Jake Maison
04/12/2024
Content warning: violence and gore
Image description: the skeletal head and shoulders of an individual shrouded in green hazardous material as black tentacle-like shapes wrap themselves around its orange hazmat suit.
A brilliant streak of green against the black night sky, swollen thunderheads boiling overhead with radioactive spite, their wrath beheld in the howling winds. Few remembered the thermonuclear blast that birthed this maelstrom, fewer still recalled the house and all within that it erased from existence. But Uncle remembered as his hand vacantly wandering up to where his jaw had once been, his mind returned to that horrible night as his fingers brushed the remains of his face.
The plasma cannon breaking the shield array, the drones shooting his friends to pieces, the metal demon tearing through all who remained. Uncle remembered the fear he felt while waiting for the signal, poised on the staircase with his shotgun in hand. He had known he was being sent out to die and yet relished the chance to die for a reason. He remembered the horrible sound of his brother’s head pulping between the wall and the Inhuman’s grip, the blinding pain of the ferromagnetic slug exploding his jaw into a fine red mist, the despair at hearing his friends struggle and die as the Inhuman slaughtered them like cattle. What stung most keenly, however, was the shame that burned like acid in his chest while he ran from the house, hands clutching the ruins of his face as he left his friends to die.
The guilt ate him from the inside out until he felt numb, returning to where the house once stood in search of an honourable death. Intent on reaching the centre of the crater and kneeling before the cracked monolith, Uncle would have knelt in repentance for his desertion and removed his sealed helmet to dust his head in shame as the radiation burned him to nothing. Yet, as he drew closer to the heart of the crater, above the screaming winds and streaks of atomic lightning rose a single sound, crying. Instead of death, he found her.
He had returned to his home, a decrepit cluster of shanty-towns growing like barnacles upon the city’s outer wall. His comrades, having bid him farewell in exile mere hours before, were shocked to see him return. Their shock only deepened into confusion as they noticed the baby in his arms. The rebels welcomed him back hesitantly, keeping their distance from him even after his run through the rad-scrubbers. He didn’t blame them; he was coward who had been exiled to the wastelands to find absolution in death. Returning alive, let alone with a child he claimed to be a herald of their god, ran counter to their expectations.
Eventually, their contention cooled into referring to him as ‘Uncle’ as a joke. It was better than he deserved. Thankfully, the child was welcomed with open arms, her miraculous resilience and natural innocence melting the hearts of even the most sceptical among them, even as they spoke of her eyes in hushed whispers. Uncle understood their concern, perhaps more than they did themselves. They had never seen the Inhuman in the flesh – so to speak – but Uncle had.
More so than their terrifying speed and incredible violence, it was the gleam of emerald light in the demon’s eyes that haunted his waking hours. Meeting the girl’s gaze, he saw that same green in the iris of her right eye. Giving him further pause was the iris of her left eye, which was the same pale blue as his old field commander. It was in this that Uncle saw the will of his god to test his worth. He would do right by this girl, raise her to be strong and wise enough to survive in this world, even if it killed him.
Uncle took comfort in knowing she slept peacefully within the walls of the city, the sun having sunk into the west mere minutes before. It was safer to traverse the wastelands at night due to poor visibility, though one had to watch for patrolling drones and bipeds fitted with infrared imaging. Uncle felt a pang in his chest for his brother, who had taken care of them both after their parents were taken, who had died horribly in that house. That scream that erupted from his throat, cut short as his skull was crushed, served to remind Uncle that his death was quick but not painless.
Even in the near pitch-black of night, the radiation storm was visible from a distance. What might have been a promise of safety, shining like a beacon of light in a dark sea, instead only served as a reminder of the Crownbreaker’s cruelty. Uncle pressed on regardless, driven forward by the whispers of his god. Uncle had taken to wearing his environment suit, sealed helmet and all, around people regardless of whether there was radiation present or not as his mutation began to manifest more and more visibly. His god saw fit to gift him with three prehensile tentacles in place of his tongue, perhaps taking pity on him after his body began to reject his prosthetic jaw. Though this mutation was seen as a boon by his comrades, Uncle was thankful for the opaque visor of his helmet as it meant they could at least approximate looking him in the eye.
The suit whispered and chafed as Uncle drew closer to the radiation storm and the crater beneath it. The machine patrols didn’t usually come this close as surely no human would approach such a lifeless place. Distant claps of thunder warned all living things to stay away from this wound in the earth that would never heal. Uncle ignored these warnings, pressing through the scorched earth, even as his suit’s internal rad-counter began to click incessantly. Seasoned eyes darted between the wrecked cars, radioactive ponds and charred trees that dotted the landscape, scanning for signs of movement. Ribbons of ionising plasma crested above the crater’s edge, twisting up to mingle with the streaks of atomic lightning in the skies overhead.
So mesmerising was this sight that Uncle didn’t even see what tripped him. Cursing loudly as he crashed to the ground, Uncle groaned as the dome of his helmet absorbed most of the impact. Getting his hands and feet back under him, Uncle thanked his god for protecting his visor from cracking on the ground.
