Tap. Hrrrkhhh.
Tap. Hrrrkhhh.
Tap. Hrrrkhhh.
It was a quiet, repetitive sound. Distinct, echoing lightly, but still harshly noticeable. It was a beacon: Hey! I'm walking over here! Punctuating each step was a slow, almost rhythmic rattle of filtered air.
The owner of the footsteps paid no mind. He, or she- it wasn't immediately apparent in the configuration of piecemeal, stitched-together gear and clothing- only moved forwards. Step. Step. Step. Every strike against the cracked, ashy cobblestones made its mark. The accompanying rattling noise from the breathing apparatus covering their face reminded them how short time was to escape the outside world.
"Remember- if you go, you go. Don't stop till you get...there. Wherever there may be." The words of instruction slithered through the back of the figure's mind. But they had almost forgotten where they were going at this point; they had been going so long. All they knew was that it was time to keep going. If only because the giver of instructions hadn't been able to any more.
Looking up, green eyes viewed the sky above through two lenses; the first being a scratched ballistic plastic eyepiece, and the second being the gray, cluttered air. Debris and ashen flakes swirled endlessly, mixed with bits of dirty snow that was too warm to stick. For now. As darkness would fall later, it would get brutally cold. It was mostly cold, nowadays, except on rare occasions where the Purifiers would rip through the toxic layer that hovered several thousand feet above the ground. They rarely came through where the figure inhabited, though. Poland was viewed as a lost cause- at least, what remained of Poland.
What was now known as the Gray Bloc was currently 'occupied' by the IPKF. At least, that's what the person thought. It had been a while since they'd seen anyone from any faction hanging around the Gray Bloc, especially not in what used to be Poland. The Purifiers wouldn't waste precious bio-reconstruction on a dead zone without enough payoff to make the lives worth it that they could be saving elsewhere. Or at least, attempting to.
No, the Gray Bloc was going to have to stew in its own radioactive filth for quite some time without aid; which wasn't necessarily important, as very few beings seemed to remain. Only mutaspecies, crazed humans, and the occasional wanderer.
Like me, they thought. But the person wasn't wandering. They were traveling. And thankfully, they had made it out of the Black Zone, into the Yellow Zone. Or, so the particle detector hanging from their belt told them. It was a beat up piece of equipment that functioned at one-hundred percent efficiency fifty-percent of the time. A simple device, mass produced for civilian and non-military personnel to have some idea of when they would die after the bombs hit.
The PD divided danger into four zones: Black, which was deadly levels of radiation; Yellow, which would cause discomfort and probably kill you after a while; Blue, which was negligible levels that might have some lasting effects fifty or sixty years down the line-if you lived that long- and Green, an area where not even minute radiation levels could be detected.
Green zones didn't exist anymore. But leaving the confines of Wrocław, or what used to be Wrocław, put the safety at Yellow. Looking back, the figure tugged the straps of the air filtration mask and pulled it off, shaking his head. Dirty, itchy, and irritable, he looked behind him. A few feet away was the Zone wall. It looked a bit like a wavering mirage. In a sense, it was a bit like a force field. When the IPKF dropped their bombs, they had developed an containment field that quarantined the radiation particles. The field itself had little effect on anything else, except some photo-based rays of light and energy. They screwed with radio frequencies a little, as well, but overall, they did their job well, outside of what naturally began to seep out over time.
Which was to condense the radiation and kill off anything living inside the Zone that the bomb blast didn't.
The man's mask went back into its carrying case, strapped to his upper thigh and looped through his belt for easy access. Breathing in semi-clean oxygen for the first time in a few days, he adjusted his rifle and moved on, lacing his thumbs into the straps of his rucksack. Periodically punctuating the sound of his boots walking the cracked road was the distorted, echoing sound of automated numbers being read off in certain patterns, followed by a few phrases.
