Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

The beast landed with a shriek on the other side of the shaft; he could hear it scratch madly to right itself—to rejoin the battle. Cole felt for the hole above him, stood up inside of it, then stepped onto the wet lip, balancing the weight of his body on the edge of his boots. He tried to shake some feeling back into his tired arms as a shape moved along below him, back in the direction he needed to go.

He took some deep breaths, leaning into the damp wall. He tried reaching up, but the shaft went beyond his hands. He needed to go down for his lance, anyway.

The question was, did he go after the Wadi? Or take his chances going deeper into the cave? Would the tunnel taper to an end, or would it open out into the neighboring canyon? The only way he could fight one of those things was outside these blasted tubes of rock. They had the advantage of leverage here, and his only weapon was useless if he couldn’t swing it around.

Cole didn’t want to wait for the thing to figure out he’d ascended the shaft. He wasn’t sure how long he would last without tending to his wounds, anyway, so he lowered himself back down as quietly as he could. Glancing to the exit, he saw the dark shape slinking back and forth across the distant light. Looking the other way, he couldn’t make out an end to the tunnel. He decided he would explore a little, let the thing hunt for him in the wrong direction while his strength returned.

Grabbing his lance off the tunnel floor, Cole stretched across the hole he had nearly fallen through and moved silently into the blackness.

Behind him, he left a trail of moisture.

Thick, and slowly clotting.

It seemed as if an hour passed before Molly’s shirt twitched.

She jumped in front of the hole and lunged in with her protected hand, but there was nothing there. It must have been the wind.

She rubbed fresh sweat off her body and put the lure back in position.

More time went by. She felt completely alone and removed from the rest of the universe. Even the agonized moans that called out around her did nothing to provide any sense of company. Her only companions were the twin stars and the fixed shadows they cast, their unmoving nature turning every second into a trapped eternity.

Focusing on the shirt, Molly tried to make it the sole entity in her awareness, but the sight of her own valuable fluids dripping down the rock wall distracted her. Tormented her. The precious trickle evaporated long before it reached the ground, a miniature waterfall that led nowhere—just faded out of existence.

Her shirt moved again. The twitch coincided with a slight gust of wind, so she assumed it was another false alarm, but then the entire lure disappeared into the hole as if sucked inside a vacuum.

The sleeve made a loud, ripping noise.

“No!” she muttered, lunging for the hole. She pulled gently with the sleeve as her other arm dove in after the disappearing shirt.

As soon as she touched the creature tugging on the lure, she felt it focus its energy on her. It felt smaller than the last one she’d fought, wrapping itself around her hand and trying to tear through the fabric. Molly pulled it out of the hole and the thing shrieked at her. It was as long as her forearm and twice as thick. She fell to the ground, pinning it on its back, its teeth fighting through the layers of her makeshift glove.

Molly gripped the sleeve of the wet lure and flung it in circles around her other hand, protecting it. She used it to hold the creature’s jaw, trying to figure out if there was a safe place to hold a Wadi where it couldn’t bite her.

She briefly considered putting a knee on its belly and forcing the life out of the thing, but it was smaller than the last one, and this wasn’t the same monster that had gashed her face and hand. In fact, both of them were just looking for water, a craving Molly could easily understand.

She castigated herself for being weak, but a silly urge overcame her: she had to get this creature back to the shelter, alive, and only then release it back into the shade. The challenge fixed itself in her mind as a way to beat this inhospitable land. A way to prevent it from beating her.

Using some of the suit material hanging off her right hand, she started wrapping the Wadi’s mouth, sealing it tight. The poor thing began panting out of its long nose, its soft, white belly rising and falling with quick breaths. But at least it stopped fighting as madly; its legs just pawed at the air, looking for something to push against.

Molly clenched her left fist and squeezed some of her sweat out, allowing it to run into the Wadi’s mouth as it strained against the binding. This made it twitch a little more at first, clawing for the fabric with its front paws, before it finally settled back down.

She took her first good look at the specimen, the iridescent scales along its back and arms glowing, even in the shade. Two bones protruded from the back of the thing’s shoulders, stumps with no discernible purpose, like vestigial limbs. She worked quickly, trying to not get distracted by the beauty of the thing; she wrapped her flapping suit around the creature’s entire body, tight enough to hold it still, but hopefully not so tight it couldn’t breathe. She pressed the bundle to her bare chest.

The Wadi kicked a few more times, struggling against the metallic material, but Molly had it under control now. She could cradle it with one arm and pin it to her body as she soaked up more sweat. She dripped the fluids into the small crack along its mouth and felt the creature go limp with every drink.

Molly had no idea how long the thing—or herself—would survive without proper water. Salt-free water. She double-checked the bundle to make sure the Wadi was secure before giving her lance a long look. She couldn’t carry both, which meant risking her life in an attempt to preserve the strange animal’s.

Turning around, she surveyed the first of many shady bridges that awaited, strong gusts tearing across it and down the blistering canyon. Molly crouched low and set off across the narrow path.

She left behind her only means of defense, propped up against the pockmarked stone. Both her arms tended to the prize against her chest as a harsh, hot wind ripped across her bare back.

Cole worked his way across the next hole he discovered in the tunnel’s floor. Looking over his shoulder, he could no longer see the light from the entrance. It had been lost around a bend, or perhaps something blotted it out. His hand slipped in a puddle of water and another series of drips pelted his back. He didn’t linger to refresh himself.

He crawled forward, the tunnel not getting any bigger or smaller. Cole hoped that meant it bored clear through to the next canyon. He stopped scrambling along and patted for his map, reassuring himself he still had it. As soon as he did so, he heard it: something moving behind him.

He took off as fast as he could crawl, the stupid lance slowing him down and forcing him to move with his knuckles on bare rock. When something bumped into the bottom of his boot, he kicked back at it, making solid contact and setting the tunnel on fire with screeches of animalistic rage.

Cole concentrated on moving away from the sounds, groping ahead for more holes in the floor, hoping the ceiling wouldn’t start constricting down around him. Once again, he felt the amount of solid stone on all sides, the fact that dozens of these things could be coming—homing in on the racket he was making.

His vision spotted with fear.

No. He wasn’t seeing stars. That was light!

Two spots, both perfect circles, as if the tunnel forked ahead. Cole hugged the right side and ignored the pain in his knees and shins, scrambling along as fast as he could. Behind, the angry, high-pitched sounds grew into peals of fury. There was no way he would get to the exit before it clawed up his back.