Survivors
The sun burned a white disc through the overcast sky, cold and indifferent to the meager toil of daily life. Early spring had defrosted the earth below, awakening the trees and welcoming flower blossoms. The world was renewed once more, and nature, in her gentle dominance, was retaking the abandoned, broken streets of a mid-sized city whose name had long been forgotten. Birds sang their tranquil song, insects buzzed and chirruped, and a herd of deer munched on the tall grass that sprang up through the shattered concrete. Stone and brick buildings crumbled in decay, caving into themselves like collapsing drunkards, spilling debris along the empty walkways. Grimy glass, where not shattered or cracked, hovered in a proxy of life, a thin, immaterial film that gave testament to the decades of neglect with the crusted coating of dust, pollen, and smoke of years ago. Rusted cars lay strewn like corpses along every street, and here and there the remains of old war machines, desiccated husks of great men past, basked in the morning air. Tanks stood in silent progress, an unmoving march toward a victorious enemy. The jagged, twisted rotors and tail of a military helicopter jutted from the shell of what used to be a clinic, bleeding rust and algae. A cratered street led like breadcrumbs to the smattering of fallen fighter planes smeared for several city blocks, slicing through the demolished ruins of a university, a funeral parlor, a temple, and a fine restaurant, all of which had been picked clean by the scavenging population long ago.
A Humvee with wasted tires and scorch marks marring the surface, the hood of the vehicle ruptured from an explosion, its mechanical entrails, once warped and molten, now a den for feral cats, raccoons, and foxes, rested at an angle. It had smashed through a ransacked department store, and everything of value from the building and the vehicle had been stripped, leaving the dead husk like a discarded shell. The rear door had been wrenched away by anonymous hands at one point, and now a flapping plastic tarpaulin covered the interiors, breathing with the wind. Inside, cradling a badly worn and oft-patched backpack overstuffed with clothes and food, lay a young man. He wore dirty denim pants, steel-toed black combat boots, and a pristine black leather jacket zipped tight up to his chin. A battered black motorcycle helmet served as an uncomfortable pillow.
Without warning, he gasped and jerked to an upright position, eyes wild. He shoved away his backpack, which fell unheeded to the bare metal floor that was coated with muddy sludge, and stared at his shaking hands. Like a man seized by flame, he whimpered once and unzipped his jacket, yanking it off with vicious momentum that left him sweaty and panting. His tattered, sweat-stained T-shirt barely concealed his pale torso. Every available inch of his fair skin visible through his clothes, stretching down the backs of his hands and along the knuckles of every finger, swirled blue patterns that coiled and darkened as he watched. The ink whorled and dipped, slashed and dotted, leaving his previously clear skin awash with tattoos that had just appeared. As if he doubted himself, he grabbed the hem of his torn T-shirt and lifted it to reveal spirals and waves surrounding his navel and reaching around his abdomen, flirted with his armpits, and descended down his denims. He needn’t look any further.
Rending the air like thunder, a trumpet sounded, piercing and haunting, a deep resonant timbre that was felt more than heard. A shiver dripped down his spine and he gritted his teeth and slapped a palm over his mouth to keep his fear at bay. He froze where he sat, heart hammering so madly he felt his ribcage vibrate. Eyes darting in every direction, he searched his metallic confines, and prayed that the gods of military defense had built something that would shelter him from an enemy he despised but could never escape.
Someone nearby shouted, “Run!” and a tumble of stone and breaking glass penetrated the trumpet, accentuating the voice. He heard a curse, a voice that sounded female. The slap of shoes pounded down the broken road. Burning with curiosity, he dared not move.
A breeze shifted his tarp, giving him a teasing glimpse of the grey world beyond, and he shivered again. This was no ordinary breeze. He knew the shockwave when he felt it. The Wild Hunt approached. Electricity charged the air with an audible hum. The hair on the back of his neck stood erect, and every movement he made gave him a painful shock. The world outside darkened as if a cloud were shifting in front of the sun. The trumpet sounded again, and the ground rumbled. Loose stones toppled and clattered. The Humvee in which he sat trembled.
“We can’t run from this!” a second, younger voice screamed, sounding far more panicked. “What do we do?”
“I said run!” the first voice shouted. “Don’t stop! Don’t look back!”
Moving toward his tarp, he snatched up the flapping edges and dared to peer out.
Two people sprinted past from right to left, the taller one up front. A girl, blonde pigtails flopping beneath a grey beanie and a black coat snug around her slender frame, raced by carrying a burlap sack that bulged with her scavenged goods. Behind her, a shorter boy with matching blond hair, shoulder length and loose, streaming like sunlight in the wind of his panicked running, stumbled and fell, his olive green trench coat flapping open. He crashed to the ground and rolled several times, his own burlap sack spilling and falling away.
