by Michael Bray
THE LAST MUTATION
And other stories from the wastelands
Michael Bray
CHAPTER ONE
This world was death. Once called earth, it was now an inhospitable, rocky place filled with death and the remnants of the old world. The colours of what once went before had become faded, greens and blues replaced by brown and grey. Trees, once lush and alive were now brittle skeletal things whose leaves would never again grow. This wasn’t new, or unexpected. Nothing in this world lived, not in the sense of the word as they once did. Instead, humanity survived, those who were left scurrying like cockroaches in an effort to prolong their pitiful existence. A man shambled through these desolate lands, breath fogging in the chill air, scruffy hair and beard tousled by the icy wind. He pulled his tatty green jacket up around his neck in a half-hearted attempt to keep warm, and went on his way, heading nowhere, letting instinct guide him. Nobody counted days or seasons anymore. There was no point. In the old world, it would have been February. In this one, it was simply another bleak and bitter day like the rest. He squinted at the sky, grey and overcast as it always was and always had been for as long as he could remember. He heard that once it used to be blue, but like the sun, now only a hazy whitish glow in the sky, it had become the stuff of legend, a campfire story told by people who were either clinging to what was there before, or looking for renewed hope for the future. The man stopped, tired eyes scanning the landscape. Shells of buildings, broken and forgotten reached up from the ground, tombstones to a society nobody could remember. With them, the rusted shells of cars that snaked through the broken streets, all that remained of the thriving lands that used to exist before the event occurred. He had been born afterwards, when the world was dark and cold, and most of the people of the planet were already dead or dying.
The Event.
That’s what they called it, a thing of legend, the event that happened without warning and changed the lives of everyone the world over. The man had heard stories about it, explanations from people who were still struggling to come to terms with it. There were, at least, six different versions, and to the man, none of them seemed any more plausible that the next. For him, in a way, it was easier. He was thirty and had only ever known this world as it was now. He had no knowledge of what came before, of how life used to be, just stories, things left behind for people like him to find, things that were relics of a time gone by. To him, they were just shapes, things passed on the road which had no end, no destination, and no goal. He walked because there was nothing else to do. He walked to survive. Some, he knew, walked in hope, determined to believe there was a better place, that there was somewhere else where life was how it used to be. Some, he knew walked to hunt, even the destruction of the world had left some bad seeds behind. There were stories about these people too, flesh eaters, vile animals who thrived in the place the world had become. The man adjusted his backpack, the tattered green canvas sack containing everything he possessed. Like him, it was falling apart and had been repaired numerous times. He suspected that one day, it, like him would break down altogether. Until that day came, though, he would go on. He would walk these roads and try to find purpose. He had seen things, horrific things that he wanted to forget. He had seen poverty, he had seen pain and he had seen cruelty. The man paused, listening. Dirt rolled across the road, pushed by the acrid, sulphur smelling wind, then settled.
Silence.
This world’s heart no longer had a beat. It was dead and desolate, broken and without any hope of salvation. It existed only for the unlucky ones like him who didn’t die during the event, and who existed only it to eke out another day of purposeless survival, shuffling around like broken ghouls with nothing left to haunt but their own fractured psyches. An old man once told him that there used to be more than four billion people living in this hellish place. That number was impossible for him to comprehend. He estimated he had encountered fewer than a hundred people during his lifetime. To imagine four billion people once existing was something he couldn’t begin to imagine. He walked on, the sole of his right boot hanging loose at the toe and flopping against the cracked tarmac with every step. The left was holding up well. The boots weren’t a matching pair, and like everything, had been collected on the road. He had scavenged the left one from a dead man, his rotten, withered corpse face down in a ditch. He didn’t know what had happened to him, but there had only been one leg on the body when he found it. The dead man was the same size foot, and the boot was of good quality, so he took it. This was what life had become. Scavenging from the dead, picking around the remains of the world to survive. Finding a boot to replace the broken one was on his mind. Without boots he couldn’t walk, if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t find food, if he couldn’t find food, he would die. The mechanics were simple. Keep walking, keep surviving. He walked down the centre of the road, the sound of his broken shoe the only break in the silence.
