A seven-hour walk, plus a fair old chilly night later...

The fresh, crisp dawn hit Bert like a hammer. Then it hit her again out of malice, and kicked her in the lungs with its boots. Bert was waking up, groggily to say the least, inside a decrepit Old World structure along the Back Road, having slept there overnight. She was hiding in a cupboard, where the Things couldn't find her - but nobody would ever need to know that. If they asked, she had chased the Things off singlehandedly with her pistol, guffawed at their cowardice, then slept out in the open in a mark of defiance. Of course, the reality was in fact that she had been ambushed quite suddenly by Things just down the road, punched one in the face, fled for her life, then hid in the aforementioned cupboard for what semblance of safety it could offer.

Now, the morning's dismal little rays leaked through deep gouges and bullet holes in the cupboard's aged, rotten door, splashing a murky, chickenpox light on Bert's grumpy face. She pushed gently at the door handle, but found that it wouldn't budge. The door then bowed almost soggily outwards upon a firm second test with her shoulder, but seemed intent in remaining fixed rudely shut. Bert scowled for a moment, then drew back her robotic fist.

A blanket of dull, shadowless light enveloped Bert like a hug from a Thing as a cascade of door splinters scattered about the dusty, pockmarked floorboards. Next came a stinging slap in the nostrils from a dead Thing nearby, the sheer sticky sweetness of the awful smell threatening to reach inside her stomach and yank out the breakfast she hadn't even eaten yet.

Bert covered her mouth with the large collar of her trench coat, hoping the musty old fabric would help keep out any airborne nasties that might threaten to turn her into one of those ... those Things. Nobody was quite sure whether Thing disease spread via blood or air, but it never hurt to be careful. Especially because it would hurt a whole lot more to not be careful, particularly when the disease made your bones start growing into claws right where they had no business growing, let alone into claws. So, rather than brave stepping around the lifeless, twisted corpse that had the gall to die at the front door and bleed its filthy green ichor all over the entranceway, Bert took up the mantel of adulterous lovers the world over, and climbed out the window.

It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, which is to say that the noxious sky wasn't as greasy as it was yesterday or the day before, suggesting the worst of the acid had moved on to ruin someone else's property. A moderate wind gusted past in thick, quick blasts, carrying dust from one location to another for its own nefarious purposes. Bert pulled her coat tighter around her waist and allowed her head to sink into it, stuffing her hands into deep pockets.

As her boots crunched quietly on the gravel driveway, heading down back to the Back Road, a gentle chorus of birds twittered around her, except they didn't because this is the Waste and they were all dead. But the few survivors let out a squawk every now and then to remind the world that they were still here, and occasionally a gullpidgeon would fly past twittering opera.

Bert was at a junction in her life, both metaphorically and quite literally. A few feet from her lay the end of the Back Road, where it finally intersected with the Highway. An ancient, warped, rusting street sign stood meekly on her left, pointing out the various Old World towns you could see along the Highway's northern arm to the left. All the words had long become illegible, but some do-gooding travellers from who knows how long ago had painted new letters on:

Second Thought (not far, mate)
Rangi's Aura (Pretty far - pack snacks)
Wipe Arr (Bloody ages)
If you see Trader Bill, tell him he owes me an arm anna leg. Thieving bastard.
I don't owe you shit. I paid for these limbs an I'll keep them. Greedy prick.
Stop writing on the sign, you're both assholes.

But Bert had no business in Second Thought today, and especially not the supposedly Farmer-occupied township of Rangi's. She would be taking the arm that curved away to the right, down to the coast and, if you were particularly brave, the Ash Fort - or Farm, whatever.

Bert came to a halt before she reached the intersection. She stared hard in a silence that stretched on for eternity, or maybe five or so minutes, her eyes flicking between the southern arm of the Highway and the Back Road behind her - back to the safety of Smack-dab. But it wasn't safe now, was it? And that's why she was here.

She swallowed a slow breath of icy air, her cold sapphire eyes at once gazing down the road and also deep, deep into time. Bert thought she'd never march this stretch of broken road again. She knew every twist, turn and gallows for miles between here and Gerald to the south. She could tell which town she was closest to just from the smell. But however popular the Highway, however convenient it was for traders, despite the immense and quite unparalleled risk of being murdered, for Bert, this was a miserable, rotten road, walking upon which was less appealing even than being shot repeatedly in the face, or torn to itty-bitty shreds by a pack of Things. She'd nuke the whole damn place if she could, but that would attract too much attention from the Overlords, not to mention what the fallout would probably do to her bar. The last thing Bert needed was a local Overlord government trying to regulate Can't Be Buried. No business owner in their right mind wanted regulations.

