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ever happen. All that nonsense about dragons being an extension of the military-industrial complex, and how we needed to find out who was really responsible for all of the missing people? It was insanity. There were like forty million people in the United States who just vanished, but then someone got the bright idea to start treating all of the holes in the ground—you know, mining tunnels, caves, whatever—like crime scenes. The first time that guy from New Jersey sprayed Luminol in a collapsed subway tunnel . . . I still remember the way the reporter screamed. That place lit up light a Christmas parade. There was blood everywhere , thirty-feet high on the ceilings, along the walls, just—all over. Who knew how many people had been dragged down there? I mean, who really gave a damn about their neighbors, you know? No one cared. No one paid attention to anyone except themselves, and maybe a small part of their family. We were like a herd of sheep who decided to ignore each other. We were the perfect prey. Those first few months, when the creatures were hunting, they did whatever they wanted, and no one fought back. Hell, no one even noticed. I know I didn’t, and I was a cop; I got paid to be observant. I didn’t even have time to feel sorry for myself, though. My wife was taken by something that looked like a dark green crab, six-feet tall that walked upright. It ripped into her and had her down a sewer before I could draw my personal weapon. After I sobered up a week later, I thought to myself that if anyone didn’t believe it now, they were as good as dead. They just didn’t know it.” – Officer Tomas Fusco, New York Police Department
    — Bulwark Archival Materials, Access Date 96 A.R.

7
     

     
    Ruins of Louisville/Kentuckiana
    August 6-15, 2074
    Railways, that transformer of the American West, still existed in the newly-baptized destruction of the continent. Abroad, these staples of transportation remained—Europe, in particular-- and the railroads that endured were near the top of the technological heap in terms of surviving relics from the bygone era of modernity. South American railways were non-existent, as was functioning transportation of any kind near mountains, but Central Asia still held on bitterly to their trains. These were the locomotives that had ferried German soldiers as they hurried south to assist the Ottomans, more than a century earlier. France had no less than three routes still in working order, as did England. There were unconfirmed reports of former arms dealers using trains as mobile residences, looping endlessly across the scorched remains of Syria and Iran. In the American heartland, there was a reasonably functional loop that linked up as far as the ruins of Chicago to the north, and Corinth, Mississippi to the southeast. Trade continued via rail, even if the entire operation was held together with wire and prayers. The second purpose that the trains served was salvage. Little manufacturing existed on the entire planet, if at all, so the constant search for useful goods was unending. Venturing into fallen cities and towns was among the most dangerous work known to man, and the hardy souls who pursued that occupation were wild, morally-ambiguous people who rarely behaved long enough to stay in town more than a day or two. The last significant load brought in to trade was three entire cars loaded with appliances, parts, and tools from an abandoned industrial park in Louisville, Kentucky—or to be more accurate, the remains of what had once been Louisville.
    The floods killed off whoever was too slow to get to high ground, which was nearly everyone, and it had taken decades to find a way around several wall-like structures of debris that effectively ringed the ruins from the swollen Ohio River southward. An enterprising salvage crew manned by a hardass named Cynthia Pennyroyal finally broke through just north of the tusks that were once a bridge connected to Indiana. Landing her