by Mark Harritt
Tom nodded, “Yep.”
Mike agreed, “Yeah, we can do that.” He looked back at the rest of the team, “Okay, take a breather. Tom and Matki are going to try and get us some fresh meat.”
“Great,” Everett replied, “The last of the ghost cat is getting a little chewy.”
Tom and Matki dropped their rucks, and the rest of the team moved forward to Mike. They all sat down facing out.
Tom grabbed his rifle, and he and Matki started walking towards the huachi. As they moved forward, they walked slower, bending forward, shoulders rounding, their silhouettes completely different in the stalk. Even their energy levels were different. They were much more subdued now, blending into the landscape around them.
It was fascinating to watch the skill of the two woodsmen. Soon, they were on all fours, and they took turns moving forward. One would watch the huachi as the other moved, so that they didn’t lose track of where the skittish animals were.
Eventually, they were close enough that Tom pulled the rifle bipod out. He moved around until he found ground that he liked, and then he set up his shooting position. Mike estimated that they were about seven hundred yards from the huachi. That would be an easy shot for Tom.
Mike saw the smoke, and watched as one of the huachi dropped. The huachi scattered as they heard the boom of the rifle. Mike heard it a split second later.
The stalk took about forty-five minutes. Mike stood up, and the rest of the team stood with him.
“Hey Mickey, you take Tom’s ruck, and I’ll take Matki’s.”
Mickey walked to Tom’s ruck, and picked it up. He let his rifle dangle from its sling, and he ran his arms through the straps of the ruck, so that his ruck was on his back, and Tom’s ruck was on his chest. Mike followed suit with Matki’s. Their movement forward was much quicker than Tom’s and Matki’s. It had been a two hour stalk, and they caught up to them in forty-five minutes. When they arrived, Tom and Matki were already skinning the animal.
The animal looked like a big horn sheep with long silky fur.
“Damn, it’s the most normal looking animal I’ve seen here. I didn’t think sheep would be the last animal from our time still alive,” Mike said, looking at the dead animal.
Tom shook his head, “Well, you might think that, but you’d be wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Mike asked.
“Look at the hoof.”
Mike looked down at the feet of the animal. At first, he didn’t understand what Tom was talking about. Then he understood. The huachi didn’t have cloven hooves. It had one hoof like a horse.
Mickey sighed, watching Matki, “I just wish I could walk into a deli in Brooklyn again, and get some good pastrami.”
Matki looked blankly at Mickey. He had no idea what pastrami or Brooklyn were. Mickey noticed the stare, and smiled, “I’m sorry. I’m just reminiscing about my home, and some of the food that I ate there.” Matki nodded.
They fanned out in teams looking for a good place to laager up in. A shout brought everybody back. Mickey and Matki found a prime spot, a cave further up on the mountain big enough to fit the entire team. They grabbed the meat and moved to the cave. The team moved in and grabbed space to rack out. Matki cut strips of moss to lay down as bedding and to use for the fire.
Matki decided that he was going to cook the meat. He got started with a flat rock, the top set at an angle towards the fire pit to use for a griddle. Soon, the smell of cooking meat made Mike’s mouth water. Matki cracked the long bones and pulled out the marrow. He gathered up the canteen cups, dropped in the marrow, poured water on top of it, and set it next to the fire to make soup. He added a few herbs to the mix, and let it simmer a good long time, stirring with his knife.
Soon they were tucking into the food that Matki had prepared. The soup was very thick, and not really to Mike’s taste, heavy with the fat from the marrow. Still he gulped it down. He needed the energy to get through tomorrow. The food disappeared quickly and Matki wrapped leftovers in the hide for tomorrow’s breakfast. The guard rotation was established, and everybody racked out.
