Tales From the Wasteland

Cherry, With the Guns - The Diner

A tale so serious, you really shouldn't take it seriously. 

About a badass chick with big guns and a bigger kill-count. 

~*~

Heat shimmered off the cracked blacktop like water, the only hint of the wet stuff in that long stretch of radiated dirt called the Wasteland. The old road stretched and curved for miles, around metallic dumps and craters and brittle scrub. Any way-post that held its name had long since rusted out of existence, so it was simply called the Road.

"Stick to the Road and don't get ate," is what most folks would tell you. But it was more of a guideline than a promise. Anyone with sense knew that a mutant wasn't going to be scared off by blacktop: they'd eat that shit for breakfast, like anything else they could get their grubby claws on. The littler ones might get skittish around 4-Wheelers, which could help clear a path. But ever since Pipe City went up in sky-high hellfire, 4-Wheelers were a bit scarce.

The Road curved over a washway – brackish slime within seeping slowly through the Wastes, acidic to the touch – and moved through an Old Town, with skeletal houses that were no more than framework and a concrete foundation. There was a 79 gas station: rusted heap with tanks long since sucked dry by desperadoes and inhabited by nothing but rats and bloated mosquitoes that had no problem laying their eggs in the washway's acid. Then there was Lou's Diner.

Lou had died a long time ago, or maybe there never really was a Lou; but that's what the neon sign christened the place as, so that's what folk called it. It was one of those Before-the-War places: the war that was so long ago, no one really knew what to say about it anymore. Folks said there wasn't a wasteland before the war, that there was a color called green before the war, that flowers weren't just a print on old fabric before the war. Lou's was probably much the same before the war as it was now, except maybe a little cleaner.

There was a sign in the busted-out window that said WORLD FAMOUS BURGERS in red blocky lettering, with ROADKILL written in between "famous" and "burgers" like it was something to be proud of. Lou's burgers were just ripe enough to turn your stomach but just fresh enough not to kill you. It was the balance most things strove for in the Wasteland.

Like most places along the Road that weren't barricaded with a wall and heavy artillery, Lou's didn't attract the best sorts. But they served a home-brew that was almost cold, and seeing as it was the only thing to drink for at least the next 50 miles, every traveler stopped at Lou's whether they wanted to or not. The smart ones kept their heads down, and moved on quietly. The dumb ones, well . . .

The dumb one's carried a lot of guns.

She made a metallic sound as she walked, and not just from the spurs on her boots. A modified automatic was slung over her back, and an ammunition belt was crossed over her chest and around her waist. She wore a black scarf over her head like a hood, and old goggles with a bursting crack in the right lens to protect her eyes from the dust. She was petite as a child: tiny tits and narrow hips. She ordered a tin can of brew for three small white pills, and took a corner stool between a shattered window and graffiti of a buxom woman riding a nuke labeled "Daddy." She was getting some sideways looks, but the gun was a deterrent. Most folks knew to leave well enough alone in Lou's Diner. The bartender was a bear of a man who carried a baseball bat full of nails.

The roar of an engine outside made heads turn. The girl twitched, and pulled her scarf down a little lower over her face. A 4-Wheeler adorned with the upper half of a giant boar's skull had come to a stop outside in a cloud of dust, and its 3 occupants were sauntering into the diner with wide eyes. Twitchers, so high off Rads and Steroids that their eyes perpetually bugged out of their heads and their purplish veins showed through their tanned skin. The girl began to down her brew with ravenous gulps.

They were screeching for food, but the bartender's bulk convinced them it wasn't worth trying not to pay. One precious syringe of yellowish liquid bought three Roadkill Burgers, and they hunched along the bar like pigs at a trough, blood and juices running down their hands as they ate.

The girl was eyeing their 4-Wheeler, and its precious tank of gas still half-full on the side. She knew it would get her the rest of the way to Titan City. But she also knew the keys were on the twitchiest one's belt; they jangled as he ate. Fresh tracks on his arms were swollen and oozing, and she reckoned that given a few more weeks his muscles would burst open and he'd be one big festering wound. But for now, his strength would break bones like toothpicks.

The sun was getting low and the heat was dropping, so the time to travel was now. The girl put her empty can on the bar and slipped around the back of the diner for a piss. She heard footsteps as she squatted, and rolled her eyes to heaven.

"Well, well, well, lookie here." The Twitchers came around the side of the building. Two of them. Just two. They grinned as she stood and buttoned her shorts.

"Why're you wasting that sweet juice, honey?" said the one with the keys. There were teeth on a string around his neck. Human, with roots and all. He kept stepping closer to her. His darkened tongue dripped saliva over his thin, cracked lips.

Pop. Click. Bang!

The Twitcher behind her didn't get much of a chance, but he hadn't been as quiet as he thought he was. The pistol holstered to her thigh was popped out, cocked, and steaming, while he went cross-eyed looking at the black hole in his forehead. Then he dropped spread-eagle in the dust.

"How about - " She turned the gun " - you ask nicely - " cocked it again " – and trade me those 4-Wheeler keys – " the empty bullet shell fell to the ground " – and you can eat that piss from the dust."

The Twitchers weren't keen to trade. Keys wretched up a jagged piece of metal from the ground, hoisting it up over his shoulder like a cudgel. Number 2 giggled, high pitched and crazy, as he flipped out a rusty butterfly knife.

"Crazy bitch," said Keys. "I think I'll just take your teeth instead."

Keys lunged, swinging the metal down like an anvil, all brute strength and no sense. She put him out with a bullet in the back of the head, bursting his face like a melon. Number 2 was hysterical, slashing wildly with the knife, likely on a nasty comedown as he panted and twitched erratically. She didn't waste a bullet on him, but side-stepped as he slashed at her, jabbed her bony shoulder up and into his solar plexus, then snatched the knife up out of his shaky hand as he wheezed for breath and jabbed it deep into the soft flesh of his neck.

The dust settled. A hulking vulture, almost too bloated to fly, squawked from the diner's roof as it waited for her to clear out so it could eat. Her scarf had slipped, revealing baby-blonde hair cropped to her shoulders. There was a scar around her neck, red, raised, and jagged, as if she'd spent some time hanging from a noose. It was quickly hidden again as she tied up the scarf, covering her head and mouth.

She plucked the keys from the dead man's belt, giving them a joyful little jangle. "Thanks, brother," she chirped. "Mighty kind of you to give to someone in need."

She passed by the bartender and the grizzled chef as she left, who had come out to see what all the fuss was about. "Sorry about the mess, gentlemen," she said. "Have fun pickin' though."

The bartender looked at the chef, and the chef looked at the corpses. "Well, Jim? Whatcha think?"

The chef gave the nearest body a little poke with his boot, and drawled. "Looks like roadkill to me."

~*~

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the first little part of Tales from the Wasteland ;) I'm hoping to have new parts uploaded every week, so long as I can keep up with the writing. Honestly these stories were just written for fun, trying to make something crazy and outrageous and a little over-the-top. More to come!