Awaken (5 page)

I stand back, wipe the sweat out of my
eyes, just stare at the moon for a bit. I know what I got to do
now, I just cain’t bring myself to do it. The moon is in its
shrinking stage.... a waning moon. I smile a bit ‘cause I can hear
gra’das voice in my head.

“
Now when the moon is waning
Tara it’s the best time for planting the taters and when it’s a
waxing moon then it’s time for the corn. You gotta remember that if
you want a good harvest.”

“
I’ll remember gra’da,” I
whisper at the moon.

“
Good girl,” it says back in
gra’das raspy voice. “Now finish what you started.”

“
Aye, I will,” I
say.

I stand alone in the dark. It’s quiet.
So quiet I can hear my own heart thumping. These past few hours I
been occupied, so busy with what I was doing I ain’t had time to
think. But now, with the quiet all around me, things are just
jumping into my head.

Why gra’da? I think. Why did you just
save me? Why didn’t you at least try and save the others or
yourself? Why did you hide me and nobody else? Gra’das last words
to me echo in my head.

“
You must stay
alive.”

Why? So as to feel all this pain and
grief? I can feel the ache in my chest welling up again and I take
a few deep breaths to stop it. The time for crying is over Tara, I
scold myself. Do what you got to do.

I strike my flint and light the torch
I’d made earlier from Shelly’s wood table leg and some of the
whiskey soaked cloth strips. I ain’t even considered using the
other torch for fear some evil would come from it. But I hesitate
before I light the kindlin’.

There’s something I should be saying, I
think. But nuthin comes to mind. If Ben were here he would know
what to say. But Ben ain’t here, it’s just me. Why I should be
standing here while everybody else is gone…it ain’t
right!

“
I’m sorry,” I say finally.
My voice is scratchy and raw from my crying. “I’m sorry that I
couldn’t help save y’all. I’m sorry those things came from the sand
lands and killed y’all and I don’t even know what for. You were
good people...proper people. Gra’da… you were a fine gra’da…the
best a girl coulda ever wanted. And I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a
proper burial. I’m gonna miss you….real bad!”

I stop talking ‘cause my throat hurts
again. I start setting aflame the pockets of kindlin’.

“
May the gods show you mercy
and grant you peace.”

I stay just long enough to make sure
the fire catches. I throw the torch into the flames. The moon will
be bright enough for walking and a lit flame out in the sand lands
would just draw unwanted attention, from what I ain’t sure but
don’t want to take no chances. Waiting for morning was not an
option. There is no way in dirt dog hell I am gonna stay another
night in this place of death.

I pick up my slingbag, heave my bow and
quiver over my shoulder and start walking. East, along the
riverbank like gra’da had told me to do. I ain’t ever heard of
Littlepass but if he said I’d best go there then that’s what I do.
If I’m gonna stand a chance of finding Ben and the others then I’m
going to need help. Lily, he had said. Find a healer named Lily.
How hard could it be?

I keep walking, a steady pace, one foot
in front of the other. I don’t look back. I ain’t ever coming back.
Ben was right all along. Rivercross was dead. Time to go
elsewhere.

Mid-afternoon, eight days into the sand
lands. Eight days of nuthin but sand and wind and the burning cruel
sun. Eight days of nuthin to distract me from the awful thoughts
running through my head. Replaying the deaths of my kin over and
over again, wondering if there was something…anything I could have
done to save them. Worrying about Ben and the young’uns. If they
were okay. If I was ever going to see ‘em again. If they were even
still alive. Sometimes the despair is so overwhelming that I don’t
want to take another step. Just wanna lay down, right where I’m
standing, let the vultures have at me. But I don’t. I keep moving.
I keep walking the flat, desolate lands. Sometimes I come across
the occasional husk of a settler’s ruin but I don’t bother to look
in them. They’re nuthin but skeletons already picked clean long ago
by scavengers. I ain’t seen another living soul.