----------------------------------------------------
The scout was sent out and headed northwest to the area where the sound had been detected. It checked the vegetation, which was sparse at this altitude, and decided that it would be better to travel at night. A few days later, it located the source of the chemical explosions. The scout determined that the hominids were walking toward it, and would be heading back in the direction that the scout had come from. It lay in wait and watched as the six hominids approached it, passed it, and moved along its back trail. There was no indication that the scout had been see by the target, or that the target had any idea that they were being trailed. The scout waited for twilight before it started tracking them. It headed back towards its electronic master, sending a message to alert it.
----------------------------------------------------
The rest of the night went without a hitch. They got up in the morning, and Matki cooked. While he cooked, Mike steeped herbal tea. When everybody had warm food and tea in their bellies, they rolled up their sleeping bags. Mickey took the time to roll up what was left of the cooked meat and put it in his back pack. The team secured their equipment, and got on the road. Tom was in the lead, Mike behind him.
Matki’s prediction about the huachi trail soon proved true. The trail seemed to climb straight up. The slope of the land was precarious, though it never went completely vertical. They were paralleling a ridge, slowly heading up the side. The trail was narrow, but not bad enough that they needed to rope in.
That changed as they climbed further up. Soon, Mike was able reach out and touch the side of the mountain on his right. The trail was getting narrower. Mike was beginning to think they’d have to break out the rope and harnesses. Soon though, his apprehension was allayed. He looked past Tom, and saw that the trail turned from paralleling the side of the steep ridge to a cut through the mountainside. The trail snaked into a fracture just below the top of the mountain.
Tom approached the crevasse. It was very narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the men on the team. Mickey would have a real problem moving through it.
“What do you think, Mike?” Tom asked.
“Well, I don’t want to go back and try to find another way across this ridge. Let’s continue forward. Maybe it will widen out.”
Tom nodded and slipped into the crevasse. The team moved in behind him. Mickey was next to last, with Rob behind him. As they continued, Mike could hear Mickey cursing in the narrower parts of the crevasse. They spent an hour, then two walking through. It was colder in the crevasse, the sun blocked by the rock walls. Clouds drifted by, some of them low enough that they drifted into the crevasse, decreasing visibility and muting sound.
The split narrowed further. They had to change their technique to traverse the crevasse. It affected Mickey first. He had to move higher, hands and feet braced against opposite walls to keep moving forward. Soon, the rest of the team had to do the same. Even Tom, as skinny as he was, had to use the same technique. The path below them narrowed down until it was a few inches wide.
This slowed them down. They’d started out early, but this crevasse was hard to negotiate. The sun moved toward early afternoon before the crevasse started widening out again. They were able to move back down to the ground, where they made better time. The narrow crevasse widened enough that they could walk comfortably, though Mikey still had to lean to the left, resting his hand on the rock to help him navigate the path.
As they walked, it seemed to Mike that the path was starting to descend. The path curved back to the left, and when they went around the curve, the crevasse widened considerably. A hundred yards in front of them, the height of the walls decreased slowly, moving down to the same level as the the path.
“Alright, almost out,” Tom said.
Mike looked past Tom. He couldn’t see much, just a small plateau beyond the end of the crevasse. Past the
plateau horizon, Mike could see the beginning of a valley, mountains towering up on both sides. He couldn’t see the valley floor from his position, but he was hoping that it would be an easier walk than what they’d encountered behind them. Hopefully this valley led to the one that Matki’s tribe lived in.
Behind him, Mike heard the relief in Mickey’s voice, “Ah, God bless, I can’t wait until I can stand up straight again.”
In front, Tom walked out of the crevasse. He walked to the horizon of the plateau, and looked beyond. Mike heard a low whistle. Tom looked back at him, “You need to come and take a look at this.”
Mike stepped forward, the rest of the team following him. The plateau was located about three hundred feet above the floor of the valley. Diaphanous clouds hugged the ground, cloaking the valley in mist. The winds coming off the mountains played havoc, making the mist undulate, adding to the surreal nature of the view. Through it, Mike saw what Tom was talking about. Mike surveyed crumbled stone buildings demarcating the edge of an ancient city, the rippling mist alternately displaying and hiding the derelict structures.