She felt a cool prick on the palm of her human hand and flinched before realising it was just her pistol. Her hand had gone to it by itself for comfort, unbuttoning the holster quietly and lying in wait on the grip. Bert's enthusiasm for this brilliant plan was a distant memory, fading away just like the rest of the Waste. Her idea now seemed like it had more holes than Lord Ash's last radio play - literally his last, thought Bert. And possibly her last brilliant idea, too. Wonderful.

The very notion of begging for help from bandits - the scummiest of the Earth in an Earth full of scum - made bile form at the back of Bert's throat. She'd rather make a deal with the horde of Things spreading further and further from the Dead Church with whatever passed for a day here in Can't Be Buried. At least with Things, you knew where you stood. You didn't stand, you lay down, dying, your insides being clawed out by grotesque hands that had long since turned into bony, discoloured claws. It was an arrangement you could trust. But bandits? Filth, the lot of them. Disgusting perverts, shameless thieves, murderers, loiterers - and worse. They'd smile at you today, then pilfer your wallet in the night, then smile at you again and help you look for it, then pilfer your kidneys the next night. Only certain few bandits would anaesthetise you before they did it, too. The rest would just ask you to stop screaming, then make you stop screaming if you were having trouble.

Fucking bandits, grumbled Bert.

Fucking Farmer Brown.

But this, all of this, was for Smack-dab. To keep the dream alive, protect her home; to give her, Meatsack and Phoenix a life that was worth a damn. Especially Meatsack, the poor bastard. Without Smack-dab, he was just another big dumb mutant born from an in-bred cannibal family. Nobody else would care about him. They'd probably kill him for sport, because what else would people do along the Back Road with no Smack-dab to drink the pain away in?

Fucking Farmer Brown.

Bert gritted her teeth to steel her resolve and took her first steps along the southern arm of the Highway. The sooner this was all over, she felt, the better.

In her determined, whirlwind of a daydream, she totally missed the next street sign - one a little further down, and made long after the Old World disappeared.

Welcome to the Highway
Please have your wallets open and ready

* * *

You know, escorting Lorry was making Jeb and Orsen a good bit of cash, but the experience wasn't going quite as expected. But then, a false expectation, really, is the beholder's problem, so it was their own damn fault. When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me, or so they say. And Jeb felt like an ass right now.

He was beginning to wonder how painful it might be to cut his own ears off. And more complicated than that, would cutting his own ears off ruin his ability to hear like he wanted, needed, or would the sound still find a way into his brain? Like a parasitic worm. A parasitic worm that couldn't stop preaching the word of Gachook, Our Lord and Saviour.

"And that's how the Old World disappeared, you see," the parasite known as Lorry continued, now moving into the second mind-numbing hour of sermon. "The Old Ones couldn't stop fighting each other - shooting, bombing, stealing each other's faces for their books, you name it - so Gachook, in His Infinite Wisdom, called forth the Seven Deadly Chickens to clean up the whole mess. Now, the Sev-"

"Stabbin'?" Orsen asked, out of nowhere, his eyes so wide it looked like his head was more eye than face. The boy seemed to follow a strange personal principle that, the wider you open your eyes and mouth while someone is speaking, the more knowledge you're likely to take in. But really, all Jeb reckoned it let him take in was dirt. And sometimes passing insects. Oh well, at least he was enjoying the conversation. Unlike Jeb.

"Stabbing, young one?" Lorry replied, her gaunt face rotating perfectly straight on her slim neck as though she were a statue. But, like, a creepy one. That turns its head to follow you as you walk. Oh man did that bring back some of Jeb's memories. Some of the Orcks sure loved theatrics. And torture, unfortunately.

"Yeah..." said Orsen, putting a lot of thought into this. "You said 'you name it', so I was thinkin' o' other things t' name. Like stabbin'. You know, with knives an' that. An', um, axes. An' maybe pencils. I got stabbed with a pencil once an' it was pretty sore. Still got th' scar in my left eye from it."

Jeb, who followed the other two from as far behind as he felt manners would allow, snickered quietly to himself. Lorry had clearly never spoken to a starry-eyed lad like Orsen before. You always had to prepare more conversations than you expected to have, because the lad would stumble from one to another to another without necessarily explaining. Talking to him was often simply an elongated act of catching up.

