The highway, a long, cracked ribbon of decomposing blacktop, deeply rutted, pockmarked, and broken here and there. A burned out car sat on the shoulder, its frame twisted and bared to dusty blue like the skeleton of some felled beast, a massive crow perched upon its roof and keeping watch with beady black eyes.
The landscape, rugged and dusty, hardpan dotted with scrub and thistle stretching to craggy mountains in the distance, their peaks rising over the desert like the serrated edge of a knife. Thin, wispy clouds sailed by overhead, pushed by a dry furnace wind redolent of earth, rot, and heat. Road signs, bent, faded, and riddled with bullet holes flashed past on the right, the writing illegible, the metal speckled with rust. A tractor trailer sat in the breakdown lane, its double doors thrown open and the area strewn with debris, brass casings, and dead bodies, bleached skulls staring into the brutal sun with gaping sockets.
The man, his face as rough and uninviting as the Mojave around him, his sharp chin covered in stubble and his flat brown eyes covered by polarized sunglasses. He wore the tattered remains of a black leather jacket, torn and grimy blue jeans, and cowboy boots with spurs on the heels. A brown leather holster hung from the belt around his waist, the smooth, dark oak handle of a revolver jutting out. A Glock was tucked into a second holster under his left arm, and a Colt Woodsman with a long barrel sat on the passenger seat, kept company by a sawed off shotgun with duct tape wrapped around the stock, a machete (its blade spotted with dried blood), and a portable radio that hadn't broadcast in nearly seven years. A CB rig sat in the dash, the low hiss of static issuing forth as it scanned endlessly up and down the band, picking up the occasional voice and, in recent memory, fant mariachi music.
Warm wind blew through the open window, rustling the man's white hair, dirty like New York snow, and the sound of nearly bald tires humming against the pavement lulled him, but not enough that he was rendered unaware - his senses were sharp, and at the first hint of something amiss, he would strike like a coiled cobra.
He'd been on the road longer than he could remember, the hands of his fingerless driving gloves hooked around the wheel from sunrise to sunset - he started in the east, then moved west to escape the chaos in the cities. The radio still spoke to him, then, bearing distant voices from Washington, Miami, and Boston. He met more people back then too - they were still Americans then, clinging to the old ways and telling themselves they'd come back from this. Today, those he met were traders, road pirates, and war torn refugees travelling in horse drawn caravans and seeking hope, peace, and a better tomorrow.
Only those things didn't exist anymore - they died out with the old world, reduced to irradiated cinder and starved like the masses during the many famines that followed the war. There was the road and nothing else - it lead to nowhere, had no beginning or end, and didn't care if you laid down and died along its length. To survive, you had to be strong, fast, and ruthless, to shoot first and ask questions never.
What exactly was he surviving for? He didn't know. He had nothing and no one, no future and a past burned away like impurities in the sun. His heart was hard, his disposition grim, and his nature ultimately selfish. He subsisted on the wreckage of the old world like a vulture - he had no hope, no faith, nothing but a few bullets for each of his guns, two days' water supply, and a three days' food ration. His lot never improved, nothing ever got better, he hopped from one fresh hell to another like a man jumping between hillocks in a bog. What point was there in going on?
Eh.
Got nothing better to do.
Presently, he topped a rise and shifted gears to avoid a broken down police car slanted across the yellow line. The road straightened and continued ahead, pools of heat shimmering here and there like phantom puddles. An armadillo scurried across, and the man briefly considered swerving to hit it for fun, but decided against it - bastard would probably fuck up his undercarriage. He glanced at the fuel gauge, and his thin lips pulled back from crooked teeth. Almost empty. He had a gas can in the trunk, but it held maybe a quarter tank's worth. He'd have to scavenge soon.
Slowing, the man leaned over, opened the glovebox, and pulled out a butterscotch. He unwrapped it and plopped it into his mouth. In the early days he smoked, but tobacco was hard to come by now. Liquor still flowed, but only for the right price. He was never a drinker - booze dulls your sense and compromises your mental clarity. You can't fight when you're drunk, you can only roll over and take it in the ass.
He'd be damned if he let that happen.
Settling back against the ripped leather seat, he glanced absently into the rearview mirror, and froze when he caught a quick flash of movement, then a glimmer as of sunlight on metal. He leaned forward and lifted his shades, steering with one hand. A vehicle zoomed over the rise and came up fast, its body a mishmash of clashing parts, cab open, metal roll bar, spikes and barbed wire on the grill. Another whipped around from behind and drew up beside the first. There were three men in the first and two in the second; bare skin, leather, studs, mohawks, and white facepaint with black streaks.
Highwaymen.
Hissing a curse through his teeth, the man grabbed the wheel with both hands and pressed on the gas, surging forward with a low, guttural vroom. The first buggy gave chase, pulling ahead of the others. The passenger stood up, braced himself against the roll bar, and aimed a rifle. The man winced just before the back window shattered. He instinctively hunched over the wheel to make a smaller target of himself, and jerked itl hard left then right in as loose a zigzag pattern as he could manage while still maintaining speed. The buggy zipped forward and the gunman fired again, the bullet pinging off the frame. The man glanced over his shoulder just as a third round struck him in the shoulder a spurt of blood. Hot, searing pain shot into the center of his brain and he cried out.
