***
The Kingdom of Arizona is a fantastic place, but if you’re planning to visit, here’s a bit of advice: stay away from the countryside to the northeast of Yuma. I went through there once. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I almost died horribly. How? Listen closely.
I used to work in mail delivery many years ago, back before John Brown Jefferson formed the American Empire and brought order back to the land. The business was called Diego’s Delivery Service and was headquartered in Glendale. I carried packages all over Arizona. I was young back then - I was just 15 when I first started working - so I often did things that got me into trouble. My boss always advised me to stay on the road, but I was impatient, so I tried to cut down on time by taking shortcuts. More often than not, they led me straight to danger. There were several times when I got chased by bandits or coyotes. Arizona was also broken up into various city states back then, so I sometimes got mistaken for a bandit myself. There were a few times when I accidentally wandered onto someone’s property. They responded by shooting at me. Those incidents on their own are bad enough, but all of them combined are downright pleasant compared to my trek to Yuma.
It all happened on June 30, 2266. I woke up just before dawn and went down to the office. My boss told me that some nuns to the west wanted me to pick up a package for them, so I grabbed some water and beef jerky, hopped on my horse, and went there. The place was called Our Lady of Solitude Monastery. Everyone else I knew called them the Desert Nuns. Because of all the banditry back in those days, all the women there were armed with guns, but they were still nice. They all told me I was a helpful young man. They even gave me food from their garden and water from their well.
They then presented me with the package: a large jar of salsa. They told me it was a blessed delicacy. I was tempted to eat it, but I was afraid God would smite me if I did so, so I stayed my hand. The nuns were led by Mother Anna Contreras, who told me to take the jar to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Yuma where it would be served at a wedding. She also informed me that the safest route was to head south to the Gila River and then follow it west. Just before she walked away, she warned me not to venture through the countryside to the northeast of my destination. When I asked why, she said something evil lurked there. I didn’t want to bother her with follow-up questions, so I put the jar in my backpack and away I went.
I had worked for the company for three years by that point, and past experience taught me to pack extra water. I was glad I did because it was especially hot that day. I didn’t need all the leafy greens the nuns gave me, so I fed most of them to my horse. This gave him the energy to maintain a steady gallop. After doing some math in my head, I realized that I wouldn’t reach Yuma until midnight. My impatience once again got the best of me. I decided that instead of heading to the river and following it, I would just go in a straight line to my destination. I remembered what Anna told me, but with youth came recklessness, so I went ahead with my plan.
The tan soil of the Sonoran Desert was made less monotonous to look at by the presence of greasewood and bur sage. There were also many different types of cacti: the cholla, the beavertail, the hedgehog, the barrel, the organ pipe, the prickly pear, and the famous saguaro. I made sure to not get too close to the greasewood because rattlesnakes like to hide underneath the foliage. The flat terrain started to become hilly, and a short while later, I reached the Gila Bend Mountains. It was here that my route deviated slightly. I couldn’t go in a perfectly straight line because climbing jagged pinnacles would prove too difficult, so I went up the gentlest slopes and passed between the many peaks. Just before I reached the other side, I noticed a two-armed saguaro cactus atop one of the mountains. It was 50 feet tall, far larger than any of the others I had seen. The white flowers blooming on top of it looked like a crown, and it seemed to be waving at me. In retrospect, it was warning me to turn back.
The terrain once again became flat as a cuttingboard. As I continued westward, the vegetation grew sparser until only tan rock and dry soil remained. My gut was telling me that I was making a big mistake by venturing out there, but still I pressed onward, convinced I would make it to my destination earlier than anticipated. It was mid-afternoon when I came across the charred and mangled remains of a van. Any branding or insignia it may have had were long gone, but I was able to determine by its general shape that it was made in the mid-2010s, two whole centuries before the Great Collapse. A giant hole had been blasted out of it. The driver himself had been reduced to scorched and splintered bone. My stomach turned. For a few minutes I wondered what sort of weapon could have done this. I remembered reading somewhere that drug cartels skulked the wilderness of the Southwestern United States back in the 21st century, and they had access to rocket launchers. Did they do this? Furthermore, why was this van out here in the first place? Was the driver the adventurous sort, or was he transporting drugs? I then remembered I had a job to do, so I kept moving.
A short while later, I came across ten carbonized skeletons: five human and five equine. Their weapons were still in their hands. These were bandits. I remembered the van I saw earlier and realized this was not the work of cartels. This was something else entirely. It nauseated me to ponder who or what was capable of such savagery, so I continued onward.
