Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) (13 page)

“I almost don’t want to stay here,” I said.
“But it’s hard to argue with a full stomach. It doesn’t have to be
forever, I guess.”

We still had the batts. Surely that had to be
worth something,
somewhere
. We could always find another
town.

At that moment, the door opened. Ren walked
in, carrying two steaming trays of food. My mouth watered, and my
stomach growled.

He set the trays on the table.

“There is a well behind the house, near the
wall,” he said.

Ren left without another word.

“Charming,” I said.

“This place does not like strangers, that is
for sure.” Makara stood. “I’ll go fill our canteens. You can start
eating without me.”

“No. I’ll wait.”

It was a minute before she returned. Sitting
there with that steaming tray of potatoes, beans, and corn was
torture.

As soon as she got back, I dug in.

When you go for a while without eating much,
you get full quickly. I had to force myself to finish, even if it
felt as if my stomach was going to explode. Makara was right;
hunger is the best seasoning. I couldn’t remember a better meal in
my life.

After I gulped down my water, Makara and I
sat for a moment. We were both tired, and didn’t say anything. She
wanted to be alone with her thoughts. So I went to my bunk in the
corner, got out my blanket, and hunkered down for the night.

The mattress might have smelled funny, but it
was soft and comfortable. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of a future
that did not involve getting shot at or living on the run, one with
a full meal every night and at least some semblance of routine.

The only thing was, I was probably going to
die before any of that happened.

After getting the guns back, we left Oasis at
dawn by the north gate past all the fields. On our way, we passed
wheat and cornstalks, half withered by the harsh, dry environment.
It was a wonder that anything at all could grow out here.

We were out in the Wasteland again, heading
northwest to Cold Mountain, a shadowy mass in the distance. It was
surrounded by smaller mountains. I wondered how we’d find Bunker
114 in all that.

It was still dark, and we saw no hint of the
sun until a golden glow shone above the eastern mountains. The
desert floor was bathed in a vibrant, orange hue.

On the way, Makara handed me my gun.
My
gun. It felt good merely to think those words.

We stopped for a short break so I could get
to know it better. It was a Beretta handgun. It looked at least
fifty years old, but it had a lot of character. It had many
scratches and scuffs from the years, and the design was sleek and
rounded.

Makara took a moment to show me how to use
it. She took out the magazine. Fully loaded, it contained seventeen
rounds. Makara showed me two boxes of 9mm rounds in the pack. The
two boxes each contained a hundred rounds. I had plenty of ammo as
long as I didn’t get too trigger-happy.

When I latched the holstered handgun onto my
belt, words cannot describe how much securer I felt.

We walked on.

“How far do you think it is?” I asked.

“Ten miles or so,” Makara said. “It’s still
morning, so we’re making good progress.”

As the sun rose higher in the sky, the
mountain appeared to get a little closer. It wouldn’t be long
now.

We walked on at a fast pace the rest of the
day. By afternoon we had slowed, having entered the foothills of
Cold Mountain. The peak rose before us like a giant tooth,
wicked-looking. It had a long, pointed top, like a spire. It was
hard to see the top, as it was mostly lost in reddish haze.

I noticed something else, too, as we drew
closer. The sides of the mountain were purple, pink, and burnt
orange.

“What is that?” I asked.

We both stopped to look at it. It was clear
that the color was unnatural. Multicolored layers of something
toppled down the mountain in frozen waves. It looked alive.

“A Blight,” Makara said. “No wonder that
patrol did not come back.”

“Are they always dangerous?”

“I’ve never seen one this big,” she said.
“It’s taking up the whole mountain. You never know what kind of
things you will run into in a Blight.”

“Monsters?”

“Just be ready. Shoot anything that
moves.”

We were almost to the northern face of Cold
Mountain. Nothing had jumped out at us – yet – but being in my
first Blight was a nerve-wrecking experience. The entire ground was
coated in a thick, sticky purple and pink substance. This, I knew,
was xenofungus. I had only seen samples in my father’s lab. To see
miles upon miles of it was surreal and frightening. It squished as
we walked on it.

