Colt’s eyes snapped open and his shirt was stuck to his chest. The bed was soaked in sweat.
He sat up fast. The perception overlay was gone. Rough planks back to smooth metal. Pig shit back to nothing. Just the HUB.
He looked at Clay.
His brother was flat on his back, one arm thrown over his face, snoring loud. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t woken up.
Colt looked at Kevin.
The little metal man stood in the corner but his eye was dark. No glow. Like he was asleep or something too.
The room was quiet.
The man’s face came back. Dark hair slicked back. Eyes that looked like they were measuring something. The white coat with the name stitched into it.
Dr. Isapa
Colt’s jaw tightened. He didn’t know what the dream meant. Didn’t know if it was real or made up or something in between.
His breathing had gone fast again, same as his heart.
He closed his eyes and slowed it down. In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth.
His heart came down after a minute.
He opened his interface.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.10
Stats
Status
Map
Armory
Module Bay
Skills
Help
?????
?????
?????
He opened Map.
EARTH 145
The HUB layout appeared. The bed. The table. Kevin’s spot. The two green X’s marked Clay on the floor and Pa in the storage thing on the table. Colt didn’t remember what Kevin called it.
He focused on the number 145 and thought about home.
EARTH 265
The familiar shapes spread out. The river. The land. The little star where their cabin sat.
Colt’s stomach dropped.
The violet patch in the sky near the mountains was right where the ninja fort had been.
It was bigger.
A lot bigger.
The patch on the map had spread out from the center, pushing toward the river to the east and into the foothills to the north. The corrupted territory had swallowed miles of land that had been green when he’d last looked.
His gut tightened.
The fort. The army. Those giants. They weren’t just building something. They were spreading.
And the edge of that bruise in the sky was a lot closer to Toyahdoh’s village than it had been before.
Colt stared at the map.
He looked back at Kevin.
Why didn’t he tell him Isapa had agents on every Earth? Why was this spreading so fast?
He needed answers. He needed Toyahdoh.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood up quiet. Clay kept snoring. Kevin didn’t move, his light stayed off.
Colt grabbed his gear off the table. His satchel. His gun belt. He buckled it on and adjusted his holster. He found the handle of the conduit dagger as it sat in his sheath, and he held it there for a second.
He looked at Clay.
Sorry brother, he thought. Some things a man’s got to do alone.
He walked to the teleport room and stepped onto the platform. He opened the map and selected Earth 265.
He put his hand on the red button and pushed.
His boots hit grass and his knees bent to catch himself.
The cabin.
The ten-second blur passed and the world snapped into focus. He was standing in the yard where he’d grown up. The door still hung off one hinge. The windows were still smashed.
He pulled his revolver and checked the cylinder.
SIDEARM EQUIPPED
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Colt Single Action Army — .45
6/6
He stepped through the broken doorway and looked around. The place was dark and it smelled like dust. Pa’s chair sat by the cold fireplace, the same chair he’d sit in every night after supper. The shelf on the wall still held that old Japanese book Pa kept but never explained. Colt had asked about it once when he was a kid. Pa just said it was from a long time ago and changed the subject.
Colt picked it up and put it in his satchel.
His eyes moved to the spot by the fireplace where Pa had fallen. Colt could still see it in his head. Pa’s body. The sword in his chest. The two dead ninjas still lay in the same spot.
His throat tightened and he looked away.
He walked to the window and looked out. It was dark outside, early morning, maybe two or three hours before dawn. The moon sat low on the horizon.
Nothing moved out there.
But he could see it. The bruise in the sky. That violet patch hanging over by the mountains with lightning flickering inside it. It looked bigger from here. Or maybe closer. Hard to tell.
He stepped out of the cabin and started walking toward the treeline.
The path was familiar. He’d walked it a thousand times. To hunt. To fish. To check the traps Pa set along the creek. His boots knew the way even in the dark.
The night air was cold and it carried the smell of pine. Crickets chirped somewhere off in the grass. An owl called out from the trees ahead. Normal sounds. The sounds of home.
But the violet glow from that bruise in the sky cast everything in a faint purple tint. The grass looked off. The shadows looked off. Even the moonlight seemed dimmer than it should have been, like something was eating at it from the edges.
Colt kept his hand on his revolver and kept moving.
He was halfway to the trees when he saw movement.
Someone walking ahead of him.
Colt ducked behind a tree and pressed his back against the bark. He held his breath and listened.
He could hear the footstep. They were slow in between. The sound of them dragging their feet across the dirt.
He peered around the trunk but it was too dark to make out much. Just a shape moving through the grass maybe fifty yards out.
Then he saw another one a little further back than the first.
Colt moved from tree to tree, staying low and keeping quiet. He got closer. Close enough to see.
It was Jeff.
And behind him was Earl, walking the same slow shuffle.
Those sons of bitches. Colt never thought he’d be happy to see them. He thought for sure they were dead. Shit, he’d seen them die.
Maybe Toyahdoh saved them too.
Colt stepped out from behind the tree and started walking toward them. His shoulders loosened a little, they have a lot more in common now. Considering the circumstances.
“Jeff,” Colt whispered loud. “Hey. It’s Colt.”
