Smack-dab moved in slow motion.

Phoenix, still standing where he had stopped, opened his mouth in shock and, at snail-like-speed, bent his knees to move.

Hilda and Derick rocked back in their seats, their wrinkly foreheads catapulting upwards with the force of a slight breeze.

Terrance's face was contorted in a drunken rage, finally having given up on discussing anything with poor, gentle Meatsack. His right hand closed in on the giant as though it had all the time in the world.

And Bert? She moved quickest of all. She watched the shadow of Terrance Leeland recoil backwards to lead into a punch, and was on her feet, chair exploding out behind her, as his fist launched forwards. Her weapon was in her fingers while he was mid-way to the attack.

And his hand was exploding before it ever had a chance.

Time reset.

The floorboards shook, dust cascading off the walls as yet another shot rang out in Smack-dab. Terrance's hand burst like a grenade had gone off inside it, chunks of blood and bone spraying over Meatsack in the worst fireworks display ever. The big giant flinched backwards, nearly tripping over a nearby chair. Phoenix was crouched, about to pounce. Derick and Hilda were pushing their chairs back, ready to get under the table at the drop of a hat (or, in this case, the drop of a hand).

Bert, a pacifist remember, was squeezing the handle of her weapon, face glowing red.

Terrance screamed with a ferocity Bert had never heard before in a person, despite all the years she spent with bandits. A cold tingle ran down her spine, the hairs on her arms and legs pricking up. The man's automatic rifle fell from his shoulder, banging against the floor. Nobody in the room made any noise, except for, you know, the spine-tingling screams of pain and horror.

"You apologise to Meatsack right now, you arrogant son of a bitch," Bert snarled. She forced down the primitive caveman instinct that said 'Maybe don't push your luck with this one, he seems a bit angry,' and cautiously approached Terrance - a Waste Beast ready to finish the job. "Nobody hurts my staff."

"Aww," cooed Phoenix.

She glanced back. "Not you, Phoenix."

"Aww..."

Terrance, hunched over on himself and tucking his arm up in his stomach, looked up at Bert. His face was twisted, almost unrecognisable. "Fuck you, you damned ... ugh ... bitch!"

And then the wounded man of many titles launched himself forwards, a wolfcat unleashed. His hand (the intact one, obviously) went for his belt, where it revealed a colossal knife made of what looked like a Waste Beast's tooth. Something deep in the stranger's throat boiled and gurgled with a wild berserker rage, his stub hand hanging loosely by his side and spraying flecks of gore all over the show.

Bert the Holy Pacifist tensed and stepped backwards as the knife careened for her chest cavity. She was too close to fire another shot, instead sidestepping to the left in an effort to create more room. But with the chairs all scattered about, there was too much clutter on the floor for easy manoeuvring. The wild figure of Terrance Leeland missed her, but he caught her arm with the edge of the blade. Bert flinched at the sudden sting, grabbing hold of a chair to get her balance. Then she growled and swung her robotic left fist as hard as she could.

One of the major benefits of having a prosthetic hand was that, when times were tough, Bert always had a weapon. You might have said she had the ... upper hand. But Terrance was like trying to catch a naughty child (that was covered in blood). He half-rolled, half-stumbled his way out of her fist's arc, roaring all the while with words too ghastly to think about.

Without a moment's hesitation Bert pulled her weapon up, hammered it back and fired a shot. But again, Terrance drunken-mastered himself out of the way at the last minute, the bullet zipping unobstructed into the floorboards. Adventurers were always a bastard to fight. You could argue (and boy would they) that they were the most skilled folks in the Waste, at pretty much everything you can imagine - even if you had to admit that, rather begrudgingly, about an arrogant bugger like Terrance Leeland.

Speaking of whom, he launched himself back at Bert, who ducked sideways and swung her fist again. Terrance caught her hand, a menacing, evil grin splitting open his blood-stained face. He roared a "Die, bitch!" and lifted his knife to finish the fight once and for all. Bert held her breath.

The knife ploughed through the air.

Then a blur from left-field slammed into Terrance and he tumbled to the floor, caught by surprise.

Phoenix, also a pacifist, let's not forget that, was on Terrance's back, coiling around him like a two-headed python going for the kill. Bert fell back against a table to recover her breath. She watched Phoenix visibly increase the pressure on Terrance's neck, muscles bulging beneath his shirt and veins popping in his neck.

The pair of adventurers flopped around on the floor like two drunkards play-wrestling, Terrance attempting to gain his footing enough to lever Phoenix off. But every time he employed some of his close-quarters expertise, he found again and again that his right hand was missing from the equation. Of course, this only made him angrier.

Terrance flailed as best he could, but the mad thrashing was beginning to ebb, becoming dozier, softer. Phoenix locked his legs around the man's waist, trying to contain his stabby stabby arms before the Waste Beast tooth knife did any real damage.

They rolled, Terrance thrashed, Phoenix tightened.

Leeland's fuel gauge ran lower.

The orange light flickered on.

In just a few more tense moments, the thrashing died out completely, and Terrance went quiet.

