The Evil King (Still different)

Tex gagged for air, writhing and kicking as her assailant's hand crushed its way into her neck. "Say my name," the wiry man commanded to the shadows. Tex clawed at the man's fingers, drawing blood as a dull pain shot from her neck to her head, and her chest ached as though it would implode. The man didn't seem to notice or care, though, with his attention trained on bobbing his head about to scan the shadows in the room. "HELLOOOO!" the man shouted, his thunderous voice rattling the dust off the metal floor. "Don't you care about your comrade?! Her life is on your tongue- merely say my name and you will deliver her to safety!" The man fell silent again, scanning the room for a reaction- one that Tex knew wasn't coming.

The man turned his head back to Tex and glared at her furiously. "Little viper, I recognize your smell, the sound of your heart and your lungs- you have surely come to kill me. Certainly you couldn't be so demented as to try alone," the man said, seeming to make an appeal to Tex with his infinitely black, dead eyes dully shining from behind his golden-plated helmet. "Deliver the other to me, and I will allow you to live," he offered, speaking as if whispering sweet nothings into a lover's ear. Then, his grapple on Tex's throat loosened until she was hanging by her jaw from his hand.

Coughing and sputtering violently, even gagging between fits of coughs, Tex's head pounded, seemingly enraged the spontaneous return of oxygen-rich blood. The man bobbed his head and tilted his face away from her, as if intrigued by her reaction. "I have brought an army!" she managed to choke out. Her answer was met with quiet, menacing laughter.

"So you are alone. Very well," the man said, releasing Tex and allowing her to crash to the floor. "Say my name, and I will release you," he said, stepping back and spreading his arms to show himself in his full glory. The man was awkwardly tall and bony, with long strands of neon blonde hair that stood straight up off of his skull. His cheeks were flushed red, and the rest of his body was as white as snow. He wore black and yellow knee-high belt-and-lace boots with platform heels. Visible above that were skin-tight, leather pants that were so thoroughly polished, she could see her face on either of his thighs. The man's waist and groin were covered by a thin, fabric belt with a huge, circular mirror for the buckle. His skeletal frame was then completely buried under a giant, flowing, purple-dyed tiger-skin coat, with dyed neon yellow eagle feathers protruding from the collar and the sleeves of the coat. The next things visible were the small bells that hung off the chains of his earrings. At last, adorning his face was a golden helm, which covered only his forehead, his ears, and the bridge of his nose, leaving room for his forearm-length spike of sunlight-yellow hair to protrude skyward.

Tex scowled. "I know who you are."

The man bobbed his head. "Say it!"

 "The evil overlord of the world, leader of the blockelites, and scourge of the good and the kind-" Tex began.

"No need for formalities m'dear. Just... say it," the man commanded, bent forward under the weight of anticipation.

"The evil king, Reno." Tex said.

"RENO!" Reno echoed, throwing his arms out to either side, using some foreign magic to summon letters in front of him that read:
'Evil Overlord
RENO'
"Play it!" Reno commanded to the empty room, which suddenly came alive with contorted shadows, each belonging to some horribly malformed instrument. The silence that had once gripped the room now fled, chased out by the mutant cacophony of the cursed orchestra. "That's more like it!" Reno shouted, still clearly audible over his orchestra. "I haven't got to do that in so long- feels good. Ah... Well, a deal's a deal. I'll just break your arms and legs and we'll both be on our wa-" Reno abruptly stopped, his face frozen in a pinched, devious smile. All at once, the shadows seemed to right themselves, and the music wilted with a gut-wrenching screech. Reno blinked once, let out a grunt, and looked down at his abdomen, from which protruded the bloodied point of a blade. Behind him, Tex's partner and elder of her village, Koshka, raised another knife in her free hand.

