There was also a tramp sitting several metres away who hadn't noticed Olive and probably still wouldn't register she was there if she'd hit him with a...brick. He was almost certainly out of it on crack or smack or maybe just alcohol (although the last was by far the most expensive). At the other end of the alleyway were three young children, probably not much older than Emily. Nevertheless, Olive wasn't to be fooled. Children were often the worst. She'd heard of people being knifed or having. Without interrupting her attention to the now protruding nipples, she replaced her partner's hand with her own. Beryl sighed and began to wriggle contentedly under the double friction. For someone experiencing another woman for the first time at the age of forty-seven, John thought, she needed no tuition. He aimed the camera, pressed the button and hoped for the best. Whatever Zoe was doing, he realised, was having a devastating effect. Beryl's arse began to lift from the pillow, meeting. Nothing in this desert stayed new long, and this road was no exception. It was faded and cracked, the yellow lines bleached almost white under the sun. It had seen many tires of all types over its hundred years of life, but no repair crew in almost twenty. It stretched in both directions like a tired grey ribbon, a tired line that went from horizon to horizon. The signs had all been shot, smashed down or rusted out decades ago, and the impotent government that ran what was left of the USA had. "Brentt..." He turned, and saw what he had been waiting for, what he had been fearful of. The man. The beast. The Immortal. Sarachan. Or, to give him his full title, Sarachan The Endless. He was tall, dark. Hair flowed like an endless waterfall to his waist, jet black and poker straight. He seemed to suck the light into him, the air blurring and twisting as he moved towards Brentt, the grass parting as he approached. His long raincoat flapped in the wind, slower and more deliberately than it.