“Man, it’s been a long time since anybody’s been here,” Mickey exclaimed.
The town wasn’t large by the standards of the twenty-first century. The highest buildings were two stories tall. The town butted up against the cliff on the right side. An avalanche of dirt from the cliff had settled across that end, burying parts of the town, ruined walls clawing up from the ancient clay. Beyond that, the cliffs were banded black interspersed with layers of deep red.
Mike turned to Matki, “Did you know this was here?”
Matki looked at the city, and shook his head, “No, I’ve never been here.”
Everett looked down at the ruins, “Well, it was just a matter of time.”
Mike looked at Everett, “What do you mean?”
Everett motioned towards the ruins, “I’m surprised we haven’t run into more ruins. If our people survived,” he pointed at Matki, “and I’m pretty sure they did, that means entire civilizations have grown and collapsed.”
Matki nodded in agreement and spoke, “There are always stories about others. Other people, other places. Lost worlds, lost civilizations. There’s even talk about the days before the dragons came.”
Rob looked down at the city, “I wonder who lived there? I wonder if anybody still lives here.”
Mike thought about it, “Who knows. It doesn’t look like there’s anybody left.” He started walking towards the ruins, “There’s only one way to find out.”
The team followed. Mike could see edges where the land had been terraced, possibly for crops. The level terraces had succumbed to time, the edges rounded from erosion. Debris littered the ground around the remnants of the buildings. Wood lay among the ruins, shingles and rafters so old that they’d turned silver with age. Some timbers showed signs of fire damage. They walked closer and it was obvious that there had been a fire that had raged through part of the town. Multiple buildings had scorch marks, and collapsed wooden roofs were charred. Walls had collapsed from intense heat.
Mike stopped about fifty feet from the edge of the city. “What do you think? Should we go in?” he asked.
They studied the city before them. Nothing moved. Whatever happened here happened a long time ago.
“I’m not seeing anything that looks dangerous. It’s quicker to go through than to go around,” Everett answered. The others agreed.
Mike walked to one of the streets that led into the city. Dust from the ground swirled around their feet as they walked, laying low across the ground until the capricious wind caught it and whipped away. Debris beneath their feet crunched as they walked.
“Mike.”
Mike looked up and over at Mickey, “Yeah, Mickey, what’s up?”
Mickey pointed, “Look over there.”
A yellowed skull lay in the shattered remnants of a doorway. They crunched over to the skull. It looked like a human skull, small and fragile. The skull wasn’t the only bone present. There were skeletal remains, ribs, part of a vertebrae. It looked incredibly brittle, probably lying there for years, possibly centuries, at the mercy of the elements. To Mike’s eyes, they looked very small, maybe a woman or child, but he couldn’t judge, not knowing the species of human. Mike’s gaze tracked down from the skull to the gravel under his feet, “Oh, good God.”
“What?”
Mike pointed down, “Bones.”
The team looked down at their feet. Mike was right. Crushed bone littered the street. They looked along the street, towards the middle of the town, and multiple remains were suddenly recognizable in the debris. Mike hoped they weren’t human, but the skull seemed to indicate otherwise. He felt like an interloper, intervening in the isolation of their ruin. They started walking.
The town was a necropolis. Skeletons of the dead lay haphazard in the dirt, debris reclaiming the city. The team was skittish when they started walking, trying to avoid stepping on the bone. It was unavoidable, though. Chips of shattered bone were everywhere. Crushed bone gave way to intact skeletons. The skeletons gave mute evidence to the horror that had been visited on these people. Ghastly injuries attested to violent death. Shattered skulls, severed long bones, and crushed ribs told a story of terror and futility. Death had come violently for this town. It had been a bloody slaughter.
