[b]Badlands, North Dakota[/b]

The rugged horns of the Earth below thrust itself up in a broken landscape of gray rock and thick scraggly bushes. A landscape dominated my miles of twisting and labyrinthine gullies and valleys scarred the landscape for miles. The sharp crowns of the jagged hillsides spanning into the clear blue sky, and marching off into the distance where the details of the lost maze faded into the blue.

Patches of green dotted the hills, hardy pines and other rugged plants that scored the hillsides and narrow plateaus and adding more of nature's definition to geology's uprooting. In the distance a eagle cackled, its call echoing across the landscape, flowing through the broken hills, forging a river with the wind. This was the land of poets. And far on from the past it was not hard to see the blurring between the now and the then. The windswept and rain washed rocks and gravel creek beds still sung of an era dominated by bandits and outlaws, seeking refuge from the law. Of hunters and natives. And not now in this time the remnants of a proud race, seeking survival in the midst of a landscape burned by alien plague.

In the days people romance about, they talked of knights of wore at their hips six shooters of burning chrome. Who did battle with sheriff, savages, and outlaw alike. This was their kingdom this land. Where the crack of gunfire was indistinguishable from the blare of gunfire. People said in the days in the young days of the end gunfire once exploded in the badlands, the cracks of machine guns and rifles cutting down the hoards of the undead monsters of each other in a standoffish attempt to preserve the failing dignity of one another. And true, in the rocks as one traveled the casings and shrapnel left behind from those times could still be found glistening among the rocks.

These days are past, but hardly romanticized. The terror of survival too greatly clouding the memory to make them anything more than ghost stories told to children, or the reminiscing of the men who had lived through it by which to measure the size of each other's penises. In some ways, it was these rocky wastelands that gave unto the world the first blood of the first Lazarites, the men who rose from the grave of the aftermath to conduct and foster the revival of mankind from the brink of Hell. As Jesus once had with Lazarus, so will mankind.

On a rocky precipice a young man sat. Behind him his horse stood tethered to scraggly and twisted Chokecherry tree. The bark bearing gashes of the skirmishes that were so widespread here before he was alive. The smooth bark blasted opened and healed over in its hard scar tissue. Snorting impatiently the mid-size almond mare piked through the bushes that grew about its base, pulling apart the branches. Less from hunger, and more out of boredom.

With a distasteful knicker the horse kicked against the ground and rocked its head against the reigns, rattling the tree above her in her disinterest.

“Well hold on Missy, it shan't take 'em long!” the young man sneered, turning back to the tethered mare, “I know as well as you that they're taking long. But we gotta keep a eye out. You hear?”

The horse gave him a long blank glare, before shaking its hair. Her long black mane whipping about her neck.

“Ya keep thinkin' that and we're just going to get more bored.” the man laughed, dipping down into the can of cold beans he held with a bent and twisted spoon. His chapped and thin lips smacked around the maroon brown slop as he slurped and chewed the preserved foodstuff. He turned back from his mount and looked out across the badlands.

At his side lay the carbine rifle of his trade, and a long hatchet rested slung across his back. He remembered building the hatchet himself, carving the wood from a branch of oak under the oversight of his companions. Long as he was tall, the tool was made for use on horseback. The head had been forged and reforged nearly seven times, each time becoming more and more a head-taker's blade than it had before. It was broad, hardly narrow; its blade flattening and angling inwards down the handle, and not curving gently.

The youth himself was not as reworked as the axe itself. With only seventeen winters under his belt he had yet to grow a bear of a full man. His chin and face were narrow, from whence hung a long crooked nose. The wind blew through long chestnut brown hair, and his muddy brown eyes looked outwards into the expansive wasteland. He knew not where his companions had gone, just that they asked him to stay behind.

“Missy, how long you say it been since we came across anyone else?” the young man said, turning to his horse. The mare looked up at him, her ears turning atop her head.

