Sickened, the young scientist was forced off the highways and onto secondary roads. Even there, signs of death loomed everywhere, and she had spent hours and hours of precious time skirting around roads blocked by smashed cars and shattered bodies.

Until she reached the outskirts of western Pennsylvania and her truck had finally given up the ghost.

She finds herself in a ghost town the likes of which old Spaghetti Westerns were made. There is no sign of life anywhere she looks, and the air as barren save for a howling wind and the rusted protest of a sign hanging from long chains hooked to the eaves of a roof.

Thompson’s Realty, the sign says. A Great Place to call Home.

“Not anymore,” she says, then laughs a little at the poor joke. As if in response, Asimov whines, and she widens the door, beckoning him out.

They both hear the hiss of a startled cat, and before Kirsten can even open her mouth, Asimov is off like a shot, chasing the fleeing feline down the empty street.

“You’d better get your ass back here or I’ll leave without you!” Kirsten shouts, then listens as her words echo off the storefronts that border each side of the street. She waits long enough to realize that her threat has gone unheeded. “Great. Now even my dog doesn’t believe me.”

Turning, her ears pick up another sound. It’s one she can’t quite decipher. Her heart gathers speed and, reaching into the open cab of her truck, she grabs her pistol and hauls it out, aiming in the direction of the sound.

“Who’s there?”

The question echoes, and when it finally dies off, the sound, still indecipherable, is still there. Curiosity sets her feet in motion, heading for a staid, brick-faced church sitting on the corner.

Turning the corner, she stops dead, as the source of the noise becomes readily apparent.

A huge cross dominates the church’s lawn, and upon that cross, two bodies hang, one from each arm. Their faces are purple, their tongues and eyes, protruding. Each head is cocked identically, almost comically, lolling from the stalk of a broken neck.

Both wear a cardboard placard around their necks, each bearing the same crudely written phrase.

REPENT!! FOR THE HOUR OF GOD IS AT HAND!!

“Je-sus.”

Turning away from the gruesome sight, her gaze catches the front of the church. The doors, red as barn paint, have been broken inward and lay shattered and crazy-canted in the vestibule. Unable to help herself, she climbs the steps and enters the church itself, then almost reverses her course as the overwhelming stench of death and decay permeates her nostrils and twists her guts into a heaving uproar.

“Dear God. Oh, Jesus.”

The church must have, at one time, been filled to capacity. Now all that remains are the men, the very old, and the very young. She doesn’t have to look to know that each body bears at least one bullet hole, adult and child alike.

Bodies are stacked in the aisles and pews like cordwood. These people didn’t die easily.

As she looks up toward the altar, she freezes once again, draw dropping silently open like a trap door at the end of well-oiled hinges.

The Lector, clad in a dark, somber suit, lies draped over the altar, half of his head missing. His stiffened fingers curl inward as if trying to form fists of their own volition. A huge, gold-leafed bible, it’s thin pages dotted with blood, lies open before him. He almost appears to be reading it with the one eye he has left.

But even that isn’t the worst atrocity in this room.

No, that honor belongs to the life-sized cross hanging above the altar. Instead of the requisite figure of the crucified Jesus staring up into the Heavens through sorrowing eyes, the Priest, clad in heavy purple, white and gold vestments, hangs, long nails driven through his wrists and feet.

A crude facsimile of the Crown of Thorns—in actuality some barbed wire from the local hardware store—is pressed upon his bald head, and runnels of dried blood paint his face like ruby tears.

Another sign loops around his neck, this time bearing only one word.

HERETIC.

“Oooookay, then. That’s quite enough of this. I think I’d best be going now.”

With deliberate steps, Kirsten turns and walks out of the church as quickly as her feet will carry her. Only when she has turned the corner and is out of sight of the two hanging corpses does she stop, one hand pressed to her chest. Her heart thumps crazily against it as if trying to exit through muscle and bone.

Finally, her breathing and heart rate calm, and she chances a look around. The town is as empty, and as silent, as it was when she first entered. This helps to calm her further.

“Alright then, let’s get down to business.”

4

It is well past midnight, and the only light that glows in the fair-sized ranch house comes from the large and roaring fire in the fieldstone fireplace. The electricity and phones are out, but in South Dakota, in winter, that’s almost a given. An unlit oil lantern sits on a low table that boarders a long, low-slung couch.

