Underneath the vast, shattered city, the others cowered—third and fourth generation blind, their mutated genes passed down after the bomb. Above, in the brutal and endless nuclear winter, as the repeating process of survive, repair, survive continued, fragile society tried to ignore the sightless horror lurking below.
***
“Hurry up, Akiro!” I urged, stomping my frozen feet while scanning the decrepit mechanic’s yard. Something wasn’t right about this place. Despite the thin layer of ice which blanketed everything, it smelled damp and musty, almost rotten, like it wanted to be forgotten.
“Chill out, Hachiro, I’m going as fast as I can.”
Akiro’s greasy hair covered his face as he worked on the crumbling engine block. He was stripping out the rusted spark plugs and any other salvageable parts from the bones of an ancient Toyota. Well, I knew it was a Toyota—to most, it was just a junked wreck from before the war.
“Gimmie a hand over here,” Akiro said, groaning with immense effort. “This last plug’s a son of a bitch.”
I dashed across to assist. With the extra leverage, the plug came out with a cranking squeal.
My strained voice echoed tightly off the cracked concrete. “Let’s get out of here.”
***
Below, two of them easily followed the sounds of the above dwellers as they worked, moved, and talked. Their perspiration sent waves of pheromones through the stale air. The two men were strong and healthy, but food was scarce, opportunities few. They would need to split the men up and they would need to attack quickly, otherwise they would fail and they would all starve.
***
A metallic clang came from the other side of the Toyota. Something heavy. Fear clawed at me, my voice rising several pitches. “What the hell was that?”
Akiro spun, coiled and ready. A few seconds passed and nothing else moved; no other sounds. “I’ll check it out,” he said. “You stay here and keep your eyes open.”
Hunched down and alert, he inched towards the spot where the noise had come from. Akiro always was the brave one. He wiped his face with his tattered shirtsleeve and slid his blade from its sheath with a whisper.
I leaned around the Toyota and watched him edge forward. “See anything?” I said, craning to look in every direction at once.
“It’s a socket wrench. Must’ve fallen from somewhere.” He bent down to pick it up with his spare hand, tucking it into his overall. “This’ll come in han—”
A sudden movement and a grey flash of limbs. Akiro cried out as the thing clawed at him. Another of them joined in from behind, pulling at his long hair while I stood, frozen, paralysed by shock.
“Help me!” he cried. My friend’s shout was enough to pull me out of fear induced incapacitation and I sprinted towards the tangle of bodies. My foot dragged and I fell, catching sight of a grey wrist snaking back into the shadows as I tumbled to the floor. There were three of them now—at least three.
When I looked up again, Akiro pulled his arm back and plunged the blade into the midriff of one of the attackers. He pulled it out with a sucking sound, like a stick from thick mud. It emitted an inhuman, high-pitched shriek, and bent forward. Without hesitation, Akiro shivved the sharp blade into the stunned creature’s throat. Arterial blood jetted out of the small, ragged tear.
There was a glint of metal as the second of them flailed at him. A metal bar struck Akiro’s back with a damp thud. He cried out in pain and fell forward, stumbling but keeping his balance, but only just. His blade clattered to the floor, skidding out of reach.
The third creature was still in the shadows, lurking like a rat in a drainpipe, waiting for a chance to catch me unawares. I jumped to my feet and ran the other way around the car while the winded Akiro struggled. I had no weapon, so I launched myself headlong, smashing my forearm into the side of the thing’s head. It snarled, lashing out. Long fingernails sliced across my face. I heard a scurrying sound as the third one took its chance, but Akiro had recovered his blade and was holding the creature’s friend by its grey, sloping forehead. He sliced the knife across the soft, white, flesh of its exposed neck. Blood gushed out in a waterfall, and it slumped straight down, sitting cross-legged, like a drunk in a doorway.
“Duck!” he cried, raising the wrench he’d picked up earlier. I threw myself to the floor. Our connection was almost telepathic after so many years scavenging together and I understood what he wanted to do. The wrench flew straight and true, spinning end over end, and struck Akiro’s target above the eye with a strangled clunk. The sightless creature howled, arms reeling. The attack had failed, and its comrades lay dead. It tried to turn and run, but I grabbed its leg and sent it sprawling.
“How do you like it the other way around, bitch?” I hissed.
Akiro came towards it, striding with intent. He kneeled on its chest while it made sad, whimpering sounds, helpless under the weight. I could almost hear it pleading I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. We’re just so… so hungry!
For the first time, I had an uninterrupted look at one of them. It was slick and hairless, with blank white eyes redundant in deeply hollowed sockets. Puffs of condensation rose with each ragged breath. Its irritated lungs rasped and wheezed from the radiation damage, with no medicine to heal them. I almost felt sorry for it. Almost.
“Do it,” I urged as Akiro held the blade aloft, in both fists, aimed precisely at where the thing’s rapidly beating heart must be.
He slowly lowered the knife.
“What are you doing, man? Kill the bastard.”
“I got a better idea,” he said. “Throw me that cord from your pack.” I did nothing, unsure of his intensions, before his intensions slowly dawned on me.
“You’re insane, Akiro. We can’t bring that thing back with us. The rest of the group will freak out, man! Besides, who knows what diseases they carry?”
“Just hand me the damn rope,” he ordered. My head dropped before I fetched my backpack, pulled out a length of frayed rope, and slung it over to him. There was no point arguing with Akiro when he’d made up his mind. Unlike certain other members of our group, I instinctively knew when to push him and when not—one of the many reasons we worked so well together. So many egos and alpha dogs in our crew, but I preferred to play a supporting role.
His quick fingers soon had the thing hogtied. It emitted a slow, sad groan. I could sense its sensitive mind grappling with its fate, senses overstimulated, unused to spending so long above ground.
“Let’s bounce, before its friends come,” Akiro said, pulling the thing onto its feet, which were the same grey as the endless, snow-flecked skies above, visible through the mechanic yard’s smashed canopy. It stood quietly, with its head bowed, radiating apprehension like ripples from a sinking stone. This time, I felt a jolt of real empathy.
***
In the sewer below, several of them huddled, listening. The men had been too strong, too healthy. They could not risk their numbers dwindling further, and instead they waited in impotent anguish for the men to leave so they could recover the corpses. At least they would not go hungry for a while.
***
Back at the warehouse, our group stood in silence, in a rough semi-circle, surrounding our captive. Its limbs were bound with cable ties to a grimy, moss-covered plastic chair, and the chair was shackled to a long-seized up radiator. It seemed to have accepted its fate, allowing its head to loll while it moaned softly.
Daichi stared at it, his finger and thumb resting against his chin, which was covered in a closely cropped beard, speckled with white. His deep voice boomed in the vast, empty building, causing the creature to flinch at the harsh sound. “Doc, check this thing over. Perhaps we can learn something. I mean, these freaks were like us, what, eighty or so years ago, right?”
Doc ran forward and snapped on some blue gloves. He knelt and examined his subject, feeling for its blinking pulse and shining his pencil-thin torch deep into those white, sightless eyes.
Perhaps Daichi was right. Maybe we could figure out how to live side-by-side with the others. If we could save the four of five human lives we lost every year to their attacks, it would be worth it. We’d all seen enough slaughter to last a thousand epochs. This shithole of a city was big enough for us, the rats, and this Godforsaken species, surely?
END
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