Reno craned his head completely around and smashed his face into Koshka's three times before she could recoil out of range. "What are you doing?!" Reno asked, flashing a wide, shark-toothed grin as he turned the rest of his body to face his opponent. Unshaken neither by the surprise attack, nor the blood that now ran into her eyes, Koshka bore her teeth, drew her arm back to throw the knife. She was promptly brought to her knees as Reno unleashed a mighty screech that ruptured her eardrums and shattered the blade in her hand. Reno paused in mid-step, shrugged, and melted the impaled knife out of his body, leaving behind only a hole in his clothing. "That's an interesting knife you had there, to so ably pierce the flesh of the divine. I knew I killed off your clan for a reason," Reno snarled, looking over his shoulder at Tex. "Orchestra!" Reno barked, causing the shadows to contort once more, holding their instruments at the ready. "We've got killing to do."

Now for something entirely different

"I have reason to believe that you are in significant danger," Alexei Lyapunov said, his sharpened consonants playing at a Russian accent. Alexei was a large man with tightly packed musculature to hang off of a sturdy skeletal frame. As such, he comically dwarfed the leather and walnut chair that the mayor's office provided for it's guests. The ridiculousness of it had nagged at him from the moment that he'd laid eyes on the chair, but he was able to put it in the back of his mind for the sake of the greater good. In this case, the 'good' was setting up his next kill.

An awful silence set about the room, and very slowly, Alexei's message seemed to set in. A tall, lanky Hispanic man, mayor Guillermo Delasol was not easily cast as intimidating outside of political circles. Lyapunov was his polar opposite, and looked break a man between his fingers. He'd known this day was coming eventually, as many people as he'd pissed off trying to clean up his city- he hadn't expected it so soon, though. Knowing that any attempt to reach the silent alarm with his hands above the desk would be blatantly obvious, Guillermo cleared his throat and sat his pen down. "I uh... What exactly are you saying, Mister Lyapunov?"

Alexei smiled and leaned forward, causing the wood to creak under the strain of his weight. "Mayor Delasol, I've killed a lot of people for the common good. Israel has no shortage of rich, powerful enemies, you see. I don't work for the my government anymore, but I still try to look out for the common good. You are in deep trouble, mister mayor, so I have come to warn you."

All at once, the fear that had been as real as Alexei himself departed from Guillermo. "Excuse me!" he shouted, standing up an slamming one hand down on his desk with a thunderous clap. "You mean you came to threaten me!" he screamed. Alexei didn't react, but remained still, smiling at the mayor with fixed eyes and a toothy grin. "Didn't you?! DIDN'T YOU?!" the mayor screamed, slapping a stack of papers off of his desk in Alexei's direction.

Unphased by the mayor's theatrics, Alexei replied in the same cool voice, now made to sound eerie in the shadow of the mayor's rage. "Oh, no, not a threat, mister Delasol." The mayor made several loud screeching sounds and took to flailing his arms about, almost taking on the appearance of a brain damaged eagle. Ignoring what he had to say was fairly easy, given that English was his third language, but Alexei felt it was safe to presume the mayor wanted him to leave. "Are you listening to me?! Huh?!" Guillermo screamed as he marched up to Alexei's chair, inflamed with this unwanted guest's indifference. Alexei shifted in the chair and smiled at the mayor.

"I don't believe you know who your enemies truly are. To be more specific," Alexei said, standing up and instantly dwarfing the mayor. "I don't think you know who he is."

"You mean to tell me you're not my enemy?" Guillermo asked, stepping back to lean against his desk and fold his arms. He surveyed Alexei more thoroughly now, reconsidering his aggression in the face of this man's enormous stature. Alexei nodded slowly, careful not to break eye contact. Guillermo considered him for a time, and then glanced at his watch. Then, he looked back to Alexei, who stood in military parade rest stance, carefully observing the mayor back. The mayor sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow, and then fished a cigar from his pocket. "Lock the door on your way out" he said, his voice low and tired as he lifted the cigar to his mouth.

