As I walked, I started feeling a creeping sense of dread that had nothing to do with the hunting party behind or the desolation around me. I sniffed the air, catching a taint of something under the metallic smell. Like something had died here recently. But how could anything be alive out here to die?

  To my left, I noticed a still standing structure. No, it wasn’t a building, but some kind of formation. How could anything have survived the blast that created this crater? The physics didn’t make sense. I made a mental note of it and kept trudging toward the far rim.

  My legs were getting heavy, as each step took more effort than the last. The heat was draining me faster than I’d expected. My water was down to maybe two mouthfuls, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. As long as I had some water, I could keep going. That was psychological maybe, but I’d take whatever edge I could get.

  The sun had passed its zenith and was starting its descent when I heard strange hums and hisses.

  I stopped, scanning the crater.

  Far away ahead and to the right was a mound of melted glass. Then I spotted dark shapes scuttling over its surface.

  My first thought was giant ants. Then I got a better look and realized it was worse.

  I turned from it and started walking faster in the other direction. My curiosity couldn’t help but cause me to look back.

  Three of them had left the mound and were heading my way. They weren’t ants. They looked more like praying mantises, if mantises grew to four or five feet long and moved with a horrible jerky precision. Their triangular heads swiveled as they moved, and even from this distance, I could see the compound eyes glittering.

  Were they intelligent then? I couldn’t tell. They moved with purpose, but so did regular insects. Maybe these were just mutant bugs, operating on instinct—

  One of their backs split open, and wings unfolded. They were gossamer wings that caught the light like stained glass. The wings blurred into motion, and the thing jumped from the ground.

  It was flying, flying toward me.

  I ran.

  I didn’t jog or walk quickly—I flat-out sprinted across broken glass in hundred-degree heat. My boots slipped on smooth patches, caught on sharp edges. The jacket tried to fly off my shoulder, but I grabbed it and hung on tight.

  Behind me, I heard a buzzing like the world’s largest dragonfly.

  My sprint lasted maybe thirty seconds before my legs started failing; my lungs burned, and a sharp pain spiked under my ribs. The heat, the dehydration, the exhaustion—it all hit at once. My vision started to tunnel, but I risked a look back.

  The flying one had landed, but it was much closer than before, and it folded its wings back into its body. Now it was scuttling forward on those horrible jointed legs, gaining ground. The other two had taken to the air as well, leapfrogging forward in short flights.

  I had stopped running, but panted like a fool with sweat pouring from me. Maybe I deserved to have bugs in a wasteland eat me. Maybe this was justice for leading thousands of spearmen to their deaths.

  “Get a grip, dude,” I whispered hoarsely. “Fight until you’re dead.”

  I nodded and looked at the water bottle. There were two mouthfuls left. I could save it, try to make it last through whatever was about to happen. Or…

  I drank every drop. It was warm and tasted like plastic, but it was the best thing I’d ever had. I tucked the empty bottle away and turned to face the approaching creatures.

  I was a Marine. I’d face this standing up.

  But… why make it easy for them?

  I turned and kept walking, deciding I wasn’t going to commit suicide. I’d save my energy for the final fight, using the dynamite sticks to take them down if I could.

  If that worked, I needed to have the energy to walk out of the crater. I couldn’t just lie down and die. Those on Mu needed me, and I vowed I’d do something to help solve the problem I’d created there for my three cities.

  -14-

  As I trudged, I noticed the structure from before. It was several football fields to my left. It looked like sandstone, ancient and weathered, standing where nothing should have survived. Wouldn’t having high ground improve my chances of surviving the mantises?

  I looked back and saw a mantis launch itself into the air, wings blurring. It was a hell of a lot closer than I remembered, and far ahead of the other two. This one was eager—eager to die.

  I dropped to one knee, brought up the Colt with both hands, and fired. The first shot went wide. The second sparked off its thorax. The third caught it square in the head, and it crashed down in a spray of ichor.

  The other mantises stopped, making clicking-hissing sounds at each other. It was almost like they were discussing what just happened.

  That made my skin crawl.

  But instead of thinking about it, I used their hesitation to turn and run for the monument.

  As I neared, I saw that the sandstone structure was fifteen feet tall or thereabouts. It was also carved with symbols almost worn smooth by time.

  Then I crashed against it, stumbling back. After shaking my head and approaching, I felt it. The sandstone was nearly as hot as a stove, and the first handhold crumbled under my weight. I found another, hauling myself up while my arms shook from exhaustion. Every muscle screamed, but I clambered like a frightened monkey.

  A chittering noise alerted me as a mantis reached the base.

  How had they moved so quickly from where they had been last time I looked? I must be delirious, feverish.

  It lunged forward and swiped at my boots with saw-bladed forelegs. I yanked my legs up just in time and somehow kept my hold and started climbing again, moving even faster than before.

  The top was a platform maybe six feet across. I wanted to collapse onto it, gasping in the furnace-hot air. Looking down, I counted nine of them now, circling like sharks.

  Where had the others come from? Why hadn’t I noticed before? I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. The rag wasn’t on it anymore. I must have heatstroke or sour-brain disease. I had to get in the game, man, or I’d be dead.

