he trailed off. “Alright, alright. The truth is I ran into a little trouble with the local, ahem, government.”

“Government?”

“If you want to call it that. They do, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s just a bunch of jumped-up crooks and thugs running things. Damn mafia took over when the Revolution started, and haven’t let go since. It being the sensible thing to do, I introduced myself to them when I got into town. They were happy to help at first, gave me lots of good stuff. According to them, they ‘won’ the election that was ordered in 2017, right after things calmed down a bit. They restored order to the city and protection to its citizens. By their account, at least. And indeed, the parts they showed me, mostly concentrated in the city’s center and along the lakeshore, were quite impressive for a post-revolution society. But then I left them.

“More fool I, I suppose, for sticking my nose in where it obviously wasn’t wanted. But I just couldn’t leave the other side of the story unheard.

“So I went out into the city, on my own, among the people, and they told me the truth. The new mayor, for so the reigning mob boss calls himself, is basically a tyrant. He renewed a feudalist system, with the majority of the city working as serfs. A few hundred or so have become ‘citizens’, but the rest are horribly mistreated and taxed unmercifully. I tried to make it out of the city with this knowledge, to try and help them, but the mob caught me and tossed me into jail. I later managed to get free, but damn me if that wasn’t the longest month ever.

“Anyway,” he said, brightening up suddenly “I’m out of there now and free to continue my journey. Any idea what the next big city is?”

“Not a clue” I replied “and I don’t think you’ll get much out of the driver. He hasn’t said two words to me since we started this trip in Philadelphia. You look tired though” I told him “you should get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we reach the next town.” He nodded gratefully, leaned back, and was immediately asleep. I sat and watched the Great Plains roll by, staring at the purplish black storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

The sun was low on the horizon and the storm clouds near, a chill wind whipping the long grasses into a frenzy, when we pulled into Lincoln, Nebraska, the former capital of the state. A few columns of smoke and some furtive faces, which quickly vanished out of sight as we went by, told me that there were still people in the city, but they were wary. That was good. I had quickly learned that people who were unafraid in these troubled times usually had good reasons not to be.

I woke the young scholar, who seemed much refreshed by his several hours of sleep. I told him where we were, and that there were people still living here; he seemed quite pleased about that. We stopped at an old bus station, and the young man gathered up the few items that had fallen out of his numerous pockets—a few small notebooks, pens and pencils, a compass, and some candy bars, which seemed to be his only food. Taking pity on this naïve spirit, I went over to my own pack and pulled out three packets of army rations, giving them to my new friend. His eyes went wide at the generous gift, and he stammered a thank you as he pocketed the food.

We said our goodbyes as he descended the bus, and he waved as we left the station. I waved back, until he turned away and ducked into a building, out of sight.

The storm broke before we left the city, the dark, ominous clouds telling true the ferocious nature of the gale. Rain pounded down, running in sheets off of the bus, and lightning flashed almost continually, the accompanying thunder nearly deafening me. My mood did not fit with this thunderstorm. My last companion had left me in a meditative mood, and thunderstorms are good for only rage or sorrow, or that feckless joy of youth. But I could not stop thinking of that young man and his seemingly hopeless quest for knowledge. Or was it I who was hopeless? Was I too cynical, too jaded an observer to see the good that still existed in people, and in the world at large? I had left on my journey west with some hope, but I do not know now if it truly was hope or merely a reflection of an echo, a memory from a childhood unclouded by war.

Perhaps it takes an innocent mind to understand the nature of hope. I have seen things, done things, that have given me my perspective on the world. But had these things so taken away my innocence that I could no longer comprehend hope? It was a troubling thought, one which , along with the thunder and the lightning, kept me from sleep as the bus continued on through the stormy night.

I did eventually drift off to sleep that night, and awoke to the sun shining hot and bright in a cloudless sky. Far away before us was the dark line of the great western mountain range that spanned the continent. These grew steadily throughout the day, until soon they jutted up around us in all of their rugged beauty and majesty. Great forests of evergreens, broken here and there by fields of brown grasses, hemmed us in.

Then, appearing over a small rise, I saw a woman standing by the side of the road, clutching a child to her breast. She waved when she caught sight of us, and the driver pulled over and stopped. The young woman climbed up, paid the man, and walked down the aisle toward me. I smiled at her, and indicated the seat next to me, which she took with a word of thanks and a returned smile. We exchanged introductions, and then I asked the obvious question.

“What were you doing out here? It’s the middle of nowhere.”

