The Sand Devours (Part I)
The sun is cruel.
Relentless, it dogged him, draped upon his cooked shoulders, dragging him into the sand for it to feast upon his bones as part of some terra-celestial bargain he had fallen prey to. His shirt, tattered as it was, offered little protection against the intensity of the heat and, worse, was beginning to catch on the rash of blisters that had broken out across his back. His hands, meanwhile, had begun to ooze a thick yellowish pus from the cracks that canvassed them. The burns across his arms and hands had gone from pink to red to black.
Yes, if Brandon Ashcroft was being honest with himself, he was going to die.
Imminently.
In a philosophical sense, it only made sense. He had survived a crash that no pilot should have walked away from. Never would Brandon purport himself to be the world’s best pilot, but, even still, it had not been his fault. It was, of course, the sun that had brought him down. The hot drifts rising from the sand of the Gobi below had created horrid updrafts and the small Cessna just didn’t have the juice it once did. For that, he took the blame, at least. He had inspected the craft, sure, but he was hungover and too trusting of the local man in the hangar. He’d also made similar flights enough times to feel confident enough, even in record heat, to make the short flight from Ulaanbaatar to the dig site outside Ch'a-p'u-ch'ih-erh. The researchers there believed they had stumbled upon the remains of some long lost civilization or some such bullshit that really meant nothing to Brandon or anyone else who lived in this millennium and had their own problems to deal with without delving into the issues of some dried up mummies from a four thousand years ago.
He didn’t care, but these archaeological digs always paid well for couriers of goods (go figure, the eggheads had forgotten to pack enough shovels and buckets and picks), and he was a good enough pilot to make a short flight for a fat payday.
The sun, however, had different plans for him. It had brought down his little plane within an hour, sending Brandon and his “co-pilot” (an aggrandizement if there ever was one, considering Seb had been passed out drunk before they even went wheels up) down like a dart to bury themselves in the face of a dune the size of the Chrysler Building. Brandon had crawled his way out of the wreckage, miraculously unscathed. Seb was eaten by the sand.
A dry, hollow cough rattled between Brandon’s ribs. He clutched at his chest and immediately regretted it. His blistered, oozing hands rubbed harshly against the burns on his chest, causing him to screech in pain. He sank to his knees, but there was no sanctuary there. The sand below burned even hotter than the sun above and he felt its sting even through the denim of his jeans. His hair hung loosely about his eyes, dry and cracked like every other part of him. He couldn’t even sweat, let alone cry, but he let out a weak little sob all the same.
This was it. With the last of his strength, he tilted back his head, offering himself fully to the sun to burn him away and be done with it already.
“Drink,” a voice said calmly. It sounded nearby, right beside him, but that was impossible.
“Drink,” the voice repeated and now Brandon turned toward it.
Standing beside him was a figure in a dark red robe. It was tall and lean, looming over him, but it had extended a hand to him, in which was a canteen. Brandon weighed this new sight skeptically for what may have been a half-second before his body simply overrode his mind and snatched the canteen greedily from the robed stranger’s hand. The cap was freed in an instant and Brandon felt an ecstasy he could never later explain fill his mouth and coat his parched throat as he sucked down clear, cool water.
“Yes,” said the robed man, “drink. Drink.”
Brandon had emptied nearly half the canteen down his throat before his brain finally caught back up and sounded an alarm. This may very well be the last drops of water for hundreds of miles and, sweet as it may be, conservation was likely the wiser course of action here. With a mighty effort, he managed to detach his own lips from the canteen’s.
“Th-thank you,” he sputtered, startled by the hoarseness of his voice.
“Drink,” the robed man urged. “Finish.”
Some aspect of his former self’s decorum, evidently not completely burned away by three days of wandering in the desert, cried out deep inside to demure, but it was easily drowned by another swig from the robed man’s canteen. He swallowed it thankfully, feeling the water seep into every creak and crack of his body. When he had finished it, he brought the canteen down and let out a hearty belch.
“Thank you,” Brandon said again as he offered the canteen back to this strange desert man. “I don’t — thank you.”
The man took back his canteen. His robe was heavy and folded around his arms, but even still, Brandon could see the man was remarkably thin. He caught a glimpse of bandages around the desert man’s fingers as he took hold of the canteen and quickly pulled it back into the billows of his robe. No part of the man was visible, Brandon realized suddenly, not even his face. It was hidden somewhere in the darkness of his crimson robe, with everything else.
“You are lost,” said the robed man. It was not a question.
“Yes,” Brandon replied. The water had helped to soothe his throat somewhat, but he still found speaking to be a painful labor.
“You can stand. Walk.”
Brandon was beginning to note that this robed desert man spoke only in declaratives, like a master to a dog. Better a live dog than a dead man, he figured, and, miraculously, he found that he was indeed able to stand. The water had given him some life, whatever little there was to be found in this blazing hellscape.
“Follow,” said the robed man. He turned and began to make his way across the sand. Brandon obeyed, surprised that his legs allowed it.
With each step, he felt a little stronger. His heatburns stung less, his eyes were clearer, his breath less labored. Before long, he found himself keeping pace with the desert man, who took long, seemingly effortless strides across the drifted sand which licked at the bottom of his robes but, somehow, did not stain them.
They walked along in silence for some time, the sun beating down on them.
“Where are we going?” Brandon managed after a time. The hoarseness in his voice had abated somewhat and he was happy to once again hear his own voice.
The robed man ignored him. They continued in silence as the sun drew closer to the horizon, two small dots in a rolling sea of endless sand.
The sun kissed the dunes, flared one last angry flash of red and then disappeared. Brandon stopped and watched. The robed man turned to him.
“Follow,” he said flatly and then continued on his way. Brandon obeyed.
For the first time in three days, he felt a chill kiss his skin.
To be continued…