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
His hands were going numb from the cold, and he put them into the pockets of his jacket. His beard ruffled, bringing another stench of that awful, burnt-match smell that lingered on the air and had done since the event. He had entered what was once a city, steel shells of buildings with broken windows towering around him. Some had collapsed, others were sagging, and others were in remarkably good condition. He knew better than to go into them. Those were the kinds of places the flesh eaters hid from the day, waiting for unsuspecting travellers to go in search of supplies. He had heard stories of people being trapped in such buildings, and although he needed new footwear, he wasn’t about to risk his life to get it. Instead, he walked on, eyes scanning, always looking for the next opportunity to scavenge. He walked the streets of the city, picking through rubbish when it was in the open and safe to do so, avoiding places where traps may be waiting. It was hard work and such long periods of focus and concentration were exhausting. He paused to rest, entering what used to be a coffee shop. The plate glass windows were broken, the interior of the shop filled with a thick layer of dust. There was no plant life. Everything organic had died in the days following the event. He stepped over the threshold of the coffee shop, leaving footprints in the dust like he was the first visitor to a new planet. He picked up an overturned chair which was lying on its side and sat, the tired wood creaking under him. Positioning himself so he was both out of sight but could see down the street if anyone should come. The man set his bag down between his feet, opened it and looking inside. These were his things, his prized possessions, everything he owned in the world. These were the things he had collected on the road, memories of strangers, of lives he had never known or experienced. It was his window to the past, to a world he had never known. It was his way of trying to figure out what had happened and what his place in the world was. They were windows into a time he would never know, a time before newspapers no longer existed to report on world events, when people stopped killing and bickering over petty things such as land and resources and turned their attention towards survival in a barren new world. He treasured these things, these windows into a time before his own. Each one was a special memory, and each had a unique feel to him. He took some of them out now from the tin he kept in the bottom of his bag, his hands gentle and caring as they sifted through the letters, the notes, the lives of other people reduced to nothing but a few tattered and crumbling pages. Somehow, he felt attached to these people, these anonymous strangers he would never meet and who were probably dead. He took the creased postcard from the top of the pile, the edges frayed, the picture faded. He ran his fingers over the image, unable to imagine such a place could have once existed. It was a beach. Golden sands and blue skies. Taken from above, the beach was filled with people on sun
loungers or frolicking in the surf. All of them were dead now, of course, there was no doubt of that. Or were they? He paused to consider the question. Could it be that he had perhaps passed one of the people from this picture on the road during his endless journey? Could they have been one of the filthy, haunted ghosts he had met coming in the opposite direction, people who like him were trying to find a place, a purpose, a direction. Perhaps they held on to the memories of sitting there on that beach, basking in the sun with nothing to worry about but making sure they didn’t over tan. His dirty fingers brushed over the ocean, tracing the frothy white line where the water touched the sand. He couldn’t imagine what such a place would look like. He didn’t know how to get there, or if it even still existed. The ocean, a place he dreamed about seeing but didn’t know if he ever would. He supposed that if he went in a straight line in any one direction for long enough, he would reach it. Sadly, the world didn’t work that way. He went where instinct told him, to the places where he knew he could scavenge out another day of existence. He turned the card over. Someone had written in it, the black ink faded but still legible, the words long committed to his memory.
Greetings from the sun!
Mary and I were just about to go for cocktails and thought we better send this home to you in the rain. I hope the kids are behaving for you; if not, tell them we’ll hold back their pocket money! We’ll see you in three weeks.
Best,
David
He put the postcard on the bottom of the pile and picked up the letter beneath it. Like many of the memories he had collected, it was a tragic snapshot of the world of the past. He carefully unfolded the faded yellow paper and let his eyes drift over the words.
