Contaminated

City of a Thousand Nightmares

I stared out the window, searching for any sign of movement from the street below. Behind me, Wither drew in a ragged breath, exhausted from blood loss and running. Igneel and Coffee sat on either side of him, trying to patch him up.

He let out a whine of pain as Coffee, not being the medic, did her best to stitch his wound closed.

Suddenly a flicker of movement out of the window caught my eye. A shadow moving amongst the rubble. I adjusted my scope. Thankfully, that particular shadow was quite familiar.

But something was wrong. He was limping. Favoring his back paw. He exhaustedly crawled behind a car and lay there, eyes darting from side to side, like, well, like a cornered animal. Deciding to use the laser on my scope to get his attention, I switched it on and waved it around to get him to turn his head. It worked. It snapped around and stared at the laser. Then he looked up. Seeing me in the third-story window, a look of supreme relief crossed his face.

Asgard stood shakily, taking a step towards the house.

That was when I heard it.

The same unearthly shrieking. Like someone dragging their teeth and nails across a blackboard. My eyes widened and I shoved the window pane up, hearing a snap as the glass cracked with the force of the motion. Leaning out of the window somewhat and taking aim with my rifle at the undoubtedly oncoming hordes, I yelled "GET IN THE HOUSE!"

Asgard hobbled towards the door in the jerky, stiff fashion of someone who finds it painful to move.

"Coffee, get downstairs and let him in!"

She obliged and took the steps at a sprint. I watched out the window as he reached the door, finding it locked.

That's when I saw them.

The dead walking.

  
We touched down on the roof of a former parking garage and my head snapped up. I looked around from my spot on the floor of the gunship. Everyone had their stuff ready to go, so I shoved myself off the floor and grabbed my vest, slipping it on. I strapped my sniper rifle to my back, securing it with a strap that would allow me to pull it off at any time to use it.

The pilot appeared beside us. "Remember, this is strictly a search-and-rescue mission. Retrieve the target and return here for pickup."

We nodded that we understood and hopped off our bird. The pilot took off. He would circle around the city a few times to make sure we weren't going to be attacked.

We made our way down from the parking garage an split into four groups to scout the surrounding area for immediate threats.

The city was . . . well, a sight to behold. I didn't know what I was expecting, but this was just . . . surreal. One end of the street was a burned out mess, with cracked cement and brick structures sticking out of large dunes of sand like a broken lower jaw, jagged teeth jutting through the sand at random.

The other end of the street, aside from the sand piled against the walls, was practically untouched.

Backstory time.

Years and years ago, before I was born, Dyslik wasn't a desert wasteland. It was really beautiful, with forests, lakes, and mountains, and home to Endos city, the largest city on the face of the planet with a population of over 12.7 billion people. Or at least that's what I heard. Now, aside from barren mountain ranges jutting into the clouds like big dark knives on the horizon, everything is gone.

I never actually heard the full story, but apparently there was a big war that ended with everything getting nuked. Endos was—and is—a hotspot for radioactivity. As in it was hit hard, fast, and with so many different bombs that it was now beyond recognition. No one knew what was in here, and nothing that came in came out, so they said.

I looked from one end of the street to the other, each differing in states of disrepair but equally lifeless. I shivered involuntarily. For all I knew, the dust blowing past us in the almost nonexistent wind wasn't just ultra fine sand particles.

"Earth to Sith?" I jumped and whipped my head around. Argentum waved a paw in my face. "Focus, kid."

"First, don't call me kid. You're like two years older than me. Second, you can't tell me this place doesn't set you on edge."

"Yeah . . ." Mira shuddered and put a hand on her Glock. "Does anyone else get the feelin' we're not alone?"

"Oh, great, Mira," said Therian irritably. "Now I won't be able to stop looking over my shoulder."

"Probably a good thing," Asgard stated matter-of-factly.

"Would you guys stop trying to freak everyone out on our first mission?!" Coffee snapped.

"Enough already!" I growled. "Look, who in this group knows the most about this city? We need to know what to look out for."

Asgard quietly raised his paw.

I raised my eyebrows but he said, "There are too many deadly things out here to even list, so let me fill you guys in on the top three. First," he raised a claw, "the ruins. They're broken down, with so many pieces either missing or sticking in the wrong places that if you're not careful you could have a piece of rebar sticking through your paw or fall through the floor. Stay away from most buildings. That said, some of them are relatively untouched, so if need be, we can find shelter in one of them. Second is the inhabitants. No one knows exactly what happened to them, but the few survivors of this city contracted some kind of virus that makes them go completely insane and bloodthirsty. They're dang near impossible to kill without some kind of heavy duty weaponry, unless you hit them in the head hard, fast, and with no hesitation, or perhaps with a flamethrower. They will attack you whether either you or them are human or dragon. If you see one, we have to run, because where there's one, there's always fifty more behind it. Third," he sighed. "Third and most dangerous is the Corium."

Almost all of the squad cocked our heads and said "The what?"

"Corium," Asgard explained, "is the single most dangerous form of radioactive material known to man. A step within ten feet and it will fry you like a chicken wing. Thankfully, it's easy to avoid because it's easy to see and recognize. It's usually found in the middles of craters in the more destroyed parts of the city. That's where it was dropped. The densest, most populated areas. Freeways and office buildings. Suburbs and subways. As I recall, there were six Corium bombs dropped in all. There was supposed to be one more, to hit the water purifier, but it was destroyed before it could launch."

We looked at each other. Then back at Asgard. "What does it look like?" Winter sounded almost haunted.

"Corium in its regular state looks like a glowing chunk of copper. When raised to a certain level of radioactivity, it glows blue." He straightened up. "Okay. We need the coordinates for the building this squad is stationed in."

"Wyatt said they were holed up in an old garage off 37th and Main," I glanced at the GPS. "So we're on 32nd street, and we have to go on Cherry Boulevard then off on Yaupon and we'll get dropped off on 36th, and it's just a short walk from there. Assuming we don't run into anything."

Sadly, I had never been taught the subtle art of not jinxing it.