"I should ask you to reconsider," Alexei said, his voice as cool and suggestive as when the conversation started. The mayor stopped his lighter just shy of the cigar and glared back up at Alexei. Alexei nodded. "As you wish," he acknowledged, then turned, and left. Too bad, Alexei thought, the cute ones are always dumb.

Kirby took a long, deep breath. Then, he jumped off of the roof of city hall. Everything rushed up towards him, finer and finer detail rapidly resolving on the pavement below. The smooth surface gave way to dips and bumps, which then gave way to fractures, which held smaller cracks. Then, all at once, Kirby stopped, the rope drawing taught against his harness with a loud pop. As his downward momentum swung him in towards the building, Kirby leveled a double-barrel shotgun at the glass and fired twice. The rounds were mostly harmless to men- birdshot at any range past ten feet mostly left only bumps and bruises. The large glass pane shed a coat of fine splinters an large cracks shot across its frame under the impact of the rounds. Kirby kicked his legs out, crossed his arms over his face- he had to protect his pretty face- and crashed through the glass. Kirby landed on the thick carpet in a sunlit fog of glass dust, standing neatly with his arms spread, as if to say 'ta-da'!

As the mayor wheeled away from this new and terrible attacker, Kirby drew a revolver from a leather holster on his hip and fired a single, unaimed shot into the mayor's left leg, just beneath his buttocks. The mayor let out a yelp, and just before he could collapse, Kirby stepped in and caught him by the waist. "Easy, big guy, you've got something that belongs to me," Kirby whispered, knowing he spoke too soft to be heard over the deafness he'd just inflicted. With his gun hand, Kirby reached around and plucked the cigar out of the mayor's mouth while managing to keep a finger on the trigger. Then, Kirby jammed the cigar into his mouth and took a drag off of it. "That's better," Kirby sighed, dumping out a stream of smoke against the mayor's face.

Suddenly, a loud crashing sound filled the room, cutting through Kirby's tinnitus and causing him to put his gun to the mayor's head. There was another crash, this time accompanied by the splintering of wood, as the wooden double doors at the front of the office threatened to buckle in. Kirby pulled the mayor tight against his own body, and continued staring at the door, fascinated by the rapid response. The doors buckled under the third hit, and a huge, brick wall of a middle-aged man smashed into the room. He had no weapons that Kirby could see.

"Уродливая сабака!" the man snarled.

Kirby tilted his head, let out a puff of smoke, opened his mouth to talk, and frowned instead. He didn't understand it, but in his experience, foreign words spat at him like those were generally unfair assessments of his character. Also, foreign languages effectively gutted his ability to come up with witty retorts, which left him feeling robbed. There was something else, though- he'd seen this man around before, very recently, on the other end of the country. That never meant anything good. There was a loud whooshing sound as the unbolted air conditioning unit that Kirby had secured his rope to plummeted past the window. Not much time now. "You know, I'll just work on the presumption that you want to kill me," Kirby said. Kirby's revolver went off, blasting a quarter-sized patch out of the other side of Guillermo's head. Guillermo's body jerked free of Kirby's grasp, and then collapsed on the floor in a heap. Kirby shifted his aim to the Caucasian man, and was jerked out through the window.

Kirby had disappeared out the window in a violent flash of motion, and Alexei ran to the edge in pursuit of his exotic prey. His stomach bottomed out at the thought that Kirby was splattered on the pavement below. When he looked, though, the only thing he saw was a smashed AC unit, and the car underneath that it had obliterated. When he panned his view further down the street, he could see an opened, abandoned parachute being pressed into a chain link fence by the wind. Even though his quarry had escaped him, Alexei's frustration couldn't outweigh his appreciation for Kirby's over-the-top style. Unfortunately, this meant he'd have to check back in with the Eye. The bright side was that the best hunts were never easy, and Kirby was poised to be his best yet.

