Wicked Wasteland, page 2
Holstering my Model 7, I helped myself to a Blackwood repeater and donned a bandolier of ammo to go with it. True to the company name, the gun’s stock was made from black wood and the barrel matched. The only thing that stood out was the trigger, which was a reflective chrome.
Ethan snagged a shotgun made in the same style. Compared to the Company standard, this shotgun had a shortened barrel and a bayonet attachment, perfect for close encounters.
The rest of the loot would have to wait. We had one last car to clear out.
Ethan and I hopped on our respective steeds and raced alongside the train.
The fourth car from the back was sealed off and had a giant white O painted into its side that sent a chill down my spine. I knew exactly what was waiting in that car and was not looking forward to sliding it open and finding out what we were dealing with.
Car five had already been cleared by Ethan and his blondes. Judging by all the bullet holes, it had been quite the shootout. Typical. Ethan never did anything quietly.
The lead car was still occupied though. Four Grays were leaning off the side of the locomotive, leveling guns my way and firing off shots. These guys were a bit more accurate than the ones in the rearmost car. Marksmen, most likely. Underneath their gray coats and hats they wore black armored vests and had a bit more class. These guys were moving up in the Company but hadn’t quite made it to the rank of officer yet.
Shots pinged off my motorhorse. More dents for me to buff out.
But one or two shots hit me as well. One pinged off the armored vest I wore and ricocheted into the dirt. A second struck me in the knee and likewise pinged off my kneepad. Close shave. The third hit me in the left shoulder.
A sharp lance of fire burned through my bicep. It felt like some invisible force just came up and shoved me as hard as it could. I managed to remain in my saddle through years of practice with Hazel, dropping down behind my motor steed’s right flank and letting the shots ping off its metallic body.
Pressing down on the right stirrup, the steed let out a gout of hot steam and sped up until I was level with the locomotive.
Popping up from over the saddle, I leveled my Blackwood repeater and fired out six shots one after the other, making each shot count.
These armored Grays were resistant to body shots and kneecapping, but their thighs, heads, and upper arms were fair game. Of the six shots I fired, five struck home and the sixth struck the train itself, creating a small puncture in the bed of the locomotive where they kept all their coal. The rest of the shots struck exposed body parts and dropped my targets. Except for one that pinged off one guy’s vest, but oh well. I’d work on my accuracy with Melody another time. For now, my targets were down.
Rising back up into the saddle, I shoved my new repeater into the scabbard and steered my motor steed closer to the locomotive. When I was close enough, I hopped the railing and drew my pistol as I moved towards the cab.
Waiting inside the cab was a Marshal with a distinctive handlebar mustache. Aside from a hint of salt in his mostly pepper beard, he was the consummate Marshal of the Wicked Wasteland. Brown knee length duster, white hat, and a gleaming brass badge pinned to his chest. Bad news. He had two pistols out and the moment he saw me he pointed them both my way and opened fire.
I pulled back as rounds zipped past me and out over the open desert.
On the other side, I heard gunshots as Ethan was still struggling to get up on the left half of the locomotive.
Sticking my Model 7 into the cab, I started blind firing all eight shots back to back. As I did this, I pulled out my Ghostmaker with the other hand. As soon as I fired the seventh shot, I moved in.
The Marshal had his left hand up, covering his face with his armored forearm while keeping the other gun loosely pointed in my direction. I fired my eighth shot directly at the Marshal’s right hand: disarming him and likely damaging his pistol beyond any easy repair.
Instead of blood pouring out of some missing fingers like I’d been expecting, his hand came away unharmed. Stark white like bone or porcelain. Articulated fingers and a metallic skeleton visible in between solid pieces. He had a prosthetic. That was going to be a problem.
Recovering swiftly, he pivoted around to raise his empty right hand around to cover his head and then pointed his left pistol towards me. I’d never seen anyone do this before and to tell the truth I was a little mad I’d never thought of it myself.
