Wasteland

Chapter Nine

Frey-

My first taste of people from the outside was not how I had hoped. They seemed like savages in the way they killed, the image of the marked man laying on the ground riddled with holes. I remembered his empty stare as it gazed through me into the wall beyond, that trickle of blood that had rolled from the corner of his lips and down his cheek. It was not a pretty picture, and it sent a chill through me every passing second that I thought it. The thought of what could be following us through the towering trees was more frightening at the moment, so I tailed Jason up a small ridge where the snow was thinner and blades of grass crunched underfoot. It was beginning to get darker; the ball of light in the sky was dropping down below the horizon at a rapid pace, bathing the landscape in an orange and pink glow. If I had been under different circumstances, I may have stopped to admire this new phenomenon, but I had my mind set of moving. Work in the Hole hadn’t consisted of much, so I was getting tired quickly. My breathing became more rapid and wheezing; it felt like my lungs were on fire and now the only thing stopping me from doubling over was the adrenaline. The ground levelled out and the foliage became thicker, tree branches pelting me as I moved. I finally gave in. 

 “Stop… I need to stop” I panted, falling to my knees. Jason pulled to a halt in front of me and without a glance he found the compass and flipped it open. He pondered over it, turning this way and that on the spot, muttering as he went. I was beginning to regain control of my breathing as he said, “Ahah!” which was followed by a, “ahh…”.

 “What is it?” I asked him.

 “Well, to get to The Haven, we have to go directly North. The bad news is, uhm, we need to go through the mutant camp.” I had only ever heard the term mutant once before. My father had used it to describe a child born with one arm and a contorted face. It had not been a pretty sight. The child had been quietly swept away by the orders of my father, and was never to be seen again, an unfair end to the ghastly, twisted boy. 

 “What are these mutants like?” I questioned, unsure of what to expect. They could be like the child, or even worse.

 “Not friendly, that’s for sure. I think they are, like, always in pain which sends them into a rage. Most stay away… But it is the only way through.” came my reply. My thoughts turned from the mutant child to and adult in a frenzied rage, ruined limbs flailing with fingernails as sharp as razors.

 “We are only about two kilometres out which could take twenty minutes if we hurry. Are you okay to follow?” Jason asked me. I nodded and stood up, my knees a shaky mess. Despite their protests I managed to match Jason’s pace as he trudged through the ankle deep snow, the cold chill giving unwanted company. Jason was right about the estimated time and surely enough twenty minutes after we set out, a town completely different to the one I had encountered previous peaked out from behind the brow of a hill. The town was little more than a cluster of rusting corrugated iron shacks spread across the rough dirt of a crater. 

 “This is it: the mutant camp. It doesn’t look like much, but looks can be deceiving.”

He was right, it didn’t look like much. I had a complete overview of the layout of the camp and after a few seconds of looking, I noticed how well laid out it really was. A fence ran the perimeter of the town, a patchy, two metre tall build that looked barely sturdy enough to hold itself up. On each corner stood a raised platform, tall enough to look out over the vast, cold wasteland that surrounded it. Beyond the watchtowers were residential looking buildings made from different coloured sheet metal held together by various mixtures of twine, nails and rivets. A farm with withering crops lay on the outskirts behind the town, home to a mixture of dead and dying plants that only the most skilled botanist could identify.