The Buzzer

The Buzzer

UVB-76

(Note that UVB-76 is not a song, but a real radio station that transmits to this day from a seemingly abandoned station fairly close to Moscow, Russia. A purpose for the station has never been identified, but people have quite a few guesses, including the idea that it's a deadhand switch should the Russian Govt ever be eliminated. There are a few remixes available, but none that I found too appealing, so here's a real recording of UVB-76)

It took me a few hours to completely work over the pilot's offer to shelter down with him in the Mojave, but I eventually decided against it. There was no point in going somewhere so inhospitable that the zombies couldn't survive if it ended up killing me to death in the process. I had my hesitations about telling him as much, since it seemed like it was his last bastion of hope. To turn a man down who's offered to take you to his last hope for salvation is a horribly spiteful thing. Some people took it well, but there was no way to know how he would react. Instead, I asked him if he thought anyone in the world had managed to hold out against the plague. To my complete and utter surprise, he answered me with a very confident "Yep!"

"Really?!" I asked, craning my head around to see if he was smiling- he wasn't. "Who?" I prodded, unable and unwilling to contain my curiosity.

"Ze Russians!" He said, mustering up a poor impersonation of a Russian accent. "Yeah, they've got this one radio station known as UVB-76, or 'the buzzer'. It's been online since the 70's, and all it ever does is send out a repeating, timed tone. Some people say they heard some voices on it, and I think I heard someone on it about a month back- but that might've been the alcohol whispering in my ear. Anyway, it's still broadcasting, which means that someone's still maintaining the station and feeding it power. Why would anyone do that unless it served a purpose- and who would know that purpose but the Russian Government? It's kind of a stretch, but I think they've locked it down on their end of things."

I shook my head. "That doesn't mean anything. Most of the US Government's top twenty-five are still alive, holed up in that bunker up North. I hear Area 51's still accumulating bodies along the perimeter, the internet still works- kind've, and the White House bunker is still functional. Only problem is that these VIPs are worthless, each and every one. The President's no more valuable than you or I anymore. I mean, what's a government without people to govern? There's still people out there, but we're not the United States anymore- nobody's guarding the borders, nobody's fighting wars with anyone, nobody cares if you cut down a tree in Yosemite, whether you pray to Allah or God- nobody cares about any of that bullshit anymore. Hell, dollar bills are just kindling anymore, absolutely worthless for anything else. We're not Americans, and this isn't the US- Russia's probably in the same situation, so as far as I'm concerned, they're just a bunch of men hiding in their holes. Good on 'em for surviving, but they're not my leaders anymore."

The pilot chuckled visibly more than audibly, and seemed to settle back a little more. "You sound a little hostile there, Chief. You and the big bad government got some bad blood between you?" He asked.

"No." I answered, trying not to sound as angry as I was. 

"I see. So have you given the Mojave any more thought?" He asked, sounding painfully hopeful. I had a bad feeling that he wasn't going to like the truth.

I've Been Everywhere

I've Been Everywhere

By Johnny Cash

(All featured music belongs to its respective owners and copyright holders. If you like a song, please support the artist and the industry by purchasing it. Those of you who don't dig country, I'll be novelizing other genres of music. I'm starting with Johnny because he's near and dear to my musical heart.)

As I wandered from my boat, I was faced with an unsettling notion. I didn't know where I was, exactly, just that I somewhere south of Memphis- the Mordor of the southeast- and the Louisiana state line. I hadn't seen a city for hours when I finally ditched the boat, meaning I had a whole lot of nothing to my north. These days, it's a curse and a blessing. Most of the infected won't wander off too far, usually hanging around in the cities, convinced that the shuffling and groaning they hear from each other is actually that of a potential victim. The downside is that zombies, like anything, merely adhered to a system of "usually". The reason for the usually is that there were always unconfirmed reports of chaotic hordes of runners, seeming to appear out of the countryside itself to run down and consume unsuspecting victims. There was no escape from runners, except by water. If you climbed a tree, they'd try to climb after you, tearing out fingernails, toenails, and teeth in the process. Then, they'd try to tear the tree down. If that didn't work, they'd just wait anxiously, staying awake and focused for days at the base of your tree until you died of hypothermia, starvation, dehydration, or fell asleep and lost your balance. Then they'd pick the body clean and move on. 

