by KM Fortune
Why was I dreaming of small children? she wondered, blinking in the weak morning sunlight. Suddenly the full memory came to her, clear and complete. I was an elementary school teacher at North Valley Grade School. She could even recall the project which was due at the end of the month. A papier-mâché landscape of North America to satisfy the state California Geography requirement. The memory, although welcome as Raven had so few to pull from, made her feel sad. All those little kids, so young and full of curiosity, all gone. Either from old age or from the wars. It seemed impossible their lives would have gone full circle while she was in a coma, frozen in the ice, where she had not aged. I have missed so much.
Raven sighed, letting the moment go, and then groaned, stiff from sleeping in the tiny space curled up in a ball. She had been lucky to see the small opening in the rocks as she stumbled through the night seeking shelter. It was not much, but it protected her from the wind and falling snow. A crust of icy flakes had temporarily covered the crawl space’s small opening. The layer had helped keep the inside of the cave warmer while she slept, but now she was cold again. And hungry, she thought. With an empty stomach gnawing at her, she knew it was time to get up and start moving again. Using her hand wrapped in part of one of her two blankets, she brushed the white powder away from the edge of the space’s opening. Gingerly, she pushed free of the gap where she rested, unbent her limbs, and let blood circulate through them. Angry pins-and-needles prickled under her skin as the muscles received the blood and were revived. She grimaced and sat still for a moment, letting the sensation pass and looked around.
The morning was gray. The sky was overcast, with only a hint of sun trying to push through. It was a state she was quickly growing accustomed to up here in the mountains. A fresh layer of pure white covered everything and gave the scene a look of freshness. Trees and heavy boulders littered the landscape around her hiding spot, but no animals or other signs of life appeared. It had been three days since her rescuer, a man named Matthew, helped her escape from the underground mountain laboratory called Eden. Her progress over the rocky terrain, without boots or proper cold weather clothing, was slow and challenging. Regardless, the emergency exit tunnel she had escaped through was now well behind her. So far she believed no one was following her. In fact, there were no signs of any human life for that matter. The mountain, with its snow covered trees and rocks, was a desolate winter landscape, stark and frozen, with almost no running water to drink and so far no real food. Last night, out of desperation, she had eaten the soft inside bark of an evergreen sapling. The flavor had been pungent and hard to swallow, but she hoped it at least contained some nutrients to nourish her. Water was harder to find. Everything was frozen or buried beneath the snow. The temptation to eat the snow was strong, but she knew in the end it would only make her more thirsty and dehydrated. On the second day, she had found a small waterfall, nearly frozen solid, but a small, warm trickle survived. It tasted a bit of sulfur, but was so refreshing, and with no way to carry some with her, she had trouble forcing herself to move on after drinking from it. Eventually she did, knowing she must get down the mountain, to a lower elevation where the snow was not so deep and the nights not so incredibly cold if she was going to survive.
Moving carefully, trying to keep all the warmth trapped in the layers of clothing she wrapped around her, Raven gathered her strength and emerged the rest of the way from the hole. She took a few steps and then turned in a circle to survey the situation. The new snowfall was not deep and she was grateful. Trudging through the drifts was incredibly difficult, exhausting her quickly and wetting her clothes. She did not know if she could struggle through another day of it. At least my tracks are now covered, she thought. If the Patrols are looking for me.
Aside from the snow, trees, and rocks, there was little to look at. No path or trail was evident and she was not even entirely certain which way she came from to reach the small cave. She had simply stopped out of fatigue and hunger. So once again, like the other two mornings, she concentrated only on moving downhill off the mountain. As Raven walked, she listened for sounds of wildlife. It had been days of disappointing silence. She began to wonder if anything survived outside of the underground colony. What if there really are no more animals? she thought. It seemed impossible, but so far there was nothing to prove otherwise. Then she heard it. A bird’s warble. A single call which rang through the surrounding forest. It was distant, but clearly a sign life at some level did remain. Raven stopped and listened hard, her heart beating fast, hoping to hear the bird again. Suddenly, the call came and then was answered. She looked up into the sky and was rewarded with the sight of two hawks circling, one following the other, as if they were playing tag. I’m not all alone! Raven felt like crying with relief. Even though Matthew had claimed animals, people, and even mutants, roamed the land, she was filled with doubts. Three days of nothing, but the sound of the wind and the gray cold sky to keep her company was disheartening.
