The Nest
The screech echoed through the canyon walls like metal tearing apart. Adrian felt it in his spine. Not metaphorically, physically. Every instinct in his body immediately screamed leave… Now! Immediately! Preferably while setting the entire desert on fire behind them.
Tandi slowly picked her rifle back up from the dirt beside the rocks, “…that sounded bigger.”
“That’s because it probably is,” Cassandra answered calmly.
Too calmly, Adrian stared at her. “You say horrifying things with the emotional weight of weather reports.”
“It helps.”
“No it absolutely doesn’t.”
☢ ☢ ☢
The wind swept dust through the canyon while the three of them stood beside the dead radscorpion. Adrian’s pulse still hammered from the fight. His shoulder hurt, his ribs hurt and his ears still rang faintly from repeated gunfire.
And somehow… he felt incredible. Exhausted and terrified but alive. The wasteland had stripped away every layer of modern numbness in less than a week. No schedules, no notifications and no meaningless background noise. Just survival, brutal immediate survival and Adrian hated how much he loved it.
Tandi crouched beside the dead radscorpion studying the tracks leading deeper into the rocky pass. “There’s definitely a nest.”
Cassandra nodded once. “Probably close.”
Adrian looked between them, “…you’re both saying that like we’re staying.”
Neither answered immediately, which was answer enough. “Oh come on.”
Cassandra checked the shells remaining in her shotgun. “If we leave the nest intact, they keep attacking Shady Sands.”
“Counterpoint,” Adrian said carefully, “what if giant venom monsters deserve privacy?”
Tandi snorted loudly, Cassandra almost smiled again. Almost. Then her expression hardened as she looked deeper into the canyon. “Too dangerous to leave alive.”
Simple statement, matter-of-fact. Adrian noticed something then, she didn’t enjoy violence. But she accepted it completely when necessary. No hesitation, no moral speeches and no denial. Just reality.
That honestly made her scarier than the wasteland sometimes.
☢ ☢ ☢
They moved deeper into the canyon cautiously. The terrain narrowed steadily around them until jagged stone walls rose sharply on both sides. The air smelled wrong here. Thick and rotting somehow.
Adrian noticed strange piles scattered near the rocks, brahmin bones, stripped carcasses and cracked skulls. Feeding grounds, fantastic.
“Okay,” Adrian whispered, “this officially feels like a terrible idea.”
“You’ve said that several times,” Cassandra replied quietly.
“Yes because the environment keeps validating me.”
Tandi walked slightly ahead now with her rifle raised carefully. Unlike Adrian, she moved confidently through the terrain. Not military disciplined like Cassandra, but experienced. Wasteland-born.
She belonged here in a way Adrian still didn’t. That realization sat strangely heavy in his chest, because despite how alive the wasteland made him feel… it still wasn’t truly his world.
A faint clicking noise echoed ahead. Everyone froze at the same time. Adrian tightened his grip on the shotgun, the sound came again.
SCRK.
SCRK.
SCRK.
Claws against stone, then another sound. Smaller, higher pitched.
Adrian frowned, “…baby scorpions?”
Tandi’s face twisted slightly. “That’s worse.”
Agreed… Adrian very much agreed.
☢ ☢ ☢
They rounded a narrow rock bend carefully and Adrian immediately wished they hadn’t. The nest sprawled across a partially collapsed cave entrance ahead. Dozens of eggs clustered among the rocks coated in dark slime while smaller radscorpions crawled over the walls and floor in twitching swarms.
At the center something massive shifted slowly in the darkness beyond. Adrian’s entire nervous system attempted resignation. “Oh you have GOT to be kidding me.”
The larger shape emerged gradually from the cave. Bigger than the first radscorpion, much bigger. Its armored body nearly filled the cave entrance while enormous claws scraped sparks against the stone beneath it. One massive scar crossed part of its shell, old battle damage.
Its glowing red eyes locked directly onto them. The mother radscorpion screeched and the smaller creatures immediately surged forward.
“BACK!” Cassandra shouted.
Gunfire exploded through the canyon. Tandi’s rifle cracked twice, blowing apart one of the smaller radscorpions as the swarm rushed toward them over the rocks.
Adrian fired instinctively.
BOOM.
One creature disintegrated mid-charge. Three more replaced it. “Oh HELL no!”
The canyon became chaos. The smaller radscorpions moved terrifyingly fast over uneven terrain while the massive mother creature advanced slowly behind them like a living tank. Cassandra dropped two with rapid shotgun blasts before switching instantly to a combat knife as one lunged too close.
The blade slammed downward through the creature’s skull with brutal efficiency. Adrian honestly didn’t think she even realized how frightening she looked anymore.
One smaller radscorpion leapt onto the rocks near Tandi. She smashed the rifle stock directly into its face before finishing it with a point-blank shot.
Meanwhile Adrian was rapidly discovering shotguns were amazing, until everything wanted to kill you simultaneously. He blasted another creature apart then realized he was nearly out of shells. “Uh little problem!”
Cassandra glanced sideways while dodging a snapping claw. “How many left?”
Adrian checked frantically, “…not enough for the big one!” The mother radscorpion screeched again, then charged. The ground shook beneath its weight. “Oh absolutely FUCK THAT.”
Cassandra immediately moved toward a cluster of higher rocks. “Up there!” The three of them scrambled upward while the giant creature slammed into the canyon floor below hard enough to crack stone, dust exploded upward as the smaller radscorpions swarmed after them.
Adrian pumped the shotgun again, empty… shit.
☢ ☢ ☢
One creature lunged toward him Cassandra’s pistol barked twice. The radscorpion collapsed beside Adrian’s boots twitching violently. He blinked. “Thank god you still have the pistol”
“Everyone should have a pistol.” Fair point honestly.
The mother radscorpion slammed against the rocks beneath them repeatedly trying to climb higher, too big and heavy. Its claws carved chunks from the stone while venom sprayed from the massive stinger overhead.
Tandi reloaded quickly beside Adrian. “We can’t hold this position forever!”
“No kidding!” Cassandra scanned the canyon rapidly. Thinking, calculating, then her eyes narrowed slightly toward the cave behind the creature. Egg clusters, lots of them.
Adrian saw the realization hit her instantly and immediately hated it.
“No.”
Cassandra looked at him. “We collapse the nest.”
“NO.”
“It’s the fastest solution.”
“You just casually skipped over the part where we die horribly getting there!”
The mother radscorpion screeched again beneath them. Stone cracked violently under one claw strike.
Cassandra met Adrian’s eyes evenly. “We don’t have better options.”
God damn it, the worst part? She was probably right. Adrian looked toward the cave entrance again. Then at the endless swarm still crawling from the darkness, then finally back toward Cassandra Hale. “I hate how competent you are.”