NaNoWriMo 3.

I haven't posted anything lately because I haven't been happy with either my output or my quality. Regardless, I should, because if I ever get feedback, it will help me improve. So here's another section.

Oh, and for those of you playing the game it's based on, this is a real location. I thought it was interesting.

Three.

Bixby got the hell out of there, and headed Downtown as quickly as possible. Given that Downtown was only a block or two away as the crow flies, it didn't take long. His goal was the fenceline southeast of the mechanics area.

Little A was an interesting mix of features to look at, especially five years after the Crash happened. Before the Blight turned the dead into monsters and the living into fugitives, it had already been an oddity: A country club next to a hotel, with a truck repair center and gas station in the same complex all rolled into 80 acres near Cheyenne. Like a lot of the remote West, there was a mishmash of rural, urban, rich, poor, all slammed together by the necessities of geography. It was close to the ruins of Warren Air Force Base, which ironically was both it's salvation and a large source of it's future problems.

When the Crash happened, it was like watching a dike fail. First there were scattered reports of people biting other people. This was laughed off, for the most part. It was always considered someone's YouTube stunt, there were endless jokes about bath salts. Even when the Blight became evident, it was downplayed as GRID/HIV/AIDS had been, a 'disease' that afflicted people on the margins, people with risky behavior patterns, in a world that never really gave a damn about either demographic.

Drip. Drip. Drip. CRACK. When the dike went, it went everywhere, all at once. Patients in hospitals died. When they did, they came back - faster than humanly possible for days on end, if the brains inside them weren't blown out. Every 'Vector' created two, three, ten new cases. Scientists searched for a cure at warp speed - and many went mad as they saw physical impossibilites in the autopises. Complete new nervous systems, attached to the old ones but separate. Not only dead things moving, but seeming to defy all natural laws of energy. There wasn't enough time, there wasn't enough bullets, there weren't enough living humans in that initial onslaught to last.

In America, a fateful decision had been made. Everything west of the Mississippi was left for dead. Warren was evacuated while soldiers in Cheyenne were still fighting. By the time it was all over, over half the town was dead, a large chunk of the rest was heading for what they called the Recession, and a few hundred stragglers and survivors hit the road for the nearest defensible position.

That was Litttle A.

After the initial shock, they found they'd been left behind - and publicly too, by a government that declared everyone still alive over the river Homo Sacer - men beyond law. The ancient weapon against pirates was revived and used against the poor bastards who'd been left for dead. Their chief fortune at Little A was the appearance of some members of the U.S. Agricultural Service, who'd headed in from the High Plains Grasslands Research Station. As immediate food got low and the danger of heading out for beef and consumables mounted, they were given a broad authority by the soldiers in charge to turn a golf course into arable land.

Two years after they started, it was going well enough with all hands on deck that they could actually export a little bit of what they made to other Enclaves that had survived the Crash and get back things they needed, like fuel, electricity, and scavenged goods. Occasional sweeps of the outlying areas were done on foot to try and herd cattle close enough to add meat to the diet. They weren't thriving, but they were surviving, the couple of hundred who were still alive there. Most were working farmhands or security. A few of the luckiest, most unscrupulous, or most necessary were the barons of the land. A few were Takers, the men and women who went beyond the wire in an attempt to convert the scavenge of a dead land into enough Bounty to find a way across the river, in a new life without any goddamned Zombies.

Taking was left to the crazy or the desperate. Bixby thought he knew which one he was, but always worried he had turned both as he looked for a way out for himself and Emily. Now there was a way, but he needed to get Micah.

He moved swiftly past the old gas station, now converted into the trading area of the Enclave. Odd tents and sheeted storage bubbled up on the blacktop underneath the canopies - they'd long ago run out of gas, anyways. He didn't even notice the guys bickering over prices at the various stalls. Just as well he didn't go there anyways. The temptation was always there to part with some of the precious Bounty for creature comforts, and while he was so close, he couldn't bear to.

It's been said that extreme deprivation for long periods of time causes madness. Bixby believed this implicitly; he had enough anecdotal data for two lifetimes. Sometimes he gave in, bought something, and felt twice as bad afterwards for wasting his ticket out.

Passing the mechanic's area, he also ignored that. A car was an expensive luxury in a place where you could barely afford a pot to piss in. Maybe if he had a bigger crew than him or Micah, he could maybe justify it as a business expense and the crew could chip in on keeping it running. As long as he had Micah, though, no one else would join him.

Finally, he reached the fence. What used to be a decorative split rail fence in the days before the living dead was now an eight foot high collection of every kind of wood that could be spared, from the decorative trees that had lined the golf course to every sheet of plywood a Taker could scrounge. Parts of it were backed up with abandoned 18 wheelers, scrap cars, even pieces of heavy furniture in spots.

One of the 18 wheelers had a crude L spraypainted on it's side. Bixby jumped on the hood, then quick-climbed to the roof. He leaned his head over the side of the trailer, looking out over the wall to the two - no, three now - tiny sheds that lay exposed on the other side. Hearing the noise, a large pale figure with black veins showing at various parts of his body looked up, squinting.

