Lonely Little Bomb

This is a piece that I wrote for a challenge about a monster that isn't your typical monster.  It's inspired by Fallout 3, as well as the countless 50s and 60s era nuclear winter novels I read growing up.

The lonely little bomb had sat in the ruined suburb for centuries. 

            When the war came, it had been lined up with its brothers and sisters, placed into the belly of a great beast, and sent soaring into the sky.  While its siblings had wrecked havoc across the once sprawling metropolis, the glory of detonation was never achieved for the sad device.  Something had gone wrong with its inner machinations and it had struck the enemy soil as a dud, plowing a crater into the former suburban sprawl.

            At first there had been many people.  Those who had survived the attacks had attempted to escape what was now a living nightmare.  The grim specters Starvation and Poison raced across the country-side, battling against Violence for their scarred souls.  Few that passed through the once peaceful neighborhood made it out of the region.  Their corpses mingled with those of the victims of the initial blast, painting a gruesome masterpiece of violence and pain.  The world of suburbia had been twisted into that of a desolate, blighted wasteland.

            A decade passed, and then another.  The dangerous payload deep within the little weapon’s tummy slumbered, dreaming its dreams of inferno even as it slowly leaked from its prison.  As even more time passed, poisonous rains subsided as the fallout cleared from the air.  The reign of the twin demons Cobalt and Strontium ended. 

The little bomb paid no heed.

            Time marched forth, and the humans returned to the ruined city.  Lean and mangy, they scavenged the old ruins looking for any treasure from the past.  Those that stumbled across the crater often did not leave.  These unlucky souls were condemned to sleep forever under the explosive’s unwavering watch.  Over time, warnings passed between the remnants of humanity and most learned to stay far away from the lonely armament. 

The further passage of time brought more and more people back to the ruins of the once great city.  A small, ragged group of nomads did not pay heed to the warnings and built a village not too far from the place of terrible evil. 

While their crops often faltered and there were many health problems, the village was protected from the dangers brought about by the dangerous bandits that roamed the land. These dangerous tribes, too, feared the monster that slumbered in the middle of the Old Ones’ ruined city. 

Over time, the village came to view the strange, unknown thing as one of the Old Ones’ gods.  Because of its fearsome presence, they believed, no raider dared to enter their village. While their children were often sickly or misshapen, they were able to eke out an almost prosperous existence.   Soon, the priests decreed that the Great Protector required an annual demonstration of subservience and every spring the most comely pre-pubescent children in the village went to dwell with Him.

            The little bomb was lonely no more.