Category: T2000 Writing

Twilight Tangents 2.0 – ZOMBI

So, we decided to change some things.

  1. Twilight Tangents is by far our best selling book. People just love zombies in Twilight: 2000. It’s probably been tempered by the release of The Walking Dead but it’s still a solid seller.
  2. I had a load of writing for Zombi stuff that I wanted to use but it seemed out of place in with the psychic powers stuff.
  3. Twilight Tangents is also my oldest supplement by a country mile. It was the first thing I put together for the Free League Workshop so its update was well overdue. I mean it’s been up there for about four years!

We’re splitting Twilight Tangents into two separate books – so if you previously got it you won’t lose access to anything Zombi-like or even the rules for Psychic Abilities. You’re getting the Twilight Tangents upgraded Zombi content for free and retaining all of the previous book.

Twilight Tangents: Zombi warps the cold realism of Twilight: 2000 into a fungal nightmare of paranoid aggression, plague-scarred survivors, and walking corpses born not of mysticism, but bioweapons. Set in a world where Agent INFERNO, an engineered mould, has twisted fear into fury and death into zombification, players navigate a crumbling civilisation where trust is deadlier than bullets and infection is only a breath away.

This sourcebook reimagines the apocalypse with horrifying biological plausibility: zombis driven by neural-hyphae infestations, panicked survivors clutching to faith, violence, or denial, and institutions turning to the dead as weapons of control. It’s not survival horror. It’s a war against your own instincts, played out across ruined cities, quarantined zones, and overrun compounds. With new campaign options, adversaries, factions, life paths, and grim narrative hooks, Zombi doesn’t ask if you’ll survive, only how much of your humanity you’ll lose before the end.

We will be following this up later this year with two new books. Twilight Tangents: Espers and Twilight Tangents: Lycanthropes. I’ve not started writing them yet but the summer is coming up and I’ll have plenty of time to put stuff together.
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Twilight Tangents: Espers

The Mind Is a Weapon – But Who Pulled the Trigger?

Twilight Tangents: Espers tears back the veil on a secret war fought not with bullets, but with thoughts sharp enough to kill. Born from classified experiments and the shattered psy-ops of The 23rd Letter, these are the invisible soldiers of the Twilight War; remote viewers, psychic assassins, telepaths embedded in command bunkers, and precognitive assets burned out before their twentieth birthday.

The Twilight War didn’t just scorch the Earth. It ruptured the human psyche. This supplement brings full psychic warfare to Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, revealing how nations cultivated Espers to manipulate battlefields, undermine leadership, and rewrite reality one mind at a time. Players step into a world of neural blacksites, psionic backlash, mental conditioning, and conspiracies so deep they were never meant to be remembered.

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Twilight Tangents: Lycanthrope

We didn’t create them. We just stopped giving them a reason to hide.

In the smoke and chaos of the Twilight War, something older than humanity emerged from the forests, the mountains, and the ruins. Not a bioweapon. Not a myth. Something that had always been there, watching. Waiting.

Twilight Tangents: Lycanthrope is a savage expansion for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, introducing werewolves not as fairy tale monsters, but as apex predators whose packs have turned warzones into hunting grounds. These aren’t cursed peasants or Hollywood beasts. They are strategic, feral, and organized and they remember what humanity has forgotten: how to stalk, how to kill, and how to survive.

From black-ops werewolf handling units to insurgent packs tearing through the last enclaves of civilisation, this sourcebook explores lycanthropy as a battlefield reality. Inside: new lifepaths, rules for transformation, hunting instincts, and feral politics. The beasts are real. And they’re not hiding anymore.

Here Be Dragons – a new enemy for Twilight 2000

Here Be Dragons – A new Enemy for Twilight 2000
[Scenario][Game Aid][Paid]

Here Be Dragons is a different look at the post-apocalyptic world after a awakening of an ancient enemy brings our civilisation to ruin. This reign of Draconic Rulers brings down a Rain of Fire and destruction by tooth and fang.

Smoke fills the air, the taste of burning is on your tongue and in your nose. Your belly rumbles as you’ve not had enough food these last three days and forever you have one eye on the horizon and one ear listening out for the beat of wings.

On Monday, the 24th of August, 2000, the world ended.

An enemy that had laid dormant for over a thousand years, clawed its way out of deep pits and took to the air. Their time had returned, their world for the taking.
With claw and tooth and fire, they razed entire cities to embers, picked off the thousands who ran and created vast nests in the high places.

The Earth had brought forth Dragons.

Get it at DTRPG

New and Shiny: Enhanced: Super Soldiers in the Twilight War

We just released Enhanced.