Uncle groaned as he rose to his feet turning to look down at what tripped him before recoiling and yelling in shock. The corpse returned his gaze with empty eye-sockets, lipless teeth grinning back at him mockingly. Withered strands of flesh clung from the ruins of her face, held in place by rudimentary pulse-threading implants in her chin and cheeks. Whatever killed her had done so quickly and without remorse, the plates of her armoured coat torn through to reveal the sundered flesh of her stomach and chest. Uncle’s eyes paused over something on the arm of the coat, something obscured by gore and dirt. Kneeling back down, Uncle used his thumb to brush it free of filth until a symbol became visible. Uncle inhaled sharply and stepped away from the corpse again, the image of a split crown flooding his system with panic.
For as long as there had been rebels to defy the Crownbreaker, there had been loyalists to worship it in turn. Among the remnants of mankind – the nomadic entropists of the wastelands, the sheltered enclavists of the walled cities, the augmented highriders of the orbital colonies – the ‘machine-cults’ were a pervasive movement that sought to unify all cultures in their reverence of the Crownbreaker. Consequently, they possessed a burning hatred for rebels like Uncle for instead worshipping their hidden gods, branding them as subhuman heretics and often attacking them on sight.
A sound caught Uncle’s attention, panic spiking through him again as he snapped to his left, hand going to the revolver holstered at his thigh. Those seasoned eyes homed in on two figures emerging hurriedly from the scorched remains of one of the few remaining buildings. Their coats matched that of the corpse, as did their face augments. They clearly saw Uncle but didn’t stop as they rapidly descended the pile of rubble flowing from the ruins, their boots sinking and shifting between the loose chunks of ferrocrete.
One of them said something to the other but got no response. Not slowing their approach, Uncle tightened the grip in his revolver, wordlessly begging them to stop. It was only when they got closer and the one speaking’s voice became audible over the howl of the storm that Uncle realised they were yelling at him. Their augments warped their voice into something perverse and artificial, but the panic in their tone was unmistakeable. They were telling him to run.
No sooner had Uncle turned and broken into a sprint than a horrible wet snarl emanated from within the ruins from whence the two figures had emerged. One of the figures, clearly having heard it too, made a panicked sound. Uncle dared a glance behind him and quickly wished he hadn’t, fear shivering down his legs at the sight. From the crumbling frame of the building emerged no less than four vaguely mammalian shapes with angular, eyeless heads that merged into stocky shoulders. The ghouls moved incredibly quickly on two hind legs supported by two powerful forelimbs that terminated in large claws. Their skin pulled back from their snouts to reveal horrible gaping maws filled with jagged teeth.
The one who’d yelled at Uncle to run caught his eye by moving into his periphery, holding a white, oval-shaped object in his hand. Pressing down on the device with his thumb, the figure tossed it behind him and motioned for his companion to cover his ears. Despite having the acoustic protection of his helmet, Uncle fought to keep his balance as the device – which could have only been a sonic grenade – detonated behind him. The sound produced by the grenade was a single high-pitched monotone that Uncle could feel vibrating over his skin. His stomach tightened and the backs of his eyes ached but he pressed on, the image of the corpse compelling him forward.
The ghouls screamed and howled in agony as their hyper-acute sense of hearing was used against them. The other figure said something garbled to his companion before tapping Uncle on the shoulder and indicating to something ahead on their left. A rusted-out shell of a car lay in their path past a junction between ruined buildings, and the figure gestured for them to take cover behind it. The first figure turned down the right side of the junction and pressed themselves against the wall of the nearest building. Uncle vaulted over the car’s crumpled frame and took cover behind what remained of its rear compartment. After a few seconds, Uncle dared a peek over the wreck to where the sonic grenade had landed just in time to see one of the ghouls destroy it with a single clawed swipe.
The junction fell instantly silent again, only for the sound of wet snarls and movement to fill the void mere seconds later. Having broken their line of sight, the ghouls began their hunt anew. Turning from where he knelt, Uncle looked to see the figure hiding with him draw a pistol from within his coat. The young man had replaced his eyes with a primitive implant rig, three glowing optics on either side giving him the appearance of an insectoid machine. The young man, named ‘Six-Eye’ in Uncle’s head, returned his gaze. Six-Eye said something that approximated ‘take out your gun’, and so Uncle drew his revolver and gingerly thumbed back the hammer.
Hearing the ghouls draw closer, Six-Eye pressed the fingers of his free hand to a subvocal communicator implant in his neck and wordlessly relayed something to his companion, whom Uncle recalled as sporting a rudimentary vox implant in his throat. In that moment, Uncle felt himself back in that house, awaiting the signal to run out and meet his death. Six-Eye indicated towards where his companion, designated as ‘Speakeasy’ by Uncle, hid by the junction. Speakeasy produced something from the folds of their coat, which Uncle recognised another sonic grenade and braced himself as the cyborg hurled the device into the centre of the junction.