Although she knew she had visited the mountains, even hiked and climbed there, now everything simply seemed so foreign. Matthew had tried to explain it to her. About the plague, which made women barren, and the nuclear wars afterward, all happening while she slept. It was such a strange new world for her now. She thought of Matthew. What happened to him once the leaders of the colony found out I was gone? Would they have killed him? she wondered. She did not know the rules of Eden. The people who lived there, even though she only knew Matthew, seemed strange. And dangerous. They would kill her simply to use her fertile eggs. She glanced over her shoulder and began walking again, suddenly nervous. The residents of Eden were people she hoped never to meet again. She walked faster and far away the hawks called.
THE MORNING CREPT SLOWLY into the afternoon. The sun, a faint light behind gray, lent little extra warmth. Raven trudged on, constantly switching between emotions of awe at the mountain’s majesty around her and near panic at the thought she was alone in this vast land without shelter, food, or friend. Her strength was fading fast today. The three days of walking were too much for her unprepared body. Hunger, no longer an ache, but now simply a knot of pain in her stomach, filled her mind. If I don’t find something to eat soon, I am not going to survive this, she thought. She had found water earlier, this time it was a soft spot in the snow, where a small spring bubbled through. The liquid helped to revive her, but the fact there were no fresh animal tracks around the water source frightened her. Where are all the animals? Since the birds this morning, she had seen nothing else. Where are all the rodents? What will I eat? The thoughts bounced around in her head, trying to break her down, but she reasoned with her panic. The fresh snow covered the animal’s tracks, it is that simple, she thought, but she was not completely convinced.
As she trudged forward, she began to believe she was the last human on the planet and that she was all alone out in the frozen wilderness. The urge to give up was suddenly frighteningly strong. No! she thought. I can’t give up. With tears freezing against her cheeks, Raven kept going.
She managed to walk through the deep snow into the evening and the light in the sky began to fade. Another very cold night was near. In her heart, Raven knew her fight was almost over. Her steps were labored, each one an individual battle of will to keep moving. The reality there was nothing to help her and she was alone had finally settled in. It would be so easy to simply sit down under a tree, rest for a moment, and not worry about anything anymore, she thought. Raven smiled faintly at the idea. Yes, it is what I will do. I will sit down under the big tree over there and rest. I don’t belong here anyway. I died long, long ago. This was all a mistake.
The large tree seemed to beckon her. It was bigger around than the others. Its branches were wide and strong as if they were great arms reaching out to embrace her. Raven walked toward it, happy to finally be letting go of the struggle. As she crossed the distance, she let the blanket around her head drop lower, and felt the fresh chill of the winter’s air on her face. I am free, she thought
, and reached out to return the tree’s embrace. Before her hand could take hold of a limb, a loud cracking noise sounded below her. For an instant, the snow under her feet seemed to sag. Raven stumbled, falling to her knees, eyes still focused on the tree. Then it was gone in a plume of white powder as she fell into the darkness beneath her.
CHAPTER 2
THEY WERE IN A FRENZY. They roared with laughter, swore loudly, and attacked each other with sudden, but ferocious anger whenever one of them tried to take more than his fair share of the bottle. It was the liquid in the bottle which made them especially wild that evening. Usually they were simply noisy, generally unafraid of anything else which might roam the barren plains around them, confident their small group was more than a match for whatever they might attract with their snorting and curses. They were mutants. Part human, part animal, part scientific anomaly with ugly, deformed, bulging muscles covered in short-haired fur. They were dangerous, which was what Kit kept in mind as she studied them from thirty yards away.
