Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Psionic energy welled up inside her, and exploded into the world. Althea knew she did something, but had no idea of what. For a second she went still, terrified the man might have seen whatever it was. When he did not react, her emanation offered a degree of hope out of her intolerable state and she let it surge, writhing against the rope to empower it with every ounce of her fear. All she wanted was someone to save her from this man; all her terror and helplessness channeled into a great spike of mental energy.

  The slave-catcher burped somewhere off to her right.

  Trembling from the cold puddle below her, she sagged limp and exhausted. No longer having the strength to protest her condition, she cried without sound. The emanation had no effect on anything, and her spirit came close to breaking. Warm air on her face turned cold where it went over her wet clothing. Fluid dripped from her nose; blood or snot, she could not tell. Drained to the point of delirium, and with sleep out of reach, she hung like a rag doll with no sense of time.

  The scream came without warning, snapping her out of the hazy non-space in which she floated. It was a primal thing from the essence of a man’s soul. Her head popped up at the sound of skittering on the concrete; something was close. She thrashed to get away from the imagined giant roaches, but could not see where they were―or move.

  Deep snarls followed the tearing of cloth; she forced her body still. A gunshot, that strange-sounding gunshot with the blue fire, preceded a distant ricochet and the plastic clatter of an object hitting the ground. Something heavy smashed into something metal, an impact she felt through the pain in her tailbone. The blindfold soaked through with tears as she fought her desire to struggle. She hoped the monster she could not run away from failed to notice her.

  Motion attracts predators.

  A threatening noise, deep and feral, came before a roar and another howl of agony and tearing of cloth. The man’s voice gasped evil words and grunted. Footsteps staggered closer to her. She drew her legs to her chest, shivering; and screamed at the approaching violence she could not see or escape.

  Growling came from right beside her, the sound of ripping preceded a spray of hot liquid across her face and legs. She spat the taste of blood from her mouth as fingers, slick and weak, closed around her ankle just above the rope. A heavy voice grunted, and the hand slipped away, followed by the scrape of dragging. A growl became a roar muffled through bubbling liquid, and a scream of anguish ended with a loud crack that made her jump. She felt a life end.

  Silence.

  Involuntary shaking wracked her. Blind, all she could do was listen to the squeaking roof and the unknown thing tapping against the post somewhere above her when the wind picked up. Whatever had killed the man had dragged him off somewhere to eat; the mushy sounds of it chewing filled the back of her throat with peanuts. What would it do after that? Every fiber of her soul wanted to scream for help; that she could not move made her want to writhe harder. The slave-catcher’s death stranded her out here completely vulnerable. Trying to wriggle her right wrist through the rope failed; it was so tight she could not even turn her arm. She considered the trick with her thumb, but did not have the energy to do it without sleeping, and there was no way she could sleep like this.

  Every small scraping sound became a flock of giant bugs in her mind, searching for her unprotected flesh. She jumped and cringed at every snap in the distance, fearing a pack of millipedes on their way to get revenge on her for killing one. How desperately she wanted to hear the rumble of a raider buggy; she would happily submit to a leash just to get off this damn pole. The enveloping tranquility that came to dwell in the aftermath of murder was more frightening than the sound of whatever happened to the slave-catcher. Not knowing and not seeing sent her shivering out of control.

  A low growl thrummed through the air, resonating from everywhere. Althea realized she just whimpered and held her breath. The sense of an apex predator wafted in the air; she felt rage as it came closer. The presence of body heat drew near, mixed with the scent of damp fur and carrion; it was inches away.

  “P-Please…” The weakest whisper left her lungs. There was no holding back the quaking dread.

  Warm slime slid over her cheek and a tendril of drool ran down her neck. The second time it happened, she recognized the feel of a huge, flat tongue. The third pass lifted the blindfold. Crouched before her, the mutant she had helped the other day tried to force a smile out of its canine face as it cleaned the blood from hers. Its rage melted to affection and it bounded away and looked back with an expectant pause. When Althea did not follow, it took another step and glanced over its shoulder a second time. Still, the girl did not move. It tilted its head.

