12 Kilos...
The Figure
The air is pleasant and warm, not as hot and dry as the wastes, nor wet and cloying like the air of his village as a youth. This is dream weather, perfect beyond reproach. The sky is a brilliant shade of orange dusk that gives way to an old-world highway surrounded by a patchwork of prairie grasses and bushes that seems to stretch all the way to the horizon in either direction. The highway buckles and bulges, its asphalt and concrete composition long ago surrendered and returned to the earth, one change in the seasons at a time.
There’s a figure in the distance, so far back on the road and on a rise that its shape is barely visible. Garrett stops and turns, out at the edge of his sight on the horizon the figure poses no immediate threat but Garrett’s never been one for being followed, not even in his dreams. The figure seems to take its precious time advancing as the faint sun light begins to fade on the horizon and Garrett runs out of patience for waiting.
This is only a dream, not one of his all-encompassing terrors, the figure is of no consequence and can’t possibly catch up with Garrett so long as he continues traveling seemingly ever westward. There is no hunger, no sense of growing tired, no throbbing in his feet or uneasy steps taken while navigating the broken ground of the old world highway. The last rays of the sun finally disappear and the sky begins to reveal a thousand pin holes of distant white light, the air is cooler but no less pleasant as Garrett marches slowly on. Turning to look back now reveals nothing but an empty stretch of broken road that Garrett has already worked hard to navigate away from. No figures, slow or otherwise, but Garrett knows how the world works, you see less at night. Such a distant figure wouldn’t be seen once day gave way to night.
“Is this what they all saw, as I came for them?”
Garrett whispers as he stops long enough to check his pack and take a small sip of water.
So many of them, over a hundred at least, most of the men Garrett got paid to track down knew he was coming. He learned early on it was best to let them gather up their goods and run, that or lead them along, whatever got them away from settlements and out in the open with nowhere to hide. More experience taught him that a smart man alone lays traps when he’s preparing to bed down for a night.
Despite the bar talk and the fiery reputation, Garrett wasn’t brave, or bold, or the best at much of anything, but Garrett knew he could outlast most men. He could go longer without water, without food, even without sleep. His last few months in his village taught him the value of phycological warfare. There was nothing that Garrett could do that took more away from a man on the run than to give him nowhere to go.
Garrett looked around the old road, there wasn’t so much as an outcropping of rock to shelter under or behind, no rusty, crumpled remains of the buildings left by those who drank it all up, not even enough dry material to try and start a fire.
There were two options in the dream, keep walking through the night and be thankful for not feeling hungry and tired, or wait there in the dark, wait for who or whatever was following him to catch up, unless it was smart enough to avoid him until morning.
Suddenly a siren began to blare through the night, at first Garrett thought it might be coming from a large bush to the south but then he walked further up the road and the siren continued until it was obvious the sound was coming from everywhere all at once.