Oversight

Mel stood in the middle of the wasteland he’d been traversing for…hours? Days? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything. He turned to look at the tracks he’d left in the sand and watched as the farthest ones began to disappear on the growing breeze. In the distance there was a mountain range, which had been his compass for as long as he could remember. Despite walking directly away from the range for quite some time, the mountains hadn’t changed in stature. They stood, mocking him, just as large as they had the last four times he’d looked at them. His lips cracked and ached as he opened his mouth to yawn, feeling the dryness of his tongue and grains of sand between his teeth. He patted along his torso until he heard faint crinkling and, from his breast pocket, he pulled a folded piece of paper. It was worn and seamless, it’s texture closer to that of thin cotton, and as he unfolded it he tried to remember why it was there in the first place. He would’ve read the words aloud if he’d had the extra strength.

Mel,

Keep moving

The Coyote is coming.

-Mel

He stared at the words on the page and tried to make sense of them but, as he had the last several times he paused to read it, resigned himself to blindly following its instructions of a self he did not know. He raised a hand to his temple and rubbed lightly, then examined the flakes of dried blood that had accumulated on his finger. The light of a desert sun slammed into his head with the force of a freight train, whatever those were, as the pain he’d been ignoring regained his attention. The more he tried to remember everything, the note, the Coyote, the head trauma, the more it all began to hurt. He closed his eyes tightly and stuffed the note back into his pocket, then, covering his eyes with his hands, drew in a deep breath and straightened his back. Keep moving, he thought to himself, just keep moving. He trekked onward.

***

The sun had positioned itself neatly on the horizon before him when Mel came across the first piece of debris. Something glinted through the sand and caught his eye, and when he brushed it clean he saw a warped piece of metal. It’s jagged edges were singed black, but in its center were the words, “Kirkwood Oversight and Tactical Security, since 2038” He dropped the scrap to the ground and stood at full posture, scanning his surroundings until another reflective surface on the sand caught his eye, this time, shards of glass. Mel noticed, as he approached, the shards were partially buried in the sand and in the center of them lay a small metal heart. His eyes widened and his pulse began to race, and as he turned back to the mountain range and saw only the reddish orange of the desert sky at sunset, he said a silent prayer. Please, God, if you’re there, he said in his mind, please let there be other people around here. Somewhere. Anywhere. He carefully moved a few pieces of glass that could’ve caused him trouble, knelt down, and wrapped his fingers around the heart, which appeared to be stuck. He gave it a slight tug and, feeling it give a bit, yanked it out of the ground. Mel held the heart up above his head and examined the thin golden chain swaying from his hand. When he opened his palm to look at the heart itself it had opened, revealing photos. Photos of people. Mel furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to think of what a locket could be doing all the way out here. Then he stood, shielding his face against a gust of sandy wind. He turned his back to the breeze, but now the sand was swirling all around him. He shielded his eyes and glanced back to the ground. Moments later, he wished he had simply kept his eyes closed.

The woman the locket had belonged to lay in the sand, uncovered. I must’ve moved the sand too much, Mel thought, loosened it up. I’m going to be sick. He turned away from the body and began to dry heave, and that was when he saw it; the red sky where the mountains had been was getting closer. Two words came from deep within the recesses of his brain: sand storm.

As he surveyed his surroundings his eyes fell back to the woman at his feet. Her skin was dried entirely, hardened around her bones. For a moment, a calm washed over him. She may have been beautiful once, but here she was, dead and alone in the desert, just like he would be soon. Then, Mel noticed the sand beneath his feet beginning to shift. He stepped backward and was met with a loud crunch. As the sand continued to blow up into the air, Mel’s prayers were answered. The woman who had once been beautiful was in good company. Mel looked around and saw the sand flying off of bodies as far as the eye could see, all of them mummified and frozen in uncomfortable positions atop one another. He noticed some people in military uniforms and a few hazmat suits and then he saw, beneath the scattered bodies, the distinct corners and edges of man-made structures emerge. In a matter of minutes, Mel went from staring down utter desolation to being a tourist on the outskirts of a macabre metropolis, population: beyond comprehension. On the roof of the nearest building he was able to make out the remnants of a billboard. Two words were still legible, “Kirkwood Oversight.” He dropped the locket on the ground and made his way over to and into the building through an exposed window. The bodies inside were skeletal and mostly devoid of skin, though he surmised that everyone had suffered some similar fate here. A water cooler sat, miraculously half-full, in the corner of the room he’d entered and, after finishing its contents he sat in the least populated corner and closed his eyes against the horrors before him. Various possible causes of the implicit genocide around him flashed in his head but before he could plead for them to stop, his chin dropped to his chest and, for the first time in his life (as far as he could recall), he slept.