  A sharp nod threw the cloth to the side and she whined. “I can’t follow you. I’m tied.”

  She wriggled to add emphasis, twisting and grunting. It bobbed its head up and down and took another step back. Affection mixed with confusion. A sudden instant of frustration triggered a futile search for freedom with brute force. Seconds later, she sagged forward, out of breath.

  “You can’t talk, can you? Do you know what I’m saying?” Bending her legs back, she strained to reach the knot between her ankles, but only brushed it with a fingertip before the cord across her chest hurt too much. “Help me. I can’t move.”

  It bayed into the air, apparently clueless as to why she had not gotten up. Sniffing the air, the creature ambled back to her on all fours and nudged her as if to suggest she stand. She raised her legs toward its face, squirming to illustrate she was stuck.

  It sniffed her feet.

  “Yes. Please bite the rope.” She held them higher.

  It licked her soles, making her squeal and laugh. When she recoiled from the flailing tongue, it leaned down and slathered drool all over her face again. She had nowhere to go, and clamped her mouth and eyes shut to avoid tasting dog spit as she turned away from whatever angle the flailing drool-brush came from. She gasped as it swiped across her belly, and then fell into uncontrollable snickers as it lapped all the blood from her legs.

  When it finally stopped, she spat before looking up, still giggling. Sensing her happiness, it bounded away and waited for her to follow. Obviously, she hadn’t gotten up because she needed a bath first.

  “Oh…” She whined. “You’re going to leave me here all night, aren’t you? Silly dog.”

  She sighed at his lack of understanding spoken words; of course, she had seen hermits and nomads just as bad. She stared at him and projected a sense of distress, a wisp of fear tinted with urgency.

  The canid tilted its head and emitted a soft whine. Then, inspired, it trotted around out of sight behind the pumps. Althea could not turn far enough to see where he went.

  “Hey, come back. Don’t leave me like this!” She thunked her head into the metal post with a ding, closing her eyes with exasperation. “Silly dog.”

  Staring straight up, she focused on a length of cable hanging from the roof, tipped with a metal fitting, the source of the disharmonic song tapped into the post.

  A warm, squishy thing poked her in the cheek. When she glanced to that side, her nose brushed a large strip of raw meat held in the creature’s mouth. It poked her in the face with it again, leaving a bloody smear just below her nose.

  “I’m not hungry. I’m tied,” she yelled.

  The color drained from her as she realized where the meat had come from.

  “Eww!” She recoiled and coughed, convulsing as she fought the urge to vomit. “No! Bad dog.”

  It shrugged, and swallowed the offering before licking the smudge from her face. The essence of peanuts returned as she struggled to keep down what little she had eaten. A desperate fit of wriggling, screaming, and twisting again failed to convey the message to the dog, which continued licking her in an effort to get her back to happy. It could tell she was upset and whined in confusion.

  Althea gazed deep into its huge brown eyes. The glow mesmerized it and it stood motionless. There was no point in asking it to cut
her loose; it could not understand her words. The man-dog had thoughts in its mind, images and concepts flirting with the reason of man but flashing by in bursts of primalistic urges far short of cognition. Somewhere, deep within the bestial nature of this thing, lurked the unrefined seed of human potential. Althea tried to bend forward, making the ropes across her chest dig in, and projected the feeling of being tied down into the mind of the creature.

  It sniffed. The wet nose in her armpit destroyed her concentration with another fit of giggling, but this time the dog seemed to sense something wrong. Grasping her about the shins, it tugged at her.

  “Ow,” she cried out as it tried to pick her up.

  The beast man’s head swayed back and forth, taking notice of where her body attached to the post. It lowered her to the ground and picked at the rope with a single claw.

