Prologue

The engine cranked over and spun pulling and kicking up dust behind worn tires and a rotted shell of steel.  The desert highway roled out in front of them turning only when it felt like it, exposing more expanses of nothing.  Baren landscape gave way to mirage making heat and the air sat as rancid and still as an unmarked grave of forgotten corpses.  Streams of druken voices flew high above the car screaming and shouting arms up and out of the windows to feel the air once more. The dust setteld onto bodies lying along the road, rotting and moving only when organs dried out and their skin shrunk in the emmense heat.  No one could have predicted that it would all happen so fast.  One day we had all the resources we needed and the next no one had any.  Gas stations closed, utility stations were drained, the entire west coast ran out of fresh water in a matter of days.  Food couldn't move any farther than the farms that made it, if they could harness enough water to do so.  People died in every corner and the The United States of America as it became a land of death and despair.  The government moved its highest officials and the brightest minds into the mountain bases with all the supplies they would need, leaving every one else left to die, or so they thought.

 

 

"How the f**k did they get past you soldier?"    "God damnit"     "Ryans, this is  Warrens, do you copy?"    Static pulsed through and high winds could be heard through the reciever.          "F**k!"  " Ryans do you copy?  "      "I .....an...rdly...he....ou.  ......r ....xper.......om.......Pro....ms...ith..."   "Look weve.......got a.......on ....here and" "aw f**k it".  The reciever clicked off swallowing what was left of Ryans shouting.  Chuck Warrens stood as still as a ghost and rubbed his chin pensively , Moving his hand to his sweaty brow, flicking sweat onto the ground as it curiously lapped it up with its tiny sandy tentacles.  

 

"We have to get that car back."