"Poet, move your ass!"
Addy pulled him. They ran at a crouch. Stones flew in the wind, buffeting them. Finally they reached the cliff. The wind kept lashing them, even here. Stones fell from above. A rock the size of a brick slammed into Marco's shoulder, and he bellowed. Stone buffeted their helmets.
"It's even worse here!" Marco shouted.
Addy pointed. "Look! A cave."
They slogged through the mud, the cliff to one side, the storm to the other. Stones kept hitting them. Their armored spacesuits held, but within those suits, Marco felt like a slab of tenderized meat. Bruises would cover him tomorrow.
A distant sound rose—a howl. An organic creature, crying out.
"Addy, did you hear that?" he shouted.
"Just the wind. Come on! Into the cave."
More rocks kept falling. They ran. Finally they reached the cave in the cliff. The opening was just a crack, maybe two feet tall and ten feet wide. They had to squeeze through on their hands and knees, wriggling like snakes.
On the inside, the cave was thankfully larger. The storm could not reach them here, and they both sighed in relief. They could even stand up, though their helmets brushed the ceiling.
"Good thing you're short, Poet," Addy said.
"We're the same height!" he said.
She nodded. "But I'm a girl. I'm tall and lovely with long legs." She poked his chest. "You're a hobbit."
He groaned. "Can we focus on surviving now?" He looked around him. "Let's make sure this cave is empty."
"What do you think is in here? The boogeyman?" She gasped. "Maybe the Pigman! Poet, let's look for the Pigman! I need a photo to send Freaks of the Galaxy."
"There's no such thing as pigmen!" he shouted.
Instantly he regretted his raised voice.
From deep within the cave, a growl rose.
They both stared into the shadows, seeing nothing.
"Pigmen," Addy whispered, clutching his hand.
"Shut up," he whispered and reached for his flashlight.
Addy grabbed her flashlight too, and they shone twin beams into the darkness. Something wriggled and grumbled ahead. They advanced slowly, flashlights in their left hands, rifles in the right. The cave sloped down into a hollow bowl. Their lights fell upon the burrow.
"Aww, they're adorable!" Addy said.
Marco gulped. "What are they?"
"Puppies!" Addy said. "Can I adopt one?"
Marco grimaced. "Those aren't puppies, Ads. Some kind of canine maybe. But I don't think you want one as a pet."
The cubs were hairless, their skin wrinkly, gray, and warty. Their eyes were small and pink, and whiskers stretched out from their pointed, quivering snouts. Those snouts sniffed, and their jaws opened, revealing sharp teeth. Perhaps they had evolved from wolves or dogs, though it was hard to tell.
Addy sighed. "Well, they're no pigmen. But I'd adopt one of these cuties." She knelt to pat them. "Hi, cuties! Hi—ow!" She pulled her hand back. "Fuckers bit me!" She aimed her rifle. "I'm going to kill those sons of bitches!"
A deep growl sounded behind Marco and Addy, echoing in the chamber.
They spun back toward the cave opening.
Marco gulped. "You shouldn't have insulted their mother, Addy."
A shadow blocked the cave entrance. A creature loped toward them. It was massive. It was the size of a horse. Its claws scratched the floor, long and sharp as daggers. Wrinkly white skin coated the canine, and its lips peeled back, revealing fangs.
"Uh, nice puppy," Addy said, taking a step back. "Good puppy . . ." She pulled out a packet and waved it. "Want some powdered meatloaf?"
The creature leaped at them.
Marco and Addy fired their rifles.
Bullets tore into the monster, but it didn't slow down. The beast slammed into them, knocking Marco and Addy down. The claws lashed at their suits, thankfully unable to pierce the armor. Marco tried to fire again, but the creature pinned down his rifle. Addy managed to release a bullet but couldn't aim, and the bullet slammed into the cave wall and shattered. Marco's ears rang.
He struggled to rise, but the monster pinned him down. Its jaws bloomed open, revealing rows of teeth that flowed down the gullet. Marco managed to free his rifle, to swing the barrel, but the canine knocked it aside. The creature grabbed his helmet. The animal had more than mere paws; its fingers were long, jointed, and tipped with curving claws. The monster slammed Marco's head against the floor again and again. He screamed.
"Let go of him!" Addy shouted. She lifted one of the pups. "Back off, or I kill your kid!"