This one has been a long time in the making and, due to the amount of art (all done by humans), the most expensive book we have produced to date. Remembering that all of our books are about recouping costs so we can pay more artists!

Enhanced is a supplement for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition.

Enhanced provides a framework for super soldiers in the Twilight War, based on alien particles discovered in the aftermath of the Tunguska Event. From these mutagenic agents, the Americans build heroes at their secret base in Raven Rock and the Soviets build monsters which roam the forests of the Urals.

In the light from a hundred artillery explosions, I could see the rain lashing off Skipper’s helmet as she peered out of our foxhole.
“I can’t see shit”, she spat.
Somewhere out there, among the ruined trees and scarred fields was the Enemy. Cloaked in an unseasonable storm that seemed as if the elements were angrily punching their fists to the air in protest against our intrusions.
A barrage of rounds whizzed above our heads and we ducked reflexively, too late of course. If they had been on target, we wouldn’t have heard them, only felt them as they thudded into us and tumbled turbulently through our slippery innards.
“We’re pinned here. If they have armour…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. If they had armour, they’d roll those tanks right up over us and we could do nothing about it. What was worse was I knew they had armour, I’d seen the menacing blocky shapes in the fog earlier. I decided not to mention it, fearful of ruining the optimistic mood.
We settled into a sullen silence, just waiting for something to happen because inevitably it would.
Maybe it was an hour, maybe two, when we first heard something, Footsteps. Quiet footsteps.
I hissed “Red?”
A moment later I heard a confidently spoken “Rum!” and a slightly built young woman dropped into our little foxhole. She said her name was Malt.
For the next hour, Malt kept us company. Her humour was infectious, her confidence like a gentle breeze. She made us breathe again, right until we heard the rumbling of heavy machines. Armour, I realised with dread.
Malt stood up, all 160 cm of her, and faced the mechanical monster as it trundled towards us.
“Time to earn my crust.”
She smiled and we were immediately blinded by a baleful light that came from her body. Refracted a million times by raindrops, I could feel the peril from it. The light sliced through the tank, like a hot knife through butter, and the air was rent with screams of dying men and machines.
When our vision returned, she was standing alone and half-melted tanks steamed and stank around us.
“Let’s go!” Malt sang as she skipped forward. Like an elf she raced across the battlefield towards the enemy, When something reared up to spit death, that terrible light would appear once more leaving only smoking ruins.
We hit their trenches like a hammer; Skipper’s uncanny accuracy found its mark every time. I followed, mopping up as we went.
We collapsed into a shelter and wiped the sweat and rain from our faces.
“We just made 100 metres.” Malt grinned.
She stepped back out into the rain and beckoned us.
“We can do a hundred more.”
I strapped my helmet back on and grabbed my weapon just as Malt’s left eyeball exploded and I heard a single shot ring out, showering us in gore and skull fragments. Skipper swore. I was speechless.
Malt’s body fell, in slowed motion, to the bottom of the trench and the chalice of her brain pan started to collect muddy rainwater. We could hear voices now, speaking in short, staccato bursts, in a foreign language. We’d come too far.
“We gotta run,” Skipper shrieked. She leapt to the top of the trench and sprinted back towards our lines. Even through the rain I could see her ducking and diving as fast as her Enhancement would permit! And me, I couldn’t move. I wasn’t as fast as Skipper. Didn’t have Malt’s light to clear the way.
As the voices closed in on me, I remembered a line from a book or movie. I spoke steadily into my radio, giving coordinates as accurately as I could and finished with that line as I called in the artillery.
“Let it rain. Danger close.”

This rule set is compatible with Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, Blade Runner, ExSanguine, De Occulta, The 23rd Letter 3rd Edition and Rise of R’lyeh. It is directly compatible with other Year Zero Engine (Step Dice) games.

T2000: Andriy and Alexei

Andriy turned the key in the ignition and the engine spluttered into life.

….

Four days earlier they’d been slogging along the road, close to Srem. Both of them were so bearlike they could be mistaken for brothers, but while Alexei kept his dark hair closely cropped and his nose looked like it had seen too many fists, Andriy’s scalp was hairless and leathery and his features pinched and hawkish.

The moon hung low that night, with a large lone tree casting dark shadows over a heavily frosted field. In the distance to the North was a copse of evergreens. Andriy focused on them, he had a bad feeling; one that was confirmed by a hiss from Alexei who crept up beside him.

“T-72. Six men.”

Andriy squinted trying to discern flora from human and machine but sure enough, the hunting shape of a T72 tank rumbled out of one copse and into another flanked by six human forms.