My only solace was the fact that rumors had to be taken lightly anymore- I'd heard such wild claims as an infected flying bear that breathes fire. Yeah, right. What would a horde be doing out here anyway? Still, in my tired, hungry state of affairs, I was unable to shake off the fear. For entirely too long, I stood in one place, at the base of that levee, and stared at those forever dark woods. At one point, I seriously considered striking a match and burning the entire damned forest down. I'd like to see them sneak up on me then- but then there'd be no need, I'd have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Eventually, I worked myself up to the point of accepting whatever was ahead of me. Standing here meant no food, no good water, and no shelter- it meant certain death. At least I might be able to find something past that first dark curtain of trees.

It was while I was still working up the courage to take that first step into those deep, dark woods when I first heard the low hissing sound come rolling over the levee. It was only there for a second, warped and distorted, like an overheated audio tape, and then it vanished back into the silence it came from. I tilted my head and stared absently at the waist-high grass around me. It was more likely to be a giant mutant snake than what I thought that was. Snakes still existed, after all, while aircraft grade fuel did not. Then, I heard it again, this time with a steady, chattering series of thumps- the hallmark sound of helicopter rotors in flight. When it didn't go away, I turned my face to the swathe of sky I was limited to and squinted. When I still didn't see anything, I decided to scale the levee bank to see if the higher ground would afford me a better look.

It took minutes- long, vulnerable minutes of staring- until the noise grew into a downright roar. I've never flown a helicopter, but I've been close to them, been around them enough to know he was operating pretty close to the ground. Then, I saw it- a brightly painted civilian chopper, rattling along just a few dozen feet above the tree line. The machine seemed to be heading in my direction, so I figured it would be worth a shot to try and flag him down- especially since a noise like that was bound to stir up every monster in those woods. I drew my pistol, grasping it sideways by the barrel, and first aimed the stainless steel slide at the sun. Then, with my extended right hand, I made a 'peace' sign, and placed the helicopter squarely in the middle of the 'V' between my index and middle fingers. I brought the pistol in line with my right shoulder and the 'V', and wobbled the gun back and forth- an action similar to opening the throttle on a motorcycle- three quick times. Then, three more times with a longer break in between. Three more quick movements finished it off. 

From the air, I am indistinguishable from a zombie. Any pilot would've written me off as a brain-muncher if I'd just stood there like one, but there's certain things that zombies just don't do. Using signal mirrors is one of those things. Though the metal slide was the farthest thing from a mirror polish, it was clean and reflective. Reflective metal objects can be seen for miles and miles from the air, long before the human eye can actually distinguish any other visible properties such as shape or color. Add in the fact that by wobbling the gun, I'd made the flash pop in and out of view in an 'SOS' pattern- three short bursts, three long bursts, three short bursts- and there was no way he couldn't have noticed me. I had to stop signalling, though. If held on a pilot too long, the signal mirror technique could actually blind the pilot and cause him to crash at worst, or flip you off as he flies by at best. Really, whether he stopped or not was in his hands.

To my complete and utter shock, the helicopter rocked back a little, slowing some as it approached. The whirlybird still shot over my head, temporarily deafening me and blasting me with a dose of rotor wash. I didn't let that bother me, though, and I managed to keep my composure until it banked hard to the left and began to circle back. That was when I lost it and cracked a grin, holding out my left arm and extending my thumb in the hitchhiker's gesture. It was standard for a helicopter to circle first- not only did it give the pilot a chance to assess the scene and pick a good spot to set down, but these days, it let him search for the possibility of hijackers. To my great relief- though my heart threatened to pound out of my chest with joy- the helicopter began approaching and descending, until it sat down in the field at the base of the levee. 

