The high-noon sun shines down on me in a straight beam of what feels to be more than just its nature, casting waving mirages all around me. I look left, then right, then right again and again; desperately searching for what it used to be behind and in front of me. Before I marched into the deserted West, I had but a compass. Not exactly the ideal mechanism of direction amidst a world engulfed in fire and solar heat, but far better than plain guessing where North was before... before that thing appeared.

Not the first one of its kind I had seen up close and, if I somehow make it back alive to the forsaken village of Wells, it will not be the last I kill. They're twice as tall as me, many times faster and stronger than any man I know of and ugly as the Devil himself, but a high-caliber bullet into the eyes will kill them as they would any other miserable animal born in the fires of the desert.

Damn it, I thought... I thought I had killed the whole pack, but I appear to have missed a single juvenile of these Devils. It tracked me down, my scent carrying the fresh essence of death. Many believe them to be mindless, soulless. As someone who've looked into their eyes more than once, I can't say that they are; but any experienced wanderer of the wastes has at least one tale to tell about the single most dangerous quality of the Devils: Their talents for revenge, talents I have yet to see if they will claim me by the end of the day. The young Devil pounced on me — despite their size they can be quiet too until they decide when to reveal themselves at a time usually too late for any prey to escape.

But I survived. My compass and my map did not.

When I came to, the sun had shifted just enough to tell me time was still moving, whether I wanted it to or not. My head rang like a cracked bell, and sand clung to my tongue and eyelids. I spat, rolled onto my side, and took inventory—the way you learn to do after the first few close calls in the wastes.

Both legs still worked. One arm burned something fierce where a claw had caught me, but it moved. My rifle lay half-buried a few paces away, stock splintered but barrel intact. That alone felt like mercy.

The Devil was gone.

That worried me more than if it had been standing over me, drool dripping, waiting to finish the job. Devils don’t retreat unless they plan to return smarter. The young ones especially. They learn fast—too fast for comfort.

I dragged myself upright and scanned the dunes. Wind erased tracks quickly out here, but not all of them. The sand told a story if you knew how to read it: a broken slide where I’d fallen, a wide, heavy impact where the Devil landed, then a long, deliberate drag circling away from me. It hadn’t fled. It had watched.

I laughed once, dry and bitter.
“So you’re patient,” I muttered. “That makes two of us.”

Without my map or compass, Wells might as well have been a myth. But I knew one thing the Devils hated more than bullets—stone. They ruled the open desert, but rocky ground dulled their speed and stole their silence. If I could reach the badlands by sundown, I might live long enough to regret it.

I tore a strip from my sleeve and bound my arm tight, then checked what remained of my pack: one canteen, half full; three rounds of high-caliber left; a knife worn thin from use. Not much. It would have to be enough.

As I started west—guessing, always guessing now—I felt it again. That pressure between the shoulders. The sense of being measured.

Somewhere behind me, beyond the mirages and heat-haze, the juvenile Devil followed. Not rushing. Not snarling. Learning how I walked. How I limped. How long I stopped to rest.

They say the wastes are empty.
They're wrong.

They're watching.