Oh, how encouraging.
The mutant voice on the walkie talkie started up once more, and this time it sounded like the ravings of a lunatic.
“Krag!” the gargling voice screamed. “Venktrak mik!”
I didn’t know what he was saying, but it was obvious he was pissed.
It was only a matter of time before that mutant’s friends knew he was dead. I only hoped I had enough of a head-start on them.
“I can’t believe these things can communicate with each other,” I admitted as I walked. “It even sounds like they’ve got their own language and everything.”
Not surprising, Karla agreed. If the virus simply caused human beings to develop mutations, it makes perfect sense they’d retain some of their more… human tendencies. They aren’t mindless zombies. That’s another timeline.
“Cool,” I joked. “If I make it out of this one alive, maybe that can be my next adventure.”
Next adventure? The woman’s voice was curious. I thought you were only doing this once?
“Sarcasm,” I explained with a sigh. “Say, I wonder if there’s like, an entire mutant social hierarchy. Like, do they all bow down to a mutant queen, or are there a bunch of different clans? What does the political structure of mutated humans even look like?”
A good question, Karla chuckled, but we’re going to hope we don’t get you into the position to find out. Just keep moving forward.
I walked on for another hour as I made sure to stick as close to the buildings as I possibly could. I took back alleys whenever possible, but that only made the trip take even longer.
The whole time I walked, I wondered what was going on with the mutant I’d killed.
Had they found him yet? If they had, I would have assumed the whole city would have been on high alert by now.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a familiar sound.
Footsteps. Lots of them.
I scanned my surroundings and saw there was a dumpster just down the alley to my right. I dashed off toward it at the speed of light, hopped up over the edge, and then landed in the pile of trash and rubble inside.
Something rattled underneath my body when I hit the garbage, and when I looked down, I realized I was lying on a human skeleton. The empty eye sockets stared blindly up at me, and I instantly leaned over and heaved my guts out onto the pile of rotting trash.
I didn’t know how long ago Doomsday happened in this world, but these bags had to have been sitting in here for years. I didn’t even want to think about what was in here with me.
Once I finally regained control of my insides, I peeked my head out over the top of the dumpster just in time to see a group of figures march by.
Mutants.
There were at least six of them, from my count.
They all wore the same loosely-tied tunics as the one I’d killed, but they had a much larger variety of weaponry. Some of them held clubs, while others had bows and arrows, and others carried machetes. Even though they were marching in unison, they didn’t have any sort of uniform formation. In fact, they looked just like a street gang from an old-timey gangster movie, waddling around town looking for some poor sap to beat up.
They passed out of view quickly, and I waited a few minutes before I dared to climb out of the dumpster.
God, I smelled awful now. As if I wasn’t already worried about getting caught… now there was a chance they could smell me, too.
“A bunch more mutants just passed by,” I whispered to Karla.
I’d bet money it was the patrol for this area, she observed. Did they look upset?
“Well, they were all brandishing their weapons and walking around like they were about to throw down with the Warriors,” I explained. “So yeah, they looked really pissed.”
Then they’ve found your dead mutant. Karla’s tone was grim. Proceed with caution, Hunter. If you can take any of them out stealthily, that may be the best option.
“Stealth kills?” I guffawed silently. “I don’t have any sort of training for that.”
Don’t your survivalist books and shows tell you how to make traps? the voice asked.
“They do,” I admitted, “but I don’t happen to have any of those with me, now do I?”
Improvise, Karla sighed. Is there anything around you that can be used as a weapon?
All around me was debris. Chunks of concrete and steel, shattered glass, random household objects from a time long gone…
Maybe I could work with this.
I rummaged through the debris in the alley and found a two-by-four, along with a few pieces of rebar that had been snapped off at the ends.
Jackpot.
I balanced the board on the edge of the dumpster and pressed the pointed end of the rebar against it. Then I picked up a chunk of concrete and began to hammer the rebar through, one-by-one. When I’d finally finished, I had the deadliest two-by-four I’d ever seen.
“Walk me through the process of making a trap, Karla,” I requested politely. “Particularly with a board with nails sticking out of it.”
That’s easy, she explained. Do you have any sort of rope? Or anything similar? You could set up a simple trip wire…
I looked around once more. There was a back door to the buildings beside me. Maybe one of them would have what I was looking for?
“Give me a minute,” I explained as I slunk over to the first door and carefully pulled it open.
There were no lights on inside, but luckily the entire left wall of the place had been knocked down. The sun shone through the opening and lit up the many desks before me.
This must have been some sort of office building before Doomsday.
I spent the next few minutes walking around, opening up the desk drawers. Finally, on the seventh one I checked, I found a small spool of yarn.
It wasn’t anything near industrial strength, but it would do the trick.
“Alright,” I whispered as I headed back out into the alley. “I’ve got rope. Now what?”
Karla walked me through the whole process of stringing up the trap. She explained how I needed to set up the deadly board with a release mechanism that would be activated when somebody stepped through the tensioned string. We eventually settled on using some old rat traps I’d found in the alley for the release mechanism, and it was quite ingenious.
I tied the yarn taut around two giant hunks of concrete on each side of the alley, picked up the rest of my gear, and headed over to the fire escape. It was rusted out and somewhat unstable, but I was able to make my way up without much of an incident.
Once I was on the roof of the building, I could finally see just how extensive the damage from the nuclear blast had been.
The once-sprawling metropolis of Chicago was now nothing but ashes, rubble, and decay. Skyscrapers were missing their entire top halves, overpasses had completely crumbled away, and there was nothing but silence in the air.
There wasn’t even wind.
In Chicago.
It was eerie, to say the least.
Everything alright? Karla questioned through the microchip.
“Yeah,” I muttered as I shook it off. “What’s next?”
Karla walked me through the process of creating the release mechanism and, about ten minutes later, voila.
I had a working trip-wire trap.
But that wasn’t going to be enough. Even if one of them were to activate it, the thing would only take out one or two of them at the most.
I needed something else.
I had the bow and arrow, but there were still six of them and only one of me.