Tales From the Wasteland

Cherry, With the Guns - Spider

She pushed the 4-Wheeler to 147 in the purple dusk, flying down the road with the engine roaring as the day's heat dissipated into the atmosphere. Three rat skulls dangled from the rearview mirror, clattering with the engine's vibrations. She found a pack of precious cigarettes tucked between the seats, and when the moon was high overhead she pulled the 4-Wheeler under the skeletal shadow of a long-dead tree and savored every long, slow tobacco drag.

It was only then that she heard the knocking.

There was a chest strapped to the back, wedged between the two massive wheels, and she hadn't really given it much thought before. But the tapping was coming from within: a slow clunk . . . clunk . . . clunk. It was almost a little desperate. Almost a little sad.

A thick key, coated with sticky black stuff, turned out to be the one on the stolen key ring to open the box. The moment it cracked a horrific smell wafted out: shit and ammonia, chemicals and rot. She held back a little gag, and pushed open the lid. There was something . . . alive . . . in there. Something surrounded by jugs of Chem and bricks of dirty white powder. Something that said, "Just kill me, motherfucker."

Thin tanned limbs were curled up tight like a dead spider. Long hair was a rat's nest hiding her face but . . . it was a woman. Bound and bloodied and snarling as she weakly raised her head. Her face froze when she realized it wasn't a Twitcher who'd opened the box.

"W-who . . ." She coughed weakly, gagging out dust and blackish stuff. "Who're you?"

Her name was Cherry, the one with the guns. And her name was Vixen, the one in the box. Her arms and legs were dotted with cigarette burns and bruises. She downed the paper-wrapped calorie bars Cherry gave her so fast that she vomited, so Cherry made her sip slowly at the jug of bitter beer that had been stuffed in the box next to her.

"So you killed those Twitchers, huh?" said Vixen, speaking with the speed of one who was accustomed to stimulants and could never quite come down from them. Cherry just nodded. Seeing the woman like that, and knowing what she'd been there for, wasn't doing good things for her psyche. Her stomach was twisting up in knots like she'd eaten something rotten.

"Wish I could'a been there to see it," Vixen said, shaking her head mournfully. "Would've loved to make Rosco eat those teeth he loved so much." She pulled back her cheek, revealing not-so-pearly whites that abruptly stopped after her canines. "Bastard took my molars."

"Did they buy you off a trader?" said Cherry, wincing as she looked at the raw gums, but sounding more hopeful than she'd meant to. If there was a flesh trader out here, then maybe . . . just maybe . . .

Vixen's face twisted up in fury ,feeling pain that was still raw. "I guess you could say that," she said. "But they weren't no flesh traders. Me and Papa were headed down from Barren Dykes with a trunkful of Chem, see? Liters on liters. That was our business, Papa and me. Kept us going after Mama died. Good money in Chem. But I guess someone from the Dykes snitched on us. They shot out our tires on the Road, and put a bullet in Papa's head." She paused, choked for a moment. She sniffled, but didn't cry. The Wasteland had no pity for tears. She went on, "They took everything they could sell, including me. That was three days ago."

"Damn," said Cherry, both in shocked revulsion and in disappointment. Titan City was still her best bet to find them then, those bastards who-

"You gotta help me, Cherry!" Vixen suddenly lunged forward, catching Cherry off guard as she clutched at her shirt. "You've got the firepower to do it, I know you could take 'em out!"