Glade Rowanson needed to find shelter as the orange-coloured sky threatened darkness. The streetlights along the highway served only as a reminder, as bones, as tall concreate ribs, of a dead world. He had walked the entirety of the day, and now, exhausted, he wanted to rest. His eyes were set on an abandoned roadside diner.

  Glade crossed the empty parking lot of the restaurant and pulled at the double doors. Locked. They were chained on the other side. Glade paused and inspected the door: the glass from its thick metal frame had long been broken and haphazardly mended with wood. He selected one of the bottom corners. His foot pressed against the plywood until it yielded to his force. The wood broke, and he crawled into the abandoned building.

  The signs along the highway implied that the establishment was a family-owned operation. Now, almost nothing of it existed. Its interior had been ransacked by scavengers and torn apart by prospectors. Dust clung to the surfaces that remained, while the smell of stale grease still managed to linger in the air. His footsteps seemed to echo in the main room. Glade drew his pistol and scanned the room. He heard nothing except the rapid thump of his heart. He peered into the kitchen and saw the shadows of his own reflection.

  He tried to calm himself. The place seemed empty. He could begin a more thorough check of the location. He hoped he would be able to find something of value, something he could sell. When he approached the front counter, the place where workers once rang the cash register and sent orders to the kitchen, he noticed a slight glow emanating from one of its shelves. Glade made his way around to find a small nest of items: a patchwork sleeping bag, a dim camp lantern, and an open rucksack.

  Surprised, he began to rummage through the rucksack. At first, he searched tentatively, his semi-automatic pistol still in hand, but, after a few minutes, he felt comfortable. He placed his pistol on the counter and reviewed his loot. The bag contained a bunch of cloth-wrapped food, two rolled-up shirts, and an assortment of bullets in a fish-leather pouch. Over the front of the bag hung a worn plastic medkit. Glade carefully opened the kit and saw rolls of medical gauze and several vials of white pills tucked between them. He tried to estimate their value. With this find, he already felt wealthy enough to come home and hand these items over to his mother and his sister. They could probably sell all of these things for a lot, but it would still not be enough to cover their debts.

  Glade felt light-headed. The fatigue of the day had reached him. He sat down and unwrapped one of the cloth-wrapped food items. As he did so, he noticed the amber glow of the sun diminish. He thought the sun had set. Then, the shadow moved. Glade quickly turned around to see an old man pointing his semi-automatic pistol, the weapon he had left on the counter.

  “Slowly,” the old man had said. “Hands in the air.”

  Glade complied, drinking in the details of the man threatening to kill him: the old man had a well-trimmed beard and a short-shaved head. The general effect was of a man trying to mask his receding hairline and still present himself as fearsome. Glade looked into his eyes, but, in this light, they seemed to be nothing more than pools of great darkness.

  Glade tried to say something, to say anything. “I’m not a thief,” he blurted out. He felt his heart beat and his head ache. He could feel the stress accumulating in his body.

  The old man said nothing. The silence felt oppressive, heavy.

  Glade felt weak. He tried to keep his arms in the air, but the confrontation was too much. He dropped his arms.

  The old man reacted. He pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  “It’s empty,” Glade said with a cocky smile. He felt a little better.

  “This one isn’t,” the old man said, quickly unholstering a steel revolver.

  Glade placed his hand on the counter, trying to steady himself, but his strength left him. His knees buckled and he collapsed onto the floor. The world went dark.

  * * *

  When he regained consciousness, Glade had no sense of the time. The light of the sunset had been replaced by frail slivers of moonbeam. He tried to move but found his arms tied behind his back. Likewise, his ankles were bound before him. He sat uncomfortably on the floor, trying to steady himself mentally.

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  “Hey!” Glade shouted from his seated position. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What am I doing?” The old man rose to his feet and approached his captive. Glade felt a shiver of intimidation. The man loomed over him. Glade looked at the revolver holstered at the man’s leg.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” the old man said. “I’m going to get some information from you.”

  Glade kept silent. His head swam a little. His life balanced upon saying the right things.

  “First, the basics,” the old man said. “Who are you?”

  “Glade Rowanson.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “The Acres.”

  “What?” the old man asked immediately. “What’s that?”

