by Jake Bible
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
***
“You’ll wanna brace yourself, kid, I haven’t had to crawl a mech in quite a while,” Jay said piloting the salvage mech carefully into the gap in the mesa.
“And yet, on your knees is your favorite position. Ironic, huh?” Masters laughed.
“Hardy-fucking-har,” Jay said. He powered up the mech’s halogens and illuminated the inside of the cavern. Wide lines of bright reds and oranges and browns glittered with minerals as Jay stood the salvage mech upright. “Holy shit…”
“Pretty cool, huh?” the Rookie smiled. “I lived here for a while…”
Jay turned to look at the Rookie. “Lived here?”
***
Alarms blared in Masters’ cockpit. “Shit! Fuck fuck fuck!” Masters cursed. “Hey guys? Looks like big and ugly found us!”
“Get in here, Masters!” Jay shouted over the com. “You can’t take that thing on!”
“Too late! It already saw me!” Masters yelled, powering up all weapons. “You two stay put!”
“What are you going to do?” the Rookie asked.
“Well, luckily Hill Stompers aren’t armed. And their joints aren’t blast shielded,” Masters responded, taking a deep breath. “With concentrated fire and some well placed hits, I think I can take the thing down.”
Master turned to face the Stomper.
***
Jay studied the inside of the cavern, noticing several smaller caves leading off the main one. “You lived here, huh? Don’t worry, I don’t want details… yet.”
“Yeah, for a year,” the Rookie answered.
“A year?!? Are you fucking…? Never mind. So, where do those lead?” Jay asked pointing to the caves.
“Most are dead ends. Some lead deeper into the mesa, some lead further down.”
“Any of them a way out if we need it?”
“Out? No…well, maybe.”
Jay raised his eyebrows, waiting. “Okay, what do you mean by ‘maybe’?”
“There’s an underground river. It comes out somewhere.”
***
Masters watched as the Stomper lifted a boulder that was easily half the size of Masters’ mech. “Whatcha gonna do with that?”
The Stomper pulled its colossal arm back then threw the boulder straight at Masters.
“FuckingJeezusfuckshitfuck!” Masters yelled, barely piloting out of the way. The boulder flew past him and collided with the mesa, shearing part of the cliff face right off.
“What the fuck is going on out there?!?” Jay hollered over the com.
“I think this one is a thinker!” Masters yelled. “It’s trying to play dodgeball with me.”
The Stomper found another boulder and took aim.
***
“About that way out?” Jay yelled as the mech shook and shuddered.
“I don’t really know if it is a way out,” the Rookie said.
“Which cave is it?” Jay insisted.
The Rookie eyed the cavern wall then pointed to a lower cave. “I think it’s that one.”
Jay piloted the mech over, settling into a crouch so the cockpit was level with the cave mouth. The cavern shuddered again. “Masters?” Silence. “Masters?!? Come in!” Silence. “Shit!” Jay yelled.
“Maybe his com is down,” the Rookie offered.
Jay turned on the Rookie. “You sure are optimistic for a brutal killer.”
***
“Jay?!? JAY?!?” Masters screamed into his com, but was met with only static. Masters tried to right his mech after the last boulder clipped his leg, knocking him to the wasteland dirt. “FUCK!”
The Stomper bore down on Masters and was on him in seconds. Masters opened up on the colossal mech with his plasma cannons. The Stomper stumbled back, but quickly regained its ground, reaching down and lifting Master’s mech into the air.
Masters was shaken about in his cockpit, stunned. He fought the grogginess and launched a missile directly into the Stomper’s mid-section. Metal and fire exploded outward.
***
Jay undid the Rookie’s straps and opened the mech’s cockpit.
“Why’re we getting out of the mech?” the Rookie asked.
“Because if this place collapses then we are trapped. I’d like to start heading for the way out, real or not, before being buried. Plus, as strong as the mech is, it’s also holding several kilotons of explosives. I really don’t want to be inside if the thing goes boom.”