"Hey, Ox!" Bixby called to the figure. "Can you do me a favor and tell Micah I need to talk to him?"

Ox didn't reply immediately. He made a hocking noise, spit, wiped his chin. Finally, he said, "Be a few."

"Thanks, Ox." He made it sound as cheerful as possible before he slid off the trailer back onto the hood. He hit the ground shaking his head. Poor Micah. He couldn't even catch a break from those other Latent bastards, it sounded like. Maybe we SHOULD have went to Duke, instead, came unbidden from the corner of his head where his guilt was.

Shit, like that'd have been different, his cynical side replied as he headed towards the main gate.

NaNoWriMo 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I'm unsure after posting these if Caleb is going to kill me in my sleep or decide I need to suffer first.

Anyways.

Two.

The man who went by the name Bixby hummed softly as he walked down the cracked pavement of the Little A Enclave. He moved slowly, feet shuffling a bit, his shoulders a bit slumped. It was the slow measured tread of a man walking the Green Mile, his date with the hangman waiting at the end. His humming completed the picture; anyone hearing the soft sound would have recognized the tune as I'll Fly Away.

Outwardly, his face was calm. He had the light tan of a farmer or outdoorsman, which gave a nice contrast to dark brown eyes and hair. He had the lean frame of the twentysomething he was, the kind that weight never stuck to. He had muscle definition, but not the look of a man who lifted heavy weights for a living. All in all, Bixby looked like he should be pulling shifts at the local plant or wrenching on cars for cases of beer.

His clothes supported that image. It was a fairly warm day outside what used to be Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mid sixties, a few clouds but mostly sunny, so he wore a slightly stained white tee shirt under a gray zippered jacket, jeans and work boots. A trucker's cap with a faded and illegible logo kept the sun out of his eyes. Even then, he squinted a little at the bright light blue of the sky and the burning white ball it held.

A minute later, his squint changed as he crossed over to the canopied shade of Carol's, the main watering hole and unofficial center of Uptown Little A. Before the Crash, it had been a restaraunt, red brick functionality attached to the hotel next door. Now it was the place where Uptown met with Takers and other social inferiors to give them their marching orders. Bixby didn't like coming here, but since he liked starving less then that, he walked inside, his eyes adjusting to the lamplight.

His eyes swept the bar, passed over it. He wasn't looking for anyone there, he was merely checking for any signs of potential trouble. He turned left and headed into the dark recesses of the main dining area and Booth 12, where Dov hung out. He slid into the booth, reclining against the torn green leather as he spoke. "Hi, Dov."

"Bixby," Dov said in a pleasantly neutral voice. He wasn't alone. His muscle sat next to him on the outside, looking unpleasant as always. Bixby was sure that there was another one nearby that he didn't see, but he wasn't caring. This was a job, not a fight. Dov leaned forward slightly, his bald head shining in the oily flame and the many breaks of his nose casting odd shadows across the left side of his face. "How's the little one?"

So, he's gonna push hard today. Shit. Bixby hated dealing with Dov. He was a fixer, and a mean son of a bitch; the broken nose wasn't for show. He could play it cool or hard with equal measure and he never ever let his voice leave that light, let's-be-friends tone he liked to use. Until you cost him bounty. And that was the problem, because Bixby had.

"She's fine." It was a careful opening. Dov had called him for some reason. Dov by rights had no reason to call him, not with other Takers on the board and after the last fuckup. Bixby fully expected that whatever Dov wanted him for, it was gonna be for not much more than getting back in his good graces and whatever he could scavenge. He had Bixby over a barrel, and he knew it.

"That's good. So, down to brass tacks. A job came through, and the client wants a particular profile. You and your" A small beat. "partner fit. And since I'm a generous guy, I figured you'd want first crack at it."

"What profile? What client? And what's the job? I hadn't seen anything new on the LifeLines." Of course, that meant not a damn thing, but Bixby wasn't gonna play anything but clueless here. Dov held all the cards here. Best to let him make his move.

"The profile's not your business. Know that you fit it. Neither is the client. And the job isn't gonna be on the damn LifeLines." Dov leaned back. "This one came to me personal. Closure job. One or two people, depending. No C's."

"One OR Two? Depending on what?" Bixby felt a sinking feeling that maybe he should have packed up Emily and headed for Duke instead of coming here. Of course, Emily wasn't able to walk yet and leaving wasn't an option. Whatever Dov's job was, though, was straight up murder. Probably the kind that ended with a Taker getting on multiple shit lists.

"Client hired a Taker to go find one person. He hasn't heard back in two weeks. He suspects that the Taker may have either run off with the target or got a hole in his back, so he's willing to pay for both."

"How much?" Even if it was a favor, it had to be asked. Professional.

"Fifty with proof." Bixby visibly started at that figure. Fifty was a huge figure. Normally, if a job got contracted out, you'd be lucky to get half that IF you got over on the client and got expenses tacked on. What the hell kind of job is this?
"I assume you're in?" Dov leaned in again. "I mean, I could always ask Feather if he wanted this one, if you're squeamish. You know, I know you don't like the sight of blood." A smirk painted one corner of his face.

