Chapter 20: Not Dark Yet, Pt. 2

Lily dubbed the mechanical beast a Crawler.

The horror of the thing had translated into humor aboveground; either a coping mechanism or the rush of staring the unthinkable in the face and surviving. Either way, the nickname made Michael smile. He did that more often now, mostly when he thought she wasn’t looking.

By day they followed the road in comfortable silence, and in the evenings they sat by their small fire and talked about things that didn't matter.

Lily felt like the fresh skin that formed under a scab; not healed yet, but new. It was the relief of lowering a heavy burden, finally, to the ground. Maybe it was happiness. She didn’t have much to compare it to.

A handful of days after the base, they stopped to rest in a mossy little clearing. Soft rain misted the branches above their heads.

Lily massaged her leg with a groan. "I thought we would've found people by now, but the woods are just getting deeper. You ever seen anything like this before? All these trees?”

Michael handed her a canteen. “Maybe.”

She eyed him sideways. "I think I'll eat my boots for dinner."

“Mm.” He was reorganizing his already meticulous gear.

"And then I'll twist off my head and kick it around.”

Michael looked up. He frowned.

"What's wrong with you,” Lily demanded.

He considered his things for a long, infuriating moment and then said, quietly, “We must be getting close. I know we’ll go our separate ways when we arrive, but I thought…”

"What," Lily snapped. "You thought what."

Michael shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

"Fine." She peeled a long strip of moss off the boulder and threw it. She wanted to throw the whole ugly thing. "I thought we’d stay together. We don't have to, I don't care. But it would make sense.”

He was looking at her now. She didn’t want him to, not like that. “If that’s what you—”

He was interrupted by a distant crack and the clattering departure of a flock of blackbirds. The sound of groaning wood followed. Then a second snap.

The ground trembled. Lily was already up, rifle at the ready. "Was that a tree?"

A deep bass thrumming reverberated in her bones, horrible and familiar.

Michael picked up the grenade launcher, ignoring everything they’d already unpacked. “Can you run?”

No. And they both knew it. Lily sucked in a sharp breath and said, “Yes.”

It was no good. She knew right away. Every time her left heel hit the ground a lightning bolt of pain splintered through the bones, bringing her up short.

She grit her teeth and focused instead on the terror, the world-ending noise, Michael, jogging beside her, matching her stupid, pitiful pace.

As they careened out of the trees and into a muddy clearing Lily slowed to a humiliating hobble, teeth bared. The ground shook. Another tree snapped in half and the trumpeting warning call split the air.

Michael made it a few more steps before he realized she wasn’t with him and turned back.

“I can’t,” she panted.

The instant of panic that slid across Michael’s face scared her more than the Crawler did.

“We’ll stop it here, then,” he said, all calm again.

The clearing was a good spot. A few old concrete buildings with intact roofs, plenty of brush all around – they’d have a good vantage point, even an escape route. If she could run.

Lily tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Weapons?”

“One left.” He smacked the side of the grenade launcher. “Handgun, nine rounds. You?”

“Rifle, two magazines, and a grenade.” Lily stuffed the available ammo into her coat pockets for easy access.

When the next tree fell, the ones on the edges of the clearing trembled.

“Maybe it won’t see us,” Michael said, helping her over to the nearest building.. “If it does, I’ll fire first.”

He gave her a boost, and she grabbed the end of a rusted ladder and hauled herself up onto the roof. Then he disappeared behind a neighboring structure.

Lily lay on her belly, testing the optics on her rifle, checking the magazine and safety. The wet from the damp concrete seeped through her clothes.

She should’ve said something. ‘Keep your head down’, maybe, or ‘be careful’. She should’ve made him come up there with her.

The Crawler plodded methodically out of the trees.

Moss covered its rust-speckled metal body. Its legs were double-jointed and razor-edged, and a pair of machine guns were mounted below the glowing red cluster of its optics.

It let out another blast of noise and air as a faint beam of green light streamed from the optic sensors, sweeping the clearing, scanning their footprints in the mud, the structures, the trees.

The sloping head swiveled, hanging machine guns following the light. Lily smelled ozone and hot metal. She kept its optic sensors in her sights, blinking rain out of her eyes while the Crawler’s light panned over buildings and bushes.

The beam passed over her hiding place. She held her breath and didn’t move so much as a finger, waiting for it to pass.

For a moment she was bathed in green.

Then the siren blared and the light turned red, and Lily heard the barrels of the machine gun begin to whir.

Before she could translate thought to action, the Crawler’s head snapped around, guns targeting the projectile streaking towards it.

The explosion knocked it sideways. It staggered but kept its feet, already returning fire. Lily scrambled back into position and picked off one of the glowing eyes through sheer luck.

Smoke streamed off the Crawler’s charred back. The armored plating was dented, but otherwise it was unaffected.

A hail of machine gun fire strafed the ruins where Michael had taken cover, and Lily tried to stay calm as she squeezed the trigger – her first shot ricocheted off its head but the second took out a cluster of eyes.

The Crawler turned back to her, guns swiveling away to maintain fire on Michael’s position as the plates on its back shifted and opened.

A long black barrel rose up, clicking as it tilted forward. For a heart-stopping moment Lily stared into the glowing sensors as thick smoke poured from the new weapon.

Then she threw herself off the roof.

Flames the garish red of fresh blood chewed through the ancient concrete like paper. Thick smoke cycloned into the grey sky, and when the roof collapsed the fire followed it down with a roar.

Shit. Shit.

She had less than sixty rounds. Michael had a handgun. This wasn’t a winnable fight, it wasn’t even survivable—

Her fingers brushed the grenade in her pocket.

The Crawler had returned its attention to Michael now, the flamethrower on its back dribbling liquid fire. Maybe the port it had risen from was open. If her aim was good, if she didn’t miss…

Lily’s useless leg dragged in the soupy mud. It hadn’t seen her yet. Michael better have the sense to stay put and stay down. The machine guns ceased firing with a soft whir, smoking barrels dipping towards the ground as she readied her throw –

The Crawler spun to face her, spraying mud, siren blaring and guns spinning back up, so close she could smell hot metal.

She froze, and through the ringing in her head she saw the cherry-red barrel of the flamethrower tip towards her on its jointed swivel, belching smoke.

What followed was not a rush of flame but the pop of small-arms fire. The flamethrower swiveled, spewing flame in a broad arc, and the firing stopped.

No.

Lily hurled the grenade, not even waiting for the explosion before bringing her rifle up, screaming, watching the little red lights blink out as she squeezed the trigger.

Legs thrashed as Lily ducked low beneath the machine’s heaving belly, spraying bullets upwards. It drove itself down, trying to crush her, but she rolled out between the convulsing legs, firing again, aiming for crevices in its armor. A sound of screeching metal sliced through the siren blasts.

Red. The whole world was red.

The empty magazine dropped from her rifle and she replaced it without thinking, firing again, screaming wordlessly until the Crawler turned towards her.

Lily tracked the flamethrower, watching as it began to smoke. As it creaked down towards her.

Her bullet hit the joint in the middle and it buckled, crashing back down into the Crawler barrel-first as the first jet of flame was discharged.

The stream cut through the Crawler’s underbelly in an instant, charred metal glowing white-orange and stretching like taffy between its thrashing legs as it split down the middle, heaving itself apart in a spasmodic dance.

Lily watched until the convulsing stopped and the deep-toned bellowing died away.

She limped over to the burning hulk as its own flames devoured it from the inside, and emptied the rest of her magazine into it until the last red light flickered out.

“No,” she whispered. It was a stranger’s voice, cracked and hoarse. “No.”