“Okay. Works for me,” the Rookie responded, letting Jay help him out of the mech and onto the cave floor. Jay tossed two packs after him and grabbed his carbine.
***
The Stomper stumbled back, flinging Masters’ mech away.
Masters watched the mesa get closer and closer as he and his mech tumbled through the air. The impact was enormous. Alarms blared, claxons rang and every warning light in the mech’s cockpit lit up as Masters hit the ground.
Spots swam before his eyes and he verged on unconsciousness. He helplessly watched the mouth of the cavern crumble and collapse, sealing it off from the wasteland.
“Oh, shit… No…” he whispered, but before he could think further, all light was blocked out and Masters watched the Stomper reach for him again.
Part Two- Pit Fights & Pitfalls
Jay choked on the rock dust filling the now dark cavern. He switched on his halogen. “Hey kid, you okay?”
“Get that shit out of my eyes!” the Rookie coughed painfully. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Jay turned about and pointed the light at what was the cavern entrance. “Shit, that’s not good.” He tapped his com. “Masters? You there?” Silence. “Well, I don’t know if Masters is alive or not, but if we plan on being part of the census count we had better find that river of yours.” Jay turned and hopped back in the mech. “Just one more thing.”
***
Masters found himself and his mech flying through the air once more and then impacting with the ground so hard the armored windshield shattered. Masters tucked his head down, but shards of windshield still drove gouges across his face.
“…mother…fucker…,” he rasped. All alarms and warnings were cut short as Masters’ mech died. “…that…sucks…”
He unstrapped and struggled to open his cockpit, but the hatch was too damaged. “Great. Gonna die in my mech. Not how I wanted to go. I always assumed there’d be sex involved, but I guess we can’t choose how we go out, huh?”
***
The Rookie watched Jay step from the cockpit with a long steel tube in his hand. “What the hell is that?” the Rookie asked.
“Blueprints,” Jay responded casually.
“Blueprints? You mean, like paper blueprints?”
“Yep, good ole fashioned blueprints. It’s how I do all of my designing.” Jay saw the look on the Rookie’s face. “Blueprints can’t be lost with a hard drive wipe or memory dump, now can they?”
“No, I guess not,” the Rookie responded. “But, why are you bringing them with us?”
“Because I’ve worked two years on these fuckers and I’m not fucking losing them now.”
***
The dead Hill Stomper lifted Masters’ broken mech off the wasteland ground as the waste storm began to intensify.
“Hey! Fucker! You suck! Yeah, I said it! You fucking suck! I’m way too much meat for you to handle! You mother fucking deader piece of shit!” Masters screamed as the Stomper brought the mechs cockpit to cockpit.
Masters held his breath as the stench coming off the zombie pilot reached him, despite the raging winds. “Jeezus! You’ve gone off there buddy!” The zombie pilot weakly groaned. “And you ain’t lookin’ so good.”
Waste storm debris began to pelt the mechs.
***
“You sure you can do this?” Jay asked the Rookie.
“Yeah, my legs are fine,” he answered as the two left the main cavern and entered the mouth of the cave. “Give me my pack.”
“No, I’ll carry both. I’m not a doctor and your chest could start bleeding again at anytime.”
The Rookie smiled. “Jay Rind, are you worried about me?”
“Yeah, I’m worried about you! You’re the only one that knows how to get to the river!”
“Admit it. You want me to live.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Of course, I… you’re an asshole.”
The Rookie laughed.
***
Masters watched the Stomper’s other hand come at him. He grabbed the edge of his cockpit and waited.
The Stomper’s cockpit opened in anticipation of the meal that would be thrust inside. Masters drew his side arm. “Night, night stinky.”
Masters aimed and fired, the shriveled head of the zombie pilot exploding in a mass of rotted flesh and bone. The Stomper shuddered and stumbled causing Masters to almost lose his grip. He felt his own mech shake and leapt to the deader’s cockpit just as the Stomper let go of Masters’ mech.
Masters watched it plummet to the ground.