It’s not that Alexei and Andriy were deserters; their units had been completely destroyed to a man and they found each other at opposite ends of a makeshift trench. They’d become friends over the few weeks since and Andriy shared his intention to return home to Kyiv Alexei grunted back; he had nowhere to go anyway so Kyiv was as good as anywhere. The last thing either of them wanted was to bump into someone who still thought the war was on; that one last (possibly fatal) push was needed.

As the T72 disappeared among the trees, the pair moved deliberately more south. They were heading to a town called Srem at first, maybe to secure some transport and then east towards the Ukraine border.

A crisp set of footsteps disturbed them; up ahead, following a beaten path, was an old man, dreadfully thin and wrinkles upon his wrinkles. Wisps of white hair stuck to his chin below a thick brimmed hat and above a threadbare wooden cloak. A piece of string tied to his wrist led to a somewhat pitiful-looking goat and under his arm was a loaf of bread. The two soldiers stepped from cover and levelled their weapons at the old man who, with a little protest (Fucking Russians!) handed over both loaf and goat. They didn’t express any remorse as they walked down the path towards Srem, munching on slightly stake, ill-gotten Rye bread and what they couldn’t finish they tossed to the goat.

About three hours later they reached the outskirts of Srem. The town itself was mostly ruins but there was light from a large barn to the south of the ruins. The pair crept up quietly until they could hear muffled conversation in Polish. As Andriy readied his RPK-74, he caught it on a stick and in steadying himself let off a single round. The noise echoed around the empty buildings and the conversation inside the barn ceased. The door burst open and four men emerged; one with a shotgun and the other three with farm tools. They shouted something in Polish, Andriy shouted back in Russian. The standoff ended when Wieslaw, the man with the shotgun, lowered the barrel. There was no interest on either side in prolonging a firefight. The Poles were aware of the firepower outside and both Andriy and Alexei want to avoid making more noise and maybe attracting the attention of that T72, which was bound to have a nosy and dedicated officer aboard.

Inside the barn, the two found some warmth in both the air and the company. There didn’t seem to be any resentment here; just a thankfulness of no further violence. They were offered some soup and a place by the fire. Andriy explained about the T72 and troops nearby and the handful of men, woman and a child decided to evacuate. They led the soldiers to the shore where a shallow bottomed boat was moored and an hour later they were rowing upstream with Jerzy and Daniel providing the muscle at first and then Gustav and Waclaw taking over.

About an hour before dawn, the boat slipped in bedside a small dock beside a large boathouse and the crew and passengers clambered off. The head of this household was a fat man called Wojciech and his Russian was good enough to hold a proper conversation. Wojciech asked Andriy and Alexei to be a further escort to Daniel and Jolanta (his wife) and Wieslaw would come along as security. Jolanta was close to the end of her pregnancy and would need a doctor; the nearest doctor being in Jarocin. For this task, they could borrow Wojciech’s pickup truck and they’d get 4 days rations as a reward.

But as simple as this seemed; Alexei wasn’t comfortable and insisted on putting on a proper watch which turned out lucky as the building was approached in the night by two renegade Americans. These poor souls didn’t have much chance against the superior skills of Alexei’s Spetnatz training and Andriy’s marksmanship with the light machine gun. They quickly consigned Private Pete Ricketts and PFC Bobby Bell to their maker.

But noise travels – and it was decided that it would be safer to leave especially with that T72 still prowling. The pickup truck was loaded and the five ventured east towards Jarocin. The town was skeletal in appearance, once a thriving Polish market town but now with empty buildings with darkened windows looking like a row of skulls. They arrived as the sun began to climb into the middle of the day and unloaded their precious cargo outside a large townhouse that had been converted into a field hospital. A nurse checked them over for wounds, finding none, and didn’t seem to mind they were Soviets.

Wieslaw committed to helping them on the next leg of their journey. The first thing was getting them a pickup truck.

T2000: W+35 (Flashback)

My situation is that I’m on the outskirts of Prague and I’m separated from my unit; perhaps they were all destroyed. I had to be careful, there was definitely a French unit around and some Americans. I stole a ragged uniform from a dead Polish regular and buried my own. I figured it would be the best way to keep alive.

I heard a vehicle approaching and ignored them until they cam close. I appeared weaponless (my PSM hidden in my groin). I could hear brash exuberance through their unguarded words as they slowed beside me and jabbered their questions. I replied with a smattering of Polish and Hungarian word and their doctor, a middle-aged woman of perhaps Iranian descent checked me for wounds. They didn’t seem to suspect that only a few weeks earlier we would have been deadly enemies.

As luck would have it, they fed me, gave me their water and piled into the back of their UAZ. I would have to bide my time. As soon as I had the chance, I’d be away but until then I would watch and wait.

