Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (15 page)

Zhar stood on her tiptoes, staring at the horizon and the sun before waving everyone to their feet. Her pale skin had turned bright red; burned from a day in the desert. Althea approached and put a hand on her arm, concentrating on mending the damage. Pain and redness faded, earning a brief smile. With Zhar striding off in the lead, Althea fell in step alongside Rachel again, holding her hand and keeping her spirits up with an unending stream of consoling words and smiles. Rachel cried in silence at the sight of several disused roads; the reality of this world hit her at last.

A walk through wind-driven sand took most of the morning. Zhar came to a halt and squatted by what appeared to be tire tracks, examining the ground. The others waited in silence as she poked at something embedded in the dirt. The breeze threw her hair into a fiery dance over her alabaster back as she scratched at the sand. A moment later, she held up a spent cartridge.

“Looks like 7.62,” Rachel muttered, wandering closer. “Guess we’re not that far in the future after all.”

“Look,” said Althea, rising on tiptoe and pointing at a dark spot in the distance.

Zhar stood, discarding the brass, and followed the tire tracks. They ended about a hundred yards later, where a raider buggy lay crumpled and abandoned against a massive boulder. Riddled with bullets, the vehicle seemed quite far from operable, and no trace of its former driver remained. A gore-caked skeleton hung from the roll cage by a pair of handcuffs, the rusting collar about its neck a badge of its former station. Long hair clung to a rotten patch of leathery scalp that fell down onto its back. Flies buzzed about and tooth marks on the bones of the wrist hinted that whoever it was had survived the crash but remained trapped. Althea wondered if they had died before or after being eaten.

Rachel squeezed her hand at the sight. “Don’t look, baby.”

Zhar crawled over the wreck, searching for anything of use, and returned with two crude spears. Each was made from a length of metal as big around as a straightened crowbar, tipped with a flange ground down to be sharp along both its straight and angled edges.

Zhar grinned and offered one to Rachel.

Rachel did not fight the cuffs, only stared. “Funny. You’re a fuckin’ laugh riot.”

Althea smiled. “We have spears now. You can spare one bullet.”

Zhar frowned at Aya. “Well, you’re a useless pet… Here.” She handed the other spear to Ramani.

“Why are you so mean?” Althea made a face at Zhar.

Zhar fashioned a belt out of bloody rope from the skeleton’s ankles and hung the pistol from it. “I’m not mean. I’m practical.”

“A practical person wouldn’t leave the one individual in this group with combat training in handcuffs.” Rachel scowled.

“I’ve been shooting guns since before I could walk. I’d rather have a bullet for something that wants to eat us.” Zhar hefted the spear. “Come on, we’re still three days out.”

Rachel fell to her knees, pulling at the damnable things and growling through clenched teeth. Althea stooped over her, rubbing her shoulder and trying to calm her down. Rachel’s voice screamed inside her head, trying not to be angry at Althea for not commanding Zhar to free her.

If I did that, she’d hurt both of us when it wore off.
Althea sent her thoughts into Rachel’s mind.

“What the…” Rachel jumped.

I’m the Prophet,
said Althea telepathically, sounding far less than enthused about the fact.
I can mind-talk.

She looked at the warrior woman, wondering if perhaps a child’s pleading eyes could work just as well as magic. “Please, Zhar… Rachel is so sad and scared like this. It’s not right to leave someone tied in the Badlands, anything could hap―”

“Hey!” Ramani called out. “Look.”

Everyone glanced where she pointed. A bleached skeleton lay half buried in the sand, surrounded by fluttering tatters of cloth dancing in the breeze. A glint in the dirt hinted at a blade beneath the bones of the right hand. The group went over; Zhar crouched to examine the find. There was almost nothing left of anything flesh, leather, or cloth.

“Something ate him, ate the leather too.” Zhar ran her fingers over the rib bones. “Never saw bones this clean.”

“Uhh. I think I know what it was.” Rachel’s voice, eerily quiet, quivered in the air.

A dry hiss stole Zhar’s sarcastic remark. A trio of millipedes, bodies as thick as a man’s thigh, rose out of the loose dirt. The one nearest Rachel hovered at eye level. Bright red antennae quivered.

“Careful, they spit,” Althea yelled.