I then spotted tall grasses growing around a small shimmering pond, a spot of green in a vast arid expanse. It was here that I stopped and let my horse rest and drink. In the dead silence of the scorching heat, the memory of the grim sights I had seen kept intruding into my thoughts. I had a dread feeling that something truly evil roamed the desert. Back when I was a child, my parents told me scary stories of all the dangerous creatures inhabiting the American wilderness: Chupacabras, Wendigos, Skinwalkers. I began to wonder if those murders were committed by some fire-breathing creature, like a dragon. Aztec and Incan myths tell of winged serpents, so that possibility wasn’t too outlandish.
The Sun turned red as it slowly set. I mounted up and was about to get back on the move when from the east I heard the muffled rolling of treads. Then came the pungent smell of smoke and sulfur. A large black rectangular shape came over the horizon. As it came closer, I saw that it was a tank. Its frame was identical to that of the M1 Abrams from 200 years ago. It also had glowing red metal eyes like that of the T-90, another design from the same time period. The sinister gaze of those metal eyes seemed to burn into my soul.
A bolt of fire erupted from the tank’s cannon and struck the ground just a few yards near me. The soil and pebbles glowed red from the tremendous heat. My horse panicked. I held on as tight as I could as it sprinted westward. The Sun sank and the sky turned black. The stars, normally a sparkling white, seemed to have a crimson tint to them. I looked behind and saw those metal eyes glowing in the darkness. That terrible machine spit out another flaming projectile, which arced over my head and illuminated everything around me for about a quarter of a mile. Flames rose in the distance from where the bolt landed.
I soon found myself in a large, dense field of cacti. The shorter plants crunched loudly beneath my horse’s hooves. Despite the excruciating pain the animal experienced in that moment, it valiantly galloped onward. In the midst of that chaotic chase, a few cacti brushed up against me. Their sharp needles tore holes in my clothes and left deep gashes in my limbs. Blood oozed from the wounds, but there was nothing I could do about it in that moment, so I gritted my teeth and gripped the reins to keep my mind off the pain. The tank’s cannon roared once again. Its projectile barely missed me, instead striking a tall saguaro far ahead. That poor plant immediately burst into flames.
Against the backdrop of the Milky Way I spotted a mountain with a strange cylindrical peak. That was Castle Dome. I knew I was getting close to Yuma. I directed my steed towards the mountain and climbed up it as quickly as we could. We nearly slipped and fell several times, but at last we reached the base of the peak and took shelter on its far side. I got off my horse and pulled the needles out of its hooves. It was remarkably well-behaved, for it did not recoil in pain. Perhaps it understood the dire situation we were in at that moment. I got back on it and we circled round to the other side of the peak. Far below I spotted the tank moving across the landscape like a living shadow. It seemed to lose track of me. Seizing the opportunity, I circled back to the western side of the peak, went down the mountain, and with the constellations as my guide, I went southwest as fast as my horse could gallop.
Everything that happened between then and my arrival at Yuma was a blur. My heart pounded in my chest. My head throbbed. My limbs ached. The stars high above were white once again. The tall cacti cast black silhouettes against the dark blue Milky Way. After God knows how long, I spotted yellow lights off in the distance. I had finally reached Yuma. I entered town and made my way to the Church of the Immaculate Conception. I dismounted and knocked on the door. I was greeted by a kind old nun. I told her who I was and why I was there. I pulled the jar of salsa out of my backpack and gave it to her. Despite everything I had been through, it was miraculously unscathed. The priest then showed up, saw the miserable condition I was in, and offered me a free bed at the inn next door. I eagerly accepted. I went into the room I was given, fell over like a tree onto the bed, and got some much deserved sleep. My rest was not entirely peaceful, though, for in my dreams I still saw the burning red eyes of that tank.
The nun woke me up the next day and told me it was past noon. When I told her that she should have woken me up earlier, she said she tried but I was out cold. After giving me a bowl of soup, she disinfected and bandaged my wounds. The priest came in a few minutes later. He introduced himself as Father Pablo Blanco and asked what happened to me the previous night. After telling him, his face turned pale. He told me I had encountered a Hellpanzer, a demonic tank. It is most commonly associated with ancient military testings grounds, and the one I encountered was the reason everyone avoided the wilderness to the northeast of Yuma. In retrospect, I should have asked Mother Contreras for more information instead of foolishly wandering into danger.
A day later, I hitched a ride with a caravan back to Glendale and told my boss what had happened. He was understanding of my predicament, but he still told me that I should have stuck to the road and avoided venturing off into the wilderness. After what I had been through, I followed that advice very closely. Four years later, I quit my delivery job after I was nearly killed by a particularly savage group of bandits. That’s a story for another day. Let’s just say it was really bad, but not as bad as getting chased by a demonic tank. It was then I decided to help out on my grandparents’ farm. Eventually I got myself a wife and now I grow vegetables and turn them into salsa.
I hope now you understand why you should stay away from the countryside to the northeast of Yuma. Dangerous supernatural creatures dwell in the empty regions of America, and Arizona is no different.
***
(This web page was proudly made with free and open source software.)