Everyone seemed to expect Adrian to be off his pace somehow when it came to his caroling. It took him a while to realize that they hadn't seen him in twenty years and were expecting him to be just that rusty at it. As far as he was concerned last Christmas wasn't all that long ago, so he just picked up where he left off and carried around some ( Read more... )

The snow lay deep all around, heaped up in drifts against trees and stones, pockmarked with the skittering tracks of critters of both Earth and Xen. Shephard couldn't remember ever seeing it so deep, not even when he was a little kid and everything was bigger and tougher. Then again, he hadn't been traveling the better part of a month back then, ( Read more... )

The bullsquid's last dying squeal petered out as the thing slumped to the ground, gray-yellow blood staining the snow. Shephard watched it for a few seconds more in absolute stillness. That kind of a death attracted attention ( Read more... )

Numbers didn't lie. Kate just wished they did ( Read more... )

Shephard sat up, blinking the sleep away. There was a smell of roasting raisins on the air and the ground was splashed with yellow-grey everywhere he looked. "Jesus, Freeman," he said as he rubbed at his face with his hands, "why didn't you fuckin' wake me up ( Read more... )

" Very funny, Shephard. Now give me back my eyeglassesShephard shook his head and handed the black-framed glasses back to Freeman. "That was fuckin' weird," he said. "I ain't never seen nobody just go off all blank like that. You didn't even goddamn notice when I got those off. What the fuck just happened ( Read more... )

Feeding about a hundred people is a job for a fistful of cooks. More if you want multiple courses, less if you only need one course and drinks aren't a priority, but you need a good fistful of cooks to get it done ( Read more... )

"Corporal?"

Shephard held up one hand; his attention was focused directly in front of him. "Be right with you," he said. "Okay, Mrs. Wilson. One more time. Sic."The little houndeye danced from one forepaw to the other and back for a moment. Then it lunged for the battered orange traffic cone a few yards away, fast as its stubby little legs would ( Read more... )

There was a board in the room adjoining the main White Forest garage that'd once served as a casual communication center. Lost and found notices, non-urgent messages, and the like had been tacked to its surface when Shephard first saw it. These days it was still covered in paper, but the papers were divided into groups- the names of Resistance ( Read more... )

"Hey. D0G." Shephard grimaced, bending over with his hands on his knees. His gas mask had already fallen to the grass between his feet. "How'd we do that time?"

Mwoop beep! the robot answered, peering worriedly at him with its lone glowing eye ( Read more... )