“Trying to leave, actually,” she replied with a little laugh. She was an attractive woman, in her mid-twenties, with a pretty face and long, honey-blond hair. Her green eyes stood out startlingly in her deeply tanned face. She wore a simple, sturdy dress and shoes, and clutched her babe wrapped in a warm blanket. “My husband and I came out here a few years ago, to get away from the fighting. We lived happily for a while, in a cabin that his grandfather had built. He hunted and fished, I kept a small vegetable patch, and we had a good life. But then things started going bad. He became moody seeming to feel cooped up and restrained. When our child was born he started getting violent. So when I and my daughter were strong enough to travel, I left, and here I am.”

I sat, stunned, at hearing this story. This young, slender woman who sat before me had more strength and determination than anyone I had ever known. And still, it seemed, she had hope. Hope for something better for herself and her daughter.

I gathered myself, and continued with my questions.

“Where are you heading to?”

“West. We had heard that on the other side of the mountains people still lived more or less as they did before the Revolution. But we didn’t think we could make it that far. Now, however, I have nowhere else to go, so west seems as good a direction as any.”

“You heard the rumors as well?” I asked, suddenly excited. If people this near had heard the tales, they might know if they were true or not. “Are they true?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Hope? How can you still have hope? I lost hope long ago.” I paused for a moment, gathering my thoughts.

“Back east, New York, D.C., and all the rest are in horrible shape. Different groups battle each other in the streets, and kill people in their homes. I fought in my first battle at 18, and killed a man.” The words came easier as I went, but the pain and sorrow still hurt as they did when fresh. “I lived in a small town outside of Philadelphia, a peaceful little community. We never bothered anybody, so when the Revolution broke out, a few years before I was born, no one bothered us. Then the gangs took power in the city and our peace was shattered. Roaming bands started coming to us, stealing and killing as they would. So this sleepy little town formed a militia. Every man over the age of 18 was required to take up arms in the defense of the community. They set up barricades, put out patrols, and tried to go on with life.

“We had times of peace and time of violence, but overall we managed alright. I served for a few years in the militia, and only saw one real battle. It was a week or so after my birthday. We had reports of a particularly large group, over fifty, ravaging other towns, burning crops and buildings. So we set out defenses, and waited. They came in the night like wolves.

“We had fires burning on all the roads, and had built a high wall around the city. The pillagers came into our circle of light, and the leader told us to throw down our weapons, give them our food, and they would leave us in peace. Well, we had no intention of doing that, so the welcoming committee opened fire from behind the barricade, while the men at the fires hightailed it back to safety. We dropped a few of them in the initial volley, but not many. Then they charged.

“I don’t remember much of the battle after that first charge. They came up over the top of our barricade, shouting and firing. I was stationed behind and below, and when the first heads appeared over the wall we started shooting. I saw one man’s head explode, and another tumble backward clutching at his chest. A third fell where he stood, a ragged hole where his neck should have been. I fired a few times, maybe hitting, maybe missing. Then they were up, and I took aim at the man in the lead. I fired, and he fell at my feet. I looked down, and found that he was just a boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen years old. I dropped to my knees and stared at that face, the ruddy glow of the firelight glistening off of sweat and blood and smooth skin. After the battle, they told me that they had found me still kneeling there, just staring into the face of that boy I had killed. Staring into a mirror.

“Two years later I headed into the city proper, and joined the army of the Mayor, a noble man who was trying to bring order back to Philadelphia. In that time, seven years it was, I killed men, and saw my friends die around me. I saw chaos, rape, torture, all of the things that make men evil. How can I still have hope after all that? My innocence died nine years ago with that boy I killed, and my hope died with it.”

I finished my tale and looked into her eyes. What was I expecting to find there? Shock? Horror? Judgment? Instead I found sorrow and sympathy, warmth and compassion. She put a hand on my arm.

“My friend, you must put the past behind you. Remember, on every life a little rain must fall. Perhaps it is time to stop living in the shadow of those rainclouds, and come into the sunlight.”

Her words were interrupted by a cry from the baby, and she began unbuttoning her dress to feed the little girl. I turned away, embarrassed, but she only laughed, a musical, girlish laugh. While she nursed her child, I stared out the window, pondering.

All that day we talked, of little things, fond memories, better times, and I quickly found that I was in love with her. She possessed a remarkable sense of humor, optimism, and a wisdom that belied her years. When night fell, she slept beside me, covered in a jacket I had lent her, her baby cradled gently in her arms, while I watched the dark country fly past.

Suddenly I felt us start to descend, and we began going down a series of switchbacks in the road. Far, far below, I saw the twinkle of lights, hundreds, no thousands of them, not the red light of fires, or the white of flares, but the homely, yellow glow of city lights.

It was a city.

It was civilization.

It was hope.

Rain Will Fall and all author's commentary is copyright 2006 by Silverwolf.