by Angela Foxxe
Shawna gasped as two burly men came in and picked her up under the arms. “Winston, wait, what’s going on here?” she demanded.
He just hung his head in shame, unable to answer the woman as she was dragged off to the prison block.
Shawna winced as her bare feet dragged along the stone floor of the cave.
“Filthy hume,” the thinner man said as he hurled her into an iron cage then locking the door.
“I think I’ll volunteer to kill it,” the taller one said with a grin. His pointed upper teeth peeked out from over his lower lip. “Winston’s gone soft.”
“I’ll fight you for it,” the smaller guard said as he sat down at the table.
“Why not both of us? You take one end, I’ll take the other and if we pull hard enough it’ll snap,” the large one said.
“Now that’s an idea. I’ll ask Elder Conrad if we can do that,” the small one replied as he picked up a wooden cup and a couple of dice. “Care to play?”
“Nah, your dice are weighted,” the larger guard said. “I think I’ll go lie down for a bit. Not like that thing is going anywhere,” he said as he licked his lips. “Hume meat is delicious; I’ve never had a female hume before. Heard they have more fat.”
Shawna shuddered and crawled back to the corner of the cage next to the wooden basket filled with reeds.
“If you’re wondering what that’s for, it’s for you to piss in,” the small guard said. “I wouldn’t expect your kind to know what to do with it, but I’d rather not have you mess all over the floor.”
Shawna just turned her back to the two guards who laughed at her as she curled up and started to plot her escape.
In the meantime, Winston was being dragged down the vaulted hallways of the cave to the large gathering cavern. In the center was a large round pool of clear water and around that stood eight elders. Elder Conrad took his place as the ninth and the trial was underway.
“That didn’t take long,” Winston grumbled.
“We smelled the hume the moment you brought it into our sacred halls,” Conrad said.
“She. Her name is Shawna,” Winston said as he stood up proud.
“They have no name,” Conrad replied. “To name them is to raise them to our equal, and they are not our equals,” he snapped.
Winston just bowed his head in deference to the old codger.
“Winston Jarvis, son of Warren Jarvis, you have been formally charged with breaking the sacred law of bringing lesser beings into our halls, you are also charged with fraternizing with said lesser being and impregnating her with your seed, therefore sullying our genome with that of a lesser being.”
“Wait, she’s pregnant? How can you tell so soon?” Winston snapped.
“Some things give off a very powerful scent. That’s how we were able to track her down. The moment her hormones shifted, we could find her in the cave system,” Conrad explained.
Winston felt his heart soar then deflate. It was most definitely a death sentence for Shawna now. If she didn’t conceive, there might have been a small chance to negotiate her release, but now, there was no chance they would let her live while she carries a mixed offspring.
“Because you have sullied your own bloodline, you are banished from the Tiger Clan and all other Clans of the shape shifter peoples. None shall take you in. You are a pariah from here on out. You have until sunset to gather what materials you need to survive for five days, that is more than generous considering the crime you have committed this day. Your toy shall be executed tomorrow at first light. Now, be gone,” Elder Conrad pronounced.
Winston felt his rage boil in his chest. How dare they? How dare those xenophobic old men dictate to him with whom he can and cannot mate? There was nobody in the Clan that he wanted, nor wasn’t related to. He was not going to mate his first cousin like they wanted. In his eyes, that was more of a blasphemy than laying with a hume.
“I pray you don’t live to regret what you have just done,” Winston growled. “One day I shall return and reclaim my rightful place and you better not be alive to see it,” he snapped as he strode out of the hall with his head held high.
Winston strode down the hallway toward his bed chamber. He needed to pack enough in his kit for both Shawna and himself to survive. Hopefully nobody would be watching the stores; word travels fast in the cave system and he wanted to pick up as much as he could carry as fast as possible.
He packed one outfit and tossed the bag over his shoulder. He looked around the corner and found the hall clear so he started to jog back toward the storage depot where the clan’s food stores, ammunition, and weapons were kept.
He stuffed cases of ammunition into his pack along with stores of dried meat and fruit that had been gathered from around the wasteland. He grabbed two pipe rifles and slung each over his shoulder then put his pack on. Now, on to save Shawna.
He strode toward the prison area, knowing that Shawna wouldn’t have been executed just yet, but with Adam and Ashley guarding her, there were no guarantees. Those two young cubs were hotheads to say the least.
He poked his head in and saw Adam lounging at the rough-hewn wooden table, eyes closed as he napped. Ashley was sprawled on the mat in the corner, snoring away. This was his chance.
Winston slid into the room and stealthily lifted the keys from Adam’s belt. The man snorted and rolled his head, but did not wake. Winston hardly breathed as he crept toward the ramshackle cage that held their human captive.
“Psst,” he hissed.
“What?” Shawna said as she startled from her sleep.
She had been curled up in the furthest corner of the cage. She had welts and scratches all over her body.
“Not so loud,” Winston whispered. “You’ll wake up the guards. I’m getting you out of here. Let’s go.”
“Are you serious?” Shawna whispered as she stood up.
