War. War never changes.
Kelsey unslung his rifle awkwardly, trying to keep his gaze fixed on his target: a ghoul that had emerged, seemingly from nowhere, seconds before. Luckily it- he or she, it was pointless to conjecture which- was busy picking over the ground, snarling and chattering to itself in ghoul-language. Just as luckily, Kelsey had been moving slowly, tired from a long day's travel and carrying his supplies, so he had not walked straight into it. Of course, where there was one there were nearly always others.
He had been travelling through a deep ravine, perhaps the remains of an ancient riverbed, hoping to avoid the many denizens of the wasteland. The ground being mainly dirt and bedrock and a gentle downward slope made going relatively easy, which Kelsey greatly appreciated. The ever-present dust climbed briefly into spirals before collapsing, stirred by breezes funnelled down the natural chasm. Light was rapidly fading, the sun being obscured by the walls of the ravine, which were a filthy, patchy grey.
In the queer dusk-light Kelsey could make out the bare, desiccated flesh of the ghoul 20 metres away. It crawled slowly to and fro in the dirt, searching for God only knew what.
Kelsey considered his options. He couldn't wait here until it left- even if he had the time to do so. He needed to do at least 2 more hours of travel tonight to stay on schedule. The ghoul (and probably his friends) would detect him somehow before long anyway. How they really did this Kelsey didn't know- they had no noses left to smell with, after all- but he didn't much care. All he knew was that ghouls were uncannily good at finding people. He had heard many stories, and had seen it for himself.
He considered going back but quickly rejected the idea. He had been travelling through this deep-cut ravine since noon and would be forced to simply double back. No use.
He could try to creep past it... but he didn't trust himself enough with that kind of thing. Besides, the only route he could take would move him far too close to the ghoul, and it was bound to hear him with all his gear.
This left him only one choice, the one he knew all along he was doomed to. He would have to fight. He had killed many times in his life. Often It was simply do or die in the wasteland, kill or be killed. There was little room for altruism, especially when you were dealing with rabid, flesh-eating ex-humans. Still, Kelsey didn't like killing people, and ghouls were still people. Of a sort. They certainly looked human enough in the dark as a bullet travelled through their heads. Very human, in fact.
Still, this one was a serious threat, which always helps to harden one's heart. Kelsey just hoped he could kill it and slip past without attracting any more... or maybe something worse.
He aimed down the sight of his reliable old Colt .44, trying to get a bead on its head. The ghoul had retreated slightly, moving closer to the far side of the space and further into shadow. Kelsey crept forward slowly, needing a better vantage before he fired. He wasn't prepared to attempt shooting a screaming ghoul as it sprinted towards him, alerted by his missed shot, and he wasn't going to wait all day for it to come closer either. As Kelsey followed he caught whiff of something utterly disgusting, a rotten smell, and then it was gone again.
The ghoul stopped moving and crouched near the bank, apparently satisfied with a find. It crooned and jabbered quietly to itself, rocking slightly. For a long moment Kelsey had its head in his sights- and then the ghoul moved to the left, further away. Kelsey inwardly cursed himself. He couldn't be so soft. He advanced again. The ghoul was steadily moving down the ravine.
Suddenly the creature's head snapped around on its scrawny neck, straight towards him. The look on the ruined, melted features was one of shocked indignation- mouth agape, eyes flaring madly. It was a "how did you get in here?" look that might have been comical to other ghouls. Not to Kelsey. He knew immediately that he had been spotted. The ghoul screeched and launched itself towards him with terrifying speed just as he fired. He hadn't really had time to aim the shot and was stunned as he saw Ghouly's head blossom into fragments, it's deathly shriek cut off. The corpse tumbled over neatly, landing with a crunch in the dust.
Kelsey stood for a full 5 seconds, praising his luck and trying to breathe normally again. Dark blood quickly pooled beneath the decapitated ghoul.
"You ain't zombifyin' me, pal," he panted. Adrenaline surged through his veins. Overhead a bird cawed, making him jump.