T2000: W+50

Necessity is the mother of invention. Yesterday I caught a rabbit with a snare I made from a bit of wire. I hid in the foot of a hedgerow and pulled the corpse from the wire. The rabbit had tried to gnaw itself from the wire but the gauge was too thick. It died trapped and in pain, suffocating itself. I couldn’t afford to make a fire, I’m terrified someone would see it. So, I ate it raw. With the blood and the stink of offal I must have looked like something inhuman. And maybe I was.

I fell asleep where I lay, face streaked with blood and dirt.

I woke in the dim light of a sunrise. Red streaked skies and the sound of footsteps. I could hear voices, but they weren’t speaking English. The same fear that gripped me the night they got Dal siezed me again. I watched as two men entered the clearing. Short hair. Wearing dirty sweatpants and heavy coats. They paused, one lit a cigarette and one of them locked eyes with me. He said something and the other turned. My blood froze, I felt the pressure of my bladder and cold sweat on my neck.

The second man turned, waved his cigarette and then said something in an excited manner. I recognised him. The lone soldier. He seemed a lot more lucid. The two of the grabbed me and dragged me from the hedgerow. I shouted, I clawed and I could feel panic rising and rising. That’s when the other one, the one I didn’t know, hit me. Red stars exploded into my vision. I shouted. He hit me again. Blood in my mouth. Twice more he hit me and everything went dark. I was dimly aware of more voices.

T2000: W+44

It’s all gone to shit.

It did get worse.

Two days after the Colonel died, I woke from a nightmare to find Monk and Doc packing up their gear. They said they were going and they didn’t want me to come. And so they left.

I spent the next two days eating what little food they left me and trying to continue south. I thought the end of the world was hard before, I hadn’t realised there were new horrors waiting for me.

I caught up with Monk and Doc just as I was about to give up all hope. From the looks of things they’d bumped into a Soviet patrol and hadn’t been much resistance. I felt numb as I searched around the ruins of my former friends, trying to scavenge anything that would quiet my grumbling innards but Ivan had been too thorough. I was just about to leave when I spotted a flash of red and blue near the gearbox well. Wrapped in a torn flag were two apples, a little distressed from their adventure. I remembered the Colonel hadn’t eaten his but wrapped them in a scrap of flag for later.

I ate one and pocketed the other. It would spoil soon but I felt renewed. This was a sign that I was going to make it, that just as I felt all hope was slipping away, something would step out of the darkness and save me.

Southward was still my destination and I left Monk and Doc to the crows.

T2000: W+36

You ever get the feeling that things are about to get worse?

As luck and dumb fate would have it, we weren’t able to escape the area as quickly as we hoped. A puncture on the UAZ and an alignment problem with the axle which Monk couldn’t explain in simple enough terms left us stranded about ten miles from our last camp. The Colonel put us to work immediately with getting some camp netting up and harvesting tree branches to make a proper hide.

Monk said he thought he could get the UAZ up and running but this was the last time. We were running on empty for gas and parts. So, we unloaded our patient and put him, Doc and Dal in there. Monk worked on the repairs and I prepped my weapon. I just knew the Colonel wasn’t going to sit and wait for us to be tracked.

And sadly, I wasn’t wrong.

We tracked back to our late night position, where the Colonel saw the hunters and not a word was said when we found where one had succumbed to the Colonel. Nothing but a damp patch of ground was left. The Colonel paced back and forward a little, biting on his thumbnail, and then he muttered something about there being no tracks. Which wasn’t uncommon for hunters of course, but the problem is that I could see plenty of tracks, but these were dogs or something.

When the sun was at its highest point, we started to track back to our new camp. Over a small ridge we came to a stone cottage, a single plume of smoke from its lonely chimney. Kneeling in the yard outside, grubbing around for roots was a white haired old lady with olive-brown skin and about two teeth in her head. The Colonel approached slowly, weapon on his shoulder, and the woman greeted him first in Polish and then in heavily accented German. It was all double dutch to me, I could barely keep up but she kept pointing at the direction we came and saying the same word again and again. The Doc later told me that it meant “werewolf”, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to crazy old women in the middle of nowhere after the world has collapsed.

We gratefully accepted some eggs and turnips from her garden, freely offered, but the Colonel gave her his last cigarettes and a United States patch from his uniform which seemed to delight her. I was delighted with the thought of an omelette in the morning.

The walk back to the camp was slow, our return route was over much rougher terrain than the way there and it was dusk as we arrived back. I was starting to jog back, holding the eggs in my hand triumphantly when the Colonel again hissed at me to be quiet. He pointed out two shapes in the camp and I have to say, my blood froze. It was those damn hunters again.

