Deadland

I spat the acrid taste of Deadland dust and sour sweat from my mouth. Pausing, I wound my torn muslin scarf over my nose and mouth. Deadland dust was finer than silt, finding its way into crevices you didn’t know you had...until you did. It was the burn that let you know that you and the dust no longer had secrets from each other. And if you didn’t hurry, you would soon have no secrets at all.

I grimaced, squinting at the sun overhead; guessing it was only hours before noon. Sweltering vertical bands of steam were already rising in sheets off the Deadland Expanse. I shuddered, my hand instinctively clutching my left arm as I remembered the last time I’d stayed out too long. Keep it together, Nema. I would have to find shelter and soon. I continued walking.

All that remained after skyrocketing temperatures ignited carbon-based fuels, spreading quickly to carbon-based refuse and triggering out of control blazes around the globe. Over half the world’s population lost their lives with millions more perishing in futile efforts to ring the raging fires under control, both on land and sea. How many millions had since perished from the ravages of famine, exposure, disease, and thirst...there was no way to know.

Mom had been so excited flying out to visit me for parents weekend. Then, the temperatures suddenly spiked… I winced at the memory. Every plane, in the air and on the ground, lit up like a gory 4th of July before strafing horrified onlookers with flaming metallic shrapnel.

My eyes burned with tears that could not come, and I bit back the lump in my throat as I walked on, careful to keep the sun at my back. The Deadland Expanse was a vast open wasteland, everything charred or burned to dust, except heaps of what scavengers had tried to haul as the fires began to cool. It was dangerous to cross, even when temperatures dropped to freezing at night, but on the other side, it was said there was water.

I moved quickly between charred heaps as the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky. I could just make out the dim outline of cliff shards when, in the distance, I heard it: a swaying, creaking sound which rose like the turning of rusty hinges. It was followed by a groaning and an enormous crash, plunging the Expanse back into silence. Minutes passed. Then, a faint hiss began to swell. My heart raced as adrenaline poured into my veins. Frantically, I scanned the horizon for somewhere, anywhere, stable enough to climb.

A nearby heap looked solid at its base, growing in cubes rather than treacherous angles and curves. Racing to it, I flew up the nearest side on airless wings, scarcely noticing how the heap pitched and yawed under my feet. When I reached the top, I realized the heap rested atop some sort of burned out vehicle, piled high with dust-crusted boxes, long since abandoned by foolish looters. I moved the heavy boxes as best I could to create a pit in the center of the heap, lowering myself into it just in time.

It moved slowly, fluidly, like a living thing as it rippled closer, coiling around the heaps, overwhelming anything in its path: a silt tsunami. It was thick, dense, and deadly. I felt the ground hum as it drew near, and the heap began to tremble. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, burying my face in my scarf as I forced my mind to focus. Jared and Molly. Maybe, they were still alive, hoping for me, waiting for me. If they were, I had to find them. My breathing slowed, and the heap stilled. There was nothing to be done but wait out the storm.

When the wave passed and the dust finally settled, it was past noon and too late to find shelter. Sheets of white hot steam were rippling across the Expanse, breaking on the heaps, singing them as they passed. Now, I would have to wait until the sun dropped down in the seared sky to make my way to water.

The velcro of my tongue peeled away from the roof of my mouth as I searched the horizon yet again. I rubbed my eyes against the glaring sun and squinted as I shaded my face. Something...East by Northeast? There it was again, high above the wasteland atop a lone cliff shard, jutting into the Deadland Expanse. The unmistakable bouncing of sunlight on...water.

Burning hours passed, drawing impossible sweat beads from my long-leathered skin. Perhaps some bit of moisture had gathered in the boxes that surrounded me. I ripped one open, nothing but the melted screens of electronics that hadn’t had anything to connect to in more than a year. I heaved it aside with a scornful glare. Then another and another, until exhausted, I sank back into my pit. There would be no water here. My gaze rested once again on the distant cliff shard just before I lost consciousness.

I came to, not to a coolness, but merely a lesser heat. The sun was halfway down to the horizon. I would have to hurry if I hoped to climb the cliff shard before nightfall.

Working my way down from the heap amidst a cascade of tumbling boxes, I hit the ground with a dull thud. Quickly on my feet, I hurried across the last stretch of the Expanse, reaching the foot of the towering cliff shared, just as the sun was kissing its top. Descending light sent sunbeams splashing in all directions from its summit. So close!

Finding footholds, I grasped at the shard’s rocky ledges and began to climb. The rock was treacherous, and I lost count of how many times I nearly plunged to my death as I inched closer and closer, motivated by the promise of water. Cliff shards are notoriously treacherous, but I hadn’t tasted water in over two days. I could hardly breathe, and it hurt to swallow.

If there had been even the ghost of a chance that anyone was around to see me, I might have felt ridiculous. It was a pitiful picture: a long-chaw-of-jerky kind of girl with shaved head and shriveled breasts, clinging like a scrawny lizard to bare rock. But there was no one.

At last, I reached the top of the cliff shared and dragged myself over its edge. I feel down on my back, gasping ragged breaths across parchment lungs. After several long minutes, I rolled to one side. The shard top was littered with huge chunks of airplane shrapnel which cast long, deep shadows as the sun began to set. I sat up. Where are the glinting beams of sunlight? Where is the water? No sweet rippling sound of flowing stream or babbling brook answered.

Wide-eyed, I stumbled and crawled across the shard, until at last, scattered sunshine caught my eye. I rushed on, thoughtless, senseless. Rounding a large fuselage, I stopped short. The bones of a young girl, bleached white by the sun, lay thrown with scraps of her dress and scorched hair along the shard’s far precipice. Still clasped in the fingers of her outstretched hand was a golden locket, heart-shaped, glinting brightly as it twisted in the wasteland winds.

Nema sank to her knees as the sun slipped below the horizon, bathing the Deadlands in the frigid darkness.