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Writer's pictureMark Sanders

Chapter Four: Desolate

Blogtober 2020 Day Four Entry

The windmill did have a pump handle, and to Phin’s relief, clear water splashed onto the dirt. He and Murphy drank from the pump, but Gunnarson was too weak to get out of the wagon.

About 100 feet off the road sat the remains of a farmhouse. The structure was intact, but all furnishings were gone. Murphy poked through a small pile of debris near the naked stovepipe and found a battered tin cup.

Gunnarson sipped the water with great effort. His face was red, and heat radiated from his skin even through his clothes. His left arm looked like a desolate wasteland stripped of life and left to rot. The fang marks were black holes oozing a foul-smelling liquid, the skin stretched to bursting, the blood vessels a river of ghastly greenish-brown tendrils.

“We gotta get him to doctor,” Phin said.

“We don’t even know where we are,” Murphy replied. “We’ve been riding all day, and this is the only place we’ve seen.”

“Look at his arm,” Phin said. “It looks worse than a dead possum.”

“The farmhouse,” Gunnarson wheezed. “Does it have a barn?” Murphy nodded.

“Go find an axe,” Gunnarson said. “I’ve got an idea.”

“You go,” Murphy said. “I’ll stay with him.”

Phin ran past the farmhouse to the small barn on the edge of a weed-choked field. Nothing remained inside, but behind the barn was a woodpile with an axe propped against the stacks of wood. He picked it up and returned to the wagon.

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