Nicholas Smith - Deliverance

By the time X realized it was the sun, clouds had swallowed the warm glow. He hadn’t seen the sun in a long time and had almost forgotten how beautiful it was.

He exhaled, noticing he had been holding in his breath. Seeing something from the past sometimes helped him remember other things. Closing his eyes, he tried to visualize the smooth beetlelike contours of the airship he had once called home. Next, he pictured the interior. In his mind’s eye, he saw the silhouettes of passengers walking through the narrow corridors. As in all the other times he tried to remember, these people had no faces.

Pulling out his journal and a pen, he prepared to jot down anything he could recall. But the mental image was gone again already.

A bolt of lightning slashed the earth in front of him, raising the hair on his neck, and rain began to pelt his body. He quickly placed the precious book and pen back in their waterproof sleeve and stowed them in his vest. Then he raised the scope of his rifle to his visor and slowly raked the muzzle over the landscape, searching for shelter.

There wasn’t much out here besides the occasional trunk of a dead tree, or the retaining wall of a building long since destroyed. But to the east he noticed patches of red poisonous weeds. Beyond the field of foliage that thrived in the radioactive conditions, a rocky hill shielded the brick foundations of an old community.

It would have to do.

X lowered the scope just as a flash of movement darted from one of those foundations and vanished into a hole in the ground.

Lightning flashed above him, but he didn’t so much as flinch. His gaze was locked on to a single spot. Out here, the movement could be anything from a dust storm to a mutant monster. Most of the beasts fed on plants, but they would happily feed on him and his dog if he got close enough.

Thunder boomed above—another threat barreling down. He raised his left arm and checked the rad meter, which looked like an oversized clock. The radiation here was minimal. Then he scanned the sky again for any sign of the Sirens. He hadn’t seen any of the winged monsters in a long time, but he never let his guard down, always aware of the threat and listening for their otherworldly wails.

“Come on, boy,” X said.

He left his night-vision goggles off to conserve the battery and flicked on his flashlight instead, directing the bright beam at the dirt to the right of the road. Using the light to guide them, he fell into a run, with his only friend in the world by his side. Everywhere he looked, cracks and holes marred the earth like deformed flesh.

X didn’t like to stray from the road. It was safer to stick to the path. The road didn’t move. It was the one thing on the cursed earth that seemed to remain constant.

A beetle half the size of Miles poked a pair of ropy antennae out of a cavern in the dirt. X slowed and watched the black chitinous shell emerge. It skittered forward, antennae wobbling back and forth. Like many creatures on the surface, it had no eyes.

Again he was reminded of the airship in the sky. But he was also reminded of all the things that lived underground, from the badlands to the desert he had once crossed. Snakes large enough to swallow a human hunted in the dunes, their scaly armored flesh tunneling beneath the sand. His first meeting with them had nearly cost him his life.

Usually, the insects were harmless, but he didn’t take any chances. Using his boot, he kicked the creature aside, sending it scuttling for cover.

He continued, eyes flitting over the cracks and holes in the ground. He was more concerned with falling in a crevice and breaking an ankle than with anything that might crawl out of the ground. That would be bad. And sometimes the holes harbored bigger things than insects. That would be worse.

The ground was solid here, at least. Trekking across sand was something he never wanted to do again.

“Stay close, boy,” he said to Miles.

The rocky hill grew larger as they approached. It was a natural bluff, not a mound of scree or debris from a destroyed building. Even better, there was an overhang that would shield him from the wind and rain.

He jogged faster, anxious to set out his tracking gear and start a fire. Lightning sizzled across the sky to the west, and the rumble of thunder followed an instant later. The field of poisonous plants retreated in the sudden downpour of rain, curling into holes in the ground.

Drops of rain hit his visor, sluicing down the thick glass. X shut off his flashlight and chinned his night-vision goggles back on as he approached the hill. Miles halted, too, but not for lack of light. Unlike the man, the dog had genetic modifications that allowed him to see in almost complete darkness.

“What is it?” X asked, bringing up his rifle.

They stood in silence for a few moments, sheets of toxic rain beating their radiation suits. The dog finally trotted onward, and the man lowered his rifle, following cautiously.

Brick foundations traced the ground two hundred feet ahead. The bluff rose three or four stories into the sky. He used the side of his boot to scrape mud off an old street that carved through the terrain. Streets were good. Not as good as the road, but they didn’t play tricks on the eye the way the dirt did.

Metal poles protruded out of the dirt at odd angles, like arrows carelessly dropped along the street. Hundreds of years ago, they had provided power to this small community, but the wires were long gone.

X navigated the wet, ruined settlement, wondering whether this place had survived the initial bombs that destroyed most of the Old World. He stopped and bent down to look at something else sticking out of the soil. He brushed the dirt off the skeletal remains of a human hand. Plucking a ring off one of the fingers, he examined it with his flashlight before slipping it into his pocket for later. Then he covered the shallow grave with fresh dirt, which was quickly turning to mud.

Standing, he scanned the area once more, looking for the hole where he had seen something dart away. That creature was bigger than a beetle, and he didn’t like surprises. It took him only a few seconds to identify the sinkhole. He motioned for Miles and then trained his rifle on the entrance as he approached, listening for the electronic noises of the Sirens but hearing nothing besides the boom of thunder. At a hundred feet, he stopped and brought up his hand.

The dog sat on his haunches, waiting for orders.

Reaching into his back pocket, X brought out an old can full of coins he had collected on his journey across the wastes. He dropped the ring inside and secured the lid. After making sure the thin cord was attached tightly to the top, he tossed the can. It vanished in the hole, clanking as it fell.

The cord caught in his hand, and he began pulling it back toward the surface. Another sound replied to the echoing metal. It started as a squawk but rose to a high-pitched squeaking.

X pulled the cord until the can reemerged. It clattered over the dirt as he yanked it a few more feet. Then he raised the rifle and aimed it at the lip of the hole, waiting for his bait to draw whatever lurked there out into the open.

He could hear the creature’s claws scraping rock on its way to the surface. This was no beetle. Miles’ tail dropped between his legs, but X remained steady, keeping the rifle barrel trained on the opening.

A deformed head with a spiky flesh Mohawk popped out of the opening, focusing a pair of bulging bloodshot eyes on the can. It sniffed the air with a nose that was little more than holes in the middle of its face. Then it glared at X, undeterred by the rain striking its crazed eyeballs or, apparently, by the sight of a man.

The beast heaved itself from the hole with two long arms covered in hardened scales like a sort of organic armor. The raised plates ran the length of its body, covering broad shoulders, a wiry torso, and powerful back legs.