Mac dragged Krav over the sands in a wooden sled. The boy was heavy, and it didn’t help that she had been going for days now. She had stopped a few times to rest, but it was always cut short by the far off cry of a mega vulture or the shifting sands revealing the glowing eyes of a carpet beast.

  Her shoulder felt like it would fall off if she didn’t get a break soon. She looked over her shoulder, hoping against her better judgment that he would wake up and walk on her own. It was an impossibility in his condition. The exposure to Talin the Great’s laser cannon had left half of his body a scorched pink and red. A good chunk of his hair was singed off, and the multiple doses of zerker left him with painfully quick heart palpitations.

  Krav was breathing heavily with ragged breaths. Every so often, he would find himself trapped in hallucinations. Mac could hear him talking to Lenny and Rufus. Sometimes it was to Jackmaw Yapyap. Each time, he would croak out something unintelligible and curse their names.

  It would be a lie to say she wasn’t concerned. Even with all of her herbal knowledge, she didn’t have what she needed to treat him. She ran out of morphine on the first day just to keep him from screaming. Now she was dosing him with a heavy sedative that the Gordo clan used on their most psychotic members to control them. It seemed to be working. It kept him asleep at least.

  The hellish green glow of the twin suns was creeping back over the valley as the true sun retreated for the evening. She was going on the fourth day and she didn’t know if she could keep going. By now, she should have found something.

  The map that supposedly led to the Emerald Expanse had told her that this direction was the right way, but there should have been a hand drawn oasis with “DANGEROUS! KEEP OUT!” written beside it. Looking around, there was nothing for miles. She really wished she knew her easts from her wests right about now.

  There was a hill she decided to hike Krav up. It was close by, and she decided that the high ground was a good defensive position. If there were any carpet beasts or other dangers, she would just have to bite the bullet. But there were no animals atop the hill.

  Instead, there was a hatchway.

  Mac had never seen anything like it before. She immediately dropped the reigns of the sled and jogged over to the entrance. It had five handles like a bulkhead on a ship, but in the state she was in, she couldn’t open it. Her thin arms strained against the handles until sweat caused her to slip off.

  “Stupid! Fucking! Piece of! Shit!” she screamed as she stomped her boot down on it over and over again.

  After a while, she gave up. There wasn’t much left to do but start a fire and wait for the morning. As she sat next to the roaring flames, she watched Krav’s chest rapidly rise and fall. Mac mimicked his movements, trying to see if it was serious or not. Her chest strained after only a few breaths, and she decided it wasn’t healthy.

  As the night went on, she scooted next to Krav and brought his sled closer to the fire. She slept by his side, finally giving in to her exhaustion. Nightmares filled her dreams. Usually, she dreamed of the witches of her past, but tonight, she dreamt of losing her friend.

  Mac woke up multiple times to check on him.

  In the morning, she woke up to the light of the twin suns receding. In a jolt, she turned to Krav, but the boy was right where she left him. Relief flooded her and she collapsed back onto the sand.

  The hatch was bothering her. She watched its dim metal barely gleam in the rising sunlight. The question of treasure and aid hadn’t escaped her, and Mac made up her mind. She would open it, even if it meant ripping her arms off.

  There were plenty of things to use to pry it. She wrapped her flashy clothes around it and pulled until it felt like her shoulders would pop before the hatch did. From her bag, she produced a salve and she used it to grease the threads of the bulkhead. It was what she had been using to treat Krav’s wounds, so when it didn’t work, she kicked at the knobs with an annoyed fury.

  The kick made it budge, even if only a little. She realized a sustained pull on the hatch would be useless. The only way to get it open was to bash it.

  Mac flipped Krav out of his sled. Normally, the boy would give an irate protest, but all he could offer was a weak groan as he turned onto the sand. His cheeks grazed the ground as his heavy breaths sent sand pluming from his mouth.

  The sled was the perfect lever. Mac stood it up against the hatchway and sent a powerful spinning kick into it. The bulkhead budged. An afternoon was spent resetting the sled and kicking it down. Before nightfall, she managed to loosen it to the point that she could turn it with great effort. The gnarled metal bit her hands in spots where the sandy winds had torn away rough edges. With a final turn, the metal screeched, and a cool breeze floated up from the hatchway. It carried with it the smell of rot.

  Mac managed to get Krav down the ladder by giving him a piggyback ride. They descended into an old bunker lost to time. Dust, unsettlingly, was not present on the ladder like it was everywhere else. Dead computer screens stared out at her. There were old cables and rolling desk chairs that had rotted down to their primal parts: exposed copper and sundered pleather. Mac fashioned Krav a bed out of the chairs, and he seemed more receptive to it than the sled.