Dear Julia,
I know you will never read this, as you haven’t yet been born, which is something I’m grateful for, as much as I hate myself for it. I know writing this to you makes no sense, but I need to explain my actions and why I have to do what I’m about to do. We haven’t eaten for days now, and I fear for you. Although some say I’m lucky to carry new life inside me, that I’m the future of the human race, the truth is that I don’t want to be responsible for bringing you into what is left of the world. It’s an awful, awful place now and not a day goes by when I don’t wish we had been killed during the event. Last week, I met another survivor, someone who claimed to have fished the shore by the coast. He said the ocean there bubbled and burned, spewing lava like the pit of hell, the water hot as it came in with the tides and melted the sand, turning it to black glass. I don’t know if it’s true. To me, it sounds impossible, but the idea that it might be means I can’t bring you into this world. I just can’t. There were other things he said, things even more frightening than the lack of future I see for us. He told me there were things in the water – mutants – things that used to be animals but had changed. According to him, another group had been attacked by one as they had tried to fish offshore and all but one were killed.
I was desperate not to believe him, but I could see from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. How can I bring you into this world knowing that, at best, your future will be one of scratching around and trying to survive? I wish there were some kind of hope to give you, but there is none. None at all.
Everyone we once knew is gone, and there is nobody here to help us. That’s not the life I want for you. Or for me. I tried to think of the most humane way to do this, and although I would have preferred something quick like a gun, I wouldn’t have the first clue where to find one. There is a bridge near here which is broken but still stands, and although I had considered it, I don’t want you to be in the water and be eaten by one of those god-awful things, or captured by raiders and sold for meat. That idea terrifies me. I wish I were older or wiser, or even still had my mother to ask for advice, but like so many people, she died during the event. I miss her, I miss them both. It’s cruel that I lived when everyone else we knew died. So, so cruel. Because of that, and the fact that I truly believe there is no hope left in the world, I have decided that hanging would be best for us. Only I will feel the pain, and I suppose I deserve it. You, my angel, will never know what has happened, or will never have to endure this horrible place. That brings me comfort.
Please don’t see this as a rash decision. I have done nothing but think about it since the idea came to me. In the end, it comes down to quality of life. I would rather we went out this way than wait to die slowly. I found us a nice quiet place in the woods not far from here. The trees there are dead and burned, but I found one that is big and still strong enough to hold the rope. At least this way, there will be no pain and we will see each other again in the afterlife if there is one. I have to hope and pray that there is and that if God is real, he forgives me for what I’m about to do.
Please forgive me, my angel.
Know that I had no other choice.
July 10th
#
He had found the Julia letter in a backpack near a forest. He didn’t go any deeper into the woods; he had no desire to see if the words penned had come to fruition, but even now, years after finding it, he wondered who Julia was, what she looked like, if she went through with it or changed her mind. He hoped for the latter but suspected the former. The world was an awful place, and he couldn’t imagine how it must be to face the idea of bringing a child up in it. He went back to the postcard, staring at the image. He had found it almost three years earlier on the street, just lying there in the dirt outside a crumbling home as if waiting for him, a splash of colour in a bleak and faded world. No matter how often he looked at it, he was still mesmerised by the image. In his world of brown and grey, he couldn’t imagine such vibrancy could exist.
#
He had found some new boots. A department store had at one point in the past been looted, and clothes and products were strewn all over the road and forgotten. Many of the clothes were rotten from exposure to the elements, racks of shirts and jeans now nothing more than stinking mould-covered piles which were almost unidentifiable and coated in a thick green and black skin. He knew this mould was potentially lethal. He had heard stories of people trying to eat it, due to the worldwide shortage of food, and growing ill, some even dying as the toxins ravaged their body. He suspected that was why the scatter of goods still remained. Most, he assumed, would have ignored it; however, he knew that as long as he didn’t inhale or ingest it, he would be fine. He made a basic face mask from his scarf and started to dig down into the pile of old shirts and jeans, the lower layers damp and stinking, but at least they were mould free. The boots were still in their box and in reasonable shape. There were a dozen boxes of them towards the bottom of the pile. Some were no good, either too small or the wrong type of footwear for wasteland survival, but one pair at least were useable. They were good sturdy boots, and although they were a little too big, they were much better than the ones he had been wearing. He put them on, thrilled with his find and relieved to finally be throwing away his