I stop only long enough to sleep,
praying to the gods for an evening of rest free from the night
terrors, but they come every night. Every night I see their faces,
hear their screams. Some nights the metal monsters in my dreams
have teeth and they eat up every soul in front of me, even Ben. I
hear their bones crunching from the metal jaws and I wake myself up
with my cries, my face wet with tears. I lay there shivering,
afraid, listening to the howling of a lone devil cat or wolfling
off in the distance, and sleep don’t come no more. So I
walk.

It’s taking a toll on me, all the
walking. Yesterday I had to cut the tail offa my tunic, use it to
wrap my feet, they were cut up real bad. The wrappings helped
though, my feet ain’t hurting so bad today. And my head weren’t
hurting no more either, it had healed up real nice. Even the cut
had closed up, not even a scab. I always was a real fast
healer.

I keep walking.

Mid-morning, twelve days into the sand
lands. Least I suspect it’s been that long, I’m losing track I
think. This is my second day of traveling on no sleep. I made camp
last evening but just as I was settling down I heard a noise coming
from the other side of the boulder I was camped under. I snuck a
peek, real slow like so as not to make any sound. The moon had been
bright enough for me to make out a shadow, a shape about 10 or12
paces from where I was set up. Cain’t rightly say if it were human
or critter though it appeared to be walking on two legs, all
hunched over and shuffling it’s feet. My heart was beating so loud
I figured for sure the thing would of heard it, and it did pause
for a bit, but thankfully it moved on, heading gods only knew where
in the empty wastelands. I waited for a time, wanting to make sure
it was well gone before I packed up and moved out. I didn’t know if
it were a mutie or raider or such but I knew I didn’t want to run
into it. And I surely wasn’t sleeping any tonight. So I
walked….again. I walked ‘til the sun came up. Only then did I stop
to rest.

The food I had brought with me is all
but gone and one of the water skins is bone dry. The other is half
empty, even with my rationing. I had come across watering holes
along the way but they had either been dried up or gone foul. I
keep checking the riverbed hoping for one of the flash floods of
water the old folk would talk about but it’s as dry as always, the
bottom of it nuthin but baked, cracked mud. Another story I no
longer believe in.

I was going to have to hunt soon, I
think. It would slow me down some but I got to eat. I had seen the
occasional wild bird and crow, ain’t spotted any dirt dog but no
matter. I had left my snare wires back in Rivercross and dirt dog
was almost impossible to catch with an arrow. They never stuck
their heads out of their burrows long enough to get a good target
on them. No, food wasn’t going to be a problem, but water, that was
worrying me some.

Day fifteen…high noon. The land I’m
walking on is changing. I’ve been noticing it for a day or so now.
The empty, hard baked ground I was used to seeing is turning to
scraggly grasslands and sloping hills way off in the hazy distance.
I can even see what I believe to be a tree line on the horizon. A
good sign. Where there are trees growing, there’s water. Just in
time too, I reckon the water I have left won’t last the day. I
stare at the tree line trying to work out in my head how long a
walk it’ll take me but I ain’t sure, my thinking is getting a bit
muddled. I need to drink more water soon, I know that for
certain.

Out of nowhere a flash of light hits my
eyes nearly blinding me. What the hell? I squint into the light and
slowly realize it’s the sun hitting something off in the distance
to my left and reflecting it back to me. Is that…? No….cain’t be!
But it is sure enough…shanties, about half a league from where I’m
standing. Between the blowing dust and heat shimmers I ain’t
noticed ‘em before. Right away I start heading for them, the only
thoughts in my head being of water…food…people! But I don’t get no
more than five paces when my mind goes clear again. What if I find
something there I don’t want to find? Like muties? Or raiders? I
hesitate. Then again maybe it’s just normal people like me, with
fresh water and maybe even a bed for me to sleep in for a night.
Shizen, the thought of sleeping in a soft bed instead of on the
hard ground crawling with sand biters… well I figure it’s worth
taking the risk. Decision made I head for the shanties.

I approach them slowly. I don’t see or
hear nuthin but I keep my eyes open for any movement, for any sign
of something not right. If it was muties or raiders living here
then they probably won’t come out greeting me with smiles, I’m
thinking.

