by Makarov, Ian
The last thing he felt was a quick breath on his skin, canine teeth following soon after...
Walker
The faded green pickup drove up to the cabin. The middle-aged dark-skinned man who stepped out, made the two Lawmen jostle a bit, then raise their rifles at him. He could tell they were rookies, barely any hairs growing on their faces. Maybe it was the way they stood there in full combat gear under the blazing hot sun without even having taken off their riot helmets, trying too hard to go by the book, to make a good impression on their superiors. Besides, they would know him had they been in the outfit for more than a few weeks. He flashed a badge at them, which made them look even more like fish out of the water. One of them looked hesitantly back at the sergeant standing on the porch, while still trying to keep the man inside his field of vision.
“Sarge?” he called out.
The grizzled man looked up at the stranger and motioned to the guards.
“He's alright, let him through.”
Walker passed by the rookies and headed straight for the porch, greeting the sergeant with a nod.
“What do you have for me?”
“Another corpse that had dealings with our little wild thing. He was kneecapped, the blood loss and the jackals did the rest. If he had any luck whatsoever, he lost consciousness before dinner begun.”
“You think it was her?” Walker asked, wincing at the sight of the dismembered corpse.
“The tracks out front don't belong to any small vehicle. It was that 18-wheeler alright.”
“So she's been driving around the desert in that thing, yet you haven't been able to track her down?”
“Oh she's good; I haven't seen anyone as slippery as this chick”
“You say she's good, yet this Pliskin broad is leaving a very messy trail of stiffs behind her. I don’t know, Jack, this just doesn't seem like her style. Whoever can play cat and mouse in the desert using a huge effing rig, is obviously skilled enough to cover their tracks. I think there's more to it.”
“Beats me...” the sergeant shrugged.
He knew Walker was going to get to the bottom of this. He wasn't a Lawman anymore, at least not officially. They just called on him whenever things needed to be done that even the Lawmen couldn't get caught doing, or in a situation like this, when the mark was as easy to find as a ghost.
“Alright, I'll look into it. Lemme know if anything else turns up.”
He walked back to his car lighting up a cigarette. Nothing about that woman added up. She was known among the Hauler Families as a trustworthy operative, and that, you didn't achieve by keeping your hands clean. What baffled him, though, is that while according to her file in HQ, she had been arrested multiple times under a number of suspicions, no one ever came up with evidence to make a charge stick. Now all of a sudden, Pliskin goes on a rampage for no apparent reason, leaving a long and messy trail of bodies behind her. It's as if she wanted to be followed. But why? He sat in his car and popped open the glove box. The file inside contained photos of nearly half a dozen corpses already. First Reggie, the trader of “exotic goods”, then Enginemaster Jet and two other non-local thugs in Jet's workshop with almost every single bone in their body crushed. Now he was adding the photos of this guy, Ray the Pig, son of Will Steiner, of the Steiner Family, leader of the Hauler Families. This one seemed to be more deliberate and cold blooded a murder than the others. Had Ray the Pig squealed to someone he shouldn't have squealed to? This was definitely setting an example to the rest of the Families. That's how Haulers dealt with traitors.
And now his judge, jury and executioner had become a ghost once more, and his very few leads were running cold again. How the hell does a vehicle, one of that size, in particular, disappear like that anyways? It was one of the very few restored, and the entire province had little less than a dozen of those in operation, yet her rig was so distinct; almost everyone knew who it belonged to, almost everyone who valued their lives kept themselves at a distance of at least twenty feet from it at all times. This had proven a very interesting hunt after all. He decided to go talk to Ray the Pig's crime boss father. It was his only real lead right now. A downright long shot, but it was all he had.
At least until another corpse surfaced in the desert.
He turned the key in the ignition, and as the last rays of the sun caressed the wasted land goodnight, he set course for the Roadhouse.
On The Prowl
The wind was picking up as she cautiously approached the camp. It wasn't strong enough to be called a storm, but it was enough to keep any reasonable person from camping out in the open, especially since they were only three miles off of Crossroads, the most important settlement in the region. Unless they had something to hide that is, or wanted to keep a low profile. They needed supplies from the town nonetheless, and people always remember a man with a thick accent and a big scar on his cheek for a few more chips in their pocket, or a few less grams of lead in their gut.
Either way, it would all be over within the next half hour; she would get her revenge and pull a few more psychos out of traffic.
“One step at a time” she thought to herself.
She put every step in front of the last slowly, careful not to move around louder than the sound of the wind, sweeping over the desert floor. A sentry was sitting next to the fire the tents were put up around, but there could be more between the tents she hadn't spotted yet.
The wind covered her approach well enough, but there was always the chance that there would be mutants with heightened senses among her targets, so she couldn't afford to alert them to their presence before she knew exactly how many of them were in the area.
And then she felt it. Just a few yards away from the first tent, she got that unmistakable feeling.
Someone had snuck up behind her.
Before she could react, that someone hit her in the back of the head. The wind died down instantly. Her whole world went dark.