  “It’s where I live.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” Glade admitted. He felt a sense of stability. He just needed to keep telling the truth, and this man would believe him.

  “Look,” Glade continued, “I’m from a small farming community, about a day’s walk from here. It’s just me and my family -- my mother, my sister. There’s a bunch of other plotted land beside us, but we usually stick to ourselves. We just want to live simple lives.” Glade looked up from the floor to inspect the old man’s face. He remained stone-faced.

  “And?” the old man asked.

  “And it’s not possible anymore,” Glade continued. “We don’t own the land. We’re taxed, forced to give rent. We barely grow enough for ourselves to survive. If the Overlords wanted a portion of our growth, fine, we could probably do it. It’d be tough, but we could do it. The way things are now? We’re out of luck. My father died before the winter, and, well, whatever deals he made were nullified.”

  “So you’re running away?”

  “What! No!” Glade shouted. He jolted himself completely upright. It was one thing to try to kill him, to bind him up, to interrogate him. It was another to call him a coward. “I’m not running away! I’m here to make a difference -- to make money, to make a fortune. I have a little over a month to get what I need and come home.”

  “To make a fortune, huh?” The old man looked at Glade’s backpack on the floor and then back at him. “How are you going to do that when you have little more than some food for travelling? I mean, you don’t have a single bullet to your name.”

  “I’m going to Dewindalo.”

  The old man narrowed his eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he started laughing. He tried to speak, but only managed to choke on his words. He pushed his hand into the air, asking for a few moments. Finally, he caught hold of his laughter. “You’re joking, right? You have to be joking. No? Oh, man. Dewindalo is going to eat you up, kid.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Glade responded.

  The old man crouched in front of him and grabbed his face with a pinch. “Ain’t much facial hair growing there,” he said. The man let go only to give him a light slap. “You’re a kid.”

  “I shaved this morning,” Glade said truthfully.

  The old man smiled with silent laughter. “Ah, man. You’re a dead boy walking. Do you know what happens in Dewindalo?”

  “Fortunes are made,” Glade said.

  “No,” the old man said, turning back to his captive. His face grew heavy. “Fortunes are lost. It’s a place of poverty more than it is a place of wealth. Men, boys like you, think they can make a quick buck. They go into the city and see if they can cut a portion of the wealth for themselves. They place their mind, body, and luck against the city, and they almost always lose.

  "Kid, I’m telling you right now, it is better for you to turn around and go home. Hug your mother. Hug your sister. And try to work that land. I’ve taken the courtesy of looking into your bag. You have nothing. You have less than nothing. Go back to your little semi-sheltered life and live honestly. The Wasteland is going to twist your neck like I would a feral dog. Snap. Then it’ll skin you, eat you, and pick your bones clean. Unsatisfied, it’ll wait for the next na?ve man-boy to wander into its maw.”

  “I’m going,” Glade said firmly.

  “Man, I should have killed you. If you had a single bullet in your useless pistol, you would have lived a happier life. Died on day one! I can’t kill you now, not in good conscience,” the old man furrowed his eyebrows, “unless you give me a reason to.”

  He paused and stared.

  Then, as suddenly as the mood took him, he leapt back into his avuncular tone. “But if you’re going to try to make this journey, and you’re not going to listen to my advice, well, then, I guess, you can go with me.”

  “You’re going to Dewindalo?”

  “Something like that,” the old man said. “I have some business to conduct nearby. Once I’m done, I promise you safe passage over the lake. I might as well help you meet your misfortune sooner rather than later, save you the misery of the roads. Every day you’re not dead is a day you wish you’d been.”

  The old man approached and untied the youth’s ankles. “Get some sleep,” he said as he began to untie his wrists. “I’ll keep watch for the first bit.”

  The old man sidled onto the counter and flicked out a small knife. The blade caught a sliver of moonlight. “Tomorrow, you’ll be on a boat to Dewindalo,” he said, prying a small piece of wood from his jacket pocket.

  Glade removed his work boots and cautiously approached the sleeping bag. The old man nodded in his direction. Glade sat in the sleeping bag and tried to make himself comfortable.

  “Hey,” Glade said softly. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” the old man said, without looking in his direction. He cut into the wood block. A curled wood shaving fell onto the counter. “By the way, the name’s Jude.”