Then from behind him came a low hissing sound. He turned. Less than 10 metres- closer to 5- back down the gulch another ghoul crouched, head turning. Somehow it hadn't seen him yet- the murky light and the ghoul's badly deteriorated eyesight, Kelsey supposed- but he wondered how he hadn't noticed it before. He had been been right on its current position less than a minute ago. Where had it been then?
Then he saw the cave. It was quite narrow- only a metre or so across- so he saw how he could have missed it, tucked behind a fold in the stone wall. He was fairly certain that just inside the cave he could discern the forms of at least 4 more ghouls- yes, there went the flash of a pair of eyes, and another. They had heard the rifle crack and were coming out of their den to investigate. This also explained the smell he had experienced earlier.
Kelsey didn't think. He didn't even breathe. Softer than falling snow, quieter than the deathcry of a single bacterium, soundless as a panther's great padded paws, he unslung his bag and lowered it, ever so gently, to the the ground.
Of course, he had more than an old .44 rifle to protect himself with, reliable and powerful though it may be. Davis, his "captain" of sorts, had outfitted him with 3 plasma grenades, procured at great expense through the black market. These sat in a small compartment at the top of his bag. Davis had warned him about these, since Kelsey had never seen one in action. "When you throw one of these things, run. No matter how far you throw it, run. Even if you dropped it off a mountain, run. Don't even look at it after you press that button. Just run." Davis had a tendency to dramatise, but Kelsey wasn't about to test him on this issue. He pulled one out, very, very quietly.
Davis had assured him a 5 second fuse time on the devices, so he pressed the large green button on the grenade and waited a couple of heartbeats before tossing it in a high arc into the mouth of the cave, where it clattered and bounced off a wall. The group of ghouls immediately swept toward the source of the noise, jabbering at each other. Meanwhile Kelsey grabbed his bag, took his friend's advice, and ran.
Just as the ghouls realised that the smoothskin running away over there was probably more edible than a plasma grenade, it detonated. Kelsey, already nearly 30 metres away, felt the shock wave pass over him, blowing a boiling dust storm before it. For a second the scene was lit an eerie green by the explosion, leaving weird afterimages etched into his vision. Strangely, the explosion wasn't very loud; a sound like a large electrical pulse throbbed out and was gone.
Kelsey looked back over his shoulder as he ran- and stopped. The cave and surrounding area had been burned completely black in what seemed to be a huge radius. The ghouls were nothing but residue. He was partly relieved to be alive but mostly just shocked by the extent of the damage caused by the grenade. There might have been something salvageable in there... but then, maybe Kelsey didn't want to know what horrors had lain within that cave.
All of a sudden the gravity of the situation came home to him. What was he doing all the way out here? Were things really that desperate? He was no soldier, no survival expert. He was tired, sweaty and scared. But he knew full well that there was no-one else.
"Damn it, Broegel," he muttered. "Couldn't you just stick to the plan?"
He began to move forward again, mindlessly, simply trying to put some distance between himself and that cave, that omen of danger. His rifle jogged at his shoulder. Overhead the stars had begun to emerge as the sky shifted from muddy ochre to deep velvet blue. The mutated children of ancient night birds called to each other. Kelsey kept his ears open as he walked, but apart from the sighing wind, the birds, and the occasional click of his Geiger counter, all was quiet.
After around 2 kilometres the ravine he had been travelling through simply sunk into the earth and was gone. Before him, across a great, barren plain, was the skeletal remains of a once-populous city. Towers rose drunkenly hundreds of metres into the air, struts and bars projecting at odd angles. Everywhere were gutted shops, homes, schools, hospitals, rendered unrecognisable by nuclear fallout and the unmerciful elements. Many buildings were adrift with ash and dust. Many more still had simply become piles of dust themselves. The buildings thinned out and became smaller closer to Kelsey's position.
Nothing in this place was whole, and nothing was clean.
Still, the sight of the place cheered Kelsey greatly. This was an important landmark in his journey, meaning that he was nearly there. Tomorrow, before noon, he should make his destination.
He debated whether to stop here for the night or to continue. Logically, he should move on. The gulch was clearly a hiding-place for ghouls. But Kelsey was very tired and still rather shell-shocked from his encounter.