Pillars, maybe ten to twenty feet tall, rose
from the purple stuff in organic towers. They appeared to be
spawned by the stuff on the ground, and had massive, bell-shaped
openings that dripped pink slime. The slime flowed downhill,
funneled by the fungus. It collected toward the end of the Blight.
The solidifying of the slime at the Blight’s edges might have been
the way the fungus spread ever outward.

We worked our way through the towers and
spongy ground. It was late afternoon by now, and we still had not
found the Bunker entrance. But I knew we would have to find it
quickly. Getting caught out here at night was a terrifying
thought.

We came around the flank of the mountain to
find ourselves under its northern face. The entire side was covered
with purple and pink grime. It glowed from the hazy, setting sun,
and clouds of insects swarmed near the towers. Right in the middle
of it all was a gaping maw, lost in shadow. The opening seemed to
lead into the mountain.

“That looks promising,” Makara said.

“Like the mouth of a beast.”

“If there’s any entrance,
that
will be
it. Come on. It’s not far.”

As we crossed the purple field, I couldn’t
shake the feeling that we were being watched. I looked around, but
saw nothing.

“I have a feeling something is watching us,”
I said.

Makara stopped. “I don’t feel anything…”

I turned around, seeing nothing but
multicolored miles of Blight, spreading in all directions.

When I turned around again, they were right
in front of us.

Two dog-like creatures, completely hairless,
were kneeling in front of Makara. In tandem they pounced on her,
and she fell backward. She screamed, dropping her gun. Their jaws
snapped, closer to her neck. She elbowed one in the head.

I ran forward, pulling out my Beretta. I
fired at the one about to finish Makara. Two bullets plowed into
the head. The thing yelped and went slack, purple goo oozing from
the wounds.

The other monster snarled as it turned to
face me and crouched on its haunches. I fired several times, the
bullets tearing into its chest and front legs. I couldn’t get a
steady shot.

It gave a shrill shriek as it lunged for me.
It had me on the ground against the slimy fungus. Its completely
white eyes bored into mine. I could feel drool dripping on my neck,
stinging on contact.

Another gunshot. The creature’s weight
collapsed onto me. I pushed it off in a panic, and reached for my
neck, wiping the drool off with my hands.

“Wash it off,” Makara said, handing me her
water bottle.

“Thanks.”

Makara was still recovering her breath.
“Thanks, yourself. That was some shot. I would have been dead.”

“Same for you.”

I poured the water on my neck, wiping it dry
with my shirt.

Makara looked at it closely. “The skin’s a
bit red. But there’s no open wound. You’ll be fine.”

“Are we good to go?” I asked.

“We should have seen those coming.
Unfortunately, they blend right in.”

We walked the rest of the way to the cave and
stood in front of it. The air smelled cool and damp, and carried
the faint smell of rot. It was hard not to feel as if we were
walking into some horrible creature’s mouth as we went down the
slope and into the cave.

When we were a good way in, Makara took out a
flashlight and clicked it on.

In front of us lay the dead bodies of the
lost patrol.

“Oh, no…” Makara said, rushing forward.

They were utterly mutilated. Something really
big had torn these people from head to toe. A bloody head lay in a
corner, surrounded by a ring of pink fungus that seemed to be
feeding off of it. The rest of the body parts had been gathered in
a twisted, gory corpse pile.

Makara went toward it. I grabbed her by the
hand.

“Are you crazy? Don’t go near that.”

Makara stopped. “You’re right. But he might
be…”

Might? He probably was. But I wasn’t going to
say that to Makara. The bodies were not just ripped up. They were
rotting. They had suffered through at least several days of
decomposition, and the way the fungus fed off them just made
recognition all the more difficult.

We spent the next few minutes gathering the
supplies of the lost patrol. Guns, ammunition, medicine, food…it
was a treasure trove. It was easy to see why Ohlan wanted this
stuff back. I tried my best to ignore the dead bodies.

