Episode 2

The great arid Waste is a demanding place to journey across, its vast distances and beating conditions make it a trial for even the most hardened traveller. That being said on occasion the bold or brainless make their way across the flats in search of a cure to their wanderlust. Joe’s Town has had its share of travellers and we’re amiable enough to feed our guests. After filling their belly the visitor will share stories and songs they've gained on their travels. One such wanderer visited our home a fortnight or so ago. The one eyed man wore the scars of a life well lived, his hair, both on his face and head, was long and matted with bald patches where scar tissue had obstructed the growth. Through the disfigurations and dirt I noticed a hardened fortitude in his eyes.

I sat down at the evening fire and looked around at the other folk. Janie walked past me without a glance, my parents sat opposite looking as if they had a reason to be gleeful; I don’t believe they did, and the wanderer sat in his thick tan cloak looking as if the he was buried in a mound with only his head showing. I filled my bowl with stewed wasteweed from a rusted cauldron and tore a piece of coyote from the spit. After the wanderer had finished his meal he rested his bowl on the dirt, clearing his throat he began “Would any of y’all like to hear a tale?” more directed at the children than the adults. His gnarled features seemed to petrify the children so Deidre, a girl two years my senior, spoke up
“Well I would”.

 “Ok then little lady, if you wanna hear me speak I’ll speak. Long ago, when I was a young man, I rode with the Rangers of Rayle before he was a known name in these lands. See Rayle weren’t always king of the dirt, once he lived far off in the land across the canyon. Over there they got…” his eyes darted around until he found and held up a clump of wasteweed “…they got this as far as the eye can see and it’s the colour of your peepers” Janie giggled as she realized it was her emerald eyes he was talking about. “And he was king there too, he and his brother ruled over that land travelling with an army of Rangers so big it could span from here to all the way over there.” Children gasped as he motioned from one point to another.

“But Rayle had the past scratching around in the back of his head ‘coz he had been betrothed to a beautiful girl who, the night before their weddin’, was taken by some unknown evil to the Waste. The memory of this loved one became too great a weight and he told his brother they had to travel to the Waste. His brother refused, he loved the land he lived in and weren’t gonna leave it for nothin’, so the army split.

“This is where I come in. ‘Cos I was a boy birthed in the Waste Rayle hired me to help guide his men. He and his Rangers searched the great plains searching for signs of that woman. For years they looked, but never found a scrap. Rayle became weary and almost gave up his search ‘til one night…” the traveller’s voice became hushed “… the gang I rode with came across a great pyramid. Moonlight broke through the clouds and lit that tomb blue in ghostly light, a gale blew up dust around the base so thick you couldn’t see the man next to you. It weren’t a nice place. We stepped up to the buildin’, it hummed as if it were alive. Amongst the blizzard that surrounded us we huddled, our shouts like whispers, and made plans to enter the tomb. The youngest member of the squad got the short straw and had to go in alone, through the night we waited but he never came out.

“Message was sent to Rayle of what we’d found. The next night He arrived, he looked at that pyramid with a dread and went in alone. We waited outside for three days, the sun barely peaked past the mountains whilst he stayed in that tomb and we stood in the cold twilight waiting to see what, if anythin’, would emerge. At midnight on the third day a some’in’ appeared at the entrance. In their arms they carried some'in', as they came closer I saw that it was Rayle that walked towards us. In his arms lay the corpse of that young Ranger, days ago he had entered the pyramid but now he was just bones in a techsuit. Rayle ordered for the tomb to be sealed, never mentioning what had happened but he had changed, he weren’t the same man.

“Rayle ordered a bonfire for the dead Ranger and as the corpse burnt some sound came from it. First it was faint but soon turned into a wail. Scared that someone had been caught we started to tear the fire apart, as we fought against the flames the screams became louder and more desperate. Suddenly men started to collapse, clutching their ears as they rolled around in the dirt but still we pressed on. We got to the centre of the blaze and that same lonely figure we had seen walking from the pyramid, Rayle, was stood there. He wore the armour of the young Ranger and gazed into the distance, unawares of what went on around him. We ran to aid him but some'in' horrible happened...

“As I neared him a breeze hit my face, cool and damp. Dark flooded in around me and all I could see was Rayle, stood before me in a black abyss. With a jolt he faced me lookin’ deep into my eyes as if he was starin’ at my soul. I tried to turn and run but wherever I went he was there. The wailin’ started up again and the breeze strengthened, buildin’ and buildin’ ‘til the mangled faces of a thousand dead blew from where he stood. Their stench filled my nose, my eyes began to water. They screamed and moaned as they flew around my head in a ghostly tornado. I covered my ears and held my eyes tight but the sound wouldn’t cease and in the darkness of my eyelids still I saw their faces. Wailin’ grew and grew in volume until I could bare it no more and blacked out.

“I woke later, the sun low in the sky, I looked around me and saw that the Rangers lay around in a great circle. In the centre of the circle stood Rayle huggin’ some pale blue woman. Shakin’ one of the men around me I saw they’d had the same fate as the young Ranger, I got up, started runnin’ and never stopped”

It was pitch black when he finished his story. Children sat shaking in their parent’s laps, some crying. Older folk were angry at the traveller for scaring the kids but I had been hooked on every word. Tales like these excited me more than anything but they alone weren’t enough, I wanted to see the ghosts for myself.

