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We are living in the dark.

Now and again we get newbies at the bar.  They are typically wanderers, looking for any sign of life in a world now practically devoid of it.  Half of them stay, and half continue on to the next watering hole.

The bird man comes in during the dead of the night, the time when I'm about to quit and everyone else is carpeting the floor.  Relatively normal from the neck down in a thick black overcoat, though one can't ignore the avian mask that hides his face, a long beak curling to the ground, and a helmet that rests on top.  He looks to me, the small thing behind the bar, and walks over to take a seat.

Our town survived because we saw it coming.  The airplanes.  The gas.  Now we are the oasis of the tundra.

"What'll it be?" I ask him.

"What do you have?" he asks with a kind of voice I've never heard before.  It's too calm for a situation like this.  There is only a hint of life; enough to still seem human.  It worries me.

"Depends what you've got."  Nomads don't drink for free.  A few patrons chime in to make sure that they don't have to draw their guns, though I see Jaworksi already reaching for his.  We look out for each other in these parts.

He reaches into the pocket of his overcoat.  The bar is silent enough to hear the man's stressed breathing through his mask.  It's quiet, but it's there.  With a gloved hand, he removes a handful of what is probably in my junk drawer back home.  Two lighters, elastic bands, lint, marbles, a few inches of rubber tubing.

A bullet.

I don't make a scene.  I put my hand over the items before anyone else can see the glimmer of the metal under the humming fluorescent lights, moving everything under the counter and out of sight.

The stranger orders, "Whiskey.  On ice."

I don't know how he'll drink it without taking off his mask, but I oblige.  Jaworski rises from his slumped position in the corner and begins stalking closer with Addison.  The man in the bird mask keeps his back to them, oblivious to the fact that he is on thin ice.  One wrong move, and they're taking him down.

I try to get something out of him as I'm mixing and pouring.  "Headed somewhere?"

He nods.  "Further east.  I'm seeing if a friend of mine is still alive."

I pass him his drink and Jaworksi and Addison lean against the bar on either side, trying their best to act nonchalant, but they're no award winners.

"Does this friend of yours got a name?" Jaworski asks him.

"Yes," the man answers, though he ends the question at that, making it clear he won't be naming names tonight.

"Are you from the mountains?" Addison inquires.

"Yes."

"Anything big going on up there?"

"No."

"Guys..." I start.

Jaworksi sighs, admitting defeat against a wanderer who just wants to get through our town as soon as he can.  "Happy travels, man."

On his way back to the corner he goes to give the man a casual pat on the back, only to be greeted with the sound of his hand smacking metal underneath the overcoat.  It's almost like armour.  Addison looks as if he's soiled himself.  Jaworksi isn't stupid; he knows what armour means and immediately has a hand on his gun.

The stranger already has a hand in his pocket.

He pulls his own weapon, some sort of revolver.  He shoots Jaworksi first, in the middle of his chest.  Addison gets his gun out in the meantime, though he remembers that firing it is useless when his bullets ricochet off of the man's armour.  He gets a bullet between the eyes when the man turns around.  Everyone else in the bar is awake now and preparing for a war of attrition.

I drop to my knees behind the bar.

And wait.

I don't have anywhere to run.

The hail of gunfire falls silent.  I shakily stand on two feet.  As I suspect, everyone is dead or nearly dead.  Choking on their blood or losing too much of it.  The man in the bird mask sets down his glass on the counter, now empty save for the ice and a drop of the spirit.  In his other hand rests the revolver, the cylinder out and empty.

"I have to thank you for the drink," he tells me.

"Are you gonna kill me too?" I ask, my voice cracking like an ancient vase.

"Consider this your tip."

He turns around, and stepping over the bodies of the people I grew up with, leaves the bar and the town forever.  I can't help but wonder about the friend he is going to visit in the east.