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Blood red skies descended upon the capital wasteland. A massive dust storm swept through the bleak lands, blotting out the sun with a crimson tempest of rusty sands. A lone wanderer wrapped a ragged green scarf tight around his face as he braced himself against the furious wind. He was as a thin reed bending to the gusting air. He put on his cobbled together goggles made of leather straps and glass scavenged and shaped from old bottles. The stubborn sands worked their way into the edges of his homemade goggles, further impeding his sight. Upon the horizon was a great tower, he found a frequency on his radio that played samba and jazz, it seemed to be emitted from its heights for the signal grew clearer as he neared. The dust storm mired the horizon and then consumed it in a great curtain of roiling red. The distant tower of brownstone that had emitted the glow of electric light in the night afore lay past the ruined townscape before him, beyond a steep ravine and a rock strewn ridge past that. He'd never make it there in this storm, he was only likely to lose his way or fall down a steep drop and break his bones. He instead sought shelter in the ruins to wait out the tempestuous dusts that blew in from the east.
He came to a disheveled brick townhouse with cracked wooden siding, boarded up windows, and a sunken black shingled roof. The building looked as tired as he felt. He reached for his crowbar strapped to the side of his bulging rucksack. He went to break open the door to find it unlocked, though jammed from the shifting of the foundations and slanting of its frame, the door gave way easily with a solid shove. Once inside he closed it shut behind him, resting his back against its splintering hull as he pulled his scarf down from his mouth and took in a deep breath of air. He shook his head vigorously, tossing sand from its black unkempt locks that hung down to his eyes. His face was dusty with sand which clung to his meager stubble upon his boyish visage. As soon as he collected himself he retrieved his gunmetal grey revolver from its holster.
It was dark inside, with no light from the windows and the dusts muting the sun's rays it took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He cleared his nose and sniffed the air. He knew the bitter scents of mole rats who'd chew their way into abandoned buildings to breed, the musky odor of half mutated wild dogs, the foul stench of Yao guai, but he could smell none of those here. Amid the ruinous living room he saw no signs of any dangerous wild life that might have taken up residence here, seeking shelter no different than he. There were no droppings in the corners, no chewed up piles of bones, no rad-roach holes, or molting shells left by rad-scorpions. His lanky form hunched over in relief, he seemed to be alone. He holstered his pistol once more and set his rucksack and hunting rifle down on the grey remains of a couch. The heavy rucksack sunk into the moth eaten ruin, even after two hundred years the synthetic material used to make the couch still remained, only recently had moths mutated enough to eat their way into such materials. Once free of its weight he sat down and breathed easy. His green eyes were sunken, his body was thinning and weakening by the day. He ran a hand through his hair, clumps pulled out in between his fingers. His radiation sickness was only getting worse. He tossed the fallen hairs aside and ignored it, there was nothing he could do.
Once he gathered his strength he began combing the house for items to scavenge. The tower he was headed for had electricity and so he began to look for items they might need or use. He pulled the pilot light from the stove and stood on a stool to remove the light bulbs from the sockets in the ceiling. He tore open part of the wall with his crowbar to find copper wiring and pipes. He then went upstairs into the rooms to search for anything of value. The shelves were full of dusty desiccated books, swollen and ruined from previous rains that dripped through the ceiling, he opened one up to find its ink and run down the papery pages in a cascade of black and grey, almost artistically so, whatever information it once held was lost. He dropped it carelessly from his fingers and moved on. He came to a room with a display case. It held in hard translucent plastic casings the first copies of Grognak the Barbarian. He laughed aloud a gave a smirking grin.
"Issue one. Lair of the Virgin-eater." He spoke as he unlatched the rectangular case. It showed a muscular bronze skinned and black maned Grognak wielding a great sword against a scaly serpent while buxom blonde coiled her hands around his leg as she lay frightened. He sat down on the floor with it, flipping through the pages intently. With all he had endured lately, it made him forget his troubles for the moment.
He suddenly noticed the light changed from dark to darker, obscuring the words on the pages. He looked up to stare down the barrel of a gun.
"Play time's over, kid." Spoke the man with the gun. He was hale and blonde bearded with cold grey eyes, dressed in a worn black leather jacket and patched up jeans.
The young man froze, unable to move or breathe.
"This here gun is a M1911 colt .45, U.S. Army issue, magazine fed semi-automatic, full badass gun. It'll blow your brains out from here to kingdom come if you so much as blink when I don't tell you to. Now, blink if you understand."
