Which had led to a new kind of lawlessness not seen since the Old West. And a failure of government and utilities. Food and water were scarce, gas and electricity even more so. And there was no help coming.
The Abandoned Lands.
Hugh couldn’t shake the name from his thoughts. It fit too well. So well, it made him wonder if he oughtn’t to have packed up and left long ago as well.
The trap inside the washing machine was empty for what Hugh thought was maybe only the second time ever. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. It was tougher to reach, but then, the little bastards seemed to eventually get everywhere.
When he finished his rounds, the bucket was full. Tails, tiny-clawed feet, and sharp snouts stuck up above the rim, and he couldn’t help but smell the stench now. He would have gagged, but he’d almost gotten used to it over the last couple of months, since the ankle-biters had finally taken down his dog, Junker, and started roaming the junkyard at will.
One of the little monsters was easy enough to deal with. Hugh could stomp a loner down with his boot if it didn’t move fast enough, and Junker had easily chased them off in ones and twos for nearly two years. Five or six of them, though, became a problem, as they were fearless in a pack. As near as he could tell it had taken over a dozen of them to take down Junker, who, judging by the body parts Hugh had found, had taken at least seven of them with him.
The idea of getting another dog had only briefly passed through Hugh’s mind. For starters, he didn’t know if there were any dogs within a three-hundred-mile radius anymore, and, even if there were, he didn’t think it would be fair to put another dog in that position. Not to mention the occasional ruined rattrap didn’t tear Hugh’s heart out the same way. The place had gotten awfully quiet and lonely after that, though.
Hugh reached the back end of the junkyard where the twelve-foot-high chain link fence sat atop a low ridge. His grandfather had always figured the drop-off was the hundred-year high-water line. Just inside the fence was a series of walls made up of stacks of crushed cars, extending a hundred yards in each direction. Hugh climbed a series of short wooden ramps leading up the piles of junked cars. Some cars were crushed into cubes, others pressed flat. A few had just been placed on top because his father had dreams of restoring them or thought they might be worth something someday.
Moving progressively higher until he was twenty feet up, Hugh walked to the edge and looked out over the fence. Across the dusty valley he could see the thin, winding line of trees following the near-dead river almost a mile away.
The rising sun was just hitting the low-lying trees, and the greenery was bright against the gray prairie. Hugh used to love this view, used to love to get out here first thing in the morning and sneak a cigarette and watch the sunrise before everyone else was up. He’d done it countless times as a boy, and then later, after he’d been caught and deemed old enough, with his father. But there were no more cigarettes now, no more father, and no more anyone else.
But there was the stench.
He swung the bucket out, tossing the contents over the fence, where they fell, slapping, and bouncing into the growing pile of rotting things below, startling other little nippers cannibalizing from the pile. At least eight of them, he thought. It was hard to tell. They were quick, darting into the shadows and blending in well. At least one squirmed its way deep into the pile of bodies like some kind of snake, disappearing impossibly fast, and Hugh wondered if they used those little toothpick-arms to pull themselves along somehow. That might explain where all the prairie dogs had gone.
The smell, already wafting up from the pile as the day warmed, would become a wall of stink, rising up like a tsunami when the heat of midday hit it, washing away the normal junkyard smells of old oil, rubber, and steel. Hugh needed to fire up the tractor and dig a hole and bury the mess again. He’d already done it four times since he’d lost Junker, moving the hole farther away from the junkyard each time as, even buried, it still seemed to attract more of the little demons.
But the more of them there were at the pile, the fewer there were in the junkyard.
He looked back out to the greenbelt in the distance, trying to find even half a moment of solace, of what had once been. But it wasn’t there.
Maybe he should leave. Maybe he, too, should abandon the Abandoned Lands.
After a moment, he spotted something moving slowly in the distant brush and trees. At first Hugh thought it was a man with a giant backpack, but he’d stood in those bushes, and they were head-high on a man. They were only waist-high on the dark figure slowly stalking through.
Hugh squinted, trying to see better. He’d heard stories and seen photos of all kinds of monsters in the last couple of years, but, other than the pre-historic demon-rats, he’d only ever seen a few small, not-a-triceratops things and a wooly mammoth move through here. Everything else he’d ever laid eyes on had been already captured or killed and brought into town when he was there getting supplies.
This didn’t look like any of them.
Twice as tall as a man, he was guessing, and maybe on two legs. But he couldn’t make out a head or tail as it moved through the trees and thickets. Until it turned sideways to him.
The hair on the back of his neck rose, and Hugh stared, stunned, convinced he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was. He wished he’d brought his binoculars or even his scoped rifle up with him, but he hadn’t done that in months. Game had become scarce; he hadn’t seen an antelope in over a year, and memories of hunting with his father haunted him if he sat up here too long.
But that did make him think of something.
He sat the bucket down and worked his way across the top of the pile of cars, toward the highest spot, the one his father had preferred. At the apex he found the red convertible his father had favored, had never had the heart to crush, thinking someday, when they had the extra money and time, they’d pull it down and fix it up. Memories of stargazing from the open top filled Hugh’s mind as he stepped down into the mess of rat nests, rotted cushion foam, and rusty springs that were all that remained of the seats. The first time he and his wife had kissed had been here.
Somehow that felt properly reflected in the way things were now, too.
He jabbed his finger at the rusted, once chrome-plated button that opened the glovebox, finally giving up and smacking at it with his palm to make it let go. The glovebox door fell open to reveal a small pair of binoculars with an ancient pack of cigarettes on top of them. He pulled them both out and sniffed at the pack of smokes, unable to guess how old they were. He shoved them into his shirt pocket anyway and lifted the binoculars to his face. A small, square, foil packet stuck to the bottom of them scratched at his fingers and made him want to both laugh and cry as he peeled it off and saw the ring-shape under the wrapping. He flipped the no-longer needed trash out over the fence like a tiny Frisbee and raised the binoculars to his eyes again.
It took him a moment to find the creature and another to bring it into focus.
Hugh’s jaw slowly gaped open as he stared through the lenses.
The creature’s long, stiff tail was now clearly visible, and though he couldn’t make them out individually, so were the six-inch, dagger-like teeth. When it turned, and he saw the tiny arms, there was no longer any doubt in his mind as to what it was.
He watched, fascinated, as the tyrannosaur haltingly picked its way through the trees and brush, occasionally stopping and cocking its head to the side like a robin looking for worms in a lawn. Hugh had no way of knowing if this was an actual rex or some other member of the family, but he knew it was big, and that they were rare. As soon as their existence had been confirmed, giant bounties had been placed on them by the government, for the protection of the people, and even bigger bounties had been offered by private citizens and companies.