When he sat down, he summoned me down by beckoning at me through the cockpit glass. The rotors were still going, ready for a quick take-off should the need arise. This also gave me the chance to see that he had nobody else in there with him- just some wooden crates covered in canvas. Then, he pointed at me and put his hands up in the air in the 'stick'em up' pose, and then waved his index finger around in a circle. I was his guest, and as he saw it, it was my duty to show him I wasn't a threat. Fair enough. I did as he asked, setting my gun down, lifting my shirt up, dropping trou to my knees, and doing a three-sixty. After that, I saw him beckoning me to the passenger door. I left my gun- I got the feeling he wasn't letting me on without it. I wasn't too concerned either. In the apocalypse, people had more guns than they knew what to do with- asking someone for one was like asking for a glass of water pre-apocalypse. It wouldn't be hard to get another one. 

When I stepped in, the first thing he did was put the back of his hand against my forehead, and I his- as traditional a gesture for the zombie apocalypse as the handshake pre-zombies. It was more of a matter of self-preservation than saying hello- before people turned, they always developed a fever. It's so bad, some people think that's what does it- that you don't actually die, just that the fever cooks your brain and vital organs alive. It also helped protect against things like Influenza in a world severely lacking in healthcare. When he was satisfied that I wasn't ill, he nodded at me and pointed to the door, implying that I should shut it. When I cooperated, he handed me a headset, and was taking off before I had time to put it on my head.

"Hey there, stranger," he said. 

"Hey now! Thanks for picking me up," I answered. 

"Aw, it's nothing. Fella gets lonely every now and then, need a little conversation to keep ya from going crazy, y'know?" he said. 

"Yeah, yeah I guess so. So... uh... Where were you headed?" I asked, staring out at the woods below.

"Winnemucca," he answered without a second's hesitation. "Last 'safe haven' I visited said that was the place to be. It's not that far from here. Problem is, Winnemucca's one of the worst shitholes yet- nothing but dust and zombies. So now, I don't know where I'm going." The frustration was tangible in his voice, even though the microphone had deadened some of it.

"Well," I said, "I hear good things about Tulsa this time of year."

He shot me the most confused glare I've ever seen. "Listen, mac. I've been to every major city in this here land. There's nothing left, just pockets of people here and there."

I frowned. That couldn't be true, there had to be a holdout somewhere- some city had to have locked down and prepared for it. "Well, what about-"

"Now you listen here," he said, sounding increasingly unsettled, "I've been everywhere, man, everywhere. I've been over the mountains and across the deserts, and there's nothing. I've been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottowa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimor, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla. I've had to shoot men and zombie down alike in almost every one of those towns. That's just scratching the surface- Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana, Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana, Monterey, Faraday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa, Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa, Tennessee, Tennesse, Chicope, Spirit Lake, Devil's Lake, Crater Lake, they're all dead cities now. Any questions?"

I pondered my next question carefully. If I let him stay mad, there was nothing to say he wouldn't drop me off back in Winnemucca, and if I made him any more unsettled, I suspected he'd try to boot me out in mid-flight. A very thoughtful question was required, so I gave him the one I thought would work best. "Is there anywhere you haven't been?"

There was a long pause where his anger seemed to dissipate, unable to be sustained under the cognitive weight of my question. Then, he sighed and said "Yeah, there's a few places, I reckon. Hell, it'd still be easier to name the places I've been to than those I ain't. I been from Louisville to Shreveport before. Did you know there's a place called Hackensack? Neither did I," he said, he voice shifting into a more reminiscent tone. "Yeah. Pittsburgh made it a good while before it fell. Next stop was El Dorado- that one didn't last too long. Dodge City, heh, that place was just downright pitiful. Where you from?"

"Saint Paul, Minnesota," I told him.