"Well," said Lorry after a moment's uncertainty, "I think they probably stabbed each other, too, yes."

The boy nodded, satisfied.

"So as I was saying, Gachook sent his Seven Deadly Chickens to destroy the chosen Ninety-Nine Per cent. This sounds harsh, I know, but do not be afraid child, for it was all part of His master plan. If only a small lump of humanity survived, they would have to learn to live differently in order to keep surviving, you see? Like germs, child. That, is the brilliance of Gachook, Our Lord and Saviour.

"The first Chicken he sent was that of Carnage, the Chicken of One-Thousand Flaming Missiles. It is said that Carnage rode on the back of the very first missile, and that you could hear his disgust for humanity as the mighty bomb struck the Old Wor-"

"What about fists, Lorry?" Orsen interrupted, though not out of rudeness. The thought simply struck him quite suddenly, and the motion continued out of his mouth without slowing down.

"Wha-, whe- ... excuse me, child?"

Jeb grinned.

"Yeah, you know ... fists. Did the Old Ones fight with their fists, too? Or were they too old? Only I see a lot o' fist fightin' these days, but mostly the old timers stay out o' it. Their backs an' that, you know?"

"Oh, um," Lorry stuttered, her sharp cheeks filling with the colour of blood. Her mouth formed a number of unsaid words as it struggled to get traction on this rather sudden new track.

"No, the Old Ones wouldn't fight with their fists," she said finally, wheels starting to spin properly on the slippery conversation. "They had technology to fight for them."

"Ah," Orsen said, happily accepting this profound new piece of information.

Lorry took a breath and pondered for a moment before continuing. "So, if that's that then, the second Deadly Chicken of Gachook was that of Rot. Rot came up from the ground, child, and pecked out the true, ugly, barbaric nature of the Old Ones, creating the first Children of Rot - who you would call Things. But Rot was rather afraid of the sun, unfortunately, and his children couldn't handle the light - a grievous oversight if you ask me, but who am I to question Gachook, Our Lord and Saviour? So by day the Old Ones feared Carnage, and by night they suffered Rot. Oh and child, oh my child, those were only the first two of Seven Deadly Chick-"

"Did they carroty chop each other?"

Lorry's face twitched. Even from behind, Jeb could tell it was a good twitch, with plenty of eyebrow and bottom lid.

"Carroty chop, child?" she responded, bless her, as politely as one can respond politely through the gritting of one's teeth.

"Yeah, Jeb taught me carroty chops once. I don't much see the point, mind, when ya could just punch someone, but Jeb says there use' t' be folk who were masters at carroty choppin', an' would, like, chop right through folk's skulls with one hand."

"Yes, fine," said Lorry, a little too quick and a little too loud. "They carroty chopped each other all the time."

"Oh, neat."

"So the third Deadly Chicken was that of Winter, Carnage's lover. It is said that Winter always followed behind Carna-"

"And carroty kicks, too?"

Lorry shuddered, her whole body quivering from head to toe with almost cartoon exaggeration. "Yes! Yes they kicked each other as well."

"No," said Orsen, frowning, "not normal kicks. Like, carroty kicks. Kickin' through people's skulls."

"OK, yes! They did that, too."

"Wow."

"Can I continue?"

Orsen nodded, smiling happily. He'd have plenty to write down later.

"OK, right. OK. So it is said that Winter always follows behind Carna-"

"What about flame throwers?"

Jeb smiled happily to himself, his gait taking on a bouncier, satisfied step. Lorry was practically roaring now, desperately trying to find somewhere in the chaos of Orsen's young mind to find a place to lodge the word of Gachook, Our Lord and Saviour. She kept flipping bits around, reshaping them, and forcing harder to put them in a hole that would actually stick. But alas, his mind was more circle than square, and the word of Gachook, our Lord and Saviour, was quite a bit more pomple (a bizarre, multi-sided shape used exclusively by members of Gachook's order) than circle. Every so often Lorry would look around to Jeb to plead with her eyes for assistance, but he would just smile silently in a maliciously not-listening fashion, then suddenly see something very interesting elsewhere and allow it to capture his full, unwavering attention.

And so the madness and the yelling and, now, the waving of arms continued, even as they passed the junction to the Back Road. Maybe bringing Lorry on the trip to Smack-dab would be worth the money after all, Jeb grinned to himself.

* * *

So, how are your carroty moves? Mine aren't great, I'll be honest. I think I could summon a carroty chop, but only when I'm making soup. 

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