Regardless, I hope to bring great stories to the masses, and however they are received, I'll try my best to complete a short story every week, and give you a very applicable, entertaining tale. Granted,mi can be hit-or-miss, but this project when started early last year, and has been a goal of mine for nearly seven years, is going swimmingly, and although all criticism aside, it could be going better (things can always go better) I find these Short Story Weekly posts are the only recurring posts I've done that seem to be minimally acceptable and moderately successful.
I will do my damnedest in the future to make each Short Story Weekly post into one whole post in the future. For now, I'll give you Part 1 of 2 of my abstract look at the post-nuclear world in a buddy story that's both obtuse, and yet something very, very familiar in:
Rotten Tog
A bastard winter came forth with assault over the wastelands, immeasurable amounts of irradiated snow came floundering downward, leaving clumps of nuclear atrocities blanketed in burning cold. Morose fauna able to withstand the radiation wish for death every waking moment they have to venture off into that maelstrom. David Kafferty watched two pathetic curs with barely flesh to hide their salted bones toss around a jackrabbit carcass that was more reptillian than lappen. The world was always cruel, but the fallout forced a violent change in life to survive, life reacted accordingly, it replaced the moral compass with a nautical GPS, shark-like in it's deadly accuracy to seek out and kill whatever remnants of life could be surviving. David walked away. He knew the beasts had their burdens, but his were heavier, like a crown of hematite.
His right-hand companion, Tog, an eleven foot-tall monstrosity was carrying the jaw of a sperm whale, carved out into a hackney blade of spike teeth that weighed over sixty pounds each. Irradiation had made the ocean the stuff of nightmares, and David had been forewarned by his monstrous ally that it was a hellish domain. Tog was something formerly human, and yet something entirely new to this world. David Kafferty had heard rumors of monsters in the shadows, the cryptozoology memoirs that sold books, which in-turn had made such horrid Sci-Fi films was now standing besides him, and could pinch him out of existence.
He met Tog, a burnt-skin of deep ambers and darkest vermillion hue, on the outskirts of the wasteland, known as the Outside, a malcontent region of the new nightmare that not even the Wild Beasts dared to roam. David had to go out there for some credits, about a million of them, and retrieve something from the old world. David had lived a long time, he rememberd the world before the M.A,D. Effect killed everything. He ever loved. The instant burst of radiation had made his cells impervious to age. For seven hundred years he carried on, not sure why he didn't just try to kill himself to end the nightmare. At one point, he really thought that this was his personal Hell. He had come close one time to ending it all, but found bullets could not even penetrate the irradiated armor. He had starved for days, and after a month without food, he then realized that even if he were to commit suicide for the inside, it wasn't going to be enough.
He knew a million credits was a drop in the pan, especially for a job that could even end his assumed immortality, but the Outside was never seen by human eyes, only from a distance did early observers of the Wastes even acknowledge the Outside's existence. Heh, falsely named, thought David, it sounds like sanctuary, rather than the most irradiated, most criminal of regions that this new world had to offer.
Tog, a juggernaut of a fiend, lumbered about in the distance, carving his whale jaw club, the ivory bludgeoning spearheaded a slice in the green sky. He was a mountain amongst bucket loads of rubble. David Kafferty gazed upon the mountainous Tog, there were acidic buzzards circling his head, and the ground shook underneath his girth of gelatin-cooked skin. Kafferty knew he had to scour the Outside, and search out the artifact that his employers held so dear, but what precise plan he had, went away at the size of this lumbering brute.
There was an artifact, as old as David himself, perhaps older, and his employers would pay a ton of credits for it. David wasn't sure just precisely what it was, but knowing how naive the world has become, it could be a weapon, or a dog's chew toy. The Outside was full of pre-apocalyptic junk, David saw strewn garbage; rusted and piled in fused chunks of Old World contraptions. David saw Tog first, the lumbering monstrosity was hard to miss, seeing as he stretched to the sky. At first David was terrified, as most people would be when confronted with an unnatural freak of a Nature, but he was more concerned with finding the coordinates of the sought-after artifact, and returning it for enough credits to get the hell out of The Garrison, and make his way up to the Coast, even buy a boat, and get as far away from the epicenter of the nuclear hell.
