The Burnt World: Part One (Original Short)

The sun was all but blinding. Without sunglasses or some sort of eye protection, one would be rendered blind in minutes. He sat at the edge of the now destroyed compound that housed him in his slumber for years and years. It was confusing. He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, how long the world had been like this. But it worried him. A lot. From the last readable piece of written parchment that he came across he only could guess it had been centuries.

The wind was harsh and moved fast, unaffected by the little pieces of civilization that poked above the dirt floor. What could only be four-lane highways were now littered with rusted and empty cars, their occupants bleached bones or worse. His eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of humanity, any proof of life that might be able to help him piece together this mad world. Then he saw it: A smeared inkblot on the white skyline. Smoke. He wrapped the scarf he'd scavenged from inside the compound around his mouth and set his destination.

The building he was in was barely rubble now, but had probably been the earmark of an architect many a year ago. The world was a desert now and it was unforgiving. The sand had laid claim to all, the living and the stone monuments they had built. His walk was a steady pace and he took the time to drink in what his world had become. Where he imagined skyscrapers and blue glass were only broken stones and blackened skies. Every mile he walked he could feel hope slipping away, feel life abandoning him and never turning back. He steeled his resolve and kept forward, night falling and stealing away the sun’s harsh rays and replacing them with dark purple clouds filled with blue lightning that never struck.

He'd slept for too long. It was time for action. Time to get answers. Creatures he no longer recognized howled and screamed their cries just out of his sight, once finding something to eat. They ravaged the panicked animal and brayed joyfully. He stayed his course, worried only about being unarmed. He'd have to change that soon, if he could. The barely intact skeletons of cars rarely held anything worth taking, except once he found a military backpack. It had one or two useful things in it, things designed to be all but indestructible: matches and a foil solar blanket made as well as a bottle to carry water in, though long since emptied. And the pack, itself, of course.

He hoisted the empty carrier and kept going, the bones of a small town not too far in the distance. It was hours and dawn came quickly, bringing back the beating sun, but driving back whatever was in the dark devouring other creatures. He was grateful, but hungry, and wondered how hard it would have been to have taken down one of the beasts. Then he figured it was hard enough that he couldn't do it unarmed.

Sand and rocks crunched under his boots as he entered the dead town. The sand and wind had worn down the buildings to nubs and smoothed the wrought iron to a polished finish. No glass remained and the one or two doorways still standing were hollow. He kept moving, hoping that he could spot something to eat, or some water to drink, but there seemed to be nothing in sight. Then like a tomb it appeared a street over: an intact building. He thought long, deep and hard about the dangers that could possibly be lurking in the shadows of the one-story building. The idea of shelter and maybe food won over the scary thoughts of monsters and creatures waiting with teeth bared.

On his walk over, he stopped and picked out an arms length of rebar and made sure it was steady, swinging it around to get used to the weight. The small concrete shelter was near; he took a deep breath and sighed it out. The rickety door barely clung to the rusted hinges and swayed slightly in the breeze. He tried to listen for movement inside, but the wind made it impossible. His shaded eyes couldn't see clearly into the shadows with the sunglasses he wore. He approached the door and tried pushing it open with the bar, but it wouldn't budge. He fought with the possibility of a trap and decided shelter was worth it.

With another sigh of resolve, he kicked the door open. The cacophony drowned out the sound of the tripwire, the pulley, and the weight dropping. Wire coiled itself around his ankle and gripped tight. It pulled fast, so fast he couldn't react, and only had a split second to hear the sound of his head hitting heavy on the concrete below. Blackness took over.

Coming awake was painful. The back of his head hurt, the ankle that the cable had wrapped itself around stung, and his eyes were still adjusting to the low, amber light. Voices came through the fog that hung heavy on his senses. “What are we gonna do with him?” “What do you think?” “We’s gonna eat ‘im!” There were three of them. He was hoping for one, but luck didn’t think that would have been fair.

He wasn’t upside down anymore. He was tied to a pillar, another wire around his wrists, his back against the concrete and his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes finally adjusted and he found himself in a dark cellar, probably underneath the one-story building. The walls were concrete like the single pillar in the middle of the room, giving nothing away and nothing to get himself loose with.

He twisted his hands in the makeshift wire shackles and hoped that they would creak or bend, telling him that the metal was old and rusty. WIth a little effort the wire did just what he hoped and popped a few strands. He smiled to himself; he had not planned on becoming someone’s meal. If he could work his way out of this, even if it cost him a few layers of skin, he would do it and get out. Above his head the floor creaked with motion from above and he knew he had little time. He gritted his teeth and began to twist his wrists.

The pain was slow to come, but it came. First it burned, then it grated like sandpaper on raw skin, but he kept at it. Working his hands back and forth in the wire restraints, he felt one fiber after another give way. Each second he was at it was another second of pain that was building toward searing. He kept his eyes up, searching the room for something to distract him from the growing agony, searching for a hatch or a trap door leading upward. He couldn’t see one, so he assumed it was behind him. Another pop, another level of pain. Now the snapped wires were biting into already sensitive flesh. Beads of sweat ran down his brow, his cheeks, and the back of his neck, making his brown t-shirt stick to his skin.

