Chapter 4: Reporting to Dagger Eyes

Wednesday, Oct 22 7:00am

The next morning I’m up with the Sun. My head and arm are still bothering me some, but I slept surprisingly deep through the night, which I’m thankful for. I give an apple to Angeles before we go and eat one myself while riding along.

The rest of the journey passes without incident. I don’t see anything or hear anything threatening. Of course, the part of me that isn’t still emotionally checked out can’t help but be a little paranoid. After all, the Hopper that attacked me came out of nowhere, and the two I didn’t kill disappeared without my noticing. I had always laughed in training when a veteran or trainer claimed that Hoppers can teleport. I had arrogantly assumed they just weren’t being observant enough. I guess I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. 

7:15 pm

I’m finally in view of Awmutto Outpost! It’s off to my far left. I’ve gone slightly too far east, but not enough to miss the Outpost.

As I stroll into the Outpost, the locals all stare. They don’t exactly get a lot of visitors, and by now the smell of my Hopper heads is probably about as noticeable as the heads themselves. I lock eyes with an old woman resting on a rock and ask her where the troupes are staying. I head in the direction she points and it’s not long before I spot a friend of mine from training. I flag him down and we chat. As he’s giving me the low down on the troupes here, a woman walks by with what can only be interpreted as a “don’t even try to talk to me” face. My friend, Iven, explains that she’s a troupe chief…and not a very friendly one. Great. Glad I’m being thrown into such a happy environment.

But there are two separate troupes here and my troupe chief is a different person anyway. I’ll be meeting him tomorrow morning at seven. Then we’ll all mount up and go look for signs of recent Mud Hopper activity in the Outskirts and Outlands of the East.

8:00pm

After asking around in the troupe camp I finally locate my new roommate, Keisha Green, sitting outside of our hut. She’s a few inches taller than me, a few years older than me, and more than a few shades darker than me. I have a bad feeling that it won’t be easy to win her admiration.

She looks up at me from under the brim of a dusty brown hat. She doesn’t look impressed, even though I’m purposely standing beside my Hopper heads so as not to block them from view.

“You the new girl?”

“Yeah.”

“I was usin’ the second cot in there to put my things. Ain’t a lot of space in there, but you can just put them on the floor.”

I can tell I’m not going to convince her to do it herself, but I don’t want to let her feel like she can walk over me, so I throw it all in a messy pile on her cot. I hang my head bag from the bit of the roof that hangs out outside and take Angeles to the camp stable. She’s still outside when I get back, smoking with a couple of troupemates. I don’t feel like socializing yet. Besides, my head still hurts. I go in, change, and fall asleep within minutes.

Thursday, Oct 23, 7:15am

Pounding on the outside of the hut rouses me from a deep, comfortable sleep. I stumble my way out of bed thinking it must be the middle of the night and pull back the door rug to see Iven standing there.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s time to go.”

“What?” At first I assume that he’s kidding, but I look out at the sky and realize that he must be right. “Oh no! Are they waiting for me? Are they mad?”

“No, it’s fine…just get ready and get out there asap.”

7:30am

I power walk through the camp with my bag of heads in one hand and my official orders in the other. I head straight to Iven’s troupe, which I had been told would also be mine. Self-conscious and flustered, I hand my orders to a man with an authoritative-looking clip board before making sure he’s the man I had been instructed to report to.

He isn’t.

However, as he tells me with a smirk under his grizzly beard, the other guy was killed in action only a matter of days ago and he’s the replacement. BUT….I won’t be on his troupe anyway. They’re troupe seven and they’ve decided to put myself and another new woman on troupe six. Mixing things around to fill in gaps left by recent…losses. He hands back my orders and points me to the dagger-eyes lady from yesterday.

Well, what a great start.

I march over to troupe six. I may be late, but I see everyone’s eyes at least glancing at my bag. After taking my orders, Dagger Eyes acknowledges the bag with a nod and, “Those from the way here?”

“Yes ma’am.” I offer them to her with a slight bow, as is customary.

“Good. Maybe you’ll be of some use, unlike the rest of these f***ers.”