Bixby could only nod at first. When he got his voice back under him, he was then able to ask, "Who's the targets and where are they?"

"Woman from the Recession. Name of Sarah Jackson. She was last seen up Broad Meadow way, according to what the client said. The Taker you know. Raker Jack. So there's probably a complication or two."

"From the Recession? What's she doing out here?" This was worrisome. Raker was well known to Bixby, by reputation. Solo Takers tended towards being well known, if they made it back. They also tended towards crazy, since you didn't go out without a good crew at your back. You could die either way, but a crew increased your odds. If he'd run off with this woman, hunting him down would be a cast iron bitch. And if he'd ended up dead in a ditch, whoever did it to him would be a problem, too.

"Client didn't say, and I'm dead certain I don't care." And with that, Dov and the muscle stood. Dov pulled a hand rolled stogie that was probably filled with five year old tobacco and maybe some other plant, and used the lamp on the table to light it. "You come back, maybe you can tell me."

NaNoWriMo

So, I decided in a fit of insanity to do National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it's called. I won't call this a novel; that's hardly what this pile of words will end up looking like. I'm winging it; there's no real overarching story, I don't have an outline, I'm just going with things, so it'll probably just be a loose scrap heap.

At any rate, here's a bit. Onwards and upwards, like food when I've got the flu. Whatever.

One.

The man watched silently from the hill, in his space near the tree. The cold rain that had been falling all day trickled off the camoflage poncho and wide brimmed hat that sheltered him. He looked for all the world like just another hunter - well, truth be told, he was a hunter. The only incongruity an outsider would have noted were the oddly modern goggles on his face as he watched the valley below.

Fifteen minutes ago, he'd come to the edge of the treeline, surveying the valley with the slow gaze of a man walking a tightrope in a high wind. His body was coiled for quick movement, but he remained still, forcing himself to slow and scan the area in a methodical manner. Patience ruled the day in his world; and his patience was repaid when he first saw the woman.

He wasn't sure at first it was a woman. She was easily a mile and a half away, bundled and wearing a pack that obstructed his vision. It wasn't until he got out his specs and zoomed in that he could see the way her torso moved, which told the tale of hips built wider than a man's. As she looked around, he caught the flat blackness on her face of an eyepatch, which made him nod and grunt - he'd found her. Even then, he didn't move, but turned his gaze first to the area nearby her, then a widening circle looking for clues he might have missed.

No movement, no C's, no obvious signs of an ambush, he thought to himself. He checked again in disbelief. Now where in samhell did she come from, and where the hell is she going? He knew where the Enclaves were, and where she was going, she was going to miss them all by a decent margin. Even more perplexing, his scanning had shown her holding her side as if she was wounded, but there was nothing nearby dead or otherwise that looked to have tangled with her.

He was getting paid, so his job was to follow. His pattern was simple. One minute of scouting. Two minutes of moving to the next cover. He wasn't worried about her outrunning him. She was obviously wounded, and twice she fell to one knee before collecting her feet again. Once she stopped and knelt, and he realized after his search that she had used the manuver to suck from a puddle of water in a low spot in the valley. He grunted again at that. She must have been really desperate to drink unfiltered water.

As he closed to within half a mile, he took a few extra seconds to put his specs back on. As he zoomed in, he paid close attention both to any sign of a weapon and then, her skin. No gun was visible. She wore a brown down vest and a dark blue hoodie underneath. A watch cap peeked out from under the hood. The rain had visibly soaked her. She staggered a little, clearly running out of gas. He began slowing a little, both because he was getting close enough for her to hear and because the waist high prairie grass made him more cautious.

Then, during one of his sweeps of the area, she disappeared. One moment he was scanning the upper part of the valley he'd left, the next she'd gone to ground. He was amazed at the swifness enough that he actually spoke. 'Sonuvabitch,' he whispered, 'she's got a bolthole.'

This posed both a problem and a benefit. The problem, of course, is that she might have weapons or even backup in there. The benefit, however, was knowing that there was a place to bolt to in the event of Casualties showing up. He hadn't seen any today, but he knew if he took too long he'd be blundering around in the dark getting back to Broad Meadow or burning charges off his specs he really didn't want to use for night vision. If it came to it, knowing that he could wait out night in a covered area was good enough. He'd packed food.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and pulled a knife from his belt. He didn't need to make sound right now, even if it was clear, plus there probably wasn't a lot of space in there for shooting. He moved in, much faster now, checking quickly and moving. Finally, he saw it.

It was cunning, what she'd done. She'd (or whoever had made it) dug the tunnel with a hole wide enough for a body to squeeze down, and placed a form fitting cap over the top. The ingenious part was actually placing a thin layer of sod and some grass on top so it blended in much easier. A viewer could only tell it was a cap from the pair of rope handles that rose up out of the sod.

The man quickly shed his backpack and rifle, took a grenade from the backpack, unpinned it, and placed it firmly pin down between the rifle and the backpack that sat upon it. Confident that moving either would be enough to release it, he then adjusted the specs, removed his hat, and reached into a small bag at his waist. Out came a handful of fine sand.