  After tucking him into the impromptu bed, she searched the bunker and found the source of the smell. A bloated corpse was slumped over in a corner of what appeared to be a schoolhouse with little desks made up in rows. Upon inspection, the corpse wore a golden skull pendant. Mac snapped it off his neck. She had never owned any gold.

  “Neat!” She said, then she pocketed it. The dead Executioner had other things with him too. A box of the zerker drug and plenty of provisions. She checked a few more spots on the corpse. Nasty holes in his arm told her that he was dosing himself down here, probably trying to work up the strength necessary to open the open bulkhead. Mac left the zerker behind, but she took the foodstuffs and medicines.

  After dropping off their new supplies to Krav, she stumbled upon a smaller room. A faded sign next to it claimed it was an infirmary. Mac knew how to read, but she had never read that word before. She was cautious as she snuck inside. The infirmary had better beds than the chairs, but their upolstry had long rotted away to appear more like steel folding tables. A few sinks on one wall still worked, and she filled a few beakers with its contents. The real treasure trove was the locked cabinets.

  Stationed in a closet attached to the infirmary were three large white cabinets. Their white paint had worn down to reveal the splintering wood beneath. Their glass windows showed an array of tinctures and remedies. Her eyes glanced at all their preserved labels. Some expired over a hundred years ago, others were evergreen. If she could get inside and get her hands on it, she could have science projects for the rest of her life.

  Krav’s axe would service her well if she could use it to smash the glass. She was giddy to return to him and find it, but what she found instead was her friend sustaining himself on shallow breaths. Krav’s eyes were open, one half shut from his burns. His dry tongue licked at his chapped lips. The noise his chest made sounded like bubbling water going through a coffee filter. She gave up on her bounty and attended him quickly. After minutes of turning him and letting him cough up his phlegm, he was returned to his back. The Executioner had some good stuff on him, and she used it to stabilize Krav.

  Mac forced him upright to drink the water. When he finally finished his beaker, she found painkillers in the Executioner’s things. She made a salve from some of his cactus leaves and spread it over Krav’s exposed skin that had singed. A steroid shot kept his body lively as it fought to heal itself, but she knew it was all delaying the inevitable.

  Once he had calmed, Mac took the axe to the glass. It crashed through with ease, even damaging some of the drugs within. She was ripping them out and stuffing them into her robes, but most of it was ancient medicines that she didn’t recognize.

  She hoped somewhere in there was a miracle, but there was something even better. Hanging by a chain on the wall was a field manual for the stashed medicine. It had mostly rotted away with the years, but she could make out most of it, and she snatched it on her way back to the boy.

  All night, she used the drugs on Krav like he was a lab rat. Some of the tinctures cleared his chest of phlegm, others relaxed his rigid muscles. There was a salve stashed away that worked better than her herbal remedy, even burning her hands as she applied the harsh chemicals to his wounds. The charred skin turned red, and the red skin turned pink. After a single night, he healed his burn wounds into mottled, pale flesh that covered half his body.

  The only thing she couldn’t find a remedy to was the most concerning. Grey circles were forming around his eyes. She wondered if Krav had been conscious for the past three days. It would be the best explanation. The worst would be that something in Talin’s laser canon had caused a chemical reaction in his body that made him waste.

  Mac tried to rub the circles away. When they wouldn’t leave, she stifled a sob and laid her head on his chest. She enjoyed the boy’s company. It would be a shame for the king of the world to kill him because he was wasting. As she listened to his heartbeat slow and his breathing normalize, she was satisfied with her care. Sleep came quickly.

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  In the bunker, it was hard to tell how much time had passed, but eventually Krav woke up. His body was stiff at first, crunching back to life with some protest. Every move popped a joint somewhere. His legs felt like they were rubber hoses as he slipped off the bed of chairs and held himself upright. Strength slowly returned, and he held the wall for balance as he explored the bunker’s dark passageways.

  There was a noise like clinking glass bouncing off the metal walls. He couldn’t read very well, so all the rooms he passed were marked with squiggling nothings. A glance inside their chambers revealed alien technology from a bygone era. Greenblatt would have absolutely filled his pants, Krav thought.

  The bunker was lit with red emergency lights save for one room, and the clinking noise was coming from within. Krav almost fell over as he stumbled into the doorway, knocking over a rolling cart with empty, degrading boxes on it. The noise caused Mac to jump and drop a beaker of something on the floor with a loud crash.

  “God dammit! This place is spooky enough! Don’t sneak up on me!”

  Krav had a comeback wound up in his throat, but he cast it like an archer with a bow half drawn, then said, “How did we get down here?”

  “I dragged you here for three days! You would have died without me!” She swept aside the broken glass with an angry kick. “And now my work is all crapped up.”

  Krav balanced himself as he wandered over to her. He looked at her mixtures and squinted. “You making something I can eat? I’m starving.”

  “Eat? I’m making something that can save your life! But I could use something to eat too.”

