The Wastelanders

by K. S. Merbeth

  I try to keep my tough face on despite the growing pain in my injured hand. My hand and the gun are slick with blood. Breathing heavily, I point the barrel at the other two slack-jawed crazies. They take off running. I give chase, blood pumping, giddy to be the hunter for once.

  I stop as I spot the huge mob of crazies. I could point the gun into the crowd and go wild, maybe mow down every last one of them, but the thought makes me queasy. And with my luck I’d probably gun down my friends, too.

  “All right!” I yell, trying to make my small voice carry over the noise. It doesn’t work. “All right!” I try once more, still to no avail. Frustrated, I raise the gun and fire into the air.

  This captures their attention. The crowd quiets down, hungry eyes on me.

  “I just want my friends,” I say, “please.”

  The crazies jeer and hiss. Someone throws a bottle that narrowly misses me.

  “Dolly?” I search the mob for signs of her shocking blue hair. “Dolly!”

  She shoves her way out of the crowd. She’s limping, blood running down her leg, with her clothes torn and her hair in wild disarray. She’s still clutching my knife.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, although clearly neither of us is. She silently hands my knife back. I wipe it off, put it back into my boot, and place the gun into her more capable hands. For a moment she stares at it, looking even more dazed and distant than usual. She slowly looks back at the mob of crazies. Some of them are circling closer to us now that I haven’t opened fire immediately. A frightening look comes over Dolly.

  “Wait,” I say. “We need to make sure the others are—”

  The burst of gunfire is shockingly loud. I drop to my knees and clap my hands over my ears. A mess of blood and horrible screaming follows. The mob falls one after another. They don’t even attempt escape. Some of them lunge at us; they drop like flies. Bodies pile up. After a few seconds, I squeeze my eyes shut.

  When the gunfire dies, it leaves a hollow silence. Dolly is still jamming the trigger, producing dull clicks. I hesitantly open my eyes.

  There are bodies everywhere, mounds of them, and messy bodies. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. I fight the urge to vomit. There’s no time, because there are still others left, more than I expected.

  As the remnants realize we’re out of ammo, they grow bold again. They approach us, grabbing weapons from their fallen comrades. One of them beats two metal bars together, the harsh sound ringing out louder and louder as he draws closer.

  “Shit,” I say. Clank.

  Dolly holds out a hand. Clank.

  “Knife.” Clank.

  I hand it over, shakily rising to my feet again.

  Clank.

  Clank.

  Clank.

  “Stay close,” Dolly says, and they’re on us.

  She slits the first man’s throat before he can touch her. Blood gushes out like a fountain, splattering all over my face. A kick forces the next one back, followed by a swift elbow to one behind her.

  The man with the crowbars comes for me, grinning with bloody teeth.

  “Dolly!” I squeak as the first crowbar whistles toward my head. I barely duck. Dolly reaches over me and stabs him in the chest before he can use the second. Two men grab her from behind as she yanks it out again. They pull her backward and separate us.

  I drop to the ground, grab a crowbar from the dying man, and swing at the nearest pair of legs. With a resounding crack to his knees, he falls. I rise to my feet and flail wildly with my weapon, keeping them at bay. My injured hand is slick with blood and it hurts to clutch the crowbar so tightly, but I ignore it.

  I swing at one of the men holding Dolly and he stumbles back, howling. She shakes off the other and we stand back-to-back, both gasping for breath. There’s still a ring of crazies around us. They seem endless, coming one after another.

  “Too many,” Dolly says, echoing my own thoughts.

  “What do we do?”

  “Get the others.” She jerks her head at the pile of bodies.

  “And if they’re already dead?”

  She shrugs.

  Crazies lunge at us from all directions. Dolly darts forward, cutting down one man and breaking through the gap in the closing circle. I run after her, the mob on my heels.

  “Tank! Wolf! Pretty Boy!” I yell, frantically searching for any sign of them. Someone groans to my left. As I turn my foot catches on a body. I fall hard, coming face-to-mangled-face with a corpse.

  I squeak and sit up again, only to feel my head hit warm flesh. I look up to find a man standing over me with a bloody meat cleaver.