“Yes. Let’s go. I’ll tell you all you need to know once we get out of here,” Winston said as he unlocked the cage door. “Well, unless you want to be ripped limb from limb and fed to the clan.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Shawna said as she winced as the door let out a low creak as it opened.
Ashley stirred in the corner, grumbling something under his breath, but rolled back onto his side, still fast asleep. Winston let out a slow breath as he took Shawna’s hand and guided her out of the cage.
“Don’t want to open it any more than this, so try to squeeze out,” he whispered.
She nodded as she slid through the crack of the door. “Now what?” she asked.
“Follow me,” Winston said as he guided her to the hallway. He peeked around the corner and was relieved nobody was around. “We’re lucky almost everyone is out hunting. Let’s get out of here. I know a secret passage; that’s how I brought you here.”
“I see,” she said as she jogged alongside him.
“It isn’t far. For some reason the prison block is near the back of the mountain,” he said as he took a right down a black passageway.
Winston led Shawna through the darkness with his superior sense of smell. Due to what he was, his senses were heightened as well as his reflexes. He caught a whiff of the dry outside air and pulled Shawna along behind him.
“We’re almost there.”
Shawna’s head was spinning. She had no idea who these people were or why they were hiding from the other people of the wastes. She just knew that for some reason she was marked for death by them for sleeping with one of their people. Bunch of killjoys.
Suddenly, Winston stopped and she ran into him due to her distraction. “Sorry…” she whispered.
“It’s all right,” he replied as he felt around in the darkness. “It’s right around here…” he said as he grazed the stone wall with his hands. “Ah, here we are,” he said as he found the groove he was looking for.
He pushed the stone out of the way and bent down. “You’ll have to crawl out,” he said.
Shawna crouched down and waited for Winston to
toss their gear out of the small hole. “Hope nobody steals that,” she said.
“Not gonna happen. Nobody knows this is here. Let’s go,” he said as he crouched onto his hands and knees and squeezed out of the small crack in the side of the hill.
Shawna followed suit. She felt the cool, dry earth under her palms as she wormed her way out of the hidden cave network in which she was kept prisoner.
After she made her way outside, she stood up and saw Winston putting on the pack. He tossed her one of the pipe rifles and a box of ammo.
“Sorry I couldn’t get your pack back from the clan. We’ll have to make do with what I managed to scrounge up before I broke you out.”
“That’s fine,” she said as she put the ammo he handed her into a pouch at her waist. “Still have my ammo pouches.”
“Yep. Let’s go. I want to get out of the clan’s territory by nightfall,” he said as he started walking.
Shawna scrambled to keep up with his long strides. “So what the hell is all this about anyway?” she snapped as she caught up to Winston.
He hung his head and sighed. “You know how there are humans, radzoms, and ferals right?” he asked.
“Yes, they’re everywhere,” Shawna replied. “What does that have to do with you guys?”
“Well, there’s another set of people, the animas. I belong to one of the five tribes scattered around the wastes,” he said.
“Wait, I thought the animas were fairy tales told to kids to keep them from getting out of bed at night. Hell, I remember John telling me the story of how a young boy got up out of bed one night to get a drink of water from the well. There was a low growl and a scream one person heard, and she was a senile old lady up for her evening piss. That old woman said that it was a giant white cat that took the child. Ever since then, no child was allowed out past dark,” she said.
“Well, we’re real. Our history isn’t as long as yours though, since you were here before the war, and were the ones who caused it. Our ancestors were the tools, sort of. The militaries of the former super powers tried to splice animal genes in to humans. At first it was just to help people who needed organs to transplant. Then some unethical scientists got the wild idea to try to splice in the DNA of other animals, to give the heightened senses and reflexes but all of the reasoning, you know? Super soldiers. Every country tried to pick a different animal to be special. This one, what used to be America, picked the tiger. Made China real mad I guess,” Winston said.
Shawna couldn’t process the information. She was with an anima man. They myth was reality.
“How did…?”
“After the bombs fell, the ancestors escaped their bunkers once everything calmed down. They ran out into the wastes and just hunkered down like everyone else. The women had children, and the effects of the radiation began to show. Instead of us just having faster reflexes, better sense of smell, or whatever, we started to be able to change between our animal and human shapes. It happened rather fast. Our first babies were monstrous beasts, stuck half way between human and cat. I bet the other places had the same issue,” Winston explained.
Shawna couldn’t believe her ears, so she just trudged along in silence. He had to be telling her the truth. How else could she have survived a wastewraith with just a broken collarbone and a mild concussion to show for it? Only something as mythical as an anima could take one on toe-to-toe. Usually it took a raiding party of at least six people to hack one down, and even then at least two got killed and one so injured he wasn’t able to contribute again.
“Anyway, over time, we adapted and mutated, and now we can change between our human and animal shapes at will. In order to keep our bloodline pure, the elders banned any outsider on the off chance we might just well, you get the idea,” he said as he kept walking.
“Well, now neither of us have a place to live,” Shawna said. “That’s a pretty dangerous thing, but at least with the two of us together we have a chance, right?”