  The day’s work had left her ignorant of her own building hunger. The concoction that had spilled on the floor likely wouldn’t have worked anyways. The stool she was on squealed backwards against the floor and she hopped off of it.

  Back in the computer room, they dug through the dead Executioner’s provisions. It was a wonder how long he must have been down there because it seemed like his pack was still brimming with food. There was a cornucopia of choices: dried jerky strips, potted fruits, and as a last resort, nutritious tree bark. The two made the rationed meat disappear in minutes.

  “So where are we?” Krav asked as he chewed his jerky.

  Mac sucked a finger that she had used to scoop out handfuls of the potted fruit and passed him the map. “I’ve been trying to get us to the Emerald Expanse.” She was pointing to it, and Krav’s eyes widened.

  “The Emerald Expanse? So, the old guy’s map wasn’t bullshit?” He took it, then looked around. “Where is he? What about Greenblatt and Ulrich?”

  “Old guy died once that robot woke up and started shooting lasers. I figured those other two would catch up. Maybe I should make a fire or something up there to signal them?”

  She was pointing up the long metal rungs that led to the surface. Krav cocked an eyebrow and read the map again. To the west lie the Emerald Expanse, according to the map. But to the east, there was a small hatch drawn without a label. “Did the entrance to this place look like this?”

  “Yep,” Mac said proudly. Then she frowned as realization dawned on her. “I knew I should have paid attention when Shi-Toh was teaching everyone how to tell east from west.”

  “Follow the twin suns! They don’t even move!”

  “I thought the twin suns were north.”

  Krav groaned and collapsed into his rolling chair. In reality it was simply a minor setback, perhaps a few days added to their journey. There was no way Jackass Yapyap would reach the Emerald Expanse before him now that he had a map. His biggest concern now was Lenny, but in his feverish state, he remembered his brother attempting to contact him. Call it mumbo jumbo, call it magic, but Krav hadn’t heard his brother’s voice so clearly since Agua Fria.

  That meant he was at least still alive.

  “So how do you think we get Greenblatt and Ulrich back?” he asked. According to the map, the Pit wasn’t far. Now it was on the way to the Emerald Expanse as well.

  Mac shrugged and finished her potted fruit. “No idea. Maybe if they’re lucky they’ll find us. I found a dead guy in the back with one of these. I bet the Pit Lords will come looking for him eventually.” She held out the executioners pendent for Krav to see.

  It was the same as Ulrich’s, Krav realized. That Douglas Grave guy had one too. She could be onto something. If the warlord and the Executioner both stayed with his clan, they would probably find him eventually. The only issue was now they had no more meat.

  “Hey, while we’re here, want to do some more DMD?” Mac asked. She pulled a pair of the glittering mushrooms from her robe and held one out for Krav.

  He had been convinced that waiting for the others to show up was the best course of action, so he shrugged and indulged her. Krav went to grab it, but she shook her head. Instead, she told him to open his mouth and she tossed it in, making it on the first try.

  “So what was it like when you took them?”

  Krav chewed and placed Rufus somewhere comfortable. He didn’t want him complaining and ruining the high. “It wasn’t too bad. I could see all these green people. And I could talk to Rufus.” He patted the skull.

  Mac frowned when she saw that the skull was out. It was enough to give her pause. She didn’t think spending the evening tripping in front of a witch’s undead head was her idea of a good time. Tentatively, she popped the mushroom into her mouth and chewed.

  The effects were quick. They were having quiet small talk like they hadn’t had before. Between their bickering and scheming, they hadn’t actually spent any time learning about each other beyond the base levels. One moment, Krav was telling her about soul guidance, the next, Rufus’s intact head appeared in the corner of his eye.

  The boy’s gaze flicked between his master and his friend. “You… you see him too?”

  To Mac, the question had come out of nowhere. Suddenly, her eyes snapped wide and she refused to look at anything but Krav. “See who?”

  “Rufus,” he nodded towards the skull.

  “Oh… I don’t think I want to see him.”

  “I have that effect on women,” Rufus laughed. It froze Mac’s blood and almost sent her into a drug induced psychosis. When Krav stood and reached for him, the girl snatched his wrist.

  “Wait! I can hear him. Isn’t that enough?”

  Krav laughed at her now. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite. He doesn’t have enough teeth. You really don’t like wasters do you?”

  “There’s a memory in her past. Something that informs her prejudice,” Rufus answered for her. “I can see it in you, girl. It isn’t the kind of reaction I was expecting from a raider.”

  Mac wrung her hands and dared to look at Rufus. The old man was smiling at her, and she sheepishly offered one in return. Then her eyes snapped to the floor in between Rufus and Krav. He wasn’t as scary to behold as most witches.

  "Is it a good story at least?” Krav asked. He was lounging on the rolling chair now, his posture begging it to snap beneath him. “I like good stories.”