She walks off to store them in the ice box in the official’s hut, and I get the chance to introduce myself to my new troupe before we all mount up.

There’s a girl named Brenna who can’t be more than 18, is also starting today, and looks about as miserable as I feel. The assignment’s official psychologist/councilor is also on our troupe. He’s a man in his mid-twenties named Leo with glasses sandwiched between a messy fro and a long beard, which he seems to unconsciously stroke when analyzing someone or something. There’s a social butterfly named Jeni, one of the only other light skins in the group. And there’s about a dozen others…all who seem young and relatively inexperienced. I don’t think anyone other than our troupe leader is even above thirty. 

And of course there’s Keisha, smirking at me from under her hat, knowing she got one point ahead of me by not waking me up when it was time to go.

I stare back at her from under my own hat, but with a frown. We lock eyes long enough to seal an agreement that our being roommates will not entail our being friends.   

Chapter 3: Here Comes the Reaper

As I watch myself struggle to breathe, I dig my nails into the skin of its neck. Hopper skin is thin and it isn’t long before thick, orange-brown blood is oozing out of its neck. It hisses and gurgles in pain but doesn’t let any weight off of my body. It isn’t much bigger than me, if I could only get it to loosen up….

I finally inhale a large breath of air. And dust. I cough into its face, and with a shriek it blinks spastically and pulls its head back. The eyes are the most sensitive part of a Hopper’s body. If only I could do more! But I don’t dare take a hand off its throat.

It glares back down and hisses. I take another deep breath and spit into its eye.

It pulls up with another horrible, gurgling shriek. The instant I feel it lift off my legs I pull them up as hard as I can and put all of my weight into rolling backwards. And the moment I’m on top of it, I jab my right elbow into its left eye.

I feel myself hit the bone behind its eye, which is strong enough to protect its brain. Its giant eye ball, however, is completely ruptured, and black goop bursts out onto the rest of its face.

I jump off and get away as quickly as I can. It kicks and convulses and wails. I reach for my gun. It isn’t there. It must have fallen out of the holster when I fell off of Angeles.

As I frantically search the ground around me, the Hopper struggles back to its feet. It waits for my eyes to return to it before it rears its head back and opens its jaws wide for the loudest shriek it can muster. Chills scurry over my shoulders and to the base of my back as my heart tries to beat itself right out of my chest. No time for the gun. I reach for my machete as the Hopper leaps at me, teeth bared and ready to feast…

It stops short with its face less than a foot away from mine. Its arms, which had been aiming for the ground behind me, drop on each side of me. Its head, which had been poised to sever mine, falls limp. And its body, which had been lunging forward to knock mine to the ground, sinks as dead weight into my machete. I look down in disbelief as Hopper blood oozes onto my glove and inside the sleeve of my coat. I let go of the machete and step back.

I pulled it in front of me just in the nick of time. One second later-no, half a second later- and I would be dead.

My body tingles with energy. But not the energy of excitement or victory. No, this is something else. It’s the energy of…fear. Of terror. It pulses from my chest into every limb, through every vain. I stare at the dead Hopper to try and remind myself that I’m alive, that I’m the one who’s still standing, but it doesn’t help. I can’t stop lingering in that moment. That split second in which there was no hope.

Because now I understand what it is to know I’m about to die.

I experienced the moment before death. And death did not take me, but I felt its breath on my skin, in my blood. And there it lingers.  

Minutes pass before I remember the other Hoppers. They’ve disappeared. Angeles nudges my shoulder, and I realize that I have no idea what he was doing or how far he might have run while I was fighting. Had he gone too far on his own, he could have been killed and or lost and I would be stuck in this god-forsaken stretch of land with no ride or supplies.

My body is still tingling as I pull the machete out of the Hopper and saw off its head. Yet, something else in me-the rest of me, really-is numb. I throw the head in a netted bag which I tie onto my saddle. I look around for my gun. Once I find it, I shove it back in the holster and mount up. We go over to the other corpse. I collect my second trophy.