A tremendous, spine-chilling whoop sounded, echoed by half a dozen other voices. The braying of hounds peppered the voices, savage and bloodthirsty, growing nearer with every bark. The boy on the ground scrambled to his feet and then stood there, staring back in the direction from where he’d come, eyes glued to something unseen past the extent of the walls of the department store. The Humvee and the broken building in which it resided cut off the Wild Hunt from the tattooed observer’s view. He couldn’t wait here for them to reveal themselves.
He grabbed his jacket and backpack, snatched up his motorcycle helmet, and lunged free of his Humvee. He didn’t spare a second glance back at the paralyzed boy, even as the girl who’d already passed him shrieked, “RUUUNN!!”
Rounding the Humvee, the tattooed man leaped astride his black Yamaha Night, slid on his helmet, and barked, “Kura, go!” The motorcycle roared to life, the revving engine nearly drowned by the advancing Hunt. He gripped the handlebars and tucked in his feet, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth.
“Hang on,” Kura instructed, his voice tinny in the radio speakers embedded in his helmet.
With a jolt, the Yamaha surged forward, weaving past the worst of the destruction, until he veered up the slight incline of an unbroken slab of crumbled ceiling. They soared free of the department store. For the briefest of moments, they were airborne.
The tattooed man opened his eyes and turned his head to the right. Less than one hundred yards and gaining galloped the Wild Hunt, led by twenty enormous canines roughly the size of mules. They slavered hungrily, their eyes wild with the chase, maws chomping with every mighty bark. Three of the animals were cerberi, with one body and three distinct heads. The others were hellhounds, with glowing red eyes and thick black smoke puffing from their mouths like fogging breath. Beyond them, riding horses the size of trailers, came the Hunters. The most prominent figure, at the head of the Hunt, was the Erlking, striking in his contrasts. A crown of antlers sliced the air before him like the bowsprit of a ship, devil horns atop an otherwise human-like appearance. Flawless and fair-skinned, he was breathtakingly beautiful but his features were a hideous grin of wicked anticipation. His crystal blue eyes actually sparked and his elegant fingers held tightly to the reins of his steed in a stranglehold. A massive black trench coat snapped almost horizontally behind him, flowering open to point to his fellow Hunters: To his left, a skeletal wendigo, two separate spriggans with their stony faces, a dullahan holding aloft its severed head by a fistful of tangled black hair, laughing with the maniacal cackle of a hyena, and a marid jinn streaming blue flame behind like a cape. On the Erlking’s right side rode a second jinn, a shaitan, streaming red flame, a beanstalk giantess, whose copper hair flapped, tangled with budding flowers and the bone fragments of past kills, a chestnut, bronze-skinned centaur, and a green man with vine-like dreadlocks and his oddly cabbage-like face. The spriggans both rode unicorns—one chestnut, one roan—their iridescent horns dazzling despite the overcast skies, their brilliant manes licking like flame in the wind. The Erlking himself rode atop a flapping pegasus as black as night, though the beast did not take off.
Kura landed with a joint-popping crash and peeled to the left, rounding the paralyzed boy who couldn’t have been older than fourteen. A screech of rubber and a blast of bitter smoke shoved the boy to his right, away from Kura and his tattooed rider on his left, and for just a moment, the tattooed man locked gazes with the horrified boy. He had lavender eyes, currently ablaze with a universe of terror, his face contorted with a strangled scream. He threw up his arms and staggered away from the motorcycle, and then the tattooed rider shot past.
He fishtailed slightly as Kura sought purchase, and he twisted around to follow the boy’s stationary retreat as they left him behind, at the mercy of the Wild Hunt.
The appearance of the man on the motorcycle snapped the boy out of his terrified paralysis. He jerked away from the Hunt, now twenty yards and closing, and sprinted away. He was on foot, the biker was on the speeding Yamaha, and the Hunters were all mounted; the only one not making any type of substantial progress was the boy.
The Erlking pulled out his dragonbone bow, fitted a silver arrow the length of a man, and loosed it. With a crackle of thunder, the air rippled before the missile, and a flickering bolt of lightning sizzled through the air to strike the boy through the chest. Soundless, he lunged forward and crashed again to the earth. The Wild Hunt whooped and cheered but rode on, the braying dogs setting their carnivorous eyes on the biker and his snarling mount. The Erlking clung to his bow in his right hand, reached to his chest with his left, and withdrew a fist-sized crystal that burned electric blue. He held the crystal forward as they neared the fallen boy, and the silver arrow that protruded from his chest launched backward as if fired from an enemy bow. The boy’s body clamped closed around the tip of the arrow that now dragged him like a grappling hook. He sailed backward. Tears sparkled in the air as they flew free of his terrified face. The arrow and the quarry flashed and disappeared into the Erlking’s crystal.
The tattooed man whipped forward again and bent into the wind, making himself more aerodynamic.
