Rust Bucket

By Abigail Falanga

It’s been weeks—months, maybe—since the world ended. Since my city burned. But the smoke lingers, turning the sky gray-gold.

I catch my breath in the shade of a dune, listening for something beyond the hollow rasp of wind over sand.

Trolls never give up once they have the scent of prey. And let’s be real, I stink. If Aunt Sophia were here, she would yell at me to take a shower.

But she’s not. And anyway, it’s not my B.O. the trolls are tracking. It’s my magic.

I scramble up the dune and look out to where my city once stood, now replaced with orangey-gray dunes and rubble as far as the eye can see.

Little is recognizable. The mountains to the west, against which the dragons appeared the morning after the Cataclysm. The freeway interchange is still a tangled wreck from the wizard-battle that raged soon after. The lake straight ahead, barely visible through the haze, glistens a dangerous crystalline red—just as the Cataclysm left it.

I turn away and take off toward the emptiness that used to be my suburb, including Uncle Gabe’s junkyard where he kept the junkers he’d hoped to fix up one day.

Following the call of the magic tingling under my skin, aching to be free.

A few of us survivors escaped the destruction only just in time. But we hadn’t stayed together long. The group split, too different to stay together. I’d managed to stick with some who remained mostly human, or who weren’t different enough to be dangerous. They hadn’t realized how different I am.

At least, not until the smell of magic attracted the trolls.

I’d ignored my magic, keeping away from Uncle Gabe’s junkyard, where it felt strongest. But it still put my friends in danger. When the trolls attacked, my group’s leaders quickly realized my magic-scent betrayed them.

“We can fight them off,” they said, despite the horror in their eyes. “Don’t run!”

But maybe by drawing the trolls off, I can still help my friends. Even if it kills me.

That was what the Cataclysm gave me. It warped and molded people and objects into new creatures, unleashed magic, and released horrors from other dimensions—like the trolls that hunted me. It took everything and gave me stupid, incomprehensible magic in return. Not even useful magic, like the wizards. Just a weird, itching sensation whenever I neared certain machinery.

I race over sandy dunes, concrete and cinderblock ruins marking out what used to be streets. A jumble of cars tossed aside as if by a hurricane—wrecked, otherwise scavengers would’ve taken them by now.

The trolls found us because of my magic. They’re hunting me for it. It’s time I started following it.

A roar and a crash, shaking the dunes!

I spin around. Can’t see anything. Rubble and dunes shield me—and the trolls. But their heavy footfalls shake the ground at regular intervals. They’re not far behind.

The feel—the draw—that strange burning is the strongest it has been since that first day after the Cataclysm. I’m close.

I run toward it, ignoring everything else that I might recognize, ignoring the nearing growling of the trolls.

There—at last!

The crumbled corner of a shed and the jagged bones of a chain-link fence. Uncle Gabe’s junkyard.

I top a dune and skid down the other side. Relief floods me, along with the welling of magic so strong it nearly chokes me.

Those stupid old cars are still there. A few of them, anyway, half-buried in sand and gravel. I don’t know how often I asked why he kept them.

“I’ll get to them,” Uncle Gabe would say. Or “They’re good for parts.” Or “Grab a hammer and take your anger out on ‘em, Levi.”

I rush toward them—

And almost jump out of my tingling skin at a bellow almost right behind me.

The trolls.

I fall against the rusty side of one of the cars and turn, just as three gigantic brutes barrel around the dune. There’s no cover. I can’t run on. They’re going to—

Something burns against my hands. I look down at them, braced against the clunker’s door, which has lost its paint job to rust.

But the rust grows and morphs under my hands, spreading along the car. It burns like fire—or magic.

It finds joints, breaks slabs of metal apart and reforms them into jumbles.

I swear with pain and panic and jump away, rust and chunks of metal clinging to my hands. But my mind is too focused on staying alive to freak out.

The trolls charge me, reaching with greedy hands, roaring with ravenous, toothy mouths.

Scrambling around the corner of the shed, I try to scrape the burning-hot scraps from my hands. The metal and rust morph, grow, stretch—but don’t come off. Like fire and magic together, reaching into my skin.

What if—?

This rust-fire is my magic. Can I control it?

The shed wall explodes into fragments under a troll cudgel.

I jump behind a cinderblock wall, trying to concentrate. The rust begins shaping chunks of metal as I direct, but it’s not much use. There’s enough for a knife—not much weapon against a troll.

Unless… the cars.

With a deep breath, I dodge from cover to cover, staying ahead of the cumbersome trolls until I reach an old truck.

I slam my hands against it and reach out with magic, pulling in three other vehicles until there’s enough material. Command them to meld into a new form: Legs, torso, arms, head, joints—held together and reinforced by rust-fire.

Yelping a laugh, I bend it around me, growing, morphing. It solidifies into a suit of armor—a mech—formed out of four old cars now towering over the trolls.

I turn on them and smirk, rust-fire tingling through metal, as much a part of me as my bones.

Looks like I can protect my friends after all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abigail Falanga may be found in New Mexico creating magic in many ways – with fabric, food, paper, music, and especially with words! She’s loved fantasy ever since playing out epic adventures of swords, fairies, and monsters with her siblings, and loved sci-fi since her dad’s stories around the dinner table. Besides sharing mad little stories on Havok, she is busily trying to launch approximately five hundred novels into the world. Some of them are even finished!

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