Survivors I

From http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

Here's an old story I wrote a long time ago. 

A darker story. 

Survivors

Dead... That was all I could see for miles around. The Hill was a good place to be. You could see for miles all the way to the horizon and it was difficult to get to. Sometimes, on the way to Deablo Mesa I would spend the night there. One never knew what tricks the road would bring, especially at night. Most of the time I could sense trouble long before it came. This had saved my life more than once. The hairs on the back of my neck would stand up and I would look over my shoulder feeling a giant silent black wave was about to crash down on me.

One night many years ago I had that feeling. This time it was no warning of danger. It was much worse. Before this particular night, all had been calm. It had been days since I had seen another living soul. Times like this I was most on edge. Days and days of silence can do this. Slowly, the wave started to build. I knew from previous experience to heed its warning. There was nothing I could do but play the waiting game.

The best place for this was the Hill. A huge clump of rocks and dead scrub brush in the middle of a desert plain was the only really safe place for miles. The top of the Hill was hard to get to, even with a good four wheel drive like mine. Very few people ventured out this far into no man’s land. Most of them stayed prisoners in the fortified cities.

I chose to wander among the hordes and other nomads. Along with my four by four and weapons, I kept a large gray mutt named Blaze. He was good for advanced warnings. He could hear and smell danger long before I could. Like me, he had a sixth sense for danger. I could tell when something had him nervous. This was another thing that saved me more than once. One of us was clued in to future trouble ahead of time. The only things that kept you alive out here were brains, good weapons and blind luck. That night, Blaze also knew something was up. He was barking at shadows. Every thing seemed normal, except the red haze was a little brighter than usual. Below was nothing but dull white sand dotted with scrub brush.  The Hill was kind of island. The land and sky blended together leaving no definite horizon. After the last world war, Mother Earth refused the dust of our tattered cities. The sky became the reluctant host of our mistakes.

Sleep was impossible with the wave barring down on me. I just sat wondering what was going on in Blaze’s mind as he stared into the unrelenting darkness of the warm still night. He knew it the same time I did, some one was approaching and they were close. We felt him as he closed in on us. Suddenly, he or maybe I should say it, stepped from behind my truck! Anything else and I would have reached for my .44 Mag. I kept on my side. Instead, I froze. Blaze froze. He was as dumbfounded as I was. The Specter looked more like a machine than a man. He wore a thick mustard yellow suit sort of like the Dusties would wear. (They would go into the old burned out cities and look for anything of value to trade with.) Only his head was exposed. His skin was wrinkled and pearl white. A blue tube ran from the suit to his nostrils. Despite the warm night, his breath was thick steam. I remember all of this, but most of all I remember his eyes. They sat way back in his skull. The pupils were ice blue and the whites were a bright clear yellow. Sharp, cold and unforgiving was his stare. He had seen a lot. That was obvious. After a long silence he spoke in a quiet deep voice in words I could understand.

”It’s over for us." he started “Just a matter of time. I couldn’t live here before your little war it’s even harder now. But before I die... I’ll tell you what I know about us. You’ll know most of it already.”

I sat in amazement as he went on.

“Your kind is going fast. In a matter of decades you all will be just another dead end. Ah, don’t look so surprised, it happens to most life forms in the universe., especially intelligent life forms. They seldom make it past adolescence. You got as far as most. In my own time, I have seen the end of many. It is fitting that I too will parish on a dying rock of a world. You already know why you and the others failed, so I won’t bore you with an explanation. We watched it all unfold. You got the power to control your own destiny and simply couldn’t handle it. We cannot interfere, you see. That is one of the few laws we never break. We watch others to gain knowledge. Knowledge to us, is like money was to you. It has value, we exchange it, and yes, even kill for it. Knowledge is power.”

I listened in silence. Blaze sat still.

“Among the stars, it is more healthy. Why even you would live a few thousand years. I dwelled there more than a hundred thousand years... Whole civilizations are born and die in that amount of time and very few last that long. Those that do will not last forever.”

PART II Very Soon.