Hello! This is my first submission to . Ive got no solid plans for how this is going to pan out, or even if it will ever be expanded upon – it was just an idea I wanted to share!
I hope you enjoy, and please leave comments/reviews! Thanks!
In the dark; water dripped in long streams from cracks in the cement tunnel's roof, dribbling with steady clamour into the still, rancid water that claimed the base of the drain. It was not a long drop, the drain was a perfect cylinder not more than a meter and a half tall that forced the Feral to stoop as its flat feet padded through the rank water, vaguely sniffing through the cold, moist air. It had lived in here for as long as it could recall; its memory was faded and what memories did exist were shambling and intercut with flash images that burned hot inside its damaged lobes. Images incomplete were stitched abhorrently into a schizophrenic patchwork; voices and thoughts, faces and words of a time before the radiation, before the turning.
A mind complete in a body to match; not broken and alone in the cold, damp black.
Through thin, spider web fractures that lined the ancient concrete, white frosted light solidified into blades in the specks of dust that sat poised in the still air. The Feral had forgotten its fear of the dark, forgotten the taste of clean water. Its voice served now to form grumbled shrills and animalistic hisses. He was more a creature than a man; senses honed and sharpened. He ran on instinct.
He felt a ripple through the water, heard the flap of a wing that rung inside the tunnel like an echo-chamber. Quarry. Food. And not far.
Sunlight and birds in the air; wind rustles trees and green grass underfoot. Sky blue. Banners flap. Marching band. The image solidified like a picture mirrored in the reflection of a smooth pond, shattered by a stone turning the pool to chop.
The Feral stopped, cocking its head in the dark. He listened closely for it, and it came again: Insect footfall, like twigs breaking. The radroaches fed on the mushrooms that grew in the cool. Inside the tunnel the roaches were quicker than the Feral could muster; he would have to be sure or else to loose the chance of food for a few more days.
He poised just beyond range, coiling his body.
The Feral hissed and lunged; a hand shot out and grabbed the insect by the body, feeling the pulsing mass of putrid flesh seethe and wriggle against his hands, its claws stabbing against his sunbaked sinew as it struggled to free itself. He flicked the creature sidewards, spearing its head into the concrete wall of the tunnel with a sharp crack. The stabbing stopped, but the wriggling continued, the last stand of a primitive nervous system short-circuiting. The patter of radroaches retreating from the kill, they scampered off down the drain until the sound of their feet was lost in the dark.
The flesh was familiar in his mouth, an acidic tang that crunched with every sloppy bite, vesicles and fluid sacs spilling fetid gunk onto into the water below, staining it brackish. The wings crunched, the shell was all that was left, tossed aside.
The Feral rested with its head against the concrete. It heart slowed, breathing relaxed to a soft whine.
"Daddy?"
The voice was a child's, it echoed through the tunnel and through the Feral's head. His eyes shot open, neck snapping back and forwards, ears straining for more. Nothing. The tunnel was empty but for himself.
The tunnel concluded abruptly, concrete roughly cut to a sharp lip, twisted, ruddy fingers of rebar curling outward, as if fleeing from the darkened orifice. A thin stream of water dripped from the mouth and onto grey rubble below, forming a puddle before it soaked into the earth.
From the mouth of the drainage tunnel, what remained of the town below looked more like crushed eggshells than buildings, as if some giant foot had stomped upon the land. Of those still standing, most of the buildings were slathered in rudimentary repairs, corrugated iron sheets and wooden planks boarding windows and doors. Litter covered the ground; discarded boxes of ancient cereal, cola bottles and rubber tires lined broken asphalt streets. The sky above was heavily overcast, dumping pale grey light over the remains of the city. Far to the west, the Feral could just make out a pillar of smoke softly rising toward the sky.
The Feral jumped without looking and landed on a piece of the rebar sticking from the earth; a splinter of metal imbedded deeply into his foot. It served as little more than a curiosity; his hand pulled the spike out with a sharp tug, dropping it to the ground. There was no pain – without skin there were no nerves to feel it – and the Feral loped away from the opening and down a steep embankment that lead toward the town below.
The rotting corpse of a wastelander was the feast of a half-dozen ghouls; they crowded it, fingers ripping at the tender flesh, mouths crunching, teeth glistening with red. The Feral moved closer, sensing the purity of the flesh which made his mouth water. Too close, and a ghoul turned, slapping its long arm out to slash fingers across the Feral's leg, forcing him to withdraw and watch the meal from a distance. Other ghouls gathered, watching, some approaching before being repelled by the gorging brood; the Feral watched the corpse cleaned by the ghouls, splintering bones to suck upon the marrow within.
The Feral backed away, belly crying.
A military truck lay on its side in the centre of town, having tipped a load of metal boxes from its tray centuries ago. The Feral slowed along side it, feeling the tingle of radiation from its nuclear fuel strike his flesh, soothing him. He breathed more deeply, and continued on his way.
Time passed, the sky darkening. A storm to the east, out to sea. Lightning forked and lit up the horizon, deep rumbling thunder overcoming the wasteland. Torrents of water fell from a pitch sky, pooling in the shallows, soaking concrete and asphalt. The Feral paid little heed.