The grenade bounced off the cracked road with a resounding metal clang! that resonated through the junction. The ghouls froze and roared from where they had dispersed amidst the ruins, converging on the source of the noise with unfettered ferocity. Using their implants to interface with the grenade, Speakeasy waited until all four ghouls were in proximity before activating it. Feeling that same horrible ache in his eyes and tightening in his gut as before, Uncle propped himself over the car’s frame as Six-Eye moved towards the junction, pistol raised in unison with Speakeasy, each having presumably activated some kind of sound dampening augmentations. Uncle trained his sights on the ghoul nearest the car, levelling the back of its head with the sights of his revolver before exhaling and pulling the trigger.
The gunshot made no sound in the radius of the sonic grenade, with the ghoul’s head silently blowing out in a thick red cloud before its body twisted and slumped to the ground. Six-Eye converged on the remaining three alongside Speakeasy, pistols trained on them execution-style, their movements as efficient and methodical as the machines they worshipped. Six-Eye’s weapon discharged, the bullet tearing through the ghoul’s face, Speakeasy’s did not. The ghoul turned on Speakeasy, moving with terrible speed as it swiped at them with its powerful limbs. A garbled scream erupted from Speakeasy’s vox implant as the ghoul’s claws ripped through their stomach and groin. Six-Eye reeled back in shock as Speakeasy fell to their knees with blood pooling down their legs. Speakeasy didn’t make a sound as the ghoul’s jaws clamped down on their face and bit down.
A horrible, wet crunch sound had Uncle recoiling as the ghoul fell upon Speakeasy’s corpse. Fighting the urge to vomit, Uncle regained his composure in time to see Six-Eye stumble back as the remaining ghoul crushed the last sonic grenade in its powerful grip. Six-Eye steeled himself, raising his pistol and fired three shots, hitting the ghoul in the shoulder, neck and face before it fell back dead. The ghoul eating Speakeasy reeled about with incredible speed but Uncle was faster. Levelling his revolver’s sights with the ghoul’s slick, red maw, he fired again, painting the wall behind it with brain matter. The echoes of gunshots rang out across the wastes, echoes reducing finally to silence once again. Uncle moved from where he had knelt, tentatively approaching Six-Eye from behind. Six-Eye stood over Speakeasy’s remains, saying nothing. Uncle wanted to say something, anything, in condolence, but didn’t.
Six-Eye raised their head and said something that Uncle could barely make out, though the last words sounded something like ‘- do it myself…’ Uncle barely had time to register this before Six-Eye turned to face him. Revolver hovering over the holster, Uncle hesitated long enough for Six-Eye to cross the distance between them in a single stride, cybernetic fist crashing into his chest. Uncle felt his legs buckle as the air left his lungs, revolver slipping from his grip. Crashing painfully to the ground, Uncle barely had time to look up before Six-Eye kicked in his helmet visor and his vision went black.
Uncle awoke on the ground to the flash of atomic lightning overhead. His vision still swimming from the attack, his surroundings were a loose collection of blurs and shapes fighting to come back into focus. One of those shapes moved to loom over his periphery and tell him to get up. When Uncle didn’t, the shape kicked him hard in the ribs. Uncle spat curses at Six-Eye as his vision returned, the blurs of his six optic units blazing like small red suns. Six-Eye drew back the slide on their pistol and repeated their demand. Uncle felt that familiar acidic burn of shame as he rose to his feet, feeling every bit the coward he had been when he had fled from the house.
Through the smashed plas-glass of his visor, Uncle looked around and knew immediately where he was. Though the exclusion zone would be forever changing, the crater at its heart had remained the same after all these years. The obelisk was just as it was the day Uncle had found her; tall and cracked down the middle, the glyphs in its glassy black surface illuminated by sheets of green lightning.
Uncle turned to Six-Eye and asked why they were here. Six-Eye pointed his pistol at the obelisk and said something approaching ‘Appease… Crownbreaker… close… wound…’When Uncle said nothing, Six-Eye pointed his gun to the seething maelstrom overhead. Uncle’s confusion only deepened before he asked how Six-Eye planned to do that. Six-Eye simply smiled and said something approximating ‘Offering.’
The bullet punched through Uncle’s chest before he even felt it, the blooming pain in his chest strangely distant as he sank to his knees. He coughed and blood spattered the remnants of his visor, dripping down the tentacles in his mouth. Six-Eye stepped closer, raising his pistol level to Uncle’s head and uttering prayers through his subvocal communicator. Uncle closed his eyes and felt a warm splash across his face. Six-Eye made a pathetic gasping sound as he grasped his midsection before collapsing in two neat halves.
A dark shape unfolded itself from behind where Six-Eyes had been standing, looming tall and alien over Uncle. Even as his vision began to darken, Uncle found himself unable to look away from the shape’s gaze. Coughing up blood again, Uncle knelt forward, only to feel a pair of firm metal hands holding him up. A voice somewhere said something like ‘…You can’t die yet. We need your help…’ but Uncle barely heard them. Before slipping into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw were its eyes, gleaming with emerald green light.
***
Paper Road Magazine 