It was only a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity, that he was able to slip his wrists out and comfort them in the low light. He turned to see where it was coming from and his suspicions were correct: A badly built trapdoor at the corner of the small room was letting light through the planks and illuminating his temporary dungeon. The skin on his wrists was broken, but he couldn’t pay too much attention to that right now. The floor creaked and moaned as one of the denizens upstairs began to walk to the wooden planks held together with nails and such to imprison their meal. He had to think fast, so he stayed seated and put his hands behind the pole again and hung his head. Not a second later, the hatch was pulled open.

A ladder was thrown down and heavy feet carrying a heavy load thumped onto the dirt covered concrete floor behind him. Slowly the the footsteps made their way to the front of him. The man before him could, at one point, be considered human. Now he only bears the slightest of resemblances. The skin that was pulled taught over warped muscles was brown and leathery, hair was no longer covering, it came in blotches all over. Teeth were gaped apart, lips peeled back and split in some places, dark from recent openings. The man’s body was a practice in inhuman, gnarled and warped limbs clung to a frame that was human only in the most basic sense.

The man on the floor could feel rotted breath coming down him as the creature that was barely human inspected him. It was now or never. The man on the floor opened his eyes and tucked his leg back underneath himself, his captor barely had enough time to draw a gasp by the time his leg was kicked out from underneath him, the knee breaking with a muffled ‘crack’. The hostage wasted no time and pounced, letting his fists come down on the side of the face on the floor three, four, five times, making his captors breathing ragged. Then with slow and practiced precision the aggressor reached under the barely breathing head on the floor beneath him and wrapped his fingers together, pulling up, against the natural curve of the spine. Quiet grunts of effort escaped as quick, panicked pants came from the man on the floor. He pulled harder, things popping and giving way to the pressure, causing flailing arms to kick up dust around them. With a final, vicious ‘Pop’ the body beneath went limp. The captive pulled once more, making sure, letting out a long breath, trying to get the adrenaline out of his body so he could think clearer. He let the head thunk to the floor, watching as thick, dark blood seeped from orifices and began to pool beneath.

A voice came from above, the same thick accent as before, “Where’s the food, boy? We’re gettin’ hungry!” Mismatched footsteps that gave away a limp, more than likely from deformities, made their way to the hole in the ceiling above. For the first time the prisoner took into account what he had on: His dark brown cargo pants that he had pulled off a dead soldier, long rotted and gone, and the same colored tee shirt, his socks and boots were gone.

The thing above him dropped to its knees at the hole at the same time the captive decided to make a move: He got to his bare feet, ran the three steps and used the bottom rung of the ladder to launch himself upwards, his hands meeting the grotesque head that was now peering down. With all the strength he could muster he grabbed and twisted his body and the head in his hands with it. A sickening crack echoed through the air. Both bodies, one standing, the other slumped in a heap fell to the floor at the same time. He found his boots and socks.

After lacing up his reacquired boots he stayed down, listening for more footsteps or voices. None came. With all his muscles he made quick work of the ladder and hopped up and into the house he suspected he’d been captured in. Orange light from candles placed here and there upon old, broken furniture and fixtures lit a dusty room, it seemed like a basement. Three corners of the room were all but bare and one was more than gruesome. He stared for a moment.

Chains hung from the ceiling above the small corner, hooks up and down them, each with body parts that were easily identifiable as human. The world was new and harsh. People survived however they could. He heard the movement before he felt the impact. The piece of wood he was just struck with splintered into a thousand pieces, he moved with the momentum and rolled across the floor, finding his feet again, before another strike came.

“Ya killed ma’ kin! Ya bastard!” The escapee faced the biggest of the three monstrosities. Well over a foot taller than him, twice as wide, melted skin here and there, warts speckled throughout, one eye looked like it had fallen from place and found a new one in it’s cheek, lips that were cracked with thirst and twisted to expose yellowed and rotted teeth. “I’m the last of ma’ clan, now! Who are ya?” The monstrosity stopped just out of arm’s reach.

The man that was crouched down, staring up at the mutated thing, thought for a moment, then spoke, “My name is Job.” The entire basement echoed with a scream as the thing brought down another strike, but missed, as Job dodged easily. Legs that weren’t twisted kicked out the legs that were. Job pounced, raining down punch after punch upon the warped head of his captor. With a roar the man threw him off, Job rolled again. This time his hand landed on a blade that was covered in dirt on the floor next to him.

He gripped the handle and made quick work, pushing all his muscles to exertion. There was one more scream in the basement. Job stared at the new morning, the new world, everything in it, through sunglasses. His pack now had bottles of water, a couple of cans, and now he had more than a few knives. Someone had to know how the world ended up like this. He intended to find his answers.