by J. F. Halpin
“Hold up,” Nowak said. He had a pair of binoculars in his hand, leaning out the window.
“What is it, Sarge?” Summers asked. He had one hand on the butt of his rifle. If Nowak saw the kind of trouble bullets wouldn’t put down, their job was to lead it away from the Humvee—in part to make sure it didn’t charge the jeep and blow them all to hell, but mostly to buy Cortez time to grab something big enough to kill it.
“Two o’clock. I think I see a road,” Nowak answered after a beat.
“You sure?”
“No, so start driving.”
It was a road. An overgrown, poorly maintained dirt road, but it was definitely man-made. Or elf-made. Whatever.
“You know what this means?” Cortez asked.
“Yeah. There’s a town nearby,” Nowak answered.
“Do we want to risk meeting the locals?” Summers gave Asle a quick glance. “How do you think they’d react to people like us, Asle?”
Asle shrugged. She was getting a lot of use out of that. “Don’t know. People different.”
“You think they would attack us?” Logan asked. Asle seemed to consider that for a long moment.
“No. Asle talk good.” She nodded as if that solved the matter.
“We appreciate it,” Logan said, smiling down at the girl.
“What do you think, Sarge. We going to risk it?” Summers looked to Nowak. They’d been grilling Asle about what her people were like for the last few days. They typically only dealt with arrows, poison, and spears, so they’d imagined some kind of medieval or even tribal society. If it came to it, they’d probably be able to handle any problems that came up, but that wasn’t something he’d be looking forward to.
Monsters were one thing. People were another. He’d killed people during his deployment, sure, but that didn’t make it a pleasant experience.
Nowak turned to Asle. “If we meet people, do you think they’d trade for food and supplies?”
Asle thought about it. “Yes. Guns good.”
Nowak held up a hand. “Not guns. I don’t want to start handing out weapons. Like, clothes. Or MREs. Maybe some of the medicine we have.”
“Guns best,” Asle finally answered.
“I agree with the kid, guns best. But I’d also prefer not arming someone who might come back to bite us in the ass,” Cortez said.
Nowak said, “I think it’s worth trying. Any objections?”
There were none.
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The road was a welcome change for just about everyone in the Humvee. It may have only been dirt, but their progress became markedly faster. Not having to dodge rocks, debris, and the occasional horizontal tree meant they had to backtrack far less often.
It wasn’t long before they came upon some kind of town. They saw the spiked wooden fence from a distance, with only a few of what they could assume were homes rising above it. Their roofs were curved, and as they got closer, it seemed like they ran straight into the ground.
“What’s the plan? We wait out here until they get a welcoming committee together?” Summers asked.
“That’s about the speed of it,” Nowak answered.
And so, they waited. And waited. And waited some more. About two hours after they had parked their big Humvee outside the town’s gates, they determined that nobody was coming. Worse, they hadn’t seen any activity inside the entire time.
“No one there,” Asle said in her most polite “you people are idiots” voice.
Nowak considered the scene for a moment before he popped the door to the Humvee and stepped back inside. “We’ll head in slow. First sign of trouble, I want you to gun the gas. We’ll head out the other side.”
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They made their way in past the gates ponderously slow. They had Cortez on the roof, rifle in hand and looking for trouble. They didn’t find any. It didn’t take a genius to tell that the town had been abandoned a long time ago. It looked like whatever happened had taken out the town as they were building it; some structures were half-finished, while others were caved in and overrun with weeds. There were signs that, at some point, there had been a fire that took out a good chunk of the west side.
Only the sturdier, larger buildings looked safe enough to set up camp. Nowak directed them to the town’s center—a building that reminded Summers of a Norse longhouse, only with more stone and sharp sticks jutting out from it. The grass-covered roofs were in line with his expectations for what elves should live in. The animal bone shrines were not. And there were a lot of those.
“Asle, what are these supposed to be?” Summers asked, indicating the pile of foreign-looking animal bones decorating the front of the longhouse.
“Good luck. Make evil go away,” she answered.
“Uh huh,” Summers said. He already knew better at this point than to ask her to clarify. Then again, he was probably asking too much of her, in general. She was still just a kid. The fact that they could even communicate at all was impressive in itself.
“There’s a well over there. Think we can trust the water?” Adams asked, looking at a stone circle not far from them.
“We’ll find out. Should be able to boil it if it looks clean,” Nowak responded.
“We planning on staying here, Sarge?” Summers didn’t like the idea of setting up camp in a place the natives themselves had left.
“Maybe, maybe not. I want to get a good look around first. Adams, watch the Humvee.” Nowak indicated the longhouse in front of them. “I do know I’d rather have a wall between me and anything this world can throw at us. And I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing my ass off.”
“Yeah,” Summers consented.
“It’s cold,” Asle added.
“There are probably some supplies left over, if these people moved out in a hurry.” Cortez looked over the few remaining buildings.
“Logan, think you can watch Asle and the Humvee?” Nowak asked.