As my eyes got used to the twilight light, I could see that they had Doc and Dal on the ground and were shouting something at the lone soldier. There was no sign of Monk. With the practiced grace of a man who’s gotten in and out of stickier situations, I could only watch as the Colonel crept forwards. He was about thirty yards from the hunters when one of them pulled out a large knife and plunged it into Dal’s chest. I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t think it was even happening. Dal crumpled like a scarecrow untied from a pole and then I saw the Colonel move; he rushed the first hunter and football tackled him into the dirt. The other one looked around and started to circle, looking for an opportunity to strike at the Colonel’s back. I heard a shout and the Colonel collapsed, the same blade that had ended Dal was now embedded in the Colonels leg. I scrambled with my weapon, fingers numbed by shock, trying to find the safety. The hunters rounded on the Colonel who was now shouting my name. I could barely move.

The first hunter pulled the knife out of the Colonels leg and licked the blade. I still couldn’t move. The Colonel cursed at me and I could do nothing. They killed him then. Just put the knife in and out until he stopped cursing me. And I felt grateful as I couldn’t bear to hear any more.

What shocked me from my terror was a staccato burst of gunfire and the two hunters went down. Monk had been hiding under the UAZ and witnessed everything. He’d had a machine pistol we’d salvaged earlier as his main sidearm and it made short work of the hunters. He ran to free the Doc and see what they could do for the Colonel and Dal, but it was too late for both of them. I plucked up the courage to come in from my hiding place and Monk didn’t say anything to me. I lied to the Doc that I’d been too far to do anything and she seemed to accept it.

Everything has changed now. Earlier we had leadership, direction. Now we are just three lost souls somewhere in Poland. And the lone soldier? Doc says he’s getting better, but he’s still no use to us.

Useless. Just like me.

T2000: W+35

I still have my shopping list. We didn’t make it to Prague.

The forests here are a little threadbare. I think they might have taken some shelling but everything just looked unhealthy. Along an old road weaving through a forest clearing, we bumped into a soldier with a torn uniform heading the opposite direction. As we drew nearer, we could see his face was caked with blood and he was talking to himself. Doc insisted we stop and so the UAZ was stopped and the Doc administered to him while the rest of us covered him with our rifles. The Colonel was silent and kept watching the tree edges for an ambush. I could feel his tension.

Between Doc and Dal, they managed to get a few sentences out of the soldier – something about a local warlord ahead and his entire unit being massacred. Again, we didn’t have the ammunition or the numbers for a conflict so Colonel got out the map and compass and we routed a path which would avoid anything looking like a settlement or a crossroads.

It would add a day to our journey but what’s a day compared with the rest of your life.

The soldier was heaped in the cramped back of the UAZ and I ended up on top, presenting a very tempting target for sniper fire. I guess God was with me that day as I made it through the first day without dying. Small achievement I know.

As night fell, we made camp and the Colonel took first watch. I had closed my eyes for what felt like ten seconds when the Colonel was rousing me. He had Monk on watch and he pushed a weapon into my hands and hissed at me to be quiet. And then, under the baleful moon, we headed out of the camp and into the wilderness.

I was still half asleep as I tramped through the forest but the Colonel woke me from my dazed stroll with an elbow to the ribs. He made signals to look ahead and that’s when I saw them. Two burly figures dressed in deer skins, making their way towards the camp. I readied my weapon but the Colonel froze me with a steely stare – his eyes were focused behind me though. I felt the hot breath of something close, a stink of offal and the Colonel lunged, blade in hand and plunged it into the heart of whatever monster was behind me. He stabbed it a dozen times as it swore at him, before resting and then, bloodied and panting, grabbed me by the arm and made for the camp. I looked back and it was a hunter, like the two before, but this one a bloody steaming mess in the night, the moonlight glistening off the blood pooling on his wounds. He’d barely had time to make a cry before the Colonel had ended him.

We ran. We ran until our lungs were aflame and Monk was there, looking terrified as we burst into camp. Colonel roused everyone and everyone was issued a weapon, even Dal. We established the perimeter and Colonel was in the centre, making sure everyone stayed frosty. The only noise I could hear was the faint moaning and chattering of the soldier in the back of the UAZ. There wasn’t a mouse or a barn owl that was fit to entertain us.

A stillness descended on the camp and the moon burned round black holes into our night vision. We watched and waited for something to approach. I don’t know how long it was, but I know that I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

As the dawn broke, the Colonel got us all moving again. The tension of the night before evident in the drawn faces and red eyes of everyone. Doc made sure the lone soldier was comfortable and we got the UAZ cranked up. We were still going to make the detour but I thought that was a bad night. I was sadly mistaken. We’d pissed off some pretty horrible people and we weren’t going to be rid of them easily.

T2000: W+27

According to the Colonel, strong sergeants make strong soldiers.