He leaned his head to the ground, reached forward, and lifted one end of the cap an inch off the ground with one hand. The hand with the sand opened, and he blew, staring intently. The sand powdered into the hole, and he saw no glint of a wire that held onto the grains. Good. He lowered the cap again.

Pete always thought I was crazy, he thought-spoke, but Raker Jack doesn't take chances. You only get one mistake. Then he shook his head. Third person speaking about yourself, even in your head? You're losing it, man. After this score, better head for the Recession at full speed.
He stood, and lowered himself into the hole. A flicker of his eye activated the night vision in his specs. Immediately the walls of the tunnel glowed a spectral greenish white in his view field. No traps, let's go. Head first with knife in front of him, he lowered himself in. The woman had clearly went feet first, confident enough in her knowledge of the place to be able to close the lid behind her. Raker had no illusions, so he didn't bother. Plus the light might be handy if he had to get out in a relative hurry.

About ten or fifteen feet in, the light didn't matter, as the tunnel quickly sloped downward and curved slightly to his left. Before too long, the light was gone from behind him, and all he could see was the irregular smoothness of the tunnel, punctured here and there by what had to be prairie dog holes, as wide as his fist or a bit larger. He kept crawling. As he went, the tunnel got slightly larger, so that a crawl could become hands-and-knees instead of belly inching. Hell, if it got any bigger, he thought he could bear crawl. Raker wondered exactly how long the woman had been here, or if she had help. At least there wasn't a fork in the tunnel to slow him down.

The path leveled off, but turned again, this time to the right. The ground and walls of the tunnel were dry, and invited scuffing noises, so he slowed. Then he saw the light ahead.

Gotcha, he thought. He put the specs on auto as he neared what was obviously a small chamber up ahead. Hopefully you're looking at the damned light and not at the tunnel. It'll be easier if you're nightblind. As he reached the tunnel end, he marveled at how much goddamned ROOM this chamber had.
It could have easily held four or five people. It stood high enough that a man could hunch over in it easily. In the corner was a pallet, in the other a small pieced together wooden thing that might have been a shelf or a box. The detritus of a lived in small space littered the floor and his nose. Last was the small light and the woman, leaned back against the wall. She was still unarmed, her shirt half pulled off as she wrapped or unwrapped what evidently was a nasty wound low on her side.

"Miss Sarah Jackson, I presume." Raker nodded as he moved into the room, knife out. No sense in being rude just because he was going to kill her.

He was almost disappointed at her seeming lack of reaction. Her voice was flat as she replied, "My husband sent you."

"He did. And." - he made it quick as her mouth started to open - "Don't bother tryin' to offer me anything. What he's paying is more than enough to get me home, and what you'd offer isn't likely enough to keep him from finding me when I get there." He moved forward, coming to almost arm's length before he finished talking and

"I see. What did he tell you? Did he tell you what he did to me?" The hand opposite the compress on her side moved slowly up, until it came level with the eyepatch.

"No, ma'am, and I don't rightly care. What I care about is gettin' this done, gettin' my bounty, and gettin' home. The quicker I do this, the quicker that happens."

Her palm opened, pointing towards him. "Wait. Wait. Before you do this, you need to know two things. That's all, just two." Finally, a note of pleading entered her voice. Raker decided to play along, just for a minute. No sense in not letting her speak her mind; this wouldn't take long.

"Okay, ma'am, tell me these 'two things'. Whatever they are."

She fingered the eyepatch. "The first is, he did this to me. I didn't ask for it." She pulled the eyepatch off, and Raker stared into horror. His blade involuntarily lowered as he saw the hole where her eye was - and the thing that moved inside the hole, just enough motion to know that whatever it was, it was bigger than the hole and shiny like a wet rock.

"The second thing?" she filled in for Raker as he realized he was trapped in the room with - with whatever the hell it was. Underground.

OhFUCKOHFUCKOhJesusOhJesusOhJesus,she'safuckingAberrantshe'safuckingAberrantnotrealnotrOhGodOhGod, his mind spun around his conciousness in maddened circles as he stared helplessly as she pulled the bandage away from the hole in her side - and something long and ropy, green and gray and effluvent fell out.

"He should have told you there's a Worm Who Walks." The rope moved, swiftly. Raker screamed.

Another old one while I hibernate.

So yeah, between a coworker having hernia surgery and me ending up on 76 hour workweeks, being low on idea juice, and getting ready to run games at GenCon, I've pretty much hit a wall for a while.

Here's an old thing I did.

