Junkie

Marcel had been staring out the blown-out window, binoculars glued to his face and all, for the past half-hour. His neck and back were hurting now from being hunched over stiff for so long, but it didn't matter to him. 'Whatever it takes to get that blast,' is what he'd been taught. Whatever it take.

He took a cursory glance at his buddy, Lu, who was on the other side of the room sorting through empty hypos and counting the bottle caps they'd gathered. Lu looked tired every day, even after a twelve-hour night's sleep, but he looked especially bad today. He was fiending, bad. Marcel went back to looking through the binoculars and saw movement.

"Lu! We got somethin'."

He adjusted the binoculars to focus. The good doctor was on the move again. The swollen sun was starting to rise up through the sky and bleed through the clouds. The mark stood up from his sleeping roll at the same time. For the third day in a row, Marcel had watched him rise with the sun.

"What he doin'?" Lu was still feebly attempting to count the number of caps and Marcel had left. He couldn't focus on the numbers in his head. Withdrawals wouldn't allow it.

"He's getting up bright and early. Just like yesterday-"

Lu cut him off, "and the day before."

"Right. We're gonna get him today. Only one guard with him, and a Brahmin," Marcel turned to look at Lu, who was staring at the caps stacked on the table like he could burn a hole through them if he tired. "How long you been countin' that shit?"

Lu hung his head and stared at the empty booze bottles and boxes of Yum-Yum Deviled Eggs with his yellowed eyes-the same color as his teeth. "Man, you know I can't keep count without no jet. It's been three days since I got some, not even no psycho to tide me over."

He hated it when Lu said things like that, when he admitted how these days he needed the chems instead of wanting them. Marcel saw visions of himself in Lu. He imagined his strong physique turning into Lu's wiry, skeletal frame. He imagined his hazel eyes going the way of Lu's yellow ones.

"Lu, you're a fiend if I ever saw one in my life. Don't worry though, when we tear the damn pack full of chems off that Brahmin, we gonna be in business." Marcel stepped away from the window and stretched his sore back.

"Good Lord, this is gonna be sweet," he said as he put on his duster.

"You ain't no joke. So who get the shotgun?" Asked Lu.

"Me of course. You know that.."

With that, Marcel turned on his heel and grabbed the shotgun propped up against the wall as he walked out of the burned out building. Lu grabbed his pistol off the table and shoved it into his pants, pocketed the pile of caps on the table, and stamped out after Marcel. They left behind the musty squat and took off into the wastes. There were chems out there just begging to be stolen, after all.

Greg wished he'd realized what he'd gotten himself into. Work as a bodyguard wasn't easy and it wasn't supposed to be, but he was sure he could tackle any job. He had no fear of raiders or animals roaming the wastes, but he was regretting taking this job at all. The doctor –his client- would not stop talking.

He met him a week ago in Rivet City. The doctor was there to buy medical supplies for his next trip around the wastes. He said he needed a good bodyguard, and offered a payment of six-hundred caps for a week of protection. Greg liked caps, but would have foregone all six-hundred and then some if he never had to see this guy again.

"…But, I was like 'that's not even mayonnaise!' you know?" The doctor pushed his glasses up on his face. How he maintained a pasty complexion even though he slept outside was beyond Greg.

Finally he couldn't take it, he had to speak up, "Doctor Bannister, could you please, please shut the FUCK up!"

He waited for the reaction that never came. Silence. When he looked up and saw what Bannister had set his sights on, he found out why.

There was a body in the middle of the road. A black guy, slim too.

Bannister looked Greg right in his eye with a chilly stare. They agreed without saying a word, no more talking. Whatever had got this guy could still be around, ready to pounce on them.

Greg grabbed his helmet off Bannister's pack Brahmin and scuttled it over his blond, greasy hair. He unslung his assault rifle from his back and scanned the landscape. Burned out buildings, useless power lines, and mountains of scorched dirt and dead plants. Nothing. He started to put his rifle back, but stopped –still as a statue- when he saw the man in the road.

The 'dead' body stood up. Bannister shrieked, but Greg was already looking at the body's head through the sights on his rifle.

"Help…me," he said, "raiders. Shot me. Took…caps."

