Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) by Kyle West Page A

it would hit us. Living underground, I had never
seen lightning. I didn’t expect it to be so blinding and
terrifying.
    We ate a quick meal – the last of the rice
bread, and some water – and went to sleep along the western
wall.
    Well, Makara went to sleep. It was much
harder for me. The lightning and the storm were too much. Besides
the occasional flash of lightning, the house was cold and pitch
black. I watched Makara’s form, wondering how she could sleep
through it.
    Outside the wind roared, and the temperature
dropped until my breath clouded the dry air. All I wanted was to be
warm. The wind seeped through the cracks, and I could feel the dust
settling on my face, getting in my mouth. My hands and feet were
numb. Makara’s breathing remained regular with sleep.
    “Makara?”
    She didn’t hear me. I got up and began pacing
the house. I was tired, sore, and cold – and, as always, hungry and
thirsty. I wanted nothing more than to be back underground, where
it was warm, where it was safe, and where there was always food. I
would have killed for a hot shower.
    I lay down again. If I’d had the guts, I
would have woken Makara up and asked to share our blankets.
    Finally, I began drifting off. I was on the
edge of dreams when a guttural scream shook the entire frame of the
house, jolting me awake.
    Makara’s eyes opened and she shot up from
where she had been lying. She reached for her gun and held it
close. She looked at me and held a finger to her mouth.
    “Don’t move,” she whispered.
    I heard something big scratching on
the ground outside. It was barely discernible above the roar of the
wind. I heard what I thought were heavy breaths. I hoped it was
only the wind.
    “It’s one of them ,” she
said.
    I knew instantly what she was talking about.
It wasn’t a Raider, or a slaver. It was one of these monsters
Makara spoke of.
    “ Here ?” I asked.
    As we lay quiet in the house, my heart
pounded. I hoped that if I breathed softly, if I didn’t move, this thing would go away. The storm raged on outside. We waited
for what seemed an hour.
    We didn’t hear from it again.
    “It’s gone,” Makara said.
    “What could be that big?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” Makara said. “That virus can
do weird things – make animals much bigger than they were meant to
be. We must be near a Blight. Now go to sleep.”
    I lay down, and closed my eyes. I didn’t know
how I could sleep with what she just told me. Yet despite
that scare, I found myself soon drifting off.
     
***
     
    The next morning, we woke late. The storm was
over. Still, Makara told me to stay inside while she went to check
things out.
    A minute later, she came back in.
    “There’s nothing out there,” she said. “We
lost a lot of time yesterday, but we still might make Oasis by
sundown if we hurry.”
    We left the house, and traveled all day
without seeing another soul. It felt lonesome out in the Wasteland,
but given what I’d seen of people out here, I guess that was a good
thing.
    We avoided the road and struck northeast,
through the desert.
    “Aren’t there supposed to be cities around
here?”
    “Yeah, Oasis. Twenty miles.”
    “No. I mean, it’s only been thirty years
since Meteor, right? You’d think there’d be more buildings
around.”
    “This area was pretty bare even before
that.”
    “Still…”
    “We’re somewhere north of a city that was
called Yucca. There are still signs of it, in some places. You can
see buildings, half-buried in the dirt.”
    The day was warmer than yesterday, and the
clouds were not as thick. They were still red – always red. And of
course, there was not a trace of vegetation on the ground.
    It seemed to be getting worse the farther we
headed north. Dunes rose from the earth, making me feel as if I was
traversing a cold Sahara rather than Southern California. It was
tough to climb them. Just seeing those dunes made me feel thirstier
and more tired than I already was. We were rationing our