The early morning sky was a deep purple that hinted of ozone and water over the horizon and contrasted nicely with the dark green of the pines on the far hillside. The surface of the lake it bordered rendered the purple to a near black in the reflection of it's surface, broken by the occasional small wind wave. Smith ignored it all as he sat and watched the road from the deck.
It was strange by itself, Smith watching the road. The road was a profound uncuriosity in the middle of the splendor, unworthy of notice. It was a dark brown muddy slash through lush vegetation that originated from a nearby hill to the west, snaking straight eastward past a rustic gas station and continuing around the bend. It disappeared down a hill before being seen again far further winding around the surface of the lake, finally leaving view over the far hills. It was the kind of road never mentioned on highway maps, the kind that people named after a particular local whose name was mystery in the next county. For all the traffic it saw, it might as well be in a jungle in Ecuador or a mountain in Pakistan. The station below stood like an old border crossing, the wood faded, blotched, and holed. 'Beyond here be dragons' would have been a good way sign.
Smith himself, however, would have been a more peculiar sight to any who saw him in this place. He looked like nothing so much as an office functionary. White shirt, tie, horn rimmed glasses, work pants, black shoes. In this remote corner, however, his alien presence both blended into the background in his gray way and also marked him as if he wore a neon sign above his head, depending on who was looking. No one was watching, however; he was, after all, on the deck of a house far enough away from the road that he could cover the image of the gas station with the palm of his hand. He sat in the chair on the deck, absently tapping his pen on the clipboard he held in his lap. His eyes rarely moved or blinked as they made a patient sweep of the station, the road, the far hill, and back again.
An hour; two. The patient sweep continued, broken only by the untimed clatter of the pen cap on the clipboard. Then came the car.

It wasn't a notable car. Four doors, a solid body, a bit of dust and mud from travel on such an ancient highway. It proceeded at some speed, drawing an obscuring plume that quickly vanished in the growing light. It slowed as it approached the station, pulling smoothly in to the pump as if to present it's papers for further travel. A group of people emerged from the car, three total, one obviously a woman by her dress.
Smith would have been less than human had he not leaned forward slightly in the chair. The tapping ceased as he watched intently. The attendent came out, a blob of gray and oil at a distance, a cap on his head. He was approached quickly by the driver and the woman as the third paced behind the car a bit, staring at the road behind.
Smith saw motions, gesticulations. The driver produced a map. The attendent motioned, appeared to point. The third man at this point moved quickly to meet the other two at the front of the car, where clearly a conversation between the three of them started as the attendent went back inside, his duties clearly at an end. Smith shook his head, slightly. The pen moved as he made notes. He was not hurried in his actions. Hurry was not needed here; exactness was.
The three returned to the car and drove swiftly out of the station, continuing onward. Smith continued writing for a moment, consulted his watch, and then set down the pen and reached for the glass by his chair. He drank, and drank again; put down the glass, and resumed his post. He consulted his watch again, and once more in the next few moments, then put the pen down again, reached for the binoculars on the other side of the chair, and stood.
His target now was not the station, however. Instead, he trained his gaze on the far hillside, then lowered it to what quickly resolved as a small eroded shoreline on the lake beyond. He focused, looked once more at his watch, and resumed.
The car moved into the viewfield, and he zoomed in as it came to a halt at the side of the road. The three exited the car, holding another brief meeting before the two men moved towards the shore, the woman staying close by the car. They were carrying objects in their hands, too small to discern at this distance. Smith continued watching, and then zoomed out when the creature broke the surface.
What seemed to be a dozen arms came from the lightening waters as the men were shielded from view by the bulk that arose before them. Smith had a brief glimpse of the woman seeming to fall to her knees before she, too, disappeared from his vision in a strike of whiplike appendages. As suddenly as it appeared, the beast subsumed, only ripples and an abandoned car to mark the passage of the three from life.
Smith lowered the glasses again, then picked up the pen and made more notes. The attendent had perfomed somewhat adequately, he admitted to himself - however, he was not above fault. A more suspicious group would have seen his quick affirmation as proof of his involvement, and that would have defeated the whole purpose of his placement there. Peer review was unpleasant, but essential in these cases. It would, at any rate, be a talking point at the next meeting.

Understanding

(For you Red Markets folks, sorry, this isn't. It's a little thing I had to do for my friend's Mutants and Masterminds game to justify some power alterations. I just thought I'd throw it up here anyways.)


He sat in the conference room, listening quietly, sometimes talking. Small sentences, short replies. He did that when he was afraid.

Why was he afraid? He couldn't say. The lady across the table from him - a doctor, some kind of shrink, he hadn't really paid attention - was asking questions. They were intrusive, but he understood intellectually. They were being careful. They had to be careful. Max had made that emphatically clear not so very long ago.

"You're probably the most dangerous one here."

        If he had been inclined, he could have laughed ironically. Here they were, scared of him, when he was scared himself. Hell, he'd named himself after a Greek god of dreams, nightmare in waking flesh. He scared himself sometimes. But scared of what?

He felt the racing of his heart, tried not to let the fear show. His vision contracted a little, started to go dark. He hadn't done that since before his powers showed up, before that silver mist and the scar on his chest splitting open again. He heard a noise, THE noise. A quiet buzzing. But it grew louder, and threatened to overpower his ears as he tried to hear, drown out his voice as he tried to speak. He tried to force his eyes open, but the darkness grew. And then he heard the word, and he heard nothing.