He knew enough to know what it was, but not what it was saying. The numbers station broadcasts had been going off since the bombs dropped. He figured the screamers- that is, at least, what he called the noise detonators that had been seeded through the combat zone years ago to both disrupt and simply irritate the resisting armies, as well as transmit coded instructions to IPKF- ran off of either an ungodly battery power or some kind of solar energy. Though the quality of the broadcasts was ruined from time and weather, they still screamed. And screamed. Every few minutes. It was disorienting.
Another one of the IPKF's long-lasting weapons designed to inflict maximum punishment, just like the Zone projectors that still sometimes functioned, like the one seated in Wrocław.
The man's intention was to just keep moving generally north. He had heard from someone who had heard from another group of travelers that Greenland was Pure. A Green zone, in an aptly named area. The icy continent hadn't even been bombed, or so the rumors went. Running out of resources for his previous task, he figured there was no harm in getting further from the radiation as he continued his ambling journey. He needed supplies- replenishable water and food, resources to repair his clothing and equipment, and ammunition.
For now, though, the tattered camouflage clothing he wore would have to do. He didn't have many clothes, and he was running out of ways to cannibalize from other things he kept. The most important consideration he had was his boots; leather, insulated, and high-topped, almost jackboots. He was extremely lucky to have them. Extremely. Even though they were starting to fall apart.
His PD's clicking faded to sporadic gurgling as he moved further and further from the remains of Wrocław as the hours passed. He hated being in the cities. There was no safety, nor any resources there, in most cases. They were open. They were cold. They were usually Black Zones, if they were big enough. And torn clothes didn't do well with radiation, even though it had decreased significantly. Furthermore, his filters were already overloaded on his air mask. Eventually, he knew, they'd simply give up and start killing him through either letting in radiation or exploding and igniting from the debris.
Suddenly, he froze. The light breeze chilled his face and lightly drifted his hair, but it was the noise he heard that caused a halt and an even more chilling feeling. He slowly raised his right hand, covering the PD. The clicking muffled, he cocked his head a few inches to the left, and used his other hand to slowly, carefully unsling his weapon.
Sliding the PD into his pocket, the cord still tied to his belt, he winced as he pulled the charging handle back quickly and then released it; there was a very loud, audible clank on the relatively silent, empty highway. Flanked on either side by grassy, yellowed fields, he then raised the weapon to his shoulder, and knelt down. His head panned around slowly, trying to listen over the sound of the periodic screamer.
There was utter silence in between the broadcasts; until there wasn't. With a deafening shuffle of tall grasses, something lunged towards him from the fields aside the road. His upper body swung towards it, and his finger pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times, four times, before he was satisfied- each round was followed by another echoing clank as the gun was chambered again. It was an instinct. The latter two bullets found their new home in the skull and chest of a mutaspecies known a mongwolf. A coloquialized mix of mongrel and wolf, he was pretty sure they were once Eurasian wolves.
What they were now, however, was gangly, ugly, twisted mixtures of hair and bone. Mongwolves struggled to stand on two legs for more than a few moments, but they did so to look around and to rear up at their enemies. A twisted, gnarled spine was a mixed bag; they were either flexible or deformed. Either way, the radiation-retarded canines simply existed to eat, nowadays. Despite its appearance, the man beared the mongwolves no ill will. They were violent predators, but they were just trying to survive.
Just like him.
It wasn't worth searching the carcass for edible portions or useful hide. Nuclear distortion warped its genes beyond usability and edibility.
The man simply stood, pulling his collar up against his neck and jaw. It was careless of him to have not had his rifle loaded upon leaving the city's limits. He fumbled with near-numb fingers into a mud-caked pouch on his belt; four large bullets were removed. He pulled the charging handle back on the rifle, catching the fifth round that had been loaded and was now flung into the air by the extraction of the bolt. He slid it back in, along with the replacements. Five rounds were all it held.
He slammed the bolt forward, locking the charging handle down.
Five rounds had always been enough.
Shrugging his shoulders to adjust the rucksack again, he kept walking north.
He left the safety off.