Wayward by Wendig, Chuck;

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Black Swift

Civilization falls in one place but rises in another.

Annalee Newitz, Reddit AMA

September 1, 2025

Ouray, Colorado

I m not alone out here, Benji thought. It was in the air a white noise vibration, the faintest disruption of the silence that had seized the world.

Over the years here in Ouray, as the Sleepwalkers slept, and eventually as they awakened, he d seen something up here, west of town. A bird, he d thought at the time. But it glinted a bit in the sun. And it didn t move like a bird, not at all. One time, a couple years back, he d seen it again on a foggy day a shape moving above the trees before dropping straight down. A year later, as evening settled in, he saw it once more, maybe a quarter mile off: a dark little mote, like a crow. It rushed forward, then went fast in the opposite direction before again disappearing.

Benji had been chasing it ever since. He came out here a couple times a week to get in a walk, to help feed the townsfolk by hunting deer in the spring or bighorn in the winter, but also just on the off chance he d spy it again.

He felt like a crazy person. No one else had seen it. But Benji was a man of both science and faith. He had faith he d see it again. A hypothesis he tested often.

This morning, he d gone off the Oak Creek trail, stalking an old deer path through the spruce, about midway up to the overlook on Hayden Mountain.

And he was sure that today was the day. He could feel it in his teeth. He knew he wasn t alone out here: a fact that both thrilled him and troubled him in equal measure. Because being alone out here wasn t good. The world was mostly gone. Civilization with it. So, if it wasn t a person out here and if it wasn t the little UFO he d been tracking then that could mean a black bear.

Or worse, a mountain lion.

Such predators didn t care much for human prey, especially now that those animals were no longer forced to forage for garbage or human food but should he come upon one with its family nearby? He d be torn to red ribbons.

His hands tightened around the cold metal of the Winchester lever-action rifle. And then, ahead, he heard something. Not a telltale snap of twig or crunch of leaf. No, this sound was a low, mechanical whine, like a distant drill spinning.

Not a bear. Not a cougar.

And it was coming closer.

He brought the butt of the weapon to his shoulder but kept the barrel low. His heartbeat kicked up like a galloping horse.

Vmmmmm.

That sound, closing in. Ahead, he saw something shake the leaves of an aspen, and shudder the branches of a blue spruce.

There was a beat where he heard nothing, saw nothing

But then Benji staggered back as a shape broke through the tree line onto the trail just ahead of him. The rifle went up and down the sights, he saw what had emerged:

A drone. No bigger than a dinner plate and matte gray with four propellers two in the back raised up, and two in the front down low, the way that a crab held its claws. The drone hovered midair and pivoted carefully toward him. Four red lights marked the corners beneath each propeller, and underneath its body, in a wire mesh cage, was what looked like a camera.

The drone was filthy and corroded. Bits of twig and vegetation dangled from it. It hovered about thirty feet in front of him.

He almost laughed. There it was. He d found it. He hadn t lost his mind!

Vmmmmm.

Who are you? he asked. It felt foolish to ask it a question: The drone was a device, not a person. But it did have a camera. And someone had to be piloting it, right? Unless it was autonomous. Weren t there stories from years ago about drones flying over the Western state

Chuck Wendig s Wayward proves that there s always more story to tell. If King had written a sequel to The Stand, it might look something like this monumental epic of a story. I don t think I ll get this book out of my head for a long time maybe never. James Rollins,