After a few swigs of water, we head again toward the northeast. I don’t bother to check how good my angle is. I don’t care. I feel too wretched to care about anything right now. As the adrenaline fades, pain grows in my arm and head. The blow of the Hopper’s body onto my blade was a heavy one, and my muscles are aching. My head begins to pound and throb and it’s almost unbearable. I must have gotten a concussion when I was knocked off of Angeles. And what’s worse…what, for some unfathomable reason, is bothering me the most…is how acutely aware I am of two bagged heads bumping against each other and Angeles’ side as he walks along.

We go on until the Sun is hidden and both Moons are well in the sky. We come to a grassy area with a few trees and settle down beneath one. Mud Hoppers have never attacked anyone carrying the remains of their kind. It’s believed that they may smell their dead from far off and know to stay away. And, to an extent, they seem to acknowledge grassy areas as our turf. An Outpost’s chances of survival increase tenfold once they get crops or even decent shrubbery to grow.

So I guess this will be a safe night’s sleep. As safe as it can be in the Outlands, anyway.

As I drift off, I still have a knot in my stomach. A knot of….ugh…I don’t know…of jumbled emotions. Negative emotions.

I’ve slayed two Hoppers. My new supervisors will no doubt take notice of me. This is what I wanted. Adventure. Victory. Glory. To eliminate the enemy. To be a true protector of my people. Of my planet.

And yet, I don’t feel victorious.

I had always thought that I would not fear death. That I would have little objection when it called, little difference toward the time or manner in which it came for me. But death was more frightening to face than I had thought it would be…and life was less satisfying to take.  

Chapter 2: Surprise, Surprise

Tuesday Oct 25^th, 5:00am

I rouse from sleep before the Sun. I unfasten the straps that keep the door flap tied, roll back the leather buckskin material, and sit halfway out of my temp shelter to look at the sky. I can tell by the positioning of the Moons that the Sun will not wake for about two more hours.

I lay back down and try to rest for a little while longer. I can’t. I’m too anxious, too eager for the trip ahead.

Mud Hoppers are bound to be roaming about the stretch I must traverse. They often attack lone travelers and stragglers…easy pickings. The government knows there is a chance I won’t reach my assignment. They don’t care. They’ll just send someone else. Some 16-year-old straight out of training.

We really don’t know a whole lot about Hoppers yet. We don’t know how they got here. We don’t know how they think. None have been caught alive, and we’ve never been able to locate any of their technology. We’ve never even found their homes or base area. None of the City Governments want to risk their own citizens in such a dangerous search.

We do know that Hoppers don’t fight with weapons. They attack only with their claws and teeth. They typically aim for the throat. In just a few bites, they can have a person’s head completely severed from their body. They can jump forward about six feet and will sometimes throw themselves directly at their opponent to knock them on the ground. From there it’s an easy shot at the neck.

But honestly, it’s not that I dread what lies ahead. I mean, it would be a shame to leave my parents without a child…but now that I have been assigned to the troupes, this is my destiny. I will likely die with my throat in the jaws of a Hopper anyway, be it now or later. It isn’t so much the dreadful possibilities that keeps me awake. It’s the not knowing. The anticipation.

I could die. Which wouldn’t make much of a difference to me, I suppose, since I’d be dead. Or I could kill my first Mud Hopper. Or maybe a couple of Hoppers. I could distinguish myself from other troupsemen? Start making a name for myself. And as a small-framed light skin who didn’t join the troupes until after spending my first few years of Adulthood in a different assignment…well, that’d really be somethin’. I have a lot to prove. And I’m ready to prove it.

I will fight for the People. I will fight for my loved ones. And I will fight for myself.

6:00am

The Second Moon has long passed the First and is finally leaving its friend in the sky once again. The First sits far to the North East, but won’t sink into the eastern horizon until the Sun is above the western. I’ve heard it said that in the Days Before, Earth had only one moon. That the First Moon, the Silver Moon, was the only light of night; and that the Second Moon, the Golden Moon, is basically just a large piece of debris that got pulled into orbit by the planet’s gravity during the Destruction. I don’t know if that’s fact or legend, but I can’t imagine a night without both.