That's when he heard the rumble, and Tog looked at him with eyes as red as a volcano's heart, and David believed he was finished, yet Tog approached him with caution, not ferocious tenacity. As he approached the 5ft 10in David, it was abundantly clear to the man, that this monster was truly a walking rock, and filled the landscape. Still, he stood his ground, picking up his minigun, and aiming it at the approaching monster. The gun started rotating, but this was met without concern, and this frightened David even further.
"You, puny little man. Put down weapon, a Tog mean you no harm." The voice was equivalent to a hole in the Earth growling out hallowed words from Hell.
"I think I'll just keep this chain rolling, if it's all good with you, I think you may want to keep a clear distance, I can clearly hear you from China even if I had half an ear."
"Funny little man, but that rolliepollie firecracker won't hurt much. You better believe that like smash you to little bits before you fire a shot. Why are you out here? This place is the Outside, humans not welcome. You should leave now."
David held his ground, and lifted the minigun even higher up, making sure that a clear shot to Tog's head was precise.
"Ha! You're funny, I respect a fearless ant!"
"I'm looking for the Spire. An Old-World relic, my boss wants it, and he's led to believe it's somewhere in the Outside." Tog smiled a mouth full of gravel, teeth gnawed down to pulp.
"Spire? I've not heard of such a thing...describe it for me, mayhaps I've heard of this instrument."
David wasn't sue whether or not to trust such a brutish beast, but Tog seemed partially intelligent, if not some sort of savant, either way, he was the master of this domain. So he described the Spire as his bosses have: a long spike with a battery pack that was red and blue, and five inches in diameter, and about four feet in length. Supposedly it connected to another artifact that was already in his bosses' possession.
Tog nodded. The cranking of his brain echoed loud enough for David to become eerily perturbed by the gurgling grinding sounds.
"I may have seen such a thing, little man. However, I'm not sure I can trust a gnat as you with his little firecracker pointed so firmly on my crevasse brow."
David's mammalian mind wanted to believe that Tog meant him no harm, as Tog was an intelligent being, thus he could be reasoned with, but the reptillian brain had seen many men reasoned from out their lives by far more intelligent beings than the skycraper hovering over him now. With some remorse, he let the barrel of the gun spin down, until the cranking mechanical sound tapered off onto the toxic winds of the Outside, and a desert whispering clouded out an natural sounds the world once made.
"Good, good, now we reasoning, bargain. Tog help you, and you help me. This land, it's covered in salts that burn, and sands that punch with fists of malice. I ask you little man, for...quip pro quo? Many think Tog dumb, many think Tog monster! Tog reconcile differences, and know man judgmental, regardless of good-nature. My brain functions, my memories are intact. Tog know of your Spire, Tog certain of this, you take me with you from the Outside, I'll accompany you to this Spire, and give it to you personally.
"I plan on leaving this land, heading out to sea, I want to get away, find some sanctum of humanity not irradiated by this hellish radiation. I've lived for over seven-hundred years, I've tried to die, I've tried to live, and all I know now is that since I can neither, I must move on, it's all I can do, if even for nought." David knew now that if Tog wanted to, he would've crushed his bones with a single swipe. Maybe it'd have been better for him to have done so, Death was always a welcomed benefactor to the irradiated soul down deep in his decayed body.
"Tog not sure that's a safe plan, Tog has seen the oceans that surround this land, Tog travel a great deal over the course of many sunshine units, and has been granted this implement in a battle that be written in the stars. I took the whale, and that is but the most docile of monsters that lay down in the dark, green deep."
David smiled, his teeth surpringly white for being older than modern dentistry, he heard the warning,,knew that it would have to be braved, but the oceans were his salvation, and his escape from the world that had taken everything from him, he'd rather die, and not give a fuck about the circumstances that would come from the dire beasts of the deep. Sharks, whales, even pissed-off irradiated manatees with seventeen breasts, would not keep him from leaving the epicenter of nuclear catastrophe behind.
