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    The Man From Newella I: The Sheriff's Tale
    The Man From Newella I: The Sheriff's Tale
    The Man From Newella I: The Sheriff's Tale
    Ebook88 pages56 minutes

    The Man From Newella I: The Sheriff's Tale

    By Brandon Hale

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    About this ebook

    Welcome to the Crimson Age

    On July 14, 2081, the sky rained blood, the animals turned against humanity, and the shadows learned how to walk the dead. It didn't take long for our fragile civilization to crumble.

    That was the beginning of the Crimson Age, which lasted the better part of two decades. Life was tough in those days. Humanity was spiraling downward and there seemed to be no way out.

    Then he came.

    Most people say he was from Newella, Earth's first lunar colony. Truth is, nobody really knows. Far as the world was concerned, he was nobody and he came from nowhere.

    He came and he changed... everything.
    ...

    The Sheriff's Tale is the exciting first story in the Man From Newella series. Each novella is designed to be fast and fun, able to be read in one to two sittings (this issue is around 20,000 words).

    This series is about the early adventures of the man from Newella, before he became a legend.

    So kick back and enjoy your time in the Crimson Age. Life's rough here, but it's never boring.

    And remember, there's plenty more on the way. This is just the beginning...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrandon Hale
    Release dateJan 11, 2014
    ISBN9781311536563
    The Man From Newella I: The Sheriff's Tale
    Author

    Brandon Hale

    "I write the books I want to read. It's really that simple.As an author, I try my best to make every story a roller coaster ride through a world that is both mysterious and familiar. I hope my books leave readers satisfied, but wanting more. I try to make my books thought-provoking, but not preachy. At its core, a good book should be fun, and I try my very best to deliver that to my readers.But mostly, I just write the book I want to read." - Brandon Hale

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      Book preview

      The Man From Newella I - Brandon Hale

      The Man From Newella I – The Sheriff’s Tale

      Brandon Hale

      Published by Brandon Hale at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2012 by Brandon Hale

      All rights reserved.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The first issue of The Man From Newella is dedicated to Robert E. Howard, for introducing me to the concept of world building. Thank you, Mr. Howard. Wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great adventure.

      Prologue

      When Hell Came to Earth

      The Birth of the Crimson Age

      The world went to shit on July 14, 2081. Up to then, the human race was doing pretty well. We had a colony on the moon and we were making plans for the first colony on Mars. A couple decades earlier, a smart man invented a way to soak up and store solar power for next to nothing, which finally freed us of our oil addiction. The planet hadn’t seen a war in almost a decade.

      All in all, I’d say it was a damn good time to be alive.

      Until the rains came.

      It started raining blood a little after dawn on that July morning. Of course, now we know it wasn’t technically blood. But back then, it was blood as far as we were concerned. Hell, man, if you looked outside and saw crimson liquid pouring from the sky, what would you think?

      It rained blood for a week straight. Actually, rained isn’t a strong enough word. It poured blood for a week straight. Rivers overflowed, streets flooded, ground-level houses were destroyed. The world was covered in blood and the human race was in a full-on panic.

      It was bad.

      And when the animals turned on us, it got worse.

      Well, not all animals. The fish and lizards and birds pretty much left us alone. It was the other mammals of the world that turned on us. They evidently decided it was time to rid the Earth of humanity. About a week after the rains stopped, every dog, cat, rat, buffalo, tiger, and kangaroo came at us with a rabies-like enthusiasm.

      Yeah, it was a bloodbath. Old ladies had their eyeballs clawed out by Miss Kitty. Police officers were torn to shreds by their K-9 companions. Zoo keepers were ripped apart by frenzied animals bursting from their cages.

      You’d think the scariest part of that whole ordeal would be the big animals, like lions and elephants. You’d be wrong. The scariest part was the rats. Finding safety from those bastards was damn near impossible. They came at ya by the hundreds. Sometimes by the thousands.

      I’m no expert on population statistics, but I’d say a good sixty percent of the human race was wiped out in the first two weeks. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, we were the dominant species on the planet. How could we be wiped out by animals with brains the size of walnuts?

      Well, I can tell you right now, when every furry critter on the planet suddenly decides they want to tear you into a thousand pieces, you figure out real quick you’re not as dominant as you think.

      And they weren’t doing it for food. Most of em didn’t even eat the people they killed. They were driven by something more powerful than hunger. They were driven by madness. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were driven by pure, old fashioned hate.

      It didn’t take long for society to start to come apart at the seams. Companies couldn’t go out and repair the equipment damaged by the rains because it was simply too dangerous. Once we lost our electronic connection to each other, things just… fell apart.

      Most people expected the armies of the world to swoop in and save us, but that turned out to be a fool’s hope. We just didn’t realize how unprotected we were from animals, especially the small ones. If two dogs are trying to get in your house, you’re probably okay. If twenty dogs, twenty cats, twenty rats, and twenty goddamn raccoons are trying like hell to get in your house, they’ll get in.

      Most folks assumed we were witnessing the end of the human race. I reckon it would’ve been if we hadn’t figured out the animals were repelled by blood.

      I think that’s why they didn’t eat us. They’d tear a man apart, but once his blood poured out, they’d scatter. If blood was on the ground, they avoided it. Pretty soon, we learned to use that to our advantage.

      We’d kill an animal and store its blood in a container. Then, when we needed sleep, we’d make a thin circle of blood on the ground and sleep inside it. The animals wouldn’t (or maybe they couldn’t) cross it. Even bats refused to fly across a blood line. It was like the blood sent an invisible wall all the way to heaven.

      As word of the blood lines spread, we did what we always do. We adapted. Before long, we began to rebuild. At first, it was little groups living in houses surrounded by blood lines. Soon, those groups became communities and eventually those communities became towns.

      Most towns had a circle of wood around them. Boards if we could find em. If not, we just used branches. We used wood because the blood stained it and wouldn’t blow away in the wind. As long as we kept the wood stained with blood, we were safe. Didn’t have to be human blood either. Animal blood worked just as well. Once we figured that out, things began to stabilize, at least a little.

      And just when we started to feel a little bit of optimism again, the shadows came.

      We didn’t know where they came from or even when they started poking around. I

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