OUTPOST IN THE DEEP NORTH

HANK'S TALE Half my family died in a bomb blast LAst week. So I took this job here - only to discover that my boss, the editor of the Paper had died - in what seems a very strange manner. The newspaper has closed it's doors, I'm not sure why... The stories I'm hearing are too bizarre, so I'm renting a window and desk space upstairs at Artie's bar, which I'm told never closes. My window looks out over the Main Lane, which is rarely busy. The inhabitants of this place hit the bar at any hour. I hear shouts, racous laughter from the bar below...and the occasional shotgun blast - the only sounds in this village above the great McKenzie River. All else is silence. And the cawing of ravens and crows... Then more silence.