Only seventeen remained.

When sun rose in the morning there were twenty-one. Twenty-one souls winding their way through the grey-toned light of a world that had gone mad.

Tinsel and Berry were down by a stream just a few hundred paces away from where the group had camped the night before. The girls had invented some sort of new game that involved great princes who wore masks of steel and hideous creatures that tried to eat children while they slept. Becel forbade Tinsel from playing it, telling the four year old girl that she would get bad dreams, like Tantrum, if she kept up with it. Every time Tinsel would tell her that she would stop, but Berry would drag her back into her world of imagination and it wouldn't be long before they were ducking and diving through trees and bushes, fleeing the beasts and being rescued by the men in the masks.

Everyone else knew about the games of course, and also knew that Becel hated them, but how can you defeat imagination? So there they were.

It had been several weeks since they had spotted any sign of the Scowlers, and the Elders should have been suspicious if for that reason alone. It was rare they saw so little of them these days.

And yet, the chance to go so long without having to hide, shushing the littles to keep them quiet while the others braced themselves for battle should it come to it, was refreshing. They had even stayed in one place for three nights in a row - nearly unheard of in recent memory.

When it happened Darius had just mentioned to Chester that they best be making some plans now to move on. The sound of giggling stopped, abruptly and ominously, causing the two Elders to stop in mid-sentence.

Then a shrieking sound, like some long extinct animal suffering through it's death throes.

Bedlam.

It's hard to say now exactly what had occurred in the chaos. Somehow Shunt and Ratjaw were at the river and Shunt had already grabbed Tinsel by the time the others had joined them. Quickly he was hurrying the girl away from the river and back towards the camp proper. Berry was already nearly out of sight, her little body thrashing as she was being dragged by several figures who were on the other bank of the stream and pushing their way into the forest beyond.

Ratjaw began to wade into the water, but was quickly overtaken by Bellows, the girl's father roaring in fury as his thick legs crashing through the water, carrying him quickly in a pursuit of his daughter's captors.

It was then that the commotion began on the other side of camp, now undefended since the group had made their way down to the stream.

The best that could be gathered after it was all said and done was that Darius had been jumped by at least two Scowlers, their intent, according to Powder, to try and grab Tantrum who was still sitting by the fire. The little boy had had his usual fitful sleep of night terrors and was sleeping in late.

Powder was the first one to get back to the fire and according to the young man Darius was already dead by the time he arrived, an arrow in the older man's chest and a crude chipped hatchet buried in his face. The young man had only a finely honed spear in his hands but had the element of surprise and managed to get the jump on the two men who were already making a dash for the boy who was just waking up to the madness all around him.

The lad likely saved that little kid's life and had he not had the leg speed that he did, they would have had even one less in camp tonight. Though he himself was wounded, he had done enough to scare off the two assailants.

It was the final act of that young man's life and would be remembered by the group for as long as they had a group to remember him.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chester shook his head and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, flecks of blood once more accenting his wrinkled skin.

Ratjaw was mumbling something under his breath as he shoveled a final load of dirt onto the third shallow grave that the group had dug. It was well past dark and the work had been miserable, but with no light to see with they had been forced to call off the search for Berry. The wails of anguish from the girl's mother caused Chester to second guess the decision but he knew that it was simply far too dangerous to go out tonight.

Darius was the lucky one. His death looked to have been swift, if painful.

Powder's wounds had dragged his death on for several hours, the boy's pock-marked face twisting with agony as he held his ravaged stomach, barely holding in the intestines which threatened to ooze out with every coughing spasm that raked his body. Twice Ratjaw offered to end it for him, but Chester simply couldn't make the call. He never did have it in him to make the tough decisions like that when it was time.

When they had stumbled across Bellows' body in the woods, shortly after calling off the search due to darkness, it was hard to tell exactly what had got him. There appeared to be no wounds, but he had simply collapsed. His body was scrunched into the fetal position, his knees drawn tightly up near is chin. Perhaps seeing his little girl being carried off by the Scowlers had broken his heart. Perhaps that's just the stuff of stories.

Three dead, and one kidnapped. Now there were seventeen left in their group.

"Magar, if you're out there, now would be a bloody fine time to come back," Chester thought to himself. "We ain't gonna be able to keep dodging them Scowlers forever."

They had no choice but to spend a cold night with no fire, tucked away near a copse of trees that provided the group some cover. In the morning they would go in search of the girl again, but he held out little hope of finding her. The Scowlers were nearly impossible to find once they made it their task to disappear, their blackened faces leaving you with the feeling that perhaps you just imagined it all.

As the group began to nod off the last four remaining Elders, those remaining from before the Rupture, tried to piece together the questions from the day.

The biggest one was the most difficult to discuss. Why did the Scowlers want the children?

They had already taken what they wanted years ago, in the battle of Detroit with Magar and his men. What possible reason could they have for trying to steal children. None of the Elders could dare to even say their answers out loud and so they sat in silence, shivering and thinking through the night.

Magar was the only hope they had, and that hope was fading with every day that passed.