"Go On and Pull That Trigger!"

Just a little brain-zephyr's worth of writing for you while I think of a better update:

The bloody mess was spread over a space of at least ten feet, broken bones and flesh scattered like patches of macabre plant life amongst the dry scrub of the plain. What hadn’t been taken by scavengers was playing host to a massive swarm of damned flies, their tiny black bodies part of a hungering army which scurried eagerly amid the gore.

A cloud of them filled the air around what was left of the corpse. Their strange, shrill buzzing was intensely loud despite the open terrain. To anyone listening closely enough, the noise could be heard as hundreds of high, thin screams that could drive a man insane if he listened for too long.The hunter swept his gaze across the thickest patch of the stuff, where rib bones stuck out of caked blood and rotting meat. He’d seen three more killings like this one recently, but this, absurdly, was the tidiest of the bunch. He checked the grip of his pistols and looked at the surroundings.

Parched, gritty plains extended in every direction, dotted here and there with spindly, skeletal trees and unremarkable rocks of all shapes and sizes. The scrub was a no-man's land constantly baked by the glaring, oppressive suns, with little cover for a predator, let alone a man-eater, and the few creatures that called it home could provide no real sustenance. Aside from the damned flies, whose screaming would become maddeningly loud whenever they were attacked, a few small lizards and scorpions could be found scurrying about the baked ground. These might have kept a lone eagle or reaperwing from starving, but a man-eater would die after a day in this environment.

‘Miles from anywhere, no sign of tracks, nowhere near in range of any man-eaters and besides, they wouldn’t have left anything, let alone this much mess.’

‘What a bloody shambles.’

‘What do you reckon?’ asked the taller man, switching his gaze to his partner.

The hunters were nearly identical in their clothing; broad, shady hats protected their eyes from the yellow and orange suns glaring down on the plain. They wore battered brown dusters over their clothes (unremarkable denim jeans and plain, simple shirts) and their hands covered by finely worked black leather gloves. The only real difference lay in their choice of armaments.

The shorter, slimmer man, with cold blue eyes and a scraggly black beard, wore a modified rifle which had a long body and a thick, oppressive muzzle. There were also two very serious-looking knives at his belt, which he toyed with idly.

Ka, the taller of the pair, was a heavyset man with two massive pistols holstered at his waist and a red bandanna tied around the bicep of his coat. A scratched, well-used axe peeked from the harness on his back. His brown eyes flicked nervously from the corpse to his partner.

‘Oll? I said, what do you reckon?’

His companion squatted down by the remains, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat from side to side in an effort to clear the damned flies from his sight. He reached out with a gloved hand and dipped a finger into the mess, stirring it around before gingerly pulling a broken rib from the muck. He inspected it thoughtfully, then tossed it over his shoulder, a handful of damned flies screaming helplessly after their meal.

‘Oll? You goin’ deaf, mate?’

The shorter man stood up, replacing his hat and placing his hands on his hips.

‘I reckon…’

‘Yeah?’

‘I reckon we need a fuckin’ drink.’