The whole situation was ridiculous! He was ridiculous for letting himself get caught in it!

Grant was a bounty hunter, he had little to no care for the sodding bairn crying and begging him. He knew he should have walked away. He had decided a long time ago, that he would grow up to look after no one but himself. As long as Grant had money, he would find a way to survive.

The bairns weren't his responsibility anyway, they were wards of The State. The State with all its infinite power and resources could worry about the people in the Outside. Outside, where the sun burned and the lightning pulverised.

Regardless, this was exactly why he should have walked away when the bairn came up to him with the glittering necklace. Bairns were always trouble.

Always.

But Grant Kelly was one greedy son of a gun. All he could think about was the credits he would get for selling the shiny rock on the necklace. All he could imagine was the comfort he would get in the cool sun-safe bunkers, and water. Real water, not the crap he got from the Outside.

The bairn just wanted him to rescue her brother from some Snatchers too. They were cowards that stole bairns and sold them back to The State as slaves. He'd dealt with them before. The girl even had the location of the Snatcher Hole. All she wanted was for him to walk in there and bring her brother back.

So Grant grabbed his satchel and donned his long thick overcoat and his wide-brimmed masked hat as he walked out of the cool comfort of the sun-safe pod. They were his only protection against the harsh sun in the Outside.

It would have been far too risky to travel at night. Despite the lack of sun, there were other dangers in the dark that he'd rather avoid.

So he braved the malice of the sun and walked out into the dusty, rocky terrains of the Outside. The sun had taught them there was no loitering in the Outside. Everyone would get their task done and return to their caves or—if they could afford it—their sun-safes. So Grant too rushed across the sandy cliffs and down to the earth, into the cave in The Pits. The Pits were apparently once bodies of water, it seemed an impossible dream now.

Grant made his way further into the cave until he reached Snatcher Hole—which was really just a hole in the floor. He poked around his satchel until he found it. A small stone he'd always kept for luck.

"Good luck," he told the pebble as he dropped it down the Snatcher Hole. He heard a screech and a series of snaps as the hole lit up in an orange-red flurry of lights. Booby traps for children. It was a wonder the Snatchers were still alive.

Grant followed the pebble down with a graceful leap into the hole. He looked up at the path ahead, it was sculpted in a labyrinth of underground tunnels spreading out in every direction. There was no light as far as he could see and no sound.

This was supposed to be easy money.

Grant decided to follow his only useful sense, he unclasped the mask from his pale, bristled face and took a long whiff of each opening before setting off. He had one hand on the gun tucked in his waistband and the other on his stun rod. So he wasn't worried.

And then he heard voices.

Grant switched his strides to softer, quieter steps as he followed the echoing of chatter. They didn't sound like they had heard him, this was happy chatter. Were they pre-celebrating their ticket to a night in the sun-safe? Too bad for them. Really. The Outside was no place for humans anymore.

Grant would have liked to stay in the shadows and sneak the child away, but he couldn't wait. He had been here for a while and the sun would set soon. He didn't want to risk climbing back up to the cliff that hoisted the sun-safes at night. There were too many variables and too many threats. So he drew his gun, his long sleek weapon of death, and walked up to the chattering scavengers.

"Bounty Hunter!" one of the masked Snatchers hissed.

"Snatchers," Grant responded nonchalantly as he surveyed them, there was no need to kill them just yet, easy as it was. "I just want the bairn you snatched today. His wee sister promised me money for his safe return."

"What if we pay you to go away?" one of the Snatchers suggested. Grant eyed the man suspiciously for a moment. This wasn't his first exchange, he wasn't going to fall for another moonlight flit. Unless ... what if he did one?

"How much?"

They seemed to relax at his question and began whispering among themselves, naive little idiots.

"Fifteen hundred," the Snatcher hissed, "that's half of our reward!"

Fifteen hundred was more than he had been offered by the sister, but Grant Kelly was too greedy to refuse. He didn't want to have to choose from either, he wanted both. "A thousand upfront," he demanded, moving his gun from one Snatcher to the next.

If these idiots had even a little bit of common sense, they would band together and snatch his gun. There were five of them and one of him. Lucky for him, they didn't.

"Yes! Yes! Then you go!"

Grant drew his communication pad from the satchel and his eyes settled on the little sun icon on the top right, "The sun sets in an hour, I'm not going anywhere."

He watched the Snatchers retrieve their own pad from a hole in the floor before they whispered amongst each other again.

"One night!" they agreed in unison.