One eyed Ramani, one went for Zhar, and the last continued its staring contest with Rachel. The handcuffs rattled. Unimpressed by the creature, Zhar lunged at the one by her, lancing at it with the spear. It coiled and hissed, evading her attack as it poured itself backwards over the sand.

Ramani screamed and threw her spear in an arc so feeble it clattered sideways to the ground not even halfway to the beast. Aya tackled the thin woman away from its bite, and the two rolled to the side in a cloud of dust. Rachel leapt away from a stream of caustic saliva, somehow managing to stay on her feet as a torrent of millipede flowed around her. The brush of a dozen legs made her scream; a fourteen-foot long insect touching her destroyed any sense of soldier.

Althea ran for the discarded spear, stepping twice on the back of the millipede chasing Ramani and landing astride the weapon. Rachel ducked around the buggy and went for the boulder, hoping to use it as a delay, but the multi-legged horror just swam over the rock. Shrieking, she barked a series of obscenities and sprinted in a circle.

The other millipede rose into the air, poised to leap at Aya and Ramani as they tried to stand while clinging to each other. Althea loosed a mousy war cry and leapt into the air, driving the spear into its back with all her weight. The strike pinned it to the dirt, cutting its leap short. Mandibles snapped inches from Aya’s face and the front end of the creature flopped down and thrashed from side to side. Althea rocked the spear in the wound, twisting it until yellow goop erupted out of it. A spray of caustic droplets spattered the women’s legs before the monster went still, making them scream.

Althea glanced over her shoulder at Zhar whipping the spear about like a toy. Her millipede’s head darted in and out, evading the flashing edge keeping it away. Having no doubt the woman could protect herself, she hurried to get between the other one and Rachel.

Holding the spear up, she yelled, “Rachel!”

Rachel saw her coming and changed course. As their paths converged, Althea intercepted the insect at the same instant the woman pressed her back against the hot metal buggy. Locking eyes with the enormous bug, Althea flexed her grip on her spear and waited for the strike. Its gleaming onyx eyes showed no sense of emotion; no hatred, no anger, no joy―merely an impassive insect looking for food.

“I thought they said you don’t kill.” Rachel’s voice drifted somewhere between despondence and euphoria.

“Bugs are bugs.” Althea glared at it. “Leave her alone.”

Cringing as its head snapped in, she barely managed to get the spear in the way. The mandibles deflected into the side of the vehicle with a dull metallic
thud
, inches from Rachel’s hip.

“Oh my God!” Rachel trembled at the sight of mandibles puncturing sheet metal.

Althea shoved at the creature, then pulled the spear back and stabbed. Without her falling weight behind it, the point glanced off the carapace. She used most of her strength lifting the all-metal spear, and had little left to swing it. Althea knew the odds of her hurting this thing were slim, but she was not going to let it kill her friend.

Rachel scooted away. “Not gonna pat this one on the head and send it on its way?”

“I can’t. It’s too stupid and mean.”

The millipede’s head rose into the air, towering over the little girl. A tendril of lime-green drool fell from its mouth as it hissed, mandibles wide. Althea watched its mouth, ready to dive out of the way of acidic venom.

“You’re saying that damn scorpion was smart?” Rachel blinked.

“Smarter than this thing.” Althea stabbed at its face, leaving a small crack in the shell.

It leaned its head to the right, coiling for another bite. Her stare followed it; she did not notice the tail end come about and strike at her leg. She yelped as its tail pincer snapped around her right ankle and whipped back, dragging her off her feet and out of the way as its head shot over her, lunging for Rachel’s defenseless neck.

Boom
.

Whump
.

Air rushed from Althea’s lungs as she slammed flat into the dirt and the spear fell across her ribs, followed by a rain of gunk.

The gunshot detonated the first two feet of the creature, spattering Rachel with viscous yellow slime traced with strands of clear. Squiggles of dark green slid down her chest as a headless tube of flailing legs wavered in midair and hit the ground with a splat, gushing.

Rachel wished she had not been screaming.

Althea, not bothering to sit up, glanced at Zhar. The redhead had the pistol leveled off, a wisp of smoke leaked from the barrel. A dead millipede coiled around her legs and a trail of blood ran down her chest from a small wound to the shoulder.

“That is why I’m saving bullets.”

