"Sssssssooooo if I need to navigate my way back to civilization from this, uh, not-road you've got us on..."

"You'd die."

"Okay, yes, probably, but can I have some basic directions for the smallest chance of not dying, in case something happens, along with just a tiny sliver of optimism."

"Make a smoke signal of some kind, probably by fire, and hope that whoever finds you is feeling charitable."

"That sounds like death but with extra steps."

"I did just say you'd die."

"Are there any landmarks I should keep an eye out for?"

"This is Noman's Land. There are no landmarks. It's just like this. We're navigating by direction and drivability of the terrain, and the landmarks will show up later."

"Okay, well, then what's that."

She points out of the window.

Is she pointing at the bodies strung up by the local gang as a warning to others....? She is. Damn it, city slicker. How little this woman has been outside her comfy little city walls and large scale, well organized and defended transportation? Don't answer that, he knows the answer already. He feels so very much like he's keeping a toddler from wandering off a cliff.

"That," he sighs, "is a warning to travelers not to cross the local gang, not a landmark. It'll probably be gone in a week, picked clean by worms and other scavengers, and they're a dime a dozen."

"The warning is waving."

"What?" He doesn't usually look too closely at any 'warnings,' and besides, he's driving. And he didn't think anyone that ran in this area were a bunch of complete psychopaths. Leaving people alive means leaving witnesses, and occasionally there's something resembling law enforcement in this area.

"... Then it's a trap."

"Someone's leaving one of their own guys out. In the hot sun. Upside down. Waving. As a trap?"

"I didn't say it was a good trap."

"Okay, well. Entertaining the hypothetical that it is not in fact a trap, can we perhaps weigh the risks of setting off an extremely desperate and self destructive trap, versus... leaving a man to die slowly, hanging upside down, in the hot sun."

And that is why a rather junky car pulls up to the trap anyway, Vernon muttering swear words under his breath and absolutely certain this woman will be the death of him. Damnation.

The trap is hanging upside down next to other people who are definitely way more dead than it is. It is shaped like a man with a shock of blond dyed hair atop a brown undercut, wearing large circular orange-tinted shades, a single golden earring on his left ear, and the most insane bright red hooded jacket. His left arm sparkles chrome in the sun, and he is indeed waving.

"Heeeeey! Over heeeeeeere!"

Yes, they know. That's why they're here at all. He points at his dumb city slicker. "You? Stay."

And then he gets his handgun and gets out of the car.

"Who are you and who'd you piss off!"

"Yooooou can call me... Z! That sounds cool, right? It's the coolest letter of the alphabet. And I don't know who I pissed off, they never told me their names, even though I asked!"

"Pull the other leg, pal, you can describe 'em even if you can't name them and their entire--"

"Sorry, hold on," interrupts his dumb city slicker who has absolutely popped her head out of the passenger window. "Whose blood is that?"

"Damn it, woman."

"Because that is way more blood than a human body usually contains." She points underneath 'Z.'

.... Huh.

Okay. Credit where it's due. That was a good observation.

He looks up—well, down, he's still hanging upside down—and gasps in very genuine-sounding distress. "That is absolutely too much blood, what the heck, where did it come from?"