Walkers Of The Waste: A Post Apocalyptic Story

The Creature

The sound of footsteps in the distance brings me back in reality. There's no time to ready my bow. So I grab out my pistol and aim into the darkness of the night. Next I hear a howl, not the normal howl of a dog, or a Redhound, this howl is deeper pushing fear deep into me. A pair of glowing red eyes soon become visible in the darkness. I don't have a clear shot, the moon temporarily covered by dust clouds. The creature steps forward, not on four legs like I expected, but towering above me like a giant, standing on it's muscular hind legs. In the little light there is, it doesn't appear to have much fur, looking almost human, if it weren't for the fangs, eyes, ears, or the fact that on it's hands were giant talons. I fire off a shot, hitting it in the shoulder, it doesn't seem to take notice and continues to stalk forward.

Lucy wakes up at the gunshot and freezing when she sees the creature. I shoot the creature a few more times, hitting it in the chest and arm. I watch as it lunges forward in a swipe, talons whistling as they move through the air, I throw myself in front of Lucy, to make sure the creature doesn't hurt her. I feel the air rush past me, a near miss. No matter what we hit it with, arrows, bullets, rocks, nothing seems to affect it. It continues to swipe at us, long claws nearly catching us even as we try to stay away from it. I'm running out of bullets in my pistol, the clip only half full when I fired the first shot. Pulling the trigger I hear it click, empty. I drop it, if we survive this I can pick it up later. I pull the sword out and try to strike back. The creature growls as it's claws collide with the sharp metal. One of them getting cut off and falling with a thud on the ground. The creature lets out a roar before it swings its arm back, striking me in the chest and sending me flying backwards. Something sharp digs into my leg, a sharp rock maybe. Lucy is shooting at it with my shot gun, distracting it long enough for me to pull the object out of me. One of it's claws. I drop it to the ground and pull out my spare pistol, two bullets sitting in the revolving chamber. It'll have to do. I aim for the creature's head, taking in a deep breath. I pull the trigger one more time and exhale, the bullet hitting the creature in between the eyes and it slumps down to the ground. Walking forward, I pick up my sword from where it had fallen on the ground, and cautiously poke the creature with the tip. It doesn't move.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Lucy asks, I shrug my shoulders in response, much like the creatures earlier, I have no idea what this is. How far had we actually gone into the wastes? Even if we were a fair way in, someone should have seen one of these creatures before. "Thanks." I give the girl a confused look. "For saving me." I'm still confused, I only killed the creature because it was threatening me, didn't I? She seems to pick up on my confusion. "You, um, you know before. When it started attacking us? You put yourself between me and that thing." Did I? Why would I do that? "So thank you. For, you know, saving me and everything." She lays back down, drifting off to sleep again. I stare at her, we almost died, how is she able to sleep?

I shake my head, before turning back to examine the creature's body in the limited light. I manage to turn it onto it's back, its eyes still glow red, but not as bright as before, now just a faded red. The creature appears to have scaring up and down its chest and arms, most likely from its prey that's fought back. Something seems to be poking out of it's right arm. The protrusion looks almost like a broken off arrow, someone had come face to claw with this thing, and most likely didn't make it out in one piece. The fur could probably be used to keep warm during the coming moons, and the meat may be able to be eaten. I'll wait till sun up before figuring out how we're going to deal with this. Maybe this creature is why those from the water source didn't follow us. Perhaps they knew of the danger that was in this part of the waste, or maybe they didn't, that is always a possibility. As the sun begins to lighten the sky from the east, I shake Lucy awake.

"Help." I tell her, pointing at the creature, I pass her a knife and we get to work. Taking care of the pelt so not to destroy the possible uses for it, we skin and cut up the creature. I pull out some of the paper I have in my duffle, and wrap the meat up. There isn't much, most of the creature is muscle. I pull the talons out of it's paws, and put them in my bag. Once we're done we look over the now very much dismembered corpse. We cut the pelt in two, making it easier to carry. I collect up our discarded items from where they're strewn across the place, tucking my pistol into it's holster. We continue to walk east, making our way through another desolate city, this one larger than the other.

Some of the tall buildings still stand. I stare up when we come to a collapsed building, it hasn't fallen to the ground. The top of the building is supported by another building making a archway in the sky. I hear the noise of shouting, not an angry shouting, but more like the shouting you hear in a market. We make our way cautiously towards the noise. There, nestled between two buildings is a small market place, and by the looks of it just beyond there's a village. We enter the market place, people stare at us as we walk by, someone notices the pelt, and murmurs begin to spread through the crowd.