Entering Olympus

The gravel cuts into my ass with every yard Reaper drags me, not metaphorically or poetically, but literally. Every inch of the road leaves a new bruise. Jagged stones scrape my thighs while dust coats my skin and fills my mouth. My overalls are filthy from the fight. My shoulders ache from exhaustion. Every part of me feels battered.

Reaper does not seem to notice.

The giant mutant has one fist locked around the back of my overall shorts and simply hauls me beside him like a piece of luggage, as though I weigh nothing. Every time I manage to get my feet beneath me for a few steps, he drags me forward faster.

Every time I stumble, I find myself bouncing across the dirt again. The junkyard slowly gives way to something else. The settlement emerges ahead of us. Warped wooden shacks have been built from scavenged sheet metal, old barn planks, and rusted highway signs.

Clotheslines sag between leaning structures. A windmill creaks overhead. Smoke drifts lazily from chimneys into the desert sky. The whole place smells of woodsmoke, diesel fuel, sweat, and decades of hard living. I dig my heels into the dirt.

"Quit squirming," Reaper says without even looking back.

My effort accomplishes absolutely nothing. As we enter the settlement, people begin noticing us. There are not many of them. A woman with a misshapen jaw pauses beside a clothesline strung between two shacks. An elderly mutant whose scalp is covered in pale growths looks up from a rocking chair on a porch.

Two broad-shouldered men working on the engine of a battered pickup truck stop long enough to watch us pass. None of them seem surprised by the sight of me being dragged through town. If anything, they look mildly interested. Altogether, I count perhaps fifteen people.

The entire community could fit inside a small diner. They are all different. Some bear only minor deformities. Others look as though generations of radiation and isolation have rewritten them entirely. Yet despite their appearance, there is something undeniably ordinary about the scene.

Reaper acknowledges a few of them with casual nods as he drags me down the center of the road. Ahead of us, the settlement opens into a wider central square surrounded by its largest structures. Rusted sheet metal reinforces the walls. Animal skulls hang beneath the roofline.

Smoke drifts lazily from crooked chimneys into the bright desert morning. Reaper finally slows and looks up. I follow his gaze. A weathered wooden sign hangs above the entrance. The white paint is cracked and faded from years beneath the desert sun, but the words remain perfectly legible: MOUNT OLYMPUS.