The Roadhouse
Walker knew the safest approach was through the front. Its name long forgotten, the abandoned old world town had been barricaded and fenced off by its new tenants. There were no visible guards around, but he knew that “The Roadhouse” as the town was now known, was one of the safest locations in the province. The desolate, unguarded look was nothing but a smokescreen, an elaborate ruse to fool any would-be trespassers into lowering their guard. There were more than enough snipers and hidden guards around to make sure not even a cat got in and out of the small town without Will Steiner knowing. He drove the old pickup through the town's only entrance that hadn’t been barricaded, and kept going really slow until he saw a laser beam go through his windshield, then a second and a third, no doubt pointing at his forehead.
He stopped the car and rolled down the window. One of the shadows started moving, walking up to his door, and into the moonlight, revealing a man clad in black, head to toe, wearing night-vision goggles pulled up on his head, and holding a very expensive-looking rifle.
“Long time no see Walker.”
“I have to talk to Steiner.” He replied, cutting to the chase.
The fake friendliness in the guard's face disappeared as if washed off.
“The Boss is not seeing any visitors right now. Turn around.”
“Oh he will see me, just tell him it's about Ray, and his niece. And the deep shit she's in.”
The guard waved his hand at the general direction of the village, and the laser pointers vanished, while he took out a bulky looking radio and announced Walker’s arrival.
He drove up to the town's center, to the only building prominently lit up with floodlights, a former church, which now had music seeping through the heavy iron doors. He approached the door and knocked a few times hard. A slot slid open, a pair of eyes looked at him for just a brief second, then the slot slid shut again and a loud metal noise signified that the door was being opened. The heavy door creaked horribly on its hinges as it slowly swung open, and
a booming upbeat tune quickly replaced the noise.
Walker took two steps inside, before being stopped by a huge neckless man. He sure had a neck;
Walker countered his own thought, but it was so thick that it looked like his head was directly attached to his huge ribcage. The man frisked him clean of all weapons and blades, then pointed him to the coupe, where Will Steiner was enjoying the company of half a dozen young ladies.
Steiner looked up as Walker approached the table. The man was in his mid-sixties, a bit overweight, with a receding hairline, a multitude of chains and other jewelry hanging on his chest imposing themselves through his half-open shirt, and a fat cigar in his hand.
“Get lost sweeties, daddy's got business to take care of.” He told the girls, and they all got up and mingled playfully with the rest of the crowd in the church-turned-nightclub. “Have a seat Walker.” He added motioning to the now empty coupe around him. “What was it you wanted to waste my time with?”
Walker sat across the table from him.
“It's about your son Ray and your niece Nukkie”
“Oh yeah? What about them?”
“Well Ray's dead, kneecapped and fed to the jackals to be more precise, and Nukkie was the one who did it.”
Will's answer was apathetic at best. It was obvious he already knew.
“That kid… He never listened… Running his mouth all the time… Someone woulda capped that two-bit punk of a son of mine, sooner or later. What's it to you?”
“It looks like your niece is going up Shit River without a paddle. She's been leaving tracks made of dead bodies from one side of the Wasteland to the other. The Lawmen don't mind when you guys take care of yourselves and your messes, but they don't like it when it makes them look bad and believe me; your niece has made rig-sized fools out of them right now, so they called me in.”
“HAH!” Steiner chuckled. “I always liked that little brat. She's feisty. And she took care of that piece of trash, Ray. The Families weren't happy with him singing like a songbird to anyone with two chips or a gun. Even so, that sure ain't my baby girl's style, leaving a mess like that. Hell if she does a job, you don't know about it until she wants you to, buddy.”
“I think this is a lot bigger than her going mad.”
“What can I say, Walker? I don’t know what’s going through that girl’s mind half the time, but I'll keep my ear to the ground. Oh and you better not be trying to throw her at the hounds as a scapegoat for all this.”
“I thought you'd know me better after all these years, Will”
Steiner nodded.
“So you have no idea what this is all about or where she's at?”
“That little bitch barely even visits anymore. We've had a couple of fallouts in the past few years, so I don't see her that often. She only comes back here to relax every couple of months.”
“There's a chance she'll come looking for help, sooner or later. Can I count on you to let me know?”
Steiner's sarcastic grin was answer enough. For all Walker knew, she could be sitting at another table nearby, somewhere in that very same building, but either way, Haulers don't sell each other out, even to old friends, and Steiner was at the head of his Family, not because he was the strongest, or biggest badass among them, but because he was an example to all the others. That old fox could really be clueless on Pliskin's whereabouts, but he didn't get where he was by being easy to see through. Walker's thoughts were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. The neckless mountain of a man was there to escort him to the exit.
“Now if you excuse me old friend, I have other matters to attend to. Good luck finding her” Steiner said with a smirk, lighting up his cigar again. He snapped his fingers and the girls started making their way back to his coupe, as he was watching Walker being escorted to the exit.
“You'd better not be looking for a scapegoat old friend, ‘cause all you're gonna find is your death warrant.” He muttered under his breath as the girls pulled him back down on the couch.