Kura was driving. His main objective was to put distance between them and the Wild Hunt, avoiding all obstacles at any cost. He angled them in a wide berth around the girl, who had missed the boy getting shot, concentrated as she was on her own escape. At the roar of the bike, she whirled to look back and witnessed the flash of light as the boy vanished into the crystal. For a moment, stunned, she slid to a halt, gaped at the Erlking’s glowing stone in horror, and then Kura revved past her. The wind of his passing elicited a gut reaction that blossomed from her soul. “Charlie!” she screamed. The devastation in her voice was absolute.
The biker cursed. “Kura, turn around!”
“Are you insane? That’s the Hunt!”
He didn’t waste time arguing. The rider pulled the break lever and whipped the bike around, carving a wide swath of black rubber across the pebble-strewn pavement. A wave of dust and light debris washed across the street and a slanted crescent screeched into existence.
Kura screamed in pain, surprise, and anger. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I said turn around!” the rider shouted. He gunned the engine, Kura roared in reply, and they surged back toward the oncoming Hunt. The tattooed man glared at the laughing Erlking, watched him lift his bow. They veered toward the girl, who shrieked a tormented wail at the horsemen but couldn’t otherwise move, and he threw out his left arm as they circled around to her right. They crashed into each other. Her breath was knocked from her lungs and she almost fell in front of the bike. His shoulder was nearly wrenched from the socket and he had to compensate for her sudden added weight by leaning precariously off Kura to the right. Kura struggled to maintain control. The centrifugal force of the maneuver threw them all off balance and nearly sent them skidding across the pavement in separate tumbles, but this meant no one was the perfect target.
A searing bolt of lightning sailed past them. With a magnificent boom, it struck the pavement four meters ahead of them, gouging out a smoking crater the size of a hubcap. The rider threw out his right leg to give them balance, Kura revved, and the girl wrapped her arms around her rescuer before finding her feet. “Get on!” the tattooed man shouted.
“My brother—”
“GET! ON!”
She leaped astride Kura behind the rider, cinched her arms tightly around his waist and pressed her face into his shoulder, sobbed once, and Kura shot off like a cannonball. The force of his acceleration propelled them into a wheelie, and with another screech, they were off, leaning into the propulsion and holding on tightly.
“I hate you!” Kura spat. “I hate you! I hate you!”
“Just ride!”
“Easy for you to say!”
Kura raced down the street, peeling away from the Hunt, weaving around the rotten traffic, before making a sharp left at the next darkened intersection. They flew past a tipped-over bus, the exposed and rusted underbelly a shrine dedicated to the forgotten horsepower of public transportation, and Kura honked his horn. “Hide in the bus! I’ll lead the Hunt away! Meet you at the Starbucks!”
Kura executed a tight donut, giving the riders enough time to plant their feet in the center of the ring and leap off the moving vehicle, and then Kura surged ahead, riderless and revving his engine, laying on the horn to make noise. The cacophony of his exit echoed along the abandoned street, loud and boisterous, channeled by the broken buildings and dead vehicles.
“That’s our ride!” the girl shrieked, incredulous.
The man clamped a hand over her mouth, pinned her head to his shoulder, and reached down to sweep her off her feet. She squealed and thrashed, which made carrying her much harder to do, but he managed to haul her around the back end of the bus. The rear window was a spider’s web of micro fissures but was otherwise intact. He dropped her to the ground, on her feet, and shoved her into the back end of the vehicle. “If you don’t shut up,” he barked as he yanked off his helmet, “they’ll find us!”
The braying dogs sounded all the more ferocious unimpeded by his helmet. The earth shook and the trumpet sounded once again. He could hear the Hunters’ voices echoing on the street now with exhilarated laughter. He stepped to the spider webbed window, gripped his helmet by the face guard, and smashed it threw the glass. It peeled away, creating a hole that he forced his way through, into the bus’s shell. An obstacle course of horizontal hand bars forced him to duck and leap as he moved further in, scrambling up the jumbled mess of dislodged seats. He reached back to yank the girl after him. She struggled at first until he smacked her as hard as he could, stunning her with one blow and leaving a red handprint and a smudge of blood at the corner of her mouth. He pulled her inside, into his chest, and forced her to crouch with him, wrapping his body around hers and praying the tattooed magic worked.
“Don’t move!” he hissed into her ear. “And don’t make a sound!”
The shadows of the Hunt rippled through the bus from the skyward facing side windows, from front to back, and the ancient vehicle creaked and rattled. The broken glass shards and loose metal tinkled and danced in a ballet of destruction. Electricity crackled the air. Plasmic darts jolted from metal post to metal post inside the bus, like a Tesla coil. With a deafening, creaking boom, the bus rocked and moved, sparking as it slid over the asphalt, sweeping up the two occupants like a hand cradling pebbles. They gritted their teeth and strangled their shouts. The Hunt raced on, sprinting after the riderless motorcycle, leaving their quarry undetected inside an overturned bus.