  Shit. I spin around and bring up my crowbar. His blade collides with the bar, metal screeching. He pulls the knife back and I scramble away before he can swing again. I crawl over bodies, trying to ignore the wet squish and discomfiting warmth of them. When my hand hits something moving, I recoil in surprise.

  The mound of bodies shifts and swells. A familiar face pokes out from the mass.

  “Tank!” He doesn’t look good. There’s a gash on his forehead and his torso is covered in knife wounds. At least he’s still conscious, though, and it looks like he wasn’t shot when Dolly went trigger-happy.

  “Kid! Get me the fuck out of these ropes!”

  “Right, right,” I say, looking around for something sharp. I set my crowbar down in favor of a piece of broken glass. I accidentally grab it with my injured hand and grimace at the immediate sting. I pass it to my other hand and start sawing at Tank’s bindings. My grip on the knife keeps slipping, hands shaking and slick with blood.

  “Watch out!” Tank yells before I can finish. I throw myself to the ground and hear something swoosh through the air above my head. Looking up, I see the man with the cleaver has caught up to me. I reach for the crowbar, but he kicks it aside.

  As he comes at me again, I dive between his legs and scramble behind him. He whirls around to follow. Behind him, Tank strains at his ropes. After a few seconds of struggle, he breaks free. He grabs the crowbar and looms up behind the unsuspecting man.

  Before the crazed man can slash at me with his knife again, Tank grabs his scrawny arm with one hand and twists it. The cleaver falls to the ground. A few cracks and crunches later, the man falls, lifeless. Tank grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  “Mostly.” My hands are still shaking. I try to steady them. “Are you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “The others …?”

  He points behind me. I turn to see Wolf, Dolly, and Pretty Boy, all thoroughly beaten up but mostly intact. Dolly and Wolf are armed now, and making short work of the remaining crazies. Pretty Boy isn’t helping much, but the other two are doing just fine on their own. The crazies may have numbers and crude weapons, but they’re no match for my friends.

  “Looks like we’re okay,” I say.

  “We’re lucky it was crazies. Real raiders would’ve sliced us up before we got untied.”

  “Looks like the crazies sliced you up pretty good.”

  “Eh, nothing serious,” he says nonchalantly. Behind me, I hear a particularly loud thud of impact, followed by a nasty squish. I try not to imagine what’s happening. Tank continues, apparently oblivious. “Shallow cuts, mostly. They were just trying to fuck with us. Thought we were easy prey.”

  “Big mistake.”

  “Damn right.” He looks down at his torn-up body and grins. “I’ll have some good scars. Think I’ll look scary?”

  “You already do!”

  He laughs heartily.

  “How ’bout you, any good battle wounds?”

  “Well, umm …” I hold up my hand and wiggle it, displaying my missing finger.

  “Holy shit, Kid!” Tank exclaims, staring.

  “It’s pretty ugly, huh?” I stare at it for a second, then let my hand fall to my side. As the thrill of the fight dies off the pain is growing, a throbbing pain that shoots up my whole arm.
r />   “I can’t believe that bitch cut my finger off,” I say.

  Tank chuckles and slaps me on the back.

  “You’re gonna be fine, Kid.”

  He turns to watch Wolf and Dolly at work, his expression unchanging. I do the same, wincing at the brutality in the way they pick off the last of the crazies.

  When that’s done Wolf props a baseball bat up like a walking stick and leans against it, breathing heavily.

  “All right, guys,” he says loudly.

  “You okay, Wolf?” Tank asks as we walk over to them. Dolly moves among the dead, hunting for weapons.

  “All right,” Wolf repeats. He looks more disheveled than usual. He’s covered in blood, dripping from his dreadlocks and down the front of his shirt. It’s hard to tell how much of it is his own. He pushes up his goggles and glares at us. “All right. You know what? I am sick of this. I am sick of being pushed around and tied up and all of that shit! Come on, people, we’re supposed to be the bad guys! What the fuck is going on here?”

