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Electronic Edition

ISBN

978-1-59606-660-1

Subterranean Press

PO Box 190106

Burton, MI 48519

www.subterraneanpress.com

They wore no uniforms, the people of this deceptively raggle-taggle convoy where they rode, drove, or were trundled through a rubble-strewn wasteland in the dead of night. Yet despite the lack of khaki and badges of rank: the chevrons, shoulder pips, crowns and crossed swords—military insignia in general, the like of which Garth Slattery had seen illustrated in the brown, brittle pages of a battered volume he’d returned to one of the few dusty bookshelves that had passed for a library in the now abandoned Southern Refuge—still the careworn folk of the column, where they trekked a debris and broken-brick wasteland in the light of benign-seeming constellations, were far more akin to soldiers than civilians.

That was because this mobile community, of which Garth was a junior member, was at war; as were humanity’s rags and scattered remnants world-wide so far as was known, and the very word “civilian” was almost obsolete among the clans of a handful (at best) of moribund refuges whose people—all but the youngest—answered the roll-calls as regular combatants as necessary.

Their campaign, however, could scarcely be called an offensive, and in reality not even a campaign; not in olden terms of calls-to-arms or the joining of battle on predetermined fronts. No, the stance of these folk was rather the opposite: their war was mainly defensive, in which the hideous enemy’s spontaneous, apparently opportunistic attacks usually resulted from chance encounters, rarely from organized ambushes or premeditated tactics on the part of the fiend. Which meant that until the convoy arrived at its destination—one of the last few surviving refuges: a place of sanctuary and safety according to every expectation, and always assuming it could be found—its people must continue to endure the terrifying, all too frequent yet utterly unpredictable skirmishes and frenzied confrontations with every aimlessly wandering, crazed and blood-thirsty fly-by-night pack that crossed their path.

Thus far, mercifully, such nomadic gangs had been less than populous; never once—thank God!—in such numbers as to constitute a swarm. But nevertheless they did regularly come drifting out of nowhere in small, vicious groups, arriving suddenly and silently on the scene, and at any time—

—Which is to say any night-time, of course…

For who in his right mind would want to venture out in the open air in daylight? Not the people of this convoy, and definitely not their monstrous enemy—the fly-by-nights! As for the latter by virtue of their manifest fear and hatred of the sun, if for no other reason, they must at least be granted the distinction of partial rationality. For despite the utter mindlessness they invariably displayed during their attacks, still they knew and respected the horror inherent in the sun’s rays; hence the sinister designation bestowed upon them by men. But for all that men and monsters faced disparate dangers from Sol’s radiations, still exposure was as lethal to one as to the other—to friend and foe alike—though death came more certainly and far more swiftly to the fly-by-nights.

These were some of young Garth Slattery’s thoughts where he sat beside his father in a jolting trundle somewhere central of the column. Glancing sidelong at Zach Slattery, and covertly at the drawn faces of others in the vehicle, Garth’s thoughts were old for all that he was young. He thought back on a time—how long ago? Seven weeks, eight, more? He was certain someone must be measuring the days, or more properly the nights—but in any case he thought back to a time just before the exodus from the contaminated Southern Refuge, when all two hundred and seven of the people, men, women and children alike, had been called to a meeting convened by Big Jon Lamon.

Big Jon, the Southern Refuge’s leader—a bulky, leathery, down-to-earth man in his mid-thirties, and therefore one of the oldest of men—had had plenty of cause to speak that time, and much to impart in an unaccustomedly lengthy address. Garth remembered that speech almost word for word now, because his “Old Man,” Zach, had bade him listen very carefully, explaining that these would be the most important, most momentous words that he was ever likely to hear. For the future, indeed the very existence of the folk of the Southern Refuge—or the “clan” as they often as not referred to themselves—was now threatened and so up for debate; the outcome of which would surely mean a turning point in the hundred-and-fifty-year history of the refuge and its inhabitants. And Zach Slattery had known these things for a fact, even for a certainty, because Big Jon Lamon had taken him aside, conferring with him beforehand in order to gain the wise counsel of a man he’d called a friend and colleague for most of his life…

“I am obliged to call this meeting by reason of recent catastrophic events,” Big Jon had begun, his voice deep and gruff, yet still reverberant in the echoing central cavern that served the refuge as garage, workshop, and—as was sometimes necessary on occasions such as this—the clan’s accustomed assembly point. His stage was the raised platform of a loading bay standing hard against the cavern’s impermeable rock wall, permitting everyone in the crowded semicircle below to both hear and see him face-to-face, as it were.

And slowly at first but resolutely, Big Jon had continued:

“I’ll speak first of occurrences of which only a handful of you are already, necessarily aware: desperate occurrences, that demand desperate but inevitable measures. And then…then—”

He had paused, his grey eyes sweeping the silent crowd, his faded-leather face grave as never before despite the many hard, often problematic times the clan had known in years past.

“—And then I must speak of one measure in particular,” he had carried on, “of which I am sadly aware that like myself you are certain to despair. Of arduous times ahead, of difficulties and dangers to be faced and overcome if we desire a future for our children—indeed, if we wish to avert utter extinction!”

At which there had commenced a fitful, nervous stirring in the crowd, which, as a single entity had issued a sigh—a gasp of pent breath—a despairing sound that quickly descended to a low groan: acknowledgement of the fact that Big Jon’s discourse seemed to be developing into that worst case scenario that several in his audience, the techs in particular, had good reason to anticipate, to understand and dread.

Holding up a calloused, hopefully calming but hardly reassuring hand, however, before any anxious questions could be formulated, Big Jon had quickly continued:

“At least such is my considered opinion, arrived at following the wise counsel and advice solicited from a handful of our elders. But while I am your chosen leader, and while the elders are wise as the sum of their years, still we are only a handful while you are many. Which is why any decisions as to the future must be your individual choices! And I have called this meeting on that basis: on the understanding that however you decide the decisions must be yours alone, yours and/or your families’. For limited though such choices are, each with its own problems and hardships, still their natures do not permit of any one man or group, however wise, making them for you. As for me—myself alone, because I have no family other than the clan itself—I have already made my choice: more of which anon.