Even if they were paying attention, they would not have seen Kit. Kit was almost invisible. Lying flat upon the cold ground of the high desert, her camouflage patterned cloak covered her tiny body, with the hood enveloping her head. She was a shadow on the ground at most, a minute rise on the prairie floor at the least. All that peeked out were her eyes, light brown, large among the fine features of her petite face. She watched the mutants, took in everything, and waited.
There were three of them. Earlier in the week, when she first picked up their trail, there had been four. Two nights ago, in a dispute over a newly acquired knife, the leader of the group tore out the throat of the unlucky fourth. Now the leader wore the knife in his belt and the others had made dinner of the dead beast, eating their own without concern. It had been hard to watch, but not because Kit was revolted by the violence or the cannibalism. Rather, it was the smell of the meat cooking. It reminded her of her own hunger. Food was scarce on the wasteland and even a meal of dead mutant would have been welcome.
This was the last night she watched them. Tomorrow she would let them roam off, as they continued their search for things to kill or destroy, and she would turn back the way she came. It had been a profitable hunt and she was thankful she encountered them. Mutants were always good to follow because they left so much behind. They were stupid, wasteful beasts, and took greedily in the moment, but thought nothing of keeping things for the days ahead. When they killed an animal, they ate their fill for the night, but left the carcass to rot the next morning. If they came across nomads, they abused them, finally killed them, and took whatever weapons the unfortunate wanderers might have been carrying. Sometimes they took unique possessions to keep as trophies or to use for barter whenever they met up with other mutant groups, but they almost always left behind the clothes and other personal effects. This was primarily why Kit bothered to follow them.
So far this week she was able to recover three pairs of boots, a leather belt, a ragged, but functional rucksack, and two ponchos. The treasures were hidden back along the trail in gopher holes or under small piles of rocks. Kit intended to go back for them tomorrow, recovering the hidden prizes, and take them all back to her refuge to share with her own, but tonight she had one last mission. She would wait, silently, motionlessly, invisible on the plains, until the mutants drank themselves into a stupor. Once they fell asleep, she planned to go amongst them and gather the precious weapons they carried.
The wind plucked at her cloak, but she did not let it billow up. Her hands, poised under her, always ready to spring to her feet, held the edge of the material tight against the ground. The muscles in her body, aching from staying still for so long, tried to quiver, but she refused to let them. Over the years, she disciplined her body to listen to her mind and obey it. She learned that to survive she must become one with the landscape. Tonight, she was a shadow flat against the ground, yesterday a stump in the forest, tomorrow maybe an extra bulge in a pile of rubble. Invisible.
Although she had followed them closely for a week, the mutants had not seen her, or what was more likely as far as the beasts were concerned, had not smelled her. She was careful and always tracked their movements while measuring the direction of the wind. She often knew which way they were heading each morning before they did. She knew the mutants would take the easiest of routes if given a choice and she knew all the trails, roads, and mountain passages for miles along the wasteland of her home. She had been born on the plains and had wandered the land most of her seventeen winters. No spring or cave, nor ruined building, or antique relic, existed that she had not seen or visited many times.
Across the cold ground, she watched the mutants finish drinking the foul liquid in the bottle they shared greedily. She was nearby when they had traded for the liquor with another group of mutants. It had seemed like an unfair bargain to her. The mutants she followed gave up one of their rifles for two bottles of the alcohol. The gun was a derelict piece, probably nearly out of the almost impossible to find bullets, but it was certainly more useful than two bottles of the amber poison. In the end, it did not really matter to her. The mutants were not smart and everyone knew it. They were to be feared because they were vicious, but at least they were predictable. For Kit that made them an acceptable risk. Not like the Patrols. The Patrols came from the Great Mountain Cave to the north and though they were human, they were even more dangerous and merciless than the beasts. Kit usually stayed away from the Patrols. Even though they had good supplies and weapons, lots of fresh food and new clothing, it was not worth the risk. Very rarely did Kit sneak into their camp to take what her people needed and only then when it was extremely necessary. It did no good to follow along behind on their trail either because they never left anything behind. When they did catch nomads on the plains or in the mountains, they would kill the men, chain up the women to take back with them, and burn everything else. Once Kit had dug through the ashes of a group of three male nomads and found nothing to be salvaged.
