Where Wild Spider-Horses Roam

Only three things remained constant in these Days of Despair: heat, death, and mechanics. It was gratifying to know that, for as long as his synthetic heart continued to pump rejuvenating blood, the Old Thinking would survive.

This far out here on the irradiated range, it was the infallible old tech that protected them from Sol’s loathsome stare. The transparent energy field that surrounded their compound was powered by the same lethal scorch that it was designed to reflect. His bunker, his ark, his protective barriers, not to mention all his clever devices, both internal and external— everything the old man valued was a remnant from a bygone age.

It had been nineteen months since he had rescued the twenty-somethings. The only reason he broke his cardinal rule and offered them refuge was because he longed to teach the old ways to a new generation. They were exiles from Iron Canyon, meaning they were probably cutthroats, thieves, or perverts. Likely all three. But it had been fifty-eight years since he had spent time in the company of a female. He had no real libido anymore; the regeneration process didn’t preserve his sex drive; but he still had an ardent interest in just admiring a gorgeous young female.

Besides… wasn’t “hospitality” one of the best of the forgotten words?

He thought it was the right thing to do, what his chivalrous code demanded, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that allowing Bonny and Johnny to move in with him was a big mistake.

Often when he spied on them, he overheard their secret conversations, where they’d conspired to take his life, then all his stuff. The only reason they hadn’t murdered him already was because of Sampson.

His lion rarely left his side. Today, however, the plan was for the young’uns to help the old man with some chores in the barn. While the three of them worked, he let Sampson roam free. After rolling in the dirt, the feline sauntered off to the granite slab on the far side of the compound, his favorite place to laze and taunt Sol.

The trio had been out of their home-hole for barely twenty minutes when the old man spotted the old monster, just outside their oasis.

He’d seen this creature before, quite some time ago. Either a mutated bull moose or some terribly deformed stag, he wasn’t certain which, it was a wicked-sick mammalian/insectoid hybrid, perfectly adapted to the Great Bake. Easily identifiable by its fifth leg, the quinqueped’s massive body was layered with a quilt-like carapace of overlapping shards that reflected the vicious sunshine with blinding flashes. Beneath gargantuan antlers attached to an aberrant head, eldritch green eyes glowed deep inside obsidian sockets.

A quick brain-scan confirmed this was the same beast that lurked here twenty-seven years ago. Back then, after assessing the compound’s energy field at a distance, it had simply moved on.

Some heat freaks were dumb but sly; others were cunning and resourceful. Bitter experience taught the old man that he shouldn’t be surprised by anything that slithered, flapped, or scurried out of the swelter. The worst abominations often had the greatest intelligence.

Case in point: here again was this ugly ungulate, standing stock-still in the exact spot where it stood almost three decades ago. The malformity was fixated on something, and when the old man looked to see what had captured its attention, he nearly jumped out of his wrinkled skin.

Bonny! It was staring right at Bonny!

The serrated dessert fiend opened its jagged muzzle, bellowing a snarling howl. Bonny jumped and gasped. Johnny quivered and whimpered. Only the old man remained silent and unshaken.

All three of them then felt the rattle of the coming herd. Gray ash, black gravel, and umber sand churned in a swirling dance around their feet.

Roughly three hundred yards beyond the sun shield, the heat haze rendered everything unseeable. Now, from out of that oscillating blur, the stampede burst forth— moose monstrosities, blighted deer, were those spider-steeds? Maybe even mutated/elongated wildebeests? He couldn’t tell what all the various twisted-up species might be, and he marveled at how they all charged in tandem.

A perfect team!

When it quickly became apparent that the galloping herd was aimed right at his time-tested barrier, the old man had to laugh. The photon palisades were utterly impenetrable! He was about to witness a spectacular mass suicide!

He had extolled their perfect security innumerable times to his two young confederates. If the compound’s defenses were flawed in any way, he not only forgot what their weaknesses were, he must have flushed all information related to those shortcomings from his system.

Having run out of personal cyber storage space seventy-two years ago, he had to go through his brain-banks at least twice a month to purge unimportant memories— a real pain in the ass.

Thrilled like he hadn’t been since he found the 'onnys, the old man made certain all cameras in the area, both external and internal, were recording.

The first mutant hit the power field with such devastating force that shell fragments and bone splinters went flying in every direction. One horn broke off and rebounded back the way it came, while a smaller cluster of spikes completely shattered. Bloody gore splashed, sizzled, and popped, like grease shot from a skillet.

The old man took several steps back to stand beside Johnny.

Clapping her hands together, Bonny giggled and jumped with glee.

A split instant later, the rest of the herd collided. Four miscreations were instantly atomized, as if they had exploded from within. The energy field then rippled and sparked as a pair of hooved horrors barreled into it hard enough to make it partway through! One varmint was split across its midsection— its front horsey half remained mostly whole, but its rear arachnid half was minced. The other seven-legged, spike-headed lout was cut lengthwise, its left side clearly more durable than its right.

The biggest beasts came last, slamming into an overloaded reaction field that first wavered and then wobbled. Dying horribly, even as they were torn to shreds— they just kept coming and coming, until the power grid finally gave way with a thundercrack discharge of wild electricity. One of the last, fattest mutations trotted through the gap without losing any body parts, only to be slain by a _lightning bolt to the back of its hideous head.