***
June stared at the empty bowl in her hands knowing it wouldn’t be the last meal she would be forced to eat. She took a deep breath and set the bowl aside. A hand gripped her shoulder and she jumped, looking up to see Olivia once again at her side.
“Come on, dear,” Olivia said, her eyes sad and apologetic. “You need to come with the others.”
June looked about and realized most of the villagers had left and were walking to the other end of the village. “Where are we going now?”
“I told you it would get worse.”
***
“How far down do you think it is?” Jay asked.
“I don’t know, it’s been years since I was here last,” the Rookie answered. “But, if I had to guess-“
“Which you do,” Jay interrupted.
“If I had to guess,” the Rookie continued. “I’d say maybe three or four hundred yards down.”
“Okay, we should get there in a few minutes then,” Jay calculated.
The two men walked a few more paces then Jay held up his hand. “Hold on. Be quiet. Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Shhh! Listen.” Faintly, behind them, came a series of quick scratching sounds.
***
Masters yanked the zombie corpse free from its harness and tossed it out of the cockpit. It was so incredibly emaciated it weighed nothing and was blown nearly a quarter mile away by the storm winds before it hit the ground.
Masters studied the cockpit and the controls. It was very similar to his mech, but with some major differences. Mainly the lack of weapons systems. It was equipped with a wide sensor array, though, which would have been handy back in its construction days.
Masters felt the Stomper sway, buffeted by the winds. “Hmmm… Looks like I’m still fucked.”
***
“I can hear that now,” the Rookie whispered. “What is it?”
“Shhhh!” Jay commanded. The scratching grew louder and became more pronounced. “Oh, fuck! That’s-“
“Claws!” the Rookie finished. Both Jay and the Rookie shone their halogens back the way they came. Yards away, the mouth of the cave became obscured by bodies. Undead bodies.
“Fucking deaders must have run from the storm! I bet the entire cavern is crawling with them!” Jay yelled, lifting his carbine and firing. The zombies roared as one and charged. “Move kid! Run!”
Jay and the Rookie turned and ran through the earthen tunnel.
***
June and Olivia took a seat on a wide bench next to Rebecca. The entire village was seated at benches set in a wide circle looking down into an open pit.
“What’s going on?” June asked.
“Shhh!” Rebecca hushed her.
“Fellow villagers, friends, family, we have worked hard today. Worked hard against the adversity the wasteland threw at us,” the Boss announced stepping to the edge of the pit. “We lost some folks today to injury. More importantly we lost supplies. We lost food.”
The Boss turned in a circle, watching the faces, until he found June’s. And he winked.
***
Masters pushed the mech’s sensors to full, checking the screen. He had maybe fifteen or twenty minutes before the waste storm was fully on him. “Shit.”
The Stomper, some semblance of awareness still intact, reached up to the cockpit, but safety protocols kicked in preventing it from doing any damage.
Masters stood up and grabbed the cockpit hatch and tried to yank it closed, but knew it wouldn’t move, not unless…
Masters eyed the cerebral integration console then looked out into the swirling maelstrom of the wasteland.
“Well, I guess I’m dead, either way,” he sighed, flicking the activation switch.
***
“Go! Gogogogogo!” Jay yelled, pushing the Rookie ahead of him. “Do not stop running!”
“I’m going! Fuck! Stop pushing! You’re going to knock me- WHOA!” the Rookie came to a screeching halt. “Oh fuck!”
Jay stopped himself just before slamming full force into the Rookie. “What the fuck, kid?!? Why the hell…? Oh, shit…”
Jay and the Rookie both stood at the edge of a fifty foot drop. They shined their halogens below and the light reflected off a massive, churning river. And on the banks of that river, were several hundred zombies.
“Guess we found the river,” Jay said.
***
Masters stared out at the waste storm. He could see a cyclone had formed and would be on him in a matter of minutes. The debris inside the cyclone wouldn’t completely destroy the mech, but it would shred him while the cockpit remained open. He sighed.
“Okay, Mitch. Now or never,” he said to himself. “No fucking guts, no fucking glory!”