He waved from behind the tree.
Jeff turned around slow.
Something was wrong. The way he moved. The way his head lolled to one side like his neck couldn’t hold it up right.
Then Colt saw it glint in the moonlight.
The black star was still stuck in his forehead. It was buried halfway into the bone above his eyes, right where it had been when his body hit the ground.
He was wobbling. His legs moved but they didn’t move right.
Earl turned around too. His shirt was soaked dark with blood that looked old and dried. It covered his whole chest. He staggered toward Colt with his arms hanging loose at his sides.
Colt stopped walking. His hand went back to his revolver.
“How did you guys—”
A sound came out of Earl’s throat. It wasn’t words. It was a wet choking moan that made Colt’s skin crawl.
Then Earl’s eyes lit up.
Violet. Not bright, but there. A dim glow flickered behind his pupils where there shouldn’t have been anything at all.
Jeff’s eyes did the same.
Colt stepped back. “What the fuck.”
They kept coming. They shuffled through the grass with their arms reaching out toward him.
“Jeff? Earl?” Colt held up a hand. “Hey. Stay back.”
Earl got close and lunged at him. Slow and uncoordinated.
Colt sidestepped and shoved him hard. Earl hit the ground face first and didn’t try to catch himself.
Jeff was close now and reaching for him with both hands.
Colt kicked him square in the chest. Jeff went down hard but started getting back up right away.
“What the hell happened to you guys?”
Earl pushed himself back up too. Jeff did the same. They moved slow and jerky.
Colt pulled his revolver and pointed it at them.
SIDEARM EQUIPPED
Colt Single Action Army — .45
6/6
“I don’t wanna shoot you, Earl.” His voice cracked when he spoke. “Stop.”
Earl kept coming.
Colt aimed low and fired.
5/6
The shot caught Earl in the leg and he flinched. But he kept coming.
The gunshot echoed through the trees. It was loud. Way too loud. Colt knew it had been heard for miles.
Shit.
He holstered the gun and pulled the dagger.
MELEE WEAPON EQUIPPED
Conduit Dagger
“Guys, stop, damn it.” Colt pleaded one last time.
Jeff came at him fast. Colt caught him with one arm and held him back. Up close, Jeff’s eyes were blank. There was nothing behind them. No anger. No fear. No Jeff.
He looked dead. He smelled dead. His skin was cold and gray and his breath came out in shallow rattles that didn’t sound like breathing at all.
Colt swallowed hard.
He drove the dagger into Jeff’s skull.
The shinki hit him instantly. It surged through the blade and up his arm and into his chest. A rush of warmth settled somewhere behind his ribs.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.10
Shinki: 1
Power Bank: 128.2
Jeff went limp and dropped to the ground.
Colt looked up and Earl was almost on him.
He stepped forward and buried the dagger in Earl’s head. The same rush of warmth flooded through him.
PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.10
Shinki: 1
Power Bank: 130.2
Earl hit the ground.
The dagger worked just like Kevin said it would. He got two shinki from each of them.
Colt stood there staring at the bodies. His hands were shaking.
They were dead. He’d seen them die. How did they come back?
All those times Earl would fuck with Colt and Clay. Colt always dreamt about kicking their asses. They deserved a good beating.
Whatever they were now. That wasn’t Jeff and Earl.
He pulled the dagger free and wiped the blade on his pants and moved forward into the trees.
He heard movement above him when he got close to the tree line.
Colt stopped and looked up.
Henry was still hanging in the tree where the ninjas had thrown him. His body was tangled in the branches with his arms dangling and his head lolled to one side. The stars were still buried in his chest and gut, black metal glinting in the faint light.
His eyes found Colt. Violet flickered behind them.
He started moaning. It was loud, it almost had a desperation to it.. His arms reached down and his fingers grabbed at nothing, trying to get to Colt even though he was stuck eight feet up in the branches.
Colt stood below the tree and stared up at him.
His mind couldn’t make it fit. Colt saw his lifeless body hanging in the tree days ago.
Now he was up there reaching for Colt like he wanted to tear him apart.
Colt thought about climbing up and putting him down. But Henry was tangled deep in those branches and Colt didn’t want to get that close to those grabbing hands.
“I’m sorry Henry, I’ll come back for you, I promise.”
His stomach turned and he looked away.
He moved quick through the trees.
The woods pressed in around him. He heard noises everywhere. Moans drifted from somewhere off to his left, maybe it was wind. Shuffling sounds came from the brush to his right, maybe just a raccoon. Shadows moved between the trees that might have been nothing or might have been something worse.
He started running.
Colt veered hard to the right and cut through the brush. Branches whipped at his face and arms. He didn’t slow down.
Something crashed through the brush behind him.
He ran faster.
He didn’t stop to check what it was. He just ran until his lungs burned and his legs ached and his chest felt like it was going to split open.
He burst through the treeline and fell into the grass on the other side.
He lay there breathing hard. His chest heaved and his hands were shaking. The grass was cool against his face and he could smell dirt, green and nothing dead.
He looked up. The open field stretched out ahead of him. Somewhere past it, hidden behind that invisible barrier, was Toyahdoh’s village.
