Free The Vile Village by Craig Sargent Page A

back of the Harley, which was parked against the side of one of the
     barns. The pitbull jumped and came down a little lopsided on top of the seat, nearly falling off. Scampering wildly with all
     four legs, it managed to stay atop, though some of its hair did fly off and up into the air as it exerted so much energy.
    “Damn,” Stone said as he mounted up in front of the dog when the animal was at last all settled down and the hairs had stopped
     floating around. “Hope you don’t go completely bald.” Stone was thinking about how hair loss could be one of the side effects
     of radiation poisoning. “Because you’ll look pretty fucking strange all pink, and with the other dogs laughing at your pink
     ass wherever you go, you’ll be fighting every damn second of every day.” The pitbull let out a long whine, as if it weren’t
     at all in the mood to hear any apocalyptic dog stories. And in a sudden mood of mercy Stone shut up and let the throttle go
     on the black Harley, which rocketed forward, screaming out a roar of power like something that should be caged.

Chapter
Nine
----
    T he sun hovered overhead like a white-hot light bulb about to blow. Stone had to squint to see a damn thing. With the rains
     past, the skies had cleared considerably, but a thick haze seemed to hang far overhead, as if the gods had put their dirty
     linen out to dry. He eased the Harley down the dirt road slowly at first, not used to the weight of the vehicle beneath him.
     Everything seemed new. Stone knew he had been a hair’s breadth from the other side. And now that he was back among the living,
     there was a sensation in the pit of his stomach like he had just been on a far-off vacation somewhere.
    As Stone and his canine partner approached Cotopaxi they began seeing signs of “civilization,” if that was the word for it.
     Dwellings were hardly more than twisted hovels with raw branches with leaves still attached to them placed over them as roofing.
     Stone saw collapsing buildings with ripped laundry hanging out their windows, sad-eyed women staring down from the shadowy
     innards. Everything was in tatters—the people he began passing along the road had their garments literally falling from their
     bodies. But worst of all were the faces of all whom he passed. They were the faces of the already dead, the hopeless. Dark
     gray visages that were waiting for but one thing—to die, to be taken off the face of this miserable earth. It could be no
     worse in the next life than it was in this one.
    As Stone drove on a few more miles, Excaliber began growling and snapping his tongue out at the air in lizard-like fashion,
     as if he were trying to catch an insect that had strayed too close. He soon saw what the pitbull was anticipating, for when
     they turned around a bend, the road ahead was lined with stands selling steaming pots of food and junk of every kind imaginable.
     Both sides of the road were lined with little pathetic stalls, hardly more than pieces of wood with junk balanced around them,
     or an occasional table made of hammered tin with items arranged atop it.
    But it was a mockery of a real marketplace, for everything that was being sold was of the lowest quality and functioning order.
     Knives with broken blades, half pairs of shoes, shirts with no arms, radios and TVs with all their parts and wiring removed,
     just the frames left. What in God’s name anyone would do with any of it was beyond Stone’s ken as he slowed the be to a crawl
     to avoid hitting any of the people walking around.
    The food, too—if it could be called that—was nothing to write home about, either. Brown oranges, their skins almost rotted
     away, individual pieces of bread with mold growing on them, bottles of soda with only a thick sludge left on the bottom like
     mud. It was a bazaar for the super-poor, the lowest of the low. A place where they might go and buy junk and feel like humans
     again, for a moment or two, until the black horror