Steel Horizon

Chapter Thirteen

 When I opened my eyes in the morning, I knew something was wrong. With the store bright in the morning light and quiet as ever, I couldn't figure out what had woken me. My heart beat gently against my chest, maybe a little too fast, but I couldn't find reason for it. I sat up and saw Jude still sleeping away under a tangled blanket.

Blood pounded in my ears as I tried to listen for something else. Something I was sure was there.

"Jude." I reached over quickly and shook his shoulder. He responded fast and sat up, his hair splayed in odd directions.

"What is it? What's wrong?" He looked around, but seeing nothing noticeable, he relaxed a bit more, though my fast breathing kept him concerned.

"Scrappers." I didn't need to say anything else.

We gathered our things as quick as we could, shoving everything inside our bags with a strong sense of urgency. My hands shook. My heart pounded. Everything about my fear was too familiar.

"Wait." He touched me arm and I froze alongside him, listening. "Do you hear that?"

At first I thought the heat was coming on, a deep rumbling coming from somewhere below, but when I listened closer it was different. Something I'd never heard. The rumbling stopped, and then started up again, closer.

"What is that?"

Jude shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "But I have an idea. Come on."

We ran to the back of the building, through the double doors and down the dark hallways lined with mostly empty shelves. As he ran, Jude dug through his bag and pulled out flashlight and turned it on.

"Over here." He shone the flashlight on a set of steep metal stairs. I followed him up the steps, still able to hear the rumbles over the sound of our feet on steel. Jude stopped at the top, the light showing a thick padlock on the roof hatch.

"Do you want me to find a pair of bolt cutters? I think I saw a maintenance cage down the hallway."

He studied the lock and shook his head. "No, I don't think we need it." He curled his metal fingers into a fist, took a deep breath, and slammed it into the lock. The door swung outward and neither of us commented on it. I followed him out and over to the edge of the roof. The noise was no doubt the rumbling of a Scrapper machine, but there was something more we hadn't yet seen. We crouched down near the parapet and slowly looked over, keeping our heads low.

About two blocks away, the Scrapper's black machine was taking down one building at a time, the town flattened to ashes behind them, leaving nothing but rubble and smoke.

Jude turned and sat against the wall, his shoulders tense. "They're trying to flush us out," he said.

"How do they know we're here?"

"I don't think they do. I think they're guessing." He flipped his messenger bag open and started searching through it. "They have nothing to lose by flattening a town, and they may even get lucky and find other humans besides us."

I hesitated. "Jude, do you think they really want to find you that badly? Would they go this far to search for you?"

"I don't know, but we can't ignore the possibility." He pulled out a gun and continued to dig for something else. I was about to ask where he'd gotten it when he answered for me. "I found it in the house we stayed in last night."

I lowered myself down next to him, having the strongest urge to run away. Running always made me safer. I could feel his eyes on me so I turned away and acted like nothing was wrong. "So how're we going to get out of here?" I asked. "If they're flushing us out, they probably have Scrappers on the other side of town waiting for us."