But if the trick had worked on the krakens, it failed here. The enraged mother leaped toward Addy, spraying saliva. The massive beast slammed into Addy, knocking her down. The claws shattered her visor.
"Marco!" she cried.
Marco managed to rise. His helmet was dented. His head spun. His visor was cracked, and he could barely see through it. He pulled his helmet off, aimed his rifle, and fired.
His bullets slammed into the creature. The canine arched its back, roaring. Marco couldn't believe how much punishment it could take. He kept firing, and bullet after bullet drove through the animal, but it didn't bleed. It seemed made of solid, raw muscle. The beast leaped toward him again, and Marco ducked, barely dodging the claws.
Addy screamed and fired her own gun. Bullets drove into the monster's head, ripping off wrinkled skin, exposing the bone. Marco loaded another magazine and added his bullets to hers. With his helmet off, each bullet was like a punch to his ears.
The creature's head was nearly gone by the time it finally crashed down. Even then the beast twitched.
Marco fell to his knees, breathing raggedly. His ears rang. God, it hurt. More than the monster banging his head against the floor, the sound had hurt him, the roar of so many bullets in this enclosed space. He had already lost some hearing during the Scum War, especially in his right ear. He hoped that if he ever made it home, it would not be as a deaf man.
Addy kicked the dead creature. "Not so tough without a head, are ya?"
The cubs mewled. They crawled toward their dead mother and began to nurse from the corpse. Marco watched with a mixture of disgust and pity.
"Poor little buggers will die in this cave," he said.
"Does that mean we can adopt them?" Addy said.
Marco glared at her. "It means I feel like shit. This was their home. We killed their mother and doomed the pups to death."
Addy scowled. "Spare me, Poet. They're fucking monsters. I care about Earth. Our Earth. I care about humans. Our species. Fuck these little dog-assed fuckers. I'll put them out of their misery now if that makes you feel better."
She aimed her rifle at the pups.
"Addy!" He pulled her barrel aside.
"What, Marco?" Her face turned red. "What the fuck do you want? You prefer them to starve to death? Why are you so worried about cubs? Even back in the Scum War, you were worried about killing fucking maggots. For God's sake, Emery. We're at war. We're soldiers. We kill. That's what we do. So stop being so fucking . . ." She let out an enraged groan. "So fucking empathetic."
He sighed and nodded. "You're right, Ads. You're right. I've never been good at killing anything. I wasn't made for this. Despite all the wars I fought, I hate killing. I guess I'm not a very good soldier."
Addy's face softened. She caressed his cheek. "That's what makes you a good soldier. The best soldiers hate killing. The best soldiers cherish life. They raise weapons to defend life, not to take it needlessly. I was just being an asshole. I wouldn't love you if you were just a mindless killer. You're intelligent. You're wise. And most importantly, you're decent."
"You forgot devastatingly handsome," he said.
She kissed him. "Devastatingly handsome too."
"And humble," he said. "And an excellent cook. And—"
"Don't push your luck, hobbit."
He groaned. "We're the same height!"
He missed Lailani. At least he seemed tall
with her around.
They dragged out the stinking corpse, then returned to the cave. They lay down to spend the night. The cubs kept whimpering, but Addy and Marco were so tired they fell asleep with ease, whimpering cubs and booming thunder and rocky floor and all.
* * * * *
The dawn rose gray, cold, and foul. After swallowing more packets of powder, they set out again. Their helmets were both smashed, but they were nearly out of oxygen anyway. There was no avoiding the rancid air now. Addy was kind enough to volunteer her bra; they used the cups as makeshift dust masks. Marco felt utterly ridiculous, but at least it provided some protection from the smog.
They walked across the desolation. The rocky plains spread into the horizons. They saw no greenery, not even moss. The ash glided through the sky like snow, burning when it touched bare skin. A few animals lived here. Beetles crunched underfoot. A snake hissed from behind a rock. At one point, something that looked like a bat glided overhead, but it seemed the size of an eagle. They still had found no clean water, and thirst began to bother Marco more than his aching muscles or ringing ears.
"What the hell happened to Earth?" Addy said. "A million years isn't even that long for a planet. It's like an afternoon."
"We happened," Marco said. "Look."
He pointed. It was barely visible in the distance, but as they moved closer, it came into view.