  “Yes.” She grinned, bouncing. “That’s it. Break it.”

  He drew closer, sniffing at the rope and flooding her armpit with hot, moist air. The tongue flicked at the cord, making her squeal as it tried to get a tooth around it. Her laughter distracted it and it licked at her fervently, pleased at the happy sounds she made.

  Circling the post, it walked out of her field of view. She felt the rope tug a few times; it snarled, then yanked.

  “Ow,” she wailed louder. She knew this creature had the strength to crush her chest if it pulled with all its might. “Don’t pull on it! You’ll hurt me. You have to cut it.”

  Its face came around the pole, wide eyed with an apologetic look from her cry of pain. She focused on the image of a piece of rope sliced in two. Its little stump of a tail wagged, and it vanished again. No longer in possession of metal claws, it scratched and slashed at the back of the post. After a series of rapid swipes, the line of pain through her armpits went slack. The rope slid down into her lap and she rolled away from the pole, gasping for breath. The mutant bounded off, yipping with glee, and looked back at her once more. When she still did not follow, it whined.

  Althea shook her wrists at it, hoping it would recognize rope and repeat what it did. Ambling over, it crouched and nuzzled at the knot and nibbled at it. Grumbling became giggling when it abandoned that knot and licked around her ankles.

  “Stop it!” She gasped through nervous laughter and made clawing motions in the air. “Use your claws.”

  It whimpered. She felt concern―worry, even. It was afraid of hurting her. She sighed and lay there on her stomach. From there, she gazed at the scattered mess of the slave-catcher on the other side of the pumps. Inspiration gave her energy as she remembered the huge knife he had on his belt. Pushing with her feet and squirming her shoulders around, she slithered like a sidewinder along the ground towards the dead man. The canid followed, confused by her bizarre motion. When she hit the blood slick, her toes slid more than they pushed, but she eventually dragged herself through the gore up to the carcass.

  The canid had hollowed out his chest, devouring most of the vital organs. She picked at scraps of skin and clothing with her teeth, pulling them out of the way in search of his belt. When she found it, she bit down on the knife handle and tugged. It did not come loose. Momentary despondence passed as reason returned, and she studied it. A plastic button on the side seemed unusual, and there was no leather cord holding it in. The button had to be responsible for the knife not coming out.

  With a disgusted grimace, she stuck her tongue out and pushed the button, trying her best to ignore the taste of blood. The knife popped out a quarter inch. After spitting to the side, she nipped the weapon in her teeth and rolled away onto her back. She blinked, confused by how little it weighed. This weapon felt like a toy, like some of those flimsy plastic ones the seekers sometimes found in the Lost Place.

  Althea dropped the knife and shifted around until she got it in her hands. Stretching out on her stomach again, she folded her legs up behind her and threaded the edge with care between her calves before pulling with every ounce of strength to force the ankle-bindings through the edge. The blade sliced through far easier than she had anticipated it would, and her legs slapped into the ground.

  When the stunning pain in her shins faded, she twisted over, staring at the knife behind her. The surface caught the glow from her eyes in a way only metal could; it was far sharper than any blade she had ever seen. Given its lack of weight, there was only one possible explanation.

  She had found a magic knife!

  Now, of course, she had to find a way to get her hands loose. There was always the thought of sleeping and using the trick in the morning, but that hurt so much she decided to try to do something right away. There was no way she could hold the knife and cut her wrists free at the same time, and a quick glance at the grinning canid made her think it would take too long to train him to use it.

  She got to her feet and paced around, thinking about a way she could untie herself. As she neared the post, she eyed a hole on the opposite side of where she had been sitting; the snag that caught the rope when she tried to stand. The small hatch sat ajar. She pulled it open with a toe, revealing a bundle of wires making their way up through the interior of the post into the roof. Althea sat near the opening, working the knife handle-first into the tangle of cables with the edge facing upward. The canid watched, whining as if it thought she wanted to hurt herself.