[OFFICE CAM 1 - 13:35 PST. User (PHANTASM) is talking loudly. He appears not to respond as the doctor rises. User (PHANTASM) begins shaking in his chair. User (PHANTASM) begins convulsing. Building Protocols activated: ALERT User (MARS, MAXIMILIAN) Begin Deep Monitor: User (PHANTASM).]

        He was there again. He felt cold on his back. The stone under him like ice in the warm air. The smell of the candles. The sharp feel of the knife as it pierced the thin layer of fatty tissue over his breastbone. And there, sitting on his chest, seemingly unseen by the men around him, was Billy, grinning like a fiend.

He'd been here before, seen this vision before. He knew what Billy was going to say before he said it.

"You know, I could save you, right?"

He knew. He had. All he had to do was say yes. But this time was different. He heard a voice, a woman's voice. He tried to focus. What was it saying?

The grin left Billy's face. The knife kept moving. Billy looked around. He tried to look too, but he was frozen, looking at Billy. At the hand of the man who was carving his chest open. He always woke up before this. Sometimes he screamed, when he wasn't careful. Careful. Had to be careful.

"You know, that's awful annoying. I don't think I want her talking to you. I think it's time WE talked."

He blinked. And suddenly he was standing, in a featureless mirrored plain, looking at Billy. Billy wasn't smiling anymore. The teeth were showing, but it wasn't anything pleasant. They looked like the teeth of an animal.

He looked down, at his chest. Inky darkness poured from the hole over his breastbone, studded with bits of white light. He saw his face reflected from the mirrored ground. His mask was on. When did he put his mask on? He never had his mask on. Where was he?

The woman's voice was louder. He could almost make out the words. He tried to hear.

"Look, I SAVED you! *I* saved you! She didn't save you! She can't save you! I did for you! Now you do for me! Like you promised!"

What promise?

Billy reached for his chest. He wasn't able to move. He tried to move as he saw Billy's hand sink INTO his chest. It came out, the fingers scooped, holding a handful of inky spotted darkness, strings of it pulling from his fingers back into his chest.

"This is mine! You promised! I did for you and you promised! I want it NOW!"

And then he knew. Remembered, finally, the promise that he made before he woke up, alone and shaking in the woods. He never went back to see what happened to that place where they lured him to die. He was afraid of what he'd see. He never remembered. He never LET himself remember. But now, with Billy and the woman both yelling at him...
...he remembered.

And he felt free. His voice, HIS voice, rang clear as he could finally speak the truth of the thing that he couldn't remember, that Billy wouldn't LET him remember.

"You didn't save me, Billy. I saved myself."

He knew what to do. He reached up, slowly grabbed the mask. He pulled. The shadow that was the mask came free. He felt the skin come free with it, the face he showed the world, the face he gave to the world since that day Bi....HE saved himself.

The Billy- thing? man? shape? The moment when he took off the mask took away the illusion, but left an indistinct form in smoke, still trailing the bits of himself, PULLED from himself, the magic that saved him, trailing from his body to the - whatever.

"No! No, you can't! I won't let you! It's mine, you hear me? Mine! I WILL HAVE IT! YOU WON'T CHEAT ME -"


It screamed as he slammed the mask over his scar. The shadow that was his face melted into his chest. And he woke.

We Interrupt This Bad Writing With A Much Too Personal Anecdote Tied To Red Markets.

 I haven't seen anything other than the preview chapter, and I haven't any better grasp of the mechanics of Red Markets other than what everyone else who listens to the Actual Plays does, and yet I really really really need to run this game. Why is that?

 Let me answer with a number. 19.1%. That was the unemployment rate in my hometown at a point shortly before I turned 12. One out of every five people you saw didn't have a job. It's the unemployment rate of a third world country. And that's when I watched my dad turn into an odd-jobs worker for a landlord, which is the closest analog to Taking that I've ever seen in America.

 Odd jobbing and scrabbling for money - most of my gaming circle (and to be told, most of the people I associate with) have never had to see or deal with it. I see it at work, too - talk to the people who do it. It hasn't changed over the years, and probably not over the centuries, if I had the perspective. The guy who goes junking on his days off, the immigrants who wait in the Home Depot parking lot for some gringo who needs a lawn done or a fence built, the guy who talks to himself while he raids dumpsters for aluminum cans and mislaid lottery tickets - it's a squalid fucking existence.

 It's getting up before daylight and heading out hoping the boss has something for you to do that day. If not, then it's a day at the bar, commiserating with your buddies (not your friends, you don't really have those at the bar). If you do get a job, it's long hard work for not really enough pay, and you don't dare NOT take it, because there's three more guys who'll be more than willing to take your spot.

 It's going out in freezing rain and brutal heat and everything in between, and Gods help you if you've got a bad neck like my dad and it starts acting up, because every day you don't work is both a day your family gets a little poorer and one more reason for the boss to drop you like a bad habit, because you're a dime a dozen and no one cares other than your family.

