Nicholas Smith - Deliverance

Magnolia and Rodger were standing near a wall of lockers, and she held what appeared to be a parachute. The hum of machinery filled the lull in their conversation.

“What’s going on here?” Michael asked.

Magnolia whirled to face him. She brushed a strand of blue hair over her ear and snorted, pointing at Rodger. He wiped his forehead, then looked in Michael’s direction. The tape holding the rims of his glasses together had come undone, and one of frames sagged over his eye. He pushed it back up, then used his sleeve to wipe the grease off his forehead. When he didn’t reply, Magnolia spoke for him.

“We only have enough material to make two parachutes, but Rodger thinks we can extend it to three, maybe even four, which I say is dangerous as hell.”

Confused, Michael looked back to Layla. “Why do we need parachutes?” he asked.

She sank her hands in the pockets of her baggy sweatshirt and looked away. Michael turned back to Rodger, knowing he would get a straight answer out of the man—Rodger couldn’t lie to save his life.

“Tell me why we need parachutes,” Michael asked again.

Timothy’s hologram suddenly flickered in the space between Michael and Rodger. Everyone looked at the AI.

“Commander Everhart, I do apologize for not telling you earlier, but it is not safe to land Deliverance at the coordinates Mr. Xavier transmitted, due to a massive electrical storm.”

“And you didn’t tell me this because…?” Michael said.

“I would have earlier, but you cut me off.”

“I thought you said the weather sensors aren’t working properly.”

There was a pause. “Is that a question?”

“Yes.”

“Then that is correct, Commander,” Timothy said. “The meteorological sensors are not working properly, but radar has picked up a storm covering one hundred square miles over the source of the last distress signal. In order to reach Mr. Xavier’s location, you will need to dive through the storm or proceed on foot for approximately fifty miles over radioactive territory.”

Xavier Rodriguez watched the storm from the safety of an ancient vehicle stranded at the edge of a cliff. Thunder rumbled—a constant din that shook the metal bulkheads around him. For hundreds of years, the armored truck had sat on the crest of a hill once covered in thick forest. The former occupants, a pair of soldiers, were now buried beside the deflated tires. X had decided to honor the old way of putting humans to rest by digging holes in the earth and covering them with dirt.

He was safely back inside the rusty armored truck now, sitting behind the steering wheel, in a cracked leather seat, with Miles curled up next to him. The interior was surprisingly well preserved, considering its age. It had also provided one of the best finds ever: maps showing military bunkers across the United States. These weren’t ITC facilities, and he hoped they would have power cells, food, weapons, and perhaps even other people.

Leaning forward, he examined the lettering on the bulkhead. It was some sort of model number. What little he knew about the Old World was from experiences like this. The vehicle was called a Stryker and had served as a mobile command center for troops during war. While the electrical and mechanical systems had stopped working long ago, one of the scopes still functioned, and he was confident he could get the radio back online.

Through the thick glass window, he watched the bowl of the storm swirling over the flattened city. Yellow light churned deep inside the guts of the clouds.

A scratching noise made him jump, and Miles looked up as a spider with purple legs skittered over the glass. It pecked at the bulletproof glass with its beaklike jaws and then looked at X with a dozen bulbous eyes.

“It’s okay, boy,” X said. “Just a bug.”

The creature pecked at the window again, then moved to the upper right corner, where it attached itself to the glass with limbs tipped by suction cups.

“Looks like we have a new friend,” X whispered.

He didn’t mind, as long as it stayed outside. Suddenly, a vision of a bite wound filled his mind. Venom from the wound melted the man’s skin, slowly consuming the entire leg. The scene was from twenty years ago, when X had been forced to watch a fellow diver succumb to a bite from a spider like the one outside. The mutated arachnid could kill a grown man in seconds with a single bite.

The storm belched webs of electricity over the city below, lashing the decaying structures over and over. From this vantage point, X could see a huge crater on the other side of the city. The bomb had leveled almost everything, leaving behind nothing but twisted metal and concrete foundations. The hill the vehicle sat on was burned bald, with not even a tree stump left behind. Rocks and boulders peppered the steep slope, their surfaces glazed and sooted even now, centuries after the nuclear explosion.

It was only a guess, but perhaps these soldiers had driven to the top of the hill to assess the damage after the blast. For some reason, they never left the vehicle again, dying inside the mobile command center. Perhaps it had been from radiation poisoning or some other illness. The bodies had been too badly decomposed to tell.

At least the monsters didn’t get them.

In the strobe flash from several lightning strikes, a flitter of motion caught his eye. He followed the movement to a sinkhole in one of the streets. The silhouetted form slithered into the opening and vanished. The openings in the streets led to vast sewer and rail systems under the city, and he avoided them at all costs. A human and his dog had no place setting foot down there.

Still, he would need to find a way across the debris field sooner or later. They couldn’t wait here much longer. He was low on food again and down to two blaster shells and one magazine for his rifle.

Miles looked up, sniffed the air, and reoriented his furry body. They had been hiding inside the vehicle for several days, maybe more. X had lost track of time again.

The sporadic boom of thunder continued. It was calming, in a way. X wished he could stay sheltered here longer, but he still had hundreds of miles to go before he reached the coast.

He looked at the spider once more and then flipped the hatch down over the inside of the window. Darkness filled the interior. He lit an emergency candle and placed it on the dash before climbing into the command center behind the front seat, where he lit a second candle. The flames cast a warm glow over the monitors and radio equipment. Several bucket seats faced the equipment, all of them covered in fine dust.

Miles followed X into the compartment and sat at his feet while he reached into his vest and pulled out the book. In the dim light, he scanned its contents. A picture fell out. He held up the image of palm trees swaying in the wind on a beach. Teal water slapped the edge. This was where he was headed, although he knew it wouldn’t look the same.

Two years earlier, as X was starting to lose his mind, he had found the image during a raid of an abandoned bunker. He had also found the book then. The pages had been empty, but now they were filled with his words and other things he had collected over the years.

The book helped him remember those he had lost: Rhonda, his wife, and Aaron Everhart, his best friend. It also contained descriptions of the people he was still searching for: Michael Everhart, Magnolia Katib, and Katrina DaVita. He had described them to the best of his memory so he might never forget.