Without thinking, Bannister snatched up his medical bag and sprinted over to him. He'd already laid the man down and was looking for a wound when Greg spoke up.

"What the hell are you doing!?"

"I'm a doctor, he's hurt. This is how it works," He didn't raise his eyes from his patient. "I'm a doctor, I can help. What's your name?"

"Lu." He answered weakly.

"Alright, Lu. I can't see it. Where did you get sh-"

It all happened in an instant. Lu whipped his body up and wrapped his rail-thin arm around Bannister's neck in a headlock, swept his leg and put Bannister on his ass. With his free hand he removed his 10mm pistol from his waist and pressed the barrel against Bannister's head. He put a knee on his chest to keep him still.

Greg was equally dumbstruck by the stupidity of Bannister and of the speed the man had.

"Drop the damn gun!" Greg clenched his rifle a little tighter. Index fingered nestled into the trigger guard.

"Fuck off!" Lu's words were hoarse, and Greg thought he heard a little slur in them..

Greg could see it now. The yellowed eyes, grossly thin body. The little twitch in his gun-hand and the look of tiredness he wore. He was a junkie. Strung-out as all hell and somehow he'd still managed to get both of them caught in a trap. Then he heard the footsteps behind him.

"No, you drop yours." It was a different voice this time. Similar to Lu's but not as rough.

Marcel took another couple of steps toward Greg and lowered his double-barrel a few inches to line up with Greg's back.

"I said drop it."

A minute later Lu was tearing through all the packs and pouches on the pack Brahmin. He wasn't thinking, so much as going through the motions. Likewise he didn't really see the surgical tubing, tongue depressors, and (regrettably) empty syringes he was tossing over his shoulder in to the sand.

"Ain't nothing in here. Nothin." Lu sounded defeat.

Marcel craned his head to face Lu. But, he still kept his shotgun leveled at the doctor and the guard, both of which were laying face-down in the dirt a few feet away. Lu had lost his cool and knocked the doctor unconscious, to the chagrin of Marcel, but the guard just lay there silently. He was naked without his guns.

"'The hell you mean ain't nothing there?"

"Bitch did I stutter?" Marcel normally wouldn't take that from him, but he knew that Lu had a tendency to go off his rocker when he needed a fix.

"Keep lookin'. We ain't come all the way out here to go home empty handed."

Lu did so, ripping the last pouch off the Brahmin and trifling through it. He raised a lone needle out of the pack and held it in front of his face. His eyes lit up.

Marcel's face sagged; he turned his head back to the guard. "Why the hell would a doctor not carry any drugs? Why only one needle full'a psycho?"

"We already got robbed once, five days ago," Greg's voice was cold and callous, "Some big guy with one-oh-one painted on his back. He had one of those PIP-whatever's."

Lu had already jabbed the needle into his bicep and had his thumb resting on the plunger when he spoke up, "He lyin!"

"'The fuck?" Marcel glowered at him. "We gotta share, man. Friends is friends and all that!" Marcel got right into his face. "Gimme the damn needle."

He reached for it and Lu grabbed his hand. They wrestled over it, Lu was weak from years of addiction and Marcel snatched it easily. Lu threw his entire body on top of him, sending Marcel and himself to the ground in a cloud of dirt. Marcel dropped his shotgun which let off buckshot into the air.

"Give it!" Lu was back to trying to wrest it from Marcel's grip and inadvertently sent the syringe flying off into the rubble of a burned out building on the side of the road. It disappeared from their sight. They rolled off each other.

"Look what you did!" said Marcel. He groped for his shotgun and brought it back to his side. Then he heard the gunshot.

He looked up and saw Lu, his pistol pointed at the guard and still smoking from the barrel. The guard now had a hole in the back of his head. He saw Lu's face, it was horrible. He looked like a caged animal. So close to feeding his addiction and then it all got fucked up.

Lu put the gun under his chin.

"Lu, wait-" the gun went off. Lu's body went limp and ragdolled to the ground, pistol still in his grip.

Marcel sat there thinking for a long, long time. Images flashed through his head the entire time. Meeting Lou. Taking his first hit of jet. Robbing people.

"Damn…" He said, finally.

Then he got up and dusted himself off, grabbed the shotgun and loaded another shell before setting off into the destroyed building. He needed to find that syringe.