Marshals were always trickier than normal foes. Aside from other Minutemen, they were always the hardest bastards to fight.
Mimicking him instinctually, I lifted my right forearm up like a boxer anticipating a blow to the head, and kept my pistol’s barrel pointed in his general direction as he dove out of the cab.
We both fired point blank into each other and mainly struck our armor. I’m pretty sure I landed a shot in one of his thighs, but I couldn’t be sure. He was out of the cabin so fast I barely had time to register the fight.
Sparing just a split second of my attention, I holstered my empty Model 7 to free up my right hand and then cranked the acceleration handle way down. This cracked open the vents; releasing a ton of steam out of the engine and relieving all the pressure that was driving this big beast forward.
The nomad train began slowing down, its pistons pumping less frantically.
I heard a clicking sound behind me and spun around.
The Marshal stood in the narrow doorway, gun leveled at me, and dry fired again.
“Damn it!” He ground out in a gravelly voice.
A shotgun blast hit him square in the back, courtesy of Ethan.
It pitched the man forward and Ethan strode in behind him with his pump-action shotgun leveled at the man. A Cha-ching sound filled the cab as Ethan cranked the reload mechanism and brought the gun up.
With his duster’s back in tatters, the Marshal held out his right hand to forestall his execution. His prosthetic right hand, I noted. He looked over at me, perhaps seeking an easier target, and found himself staring down the barrel of my Ghostmaker.
“You two are making a big mistake!” he warned.
“Drop the gun, lawman,” Ethan ordered.
The train was slowing to a halt and the engines were winding down with every second.
The Marshal’s remaining pistol clattered to the metal grates that made up the cab’s floor.
“Listen to me, damn it. This cargo needs to reach its destination. Did you see the arsenal we’re packing? We’re heading to reinforce a Militia outpost dead smack in the center of ghoul country. They need the gold to hire new hands, the uniforms to dress ‘em, and the guns to arm ‘em. If you two chucklefucks get in the way of that, there’ll be hell to pay!”
Ethan scoffed. “Open your eyes, man. We’re already in hell.” He pulled the trigger.
The air around Marshal’s prosthetic hand seemed to waver like a heat mirage on the desert horizon, and the blast from Ethan’s shotgun ricocheted right back into his face. Ethan had a look of pure shot before he got his head blown off.
His body dropped, and his pocket watch slipped out onto the metal floor, flipping open to display a clock face counting down from sixty.
My eyes narrowed as I looked at the Marshal, who was looking at me like his next target.
Chapter 3
The Marshal clenched his prosthetic hand into a fist and a foot-long segmented blade shot out from his forearm and snapped into position. He lunged at me with his other arm raised as before, so my shots pinged off his guarded forearm and did nothing to prevent him from closing the distance between us.
His first slash tore across my chest and scratched a long line across my armored vest.
I backpedaled and emptied my cylinder at him to keep him at bay.
Reaching across my body, I drew my very own compact melee weapon: a collapsible machete I kept in a holster under my left arm. The moment my gun was empty, he dropped his right arm so he could get eyes on me and finish me off with his blade.
Unfortunately for him, my machete was already in motion and he had almost no time to recover. He managed it, but judging by how much it threw him off that I was even still in this fight, I liked my chances.
My blade cut through the sleeve of his duster, revealing the silver-hued metal of his armored bracer. Continuing my swing; I swatted aside his arm blade and left him open.
I followed up with an uppercut on the same line and scored a hit across his chest that drove his wrist out of the way.
He thrust his right arm at me blindly, but I used the barrel of my Ghostmaker like a dagger and twisted the blade aside. This opened his guard for a follow up strike, so I threw everything I had into a snap-kick for his abdomen.
His back slammed into the left wall of the cab and I had bought myself a few precious seconds. Letting my Ghostmaker hang by the trigger guard, I palmed a fresh round and spun the pistol back up into a regular grip. Thumbing the round into the cylinder, I cocked the firing hammer and went on the offensive.