"Hah! Saint Paul, eh? Never been there. Let me guess, it's toast too, huh?" he asked.

"Yep. Coupla weeks ago, I guess. I'd been following that river ever since," I answered.

"Figures. That's great, just great. Well, I can tell you one good thing."

"What's that?"

"If you're down with hanging with me until the Mojave, I know it's safe out there. It's too hot, most zombies avoid it altogether, and the ones that don't rot apart in a matter of two days- too quick for 'em to get into the heart of it. Whaddya think?"

Big River

Big River, by Johnny Cash.

(All music featured on this blog belongs to its respective owners. If you find you like a song, please support the industry by purchasing it.)

I started this morning staring up at the overcast sky from the floor of my boat, which was beached on the side of the river. Looks like rain again. I haven't been keeping track of the days I've been on Mississippi, but it has to have been a while. My scruff has turned into a bona-fide neckbeard, and my nails are long enough to constantly have dirt under them. All of my clothes stick to me, partly because they're dirty, partly because I'm dirty. Any attempts at washing off in the river would be like trying to get clean by scrubbing down with a brick of coal. I'm hungry, but I'm out of food, and the river's been scarce on wildlife ever since the infection arrived. I think this search has been killing me, bit by bit. If I could've ever caught up, I'm sure they have food on the Southern Drawl.

I first saw the boat at the St. Paul colony, back in Minnesota. It was a Super-Yacht that some guys had decked out with weapons, solar panels, fishing gear, provisions, everything they needed to go out to sea and establish an island colony in the gulf- probably on an oil platform or something. They'd come upstream looking to recruit some muscle to help them do it. At the time, everyone pinned them as con-men, and all but chased them out of town with torches. It wasn't but a day or two after they left that a lot of people, myself included, found themselves wishing they'd gone with the alleged con-men. Some dumbass managed to lead a horde of vectors straight to the colony gates. Vectors- or infected domestic cats- as the name implies, were the primary carriers for the virus during the initial stages of the outbreak. Individually, they're not a big problem, but there's never just one. Vectors only traveled in hordes and swarms, which made them the deadliest of all 'undead' threats. The St. Paul colony fell in less than an hour.

Out of options, I decided to take my boat and head down the river, after the Yacht. I seem to remember hearing her horn in Davenport, some time later. I never laid eyes on her, though, which left me to watch the dead city as I floated by. Out of everything, it's not the weird silence, the heaps of bodies, or the burned out buildings that creep me out. It's passing under the interstate bridges. The arteries of the nation, as they were once called, now stagnated with gridlocked, stalled cars. Evidence, as it were, that a nation died with its people. As disappointed as I was that I hadn't caught up, I was glad to leave Davenport.

More recently, I almost literally ran into a freighter full of traders- at least that's what they claimed to be. I don't know how well they could be trading with so little commerce. It was probably best that I only had a can of beans and an oar to my name at the time. They were visibly saddened by my lack of things to trade, but seemed to perk up a little when I asked them about the Southern Drawl. That's how I came to lose my can of beans, a sacrifice to get a trader to spill his. "She been here," he said, with an almost indecipherable Cajun accent, "But she gawn, lawd she gawn."

A couple of days ago, I think I saw her, up in Memphis. As I came around one bend, I saw a gleaming white mass disappearing behind another turn in the river. That was the most excited I'd been in a long time- I could feel my eyebrows raise, my heart rate pick up. I started up my outboard motor for the first time since St. Paul and took off after her, but I guess that little engine just wasn't enough. I ran out of gas before I ever caught another glimpse. I beached my boat not long after that. I'd had enough. There was no sense going down into Louisiana and getting lost in the swamps and mangroves, or worse, getting pushed out into the gulf in a flat-bottom boat. I decided that they could have it, I didn't need an island paradise anyway. Even though I sat on the bank and cried for the rest of the day, unable to bring myself to do anything else, I was productive. I moved on. I'm looking to other things, like eating again.