There are three shanties in all, facing
each other in a kind of triangle formation. They look a mite
different then the shanties of Rivercross, these are mostly built
of wood. Comes from living so close to a tree line, I reckon. But
they still have the tin roofs and doors I’m used to seeing. Two of
the doors are torn off and the third is just hanging by a hinge,
swaying in the breeze. I stop walking…look around. It’s real quiet.
The silence spooks me. It reminds me of the ghost villages from
Thomas’ scare stories. I take a couple of steps toward the closest
shanty, the rocks crunching under my boots the only sound in the
dead calm. I take a quick look in through the doorless entry but I
don’t go inside. I keep my attention on my surroundings. I don’t
want nuthin creeping up on me.

The shanty is just a small one roomed
building and it don’t take me long to see it’s empty. The place is
tore up though, belongings scattered everywhere. Somebody had
searched it for sure but it ain’t been scavenged, or set aflame.
Strange. I find the next two shanties in the same condition, both
of them empty as well. Where are the people who live here, I think.
What happened to them? I stand in the middle of the three buildings
looking around, curious. I spot a well on a little rise just past
one of them and my curiosity is quickly replaced by one single
thought. Water! Hoping in my heart that the water ain’t foul I head
for it.

The wooden cover has been knocked off
and is laying on the ground in pieces but the rope and bucket seem
undamaged. I lower the bucket down, hear the splash, pull it back
up. Please, please, please let it be drinkable!

I peer into the bucket. Looks clean
enough. Don’t smell foul. I taste it and smile for the first time
in weeks, causing my parched lips to crack open and bleed. It
tastes like gods brew! I want to drink ‘til I burst but I know if I
do that I’m just going to retch it back up, so I take my time, sip
it slow. I drink my fill, the cool liquid easing my dry throat.
Finally, my thirst quenched, I take off my hat and pour the rest of
the water over my head, not even caring that it’s soaking my
clothes. It feels real good and I know I’ll dry quick enough in the
heat of the day. I lay down my slingbag and bow, ease my shoulder.
Reckon I may as well take a rest, fill my waterskins. The place
appears harmless enough. I’m busy looking through my slingbag for
the second waterskin when I hear it. A low, deep, guttural
growling. I freeze. Slowly I raise my head and my hand instantly
moves for the knife strapped at my thigh. I’m staring into a pair
of blood red eyes no more than five paces from where I stand. A
devil cat!

My heart starts beating out of my chest
and I can taste the bile in the back of my throat. I’m gonna get
eaten alive, I think, as I stare at the beast. I ain’t ever seen
one up so close…not a live one anyways. The creature is huge! Sweat
beads my upper lip as we keep eying each other. I’m afraid to break
the contact least the beast takes it as a sign of weakness and
attacks. By now I’m holding the big knife out in front of
me….holding on so tight my knuckles turn white. The beast growls
again, showing me its dagger sharp teeth, its pointy ears flattened
against its broad head.

It still don’t make a move. Neither do
I. The hand holding the knife is so slick with sweat I’m afraid I’m
going to lose my grip on it. Finally I cain’t take it no
more.

“
Gods dammit, whadda you
waiting for!”

It’s either scream at it or black out.
It moves then and I tense, expecting any moment to feel the sharp
claws tearing through my skin, ripping it off of my bones. It moves
at me…..and sits down on its haunches! It keeps staring me down but
it don’t attack!

“
It’s okay…she ain’t gonna
hurt you.”

The voice makes me jump, my nerves
already wound tight from the stare down with the devil cat. The cat
goes back on all fours at my movement, eyeballing me
again.

“
Cat! Down girl.”

A young boy, no more than 12 born years
to be sure, walks up to the massive black beast. He goes right up
to it and unbelievably starts rubbing its head! And if that wasn’t
strange enough, this beast, this killing machine from the campfire
spook stories, just falls to the ground and rolls over so the boy
can scratch its underbelly! I can only stare in
disbelief!