1st Echo

Loomings.

Logue One.

Patrol.

Marshall Callahan's Log, November 21, 2499.

Happy December. Mar Sara seems not to care, though, it's still hot as hell…and there's nothing else to do but drink beer every day. But I've got a work to do; I have to run a community. I'm a Marshall, of course. It's the closest we've got to sheriffs here in Mar Sara, hell, it's the closest we've ever gotten to strapping on a six-gun and riding on a horse. 'Course, figuratively speakin'. We've got no horses here, only vulture bikes. Or hovering speed death traps, as I like to call 'em. If you see me now, I'm laughin, though…there's nothin' much to laugh. Honestly speaking, between you n I, I'm just stallin time. It's just 5 in the afternoon, the sunset's running it's course and I have nuthin to do! Ah well, might as well snooze.

[Later] Crap. So much of it. Stevens came back from his patrol and…gaah, there goes my lunch. I evacuated my stomach back there in the desert. I'm becoming so jumpy. A man died, and it's not so nice.

Stevens, with his work boots and braces, and that neocotton shirt he wore, and that neosteel mechanical gauntlet-boot combination; he came back with a bloody rip in his side. "Not that bad, boss, but it hurts like a bitch." He said. Meds had him patched up.

I'll write everything down now, I guess, for future reference and reading. The world has to know. The universe has to know.

Okay. Collecting myself.

Earlier in the afternoon, 'bout two hands after twelve, Stevens went out to his duty, patrolling the border colonies. He said he got a drink from Joeyray's Bar, and he thought it was a hallucination; what happened.

After passing a few words to Joeyray, he went off, riding his bike, and his Remington BlueSteel shotgun.

Now, there was a pass in the wastelands that divided the real wastelands with the outpost-outskirts. Stevens reached this, and found strange purplish rot on it; purple, leathery flesh. It seemed alive; a strange wall of purplish flesh hung over it. Stevens dismounted from his vehicle and approached the post, stepping on the blight. Without any other word for it, he coined the term creep.

That was when the man came.

He limped from the hazy, dust storm that was happening in the wastelands, and from Steven's view, he was seriously hurt—a hand hung limply to his side, and the flesh around that area was ripped. Spikes riddled his front torso and his legs; not to mention a large spike protruding from his neck. A large diagonal slash bled on his torso, and a strange scythe-like bone protruded from his arm. It wasn't human.

"Help." It seemed like the only word the man could say. His cotton shirt ripped to pieces, blood streaked all over him, the wounds seemed infected.
Yet Stevens stood there, in the dust, watching a large shadow approach the wounded man.

"You've got to h-h-help."

The man was ripped apart.

The monster reared its crested neck forward and looked at Stevens. It was at least eight feet tall, with an insect-like, serpentine body. Its red eyes looked at Stevens with contempt. It had mandibles on his snout, and these opened, revealing a devilish grin from a hideous mouth.

"It was kinda like a snake and a fuckin' prayin' mantis's love child." Stevens told me.

Stevens fell to the ground in fear and awe at the beast, his shotgun in the holster of his back. The thing reared its scythe-like arms in the air and lunged forward, the flaps of skin on its crested heads rearing to reveal the monstrosity's spikes. Instinctively, Stevens took out his shot gun and shot the monster in the face, taking half its head off.

Still, the creature attacked, stabbing him in the leg and slicing at his arm and side, only to be marred by the repeated shots from Stevens' shotgun. It lay dead, with conical holes drawn on his face.

Stevens limped to his vulture, took a final look back at the wastelands and saw more of those shadows. He started up the bike and ran off.

We gotta report this to the higher Authorities!