Slowly, very slowly, Phoenix released his grip and shuffled out from under the man, his clothing now covered in blood.

Bert stepped forwards, gun trained on Terrance's prone figure. The adventurer was still alive, even conscious, and wheezing softly on the floor. He coughed something about Bank Island, and maybe man-eating trees. It was hard to tell through all the quiet swears.

"You OK?" she asked Phoenix, who stayed crouched near Terrance.

He looked up and smiled, but he looked out of breath, rattled. "All in a day's work, eh?"

She half-smiled at him, and then turned to look at Meatsack. The grey giant had blood all over his front, with narrow streamlets drawing down his face as tears fled his eyes. "How about you, bud?"

He sniffled loudly.

"C'mere," she said, smiling reassuringly at him and opening her arms.

Meatsack padded over softly and let Bert hug him tight. She rubbed him on the back, or as much of it as she could actually reach, anyway, and spoke softly up at him. "You're OK, bud, you're OK. Thank you for not getting angry, I appreciate that."

He nodded quietly, tears still falling from his face. But his eyes, or eye, rather, was staring at the squirming figure of Terrance Leeland.

Bert followed it back and, still half-hugging Meatsack, called out to her chef. "Phoenix, get rid of this asshole."

He nodded without a word and pushed himself upright, reaching down to grasp Terrance's dishevelled coat. The man was still woozy, his eyes far away.

Then Bert remembered table three.

"Phoenix," she said.

He looked at her.

"Get us some more salad while you're out there."

Pacifists the lot of them, eh? Couldn't hurt a fly.

* * *

Jeb and Orsen crept down the main road of 80 Cu t in absolute, nervous silence. A moderate wind danced through the corpselike structures around them, blowing through the duo's coats and straight into their bones. Nothing but the wind stirred in this place. There were no other sounds except those of two humans breathing cautiously, a wolfcat's claws padding against the ground, and the grinding, rolling crunch of trader's boots on broken asphalt. But as quiet as Jeb and Orsen tried to be, every boot crunch seemed caught in its own echo chamber, amplified to the level of a bloody scream. They may as well have been banging pots and pans together singing classic Waste songs like, 'Oh My Darling Clementine, Please Don't Cut Me Anymore.'

A short ways past the two signs, Jeb and Orsen passed a decrepit old power station, or at least what was left after locals had stolen most of the parts. Further down, on their left, an Old World machine of sorts lay in rust-coloured dormancy. The remains of a giant, metal arm lay at its foot, with a kind of shovel-like claw half-buried in the dust beside it.

"Wassat, Jeb?" Orsen said in a loud whisper.

Jeb gazed at the machine as they walked past. "Hmm," he whispered back after a while. "I reckons it was to defend against Things back in the day."

"But I thought they weren't no Things in the Old World?"

Jeb thought for a moment longer, considering the point. "Well, lad, it's that kinda thinkin' what probably got the 80 folks here killed, eh?"

And that was that.

The duo walked on.

They were in the heart of 80 Cu t now, no turning back except to flee in a mad hurry (should it come to that). A tall building, somehow still standing, was rotting off to their right. It had a high roof, with a pointy tower at one end. Jeb and Orsen both stared at it intently as they passed, instinctively keeping a wide berth. There was an old sign hanging in one window, big, black lettering still bold against the clouds of mould that ate the poster piece by piece each year.

REPENT!
You can run from the bombs,
You can run from the plague,
You can run from the quakes,
But you cannot run from God.
REPENT!

"Who's God, Jeb?" asked Orsen, his voice lifting from a whisper as curiosity overcame intelligence. "He sounds like a right bastard."

Jeb put a hand on the lad's back and urged him forwards, away from the place. His eyes were glued to the window. It might have been a trick of the light, but he could have sworn he saw something move within the shadows of the place.

"He's nobody that helped this place, lad."

And the duo walked on.

About ten tense minutes further into 80 Cu t, Jeb could see the housing density beginning to relax. The tight-knit maze of burnt-out, broken structures was giving way to straight, open road and rolling, barren plains. Finally, Jeb thought, they were coming to the end of this bloody town.

And then something rattled in a building to their left.

Jeb practically jumped out of his boots, a wrinkled hand shooting for Orsen's shoulder. His right foot stepped sideways onto a piece of loose rubble, the rock flipping over on impact and turning Jeb's ankle painfully. The old man stumbled backwards with a curse, gripping Orsen's shoulder tightly and pulling the lad with him.

They fell in a heap of puffy jackets and weighty packs. Orsen hit his ass on the pockmarked asphalt, a gasp of pain blowing out his mouth in the opposite direction. Jeb went down straight on top of Mr Tinkles - a soft landing for Jeb, but nothing too pleasant for the wolfcat.

The creature yelped loudly with pain and shot out from under the man, sprinting away from the duo towards a solitary, two-storey structure not too dissimilar to Smack-dab in shape. It was old, wooden weatherboards rotten, scoured by dust and acid, warped by time. It had a porch all along the front facade, but the roof had collapsed along most of it, leaving only a splintered, gaping hole in the wall for entry.