Ugh. Just thinking about how close he had come to dying forced his feet into motion. He would seek shelter in a pre-war house, perhaps huddle beside a chimney, and sleep until first light. He moved down the slope, into the open and towards the dead city.
Night had fallen properly now, everything veiled in shadow. Kelsey tried to move as silently as he could, sticking to any cover he could find. He cringed every time his foot kicked a pebble, the sound greatly magnified by his own paranoia. He had heard that this area was once a haunt for raiders, ruthless gangs who stole to survive and killed innocents for sport. Reports of raider activity had lessened over recent months, but Kelsey thought that this was meaningless. Maybe the raiders were simply getting better at covering their tracks.
Ahead he could make out the shell of a house. Two of the walls had collapsed, dragging what remained of the roof with them, but Kelsey thought there would be a good chance of shelter, perhaps underneath one of the fallen walls. He picked up his pace, taking a swig from his canteen as he did so. He would have to fill it up again soon from somewhere.
The house loomed larger and what he suddenly spotted made his spirits rise: what looked like cellar doors. If the house had a cellar he could bar himself in, break open some glow tubes, prepare some squirrel on a stick, and make himself quite comfortable. Maybe there'd be water. He was nearly running as he reached the doors.
Skidding to a stop in front of them, he grabbed the handles. The left one broke off in his hand instantly, rusted completely through. The right one miraculously held, so he dropped the broken handle and grabbed the other with both hands. The door creaked and groaned as he pulled on it, refusing to move. He planted his foot on the wall of the house and pulled harder. Yes- it started to open, slowly, inch by inch-
From behind Kelsey came a sound that made the hairs on his neck immediately stand up and his bowels turn to water: a deep, resonating growl. At the same time he thought he detected the pad pad of huge feet. He whirled, his exhaustion forgotten.
Not 10 metres away he could see the outline of something colossal and bear-like, shambling with deceptive speed straight towards him. It was a yao-guai, the mutated ancestor of the black bear, infamous for their ferocity and their general uncooperative attitude towards being killed. It's huge forequarters rippled as it advanced. It was now no more than 5 metres away. There was nowhere to run.
Kelsey's mind became a block of ice, cold and somehow smoother. Distantly, he saw himself level his rifle at the monster, felt the gun jump in has hands, and saw as the slug whacked into the thing's chest. No lucky headshots for him this time- but then, Kelsey had never been much of a lucky guy. The yao-guai simply shrugged this off, roaring it's challenge. "Is that all you have?" It seemed to bellow. Kelsey fired again, recoil causing the shot to completely miss and whirr off into the darkness.
Time seemed to slow down as the huge creature bore down on him. He had time to observe it's matted, filthy brown pelt, time to stare into it's flaming nocturnal eyes, time to smell the rancid meat-stink that emanated from it. The yao-guai was even bigger than he had at first thought, nearly 2 metres tall at the shoulder. It's teeth looked as long as kitchen knives in the twilight.
Then it was upon him, bowling him backwards and knocking the wind out him with it's massive bulk. His rifle flew from his hands, landing in a pile of scree. He had time to think of Davis, and Broegel, and his failed mission. He had time to think of Maria, his lost sweetheart, her blue eyes locked on his, a half-smile curving her lips.
Then the beast's teeth punctured his skull and his thoughts broke up like ice in a warm current.
The yao-guai licked its chops reflectively. It had a belly full of food, but it's chest hurt abominably where the human had struck it somehow. The wound would take weeks to heal, and it was fairly certain that it would lose its territory before then. It had torn open Kelsey's pack and now the contents littered the ground- ammunition, spare clothes, food wrappers. The bear sniffed a few of these before concluding that there was nothing tasty left. It moved off, limping on one enormous front leg.
Nearby lay the body of Jeremy R. Kelsey, chewed roughly in half. His eyes stared sightlessly into the void. Beside him a piece of paper emblazoned with an official-looking seal fluttered. A breeze caught at it, and it was lifted high over the battered, mottled landscape, out of sight into the dark sky.