Alright.
Now he was mad.
Baring his teeth against the pain, he reached out, picked up the shotgun, and half-turned in his seat. He aimed and pulled the trigger; the gun jumped in his hand and a blast of buckshot pelted the grill of the approaching machine. The gunman ducked, and the man fired again, taking out the windsield in a shower of glass. The driver jerked the wheel and stomped on the gas, the second buggy taking its spot. The first came even with his back end, racing to match his pace and pull alongside, and the man stamped on the break while simotaniously bringing the shotgun around. He glimpsed a flash of the rifleman and jerked the trigger; the roar of exploding gunpowder filled his ears and the stinging heat of detonation bathed his face. The rifleman toppled out and rolled across the pavement, the ashpault ripping his naked chest to ribbons.
The second buggy collided hard with the man's rear and sent him careening forward. The rifleman got to his knees and turned just as the man's front end smashed into him; screaming, he was sucked under the tires, and the car jostled as it passed over him. It started to fishtail, and the man held the wheel tight, pulling out and leaving the blacktop. Clouds of dust kicked up and the two buggies started for him. He spun the wheel to the left, met the highway once more, and pressed his foot hard against the gas. The buggies, side-by-side with hardly a gap between them, bore down on him, and, gritting his teeth, he picked up the Woodsman and sped up to meet them head-on. The drivers both widened their eyes in shock and swerved to avoid being hit. The man sailed between them, then spun the wheel, tires screeching on the pavement.
No he was behind them. Ha. The hunter becomes the hunted. Pressing on the gas, he came up behind the closest buggy and smashed into its back end, metal screaming and bending. The gunman sat against the back of the passenger seat, his hand pressed to his guts and blood oozing between his fingers. His face was covered in white war paint, lips and eyes ringed black, and his black hair writhed from his head in short, snakelike dreadlocks. He weakly lifted a pistol, which swayed back and forth, and the man raised the Woodsman, aimed for the head, and fired; the top of the gunman's skull blew out in a shower of blood, brain matter, and bone fragments, splattering the seat. His eyes rolled in their sockets and he slumped over, dead. The driver tossed a worried glance over his shoulder, completely alone now, and sped up to escape.
Uh-uh.
The lead buggy pulled forward and fishtailed as the driver fought to keep control, and the second tried to catch up. The man fell back, waited a second, then shot forward again, slamming the buggy and shoving it forward. His mind hazed like a shark with the scent of blood in its nose, and aiming the Woodsman, he fired at the driver seat. The driver arched his back and screamed, his hands leaving the wheel; the buggy spun out of control, and the man swevered to miss it. In the rearview, it went off the road, flipped, and tumbled end over end into the desert before coming to rest in a tempest of dirt, smoke, and steam. The man changed lanes and came up behind the second buggy. The passenger scurried into the back compartment, a carbine clutched in his hands, and ducked behind a wooden crate with US ARMY stencled across the side. He laid the rifle on top and opened up; bullets struck the front end, and the man swerved. He aimed the Woodsman and fired. The buggy threaded back and forth in a pattern much like the one the man employed earlier. He matched it, aimed again, and fired; the round struck the windshield, and it spider-veined.
The road veered to the left and wound around a rocky hillside. The gunman fired again, missing, and the man returned, hitting the crate. From the corner of his eye, the man saw the driver lean forward and flip a switch. Suddenly, fire leapt from hidden exhaust pipes, and the buggy took off like a missile. The man bared his teeth and pushed harder on the gas; his heart thumped and his stomach throbbed with bloodlust. He wasn't going to let them get away - he'd kill them, rob them, then piss on their bodies. He might even string one up as a warning to other pirates - fuck with me and die.
The buggy hurtled along a straight away and disappeared around a turn a mile off. The man hunched over the wheel, as if by doing so he could urge the car faster. His long, crooked fingers, calloused by years of toil and torment, closed hard, his eyes glinted with savagery, and his teeth ground together with an audible grating sound. The front end shook, the engine whined, and the frame vibrated dangerously. He held fast to the wheel, scooted to the edge of his seat, and rounded the corner.
The dune buggy sat smashed against the overturned trailer of a Mac truck. The man was upon it before he could stop, and his heart blasted into his throat. He panicked and yanked the wheel to the left. He didn't see the drop until it was too late; the car careened through the guardrail and soared through open air, fifty feet above the desert floor, the tires spinning and the nose angling down. The man's stomach jumped into his mouth and he braced himself for impact. The front end hit with a violent jolt, the sound of smashing glass and crunching metal like Armageddon in his ears, and the car danced along the ground like a wheel, shedding pieces of itself and digging a long trench in the dirt. The man's head hit the wheel, and darkness stole over him.
He did not wake for a long time.