Billy’s up highest, kinda snugged up in a crevice overlooking the road from Desolation. He found these binoculars, well, ‘ceptin ’ one lens was smashed so I reckon they were monoculars, musta been tossed by the army when they evacuated everyone outta town. We hid but they didn’t look for us very hard like they did for the special ones, the ones with money, the ones who could pay the bastards not to kill them when they got to Desolation Camp. Pastor Warren told us they figured we were too trod on or something to be worth the extra search, we’d be, like, too hungry and sick to be good workers anyway. Silver Lining, boys, he’d say to keep our spirits up when one of us would slump into despair in the early days, before the army bosses realized what a hell-hole this county is, so hot you can barely drag yourself from shade to shade most days, I mean, think about it, a whole county called Desolation and if that don’t convince you, they got a county seat with the same name. So much desolation.

The army left a while back, couldn’t hack all the desolation any more and neither could the guards they left behind; one day last week those guards looked at each other and shrugged and just left, walked away down the dusty road without so much as a goodbye; at least they had the grace to unlock the gates.

Every few hours now we take up sentry on the road, looking out for the former prisoners who figured out they ain’t prisoners no more and have walked for two days to see if any of what once was, still is. Billy has point today and me and KevKev are waiting just around the bend to escort them home. There ain’t nothing in the world like seeing their faces when they get it that they’re home again.