A/N: Proofread and revised 10/28/2014
I've always been a firm believer in justice of the retributive kind. Back in the day when political tension was at its breaking point and thousands of nuclear warheads waited in the drop hatches of lined bombers, I was an inner city cop pulling overtime. Whether it was food and energy riots, anti-war protests, street brawls or total anarchy, I was in the middle of it all. Armed to the teeth with the standard billystick and reinforced riot shield, tear gas and pepper spray, I broke through the writhing sea and pushed it back with all my might. Behind the iron bars they went, makeshift prisons to calm the restless, the reckless, and the dangerous; and they were always crudely constructed, sometimes with hinges not fastened tight or walls too weak to support the barrier that separated the folks from what little remained of society. Sometimes it was the authorities themselves, lazy, corrupt, and so very, very slow.
I wasn't like them. I hated them, watching them stand by and do nothing for their fellow man if ever he was in trouble. Those kinds of people are trash. No, they're worse than trash. You didn't have to have blood on your hands to put two and two together. Humanity was sick and dirty and stark raving mad, and instead of pulling up a chair—maybe even throw a couple punches here and there or smack each other around for good measure—and talk it out, they go absolutely apeshit. Rip their throats out with notched hunting knives or blow holes in their bodies with high-powered slugs. They paint the world in reds and blacks and blues and intestinal greens. It's so…disgusting.
Hell, I'm no saint. I've done my fair share of stupid things: fistfights, drunken bar brawls, drug smuggling, I ain't no different from the rest of them. I used to deny it, refused to believe it even when I cleaned house and kept my skeletons locked away in musty closets. But all that's changed. I've stopped running a long time ago.
I stopped the minute I learned I wasn't going to catch any slack from the people around me, the people whose skin hides their blood and innards from falling out in a grotesque avalanche. The people who lead and live their lives as if the fucking War never happened, as if they're not standing on the ruins of broken hope, shattered dreams, and blood-soaked, sweat-stained history set into and built up from the foundations by our goddamned forefathers. And what do they do, you may ask? Why, they taint it. Pour their poison on the floor and toss in their cigarette butts so they can have front row seats at one of the Capital Wasteland's many bonfires. Gather round, gather round, come watch history fold and crumble before your very eyes. Admittance is free of charge. Pop the bottle open and kick back.
And to think, I had been human once. Can you believe it?
So here I sit now, fixing and fine-tuning a battered Chinese rifle. Bessie Lynn is sleeping in the adjacent room, and Michael Masters and the ferals patrol the metro tunnels; if I listen closely, I can hear their footsteps padding against the tracks. They are soft, rapid, tap-tap-tapping like the beat of my heart. Everything pulses, from my arteries to the droning monotony of the overhead lights.
The coolness of the stock beneath my fingertips is my only comfort.
They'll have their comeuppance soon. All of them. The minute those blasted gates open, we're going to run them to the ground and blow their walls apart.
They think the world's a fucking paradise? They think me a zombie? A monster? Go ahead, knock yourselves out, smoothskins! I'll show you goddamned bastards what zombies are!
Just you wait. Justice will be served.