Ambushed
Her vision was still blurry. The howling wind and some one-sided chatter with a thick accent were the only sounds coming through the tent's entrance. Nukkie stretched her neck trying to get her head to stop buzzing. She was tied up to a chair against a pole. Looking around for anything to help her escape, she tried to overhear the conversation outside.
“....No sir, I'm positive it's the courier.... Yes... No, she didn't have the vial on her, but it can't be far. I already sent the men to look for her truck... Yes sir I will dispose of her once the vial is secure. Yes, I will bring it to the stronghold personally...Yes… I'll take care of it… Thank you, your Holiness...”
The entrance cover swung aside and a tall dark man with a big scar on his cheek entered the tent.
“I see you're finally awake. Thought I might have hit you a little too hard there”
She looked at him with an icy expression.
“I'll cut to the chase, little girl. Where is the vial?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“I don't know what you're talking about” Nukkie replied nonchalantly.
She had barely finished her sentence when she received a punch to the face.
“Maybe this will refresh your memory. Where is the vial from Reggie's package?”
Her right cheek burning, she could taste blood, probably from a split lip.
“Oh that thing… Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. Some Scav gave me a nice bag of chips for it.”
The man smirked.
“Liar, you can't be that foolish. Anyone who has been able to keep the Lawmen off their tail this long is smart enough to know the meaning of that vial. Where did you stash it?”
Nukkie spat some blood at the man's feet in response, which triggered yet another punch to her face.
“Touch me again, and I'll break your neck” she snapped at him.
“Is that so? I thought you would be smart enough to realize the gravity of your situation. You see...” he took out a small, round, leather package and unrolled it on the table, revealing a number of sharp tools “...I am an expert in interrogation. I can keep you alive and conscious for days in the grip of the most unimaginable pain. In the end you will talk, but even if you don't my men will find your truck soon. That's where the vial is, isn't it?”
“I'm sure you have it all figured out. And I bet you feel very manly torturing women with their hands tied. Untie me so I can kick your manly ass.”
“You sure have spirit little girl, but this is my game. And I make the rules.”
Nukkie smirked back “Go ahead and kill me. You'll never find the vial. Unless you have a thousand men scouring every inch of the Wasteland for the pieces that is.”
“You insolent bitch!” He leaned forward punching her again.
Nukkie got the chance she had been provoking. She raised her legs, and trapped his neck between her knees.
“This is for Jet motherf....”
With a sudden move, the man's neck gave way and snapped. She kicked him aside and tried to reach the small table with her foot. A few tries later the table tumbled over, with the sadistic tools scattering on the ground. Reaching one of them, it only took her a couple of minutes to cut herself free. Wiping the blood off her mouth with the back of her sleeve, she searched the corpse for clues. Not having to search long, she found what she was looking for. A tattoo of a sun on the man's pectoral. It all made sense now. It was the Brotherhood, a well-known collection of religious zealots and freaks who wanted to get their hands on the virus, trying to make who knows what kind of crazy prophecy come to pass. And she had a good idea where the stronghold the man mentioned earlier on his radio was.
Soon, she had retrieved her gear and made her way back to the truck.
Family Matters
The monstrous rig entered the seemingly abandoned village. Of course to its driver, it was everything other than that, since she knew that the shadows always hid more than the unt
rained eye could see. And being who she was, she needn't worry about them either. She just drove straight to a barn near the town's center as the shadows grew longer in the fading sunlight. A man leaning against the barn door stood up and approached as the truck came to a halt.
“Hey Nuk, haven't seen you in a while. Your uncle is looking all over for you, might wanna to pay him a visit.”
“Exactly what I had in mind, Jimmy” she said as she climbed out of the cab. “Could you get the trailer unloaded? I already disarmed the booby traps, so she's ready.”
“I'll have it done by dawn, anything else?”
Nukkie stopped in mid-step as she was heading towards the church
“In fact, yes. Send that warehouse rat of yours to my room in about an hour”
“Do you actually expect me to unload that rig all by myself?”
She turned around and tossed him a square, black poker chip.
“Get someone else to help you.” she said with a wink.
“Well if you put it that way, I'm sure I'll think of something.” he replied pocketing the chip in a hurry.
As darkness began to fall over the Roadhouse, people began appearing on the streets. A motor sound here and there would intrude the quiet, and the village began taking on its true form. During the day it would seem completely deserted save for a few vagabonds lying around, but during the night, that's when most of the business started taking place, most chips changing hands and most people going to church to get their groove on and increase their blood alcohol. There was not a single commodity of any nature, substance or rarity that you couldn't find in the Roadhouse, but then again, aside from Haulers, only a select few were allowed to enter the town and keep their head on their shoulders at the same time. Even the most ambitious and crusading Lawmen, seeking to make a name for themselves knew well enough to stay as far from the Roadhouse as possible. The only law here was the sound of plastic poker chips rubbing against each other. That and Will Steiner's word.
