The echoing pounding of feet was enough to rouse me from my slumber. I lurched from the tiny cot I was calling my home, a dirk in hand. Sweat poured down my face and my heart thumped in my chest. Wally sat by the hatch door, holding a loaded shotgun. He looked at me and raised a finger to his lips. I nodded and took a few deep breaths.
“Another patrol?” I whispered.
Wally nodded and turned his face to the hatch. “They’re coming more frequent. We need to move on, and soon.”
“Easier said than done,” Elysha hissed from underneath me.
She was not wrong. For the past eighteen months, we had moved between safehouses underground. We scavenged where we could and took what reprieve was offered. Our foe, however, would not stop until they eradicated every last one of us.
It was hard to recall how it all began. I was enjoying the summer sun with my six year old daughter and three year old son. I could still recall the smiles and laughter on their faces as I chased them around the yard, water from the hose splashing around and giving us relief from the heat. Then, the sky started to darken. It was my son who first saw the shapes cresting the horizon. I remember him asking what they were, but I couldn’t respond before the wave of heat and pressure blasted us off our feet. I regret I was not quick enough to throw myself in front of my children and protect them.
“David?”
Wally’s voice brought me back to reality and I shook my head. I gave a blank stare. “Sorry, I was… elsewhere,” I said.
“We’ll make a break for it as soon as this patrol passes by,” Wally said.
“We’ll be fucking caught,” Elysha replied.
“Do you ever miss them?” I asked.
“What?” Wally and Elysha said in unison.
“Your families. Do you miss them?” I asked, again.
Elysha ducked her head. A tear dropped from her eye and splashed on the concrete. Wally gripped his shotgun, knuckles turning white. A snarl distorted his face and he glared at something on the other side of the hatch. The sound of feet continued to pound above us, causing the occasional line of dirt to fall from the ceiling.
“I’ll never forgive them, not until the day I die,” Wally said through clenched teeth.
“Each day is harder than the last,” Elysha whispered.
“I still see their faces,” I said. “I see the brightness of their eyes when I go to sleep, and I wake up when I see the gauntness of their cheeks and the hollowness of their eyes. I linger on the smell of their flesh as it bubbled and sizzled and sloughed off their tiny bones. It all happened so fast. So brutal in how devastating the attack was. What kind of monsters would subject children to something so awful?”
“The same monsters who now hunt us like dogs. The monsters who, with their every waking moment, stalk the land in search of those they call lesser,” Jun said through his mask. “My grandfather spoke of the effects suffered by those of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki in the dying days of the war. His mother treated the wounded. Some could not be saved. Too far gone was all was said. I never thought I would experience it myself. These are the monsters who hunt us.”
Jun wore the mask not as protection from anything airborne, but to cover the damage caused to his face as a result of the irradiation plaguing the world around us. We all carried our own scars. Elysha found herself as bald as a baby, and her exposed skin a constant red rash. Tumours pressed against the thin covering of her skull. Wally limped around on his good leg and relied on the last two fingers on his right hand to be able to fire his shotgun. My back was a crosshatched pattern of scar tissue and thin blood vessels straining against skin.
Jun was the worst hit. Only once had I seen the skin hanging from his cheeks and his rotting teeth sitting exposed to the air. Every day we seemed to find more problems wrong with ourselves. Waking up was hard, but staying awake was harder. We ran out of painkillers in a matter of weeks.
“Get ready to move. We have a few minutes before they end here,” Wally said.
It was a mad scramble to gather our few possessions into the small duffle bags we used. My most prized possession was a photo of me and my kids, taken a few weeks before the attack. I was intending to send it to my mother as a Christmas photo, but never got the chance. I smiled as I saw us all sitting on Santa’s lap. Even the Santa impersonator could not help but crack a laugh as the photo was taken.
“Daddy, you won’t fit!” my daughter said.
“It’ll be funny for Nanna, won’t it?” I asked.
“Funny for Nanna!” my son said.
“Come on, let’s get ready!” I said.
I shook my head and stuffed the photo in my bag and piled my ratty clothes and provisions in on top. I wished I could have seen the look on my daughter’s face when she opened the gift I got her from Santa. A thump against the metal hatch reverberated through the small safehouse. Everyone tightened their breathing and we all stared the entrance.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A rhythmic sound. The footsteps above had stopped. The four of us huddled closer, waiting with bated breath to see what might force its way past the safehouse door. Then, an unexpected sound. Loud gunfire cracked the sky in the street above us. More dirt dribbled down from the ceiling. The gunfire intensified and indistinct voices filled the void above us.
“Friends?” Wally asked.
Thump Thump Thump.
The pounding on the door grew more frantic. Voices with a foreign dialect emanated from beyond. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Explosions now rattled the ground as the fighting above escalated at a rapid pace.
“Everyone armed?” Elysha asked.
“Why?” Jun said.
“We’re joining this fight,” Elysha said. “Do it, David.”
Jun and Wally looked at me with quizzical looks. I pulled a small remote out of my pocket and looked at the hatch. I swallowed a large wad of spit. Closing my eyes, I steeled myself for what I had to do. I hoped my calculations were correct and we would not come to harm.
“Shield your eyes and ears,” I said.
I pressed the button. A prolonged rumble shook the safehouse as a massive explosion ripped through steel and concrete as though both were paper. A brilliant flash of light flooded the dim safehouse and a ringing went through my ears. I swore I heard Elysha scream and Wally give a loud grunt of pain, but I was forced to turn away.
My hearing returned over the following few minutes. The ringing started to subside and I heard muffled voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I tried to move, but a mass of rock and dirt covered my body. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Blood oozed out of my throat. The voices became a little clearer and I heard a few words.
“Hurry… time running… need move…. here I found…” several voices said.
A small crack of light flooded my vision as a rock was hoisted away. My pupils contracted so fast, it rendered me blind to all but shapes. A tall, slender figure stood over me. Two more joined it. Then three more. Another four appeared. I tried to gasp. More blood gurgled from my throat. I blacked out.
The next thing I remembered was the slow, methodical beeping of what I assumed to be hospital machinery. Fresh air filled my lungs and I was slow to open my eyes. I tried to move my arms and legs, but couldn’t feel them. Bright lights filled my retinas as my eyelids peeled back. A mask covered my nose and mouth and a tube was shoved down my throat.
“Dad?” the female at my side said.
My eyes flicked in her direction. I wanted to ask who she was, but my instinct kicked in and I knew it was my daughter. Tears rolled down her face and beyond her stood several doctors and nurses all with stunned faces. My wife was amongst them. She stepped forward and sat on the edge of the bed.
“David? It’s a miracle,” she said.
I must have given a confused look, as several people in the gathered crowd exchanged uneasy glances with each other. Even my wife and daughter shared a look. My wife nodded and the warmth of my daughter’s hands radiated up through my arm.
“Dad, I know this may be difficult, but you’ve been in a coma for twelve years. You were in a car crash,” she said.
All I could do was stare at the stunned faces. I closed my eyes, hoping it was all a dream. But I couldn’t open them again. Everything turned dark save for a single point of light. Smiling, I walked toward it.
Fenrir's Lair 