Rachel slid along the hot surface of the crashed buggy until her ass hit the ground. Humiliation and terror overwhelmed her and she sobbed, past the point of coping with what was happening. Althea pushed the spear off her chest and sat up, grabbing a dagger-sized, shiny red pincer in each hand. With a pained whimper, she pulled them apart and out of her ankle before dragging herself to Rachel’s side. Already, the cold numbness of venom crept up her leg. She wiped the slime from the woman’s face and stroked her hair, whispering reassurances everything was going to be okay.

She had never before felt someone
wanting
to die.

“Hey!” Althea grabbed Rachel by the cheeks, brushing tears aside with her thumbs. “Stop that. Don’t think bad! You’re going to be fine. I promise I will help you get out of those things.”

Rachel sniffled and found a chuckle hiding somewhere inside. “This is backwards. You’re the kid; I should be saying that to you.”

“They’re just bugs.” Althea went to stand up and fell over, her right leg as dead as wood.

With an exasperated sigh, she forced the venom out of the wound before mending her leg. After wiggling her toes to make sure everything was in order, she tended to Aya and Ramani’s acid burns. Finally approaching Zhar, she weathered a disdainful smirk.

Althea put a hand on the bite mark. “You’re last ‘cause the hurts don’t make you cry like the others.”

Every time Rachel looked at the bug guts all over her, she dry heaved and gurgled, somehow managing to hold in the vomit that wanted out. After her wounds closed, Zhar walked over and pulled Rachel to her feet. For a moment, she seemed to consider wasting a bullet on the cuffs. She wiped as much of the goo off Rachel’s chest as she could, tossing it to the ground handful by handful.

“There’s a small creek about an hour north. You can clean up there.” Zhar went to walk away, but hesitated. “One more day? In a day, I will feel closer to home and I’ll shoot the chain out, ‘kay? Only got four bullets left.”

“You only had to shoot it because Rachel was tied,” whispered Althea.

Rachel took a deep breath and tried to cling to her last scraps of dignity, but she could not stop shaking. “Fine. Great call giving Rama the spear. That worked out well.”

Ramani looked down. “I’m a farmer.”

Zhar handed the second spear to Althea. “This kid is ten, and she at least tried.”

“Twelve,” Althea whispered, barely audible.

“Eleven if you’re anything,” muttered Zhar.

Ramani whined. “I’m not the Prophet.”

With a growl of contempt, Zhar shook her head and trudged off. The women fell in line behind her, marching through the sand. Althea debated commanding Zhar to release Rachel, feeling sick to her stomach at the battle of guilt and fear. She looked to the clouds, wondering if this “God” person Rachel kept talking to would show up to take the cuffs off.

Caressed by the hot breeze and the bits of sand it carried, they made their way north for some hours, stopping occasionally when Aya’s complaints of fatigue grew too loud. Zhar led them to a creek that ran through the ancient scar of a once-mighty river. There, they bathed, drank, and recovered from the sun. This water was cold and moving, and did not carry the taste of dirt.

Forgetting herself as they sat neck-deep in the water, Althea splashed Rachel, trying to play. Her smile faded in seconds, killed by guilt for reminding the woman about her bound hands. She offered an apologetic smirk, not noticing Rachel’s foot until it kicked water on her. They laughed and splashed until they were too tired to do anything but sit there enjoying the cold.

After an hour or so, Zhar waved her spear around to get their attention. “We must go on.”

She led them, following the water north until it trickled off to something the width of an arm and vanished into the dirt. The scene of the creek’s demise lay at the center of several huge rocks worn in graceful sloping curves toward where once a full river had been.

Althea sat upon one such rock, dry and hot against her skin. After so much time in the water, the heat was soothing. The breeze tossing her hair around was a great improvement over the stagnancy of the factory she called home for the past few weeks. As her segments of captivity went, the last had been quite brief. She braced her right leg to her chest, planting her foot upon the slope and squinted into the wind at the fading sun. She did not want to get her hopes too full; one fighter could not keep two women, a girl, and a helpless soldier free for long.

Rachel looked exhausted and had struggled with her archenemy to the point of bleeding again. Zhar paced about as if lost in thought. The dangling lock on the collar clacked as she moved.

“We need to find clothes, weapons, and get rid of these.” Zhar tapped the metal band.

“No shit.” Rachel sighed. “Did you just figure that out?”