"Then we are at an impasse my Goliath friend. I seek the seas, you clearly have a piece of it that makes you fear going back. Normally something that would make a monster, and I say that with all-due-respect frightened, would normally keep a saner man at bay. However, becaue I'm no longer sane,nor am I truly anything left of a man, I'll seek to see the sea, and depart once I'm given my pay. Now, I will deliver you from Outside Tog, but from there, you will be on your own. I seek new land, and I urge you to do the same. The world out there is as cruel as this place, formulated with beats of burden, tapped in glowing glares, ready to kill at a moment's notice. The seas are mine to conquer...if you care to join, I will assure you safe passage."
Tog looked over David, who had not shown one ounce of fear this entire time. The man had intrigued him, this living being had more courage than most mutated meanies he had come across in all his travels. With that, Tog knew he had to agree, he would help David.
"Then it is so, these days, life is too short to compromise. Tog will investigate the pyramidal ruins to help find the Spire. Then Tog shall accompany you on your travels, in return for helping you on complete this task."
It was done, the two have made the complimentary alliance, and they knew now that the trek was halfway through. With a few trudging thrusts forward, a sprint with tree trunks, the two were at the pyramidal building which was to host the resting place of the Spire. Tog smashed through the plexiglass ceiling, and dropped through. The two were met with some minor obstruction, as giant insects attacked out of predatory nature. The jarring whalebone jaw smashed the insects into crystallized dust, and that was enough for the two of them to move forward unhindered.
Tog led David to a room of sandy brown, and irradiated green, clouds that would make a Geiger counter sing Mercy Me. If they were anything but monsters the world has made them, death would've met them in this aptly-designed tomb. Tog smashed through walls, cushioning David from falling debris with surprising efficiency with the ivory weapon of ungodly terror.
They both surfaced from the radiation-filled debris, clouding the room with a haze as hot as the sun's surface, and behold! The Spire awaited their less-than-trivial excavation.
With Spire in hand, David Kafferty was feel at peace for once in nearly seven centuries. He aspired to grow out of his funk that had left him feeling more a zombie than a man, and now he had enough capital to make his way: loading up on enough supplies that a man of his condition could ever need, and a boat large enough to house ten Togs, and the whole of the Wastes, with enough room left over for a tennis court. He missed tennis, and his lire before all this shit went down.
He barely remembers life before the radiation enveloped the earth, society succumbing to a demise of its own design. Still, the sentiment remains the same, feelings of nostalgia never leave a human mind, even if one forgets why nostalgia even resides so heavily In the heart. All he remembered was a boy named Ashely, and a girl obsessed with a mortal idol named Daisy Duke. That's all he remembered....and Denver Omelettes, you never forgot Denver Omelettes.
The two raced out of the crumbling pyramidal building, apparently smashing down walls to a pre-apocalyptic building that was more shell than scaffold was plenty of destruction to have to come crashing down like an avalanche of metal and glass. Tog ran with David on his back, along with the whalebone jaw, and the Spire snugly gripped in David's hands, he rumbled and rolled about to strands of chain that were tied around Tog's shoulders, a makeshift chain armor that was more aesthetics than protective.
It took David over a day to trudge through to the Outside, and merely two hours, maximum for Tog to jog out to the clearing. both could see a horizon of daylight steak across the visual irradiated rays, and with one last sprint where speed was actually picking up on the over one-story Tog, they had reached the end of Outside, and beginning of the Wastes. The two of them made it relatively easy through the harshest part of the Wasteland, but now became the most deadliest part of the journey: now David had to deal with his boss: Roger Salamander, the Bastard of the Scourge. David knew that it wasn't the creatures of wasteland morphed by man-made horrors, but the men still untouched by such horros, that think they own the world...because deep-down, nobody is left to tell them otherwise. Hesitantly, David and Tog pressed on, towards a million credits, and the Bastard of the Scourge.
And so concludes Part 1 of the two-part story: Rotten Tog. Take your time reading this one if you want, and although there's going to be a far-thrilling conclusion to this story, but it will not be out until Friday of next week. I feel this gives people time to read up on one story, with some time to digest in-between. I appreciate all of you out there who read these short stories, and I assure you that part two of this story will be exceptional work because I think it will be a truly unique approach to the story we all know and have seen so many times before, yet we never get sick and tired of it. Thank you for readin the Malacast Editorial, and have a wonderful week!
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