It was a factory. It was ancient, falling apart. There was barely anything left aside from two cracked, crumbling cooling towers. Soot and soil buried most of the shorter buildings.
"A power plant?" Addy said.
Marco nodded. "We polluted the fuck out of Earth back in our era."
"Fuel, Baby, Fuel," Addy said. "There's a Wolf Legion song with that title. My favorite off Wolf it Down, their second album."
"Fuel, baby, fuel," Marco agreed. "And the world goes to shit. And here we are. A million years later."
Addy looked around her. "It's definitely gone to shit. Fuck you, Wolf Legion."
"Not their fault," Marco said. "Cars. Factories. Goddamn cows belching up methane in factory farms. Deforestation—not enough trees left to breathe in the CO2 and convert it to oxygen." He sighed. "We got addicted to burning. We burned too much. Now the whole world is toast."
Addy licked her lips. "I could go for some toast now. Poet, the instant we get back home, we're making delicious toast. With baked beans on top. And eggs. And sausages."
"And bacon," Marco said. "And lots of coffee. With extra cream and sugar."
"Now you're talkin'." Addy's eyes dampened. "Poet, how the fuck are we going to get home? Lailani is supposed to open a portal for us to get back. But she thinks we're at Isfet, light-years away from here. And she's only supposed to give us a week. How are we going to get back there?"
Marco held her hand. "Let's focus on our mission first. After we kill the Oracle, we can steal a saucer. Like we did before. We can make it back in time to Lailani's portal. I promise."
Yet the odds of that were small, he knew. Maybe nonexistent. To make it to the pyramid, to find the Tick-Tock King, to steal a saucer, to fly all the way back to Isfet—all within a week?
It was impossible.
"Poet," Addy whispered, "have we come here to die?"
Marco wrapped his arms around her. "I don't know, Addy."
Her tears flowed. She nodded. "All right. If we die here, we die together. But not before we kill that fucking Tic-Tac-Toe piece of shit scumbag. Deal?"
"Deal," he said. "But let's still try to make it back home. We have all that toast to make."
Addy nodded, tears on her cheeks. "And lots more things. To be together. To play hockey. To write books. To be in love. To grow old together. I want to do all those things with you, Poet. We saved Earth already. Now we have to save it again. And after all this work, I want to finally enjoy the damn planet." She wiped her eyes. "And if we can't, if we die, then we'll save Earth for others. For Ben-Ari. For Lailani. For Elvis. For everyone else."
He kissed her cheek. "I love you, Addy."
She hugged him close. "I love you too, Marco."
They kept walking. They walked for hours through the rain. A single ray of sunlight, a single blade of grass, a single bird's song would have lifted Marco's spirits. They found none. Just the barren land. The acid rain. The deformed, shrieking animals. Marco had been to harsh planets before—the deserts of Abaddon, the inferno of Haven, the hell of Titan. But this was worse. Because this was home. This was Earth. This was the planet he had been fighting for since joining the army nearly a dozen years ago. This was the planet they had failed.
We're not just here to stop the grays, Marco realized. We're here to see what we humans have done. What we can still undo.
After walking all day, they reached a beach. The water was gray and tipped with sickly yellow foam. It spread to the horizon, churning, malodorous. Marco's head spun to smell it. Strange creatures moved within the water, sometimes breaching the surface to snap and growl, then sinking again. Spiky brown seashells littered the shore, and oozing creatures lived within.
"Um, Poet?" Addy said. "Should there be a giant sea in our way?"
He winced. "Let me check that compass again."
"Poet!" Addy tugged her hair. "For fuck's sake. Are we lost again?"
Marco wanted the ground to bury him. "The pole flipped, but it might have also shifted a few degrees." He looked up at the sky. "We might have to wait for the sun to set to know which way is west exactly, then adjust the compass, and—"
"Marco!" Addy grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "We have a week. A week! And it's already been almost a week."
"I know, I know! Look, Addy, I'm sorry. I thought we were going the right way. I—"
"We could be anywhere!" Addy shouted. "We could be in Africa. We could be in Europe. We could be in fucking Madagascar for all we know. We're lost! We're fucking lost on a giant ruined planet, no spaceship, no map, and a compass that's fucking worthless! Poet, this isn't just about you and me. It's about everyone! If we can't do this, everyone dies."