I can believe that. Our CSM was a soldiers soldier. You cut him open and he bled red, white and blue. He was just as you read about – moral, principled, heroic, stoic, and a role model for folks like me. During the Fall I saw a different side to him. As the shells burst around us, he was like the rest of us, cowering and screaming. Knowing that this was within him, that he was only human, was somewhat inspiring. It meant that I could be as good as him one day. He was only human so what’s my excuse?

The Colonel is a guy like that. Larger than life but ultimately human. I’ve never met a commander like him – and I probably never will again. He’s got the right kind of authority; the sort that makes you want to please him. Like every shitty task he’s telling you to do is him placing trust in you that you’ll do it right. It would break my heart to see him cowering in a foxhole.

Food has been particularly scarce in the last week. We have rations but we are doing our best to conserve them. Eating the perishables before they perish is obviously sensible. So today we had apples. The Doc knew how many apples we had and she said she noticed the Colonel wasn’t eating. She finds him exasperating – when she confronted him, he said he was saving them until he found some really nice pasty crust. Some sugar. A little cinnamon.

We’d need an oven too. Or a fryer. I prefer fried pies but Monk thinks I’m crazy. Beside’s he says we only have engine oil to fry them in.

Tomorrow we should be near Prague. And I have a shopping list.

T2000: W+26

Monk is a strange fish. He doesn’t talk much, isn’t prone to fits of emotion but it’s plain to me that he’s suffering, you can see it in his eyes. When I think about it; we are all a bit cold. I think that you have to be cold or detached from things to cope with what’s happening. We’ve been on the road for nearly four weeks since the Fall and I’ve not seen a single American other than the ones we brought with us. Where did they all go? Did we miss the extraction?

Yesterday we hooked up with a French NATO outfit on their way westwards. They’re all heading home and they’re a damn sight closer than the rest of us. The Colonel scrounged some gas from them and tried to get some ammunition but they weren’t about to give it up. I think we were very lucky they were so nice – they had superior numbers and firepower. On the other hand, we don’t have much they can loot so maybe that’s why we are still breathing. The Doc managed to get a bag of apples the French had pilfered from a orchard a few days earlier. She speaks fluent French, surprise surprise. The French commander saluted all of us as they pulled out this morning. He shouted Bon Chance as they rounded the corner and then we just could hear their engines in the distance and we felt even more alone.

His full name is Malcolm Clarence Onkel. When he was in Basic at Fort Leonard Wood, he was given a sticky name badge with his first initial and surname and from there the nickname stuck. He says he was involved in electrical stuff but we have him fixing up an old Russian off-roader. He carries around this tool kit wrapped in cloth that must weigh about forty pounds which has been put together from anything and everything he could lay his hands on. The way he treasures the tools makes me think he’d save them first from a burning building.

Monk says the first thing we will need to build is new tools. With new tools we can build just about anything. Cell phones, electric guitars, toaster ovens. We just need the right tools. I’m glad we have him with us to fix the UAZ. I’ve never felt more glad that we have an Army Engineer on the team.

T2000: W+24

Progress has been slow.

Monk warned us that running two vehicles was guzzling our gas so with great reluctance we siphoned off everything from the tank in “Dale” and filled up “Chip”. We covered Dale with branches and dirt and hid him in a ditch. Monk then buried a a 2 litre bottle filled with gas 10 paces north of Dales ditch – just in case we had to come back, just in case something happened to Chip. I can’t think of anything worse than having to backtrack to pick up a jeep that we just filled with dirt and branches in a ditch but I guess it’s “to be sure, to be sure”. Monk claims to be part Irish so I guess that’s funny.

Fitting all five of us into Chip, plus gear and stores was a pain in the ass and we can’t drive fast or something will fall off. Our bungee cords are so stretched as to make them worthless so I’m tying things in knots and wishing I’d paid more attention to which knots to tie. It would be more comfortable if someone would ride on top, but we’ve heard a couple of light rounds being shot off in the last couple of days and sitting up top and presenting a tempting target is not that inviting.

Early in the morning we rolled into Lawalde, into a vineyard called Kekila. The fields were already blackened and there wasn’t anyone around but we stopped on the hunt for fuel and, heck, maybe a bottle of wine but it seemed the fires got there before we did.

The Doc and the Colonel are talking about putting together a still, which they’ll get Monk to build. Monk thinks he can get the UAZ to run on alcohol, but I’m thinking that I’d rather drink it and stay right here. I’ve never been a drinker but a night of booze-induced oblivion would be welcome.

What spooks me about here is that there’s no-one around. No villagers, no militia, no refugees, no stragglers or deserters. We are definitely on our own and it’s creeping me out.

