Chapter 83: Discovery

The town stretches out before me as I cross the road from the gas station and enter the edge of habitation. I'm careful, eyes and ears alert, but it's clear to me as I make my way from street to debris littered street this place is abandoned. No Howls, stricken by the Sick and turned into half animals who consume the flesh of others shuffle in a pack from around a corner to attack me. No Shambles, the half-dead, zombie-like creatures who stink of decay, peer from behind dusty, dark windows. And no Brights either, though it's daylight and the vampirish incarnation of the illness destroying the world's population makes them photosensitive and less likely to appear when the sun is up.