 It makes you hard of heart; you don't donate to charity because the closest your kids get to a luxury like cheese comes in a white box and looks like old Velveeta. It makes you careless about the future, because you've got no future other than the next day, when you wake up with a hangover and a sore back and bills you still can't pay. It makes you careless of other people, too, because to the world at large, you're shit and you know they think you're shit and you could die in a fucking ditch with your whole family and the most reaction you'd get is complaining because the storm drain clogged. And you want to get out, Gods, you want to get out SO BAD. You'll blow money on lotto because there's one more chance than you've got on the street, and you'll blow money on booze or drugs or God knows what else because every minute you feel good is a minute you don't feel shitty, and you won't get those minutes because you don't deserve them.

 If you don't harden yourself, you'll hate yourself into the grave, because when Capital makes the rules, those who don't have it have the Mark of the Beast. Your family too; spend a dollar of food stamps and watch the good people give you the stinkeye like you broke into their house and stole their TV. Get in a line at church for old off brand peanut butter and canned goods and people will still claim that you're eating lobster and T-bones off of silver platters on their dime. Poor people only count as far as you can use their labor until they fall over, and then you just get another one.

 So, yeah, both the better angel of my nature and the vicious asshole that was formed by my childhood want to run this game, real bad. It might be 'nerd-troped', but it's probably the closest that a lot of people whose biggest worry is what's in their next Loot Crate will get to the horror that is being poor in America. And no Boom rules for them, either, Comrade.

Red Markets, 6/1/16 - Day 9.

THE COMPLETELY TRUE AND ACCURATE TRAVELS OF HOBO JOHNSON IN THE LOSS AND THE DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL ENCLAVES THEREIN (PART THE THIRD)

June 1 - Came back to town to find Hobo dead drunk in front of his shack.

'Skeevy, you old bastard! Let's talk shop! I got the alk.' Old what? Asshole's got at least 20 years on me. I wonder how he puts his pants on in the morning some days, let alone go out Taking solo. But hey, he's got booze, bounty free? I'll talk all the goddamned shop he wants.

Couple hours later, we're talking security around the Enclave, he gets serious sudden-like. 'Skeevy, I know we got a good location and good people here, but this ain't near 100% safe, even up on this hillside.'

So I ask him how the hell zeds are coming up here? We all know they run downhill. Casualties don't mountain climb.

He replies 'Son, you've been out there. I know you're not as dumb as your crew looks. Lemme tell you a story.'

Oh shit, story time. And me without the bounty for new hip waders. But he wanders on.

'I was in Sicily couple years back. Place called Erice. Nice place, secure as all hell, lot more than this.

Place had two roads in, but they both ran uphill and funneled everything to the big fortified castle with churches in it. Perfect goddamned free-fire zone. A striaght up meat grinder. Once they got it clear of casualties, the leaders set up shop in that castle, used the upper part for housing and a bit lower down, wine making. Wine making's big in that area, so that was a big export. Convoys used to come in through the groves and up to the shops twice a week.

I took off, though, after one of my contacts told me there was trouble brewing. Seems another Enclave further north was looking to expand - and between the fight over wine and the' - and here he coughed - 'local civic groups' - I knew what he meant. Italy, right? - 'SOMEONE was looking to get rid of the competition. And boy, did they.'

Evidently, according to Hobo, it was simple as hell and horrifying as fuck. SOME crazy fuck - he didn't know who, and if he did, he wouldn't say - had taken one of those wine presses that's all the rage in Italy and filled a few tank trucks. But it wasn't wine he filled em with.

You can guess what happens when a few thousand gallons of casualty juice gets blown off with a couple hundred pounds of explosive in the middle of a crowded market. Town fell apart in half a day. Hobo claims no one still goes up there. Can't say I blame them. Fuck, I like people less and less the more I talk with this crazy asshole.

5/27/16 - Red Markets, Day 5.

THE COMPLETELY TRUE AND ACCURATE TRAVELS OF HOBO JOHNSON IN THE LOSSAND THE DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL ENCLAVES THEREIN (PART THE SECOND)

May 7 - Talking with Hobo again while the Rabbit is doing some negotiation on short notice. Mostly it involves him rambling about Enclaves while I recheck my pistol.

 It gets interesting when he starts talking about natural barriers. He says it's not really a good idea to think that out in the Great Beyond that they segregated their countries like we did, behind the Ol' Mississip. First place, there not that many places with rivers that wide and long. Maybe a dozen or two. Second, America didn't put most of it's big cities on the river, the way a lot of countries did. Big cities are a no-no in The Loss - way too many Casualties to make anything other than the most hardened Enclaves viable. A lot of the successful Enclaves in The Loss are in the suburbs - a kind of lifestyle that doesn't exist in most of the rest of the world the way we know it. Big shopping malls out in the sticks that are easily defensible just weren't the done thing there. Mostly, he says, the big retailers are jammed into high rises or commercial districts that are cheek by jowl with huge apartments  (and huge numbers of casualties) with WAY too many openings to block off.

After a bit, you'd have thought it was a college class, as he starts checking off all the things that he says make The Loss one of the best places in the world - better than a lot of Enclaves out there, he claims. Shit. Problem is, I can't really argue with all the things he checks off.

 Highly concentrated refined resources? Check. Yeah, maybe not all the natural ones, but we were consuming half of all the resources worldwide back then - it didn't go anywhere when the Vectors came.