"I know!" he shouted. "Addy, I fucking know! What do you want me to do?"
"To stop getting lost!"
"I'm trying!"
"Give me." She snatched the compass from him. "I'm leading the way from now on. You're fucking useless."
He wanted to argue back. Fury rose in Marco. He bit down on his tongue. He tried to enter Deep Being, but he couldn't focus on his breath. Every breath in this damn world burned his lungs and tasted like fumes. He let the rage boil inside him. They were both terrified. He knew this. He would let Addy rail against him.
"We just have to keep going," he said softly. "We'll find a way. For toast, Addy. For bacon and hot dogs and—"
"Enough." She began to walk away. "I don't want to hear that stupid joke anymore. Just come on." She pointed at the sky. "See? Look at the bright smudge in the clouds. The sun's already past its zenith." She pointed ahead. "That's east. Now come on. Keep up."
"I'll try to keep up with my hobbit legs," he said, hoping to lighten the mood, but Addy didn't look back at him. She marched as fast as she could. He struggled to keep up.
They kept moving across the plains, traveling in a new direction. Rocky hills rose into mountains. They climbed. Sweat filled their suits. All around them, strange animals howled and yipped and hissed. They spent two hours following an animal's prints through the dust, finally coming across a stream of brackish, gray water.
They had no choice. They needed to drink. They filtered the water through some cloth. They shot the mutated animal, burned its body for fuel, and boiled the water in one of their helmets. They took a leap of faith and drank. The water burned their mouths and throats and roiled their bellies. They lost whatever lunch they had eaten. They trudged on.
They slept in the hills, taking turns guarding. Throughout the night, the strange wolves howled around them. Twice the animals approached, and Marco fired his gun, scaring them off. He began to worry about their ammunition.
They needed to conserve bullets if they hoped to slay the Tick-Tock King.
"No more wasting bullets," he announced at dawn. "If we need to fight along the way, we use our knives."
Addy nodded. "Knives, stones, fists, teeth, nails. Got it. Saving bullets for Tic-Tac-Toe."
Suddenly she grimaced, ran behind a boulder, and threw up. When she returned, her skin was ashen. Her eyes were sunken. Sweat dampened her brow. Marco himself felt sick. It was the damn water. But they had to drink, so they drank it again.
They both felt weaker that day. Their pace was slower. At least they seemed to be heading in the right direction, finally adjusting their compass to the movement of the sun. In the afternoon, they reached a canyon, one Marco thought he remembered seeing from the saucer. There was no way around it. They spent long hours climbing down the canyon, finally reaching the bottom at sundown. They lay down for another long, cold, miserable night.
Scorpions the size of cats kept assaulting them throughout the night. Marco crushed them with stones and burned their corpses, creating a ring of fire around their camp. Addy and him dared drink no more of the gray water. They caught a snake and drank its blood.
In the morning, they climbed onto the opposite side of the canyon, limbs shaking and heads spinning. By the time they reached the top, both felt half-dead. They collapsed, feverish, shivering. They allowed themselves a luxury—they ate a few of the granola bars, but they couldn't keep them down. Their stomachs expelled anything that entered. The vomit came out gray with ash. Their lungs, Marco imagined, looked the same. He'd have given up all the granola bars in history for a new helmet visor and oxygen tank.
They trudged across rolling badlands. Giant bats kept circling above, shrieking. Ashy rain began to fall again, and demons of smog swirled ahead. Still they saw no sign of the city.
"We should sing as we walk," Addy said. "To lift our spirits. Remember how we sang during marches in the army?"
She tried it. Marco even tried to join her. But they kept coughing. Their voices grew too hoarse. They had to continue walking in silence. The physical pain was bad—his aching muscles, the hunger, the thirst. The rancid water still churned his belly and brought sweat to his forehead. But worse was the cloud that had begun to claim their spirits. Their commanders in the army used to speak of morale, and Marco would scoff at the idea; what did morale matter when you were digging trenches, or marching across the desert, or firing a gun? Now he understood. A shadow seemed to fill him, a despair like a demon in his chest. More than fresh air he now desired sunlight, even just a single ray in the distance. He would have given the world to see a flower, to hear a bird's song. This landscape was depression personified.
Earth Eternal (Earthrise Book 9) Page 17
