Worn-Out Places: The Collections

They came from the East without warning, on the wings of ravens, on the backs of gulls, on the winds of change. No warning whatsoever. Asleep for a millennia, darker than night, they claimed the lives around them like a farmer harvests sheaves, one shorn, two shorn, three shorn four.

They came alone! Whether knocking on doors mid-day, or creeping through night, feeding, always feeding. Dark hunger like a plague, 'Vrykolakas, vrykolakas' echoing in the wind, bone-white and reeking of cypress. Little by little our world fell, one country, one state, one child, one life and breath at a time, until in the end only desolation and ruin remain.

That's where I enter the picture- like the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, and in my hand I bring retribution- and a chance.