worn-down old pair that was close to falling off his feet from overuse. The new ones felt odd, but he was sure they would break in eventually. He wiped his hands on his jeans, getting as much of the black mould off him and then turned his attention back towards his next move. Darkness was starting to draw in and a bitter, sulphur-smelling rain was starting to fall. Knowing how vital it was to stay warm and dry – hypothermia or pneumonia would be a death sentence for anyone exposed to the elements for too long – he had chosen to wait it out in a medium-sized home on the outskirts of the city. It was a calculated risk; raiders were less likely to use such a place to ambush unsuspecting travellers, instead preferring the bigger buildings with networks of rooms and corridors. Even so, he observed the home from outside for some time, watching from across the street, looking for movement behind the filthy, dust-covered windows. Trusting his instincts that it was safe, he crossed the street and opened the gate. A red child’s bicycle lay on its side in the yard, its frame rusted away, its tires rotten, and its owner now likely long dead
along with everyone else. The man ignored it and approached the house. The door was warped, its paint brittle and flaking. He could imagine the house as one that was nice in the old world. He looked down the street at the other dozen homes, wondering how it must be under blue skies with trees and grass. Now just the shells remained. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. This, he had learned, was no longer an issue. Age had become his ally. He put his shoulder to the door on the edge where the lock would be housed and shoved. The tired wood splintered and gave way, the door creaking open and leaving the handle and lock still in place. Beyond, the hall carpet was dry and coated in dust, the photographs on the walls the same. He saw this as a good sign. If other people had been in the house, there would be footprints, signs of looting. Instead, it was like looking into a time capsule. Wallpaper had come away from the walls and lay in curled piles on the floor. Dusty coats hung on a peg rack in the hall that the owners would never again wear. He stepped into the house and closed the door, realigning the wood around the broken lock as best he could. With luck, anyone passing would not notice it had been disturbed. Satisfied that the repair job was as good as it was going to get, he walked deeper into the house, little puffs of dust displaced with each footstep. Outside, a spectacular thunderstorm had broken the silence, the rain now driving down with fury. He was glad to be inside. He walked around the house, checking every room, making sure he was alone. It looked like it had, at one point, been a family home, which made its utter abandonment seem all the sadder. He checked the coat rack and found a blue rain jacket, which was better than the one he was wearing. There was no hesitation. He dusted it down and put it on, leaving his old tattered green jacket hanging in its place. The downstairs housed a kitchen, the cupboards completely empty, and the fridge stinking and mouldy. An old newspaper was on the table, but it was directly underneath a leak in the roof and was impossible to open without turning to mush. Upstairs were three bedrooms. One was bare and without carpets, the other looked like a master bedroom, or at least it had been. The double bed and the walls were covered in the same black mould as the pile of clothes where he had found the boots. The man stood on the threshold of the room and saw the reason why. A gaping hole in the ceiling was letting in the rain and he suspected was the source of the leak in the kitchen. He closed the door, knowing that taking a risk to get new boots was fine, risking exploring this room when he didn’t need to was tempting fate. The third room was a child’s room. The walls had been painted in blues with a mural of a castle and soldiers with huge smiling faces. The paint was faded, but he could imagine how good it would have looked when it was fresh. A broken cabin bed lay against one wall, the mattress missing. He thought of the bike out in the front yard and was already starting to paint a picture of the people who once lived there. Downstairs, there was a bathroom which as unremarkable and empty, and a sitting room which, like everything else was covered with a thick layer of dust. This room had so far not been touched by the damp and looked mostly intact. Outside, the thunderstorm raged as the clouds illuminated in spectacular fashion, lightning bolt after lightning bolt thrown in rapid succession from the sky. Some people said storms were never like this before the event, but like everything else, it was just a story, something people said. Something in the room caught his eye. There was a notebook on the table, a large rock balanced on top of it to hold it in place. He crossed the room and moved the rock, then picked up the book. It was very old and fragile, the paper brittle and yellow, the handwriting scrawled and desperate. The man returned to the sofa, brushing away the dust as best he could manage, then lying down and putting his feet up. For a while, he watched the light show as the thunder raged outside, then tiring of watching, he opened the notepad to the first page. This was what he did, this was how he survived in the world. He collected memories, snapshots from other lives. He had no name of his own, and so when people would ask, he just told them he was the Collector. It was as fitting a title as any for what he did. Making himself comfortable, he started to read