Masters activated the cerebral integration process. Immediately his head snapped back and he screamed in pain as his mind was forced to share a system with another, very foreign, very dead consciousness. Masters struggled to keep his psyche intact.
***
“What’s going on?” June whispered.
“Hush!” Rebecca scolded.
“Now, we have someone new to our ways here this evening,” the Boss continued. The villagers kept their gaze on the Boss, ignoring June’s presence. “So I am going to explain this to her.” The Boss turned and faced June. “You see, Pilot Capreze, we don’t have the luxury of regular supply shipments. We live on the edge of starvation at all times.” He paused, feigning sadness. “Sometimes we do not have enough to go around. When that happens, like it has now, we have to, well, thin our numbers a bit.”
***
“How deep do you think it is?” Jay asked.
“Pretty fucking deep… I hope,” the Rookie answered, eyeing the river. He looked from the water to the zombies on the bank and then to Jay. “The real question is whether we can make the jump and survive.”
The roars and growls were getting louder and Jay could smell the deaders bearing down on them. “I don’t think we have much of a fucking choice, do you?” Jay responded.
The Rookie looked behind them at the zombies nearly on top of them. “No, we don’t.”
“Then let’s do this,” Jay said.
***
Masters struggled to keep his sanity intact against the blackness that was the dead mech.
“I AM MITCH MOTHER FUCKING MASTERS! THE BEST GODDAMN MECH PILOT IN THE MOTHER FUCKING WASTELAND!” he screamed.
He focused his will against the deader’s and pushed, shoved and kicked the mental shit out of the abomination that tried to take him over.
“I DO NOT WANT TO DIE!” He pushed harder, but the deader started to push back, looking into him, into his mind, searching for the breaking point. And then it touched a place in Masters’ mind it shouldn’t have.
Harlow.
Masters growled.
***
June watched as Chunks carried an earthen jar about the circle, each vi
llager putting their hand in and drawing a small tile.
“What’s going on?” June whispered.
“Hush!” Rebecca scolded again.
“Yes, pilot, hush,” the Boss mocked. “This is a seriously grave moment for us. Please show some respect.”
Chunks, having made the full circuit approached Olivia and Rebecca. They each drew a tile, neither looking at them. Before Chunks offered the jar to June, the Boss stepped forward and took the jar from him.
“No, please, allow me.” The Boss tilted the jar towards June and she reached in.
***
The Rookie hit the water and felt every bit of air squeezed from his lungs. He was thrown about like a dead twig, his body tumbling, slamming into rocks.
He struggled, lungs burning, screaming. He reached out, touched the sandy bottom and pushed, orienting himself. Reaching, he felt his hand breach the surface and he stretched, broke free and gasped in the sweet air.
He turned about, but with his halogen lost in the rapids, he was blind.
He gasped again, but this time the air was not sweet. This time it smelled like rotten flesh. It smelled like deaders.
***
“Yeah, you see that you deader fuck?!? Big fucking mistake! You shouldn’t have gone there!” Masters screamed mentally, opening up the part of himself that held Harlow. “You know what that is you fucking waste of scrap metal?!? That’s love! That’s devotion! THAT’S MY MOTHER FUCKING SOUL!”
Masters fought, fought within his very being and could feel the deader weaken, feel it grow confused, lost.
“You don’t know love, do you?” Masters laughed aloud. “You never will!”
Masters focused all his energy. The mech’s cockpit hatch began to close in stops and starts.
“That’s right! I’M MITCH MOTHER FUCKING MASTERS!”
***
June stared at the tile in her hands. It was small, and off-white, made of bone she figured, knowing this lot, knowing the Boss. On the tile was a faded red diamond etched into the bone itself. She looked at the tile and then up at the Boss. The grin on his face was so big it nearly split his head in half. He closed his eyes and lifted his head to the twilight sky above. The village remained silent.
“Now, to be fair,” the Boss finally said, breaking his reverie. “I’ll draw also.”
