The Outer Hills

As The Dark Wanderer walked into the outskirts of what used to be New York City he increased his pace, cracked his knuckles and sneered at what would soon be his new home. As he continued on, he said to himself, "Let's see if there are new souls in which to corrupt here."

He smiled a malicious grin, a grin that would cause a nearby infant to burst into tears, a balloon to pop, flowers and plants to wither and die where they grow. The kind of grin that causes dogs to go ferocious and cats to hiss. The kind of grin that corrupts a soul and causes a man's prostate to fail; it was an evil grin and he knew, oh how he knew...

He continued walking along, the only weapon on him his grin, his astronomically large vocabulary, and his wit.

After a few minutes of walking, he spotted a church, mostly intact. He said to himself, "Even the Lord will not keep you safe in times like this. Let's see if He still has any followers after letting almost all of them die." He then burst into evil laughter.

He walked on closer to the church, and when he arrived just outside, he rapped loudly on the still standing door and shouted "Anybody home!?"

A frail weak voice replied from inside, "Who's there!? Leave me alone! I just want peace with my Lord!"

Inside of his cloak a grin appeared on the Wanderer's face. He went inside slowly, and said slyly, "I mean you no harm. Look, I have no weapons! And isn't He everyone's Lord?"

The old man came out from behind a fallen rafter with a .22 rifle raised, looked the Wanderer over, and then said, "I guess you're right, friend. What's your name?" and held out his hand.

The Dark Wanderer lowered his cloak slowly, looked the old man in the eyes, and grabbed his hand--but said nothing. With a massive grin on his face, the Wanderer looked the man in the eyes, and what the man saw haunted him for the last few seconds he was alive. The man's head seizured, and seizured until finally his eyes began bleeding out of his head. The man grabbed at his eyes screaming his previous Lord's name. He began bleeding from every orifice on his body until his head caved in--he was finally able to find out if the Lord he believed in was real or not.

The Wanderer returned the cloak to his head, his grin shining through the darkness...

The Dark Wanderer leaned over the dead man and touched the blood that was pooling on the floor. He let out a sigh and a shiver of pleasure, then put his whole hand in it. Walking over to the nearest wall, he wrote a pentagram in the man's blood. He walked back over to the man and dragged him up stairs into the rafters. There, he tied a string to the man's leg, then a string to a rafter and pushed. The man went over the edge but stayed suspended in the air, blood dripping to the floor.

The Wanderer lit a fire and sat in front of it, legs crossed. He imagined himself flying through the air looking down at the city and soon pictured himself a bird flapping his wings over the city. When he opened his eyes, he was flying, but he was not a bird; far from it--he was a fly, a large one. In his human mind, he scowled and thought, <This will have to do.>

He flew towards the city on the wings of a fly. As he was flying over the city, he saw a large object come flying from the sky. It hurtled itself into the ground, and soon enough he saw two men come out from the dust. His human eyes opened and he was back at the church.

"So there are survivors here... Well, not for long..." he said, and burst into maniacal laughter.

The Dark Wanderer stood up, his cloak shimmering around his feet. He walked over to the dead old man hanging by his leg from the rafters and poked him. Whe the dead man rocked back and fourth, the rafters squealed in what sounded like agony. The Wanderer then went to the top of the stairs, and peered out a fresh hole towards New York City. Heading outside, he began walking towards the city... (To Inner City)

Darryl's feet were hurting--he had been walking almost since the instant the bombs fell. He walked from Germany though Russia, then crossed the Pacific Ocean and ended up in California, and the things he saw there... The most prominent thing in his memory was the angel, but a family of vampires! He laughed, but kept walking.

He walked from LA all the way to New York looking for his father. Just now, he was coming to the outskirts of the city, walking through some desolate hills. There were no signs of life anywhere, but he needed to look anyway. He didn't expect to find his dad, but it's the thought that counts right? Walking on, he finally came upon a small abandoned settlement. Looking around, he decided that this place wasn't too badly damaged. Very few bodies, and it's neat, speaking in post-apocalyptic terms. He found a house with every window smashed out, but there was no stench of rotten meat emitting from it, so he went inside.