It was a warm, bright day, and the icicles hanging from the gargoyles' noses dripped incessantly, leaving deep, ragged pits in the snow beneath the eaves.

They were deep, ragged pits in the sickly white surface, sinking deeper than even his suit's augmented vision could follow.

He thanked God it was dark so that he couldn't see the torn flesh, the ragged pit where the woman's shot had entered his body.

There were cracks everywhere, ragged pits and shallow craters, as though the stone were rotting.

As the troopers tromped out to the ragged pit at the center of the dissipating dust cloud, Josten glanced around.

Six times within an hour the farmer saw the lightning strike the furrow in the front yard, and when the storm was over nothing remained but a ragged pit by the ancient well-sweep, half-choked with a caved-in earth.