Colonel wants to make it to Leipzig or south to Nuremberg by the end of the week but I know and Monk knows we don’t have the fuel for it. So, for the next couple of days we are going to sit tight while Monk, Dal and I go hunting for gas.

T2000: W+22

The little things in life make a big difference.

We’d just crossed into Germany and pulled into a town called Görlitz. It’s beautiful, even now with the smoke blackened towers and the burning fields. We were flagged down by a cheery Herr Emmerich, landlord of a Gastehaus that survived most of the fire. He babbled at us in German but luckily the Doc was able to get some sense out of him. Yes, she knows German too. He was offering us bed and breakfast and hot showers.

We all looked at each other in disbelief. The Colonel, Doc, Monk, the Czech boy.

Showering with hot water and soap was something I’d almost forgotten.

Waking in a proper bed with crisp white sheets was something I never imagined would happen again.

Eating a cooked breakfast with a white napkin on my knee was … well, it was ok.

After breakfast, Herr Emmerich, sat down with us, poured some wine and regaled us with tales of what happened in the town. And the problem he had. There was a gang of militia in the town that were causing problems for the civilians. And he was asking for our help.

The Colonel listened intently.

And then we packed up and left. Emmerich was very unhappy, turns out he knew a lot of English too. I understood. We just weren’t equipped for a fight. I don’t like to think of it as running away, but we weren’t the US Army rolling into Paris to liberate it from the Germans. We were just looking for a bed and a hot shower. So, we rolled out of there and we weren’t happy about it either. But it wasn’t worth getting killed over.

As for our Czech friend, turns out his name is Dalek. After I stopped laughing he was really funny with me for ages even after I tried to explain. I’ve told him that we will all call him Dal, to tell no-one his full name and that he’ll thank me for it. I’d love to show him what I mean but finding a tape and a VCR would be tricky in this place.

Asking us to get rid of some armed thugs wasn’t a small thing. It would have made a small difference. This world is broken. There would just be another bully picking up a gun. And we’d be dead.

T2000: W+12

I remember just after I finished Basic, I was late for Guard duty and the SM thought I should work it off in the kitchens. I spent days peeling potatoes, mopping floors and washing dishes. My hands were constantly wet so my skin started to slough off – which was pretty gross for anyone who was getting them for lunch. I was up from 4:30 am and worked solid until 9 pm. I thought I was tired. I really did.

I’ve spent the last two days doing laundry. Scrubbing makeshift bandages and rinsing liquified skin from dressings literally from sunrise to sunset. Again I thought I was tired.

The fireburst caused hundreds of casualties. That’s about a thousand injured. The Colonel is off doing his own thing investigating what happened as he reckons it was unexposed munitions that someone set off. While we’re all happy to have him out of the way, I know he’s scared there’s more than one of these incendiary fireburst monstrosities out there.

Doc is a machine.

I don’t know much about her, no-one does. She is never without her headscarf. I know she speaks great English, probably better than me. I know she’s lived in loads of countries or been to them at least. She rhymes off places she’s been to like I rhyme off baseball players. I’d barely even heard of Poland before I was shipped out here – which I know is a damning indictment of our education system back home. I knew that some people were “Polish” or “Polacks” but I didn’t really understand what that meant. I didn’t associate it with a place or a people. Just a term to describe kids we didn’t like.

But back to the Doc. She’s up before the rest of us, and stays up later than the rest of us. She has time to pray, she has time to wash and she has time and endless compassion for her patients. I’ve never heard her speak with a raised voice but I’ve seen her glare at the Colonel when he’s having one of his moments. She talks about how we have to pull together, we are all humans now. The Colonel still thinks the war is on.

I don’t know how the Doc ended up here, in this hellhole. But I’d damn glad she ended up with us.

This afternoon, I brought her coffee, some of the last in our stores, and we sat and cried together. Just a few moments of humanity before we got back to the grind.

While I’ve been washing bandages, Monk has been tinkering with the vehicles. I think it’s his way of avoiding work he just doesn’t want to do. When something is going on, he just fades into the background or makes an excuse and disappears. You’ll find him under the engine of something later. Talk about avoidance issues.

I can’t say much about the Colonel. Colonel Alexander Harland. He’s a gung-ho stereotype. I swear he bleeds red, white and blue. Despite everything he’s well turned out, always clean shaven and I know his weapons are as clean as a whistle. But for all of that gruffness and military precision, he’s also the best scrounger I’ve ever met. Doesn’t matter if he needs to get 30 ft of copper wire or requisitioning an APC, the Colonel can talk anyone out of anything. A real mix of charm and authority.

I suppose I should mention our new hanger-on. For the last two days, we have had a young Czech lad helping out. I think he was a refugee here and when the fireburst hit, he was homeless again. He’s helping Doc with anything she asks. Nice lad, kind. Who knows if he will stay with us.