  “She doesn’t have to say a thing. There are plenty of things out there that will trouble a young person who isn’t prepared for them. Consider yourself lucky you’re too stupid to be traumatized, boy.”

  “I’ve always been lucky,” Krav said.

  “Would you like to tell your story, miss? The guidance of the soul seldom walks its path backwards, but once you conquer your past, you’ll be able to fully realize your future.”

  Mac was surprised to see Rufus offering her a genuine smile and not the hungry one often worn by witches. It was so warm and welcoming, she considered giving the dismembered head a hug. Then she remembered it was just a black-eyed skull. It was a testament to the power of DMD that it could talk at all. But she rationalized that if it was just a dream, then it wouldn’t remember her story anyways. And as it said, Krav was too stupid to comprehend the horrors of the wasteland anyways.

  The Great Macaw was once a little girl. If she had a name, it was lost to the valley long ago. The settlement she was from had a name as well, but it had changed by the time she was eleven, and she had forgotten what it was originally called. When Jackmaw Yapyap had found her, the place was called Coven’s Haunt.

  Coven’s Haunt was built around a well. A decade before she was born, a caravan came upon a natural water spring, and it became a regular pit stop for explorers as they left Fort Vash and went north towards the unexplored mountains. Soon, someone got the idea to set up shop there, selling provisions to anyone who stopped by the well.

  After the first, it was only a matter of time before more got the same idea. Weapons merchants, meat vendors, and armorers made it a spot that even normal merchant caravans often stopped at. Once they had a tavern and a sheriff, they were considered a township. The only thing they forgot to build was walls.

  Coven’s Haunt was positioned at the bottom of a rocky hill. It seemed like a peaceful area with little predators. Megafauna didn’t stop by regularly, and raiders didn’t dare mess with such a major trading hub.

  The only worry was the slow season. In the winter, travel north was limited by the unpredictability of megafauna migratory patterns, so people often waited for spring. The odd merchant might stop by, but besides that, they were cut off from the outside world for three months of the year.

  When Mac was just a girl, there was a winter that would change her life. She had been the first to spot them, but no one believed the little girl who cries monster. At the edges of the town's torches, she could see the shimmer of blind eyes in the darkness. They always managed to disappear just before the adults came.

  After days of complaining, the sheriff finally decided to take a look after the livestock were found torn to pieces. Everyone guessed it was a carpet beast judging by the description of reflective eyes. The sheriff formed a posse from the men of the settlement and went out to hunt it. Three days later, a merchant came through town and brought with him their tattered remains.

  The weeks that followed were filled with midnight terrors. One evening, while everyone tried to sleep, hellish laughter could be heard at every edge of the town. Another night, the creatures threw stones at the houses.

  The women decided that they were all going to leave as soon as the season was over. As they all met in the center of town, Mac’s mother screamed and pointed up the hill. Vague shapes of humans were high up enough to be unrecognizable, but an entire tribe of witches watched them. Some moved like animals, others danced gracefully. The worst ones just stared and huffed their chests.

  It came to a head one evening. The night had been eerily quiet. A loping figured emerged when the twin suns’ light was the brightest and crawled towards the well. All the women watched as it played with the wheel and tried to get the bucket to rise. Little did they know, that one was a distraction.

  There was a scream from Mac’s neighbor, and immediately her mother’s cries followed. One of the witches had snuck into their house. As they fled, they noticed how coordinated the attack was. All the women of Coven’s Haunt were shrieking and running from their homes as the witches danced and crawled and laughed and screamed after them.

  The slaughter was quick. Mac managed to escape when her mother threw her down the well. For a few days after, the blind eyes would come out at night and stare down at her with their terrible glares. During the daytime, Mac left the confines of her haven and scavenged for food amongst the dead bodies of her neighbors. Then, when the twin suns returned, she jumped back down the well and tried to ignore the witches.

  She had spent months like that until Jackmaw Yapyap got wind that a group of wasters had taken over an entire town. He led his crusading force of the Gordo clan and razed Coven’s Haunt to the ground. Mac was discovered in the ashes and taken as spoils of war. When she had discovered her knack for mixing chemical properties, Shi-Toh had changed her designation from slave to apothecary, and the rest is history.

  When she finished her story, Mac didn’t realize she was crying. Reliving the memory of those days was enough to imagine those eyes all over her again. She saw them peering around the doorways and halls of the bunker now.

  Strangely, she didn’t see those eyes when she looked at Rufus. His head was smiling at her, milky white eyes watching without hunger. Krav was distracted by the wandering spirit of the executioner as it twitched down the hall, so it was just her and the seer alone together.

  “That’s an awful story to recount,” he said. His eyes saddened, but his smile remained steady. “You have a beautiful aura about you, Miss Macaw.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She wiped away a tear with the heel of her hand. “But my friends call me Mac.”