An onslaught of three more blows from my machete kept his arms up high, ready to guard. He wasn’t prepared when I fired a shot into his unarmored thigh.
The Marshal let out a grunt of surprise and pain as he looked down at the wound and then back up at me. All the fight seemed to drain out of him at once.
He slumped down to a seated position and retracted his blade back into his forearm.
The train’s pistons turned over one last time before the whole vessel came to a complete, shuddering stop. Steam escaped with a fading hiss. Then all was quiet.
“What’s your name, kid?” The Marshal asked, looking at me with a pensive expression.
I considered just ending it there and refusing to answer. Instead, I holstered my gun and retracted my machete, moving to the train controls and locking it down into a stationary mode. Once that was done, I glanced over at Ethan’s pocket watch. Still had thirty seconds left to go.
Tugging down the bandana covering half my face, I tipped my hat to the Marshal.
“The name’s Buchanan. Roger Buchanan.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Let me guess. Bounty hunter, outlaw, Minuteman?”
“You guessed it.”
“Him too,” the Marshal noted, glancing pointedly at the pocket watch laying on the ground beside Ethan’s body. “Interesting. How many years have you been here in the Wasteland, kid? Six? Seven?”
“Five,” I answered calmly, peeking my head down the right side of the train to see Melody and Hazel incoming. A reflection on the mirror down the left side showed Ethan’s pair of blondes riding up as well.
The train was ours.
“Five years,” the Marshal repeated. “Interesting. You two carry yourselves like old timers, but you still act like young guns. Did you come up with somebody with a bit more experience? Somebody by the name of Boone, perhaps?”
My eyebrows knit together and I turned all my attention to the Marshal.
His handlebar mustache twitched as the corners of his mouth peeled back in a grin. “Ah, that explains it. How is the mad bastard? Still looking after his ladies, I assume? How many is he up to now? Nine or ten by now, I reckon.”
The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out anyway. “He’s dead.”
This news seemed to sap something out of the Marshal. His head didn’t raise as high and his face was frighteningly pale as he glanced up at me.
“Shame,” he muttered. “I really…could’ve used his…help.”
His head hung low and his chin came to rest on his chest, making him appear crestfallen. A slow exhale escaped him, not unlike the steam that had released from the engine as it came to a halt. Then the Marshal was no more. His badge, perhaps sensing the end of its owner–or probably simply knocked loose during our fight–fell away from his chest and dropped to the ground.
Dusted.
Ethan’s pocket watch stopped ticking and suddenly snapped closed.
Ethan sat bolt upright and gasped in a new lungful of air. His head was completely intact. Not a scratch on him. He came up with a wild grin on his face and let out a whoop of sheer exultation.
“Oh, dude, I feel amazing! Revives always make me feel so refreshed. Like a new man! You should try it!”
I shook my head. “If you’re done with your little power nap, we have work to do.”
“Ah, you’re just jealous I can get my face blown off and still come back looking this handsome. Admit it,” he joked.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, pal.”
He launched to his feet and immediately ran off to start looting. It was easily his second–no, third–favorite pastime. The first two were getting in shootouts and enjoying quality time with his beloved blondes.
I spared one last glance for the Marshal before leaving the cab behind and rejoining my girls so we could start offloading the train’s goods.
***
Between the treasure trove and arsenal located in the third car and all the weapons and armor we took from the Grays who’d died defending the haul, it took all four of our crawler wagons (the steampunk mashup of pick-up trucks and mechanical spiders) to hold all the loot we offloaded. All that was left was the fourth car, and what awaited inside.
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked Ethan. “Last time didn’t go so well.”
Ethan shrugged. “Minutemen are always gonna be hit or miss, Buck. It’s a coin flip every time. Sure, this guy might wind up being a douche, but we can always just pop him if he goes bad. What if he’s a good one who actually turns out alright? Think of the kinds of jobs we could pull off with a three man crew!”