Unlike the mutants, the Patrols were smart and had vehicles which worked, guns with bullets, and special eyeglasses to let them see far. They always had enough food and plenty of warm clothing. They slept in tents and traveled in groups so someone was always awake. Even for a shadow like Kit, it was impossible to be invisible all the time. Once they had spotted her and she had almost been caught. They fired their guns and a bullet had grazed her shoulder, leaving a long white scar for her to feel now and then. It was a perfect reminder to be careful of the Patrols.
But the mutants were not the Patrols and so she watched and waited for them to fall asleep. They had hardly any weapons and most probably did not have but one or two bullets, but still it was worth it. Her people had few guns which worked and barely enough bullets to use for hunting, let alone defense. If the Patrols ever found the hiding place where her people lived, they would not be able to put up much of a fight. It would be a massacre. Kit did not want to imagine it. She pushed the thought away and instead focused on the stumbling mutants. They were slumping around the fire now and soon, when the flames sank low and before the moon rose, it would be time to make her move. What she especially wanted from them was the new knife the leader of the group carried. She had not had a good look at it, always being far enough away in order to avoid detection by the beasts, but it looked large and shiny. She imagined it must be more valuable than a regular knife if the leader of the mutants had it. Getting it would be tricky, but she had something special in mind to do with it.
Moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, Kit lifted up off the ground. The wind blew and she felt it on her face, letting it tell her which direction was best to approach in order to hide her scent. Once on her feet, she skittered to the west, moving closer to the beasts. She crouched down to wait again. The mutants did not react, but Kit was still cautious and stayed still in case one of them was playing opossum. After two hundred slow breaths, she stood up and moved closer, until she was at the farthest edge of the light thrown from the fir
e in the middle of the sleeping mutants. They did not see her and if they had, they would have been at first shocked and then amused by what they saw.
Kit was tiny. Standing completely upright, she was only four feet tall. The cloak she wore was too large for her small frame and draped around her, making her look like a child playing in adult clothing. It was the perfect camouflage, especially in the dark of night. In the flickering firelight, with the twilight at her back, she was barely visible at all. She waited another hundred measured breaths until she was certain the mutants were asleep, and then she pushed back the hood to see better and stepped into the light.
The fire flicker danced in her large brown eyes. With a delicate face, Kit looked like a child, but she was not. She definitely did not resemble someone with her experience and skill. Silently, Kit slipped among the slumbering beasts and inspected, then gathered, what she wanted. Some of the items, a coil of rope here, a sack of dried rice there, were lying about and easy to take. In two quick trips, she stashed all she could carry in safe hiding spots well outside the circle of the mutant’s camp. Now came the hard part, taking the few weapons she wanted which the beasts wore on their bodies. She moved with extra caution, stepping next to one of the sleeping monsters, pausing to let the air around her settle, and then gently pulling the pistol from where it was tucked in his belt. The beast stirred as the gun slipped out and Kit froze ready to spring into flight if he even twitched again. Heart racing, she waited and watched, but the mutant did not wake up. Slowly, she stood up, tucked the pistol away into a pouch under her cloak and moved on to the next. Soon she had them picked clean, except for the leader. He would be the hardest. He was the biggest of the three and by far the most human looking. Mutants did not all look alike and did not take on the characteristics of the same animal. Generally, the different breeds did not get along. The wolf-like mutants traveled together and were separate and unfriendly toward the boar-like mutants and so on. This group was unique. The other two were rat-like, but the leader was a genetic mix of some sort of humanoid wildcat. He had the body of a man for the most part. Muscular, overly hairy, and with long claws at his fingertips. His face had whiskers and fangs like the wolf, but his snout was not as pronounced and his eyes were more almond shaped. Kit had not seen many which resembled the cat lineage and so she was especially wary.