  Straining to look over her shoulder, she positioned the knot between her wrists above the edge and pushed down. The knife slid out of its mounting point and stuck in the concrete like a dart. Althea trembled, one inch to the side and it would have gone right into her back.

  “Nooo,” she whined.

  The canid’s hand on her shoulder pulled her over and laid her on her chest. It seized the knife in a clumsy grip with half-human hands. A wet nose in the middle of her back made her laugh and kick her legs in the air. It held her forearm with one hand as it tried to get the weapon against the cord without touching her skin. She watched, shaking with anticipation as this creature learned before her eyes.

  When the dreadful tightness released her arms, she turned around and hugged the furry thing that saved her. The licking tongue descended upon her, and its fur-covered body became a mattress more comfortable than a metal post and rope could ever be.

  Drifting out of sleep, she snuggled into the leather wrapped around her and breathed a soft sigh of relief. When she realized it was not fur, she sat up. She lay upon a concrete island among the old pumps, wrapped in the slave-catcher’s coat and covered with every bit of scrap cloth within a mile radius of the station. The canid perched on the roof of the building nearby, having guarded her through the night.

  Seeing her stir, it bowed its head once and fell out of sight. Althea radiated gratitude, despite a sense of sorrow. She knew it had to return to its own ways; people out here would not react well to a creature such as him, even if she had pushed his mind closer to humanity. Althea picked up the knife and tiptoed through the now tacky blood slick, recovering the scabbard. It slid in with a click, and she attached it to the rim of her skirt.

  Taking a seat on the pump island, she leaned forward and rubbed the rope burns from her limbs. As her fingers kneaded around her ankle, she stared at the heap of gore on the ground, now pecked at by large birds. This was not exactly what she had hoped for when she cried out for help, but this time she accepted the man’s fate had come of his own choosing. He could have let her go, but he chose not to.

  She stood, thinking about Rachel and feeling doubly stupid. Now she understood how it felt to kill when necessary, but not take pleasure in it. That man had hurt people and enjoyed it; the world was better off without him. She apologized to the wind for judging her friend. For a moment, she sat with her elbows on her knees, smirking at the debris of the man that had abducted her.

  Eventually she got up and walked to the edge of the road, pausing with her arms folded across her chest. Strands of blonde and scraps of leather danced in a gentle breeze as she stared out over the black path of macadam stretching through desola
tion, pock marked and cracked from centuries of disuse. It was late in the day already, too late to travel. Dying sunlight gleamed in the windows of a small building beyond the pumps, and she decided to spend one more day here and then figure out what to do with the freedom she once more possessed.

  She sighed; loneliness made the cold breeze colder.

  lthea awoke, her body threaded through a series of springs poking out from the cushions of an old ochre couch in the service station office. Extricating herself with care from the wobbling coils, she got up and felt the demise of a palm-sized roach as it detonated through her toes. Hopping, she sat on the edge of a nearby desk, pulled her foot to her face, and sniff-tested the guts for edibility. Erring on the side of caution, she scraped it off on the rotting green cushion of a squeaky, metal-framed chair.

  Judging by the light, it was an hour or two past dawn, but she still felt as though she needed sleep. The outside offered a strong, warm breeze, and she padded around the gore over to the giant grey vehicle that brought her here. Held aloft upon fat knobby tires, the truck’s running boards hung at the level of her chest.

  At the rear, she pulled herself up onto the bumper and peeked over the tailgate. Three metal cages sat against the back of the cab, each just large enough to hold a man down on all fours. Some had bits of hair clinging to the bars or bloodstains inside them. All were cloaked in misery, but fortunately empty. Among them, he had packed boxes of supplies, and she soon found the cache of peanut bars and some bottled water. Not wanting to be in the presence of cages, she sat under the truck with her meal and watched the buzzards continue to pick at the man while she ate until she could force not one more bite.