The following is a small excerpt from the most recent draft of “Smack-dab, in the Middle of Nowhere” – coming this summer.

This is the Waste.

It scratches out an existence upon the ruins of the Old World: a forgotten home to an advanced civilisation, where miracles of science were as commonplace as unexplained fungal diseases are now.

We soar over the landscape and we see a vast, undulating dusty plain stretching to the horizon both north and south. A dominating mountain range blockades the western flank, cramming the denizens of this tired place against the wild grey ocean to the east. There are no trees, for they have long stood up and left for greener pastures, but the dishevelled relics of Old World infrastructure persevere. Crumbled roads wind through the rolling landscape like chunky, rotten veins.

And then we arrive here…

…here where a battle is taking place.

Beneath a dismal sky smothered by thick cloud, the din of gunfire now echoes across these shallow hills. The sun hasn’t come out in decades, if not centuries. Some suspect it will never come out again. Others build religious cults around the prospect, and burn anyone who doesn’t join. There are … two kinds of people.

But back at the battle, we see an enormous walled settlement under assault by a horde of foot soldiers. They swarm against the south gate like radioactive ants trying to find a way into a home. A river beneath the bridge at their feet runs red with blood.

This battle will one day live on in legend. Folks will talk about it like their favourite sports team; they’ll debate the politics, they’ll get drunk and yell about who was right, who was wrong. But today?

Mostly people are screaming.

* * *

The bandit lord known as Ash knew his end was near.

He ducked instinctively as a hailstorm of bullets scoured the paint off his fort’s walls, its defenders leaping wildly for cover nearby – lest they discover what their insides look like. He cursed loudly, the spray clattering behind where he now sat in an angry slump, gripping his old hunting rifle tight in blood-stained hands. The roar was utterly deafening; it drowned the cries of fallen bandit soldiers all along the metal wall, and more so the moans of his enemies dying slowly in the river at the foot of it.

Let them sob, he grunted to himself. They could cry until the river’s acid dissolved them, for all Lord Ash cared. They didn’t deserve a swift death for the menace they had caused.

His slender fingers tightened around the cracked wooden stock of his aged rifle. The mob of southerners who now laid siege to his precious fort had come out of ruddy nowhere. Yesterday Lord Ash was a glorious bandit king, lord of the Ash Fort, and ruler of Can’t Be Buried – the great Waste plains upon which his mighty walls stood as a beacon of power.

Now? He was fairly certain he’d shat himself.

“Smack-dab” will be available on Kindle and Createspace by the turn of the year 2017-18. If you’d like to follow its progress, follow Duncan P. Pacey on his Facebook or Twitter accounts by clicking the icons below.