“God, had to have been seven months now.” he said, “Shit, had to be 'bout twenty miles south o' Dickinson. Or whatever those ruins are. Can't stop thinkin' about the one chick in that band there.

“Now I don't know how much a horse can appreciate such fine details. But lord, did she have some nice tits. I wouldn't have mind rolling with her in the grass if we weren't on the move.”

Missy gave a disinterested snort, and went back to stuffing her snout into the bushes, further pulling them apart.

“I get hard thinking about it. I'm hoping we get somewhere and stay for a bit so I can work off some o' this here frustration.”

Missy didn't reply.

“I'm sure you feel the same way when your season comes and a fat hot stallion. I bet you ache. And I'm aching that way. But I doubt I'm going to be any sort of trouble more troublesome than you and your urges.”

The man snorted laughter and he looked back out into the twisting badlands. Lifting another spoonful of dripping, sloppy beans up to his mouth. With a dive the cool slop of the canned food fell on his tongue and he went back to chewing. The wind gusted through his wild hair and he looked back up to the jagged stones of the wilderness.

As the afternoon waned he spotted figures in the distance, riding on horseback through the narrow gullies. Their distant form shrouded in heavy black coats as they galloped through the wasteland. Five individuals in all.

“Looks like they're back.” the man grunted, pushing himself up onto his feet. On the wind he heard the soft thudding of hooves across the rocks, the regular galloping of the horses. As they wound closer the details of the riders became clear. The wide-brim hats shielding their faces. The long poles strapped to their backs, loaded up with heads. The glint of the sun off of their gas masks.

Ladened across the back of their mounts large bags lay behind their saddles. They made a regular pace, winding through the serpentine ravines till they came to the base of the rock the young man stood on. Finding purchase on gravel inclines they came up. A group of five, worn, weathered men.

“Welcome back.” the young man hailed the riders, “Now do you mind explaining why I couldn't come along?” he demanded.

“Ravines too narrow. Don't need anyone awkward following us through.” hissed a giant of a man on a jet black mare of his own. His long hide duster fell from his shoulders like a cape of some ancient royal. His gas mask made him alien as much as the heads of the infected speared on the post behind him made him a demon.

“I don't need your shit Hoss, you can come straight.” the young man demanded, provoking laughter from the rest.

“It doesn't matter anymore, Alabama. It's done.” crooned another, reaching up and pulling off his mask, “Shit's there where I thought it was. Even did some house cleaning.”

“Well that's all good. But why can't I go?” Alabama demanded, looking at the demasked rider, “Or is this some sort of secret?”

“We can't tell you. Ravines are too narrow. And your mouth is too fat.” the black rider, Hoss teased, biting Alabama deep as he circled around the side, “Besides, I'm sure you would have pissed your pants the moment they jumped up from above. Ain't that right, Elliot?”

The demasked rider nodded. He wasn't nearly as large as Hoss was, even with his coat. But he was a man large in his wisdom. His graying salted beard and weary grandfatherly blue eyes gave him an air much like a sage from some fairly land, “Afraid he's right. You've dealt with the Come Back Kids when you could see them a mile off. But ain't no ground you'll falter and break us when we're in the Badlands.

“You're still young to us, Alabama. Always will be for a long time. And you're still a homeless bastard child. You may think you're old enough, but for fucks sake you need a concept of safety. Which you still haven't got. You're going to have to give up and just recognize we don't want you stupid and to know when you're no longer not.

“And you'll get to see the hidey-hole when you're full fledged.”

“So if we're done complaining can we head back to Bismarck before these heads really start to rot?” Hoss protested impatiently, fighting to peel off his mask, “Fuckers are clean by now, but that doesn't mean they'll still not decay.”

“You're right.” Elliot nodded, “Alabama, get your horse. We're going into town.”

"And you better have not eaten all our beans." sneered Hoss, pulling the mask off of the great globe that was his head. He looked down on Alabama, his scarred skin sagging off of heavy cheekbones.

"Don't worry." Alabama spat, walking to Missy, "We still got plenty."