“Prop me somewhere high up, and we’ll see what happens,” Logan responded.
Nowak smiled. “All right, then. Let’s head out.”
Chapter 5: Town
“That is a lot of blood,” Nowak observed.
It really was. They were clearing the homes around the longhouse. Each one they’d come across was marred with black stains on the floors and walls. Every so often, they came across bones that looked vaguely humanoid. One such example had been pinned to the wall with a knife.
There were more than a few homes like that; mostly, they’d found the remains of people that looked like they’d torn each other apart.
“Maybe the town wasn’t abandoned so much as wiped off the face of the earth,” Cortez noted.
“By some other group, you think?” Adams asked. He was gathering wood from a nearby fireplace. This longhouse was thankfully empty, and they were looking forward to using the firepit inside.
“If it was, they did a shit job of looting the place,” Cortez said. She was right. They might not know much about these people, but they did know that when a house had been looted, you could tell the difference. Most of the homes they’d checked still had some expensive—albeit useless—odds and ends lying around. They had, of course, stuffed what they could into the Humvee under Asle’s instruction as to what was “nice.”
“Check this out,” Cortez called over. She was holding a longsword up to the light. By the stains on the blade, and the corpse at her feet, Summers could imagine where she’d found it. It wasn’t like the dead guy would mind. The sword itself was in great shape, even despite its origins, with subtle curves that bled into the hilt.
Cortez gave it a few test swings, the material flexing as the edge caught against a nearby table. It sank into the wood with little resistance.
“Shit.” Cortez started, pulling the blade free from the wood. “My bad.”
“You done playing with that thing?” Summers asked.
“Yeah. It’s pretty, but not my type,” Cortez said
as she tossed the sword on the table.
Nowak considered the sword, then picked it up and stepped on the flat of the blade, testing his weight against it. “Gives me an idea, though.”
“I got something,” Adams called over. He had a huge piece of leather in his hands. “I think it’s a map.”
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The “map” was more symbolic than anything else. It reminded Summers of a scavenger hunt he’d participated in as a kid. Apparently, cartography wasn’t high on the priority list in this world. The good news was that it showed the road south of the town that led to a city of some sort. Or at least a bigger town.
The red marks written along the side of said road could only be interpreted one way.
“Means monster,” Asle said, pointing to the red territory to the right. “Big one.”
“Yeah, I sort of figured,” Summers noted. Looking at Asle, it was clear she was tired. Given everything that had happened, and the long hours they’d spent on the road, it wasn’t any surprise.
“You should get some rest.”
Asle nodded before moving off. At least she made it clear the map was useful. For landmarks if nothing else. And it showed a few roads that should exist in one state or another.
Summers left the others to look over the map and instead moved toward the fire. God was it nice to have a fire. The longhouse wasn’t in great condition. He could feel the cool night air leaking in through the cracks in the wall, but it still beat standing out in the cold.
The group spent some time resting, getting their camp set up. Just as he was about to close his eyes, a loud, metallic groan woke him. He looked over to see Nowak bending the sword they’d found into a type of L shape. He had the hilt in hand, while the blade was jammed into some bricks near the far wall.
“Sarge, what in the hell are you doing?” Summers asked.
“Making our friend a replacement leg,” Nowak answered, still trying to bend the sword. Summers was surprised it didn’t just break outright.
“Like a running blade?”
Nowak grunted as he stood on top of the blade, needing to grab a handhold and push himself down. The blade protested, but eventually gave just a little bit more.
“Hey, it bends. And it can probably hold his weight. I think we can rig together something to secure it to the leg. Would you mind getting him? I want to get the height right.”
“If you say so.” Summers had his doubts that it would work, but it gave the man something to look forward to, at least. He headed outside and found Logan on the roof of the longhouse, Asle asleep beside him. He was looking through the scope of a rifle at something in the distance.
“All clear up there?” Summers called up. The last thing you wanted to do was surprise someone with a finger near their trigger. He almost regretted it, as he saw Asle stir, but he was probably going to wake her up trying to get up there anyway.
“Yeah, just some fog. Looks sort of weird, though,” Logan said in response.
Summers made an awkward attempt to crawl up the nearly vertical roof. As he made it up, he saw what Logan was talking about. Fog was starting to roll in from the distance, a sheer wall of it in every direction.
“Yeah, that is a little weird.” Summers saw Asle quirk her head at him.
“Fawg?” Asle asked.
“Fog.” Summers pointed to the distant clouds that were rolling in. “You know fog?”
“Fog?” Asle yelled, now fully awake. “Yeft! No. Um.” She paused, thinking. “Poison!” she said, pointing at the incoming fog.
“Excuse me?” was all Summers could manage.
“Death!” she said, still pointing at the huge mass of fog coming at them.
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Summers vaulted over the barricade they’d made at the longhouse door. “Sarge, do we have gas masks?”
“What?” Nowak asked, understandably more than a little confused.
Summers pointed at the door. “Giant cloud of poison heading our way. Masks?”