Koda sits on the couch, one long leg tucked beneath her, the other thrown casually over the stout wooden arm. With steady hands, she works through a fat stack of glossy photos. Some she lingers over, a smile creasing her face. Others she flips quickly past, pain darkening the blue of her eyes.

On the mantle, a brass clock in the shape of a galloping horse ticks, keeping a time that she senses will no longer be needed in this world.

The last in the stack of pictures comes up, and, smiling, she lifts it closer to her face, placing the others down on the rough-hewn coffee table. The photo is of a slim, beautiful Lakota woman, her coal, almond eyes sparkling with love and laughter. Clad in a white, beaded gown, she grins with mischievous intent as her hands, filled with a large piece of cake dripping with frosting, begin to move forward as if to shove said cake into the face of the picture taker.

“Got me good, didn’t ya,” Dakota whispers, trailing a gentle thumb over the woman’s grinning features. “I miss you.”

Holding the picture to her chest, she unfolds herself and lays full length on the couch, staring into the crackling flames until sleep finally overtakes her.

5

The sound of trashcans rattling in an alleyway almost causes Kirsten’s heart to leap out of her mouth, and she spins, pointing her gun in the direction of the noise. A slat thin, mangy mutt runs out of the alley, grinning at her, and she comes a hairsbreadth away from blowing it to Kingdom Come, Kentucky.

Seeing her, the dog stops and growls, its hackles raising in spiky tufts over bony shoulders, its teeth white and glimmering.

“Nice doggy. Niiiice doggy.”

The dog growls again, dropping low on its haunches and slinking forward.

Kirsten follows its progress with the muzzle of her gun. “Oh, c’mon, pooch, you really don’t want to be doing this.”

The dog, apparently, has a different take on the situation.

“Okay, so you do want to be doing this.” She waggles her gun. “Trust me, there are easier ways to get some dinner, dog. I bet I don’t even taste that good.” She pauses. “Well, figuratively speaking, anyway.”

Continuing its advance, the dog gathers its legs underneath itself, muscles tensing, preparing to leap.

“Aw hell,” Kirsten sighs, her finger tightening on the trigger.

Before either party can move, a blur of black and silver bisects the invisible line between them, and the dog yelps as it is driven away, rolling several times before it lands on its side, chest aspirating weakly like a bellows running out of air.

“Asimov! It’s about time you showed up!”

Asimov looks over his shoulder, tongue lolling.

“Don’t play innocent with me, you flea-bitten throw rug. Now, if you’re done playing with your little friend there, we need to get moving. It won’t stay light forever, ya know.”

Lifting a gigantic paw, Asimov graciously allows his prey to escape, yelping and whining, back into the darkness of the alley from which it came, scrawny tail tucked between its legs.

Sticking the gun into the waistband of her jeans, Kirsten rubs her hands together. “Alright then. First things first. We need to get us some wheels. A van, I think. Will a full gas tank. And keys in the ignition.”

Asimov gives her a look.

“Alright, alright. So I’m a little picky. Is that a crime?”

Rolling her eyes, Kirsten moves down the road, away from the church and its gruesome spectacle. Rounding another corner, her eyes light up as she spies a used car lot. Its red, white and blue pennants flicker and flap in the freshening breeze, displaying their wares in a manic frenzy to no one.

She walks slowly along the sidewalk, looking over the selection—what there is of one. The cars are, for the most part, dusty, dented, and gently rusting as they rest on slowly softening and tread-worn tires. The hand lettered signs, once bright and eye-catching, are now faded and cracked under the harsh mercies of the glaring sun and bitter wind.

Asimov looks up at his mistress and whines.

“I know, boy. We’ll find something. Don’t worry.”

Turning in at the gate, she makes her way into the lot, stepping over several fallen bodies, resolving not to look.

Cordwood, she thinks to herself. Just cordwood, stacks of it, like the stuff that lays outside the cabin on the Cape, waiting for winter.

Near the back of the lot, there is a service bay, and just outside that service bay is a large, white cargo van which looks to be perfect for her needs. It has a few dents, and the driver’s side rocker panel has seen better decades, but the tires look new, and as long as the battery is well juiced, she thinks she can run with it.