  He casts a furious look around at the lot of us. Nobody speaks. Pretty Boy abruptly bends over and vomits. Wolf shoots him a disapproving glance and continues ranting.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. It ain’t gonna happen again. No fucking way. We are gonna find out who the hell these assholes trying to get us captured are, we are gonna find the fuckers, and we’re gonna kill ’em. You got that?”

  “Got it, boss,” Tank says. I give a thumbs-up, and Dolly nods, looking very pleased with a pistol she found. Pretty Boy says nothing.

  “Good,” Wolf says. He slides his goggles down and gives the nearest body a kick for emphasis. “Now, are either of those Blackfort guards still breathing?”

  Dolly locates one of them crumpled on the ground nearby. He never made it far from the truck. She walks over and kicks him. When he groans, she shoots him.

  “No,” she says.

  “God damn it, Dolly, I wanted him alive.”

  “Oh.”

  “Fucking hell, nothing ever goes according to plan.” Wolf sighs and pushes his dirty hair out of his face. He looks genuinely irritated for a moment, but soon breaks into his usual grin. “Fine. We’ll follow the original idea and head to the Queen. Load up the bodies; she’s never opposed to buying some meat.” He gestures to the truck with his bat. “And I get to drive.”

  With the tires changed, the bodies sliced up and piled in the back, and my injured hand half-assedly bandaged, we all squeeze into the seats up front. I’m squashed between Tank and the door, with my backpack on my lap—we found it stored in the back with all the other stuff.

  Wolf, using the key taken off the dead guard, starts the truck. He grins at the obnoxious rumble of the engine.

  “This is a big-ass truck,” he says, looking satisfied. “Almost as good as killing people.”

  He slams his heel on the gas and the truck lurches forward, nearly throwing me out of my seat. The tires bump as if going over something heavy, and only then do I recall the guard beneath it. Oops. Probably best not to mention that.

  Despite my exhaustion, it’s impossible to sleep with the engine snarling and Wolf driving like a madman. The truck threatens to topple at every sharp turn, which only excites Wolf. I hold on for dear life and stare out the window, watching the wastelands go by.

  XIV

  The Queen of the Wastes

  After we’ve been driving for a while I notice something strange: other vehicles. It’s rare to see even one on the road, with gasoline so scarce, let alone this many. They come from all directions as smaller roads merge with ours. Some are big supply trucks like ours, while others are smaller jeeps and transports. A few are bulky, scary-looking war machines, crudely adorned with spiked tires and built-on weapons. One has a rotting body tied to the hood, a gruesome warning to all who see them coming.

  “This is the crossroads,” Wolf yells above the engine. “All roads lead to the Queen, they say.”

  As the road thins, the vehicles are forced into a single-file line. Progress slows until we stop, forming a winding line outside of a gate. We end up boxed in by gigantic raider trucks.

  “Couldn’t someone attack us and steal all our stuff?” I ask, peering at the truck in front. I can barely see through their blood-streaked window, but I think someone turns to look back. I duck down quickly.

  “I guess,” Tank says. “Queen’s protection doesn’t apply until we’re inside the gates.” Seeing the look on my face, he adds, “You’d have to be crazy to try it, though.”

  “Well, I’ve considered it,” Wolf says, “so keep your guns ready, boys.”

  So we do, and I keep a wary eye out the window, but nothing happens. The line inches forward until we reach the gate.

  Wolf attempts to roll the window down; it jams, not budging. He hits it. Nothing happens. After a few tries, he shatters the window with his bat.

  The gatekeeper barely blinks as glass rains down around him. He’s an older man with a shaved head, a missing eye, and a big gun. He wears all black, with the emblem of a golden crown stitched messily onto the front of his shirt.

  “Wolf,” he says, his expression souring.

  “Been a while, eh?”

  The man nods stonily.

  “No trouble,” he says. “You know the rules.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and you know me …”

  “No trouble. I mean it.” He waves us through.

