|
what ever they had to in order to stay alive. Death was everywhere
but not always inclined to leave salvageable body-parts in its wake.
Many turned to grave robbing; it was practically the only place
one could find undamaged materials. Besides, the Others didn't pay
as well for mangled pieces as they did for intact cadavers. No one
cared why, everyone just wanted to continue to exist. For this,
money, although now as worthless as the paper it was printed on,
was still needed for barter. The salvage crews quickly took to fighting
over untouched grave sites. In the chaos that ensued, most of the
easily accessible internment facilities were picked clean and many
of the excavators were slaughtered in rival confrontations, they
themselves becoming money in the pockets of those who survived.
What was left of humanity was moving rapidly toward extinction.
It was then that his mother was taken.
Up to that point, his family had been relatively lucky; they lived
deep within a pile of rubble that occupied a hillside over-looking
the destroyed city. His father, a strong, angular man, had been
a member of the military organization that once occupied the large
facility. He had known all the ins-and-outs of the complex before
it was destroyed and was able to secure an untouched section that
was secluded deep within the ruined structure. Once he took possession
of the series of rooms, he had made sure that it was almost entirely
inaccessible to the outside world. It was here that the boy had
grown up, taught by his mother to read and by his father to survive,
until the day that his father had returned alone.
From then on it got worse for him.
His family had been one of the few solo operations that existed.
They would take turns going out in pairs to look for salvage, while
one would remain to guard against possible intrusion. They sold
what they found and kept the money for themselves, never having
the company of others to divide it up amongst. It was on one such
excursion that his
|
|
mother had been slain. His father, returning
in a rage, had told him the brutal details of his mother's fate. She
had been literally ripped apart by a rival group competing for the
same grave site. His father hadn't been able to stand up to such overwhelming
odds and had barely escaped with his life. Returning to the shelter,
blood seeping from over a dozen wounds, he had spit out the terrifying
tale and then submerged himself within a bottle of whiskey. From then
on, his father grew worse; going out by himself, never explaining
his absences, wallowing in booze and self-pity. He learned quickly
not to question his father after receiving several severe beatings.
This was the point at which he had started to go out by himself. Late
at night, after his father lay in drunken stupor, he would venture
forth, exploring the age-old passages of the forgotten underworld.
He wanted to prove to his dad that he could help in their survival,
wanted to win back his trust.
It was eleven-thirty when he snuck into
the hallway leading down that fateful night. The luminescent dial
of his watch had told him so as he peeked at it before moving silently
past his sleeping father. He was passed out again, a half-empty bottle
of whiskey cupped lovingly in one knarled hand, his body sprawling
across the soiled mattress that served as his bed. He glanced behind
him once more as he crept beneath the plastic sheeting. That his father
mustn't find out about his late-night journeys had been a foregone
conclusion. Slipping through the crack in the concrete wall, he had
silently inched his way along the unlit fissure. It was a good twenty
meters before he felt the breeze on his face; it was coming from an
opening in the wreckage. Crouching down, his hands fumbled across
the ground. The torch was there, just where he had left it. Lighting
it, he began to crawl along the exposed pipe that lay twisted and
bent across the entire space of the pit. He had found it only the
week before after widening the fissure in the wall. The pipe was huge,
its rough surface congealed |
