By Obadiah
Well now, lemme spin ya a yarn ‘bout a day that damn near cracked my brain in two — I call it Mindfuck, Part One. Pull up a stump, son, and mind the fire.
We rode out that mornin’ on a mission, huntin’ down a nest o’ mean sons o’ bitches — big ol’ freaks, stronger than oxen and twice as ugly. Supermutants, they call ‘em. Don’t rightly know where they come from, but they sure as hell weren’t born of no woman.
Anyhow, we was movin’ through the woods, boots kickin’ up dirt, lead flyin’ thick through the trees. Runnin’ and gunnin’, dodgin’ death like it was a square dance partner. Poor Clay caught a mess o’ bullets and went down hard. But I weren’t about to let him die. Slid in on my knees right through the gunfire like I was doin’ the limbo at the Devil’s hoe-down, slapped a med patch on his chest just as the last of his life was leakin’ out.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember every bit — took a few slugs myself, went down like a sack o’ potatoes. But thanks to them fancy nannites buzzin’ around in my blood, I was back on my feet before you could say “whiskey.” Obediah? That crazy bastard was a goddamn whirlwind, both pistols barkin’, teeth bared, eyes wild. Like he was born to die but hadn’t got around to it yet.
It was dicey, I won’t lie. They had us pinned like bugs to a board. Then the worst happened — Ashman got dropped. Not the kind of drop you can walk off neither. I’m talkin’ real death. Cold. Permanent.
And then somethin’… somethin’ I still ain’t sure I rightly understand. That entity, Aura — some kinda spirit or god or who-the-hell-knows — lit up the staff she calls home. Light poured outta it, so bright it near burned the back o’ my eyes. It wrapped around Ashman, lifted him up like the hand o’ God itself. Time stopped. Not quiet, like a still mornin’ — silent, with a Capital S. The kind o’ silence that makes your bones ache. It made my heart ache too to be able to call Aura Family cos that’s what we is in a way.
Then — bam — time snapped back like a whip crack, bullets flyin’ again like nothin’ had happened. ‘Cept Ashman was standin’ tall like he’d never been dead at all.
Aura was also very quiet … Too quiet like shed given her all to save him and had nothing left.
Well sir, we figured we’d had our fill of dyin’ and miracle-workin’ for one day, so we pulled back. Truth be told, I don’t even remember why we went in there in the first place. Some orders from the bunkers, they said it was important. Pays decent, I reckon. But hell… after seein’ a man die and come back like that?
That ain’t the kind of thing you forget. Not ever.