I’m running out of these idle musings to keep me still. More sleep would be beneficial, but I can’t sleep, so I might as well head out. As quietly as I can, so as to not rob my hosts of that precious last hour of sleep, I pack my things and fetch Angeles. I’m still strapping my bags to him when one of the women emerges from her shelter. I give her the things they’ve let me borrow and thank her for their hospitality.

And then, I’m off.

12:30pm

The Sun is directly overhead and I’m about a quarter of the way to where my new troupe is stationed. I pull Angeles to a stop to compare my compass and map. I think I’m still going in the right direction…..I think. Hell, how can ya tell? There are NO landmarks out here. I’m on a stretch devoid even of the unimpressive shrubbery of the Outlands. It’s all sand.

It should be pretty straight forward. Straight northeast for a while, then straight north. But if I incorrectly calculate when I need to turn, I could be too far east by time I’m supposed to reach Awmutto Outpost. And if I go too far, I won’t even be able to see it.

I sigh as I survey the landscape from under the brim of my hat. I can’t see anything but the ground and the sky and…

And wait. Is that a cloud of sand in the distance? There is no wind today. Nothing to stir up dust. Nothing but…

I grab my binoculars from a coat pocket and tip my hat back a bit. It takes me a second to focus, and when I do, at first I only see the dust as it settles back to the ground. And then I see something on the ground.

As it rises, my heart dives into my stomach and adrenaline shoots through my viens.

It has a humanoid torso and limbs, but definitely isn’t human. It rises from a crouching position but can’t fully straighten its long, thin, yellow legs, which I know are connected to webbed, frog-like feet. Its gnarled yellow hands are close in front of it, its long black claws resting together. Even through my binoculars I can see drool dripping out beneath the long fangs on each side of two jagged teeth. And above them, I see huge, black eyes….staring in my direction.

Angeles must see it too. He starts nervously prancing about and I try to calm him. And myself. “It’s okay. We got this. This is what we were trained for. We know what to do. It’s okay.”

Slightly shaking, I shove my binoculars back into my pocket and pull out my gun.

It hops forward a couple of times, and now I can clearly see its outline on the horizon without the binoculars. Then another one hops forward to its left. And still another to the right.

I wait to see if there are any more. They’ve learned from past encounters that if a human has a gun, the human has the advantage over them. Thus, if there are three or less in the scouting party and one falls dead, the others will scatter. If there are four or more and one falls dead, the rest will rush forward and attack. If there is a large group, my only hope is to run, as I know Angeles is more than ready to do.

I let them come a few hops closer before I try to aim. Angeles is too anxious to stay still.

Bang. Sand flies up just beside the middle Hopper, but doesn’t phase it. Bang. The second one hits it right in the chest! It drops dead! Without even thinking, I let out a YEAH! I’m so elated, it’s all I can do to refocus myself so I can take out another one as they flee…

But, wait. They aren’t turning back. They just stand as high as their legs allow and stare at me, as if waiting. As if anticipating something.

As Angeles trots in a nervous circle I glance around to see if there are more coming from behind me.

Nothing.

I start to panic. I was the top of my class in training. What did I miss? Or what am I forgetting?

Angeles senses it before I do. He turns suddenly and bucks. His front legs aren’t quite back on the ground when it hits me. All of its weight, from the front left, knocking me off onto the sand. Its hands pin my shoulders to the ground, the claws on its thumbs piercing the skin at the bottom of my neck on each side.  Its legs straddle mine as it sits on my thighs, making it impossible for me to move them. Although the fall knocked the wind out of me I somehow managed to grab both hands around its neck, and it’s all I can do to tighten my grip and hold its head away from my throat as I gasp for air. Saliva falls onto my cheek and runs down the side of my face as I stare back at my own reflection in each of its large, black eyes.

Chapter 1: Bell View Outpost

Four women stand and watch as I set up my temporary shelter. It’s dark, but I’ve got a headlamp, and we had to set these things up about a hundred times during training, so I get it ready in no time at all. It looks like I’m the only drifter here tonight. My shelter seems so small, tucked away between the silhouettes of the mud-brick outpost shelters. Not that they look big.

