The shiny black motor flew across the barren, and vengeance followed.

Marcus felt like he was drowning, and his imminent demise tasted of ginger root.

The sun had left the day, times as they were, and Allgood was set for blood.

Rachel liked the smell of a wood fire, yet, she felt a bit more uncomfortable when that smell-and the fire-were indoors.

One of the hardest things to reckon out in the wide barren, times as they are, is not only losing folk that you held close, but trying to keep a strangle on the memories they left.

Every time he balanced one of the massive tobacco jars between his arthritic fingers, Morris briefly considered escape.

Rhamuel watched the helicopter effortlessly lift into the air, and he briefly pondered how useful such a thing could be out in the barren.

Stirring, Abranyah woke, and after a small stretch of lip smacking and unfocused blinking, she saw that Rhamuel was covered in blood.

There was a solemn nature about a place designed to fly folk around the landscape-especially one now long past use-but the way Rhamuel figured, it was just a big graveyard without any bodies.

Some think The Whatever came in the form of an all-out piece of military vengeance, someone with their mitts too close to the red button and a predilection for sociopathy.

How he'd awoken in the middle of tall grass probably should've been his first question-but instead-Rhamuel simply wanted to know what time it was.

The rumbling engine of the big motor was loud enough to drown out her thoughts, and for once, Abranyah was glad for it.

To the forfeit wanderers and other wayward souls living in the scar: This is a poor excuse for a travel guide, confusing at best, but if you're still around to turn its pages, you're already used to such nonsense.

They arrived at dark, and it was the men on rooftop with loaded rifles that cemented Rhamuel's distaste for strangers.

Paper football or a rubber-band shootout did well to occupy those lulls in the night, but nothing passed the time quite like a gunshot victim.

Rhamuel inhaled deeply through his nose, and pondered the world.

Old Mother placed her hands in her lap, gestured to the wooden table at her side, and ordered the boy to practice a decision of fate.

An old man and a young man sat across from each other in a bar, locking stares with joy and fear, and the old man would be dead in seven minutes.

Grave robbing requires a corpse, so at most, this was all just simple thievery.