-Shh, take it easy. Don't shoot before you're entirely sure you got the shot. Boone said calmly. I took a deep breath. I had never used a sniper rifle on another human being before. I had killed before. We all had. You have to when you're living in the wasteland. But sniping was different. One missed shot and you had to retreat. It all depended on this just one shot.
The NCR soldiers at camp McCarran had hired me to take care of some fiends. We had tracked down one of them, Violet. The bounty for her head was huge and we could sure use the caps. Ammo and repairs were not cheap here, and don't even get me started on food.
Violet stood still by the fire she had set up. Her dogs running around the oil drum which contained the flames. I got my aim right between her eyes. I took a deep breath and held it as I slowly pulled the trigger. The recoil threw me back and the loud bang from the rifle attenuated my hearing. But after a second or two all that was left was silence.
-Not bad for your first kill, said Boone as he looked out from the window in the small shack we were hiding in. My mouth started to turn up, forming a smile. I cared what Boone thought of me more than I would have liked to admit.
-Thanks, I said as put my rifle on my back. Now lets hurry before the other fiends start to come around.
Violets dogs were nowhere to be seen. They must have been spooked by the gunshot. I took a look at her dead body as I pulled up my switchblade. The bullet hit her right in the forehead. A black hole the size of a nickle adorned her skull and blackish red blood were forming pools in her eye sockets.
-What a pretty sight, I mumbled as I turned her over so she laid on her stomach. I raised my blade over her neck and jammed it right between her vertebrae causing a high pitched crunching sound.
I proceeded to cut through her neck and throat until her head was free. Blood and gore didn't do much for me anymore. The people who had lived all their lives inside a vault usually couldn't handle even a small bruise, let alone the flesh wounds you get up and close with when you're living out here. Cutting someones head of didn't faze me much.
-Lets get back to camp McCarran before we get company. Boone said keeping an eye out.
-Yeah, sure. Lets go then, I said as I wrapped the head in a piece of cloth and put it in my backpack.
It was quiet as we walked back. Almost too quiet I thought. Suddenly I saw a man in a checkered suit walking through the ruins about 150m in front of me.
"You've made your last delivery kid."
The memories from the man in the checkered suit started popping up in my mind. I raised my hand up to my head and slowly let my fingers touch the scar on my temple.
"From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck.
But, truth is...the game was rigged from the start."
That's the last I remembered before it all turned black. The man in the checkered suit with the gun in his hand. Those were the last words he spoke to me before he intended to execute me.
-Boone, you go ahead. I got something personal to sort out alone first, I said as I firmly gripped my magnum revolver and went in the direction of the man in the checkered suit.