“Probably. Though as time goes by, you’ll probably have considerable difficulty. We need to find a settlement that can accept both of us. Why were you thrown out of yours anyway?” Winston asked.
“Wait, what do you mean?” Shawna demanded, avoiding his question. “Like, what do you mean by I’ll have considerable difficulty later on?”
“Well, you know how we have heightened senses, especially of smell?” Winston explained.
“Yes,” Shawna replied.
“Well, the elders found out the moment you got pregnant with my child,” Winston said.
Shawna gasped and clutched at her abdomen. “No way! They couldn’t know right at that instant. Hell, I’m the one in question and I still can’t tell.”
“I can. Pheromones are funny things,” Winston replied. “Just take my word for it,” he said as they plodded along. “So answer my question, why were you kicked out of your settlement?”
“I was framed by my rival for stealing something,” she replied sullenly.
“Really?” Winston replied, stopping suddenly.
“Yeah, just some worthless glass tiger trinket, too. Not like it would trade for a lot,” she grumbled.
“Sometimes the sentimental things mean the most to people. I doubt you stole it, though. If anything I think your rival stole it from you. Do you recall having anything like that?” Winston asked.
“No. Not at all.” Shawna replied.
“Hmm…” Winston said thoughtfully. “We need to make better time,” he said as he watched the blood-red setting sun. “We aren’t far enough from the clan hunting grounds and night will be upon us soon. There’s got to be something we can use for shelter near by.”
“I remember an old shack not too far from here,” Shawna said as she recognized familiar landmarks: a broken tree, a pile of old tires, and a burnt-out car on the side of a crumbling concrete road. “I used to scavenge around here regularly. There shouldn’t be anyone in the shack, but we should load up our guns just to be on the safe side. Ferals love to hide out in places like that.”
“You’re right,” Winston said as he loaded a few rounds in the pipe rifle’s chamber. “I really don’t want to change shape unless I have to,” he said as Shawna looked at him quizzically.
“I see,” she said as she put a few rounds in her gun. “Guess it gets messy?”
“Just a little. I like to save it for special occasions, like wastewraiths,” he said with a soft grin.
Shawna couldn’t help but smile back at the tall, handsome man who had saved her life, not once, but twice so far. She remembered their love making not hours ago and wouldn’t mind a repeat performance. He is attractive after all, and since we are together in our exile, why not make the most of it? she thought.
“If you keep up the whole life saving thing, you won’t ever be rid of me because I’ll keep owing you. I owe you two life debts now,” Shawna said.
“No, you don’t. You owe me one. The second was me getting you out of the shit I put you in to begin with. You wouldn’t have been in danger from my clan if I hadn’t have dragged you back to the cave,” Winston replied sadly.
“I don’t hold it against you. There’s the cabin up ahead,” she said as she pointed to the crumbling wooden structure.
“You know what?” Winston said as he put his pack and gun on the ground, “I smell something in there that isn’t human, feral or otherwise. I’ll be back,” he said as he peeled his robe off and got down on all fours.
Shawna couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched Winston’s bones and muscles shift under his skin and white and black fur sprout from his amber skin. After what seemed like an eternity, there stood a magnificent white tiger where Winston had once been. She swallowed hard as he turned toward her and rubbed against her leg to reassure her that it was indeed still him before he bounded toward the dark, decrepit structure.
Winston looked back at the awestruck Shawna as she held her pipe rifle at the ready, surveying the area for any danger. He took a quick sniff of the area and
smelled the rancid stench of mutated roaches and a few radbears. Since the radbear scat was the strongest, he knew that a few might have made a den out of the destroyed house.
Winston walked in through the open door frame and peered inside. He could hear the low grumbles and snuffling of the resident radbears. He followed his nose and prowled through the house, trying to find where the wild creatures were sleeping.
He crept up the broken stairs and made his way to the unstable upper floor where the smell was the strongest. In the corner was one mangy looking female radbear and her two cubs that were nursing off of her.
Shit, he thought. A normal radbear wouldn’t be that much of a challenge, but an enraged mother would be difficult.
The radbear let out a thundering roar as she spied the intruder and knocked her babies off of her teats. Winston braced himself for combat with the piebald bruin that charged at him.
He danced aside and clawed at the bear’s hind flank. He had no desire to kill the mother and her cubs, they had as much of a right to exist in the wasteland as he did, but they needed this place more. Hopefully, the pain would cause the mother to flee.
No such luck, he thought as she swiped at him with a large clawed fore paw, smacking him upside the head, which caused his ears to ring with the impact. He sighed and reached up with his fore claws and wrapped his front legs around the bear and placed his mouth directly on her muzzle, clamping it shut and smothering her nose, preventing the mother bear from breathing. He hoped that her death would be merciful.
The two cubs started to cry in the corner as they watched their mother being slowly suffocated by the giant white tiger. The sounds of their plaintive cries got to Winston so he released the mother who stood there breathing heavily with her head hanging low. Winston gave her a flat glare and looked toward the stairs. He padded down, followed by the bruin and her two babies. She got his message loud and clear, and that made him happy.