Makara was barely holding it together. There
would be time for grieving later.

“Look, Makara…we have maybe an hour of
sunlight left. We need to hurry.”

She nodded. “I know. I’m trying. Just let me
work, okay?”

After five minutes, we had gathered all we
could into two large backpacks we had found nearby. It was almost
all the stuff, including the guns and ammunition.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Suddenly, the cave darkened. At first, I
thought Makara had turned off her flashlight. But she reached for
her gun, and that’s when I heard a bullet.

I turned to face the mouth of the cave, and
saw five figures blocking the entrance.

“Hey, Makara,” came that nasty, gravelly
voice. “You miss me?”

It was Brux.

“Run!” Makara yelled.

We didn’t turn to look back as the Raiders
fired at us. Bullets whizzed by. Makara turned off her flashlight
and the ensuing darkness swallowed us.

“I’ll find you, Makara!” Brux yelled. “I’ll
track you down if it’s the last thing I do!”

His voice was lost as we ran on. After
running and tripping for a minute, Makara turned the light back on
– it was just too dangerous not to see where we were going,
especially when something much worse than Raiders lived here.

We rounded corners, the floor sloping ever
downward. A thin trickle of a stream collected at our feet, and we
splashed our way through the darkness.

The light revealed scenery more and more
alien to the eye. Pink and purple fungus hung in stalactites. There
was a curious deadening of all sound, caused by the purple stuff
covering the walls. A pungent, sickly-sweet smell burned my
lungs.

Soon it was hard to breathe.

“Makara,” I said.

She looked back. “We can’t stop now.”

My head swam. It was hard to focus.

A hand slapped my cheek.

“Wake up, damn it!” Makara yelled. “Do you
want to die here?”

I pushed forward one step. I heard voices
behind us in the distance, from a different world.

I fell to my knees.

“Go on, Makara…”

But she didn’t go on. Her eyes grew hazy, and
she fell to the ground.

“What…is this…?”

My only desire was to lie on the bed of
fungus beneath us. It was so soft. I nestled in it. It was warm,
damp, like a living thing. I would soon become a part of it. I
wanted nothing more than that.

A curious itching covered my face. But I
didn’t care; I was too tired.

Makara and I were soon fast asleep.

I swam through dreams – peaceful dreams, the
kind you never want to wake from. I saw my father, Khloe, and even
my mother. It had been so long since I’d seen her. She had brown
hair and soft, kind eyes. How this this could be her, I didn’t know
– it had been so long since she had died.

After what seemed days, in this state,
eventually the dreams began to fade.

I opened my eyes and found myself in a dark
room, alone. I was in a small bed, and I made out the faint
outlines of a desk in the corner.

I thought I had died.

I tried to move my legs, but they didn’t obey
my commands.

“Makara…”

My voice was soft and raspy. Nothing answered
it.

The door opened, letting in a flood of white
light. I saw a shadowy shape enter. I shielded my eyes.

“You are up, finally,” came a deep, male
voice.

“Who are you?”

I did my best to sit up, and leaned my back
against the headboard of the bed. I was terribly thirsty.

“Water.”

The man handed me a leather canteen. I drank
the warm water greedily.

“I found you and Makara while collecting
samples,” he said. “Foolish thing – to run into a xenofungal field
without the proper breathing equipment. If I hadn’t come along, you
would have been dead. Or worse.”

My eyes were starting to focus. I could make
out the man. He was tall, and all angles and hard muscle. He had
broad shoulders, tanned skin, and a shaved head. His eyes, though I
could not determine their color, were focused and serious. He
looked to be in his early to mid-twenties.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“I found you on September 30. It is now
October 2. Some never wake from the coma caused by xenofungal
sleeping spores. You were lucky. I came along just in time.”

“Where is Makara?”

“She awoke earlier in the day, but I couldn’t
get two words out of her. She is asleep again. She will be
fine.”

He walked to the door and flipped on the
light. Suddenly everything was illuminated, and my eyes burned.