Page 39 of Them

The man slid his backpack beneath the closest car. A convertible, the cloth top long gone to tatters. It sat crooked on partially deflated, comically large whitewall tires. The man dropped to his belly and crawled underneath on his elbows. In one hand, he clutched the radio. In the other, the shotgun.

The car’s underbelly was a claustrophobic nightmare. Sharp bits of metal poked at the back of his head and shoulders. Dirty rainwater trickled down his spine. The darkness was complete and utter.

Out on the road, the cacophonous beast neared. The highway beneath the man began to tremble. A tangle of wires shook loose from the undercarriage and tickled his back. Flakes of rust showered down upon him, and then the entire car shifted on its tires with a wheezing groan, as if the whole machine might collapse and crush him. But he refused to budge. Fleeing now would mean certain death.

That vicious navy blue advanced. He felt spokes and bolts bite into his muscles with their jealous hexagonal teeth, the eyes of tanks and pumps as they asked why he had dared trespass into the Temple of the Dead Machine. He felt the tires begin to squeeze, spinning against him, waiting to grip his head between their treads and pop his skull like an overripe grape. All of it was painted in that luminescent blue. He squeezed his eyes shut—

—and felt something rigid wrap around his leg.

He was yanked out from beneath the car, the undercarriage’s bolts and rivets tearing through his shirt, gouging his flesh, the coarse pavement stripping skin from his nose and cheeks. Like an immense whirlpool, the ocean glow surrounded him, inundating his senses with that oppressive alien light. An eldritch typhoon arriving on a whim, come to blow all the helpless asunder.

The man’s fingers snagged the strap of his backpack as he was wrenched out from beneath the vehicle, his belly skidding. A molten metal python constricted around his leg. It burned. One hand held tight to the shotgun; the other to the pack. He refused to let go of either. The radio was still slung over his shoulder, violently bouncing up and down. The asphalt ripped skin from wrist to elbow as he kicked his legs, squirming in his captor’s grip, before finally managing to flip himself over.

Towering above the man was a living natural disaster. The three steel legs were each over a story tall yet floated beneath the stars as if gravity was but a nuisance. Its stinger, the one that held him now, was as long as an SUV. Even at the tapering tail’s most narrow point, it was nearly as thick as the man’s thigh.

Despite his struggles, the Scorpion paid the man little mind. The obelisk legs rotated with smooth, choreographed thrusts, but the head and the torso remained eerily in place. It didn’t even bother to look at him, those six blue eyes focusing on the road ahead. But that didn’t matter. The man could recognize their shine. It was the Nightwalker, same as last night. He was sure of it.

The man scooted up onto his rear as best as he could, increasing the pressure on his imprisoned leg in the process. He looped the backpack around his chest and lifted the shotgun.

If I die here, then I got those folks back in the cornfield killed for nothing. It was the ugly truth and he knew it. Killed a man back in Florida and stole his bunker and for what? The butt of the weapon found his shoulder. He pumped and aimed—

Still, the beast didn’t turn to face him. Was it protecting its eyes? Did it know he had a gun? What a gun even was? The man called out, “Hey! You! Hey, you fucking tripod freak!” but the insomniac did not respond to his taunts. The predator just kept dragging him farther down the road, in the direction from which he’d first come, past the black van parked on the double yellow lines, past the wreckage of the other vehicles…

He kicked at its stinger with his free leg, stomped it with the barrel of the shotgun, and even groped for loose chunks of pavement to hurl at the back of the creature’s head.

The Scorpion acknowledged none of these attacks, not even when a baseball-sized rock struck it on the base of its skull. There was a loud clang! as the rock fell harmlessly to the ground. Even now, on the verge of death, the man felt insulted. The damned beast couldn’t even be bothered to appear annoyed. The Nightwalker merely looked preoccupied as it glided over the asphalt, like a vast eagle deep in thought as it soared in the moonlight. Which left the man to be the mouse clutched in its talons, watching helplessly as the ground fell farther away, waiting for the claws to crunch down on his spine.

He imagined his captor so agitated, so riled with anxiety and frustration, that it couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t help but get up and go hunting in the middle of the night. Did they already take all this for granted… this world that they’d stolen from him? From everyone? The world humanity had fought so hard to hold on to? No. Wait. Not him. All he ever did was cower and hide. At least the dead had risked something, humans and Scorpions alike.

But not him. What did he have to show for his time in the apocalypse, save for his own futile life?

He pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The metal pellets ricocheted off the back of the Scorpion’s head in a flurry of sparks. The creature didn’t even flinch.

The man’s heart sank. Christ, does it even realize I’m fighting back?

His answer came as the long tail twitched like the snap of a whip, flicking him high into the air and then slamming him back down again. The impact jolted his spine and sucked the wind from his lungs. He wheezed, rolling onto his side, clutching the shotgun to his chest. Am I gonna die how I lived?

The Scorpion still did not deign to look down at him. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m no more than simple cargo… a meal to be transported from one place to another. That’s what you really think of us, Nightwalker.

He closed his eyes and considered never opening them again. Head bumping against the pavement, the man could only wait for the end. Didn’t stand a chance. Wasn’t strong enough. He never had been, truth be told. Even as a child, when the world was right and regular, he’d recognized himself as an unimpressive creature, pouty and futile. Endowed with neither size nor speed nor smarts nor sheer ability, success in school and sports only came in the pursuit of spiting himself. Nothing had changed since then. No matter how many times he resolved to make it to the Chesapeake and find Her, regardless of whether he heard L.B. or the goddamn president on the radio, even if there was a chance his mother was still alive and he was on his way to New York City right now… it was all to punish himself. The final man’s repentance. A self-flagellant wandering the wasteland. That was all he was good for.

You’re wrong, baby. Mom’s voice in his brain again. The man thought his life was beginning to flash before his eyes as the vivid image of his childhood bedroom formed… but then lingered. Mom sat right by his side, still dressed in her scrubs. Came home from work early one Sunday afternoon and heard him crying in his room. Saw him slapping, punching himself in the face. Seventh grade.

There are too many wonderful things about you, Timmy. Don’t give up on them.

Don’t give up.

Don’t. Give. Up.

The man’s eyelids flew open, the hazel irises within aflame. He jerked his upper body upright, sweat and blood misting the air around him. Heart electrified, he scanned the hideous chimera awash in its own unearthly light, and searched for anything that could save him. If his hunch was correct and the Nightwalker called that farm pond home, it would soon turn off the main road and they’d be just minutes away. He didn’t have much time. Doesn’t matter if I’m as insignificant as a mosquito. Use it. His eyes traced its plate-mail tail and lumbering talons, and then…

There!

Where the armored stinger and jointed legs adjoined the central stalk. The armor plates there were… shifting. Faint blue meat shimmered between the narrow gaps. An inner layer.