  Could the last two have communicated with the hive, or whatever that glass mound had been?

  Really, though, did it matter how there were nine instead of two? What was, was, and I had to deal with it.

  I pulled out a stick of dynamite and lit it with shaking hands. The fuse sparked and hissed, burning down. I had to time this right. In Marine training, we’d learned to count—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—but this wasn’t a standard frag grenade. These fuses burned at different rates, some fast, some slow. I watched it burn, feeling the heat creep toward my fingers.

  The lead mantis was twenty feet away when I threw. The dynamite arced through the air and detonated right above its head. The blast knocked it backward, legs twitching as ichor leaked from cracks in its carapace.

  One creature launched itself into the air, wings unfurling from its back with a sound like tearing silk. Another rushed the monument’s base, starting to climb.

  I lit another stick, this one just near the base, and heaved. The flying mantis tried to dodge, but the explosion caught it. The blast also knocked me down hard and made breathing painful.

  I found myself lying prone, blinking, my head ringing. How long had I been lying like this?

  With a groan I couldn’t hear, I got up, lit another stick and moved sluggishly to the edge. I might have stumbled and almost stepped over the edge.

  Seeing a mantis climbing up surprised me. I was out of it from the blast. I dropped the stick, though, and fell prone on the roof, rolling away fast. The explosion was close enough to shower me with stone fragments from the edge. I might have heard the creature hit the ground, but my ears were still ringing like gongs.

  I was dazed, feeling stupid. If the others had charged up then, they would have surely killed me. Maybe the blasts were giving them second thoughts.

  Finally, groggily, I climbed to my hands and knees, crawled forward and peered down.

  The survivors were thirty feet off, possibly making those clicking-chittering sounds to each other. I saw their mandibles move, but only heard the ringing in my ears. Were they planning, learning from what had happened?

  Three jumped, opened their backs and took to the air as their wings blurred. Two scuttled for the base of the tower.

  I might have been shouting, I don’t know. Somehow, I found myself standing, holding two sticks and lighting them both. I dropped the lighter and grabbed one stick with my throwing hand and hurled it at the nearest flyer. It was a good throw and detonated at wing level. The blast made me stumble and almost trip over the back ledge.

  The flying mantises folded and dropped, each one, the lead critter spurting ichor everywhere.

  I think I was laughing until I saw the second stick in my hand. Shit! I staggered to the other edge and dropped dynamite on a triangular head staring up at me.

  I dropped down, hit the roof and rolled like a baby as the explosion shook the frigging tower.

  I was stupidly dazed, finding it hard to think of anything. I do remember rolling over and seeing a flyer landed on the platform, its wings folding back into its body.

  This must be a new one.

  We stared at each other, the compound eyes reflecting my image a thousand times, my hand reaching for another stick.

  It scuttled at me and lunged. I rolled aside, feeling the wind from its forearm strike. They carved deep gouges where I’d been. I came up shouting like a madman, with my Colt in both hands, not even remembering drawing it or dropping the unlit dynamite. I fired one-two-three, putting holes in the triangle head. It staggered back and then fell from the tower.

  My ears were ringing, I was seeing double, maybe triple, and the air stank of cordite and a sickly-sweet smell of burned insect.

  I found myself standing on the edge and looking down through smoke.

  The damn mantises had backed away and were staring at me. Two kept moving their heads from side to side as if contemplating things. The others moved their mandibles fast, maybe hissing, talking in insect speech to each other.

  My sides were heaving, and I was crazily dizzy. I was down to three sticks. That wasn’t much. But I was enraged and feeling I’d gotten much luckier than I had a right to be. Yeah, I was a Marine, the best of the best—

  I grabbed a stick, lit it and heaved as hard as I could.

  The mantises scuttled and then flew away.

  This was like one of the John Wayne movies, where one of them hurls sticks of dynamite and Wayne shoots the sticks with his revolver so they explode.

  The explosion here didn’t hit or injure any of them, but it blew up a geyser of broken glass.

  I was laughing, and it didn’t really sound sane to my ears—the little I could hear. I grabbed another stick, and I roared, “I can do this all day!”

  I lit it, waited and heaved once more.

  The same thing happened as before.

  When they stopped running, they all turned back and stared at me.

  I grabbed my last stick, raising it high. “I’m saving this one for whichever of you sods dares to charge me.”

  They waited.

  I waited, panting, sweating, hating this world. But if I was going to go down, I’d go down swinging until the very end. I was glad for the heavy knife. I’d use that and hack at them when I ran out of bullets.

  Do you know what happened?

  They decided that I was just too damn tough for them. That’s right, they turned, brought out their wings and took off flying. Maybe they were going to get reinforcements. Maybe they’d just had enough.

  I looked toward the crater’s center and my heart sank. More shapes were moving across the glass dome, just dots really, but definitely leaving the mound and heading in this direction.

  I had to get out of here.

  I slid over the edge and half-climbed, half-fell down the monument, scraping my palms on the hot sandstone. My legs wobbled when I hit the ground, but I forced them to work.