He blinked.
"Good. Now breathe." The young man gasped and glanced up into the gunman's eyes, "You're not from here are you kid? Tell you what, since you're an out-of-towner I'll do you a favor and let you off with a warning instead of a hole in your head. Now, give me all you got and this doesn't have to get messy." The gruff man said with a voice as scratchy as sandpaper.
"I'm dying... Rad-poisoning. I need enough caps to get medicine. If I give you everything, I'm as good as dead anyway."
"Cry me a river, we're all dying. Do you want to die today?"
"Wasn't planning on it… shitty weather for a funeral, no one would be able to make it." The wanderer spoke in a weak yet defiant voice that dripped with sarcasm.
"Unbuckle your belt and drop your holster."
The young wanderer began to reach for his pistol's grip.
The gunman smacked the wanderer's head with the barrel of his colt.
"Fucking listen! Do not touch the gun; just drop it with the belt. I don't want you trying to be a fucking hero and I don't take risks. So no funny business and don't press your luck, my trigger finger gets real itchy when people don't listen to me."
"What... what'd you say? I'm sorry… I wasn't listening." The young man murmured with a straight face, looking the gunman in the eyes.
"Are you fucking with me?" The gunman growled.
The storm outside picked up, the winds tossed the shutters of an un-boarded window in the next room to bang loudly against the hull of the townhouse. The gunman turned to the noise. As soon as the gunman averted his eyes, the young man lurched back and reached for his pistol. It got stuck in the holster as he tried to draw it. The gunman turned back to face him and leveled his gun at the young wanderer's head.
"You dumb son of a bitch." The gunman snorted as he pulled the trigger.
The wanderer winced, but a click came instead of a bang.
"A fucking jam?" The gunman said as he looked upon his prized gun.
The wanderer freed his revolver from its holster and raised it.
"No. Wait!" The gunman shouted, holding up a palm in a pleading gesture.
The wanderer fired the revolver three times, fanning the trigger. One round hit the man's thigh, the next punched into his gut, and the final round went through the right side of his chest. The gunman groaned, recoiling in pain as he tried to pull back on slide of his pistol's upper receiver to clear the jam. The pain drove him back, he slammed gasping against the wall where the blood of his exit wounds had splattered brightly. The sands that had worked their way into the colt's upper receiver ground noisily as the gunman once more tried to charge the pistol, attempting to clear the jam in futility. The wandered stood up and wrenched the colt .45 from his assailant's hand. He tossed the pistol across the other side of the room as the man slumped down against the wall. He stood over him, the tables had turned; the gunman looked up to him with hollow eyes as he slowly shook his head in disbelief. He put the barrel of his revolver in the gunman's face.
"This here gun is a revolver, it shoots ammo my dad called .32s, that's about all I know about it. Oh, and it doesn't jam… because it's a revolver." The wanderer said, mocking the man as he lay dying.
The gunman groaned.
"Cry me a river. We're all dying." The wanderer said with a deadpan expression in response to the gunman's moans.
"… just finish me off, you blind-firing cocksucker… I don't want to take a week to die." The gunman pleaded.
The wanderer raised his pistol to the man's skull. He suddenly stepped back and shook his head.
"I can't…" The wanderer said plainly with a tick of his tongue, lowering his weapon.
"Man the fuck up and do it!" The gunman hissed.
"No… I mean I can't waste the ammo." The wandered explained.
He rolled up the issue of Grognak the Barbarian. He sighed as he saw it was now marred with a splatter of blood, likely depreciating its value greatly, but at least he now also had a colt .45.
"You got any caps or meds on you?" The wanderer asked as he gathered up the valuables.
"You think I'd be doing this shit if I was swimming in caps? I got nothing… just fucking kill me."
The wanderer collected the comic and the pistol then walked away from the man's pleas. He shut the door behind him and toppled over a shelf to trap the man inside. He felt it was a pointless gesture, it could stop scavengers from tearing him apart and eating him alive, but then again, they might be doing him a favor. The man began to cry, muttering the name of some loved one, only then did the wanderer get chills down his spine.
"Welcome to D.C. you fuck, you won't last a week." The dying man growled as the wandered descended down the creaky steps, his legs shaking from the rad sickness.
"Longer than you." The wanderer muttered under his breath.