  Wolf drives considerably more carefully as we pass the gate. The Queen’s place looms up ahead, growing steadily until I find myself in awe of its size. It’s a giant building, one of the largest mostly intact ones I’ve ever seen. It must have been someplace fancy and important before the bombs dropped. Now chunks of it are crumbling, with sections of walls missing, windows broken, and paint coated in dust and rust. Old glamor still shines through in glints of gold and careful architecture. It’s somehow both awe-inspiring and horribly sad. It also gives me a hint of the same nervousness Blackfort gave me, but I try to quash it with the reassurance that Wolf and the others trust this woman.

  Wolf pulls into a vast expanse of space designated for vehicles. There are rows and rows of them lined up. The Queen’s men wait on the edges of the lot, waving people in to organized rows and keeping an eye on everything. Wolf parks under the directions of one of them, and gives another truck a bump to the side that seems entirely intentional. The Queen’s man scowls and flips us off. Wolf goes to talk to him as the rest of us wait.

  “Wow,” I say, staring up at the monster of a truck parked next to us. “Don’t people worry about these getting stolen?”

  “The Queen’s men keep everything under control,” Tank says. “They look after the vehicles and tally up your goods. If anything goes missing, the guards are responsible.”

  “And what if the Queen steals ’em?”

  “She can’t,” he says. “If she did, the whole system would fall apart. She needs people’s trust.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” The whole thing seems awfully organized for the wastelands, but I suppose the Queen has the power to do it. “What’s she like, anyway?”

  “Oh, you’ll see soon enough,” Tank says with a chuckle.

  Pretty Boy sighs exaggeratedly, his face twisting in distaste. I wait for an explanation, but before they can speak, Wolf is back.

  “All right,” he says. “Business taken care of. Let’s go see the Queen. Hopefully she has some nice presents for her old friends.” He grins and sweeps a look over us, pausing on Pretty Boy. “You keep her nice and happy for me, got it?”

  “As always.” Pretty Boy sighs, shakes his head, and walks toward the building. “Lord, I need a bath and a woman …”

  “And a meal,” Tank adds as the rest of us follow Pretty Boy’s lead. “And some whiskey.”

  “Some better bandages would be nice,” I say wistfully, looking down at my injured hand.

  “You whiny bastards,” Wolf says, and laughs. “Don’t worry, we’ll get everything we need. Safest place in the
wastes, this is.”

  We enter the building after the guards’ approval. They don’t allow the larger weapons into the building, but we’re able to keep our knives and smaller handguns.

  The room we step into is huge and mostly empty, with tall ceilings that make me feel very small. A massive set of double doors is directly ahead, with other doors to either side. Everything is very white, though that changes when we come in trekking dirt and blood. I’m painfully aware of how out of place we are in the clean room. We’re all wearing torn, dirtied clothes and nursing multiple wounds. We look terrible, and probably smell worse.

  And this place is trying so hard to be fancy. There are paintings on the walls, delicate-looking vases, even a few semi-crumbled statues. It’s attempting to look elegant, but the decorations look strange with armed guards everywhere and dirty wasteland folk heading in and out of the building.

  “Wait here,” says a guard. “The Queen is coming to greet you.”

  “Well, shit, makes me feel pretty special,” Wolf says.

  “Doubt it’s for you,” Tank says, and glances at Pretty Boy.

  “Don’t even start.”

  “No need to get shy, lover boy.”

  “I’m not her fucking—” Pretty Boy cuts off abruptly as the double doors swing open, and replaces his scowl with a very wide, very fake smile. “Ah, the Queen herself. What a surprise!”

  The Queen swoops in elegantly. She has a guard on either arm, both ruggedly handsome men with the crown icon stitched onto their clothes. I can’t help but stare. She looks like someone who was once beautiful, and hasn’t yet realized that beauty has long since faded. The wastelands age people fast, making their skin sun-spot and shrivel—but still, she looks really old. An overly lavish, too-long black dress hangs awkwardly on her thin frame. Heaps of gaudy jewelry adorn her neck and wrists, glinting and clanking as she walks, and her face is slathered with makeup. Her hard eyes remind me of the power she holds. As she draws closer I straighten up and smile politely with the others.

  She throws her arms around Pretty Boy and plants a wet kiss on his cheek, leaving a red smear. The smile melts off his face and his lip curls in disgust, but he fakes another smile in the time it takes her to pull back and look at him again.