The women seem rather impressed, and I shamelessly revel in their comments of praise as I assemble my little shelter. After all, it takes strong people to survive in the outposts. Their admiration is no small thing. “They sure train you young folks well these days. Before they sent me and my husband out here thirty years ago, they only gave us training on how to grow crops. How to shoot Mud Hoppers and how to grow crops. Then they sent us and 50 other couples right along with only a few measly supplies and a wagon full o’ guns.”

I reply by muttering a simple “huh” as I unstrap my bags from Angeles. I don’t mention the knot forming in my stomach. The Second Moon is only beginning to peak over the western horizon, but I can still tell by the light of the First that there are definitely not fifty shelters here. A couple dozen at most, I think, as I place my things in my temp shelter.

“Yeah, we had it real hard those first few years,” the woman continues.

“Mud Hoppers?” I ask, stroking Angeles’ mane.

“Well, yeah, but they wasn’t our first problem. First was tryin’ to grow crops. There was already grass and weeds out here, even some shrubs. But it took us several springs to get a decent harvest out of our crops.”

“Ah. I’ve heard that’s a common problem for the outposts.”

“Yeah. We lost a lot of folks,” another woman chimes in. “If there wasn’t a few good hunters among us, I reckon there wouldn’t be a Bell View Outpost at all.”

“Got that right.” A third in the group nods as she stares off at nothing. “Humanity can’t catch a break, huh? First meteors hit the planet and kill the billions of people who couldn’t manage a spot in a craft. Then a million more who could are still kilt floatin’ about in space all that time. And then not but fifty years after our forefolks come back to the only planet humans have ever called home, and a bunch o’ blood thirsty aliens try to take it for themselves.”

My mind fills with memories that were never mine as I rest the side of my face against Angeles’ neck. Being in a spacecraft. Looking down on Earth day after day after day, willing the atmosphere to clear. Waiting in line for rations that get smaller and smaller every meal until there is nothing left to wait for. Alarms going off as the captain tries in vain to avoid crashing into space debris. Rolling clouds of fire devouring the walls of our craft…

“That’s enough talk o' the past.” The fourth woman seems to know what day dreams the topic has sparked, so she changes it. “Right now we have a guest, and we oughtta see to it that she has everythin’ she needs. It’s a cold night, settlin’ in on us. Surely we got some supplies ‘round here she can borrow.” They’re all mothers, and rough as they are, they can’t help but be motherly. Pretty soon I’ve got an extra cushion to sleep on, an elk-skin blanket, and a lantern. There’s even an extra spot in the stable for Angeles.

Before going to bed, I join a couple of them around a fire and exchange stories. I tell them about how I’m from the American Central City, how I had just finished an assignment with a Mud Hopper scouting troupe in the Southern Outskirts, and how the assignment ended early and I’m now headed to another in the Eastern Outskirts. I even tell them about how I had originally been chosen as a teacher, and had taught at St. George’s outpost for years before requesting to join the troupes. They, in turn, tell me stories of when they were first assigned to the Outlands. What had then been the Outskirts, before Bell View had been deemed successful.

I love these moments. These moments that you could never have predicted.

Just last Wednesday I was in St. Claire’s outpost, assisting our arms trainer as she haggled for supplies in the local market. That outpost is the largest and most successful in the world…about 900 residents. We were able to load up on food and ammunition as if our 20-person troupe had another three weeks to survive.  

That night, we found out that it didn’t. We were informed that the American Government was concerned about increased Mud Hopper encounters in other areas, so the project would end two weeks early. In four days, we would all be sent to different troupes.

Friday night we had one last dinner with the whole troupe. Our government reps had gifts for all of us, and we laughed as we recalled the inside jokes and memories referenced by each one.

And now here I am, chatting by the fire with tried and true outpost women.  

When I finally retire to my shelter I’m so tired I fall asleep almost immediately. 

It’s only Sunday, and I won’t reach my next assignment until Wednesday. Tomorrow I can rest at Bell View, but on Tuesday I’ll be riding along a large stretch of uninhabited land. I’ve been reassured by the government reps that there are no reports of Mud Hopper hunting parties in that area. But I know full well that may only be a partial truth. After all, who can report seeing the thing that kills them?