Excerpt: Moonwalker

The sun was setting as they reached the First Colony. It cast vivid orange and red into the ruined buildings, making them stand up starkly against the dusty brown earth and the handful of green plants and vines that had twisted themselves amongst the ruins of what had once been a vibrant community. With the flaming colours of sunset trickling amongst what had once been houses and meeting places, it was easy to envision the destruction of the place, the horror as buildings burnt and flesh burnt with it.

The dust stirred restlessly, kicking up a small twirl of specks across the scene, biting into the back of Vari’s throat. She remembered Sprite’s words earlier and hit her helmet raising button at the same time as he did. There was going to be a dust storm. Was that why Sprite had been so uneasy she wondered?

Even with her helmet up, Vari could not avoid the slight tang of salt left by the rusty brown red dust. She stepped a little closer to the nearest building. Half of one wall had collapsed, leaving the inside exposed, and the roof had slid down the opposite side, like the strap on a dress to large for the wearer. The ground floor still had some of its ceiling, and a broken bulb with a charred lampshade stirred uneasily in the wind. The carpet was mostly gone, save for one corner that somehow the fire had not reached, where it stood out as a deep pile of green, smothered with dust. A broken chair resided upon it, snapped in half, some of the fibrous covering that had once adorned it torn away in jagged strips by a wild animal who wanted a more comfortable nest.

Above, there was a cot. Its metal frame was rusted, the mattress was all but gone, save for a few scraps of charred stuffing that clung to a corner of it. On the wall that still remained over the bed lay a shelf, upon it the twisted remnants of a toy car, the charred scraps of what had probably once been a teddy bear. Vari felt ill as she realised that the strange white objects she could see scattered beneath the cot were bones, bones of the baby that had once slept in that cot.

Sprite was beside her, surveying the place with calculated detachment, and even he could not escape a shiver creeping down his spine. It was not, though, because of the destruction that had been wreaked upon the place. No, he had seen this too often for it to be a shock for him, but images of his last patrol in this area were flashing through his mind, shadowy figures that had once been close friends appearing in the swirls of dust.

“We need to get behind some walls before the dust storm hits fully,” he said flatly, his voice cold and somewhat metallic through the speakers in Vari’s helmet.

She nodded slowly, realised he probably wouldn’t be able to tell, and responded “okay,” in a voice thick with emotion and half choked by a combination of horror and the dust that had snuck into the back of her throat.

She turned back to watch the helmeted figure of her guardian turn slowly towards another ruin, and wondered how much death she would find as she investigated this place.

“The dead were never buried here, because it was too dangerous to get in and try to retrieve some of the bodies. So a decision was made that all would lie here, as a monument to the destruction meted out upon a peaceful community by the Americans.”