"My credits," Grant reminded when he noticed they had begun to scatter, he raised his gun again. A soft musical beep on his pad assured him that he'd gotten his first thousand. Perfect.

"Now." He looked around the dark hole, "Where am I sleeping?" Hopefully, it would be somewhere near the bairn so he could sneak away with the boy before the others woke up.

"Here," the Snatcher closest to him insisted, pointing at the floor.

"Yeah, I don't think so pal." They weren't going to dump him at the entrance while they slept snugly away from the monsters in their hidey-hole. "I'm sleeping with the bairn." It would be easier to make sure they didn't accidentally kill him, or even worse, run away with the boy before he could double-cross them.

Grant had to remind the idiots he still had a gun before he was led down another hole to a small cavern with a cage in the centre. The bairn sat square in the middle of the cage, ignoring him completely. He must have heard the conversation outside, children were quick to lose hope.

He sat beside the bairn, gun in hand. The lock on the cage was crude, his stun rod could snap it away. All he needed to wait for was dawn. As soon as the first rays of light would begin to peek, the creatures would vanish and he would get his jewel.

He wasn't sure when he nodded off or even for how long, only that he awoke to a loud clicking.

Grant seized his gun and retreated to the cage, hoping he'd misheard it. But there it was again.

CLICK CLICK CLICK

If ever there was a time to swear, this was it. There was only one creature that clicked as loud as that. The only creature that he had sought shelter against in this hot, double-crossing excuse of a sanctuary.

Grant didn't wait, he slammed the rod on the lock and yanked the sleeping boy over his shoulder. He had his gun, and it had enough ammunition for exactly this scenario.

Stupid stupid Snatchers! They must have let the night wraiths in to kill him and steal his weapons. He wouldn't be surprised if he found their bodies outside. Grant popped his mask back on, he didn't need his smell anymore, he needed the night-vision that the goggles provided.

He turned to the hole, something was crawling down it, but many more somethings were on top, clicking the giant pincers on their humanoid faces as they crawled using their abysmally large limbs. Grant had never seen a living wraith. He only knew of them because he was a bounty hunter.

This entire mess was his own ridiculous fault. He should have killed the snatchers after he got the first thousand. He was an idiot for letting himself get caught up in this. If it was still night, he had the lightning to worry about once he was out too.

Grant fired a single shot at the approaching creature, one shot between the eyes. It thrashed for a moment before rolling on its back and folding its legs in like an oversized cockroach. He raced ahead, firing at every creature he could spot. Their oversized arms had razor-sharp claws, he wasn't going to embrace death tonight. So he fired and fired maintaining his back to the walls.

He followed the approaching creatures, the night wraiths this time. They had to be coming from the surface, hundreds though they were. Grant could hear the child sobbing on his shoulder but he didn't care. There were an impossible amount of monsters crawling up to him. If they made it out of here alive, he would give the boy a glass of real water.

He pulled a grenade out of the satchel and armed it with a click before tossing it ahead. Grant was dangerously low on ammunition and he didn't have time to reload. He had to be smart now.

He watched the bio-bomb explode in a vortex of black and red as an entire circle of creatures around it were replaced by blood and mush. He dashed on, no way was he going to be monster dinner.

Too late.

He was surrounded now, by scores of the creepy crawling fiends. And they were everywhere, on the walls and ceilings, their long snake-like tongues flicking in and out of their humanoid faces.

There was only one thing left to do. Grant Kelly was a bounty hunter, not a martyr. He always had an escape plan. Always.

He changed the settings of his stun rod and tossed it in the air a few feet away. He then immediately wrapped his long can't around himself and the bairn as he crouched into a ball, squatting with his head tucked in his body and his hands over his ears.

The noise that followed was deafening. It was as if the heavens had exploded in a blinding flash of white and debris. Grant's ears were ringing far too loudly to hear the screeching of the wraiths as they were tossed about the cave, like popcorn.

He continued squatting like a ball as the explosions continued. The pulverising lightning that terrorised the night sky was another reason the Outside was a death trap. The engineering that had gone into the design of his shoes was one reason he was alive. His ingenious brain that had thought of turning his stun rod into a lightning rod was another.

Grant wasn't aware how long he continued squatting, only that he the sun was out by then. He checked the boy he'd been squashing all night for signs of life. A dead bairn wasn't really worth anything.

The boy was alive though, terrified and in shock—judging by his wide eyes and open mouth, but alive. Grant slung the boy over his shoulder again as he walked out into the sun.

He was never going to take a bounty from a bairn again. Bairns were far too much trouble.

(1999 words)