Episode 1

There it is again, that noise. Joe’s Town has always been dead silent past dusk but midnight disturbances are becoming more and more common and I don’t like it at all. Pulling a rough shirt over my head, I walk to the door of my parent's shack. They lie snoring a few feet away, their ability to sleep through such a tumultuous sound is pitiful, they’re just like the rest. I step out of the doors made of mismatched scrap set in dilapidated walls made out of even more junk. The gabled roof of corrugated iron shelters the raised wooden porch, the whole structure supported by greyed timbers that have clearly been in place for some time, the few steps leading from the porch are warped and chipped. Its dark out but the moon provides enough light for me to see the looming black shape, barely a hundred feet from where I stand, an obscene groan sounds as it carves it’s way through the night.

 

Joe’s Town is my home, it always has been, and it was dull as dirt. Everyone had a way to occupy their brain, some used hooch but I used music. The town hall was the central hub, centuries of sand had stained the outside of the building yellow. The corrugated iron canopy was brown from rust, tiles from the roof gathered in the gutter under fissures of crossed timbers. At ground level hardened mud was laid out in every direction, thick black cracks scarred the earth giving the impression of scales on the back of some enormous, slumbering dragon. Tufts of vegetation fought to reach the orange sun but the sandstorms killed them before they could flower, leaving brittle hair like clumps dotted around the landscape. The flat of the desert spanned for a frighteningly long time, loneliness was a part of everyday life. Far off stout mountains grew up, reaching for the thick layer of glowing clouds, rays of sunlight radiated so bright they hurt your eyes.

I dreamt of what lay beyond those mountains, the deep, dried out rivers that had cut canyons  punctuated by needles of rock a hundred feet tall. Clouds there are thinner, the glowing sky tinged with blue, the bright sun creates long shadows of the needles and illuminated impressive skylines as it set. Little vegetation grows there, but what does is dull green and flowers in pale lilacs and blues. The maze of dead rivers seems endless and the terracotta walls so high that even if you got down you could scarcely get up, but whenever I visited the canyons the thought struck me, what if I made it across?

Life strolled along, dull and repetitive, a never ending adventure in monotony. It wasn’t until about a year ago when a series of strange events began to unfold that something outside my music and dreams piqued my interest. I was sat outside my parent’s hut tuning my banjo and watching Janie when the first of the oddities came. Janie was the only girl around my age that lived in Joe’s Town and we didn’t get an awful lot of visitors so it felt inevitable that we were going to be together, she seemed to know it as much as I did but still she appeared resistant to the idea and I hated her for it. I didn’t love her, I didn’t even like her but her rejection made me sick.

It was about midday when the Rangers came, the orange sun was seated high in the sky. I had just started to play a song, something I had written about a rat searching for somewhere that plants grew lush and bright, he found his haven but a gate keeper told him rats weren’t allowed to enter. The rat waited until the gatekeeper slept then ate out his eyes, the next morning he approached again and the blind gatekeeper, assuming he was a man, let him through. Barely a verse into my song I was interrupted by the distant rumbling of techbikes.

The Rangers of Rayle, the Technocrat Lord, didn’t often visit Joes Town but when they did they made an impact. Usually all they wanted were warm beds and warmer hospitality. Now and then a woman would be in the band and if they weren’t some battle hardened elder I’d half hope they’d expect such ‘hospitality’ of me, but it never happened. The Rangers would stay for one night then ride off again, a huge cloud of dust settling as they got closer to their next rest stop. First they were far off specs but eventually their bikes came into focus, their steeds had always fascinated me, the main body was like the limbless, headless torso of some great metal beast. It sat on two heavy, black tyres, as thick as the rest of the bike. All together the vehicle was as long as a man on his back. A leather seat, with a high back, and a pair of shelves for the feet allowed the rider to sit upright. As they rode their chainswords rattled against their thick plate armour, seeing them I couldn’t help but smile.

This time, however, something was different, more men than I’d ever seen before rode forth, the front rider with a steel chariot secured to the back of his techbike painted in a faded rainbow of colours, a signature of the Rangers, it was rusted and covered in dust from decades of use. The platoon came to a halt, their mounts coughing as they did so and the heavy rubber wheels scarring the earth under the overhang of the town hall. They stood around, joking amongst themselves as a crowd gathered. The chariot rider and a few others walked to the door of the town hall where they began to talk with Joe III.

Soon the chariot rider accompanied Joe III in to the hall his guard of men stood around at the doorway, their eyes surveying the crowd with suspicion. Light faded and the Rangers made their sleeping arrangements whilst Joe III stayed in the town hall with his guest. As morning broke the bulk of the Rangers stepped out of various shacks, reassembling their armour as they walked, some trailed by giggling girls who shared looks of glee as they accompanied there new friend to his techbike. The chariot rider left the hall, Joe III waited at the doorway, a look of concern across his face. With a cloud of dust the bikes began to roar and the Rangers left Joe’s Town.

It was obvious something was wrong but no one seemed to notice, more than likely the idiots didn’t want to. My mind raced, what had Joe III and the man spoken about? Why was he so concerned? Joe III started acting differently after that day, like some burden had been added to his shoulders. The Rangers started to visit more and more often, always with the guarded chariot in tow. The girls were happy about it, Janie had become romantically involved with a Ranger. Everyone seemed too preoccupied to notice but I knew something wasn’t quite right. When the night sounds began I became truly scared, but underneath that fear, in the pit of my stomach, was excitement.