The hell-stag dictator of this carnage left his watcher’s spot and sprinted forward, his nightmare gaze still fixed on Bonny.

The old man was shocked senseless by the betrayal of his defenses. In a hot instant, he flashed on the memory of firearms (how he wished for some now!), but no gunshots had echoed across these ashlands in well over a century. He had only his staff and dagger to rely on, and he was too discombobulated to raise either.

He heard Bonny unsheathe her rapier.

Johnny ran for the bunker.

They all would have died if not for Sampson. The old man thought the old lion was too far away to intervene in time; he was strong but no longer lithe. But Sampson proved him wrong. Yes, Bonny would have done some damage with her blade before she went down but, ultimately, she was no match for this two-ton titan.

Like his master, the barrel-chested lion was enhanced with bionics. Sticking up out of the graying mane that surrounded his majestic head was a whirling antenna. Sampson’s guts and hindquarters were all-natural meat, but its mechanical forepaws hissed when he leaped, and clacked when he landed.

He bounded directly in between the humans and the rampaging Thing. When he roared, the antique jewelry that hung on a gold chain around his neck swatted sunbeams.

“No!” shouted the old man.

“Hell yeah!” shouted Bonny.

With uncanny speed and bone-shattering might, the moose-monster swung its enormous antlers to batter the mechanically-augmented lion. Sampson lashed back, digging through his attacker’s crystalline quills with a flurry of steel claws, while chomping neck repeatedly with razor steel jaws.

After a swift, ferocious battle, the hell-stag collapsed, at the exact instant the energy shield recalibrated itself and whooshed back up. The abnormality’s dead weight delivered the final crushing injury. With the clatter of a few broken gears, the last of the bleeding cat’s life was smashed out of him.

Somewhere underground, a klaxon went off.

The old man rushed over to Sampson, knowing already it was too late.

He became frantic to uncover his friend. It took all three of them together, as well as a hefting machine retrieved from the ark before they could extract the noble lion's remains.

Screaming like a hurt hyena, the old man broke the chain around his kitty’s neck. Locket in hand, he fled, going straight down to their Loaves and Fishes machine, where he quantumized especially potent liquor.

***⚡_______⚡***

The old man sat drunk in a corner, the goblet in his lap gripped tightly between his thighs. Cupped in one trembling hand, he held the cherished momento that Sampson had brandished for decades. Inside the heart-shaped locket was a small piece of the left ventricle from his own original heart.

Up until this morning, the old-timer had been utterly certain he already knew everything that he'd ever need to know, that he'd seen it all.

Tonight, he felt stupid and blind and lost.

He had brainwashed himself into thinking neither he nor Sampson would ever die. What a cruel fantasy!

All the best behavioral modification aps that his brain-banks could offer were useless.

He wept uncontrollably. His left cybernetic eye thrummed blue beams.

***⚡_______⚡***

Before the assault, the young man was convinced the old man was overselling his importance. Johnny thought this entire complex was completely automated and self-repairing. Johnny previously cautioned against killing the old man only because he was terrified of the lion.

Now Sampson was dead, and Johnny secretly rejoiced. But he had a new concern. The old man was wrong to claim they were invulnerable here. Today had been nearly calamitous! What else was the bastard wrong about?

If the old man didn’t fully understand the old tech, what hope did Johnny and Bonny ever have of understanding it?

Still petrified, unable to get the memory of that rampaging horror out of his head, Johnny concluded they needed the old man— and likely always would.

***⚡_______⚡***

As for the young woman, she was forever bloodthirsty. She killed that bitch back on Sanctuary Hill just because the bitch looked at her wrong. Half-crazy most of the time, Bonny was convinced she was possessed by heat demons, a direct result of the Trial of Eight Swords that she endured right before they were driven out of Iron Canyon.

Since they’d joined up with him, a day hadn’t passed that Bonny hadn’t fantasized about stabbing the old man. But while she didn’t fear Sampson like Johnny did, she did respect the lion. Murdering their host simply wasn’t safe. Or practical. But she longed to do it.

Everything changed when she saw him grieving.

Bonny didn’t like people in general, not even Johnny, but in the nineteen months they'd lived together, she’d grown quite fond of Sampson. She could still remember the first time the lion ever licked her hand— a bonding moment between two apex predators.

Watching the old man bawl, she cried for Sampson too.

Finally, she consciously dried her tears and took Johnny's hand. “Come on,” she said to her partner-in-crime.

He did all the work digging the grave, but it was her idea and she supervised, so she naturally took all the credit.

The three of them buried Sampson as a family. Afterward, Bonny approached an old man who had never looked older and said, “We’ve been together all this time and we don’t even know your name.”

He had to stop and ask his brain-banks for help.

“Noah,” he finally said. “I think my name is Noah.”

That night, Bonny removed her birth prevention device so that she and Johnny could conceive a new future for them all.

If you enjoyed this sci fi tale with a lion (my first published story on Vocal)☝...

....... I offer one with werecats for your consideration. 👇

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__________________Bolt ⚡