Free Gravewalkers: Dying Time by Richard T. Schrader Page A

the time that
he had it ready, a trap door in the ceiling lifted open from above
then a human figure dropped down through that hatch using a stack
of crates to stand on. After the person quietly closed the hatch
and then climbed off the boxes, they stepped into the cold light
shed by the lamp.
    Critias saw that it was his
android Carmen. So relieved, he asked her, “What the hell are you
doing here?”
    “ You’re awake,” she said
pleased. “You arrived unconscious and have been asleep for several
hours. I was concerned you might have suffered some form of brain
damage. I had some problems myself. The transposition temporarily
traumatized the neorganic portions of my brain. The ride gave me
such a headache.”
    He put his pistol down on a
crate, “You were in bed the last time I saw you, which was
incredible by the way. Now you’re here with me. I guess you have
met that mad scientist Doctor Kine.”
    The insinuation wounded her
in ways she never would have displayed before, “You thought I would
abandon you?” With a depth of conviction that contained much in the
way of hidden meaning, she said, “I had to follow you.”
    Her disappointment in his
expectation was so apparent that it urged him to remedy her injury,
“Actually, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be seeing right now
than you. Can you tell me where we are?”
    Carmen smiled with
adoration when he said he valued her company so highly then she
took a handheld scanner from an open medical kit. She used the
device to check his vital signs, “We’ve arrived at a period of
history the scholars refer to as the Dying Time, about forty months
after initial Outbreak. Infection is already systemically global. I
estimate there are perhaps only one hundred thousand human beings
still in existence, hiding out in various doomsday bunkers. Well
over ninety percent of them will die within the next twelve
months.”
    The name didn’t make much
sense to Critias, “If nearly everyone is already a screaming
cannibal, why do we call this the Dying Time?”
    Satisfied with the healthy
results of her medical scan, she said, “I believe that the name
came about in regard to the survival bottleneck that this stage of
human extinction represents. About this time, those groups who
still survive inside elaborately prepared doomsday bunkers have
exhausted their stored supplies of fresh water or food, if not
both. Though they remain secure within impregnable walls, they will
soon die anyway from lack of sustenance and frequently from violent
internal conflicts resulting from their social declension into
barbarism. Obviously, many of these groups will venture out to try
foraging new supplies, only to have the ghouls hunt them down for
food or turn them. Their circumstances would be mortiferous enough
to justify calling this the Dying Time even under the assumption
that watchers are not real, for if they are a legitimate predatory
threat, they will have to worry about those as well.”
    Critias was no expert on
Earth history, but everyone in his time remembered King Louie as
the reason humans still existed at all. He was the great savior of
mankind, a man of myth and legend as much as flesh and bone. He
thought it obvious that he should begin there, “Where does King
Louie fit into this Dying Time?”
    “ King Louie not only
survives in this age, but expands his dominion,” Carmen told him as
much as he already knew. “Every human being alive on the space
stations and oceanic platforms are a descendant of his leadership.
Records from his time are thin, but it’s certain that the other few
major groups of successful survivors join up with him while the
rest perish in the apocalypse becoming infected themselves or food
for them. You can ask King Louie about all this yourself when we
meet him; that’s why we’re here.”
    “ Hard for me to believe
that they can survive dirt-side with only primitive technology,”
Critias reasoned his thoughts aloud. “Not when in our