Children Of Fiends - Part 2 A Nation By Another Name: An Of Sudden Origin Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

offered a thin smile to the strange creature. “You will let me know if there’s anything we need to worry about.”
    The puck responded with a quick insincere smile of his own and turned to stare back at the window.  
    MacAfee removed his helmet and tried reaching out to the puck. Don’t fuck with me. What are you sensing? He felt nothing in return. I know you can hear me. Suddenly, he felt utterly immobilized. His body wanted to collapse to the ground, but he found himself standing at rigid attention instead. His head swirled with the sounds of garbled whispers, howls and grunts. One thought broke through over and over. COME, COME, COME. He wanted to. He so very much wanted to find those voices and offer himself up to them. Then Hansel’s voice through the chatter - Satisfied, Dusty MacAfee? I cannot tell how close, but that window over there disturbs me. You need to put your helmet back on. Without it you will leave us. I can only tell you that they are.
    They are what?
    Are.
    Can you be more specific?
    Are! They are! What don’t you get?
    They are?
    Yes. Very much so.  
    Hansel didn’t release his mental grip on the Colonel until he made the man put his helmet back on. Several of the people working to get the train going noticed MacAfee suddenly sitting and holding his hands to his helmet. After a moment, MacAfee gathered himself and quietly said, “If you ever do that again, I will shoot you.”
    Hansel laughed and kept watching the window.

CHAPTER THREE
  Not Alone

    The crew who weren’t on lookout or trying to get the locomotive up and running were out finding wood to throw into the boiler. Dean decided that he needed some time alone and assigned himself to wood collecting. The weather was definitely milder this far south and a light drizzle began to fall. He briefly thought about the first years of the nuclear winter and how any precipitation was felt with dread - the general perception being that the falling snow was full of radiation. Iodine drops to protect the thyroid had become black-market gold. It had been almost impossible to obtain it on Nantucket. Fortunately, a nearly full time diet of iodine rich fish had provided well enough. Theoretically, as the disaster waned and the planet began to warm up again, the bulk of the radiation that had filled the atmosphere had been coaxed out of it. Theoretically.
    As he stepped into a glade, the ground became soft and he noted green shoots coming up from what was otherwise gray leafy soil and long dead grass. A few purple wild flowers showed themselves and he felt his heart gladden. So many years without a flower. He didn’t realize how much he missed them. What a remarkably resilient thing, nature. Then he saw the footprint. Rather, footprints. They were human(ish) and his mind’s eye instantly flashed on Hansel and Gretel’s bare feet, their odd goatish gate. Fear instantly gripped him and he quickly ducked down while un-strapping the helmet that dangled off his belt. He cursed himself a fool. Hansel had said he’d felt them. Just because he or his sister didn’t see them.... Only when he had it firmly on his head did he scan his surroundings, the device even enhancing his ability to focus his hearing. Just the soft sound of the drizzle and his rapid breathing could be detected. He forced his breath into a more easy rhythm and kept scanning. No movement. Not even one of the many birds that continued to surprise him. He followed the footprints until they became scrambled a few yards away. Flies flitted back and forth. Then he spied an unmistakable group of shapes in a low depression a little further on. Skeletons. Well, partially skeletal. The badly decomposing bodies were scattered into pieces. He crept forward, the damp earth sucking at his feet, and looked closer: Worms and maggots crawled among the sharp teeth in a skull that was human but not. Then a reverse hinged leg. Pucks. Maybe six or seven based on his skull count. He knew wounds. These