A scent stained the air.
In a clearing a cage sat in the open, rusted wrought iron. A child cried out from inside, voice broken, fighting against the surging tide of the storm. Small hands struggled against the heavy metal, muscles flexed but it sat fixed. Ghouls were gathering for the feed.
The Feral stayed low, hiding behind a low rocky pedestal adorned with a statue. The plaque read: Iyannough, but the Feral could not read it. Two ghouls were cautiously approaching the boy, whose eyes widened to white spheres as he spotted them, struggling harder, screaming louder for help. Lightning highlighted his delicate features, blonde hair, a young face. Other ghouls approached from cover, closing as a ring from all sides, mouths dribbling with rain and saliva.
The first ghoul to reach the child shot his arm into the cage, but the boy was able to avoid its grasp by pushing his back toward the far side of the tiny pen. A second hand lunged and grasped his clothing from behind, pinning him against the back wall of the metal box. The ghouls swarmed him. He cried piteously. One grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm through the bars, biting deeply into the muscle. Others pulled strips from his back and thighs, he convulsed under the attack, refusing to collapse or pass out as the fingers drove below his skin.
The Feral's legs burned to move upon the feast, take one bite. He moved to bound up, coiling himself for the charge toward the boy, determined to taste the flesh he longed for.
"Daddy – why are you asleep?"
He was frozen. The sound of the rain was silenced. The voice was that of a girl, young and sweet. His head craned.
In the storm she was dry, her dress clean and pressed, blonde hair bright as if in full sunlight. She stood smiling at him, ten meters distant, mouth rising to a smile. She held a doll in one hand and a miniature hairbrush in the other.
The Feral sat unmoving, eyes locked. The rain poured around him. There was no girl, no doll. Just the tearing call of the feed and the dying cries of the boy.
One ghoul, the largest, suddenly stopped and stood, sniffing the air as he turned as if scanning the edges of the clearing. For a second he stood fixed; then his head exploded.
The ghouls frenzied. Rifle fire sounded from all directions, flashes of muzzles, white hot rounds spearing into baked-hard flesh tearing fist sized caverns from the ghouls skeletal frames. The ghouls rushed there attackers, hissing, but were cut down before they could even reach them, slapping with wet thumps against the cold ground.
The Feral pulled himself against the pedestal, keeping low.
There were woops from the corners of the clearing. The smell of cordite stung the Feral's nostrils. Figures appeared, darkened shapes of men with rifles moving forward into the clearing. One yelled "Take that, you mutated son-of-a-bitch!" and the others cheered him. Twenty of so in all, and on all sides, the silhouettes solidified into the shapes of about two dozen raiders. They moved over the corpses of the ghouls, checking for life.
One ghoul hissed, red blood gurgling through cracked lips. A raid hung over the body, aiming a pistol into its ruined face.
"Yeah…" he said, then fired. The stab of flame cut into the creatures head. "…fuck you too"
The Feral ran away.
Back in the tunnel, the Feral sat. The glow of a mushroom stalk lit enough of the tunnel to show the Feral his own hands. Blistered, ravaged by radiation, years of neglect. His belly grumbled, crying to be fed.
He closed his eyes.
"Daddy – why are you asleep?"
The Feral sat in a chair, leather and deep before a wooden desk. A viewscreen fizzed images of protests marches in the capital, overlaid with captions telling of students with Communist sympathies.
The walls were high bookshelves, volumes of texts bound in leather, names scribed in gold stamped upon there spines.
A little girl was standing next to him; her dress was floral, platinum hair bound into two pigtails adorned with blue bows. Red, chubby cheeks, she smiled as the Feral felt his own mouth curl up into a shared smirk. His voice was smooth and assuring, it flowed without effort.
"What are you doing in here?" He said, leaning forward and picking the girl up, placing her on his knee.
"Mommy said I should get you for bed. She said you've been working too much lately" the girl replied earnestly. She had a small doll with her, the doll and her could've been twins had she been several times smaller. With a pink brush, she combed its hair steadily.
"Well you tell her ill be along shortly" the Feral's voice replied "I've just got to finish up these reports. Now you run along now, its almost bed time"
"Oh Dad!" the girl sung, popping off his knee and scampering with haste around the great desk and through the ajar door.
The Feral called "Shut the door behind you Jessica!" but the girl was already out of earshot. He shook is head with a sigh and reached to the desk, flicking through typed reports. One read "Intelligence Brief; Highly classified" in red ink across the heading. Below, it read: Project Atlantis.
The Feral looked upon his own hands. The flesh was smooth and solid; he felt the skin begin to fall away in slabs, shrivelling like jerky. Bone was exposed, muscle, grissle and sinew below that. What skin remained became transparent as hair came from his scalp in great mats. The paper in his hands shrivelled and ignited soundlessly, withering to nothing but black ash in his hands.
The Feral sat in the dark, staring at his hands. He could feel his heart in his chest beating faster, the cold of the tunnel, the ache of a belly desperate to be filled and then, behind that, something deeper and more visceral.
The longing for her.
Those he had left behind.
In the black of the tunnel, for the first time in over two hundred years, Dr Steven Church's lips came together and formed a single, whispered word.
"Jessica"