“Yeah, I saw them. I don’t know if we have enough, though,” Cortez said.
“Get them, now!” He watched Cortez bolt out the door. “Sarge, I’m not sure what’s going on myself, but there’s some sort of fog rolling in and Asle says it will kill us. There’s a lot of it.”
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Cortez was digging through the top of the Humvee. “Motherfucker! Of course, they’re at the bottom.”
“Why are they at the bottom?” Summers yelled.
“Because I didn’t think we’d need them!” Cortez answered.
“Anyone remember seeing a basement?” Nowak asked.
“If there was somewhere to hide, I don’t think this place would have been abandoned!” Summers called back.
Nowak considered that for a second, then rushed to the Humvee with Summers. “Why are they at the bottom?” It had occurred to him to be on the lookout for something that could kill a town full of people. Now, he supposed they had found it.
Cortez reached under a rack of M4s. She could see the box she’d stored the masks away in, but it was too far back to reach. “Asle, we need you over here!” She hoped the girl could open the box without having to move the mountain of crap on top of it.
“Poison!” Asle said, pointing again at the fog.
“We know!” Summers barked back. And then he realized he was yelling at a likely terrified child who was just trying to warn them about her world’s fucked-up ecosystem. “Come here. We need help!” he said, gesturing to the Humvee.
Asle ran over. Cortez pointed into the gap she was holding open. “Open the green box toward the back!”
Asle understood immediately and dove into the opening. Summers looked at the approaching fog. It was closer now, towering over the small town by at least ten stories.
“Sarge, what if this doesn’t work?” Adams was staring at the oncoming cloud in a mix of terror and confusion.
“I know! I’m thinking!” Nowak looked around, frantic.
Summers noticed that the fog only reached a few stories up on some of the taller buildings. If there weren’t any airtight rooms in the longhouse, maybe they could get on the roof. “We need to get to some higher ground.”
Nowak nodded. “Roof, then try to get into the tree.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Logan asked. He was propping himself up on his good leg.
“Try!” Nowak yelled back.
Asle returned a moment later with a gas mask in hand. Cortez took it, and she headed back into the opening.
“Summers!” Cortez called over. He grabbed the offered mask, quickly securing it to his head. Almost immediately, Asle came out with another that Nowak handed up to Logan.
“I got it. Get clear!” Summers called out, grabbing the edge of the crate Cortez was holding up. She took the next mask for herself, while Summers held the bulk of the crap they’d piled on the Humvee.
Asle made two more trips before she came out for a final time, empty handed. “It’s stuck!”
He could see the mask snagged on the butt of a rifle through the opening.
Summers looked at the fog. It was seconds away from the gates, and Asle was the only one without a mask. Son of a bitch.
He tore off his mask and jammed it on Asle’s head with probably a little more force than he needed to. “I’ll get it. Get on the roof!”
She was already running when he reached into the opening. He pulled with all his weight, and the gas mask came free with a tear. Screw it, these things had more than enough straps as it was. He pulled it onto his head, making sure that it was tight enough before he started climbing up the side of the longhouse after the others.
The fog hit them. It slammed silently into the town’s gates, pooling into the streets below. Like a tide, it flowed over the walls and through the gaps of the crudely built homes. Summers was already on the roof, but it was rising faster than he would have expected.
Cortez was helpin
g Logan to a higher branch, and he looked to see Asle contemplating the jump. For Christ’s sake, they’d left the kid to try to clear the distance on her own. He sprinted across the roof, grabbing her by the waistband, and jumped. He landed awkwardly, Asle in one arm and the other wrapped for dear life around the largest branch he could find. He hefted the girl up to the higher branches of the tree. She took off like only someone in a state of panic could. He followed suit, climbing as if his life depended on it. It likely did. Asle was already almost halfway up. Damn, he thought. That kid could move.
He reached for the next branch and felt a cool wetness on his leg. The fog was already up to his waist by the time he noticed it. He moved faster, hoping against hope that the mask did its job.
The fog overtook him, and he realized then the mistake he’d made. Reaching a hand up to his head, he understood that it wasn’t just a strap he’d torn. It was the filter.
“Oh.”
He could taste the change in the air. Almost immediately, he felt something in his body seize, and his grip on the branch loosened.
As Summers fell, there was only one thought in his head:
This is such a stupid way to die.
Chapter 6: Side Effects
Summers’ eyes snapped open. He was breathing hard, the world around him an ocean of white.
“Where am I?”
His voice sounded off somehow.
He tore off the useless mask, letting it fall to the ground, and could feel a cold, burning sensation in his lungs. But somehow, that didn’t bother him. He could feel the adrenaline surge up inside him, hear his heart pounding in his chest. It felt . . . good.
He spun, eyes scanning through the fog. There was something there. Somehow, he knew it. His gun. He needed his gun.
It was in his hands . . . when did it get there?
He heard shouting, but it wasn’t important. He ignored it and started running.
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