I could practically see the money signs dancing in Ethan’s eyes. Once he got it in his head that there might be a chance to collect fat stacks of bank notes from a job, he was all for the idea. No matter how dangerous or foolhardy it was.
Part of me wanted to argue and suggest we leave this guy for bandits or lawmen to come pick up. He’d learn the ropes from the locals and then maybe, just maybe, we could swoop in and recruit him later on down the line. Assuming he wasn’t a piece of shit, of course. But I stifled this instinct. I’d learned a long time ago not to butt heads with Ethan too much on the unimportant things. We might not always see eye to eye, but the Wasteland was far too big a place to go it alone. Ethan and I watched each other’s backs and had kept one another alive on numerous equations. That type of loyalty deserved a few concessions.
“Fine. But let the record show that I think this is a bad idea,” I said, reaching up for the train car’s handles anyway.
Ethan looked pleased as he reached up to do the same on his end.
The Company’s O-shaped insignia split right down the middle as we peeled the sliding doors back on the fourth train car. Inside was an almost entirely empty car except for one lone occupant. A brand new Minuteman, fresh off the train.
He was a scrawny guy. A little younger than Ethan and I had been when we arrived. He was wearing a basic set of old west clothing. Brown pants and a loose shirt. Basic boots. And clutched in his hands was a pocket watch with the initials of T.M. etched on the outside.
As soon as the doors were open he scooted away from us in fear.
A standard barrage of questions exploded out of the new guy with startling velocity. “Who are you? What is this place? Where am I? What’s going on? Is this some kind of Old West reenactment? Am I dead?” I was actually a bit impressed with how swiftly he rattled off them all. Typically new arrivals stuck to just one, maybe two. He managed to hit all six of the usual suspects in one round.
Pulling myself up into the train car, I offered him a hand up.
“My name’s Buck. This is Ethan. I’ll answer all your other questions if you start by answering one of mine. What’s your name, stranger?”
He swallowed nervously. Clearly unsure whether he could trust me or not.
“Dude, you’re scaring him with your ugly mug,” Ethan chided. “Why don’t you step back and let me do the talking? He probably thinks you’re a demon who’s come to consign his soul to eternal torture or some shit.”
Rolling my eyes, I dropped back down to ground level and moved aside.
“C’mon out of there. Take a second to adjust. Then tell us your name,” Ethan suggested.
The new guy practically fell out of the train car as he glanced around at his new world.
Ethan and I exchanged a knowing glance and gave the new guy plenty of space to experience his ‘you are not in Kansas anymore’ moment. With a planetary ring and six small moons floating far, far over our heads, it was a lot to take in. And that was just the sky. Personally, I was looking forward to what happened when he found out about the vampires and ghouls and shit lurking in the dark corners of this world. Poor dude was gonna freak.
“M-my name’s Todd,” the newcomer announced absently.
“Good to meet ya, Todd,” Ethan said cheerfully. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Any you want to get to first?”
“What is this place?” he asked right out of the gate.
Ethan gestured at me to get my attention, and I took over.
“This here is the Wicked Wasteland. Don’t know who called it that first, but everyone we meet calls it the same thing. It’s a lawless land filled with violence, steam, and desperation. I’ll be up front with you, newcomer, shit can get dark out here. But if you were a fan of westerns in your old life, you’ll probably love it here.”
Todd’s face lit up with a downright feral gleam of excitement.
“So it’s like a western steampunk video game, basically?”
He looked so thrilled I almost felt bad letting him down.
“Uh…not quite.” I said. “More like a–”
Ethan cut in when I struggled to find the right word. “It’s more like hell, to be honest. As soon as we died on Earth we wound up here. A shithole where you can’t trust anyone, strangers are just as likely to shoot you in the face as say hello, and the dead don’t stay dead. Some of them, anyway. It’s a bit complicated.”