As they followed the street, one thing became evident. The townspeople had been herded to a central location. Skeletons and grinning skulls became more prevalent as they walked. Then, the epicenter of the horror opened up to them, revealing the magnitude of the slaughter. The road ended in an open area. It was the center of town. The buildings here were still mostly intact, partially buffered from the ravages of time and weather by the structures surrounding it.
The team stopped, overcome by the spectacle before them. Time had done nothing to erase the impact of the scene.
“Oh, Jesus,” Tom exclaimed. Roberto and Mickey both made the sign of the cross.
Skeletons were piled on top of skeletons. Nobody had been spared. Babies, toddlers, children and their parents had been murdered by the hundreds. This was the place they’d made their last stand, herded here by God knew what.
Mike and the team had seen horrors in war. Nothing could have prepared them for this. It wasn’t the fact that human beings had been slaughtered. No, that was pretty standard for the warzones that Mike had been in. It was the sheer quantity. What hit Mike the hardest were the small ones, the delicate skeletons of children that died screaming, the frail bones hacked and shattered. The humanity of the skeletons seemed violated by the dirt and weeds, punctuating the bleakness of the remains.
Mike choked up. He looked back at the team, and saw the stricken looks on their faces. It took a hard man to not be moved by what they saw. He turned back to look at the sad, scattered detritus of lost lives, “There’s easily a thousand skeletons here. And that’s only the complete ones. God alone knows how many others died here.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard the hoarseness of Everett’s voice, “We can’t do anything here. Let’s go.”
Mike nodded. A bleakness settled into his soul. He turned, and started walking towards the other side of the city. The team fell in behind him, turning away from the ancient slaughter. They worked their way towards the other side of the city, hoping to put this horror behind them.
As they walked, they scanned the area. The death was ancient, but they were alert for hostiles. They left the city center, and the pattern of slaughter reversed as they walked away. The frequency of skeletons decreased. That was the main reason that Tom noticed the pile of ancient bones on a side street.
Tom pointed, “Hey guys, I see something.”
Tom took the lead down the street. This was different, a jumble of old skeletons more concentrated than the surrounding area. Mike noticed something else. Red streaks marked the slow oxidation of iron, rusted flakes indicating the age of the ancient conflict, wooden handles left lying haphazardly.
Everett nodded. It was possible.
Something drew Mike’s eye. It was dark cloth, waving randomly as the breeze picked at it. It was the only thing moving. The fact that cloth remained was unusual. They hadn’t seen any cloth on the remains. It was definitely from the time of the slaughter, though. Skeletal remains lay over the black cloth.
Mike pointed it out. Tom walked over to it, and gently placed the bones to the side. Mike could only wonder at the bravery of men that saw their destruction and chose to confront it despite the futility. Tom tugged on the cloth, and dirt fell away. He recoiled from what he saw.
“What the hell is that?”
Mike looked at Tom, then suddenly noticed that everybody else was focused on him as well.
“Okay guys, we need security. Eyes out.”
Discipline reasserted itself, the team realizing their error. They faced out, looking up and down the street as Tom and Mike investigated. Mike looked down to see what Tom had found.
It was definitely unusual. It was mechanized, the metal pitted, but not rusted, covered by a dark, black cloth. Mike didn’t know what kind of metal it was, but it hadn’t oxidized the way the iron tools had. That in itself was unusual, considering the condition of the tools the townspeople had fought with.
Mike squatted down next to it, and started pushing aside the dirt to get a better look. Metal was deformed, straight lines bent, servos and gears shattered. The metal construct had taken a tremendous beating. Mike became concerned as his tugging revealed more. He was looking at a construct that was built to kill. Serrated teeth on a metal jaw that was designed to rip and tear. Four legs, the ‘paws’ of the creature had long, pointed claws. It had clusters of sensors on the left and right sides of the head.
Mike looked down the street to a dead end, then back the way that they came from, “Looks like they had this one trapped.”
Tom tilted his head toward the skeletons, “That might be why they ganged up on it. It couldn’t get away.”
