Wasteland Wonderland - Part 1

by James Harden

  Chapter 9

  I’m running through the darkness, running hunched over. One hand is clutched to my stomach.

  Cramping.

  Churning.

  One hand brushes the wall of the tunnel for support, for guidance.

  I need to find some water. I need to dilute the poison in my body, or at the very least, I need to find a quiet spot to ride this out.

  But what if there is no riding this out? What if this poison is as lethal as my brother said it was? As lethal as I know it is.

  How long did it take to kill Ruby?

  Hours?

  Minutes?

  I answer my own question and I say to myself, to no one… “Then that quiet spot will be a quiet spot to die. Nice and peaceful.”

  I lean forward. I keep walking because there’s nothing to do except to keep going, to keep moving. Because the alternative is to crawl into a ball and die. Walking the tunnels, lost and drugged, hallucinating… this is a great way to vanish and go missing. A great way to disappear in the dark and never find a way out. A great and efficient way to die. Maybe this is what I get for all the bad things I’ve done.

  Maybe this is what I deserve for being a killer, for failing Ruby.

  The shadows created by the red flashlight come to life, they dance around me. At first they are friendly, at first they are companions for this journey.

  But then they turn.

  They begin to stalk me and hunt me.

  They realize I am not going to make it. They realize I am prey. They realize I will be a free meal very, very shortly.

  I remind myself that I am hallucinating. This is not real. The monsters of shadow and darkness are not real. I don’t need to worry about them, I don’t need to be afraid of them.

  What I need to fear is behind me.

  The Overseer.

  A small army of Enforcers.

  Behind me are heavily armed soldiers who want me dead, who have been ordered to kill me.

  I turn the torch off because I don’t need it. I’ve got the wall of the tunnel for guidance. And when the red light disappears, so do the monsters. They disappear because a shadow needs a light source.

  Without light, they will die. Just like everything else.

  I begin breathing harder and harder. My chest, my lungs are heaving, my heart is beating faster, working overtime.

  I hear something behind me.

  Footsteps.

  Breathing that is not my own.

  Something, someone has been stalking me for real.

  Not a shadow.

  “Who have you talked to?” says the Overseer.

  He says this as calm as you like. He is in no rush.

  Son of a bitch is toying with me.

  I keep walking. I fumble for the gun my brother gave me. It’s the only one that is loaded.

  “No one,” I answer.

  “Stop lying. Everyone you talk to, everyone you have spoken with has died. You can stop the killing.”

  I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not.

  “The Librarian,” he says. “The owner of that bar...”

  “The Mayor?” I ask.

  “If he does not cooperate, he will surely die as well.”

  Overseers are supposed to help, to care, to maintain. They’re not supposed to be cold blooded killers.

  They’re not supposed to be hunters.

  They’re not supposed to be assassins.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask. “Why am I still alive?”

  “I am curious,” he says.

  “About what?”

  “I am curious as to how you are still alive. No one has ever survived that much poison, for this amount of time.”

  “Why don’t you just use a knife or a bullet like everyone else?”

  “Because. I am not like everyone else.”

  “No. You’re different. You’re better. Or at least, you’re supposed to be better.”

  “I am better.”

  I have a hold of the gun. All I need to do is draw and turn and shoot. He’s right behind me. I can’t miss. I won’t miss. I picture it all in my mind, the gunshot, the flash.

  And then I hear a gunshot.

  And another.

  “Hector! Get down.”

  I hear the bullets zipping past my head, my ears. I feel the bullets flying past.

  I drop to the ground.

  Someone grabs me. I can’t tell if it’s the Overseer.

  Their hands are soft. Smooth.

  “Ruby?”

  No. It can’t be. And it isn’t. I’m still hallucinating. I brush the person away, pushing them over. I get to my feet slowly. The whole world tilts on its axis. The Buried City becomes inverted and I’m walking on a ceiling of an underground subway system.

  I shake my head. I get my bearings. I start jogging. There is gun fire behind me. Explosions echo and reverberate through the tunnel. Someone is packing some serious heat, it wasn’t the Overseer. I look down at the waist of my pants. My brother’s gun is still tucked away, so that means I’m not the one shooting.

  It takes me a long time to figure this out. Longer than I’m proud to admit.

  More gun fire.

  Grenades.

  Who the hell in the Buried City has grenades?

  None of this makes sense. And I realize I could be dreaming all this up. I could be lying face down in a dark tunnel, in a dark ditch, dying, breathing my last. The gunfire stops, and when the echoes fade, there is silence.

  My own breathing.

  My racing heart.

  I tell myself to run.

  “Run, you dumb son of a bitch. Run!”