That’s our crew. We aren’t anything more than survivors. We’re not a force to be reckoned with – we’re just trying to get to somewhere beyond the bombs and bad guys. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a couple of heavy hitters join us, but those folks are scary as fuck. How can we trust someone like that?

There aren’t many people I’d take a bullet for. Until two days it was my mom and my little brother. I’d take a bullet for the Doc. No question about it.

T2000: W+10

W+10

No. That is not the sunrise.

We’d been near the town of Luban, not far drom the German border for a few days and was beginning to feel a little more human. The people of the town had given us a couple of buildings to settle in while we repaired the UAZ and calmed our own nerves. We’d been on the run for ages and Doc was still treating everyone for burns in the firebombing a few days ago. But it was easier. While Monk was making himself useful repairing a tractor, the Colonel was helping the town salvage supplies. He was actually doing it; not just detailing us grunts.

Anyway.

I’d woken that morning, started to brush my teeth and was looking North to the town. The light dazzled me at first but my surprise was fleeting as I stumbled back shouting for the Doc.

The town was a few clicks away but by the size of the fireball I knew we would be busy that day with the crying wounded and the walking dead. There just wouldn’t be enough medicine or time to help everyone. Doc would know what to do, even though she’d barely slept in days.

Maybe we’d have to move on sooner.

T2000: W+9

After the fire raged through, we took the UAZ through a small town land on the outskirts of Warsaw. The bushes and trees and grass were still burning. I saw a dog, it’s back on fire, screaming as it ran down the road. The metal of our vehicles began to heat and I wondered whether or not I survived the initial blast and maybe I was in hell like my pastor said I would be. We poured water on our ammunition, afraid it might ignite. But, eventually we made it past the fires and I’m thankful that our tires didn’t melt. Fuck that pastor.

(Inspired by scenes of the fires in California. And in my impatience for the new edition. I said to my gaming group I want to play in a game where the spirit of Saving Private Ryan lives. A group which cannot be sundered is fighting to get home in a world that is completely sundered, and righting a few wrongs on the way)

T2000: W+8

I woke at 7 am and padded into the shower.
Hot water. Soap. Clean towel.
Breakfast. Coffee.

I heard a voice calling me. I knew it was the Colonel. And I was back to my foxhole.

So, again, woke. It’s 5 am. I’m cold. There’s no shower. I shave in cold water out of a mug that I brush my teeth in. Everyone else is up. Monk glares at me with his sunken eyes. I don’t think I did anything wrong. The Doc is silent; the woman speaks at least four languages and she’s got nothing to say.

I pull my blanket around me and I stumble towards the UAZ and then all hell breaks loose. The ground erupts in a shower of dirt and panic. I see Monk scramble into a foxhole and the Doc hits the ground. I hear treebursts around me and I’m showered with splinters that embed themselves in my blanket.

Monk is screaming. The Doc is screaming. I think I’m screaming. And then I’m hauled to my feet by the Colonel. He shoves me against the UAZ and then goes to get Doc and Monk. Minutes later we’re all moving and I see why he was rushing us. A wall of fire is behind us and coming this way.

T2000: W Day

The silence is deafening.

We were shelled last night. I could hear the pum-pum of guns and the blasts as they landed near. My ears bled from the pressure waves and even those blasts I couldn’t hear, I could feel in the ground. I could hear every one as I tried to sleep. I thought it was night but I realised it was just my eyes that were tightly closed. I felt like if I opened them, one of the shells would get me.

As the rumbles died down, I opened them. Around me my platoon was smashed. Not just the equipment. My friends. I closed my eyes again. I didn’t want to open them ever again. I didn’t want to.

The clouds of smoke cleared with an Eastern wind and I could see the sun was high in the sky. I could hear voices but they weren’t speaking in English so I hid under a tarpaulin and just waited for death. The voices quietly died away.

The Colonel found me that way. Hiding and pretending to be dead in a foxhole. He said he took one look at me and knew I was still breathing. So, he hauled me outta there and carried me on his back to his HQ – a lean-to made of a corrugated iron shed using two UAZs for walls. It was simple and effective. A skinny guy with a mohawk handed me a steel mug of hot coffee. Muttered something about no milk and sugar. And then he disappeared. I felt alone and vulnerable. These people all knew each other; they didn’t know me. I’d lost my entire squad, my entire platoon was behind me.

As I finished my drink the Colonel reappeared and asked if I wanted to go home. I didn’t have the words to answer him so he just ruffled my hair like I was his kid or something and said nothing.

These people; the Colonel, the skinny guy was called Monk and later I met the Doc. These were my new platoon.