***

When he woke, it was not of his own volition. Night had fallen and the winds had changed. Now, instead of the chaos of an impending sand storm, Mel heard pulsing in the air as if some massive creature were pumping its wings a hundred times per second. He crept to the nearest window and saw a massive craft descending onto the dead. A hatch opened up on the vessel's bottom half, illuminating the surrounding area and the vessel itself. It was a massive chrome saucer, clearly divided into top and bottom sections by a glowing blue line. There was large lettering on the top half, but before Mel could focus his eyes against the light, four men in blue jumpsuits exited the craft’s opening and walked down a long runway. Once they were all clear, the runway pulled back and the enourmous craft fell totally silent. The men stopped near the woman who had once been beautiful, and seemed to talk amongst themselves for a moment before one bent down to pick up the locket. Mel’s heart skipped a beat as the man turned the two hearts over in his hand, presumably admiring the photos and then, with a glance back to his compatriots, hucked the trinket as hard as he could toward the city center. After a few seconds a loud clang rang out into the night air, and the men laughed. They patted each other on the back and mocked the bodies at their feet, and once they’d had their fill, shone flashlights in all directions.

While one of the men neared the building he was in, Mel panicked, for fear of being too loud should he try to move back to his corner, and went limp right where he’d been sitting. As he fell to the ground he shut his eyes, and as the light passed over him it bored into him with the same intensity the sun had only…hours ago? Days ago? He was suddenly unsure how long he’d slept, and his stomach threatened to growl and expose their location. The man with the light moved on, and Mel laid there for a long time, still as the grave, until he heard the man’s heavy footfalls headed away from the building. When he opened his eyes, they were peering into his own reflection. It took several seconds for Mel to see beyond the mirrored shades and into the empty eye sockets of a man in a suit, after which he shot up and silently inched away. He looked back out toward the men as they reboarded, their backs turned to him. He could see lettering across each of their shoulders and determined it to be the same as whatever was written on the ship. He rubbed his eyes to no avail and then, with a shudder, removed the corpse’s shades and peered through them. He looked back out into dying light of the ship’s closing doorway and was finally able to make out the letters:

K.O.T.

Coyote, he thought to himself, and sat back. After a few moments the pulsing sound started up again and within seconds the ship and its crew were gone, leaving only the angry winds and blowing sand to indicate their presence. Mel pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms atop them, breathing deeply, then he heard the sounds of shifting in the room. He stopped breathing and, terrified, looked up. A body on the far end of the room, he guessed it had been a sweet old lady with grandchildren and at least one cat, was hanging halfway out a window. Do I help her? He thought to himself. She’s dead. She doesn’t mind. He tried to shake the thoughts and hide his face again, but found himself glancing back up at the body. Maybe she doesn’t mind now, he thought, but I bet she would’ve. It’s what I’d want. With that, he walked cautiously over the individuals who littered the floor, and tried to gather the willpower to lift his first dead body. As he bent down to pick up the old woman, he noticed her hand, which was pointing, index-out, toward the ground. He followed the dead woman’s hand to the locket, which was resting atop storm doors about fifty yards away, down the dunes. After rolling her back comfortably into the room, he stepped back out the window he had come in, and made his way down to the locket. He closed it, wrapped up its chain, and shoved it into his pocket before going to work on the doors. He was certain that unspeakable horrors lay beneath, but at least in the darkness he wouldn’t have to see them as he did above ground. He tugged at the handles with all his might, praying that he’d find some sort of canned rations or bottled water. Mostly, he prayed that he’d have the strength to open the doors at all and, after three tries, he did. Mel fished around in his pockets and produced a small butane lighter. He flicked its well-worn flint and a small flame appeared and, guided only by that light, he descended into the darkness. The Coyote had come, he had survived, and for that he figured he’s earned a day to hide beneath the sands and attempt to sort out what the hell was going on.