 Large population with emphasis on personal mobility? Check. Makes it easier to outrun em, group up together, get to hard to follow places.  Low population density, too, even lower if you restrict it to the Western states. Not like some places where you can't turn around without elbowing some dude while sticking your ass in another one's face. If you've got time to see 'em shamble, you've got time to fight or run. Hobo says a lotta places like Hong Kong, it was a fucking turkey shoot for the Zeds. I'd hate to be the guy who tries cleaning up THAT mess unless I've got a nuke or twelve handy and a place to hide out for a few thousand years.

 Shitloads of guns? Check, check, and triple check. Some Takers may like that hand to hand combat shit, but I'm never getting out if I get my circulatory system all full of fucking Blight.

 Highly materialistic population? Fucking yeah, check. Means lots of Bounty to scavenge. Lots of tools to use to help me get that Bounty. And with a little bit of luck, one real big Score and go back richrich.

 Hobo? He says he's thinking of retiring here. Says he likes the weather and DHQS is full of assholes.

Why do I hang around this crazy fuck again?

So this is a thing. Enjoy.

THE COMPLETELY TRUE AND ACCURATE TRAVELS OF HOBO JOHNSON IN THE LOSS
AND THE DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL ENCLAVES THEREIN (PART THE FIRST)


(Editor's note: The excerpts from this journal purport to be the account of a Taker named Hobo Johnson, as dictated to another Taker who refers to themselves in the journal as Skeevy. The probability of said account being factual, given the nature of the claims involved regarding travel and four plus years of survival in The Loss without a crew, is too small to credit. However, we believe that, if nothing else, this shit's good for a laugh.

PS - the accounts cannot possibly be in any coherent order as written, due to travel distance and location.)

 April 21 - Sitting around with Hobo again while we wait for Marsha Three to get back on her feet from the last job. I swear the guy tells a great story, and just when you finally start to believe he's piled his bushit one meter too high for his socks, damned if he doesn't come out with something that makes you believe it just might be true.

Today's something was a life preserver in a language he swears is Dutch. Hell if I know, and hell if I'm gonna dig around looking for a way to disprove it. It ain't English, whatever it is that got wrote on it.

Anyways, he says the place is named Nilty Jens, or something like that. Dutch. The locals told him it was named after a boat. Hell, I'm from Nimrod, Montana, 'bout two miles from Singleshot and a 20 minute walk to Goat Lick Overlook. I can't even make jokes about a place named after a boat after that.
So, it's a big artificial island, part of the dam system. Hobo says the locals barricaded up both highways leading up after they cleared it off, because it's about a mile square, it's got wind turbines, arable land, and boat docks. Claims he spent about a month holed up there after he left France. He'd have stayed longer, except he says they're all batshit crazy.

There's jobs to be had, according to Hobo - Takers all use boats and do scavenge missions on the parts that are still dry and the buildings in the next city over the bridge if they feel REAL lucky. Seems the city is full of casualties from everyone trying to head to safe zones. Casualties don't swim, but they don't need to breathe, either. Makes dune watching fun at night.

All that's bad enough, but nothing I haven't heard before, even the parts where he claimed the guys in charge opened the dam and let 'em drown prematurely rather than have to share the island with them. Hobo claims they've got a hard limit on population, though - 1200 people. If anyone comes in, someone leaves, if you catch my drift, he says with a wink. There's a lottery, and the winners either go outside the wire if they're quick enough or they get to add to the fertilizer. I asked him how HE got in if that's the case, and he claims he iced someone on his way in on a bad deal, so no need for a lottery. That's the point I called bullshit, because who does that and deliberately wastes bodies? According to Hobo, though, the man in charge is a high ranker from before The Loss and crazy as hell about sustainability. He must BE crazy, though, because they still gotta barter with the other Enclaves for animals and hydraulics for the dam and construction materials and stuff. They trade in fish and scavenged goods, but they can only fish the far side of the dam, because no one trusts that casualties can't infect them, too. What absolute horse hocky.

That's when he pulled out the preserver. I never knew a guy to have so much stuff workin' as  a solo, and not getting many jobs that I can see. Hell, if he's got that much bounty to spare, maybe I should have a look-see around his place sometime when he's not there. He won't miss it. Anyways, I damned sure ain't headed to Dutch-land anytime this lifetime.

A few introductory words.

 So, about this 'blog'.

 I'm mainly putting it up here for three reasons.

1) I want to learn to write better, and so I need public criticism.

2) I occasionally think some microstories might go over well, because brain chemicals lie.

3) It's free. You get what you pay for.

Anyways. Enjoy. Most if it will probably be stories and posts related to role playing games I'm interested in or running. This month, in honor of the Kickstarter, I'll be doing little things involving Red Markets by Caleb Stokes , a game about Economic Horror that I'm proud to have backed.

Yes, Economic Horror. Like The Amityville Horror, where the real monster was how much money they sunk into that pile. Except different, because there's no ghosts, just zombies. Anyways, go look at the link and give him some money. Caleb does good work.