The Gaming Outpost

Tying off the rough plastic cord, once bright yellow, now black with tar, to the rusted iron grate gave me something to do instead of shake with fear. Looking over at Kim, I nodded, and he wrapped the cord about my waist, because at that moment, I could not.

We clasped arms in a warrior’s embrace, and I walked over the edge of the wall into night and fog. The ground was at least two hundred feet below me, not that I could see it in the mists and shadow.

The tilted castle wall under my feet gave rough footing, and I slid down the line just enough for a steady walk.

Already, I strained my eyes to see what was ahead, but it was too early. I passed the whitewashed hundred foot mark, and began to loosen up my neck, and twitch my shoulders. Then I worked my fingers, ready for the knife. And I felt fear fade as I grew ready.

In the near pitch dark, I got to the tumbled rocks at the bottom. Rocks we had tossed off the top of the Winston Mount and its castle wall but days before.

Every few days, They come to attack. No one knows what They are. They look almost human, but They are averse to reason, or kindness.

Speak with a They, and the fellow might seem to understand as he got closer until he tried to eat you. Splint one’s broken arm, and They would be up as soon as one were done, using the splint as a club to bash your brains in.

Worse, some of those born inside the various High Castles, on the mountain peaks where They don’t breathe well, some turn to They.

I slicked the rope out from around my waist, and gave it a quick shave and a haircut tug. Up it went. Kim, my baseman would be there all night, waiting for me, ready to come flying down to rescue me, if need be, watching for large movements to warn me of as needed for Stalkers such as Kim and I had no need to face an army of They.

We fought as guerillas. We struck them as ones and twos, which was not that hard as they only gathered into large groups under the influence of the lash, and like us, They had no love of whips.

Slipping quietly in my moccasins over the beachball sized rocks, I reflected that two years ago, I’d been a surfer boy on Venice Beach pretending to go to college to pacify my parents. Now I was in some other time, or planet, and I was fighting for my life. And really, I loved it.

Modern America, with its safety shields, and its low rewards had not been for me. I wanted the girl (Lady Susana), glory, and the chance of death.

Going downhill, my knife in my hand, properly blackened, the tar from the rope irritating my hands just a bit, I came upon my first They. He was scratching under a rock, looking for bugs.

The moment of pity was gone when I saw the scalps at his waist. Drifting like a ghost, I came over some chunks of rock, and down into his little hole where he bent face away from me.

I considered how best to kill him. A kidney stab seemed easier than trying to cut his throat, the way he was bent forward.

I came on, and then a rock turned under my foot. Just slightly. A tiny scrape not to be heard from more than ten feet away it was.

I froze. He leapt my way, his black fingernails seeking for my throat, his stench, unwashed since he was born or hatched or unleashed from some Hell, gagging me as he landed on me. All wires and hard bones he was, and his claws hammered at my face, seeking a way to my throat, past my guarding arms. Meanwhile his knees played the drums on my stomach.

Almost retching, I saw a break in the rythmn of his attack, and slashed out with my dagger. It was a lucky shot as I got him coming forward.

I opened him up like a sub sandwhich loaf, from side to side. His guts spilled out, and he froze. I shoved him to the side, and he began to shriek.

I ended the noise with a quick stab.

Assessing my wounds, I found nothing serious, and after putting tasiv bush sap on the scrapes (for their fingernails carry all sorts of diseases), I faded once more into the mists looking for more They.