A Day In Needles
By Ryan N
JD couldn't help but think what a terrible day this was as the three men opened up on him with Uzi's on the windblown streets of Needles, California. Reacting with reflexes born out of years combat, he jumped behind a deteriorated slab of concrete, which had once served as a divider on a highway now only used by rad rats and weary travelers. The gunfire continued for several seconds as hot concrete was pelted by hotter lead. JD noticed with annoyance that one of the bullets had torn a gash in his boot. He noticed with somewhat less annoyance that another bullet had done the same thing to his right arm. Wounds healed, but walking through the wasteland with a bad boot was just asking for a slow painful death. Retreat was no longer an option, now he had to kill one of them to get some new shoes.
Normally JD wouldn't be bothered by an attack of some stupid Bronze Gangers. "Cheap Armor and Weapons" should have been written across their leather jackets, instead of the faded "Bad Ass" that they were so proud of. Normally he would have just opened up with his AK-47, ripping them into so much glowworm meat. But normally he would have not pawned his AK-47 twenty minutes earlier to pay for Rad-X treatments at what passed for the towns doctor. Normally he would not have been hit with a near lethal dose of radiation while digging through the wrong pile of trash for something to eat. Today was not a normal day.
JD's breath caught in his throat as the gunfire suddenly stopped. He listened intensely and wished that his heartbeat was not so deafeningly loud. He heard several clicks of empty chambers, and none of new clips. Just like Bronze Gangers to empty their entire clips in the first ten seconds of combat. JD pulled out his 9mm pistol and stood up to return fire.
He was almost too late. Only a few feet away was a charging maniac. The man looked to be no more than eighteen, but people grew up fast in Needles. He was brandishing an old fire ax and was getting ready to bring it down on JD's head. His face was split by the brightest smile JD had ever seen. His mind did that little trick minds sometimes do where time seems to slow down. For a split second JD could feel the terror of all the people who had been hacked to death while looking at that movie star smile.
Time snapped back to normal as JD whipped his foot up into the kids chest, knocking him back a step. Almost at the same instant he brought his 9mm up, taking a quick bead and firing. JD actually saw the boys teeth shatter as the bullet pounded into the brilliant smile and right out the back of the kids neck, spraying blood in a fine red mist.
The whole scene was so surprising that JD actually let out a quick laugh before he caught movement out of the left side of his peripheral vision. He turned around to see a huge man swinging a sledge hammer down on him. JD traded his life for a moments balance, dodging into the swing. The handle hit him instead of the metal head, smacking his shoulder so hard that the head broke off and went crashing to the ground next to JD.
His vision blurred for an instant and as it cleared he noted with distant curiosity that he had landed only inches away from a rare and exotic species of scorpion. The stinger dripped poison and the sun refracted off the translucent carapace in prismed light. He had a brief mental flash of stabbing that stinger into his assailants face, but decided he'd rather take his chances with the not dying of terrible poison choice.
"You just broke my favorite sledgehammer, asshole!" the fat man said as he grabbed JD by his jacket and hauled him up. JD launched his legs out like pistons on the way up, sending the top of his head flying like a cannon shell into the fat mans chin. JD couldn't be sure whether the crack he heard was from the man's jaw breaking or his own skull cracking, but the result was to send the man crashing to the ground. JD already had the head of the sledge hammer in his hand as he straddled the fat man, bringing it crashing down into his face, exploding it like a blood sausage and sending him to meet his maker.
As he stumbled away from the carnage has saw another man coming towards him with a switchblade that somehow looked ridiculously small. He had no idea where his gun had gone, but saw by his feet the jagged edge of the broken sledge hammer handle, now looking more like a short spear. With a well practiced movement he rolled the handle onto his boot and flicked it up into his waiting hands. The final ganger took a worried look at him and turned to run.
JD had once read in an ancient book about something called the Code of Chivalry. It was a complicated set of rules that defined how one treated his enemy on the battlefield. To the few remaining survivors of post-apocalyptic America, it translated into something more simple. No one who so much as looks at you funny gets out alive.
Using the concrete median as a boost, JD launched himself into the air at the man. He brought the spear down into the retreating mans back, pounding it into him with such force that it spun him into a gruesome dance of death.
JD landed and rolled onto his feet, snapping his head around to make sure there were no more surprises. There wasn't so much as a shadow within a hundred yards. He retrieved his lost 9mm and stripped the dead men of their valuable possessions with an efficiency born out of what seemed like constant practice. He was happy to find that they had enough stuff for him to get his gun out of hock, along with a little extra to spare. He even found a blood red staff that would make a fine walking stick. He didn't bother with the bodies, they were no doubt too radioactive to eat and the wasteland itself would no doubt take care of them within a couple of days anyway.
As he lowered his head against the sweltering sun and headed in the direction of the weapons shop (pleased by the way his new boots felt as they pounded along the hard packed earth) he couldn't help but think that maybe today was going to be ok after all.