But perhaps more importantly, skeletal remains and half-eaten scraps of meat were scattered in piles all around the building. Blood stained every inch of what was once a neat garden, with splashes painted across the wood of the building mixed with long, streaking handprints.

It was nice that the occupants gave so stark a warning.

Mr Tinkles yelped all the way to the edge of the road, and then halfway up the garden towards the building.

"Mr Tinkles!" Orsen cried, scrabbling to his feet to give chase. "Mr Tinkles, wait!"

"No!" Jeb shouted, lashing out and grabbing the boy by his ankles.

The old man was pulled forwards with a jerk as his fingers gripped tight, and his face scraped against the road. Orsen gasped as he fell forwards, his feet pulled from under him.

Something stirred within the building.

"Jeb, what are you doing?" sobbed Orsen. "Let me go!"

But Jeb held firm, despite the boy's wriggling and kicking. "Don't be a fool, boy! You can't go near that place."

Orsen struggled again, waggling his legs back and forwards to shake the old man's vice grip. Jeb thanked every god he'd heard of that he was a sheriff in his past life. If Jeb gripped someone, they'd have more luck prying the gun from a statue's hands; they weren't going nowhere.

"Let me go, Jeb! I gotta go get Mr Tinkles."

"No, lad, I can't let you." Fear touched the edge of Jeb's voice, cracking it like puberty. With one hand still clamped down on Orsen's ankle, he brought his other forward to manhandle the boy's backpack. Now Orsen was definitely going nowhere, Jeb slowly crawling up him, his fingers always tight, holding the lad down.

Mr Tinkles watched with caution, his body tense and low, ready to flee should the humans attack again.

Tears welled in Orsen's eyes. "We can't leave without Mr Tinkles, Jeb, we've been through so much together."

Jeb sighed openly, moving his body so that he was sitting on top of Orsen's back. "I've been good to ya, lad, I have. I've not said a word since we got th' thing, but it's not Mr Tinkles and ya know it."

"But it looks like 'im, Jeb. It looks like my Mr Tinkles. Sniffle."

Something inside the building fell over, banging against ancient floorboards.

Jeb stared at the structure, then down at the small wolfcat staring from by a particularly green meat pile. He shook his head sadly, expression grim. "No, Orsen, we're leaving."

He stood carefully, his eyes fixed on hole at the front of the building. But the moment the pressure was released, Orsen lurched forwards, hands outstretched to pull himself away while boots scrabbled for purchase on the dusty ground. Jeb launched himself after the boy but missed his legs, instead landing on his stomach in the cloud left by Orsen's sudden take-off.

When he looked up, Orsen was inching up the garden, crouched low, offering his hand forwards.

"Cummon, Mr Tinkles," he cooed softly. "I ain't gonna hurt ya..."

Jeb's eyes were frozen as wide as they could go. "Orsen!" he whispered, as loud as he dared.

"Cummon, puppypup. Come t' Orsen..."

Jeb crept forwards with quick, soft footsteps, his eyes still glued to the torn hole at the building's front. He let his pack slide gently to the dust as he moved. He needed speed, now, not clobbering power.

Orsen approached Mr Tinkles.

Jeb approached Orsen.

Mr Tinkles growled quietly.

...and bolted into the building.

"Mr Tinkles!" Orsen wailed.

Ah shit, thought Jeb.

Without a moment's hesitation, or any remote cousin to what might be called intelligent forethought, Orsen took off after the small creature. Jeb pushed his feet under him and lurched forwards as well, swearing loudly at the boy. The porch boards creaked in pain as Orsen stomped across them, and they screamed their discontent as Jeb followed closely in pursuit.

In a moment, a loud, high-pitched yelp burst out of the structure. It repeated and repeated, undeniably the frightened cry of a wolfcat pup. There was another sound, too, a strangled, phlegmy growl.

"No, Orsen!" Jeb roared, launching himself once again as the boy slowed to step into the structure's open hole.

With a flying tackle, Jeb slammed into the boy, taking them both swearing through one of the porch's rotten pillars. It cracked loudly as their bodies struck it, and tore in half as they passed through it. They toppled to the gravel beneath and rolled to a halt some ways away. Then the rest of the porch roof finally caved in, piling in on itself with a deafening crash and a mighty cloud of dust. The hole in the wall vanished behind splintered wood and clouds of dust.

The squealing, helpless cry of the wolfcat continued and then...

...then it suddenly stopped.

Silence swarmed in all around Jeb and Orsen as they lay on the ground, dust sweeping over them from the crash. Orsen was sobbing, repeating the name of his beloved friend over and over. Jeb breathed heavily on top of him, sweat pouring off his face despite the bitter cold.

"I'm sorry lad," he whispered between laboured breaths. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

Yeah ... so "comedy" is a relative term for this book's genre. Sorry if this hit the heart strings a little too hard. It certainly did for me when I was writing it.

Remember to Vote your sadness away, and leave your thoughts in a comment or two.

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