Nomad by Jamie Nash

Author:Jamie Nash [Nash, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, Science Fiction, Nomad
ISBN: 9780999091364
Publisher: Twenty-Sider Studios
Published: 2019-07-07T22:00:00+00:00

***

AFTERMATH

I wake to the hum of the cryos. The smoke lingers, but the alarms and shrieking metal sounds are mostly gone. The ship isn’t shaking.

The Nomad saved us, somehow.

Maybe Phantom was right, maybe there’s nothing it can’t do.

As instructed, I hunt down one of the bulky spacesuits on the upper level. It takes me almost an hour to put it on. I struggle to seal the helmet for almost twenty minutes alone. With zero confidence my lifesaving suit is going to in fact keep me alive, I override the first bulkhead and step into the contaminated area. There’s a series of steel walls every ten to twenty feet, compartmentalizing the damage, imprisoning the smoke and devastation. Each has an open metal box with a keypad. Each one answers to the same override code.

I find the body about two doors in. Her skin is purpled and freezer burnt like a long-forgotten box of Eggos. Her head is grotesquely warped like the Elephant Man or that kid from Mask. She’s facing me. Her eyes—the only thing not ravaged by the unforgiving havoc of radiation and malfunctioning air pressure—are wide, her bloated arms trapped in a rictus, reaching out until her last gasp.

She was on her way back and almost made it.

Almost.

I stare deep into her dead eyes. Her left pupil flashes, dilating then contracting. A pattern. Three quick beats, then two, then three more.

It’s the code. 3-2-3.

It’s in there.

I consider my options. Maybe someone in the cryos knows something. Maybe I don’t need the Nomad. But the ship’s ravaged. And the last time I tried to wake everyone from their slumber, it ended in a slaughter.

The best chance for everyone is the Nomad.

I hoist Taylor’s corpse up and carry her from the wreckage. I have to strap her to my back to navigate the ladder leading to the upper level. I head right for the control room. The sickbay. The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor.

I activate the auto-mode, strip down, and lay next to Taylor’s lifeless vessel. I close my eyes, cross my fingers, and hum a song. Crazytown’s song. The one about treasure and trolls and the price of adventure.

I remember it now. It’s from a videogame I played long ago on a Commodore 64. Bard’s Tale. It was too complicated for me, so my mom played it with me. It was one of those role-playing games, it took days—it was like a job. But Mom sat with me. We drew maps, and battled monsters, and completed the quest. She became obsessed. I was bored shitless. I loved the normalness. The laughs. The escape.

Things stab and poke and cut me.

I hum the tune from Bard’s Tale.

And remember those days of high-adventure.

And my sweet, sweet mother.

The world begins to fade.

Again, darkness enfolds me.

***

The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor’s green eye stares down at me. I rip the breathing tube from my nostrils. My head aches. My fingers explore my hairline. I find the brand-new, jagged scar, just like the one Taylor and Phantom had. I’m part of the club now.

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