  I started walking, then jogging, though it was more of a stumbling shuffle. My throat was like sand. My vision kept swimming. The glass beneath my boots seemed to tilt and sway, but I kept moving one foot, then the other.

  The sun was lower now, turning the crater into a bowl of orange fire. Every step was agony. I wanted to quit, to lie on the glass and be done with it. But I wouldn’t do that.

  I had three cities that needed help against the Draconian-Ophidian horde. I was going to get back to Mu, and with weapons to even the score. That meant I had to survive this hell world.

  So that’s what I was going to do.

  -15-

  I reached the crater’s edge and hauled myself up the slope on hands and knees. Turning back, I could see the mantises coming. Would they hunt me in the ruins?

  Well, maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. I had no idea. But waiting for it seemed stupid. So I turned and stumbled forward, almost immediately reaching the skeletal buildings and rusted death.

  My legs quivered with each step, an act of faith that my foot would hold my weight. The world kept tilting, and I had to grab walls, doorframes, anything to keep from going down. My vision was blurring, everything developing a hazy double image that made distances hard to judge.

  The metallic taste in my mouth was overwhelming now. My skin felt hot and tight, like the worst sunburn of my life. This place might be killing me, slowly but surely. If it wasn’t radiation, then the contaminated air, exhaustion, and possible heatstroke were all adding up.

  I needed shelter, water, and rest. I needed to hole up and figure out my next move.

  The mantises hadn’t charged up from the crater. They hadn’t buzzed the air. Maybe the crater was their territory and that was it. What would they eat then?

  I had so many questions but not enough energy to try to answer them.

  I made eight blocks from the crater when I saw two tusked mutants. It was during a lucid moment. Maybe they’d been following since I climbed out of the crater. They weren’t trying to hide, just maintaining a steady fifty yards between us. They must be waiting for me to collapse. Why fight when your prey was already dying?

  There was no way I could outrun them. I could barely walk, let alone run. And fighting them in the open was suicide. They knew this terrain, knew how to survive here. I was just meat waiting to fall, especially in my present condition.

  I forced myself to think through the fog in my brain. I needed high ground, a defensive position. There, a building that still had most of its structure intact. The ground floor was collapsed rubble, but I could see stairs through a hole in the wall.

  Dusk was fast coming on, much of the place already thrown into shadows. I had to do this soon, as I wondered if the mutants could see in the dark or maybe just better than I could.

  I stumbled toward my selected building, not looking back at the mutants. Let them think I was just wandering, delirious. I climbed through the hole, gashing my hands on twisted rebar, and found the stairwell. The steps were concrete, cracked but solid. I started up.

  My legs trembled more with each step. Twice I had to stop, leaning against the wall, fighting not to pass out. But I made it to the second floor. Most of the walls were gone, just support pillars and empty window frames.

  I positioned myself by a window facing the street, then slumped against the wall like I’d collapsed. Through cracked eyelids, I watched the mutants approach through shadows.

  They were taking their sweet time, no doubt confident about me. Both carried spears, not rifles, so that was a plus. The spears were rough things made from rebar and scavenged metal. They wore leather clothing, patched and repaired with various materials. Water skins hung from their belts, along with pouches that might hold food.

  I craved both of those, although I desperately needed water.

  They entered the building, and I heard them on the stairs. They were slow and cautious.

  I waited until I could see them clearly, coming up the stairs maybe fifteen feet away. If they’d waited just a little longer, I wouldn’t have had enough light to see them. I drew the Colt, braced it against the window frame with both hands, and fired.

  The first shot took the lead mutant in the chest. He looked surprised more than anything else, staring down at the spreading red stain before toppling backward.

  The second mutant started to raise his spear. I put two rounds into him. He fell forward, the spear clattering down the stairs.

  I got up and climbed down the stairs, my vision swimming. The first mutant was definitely dead, eyes staring at nothing. The second was still breathing, but barely. Blood bubbled from his mouth with each breath, staining his tusks. He looked at me with those too-human eyes, and I saw fear there, and confusion.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing if he could understand. “I’m just trying to survive.”

  He died while I was taking his water skin.

  I sat on the stairs, drinking the brackish water that tasted like rust and sulfur. It was horrible, but it was liquid. The pouches held some kind of dried meat, tough as leather and salty enough to make me gag. But it was calories, and I forced half of it down.

  I felt bad about killing them. They’d been hunting me, yes, but they were just trying to survive in this hellscape, same as me.

  I took both water skins and all the food pouches. Survival guilt was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

  Outside, night was falling as the sick yellow sky faded to a poisonous orange-green. I needed shelter for the night. The building I was in was too exposed, too obvious.

  I found a smaller structure a block away, something that might have been a shop once. The door was gone, but the back room was intact, with only one entrance and no windows. At least it seemed defensible.

  I barricaded the door with debris, then slumped in the corner, the Colt in my lap. In the darkness, I could hear things moving outside, clicking sounds that might have been more mantises. Distant howls that sounded almost like wolves, if wolves had been exposed to centuries of radiation.