Charnel-Imp - Excerpt

A LEPOARD-SPOTTED STEER heaved its grazing head from a pile of blue rocks and drooled the only moisture that was not piped across the land.

One fell panting across the azure depth of the highway.

With its horn struck in the yellowing flank of an abandoned farm building, another stood still under the stroking hand of the sun.

A man could not walk between these carcasses to record the deaths unless he stopped each time, while his feet were still planted in rootless terrain, and, sucking his own mouth out of the torrid windstream, wrung another drop from his canteen.

It might flow from anyone's lips. But they are mine.