***blows off dust*** I have decided to finally post something I wrote. Please tell me what you guys think. The Scavenger Roland let the butt of his fag fall to the ground. A small cloud of dust went up as it hit. He slowly exhaled the smoke and raised his head to look at the canyon in front of him. His large black sunglasses tinted the vast desertic view with dark brown. « What a hellhole! » he thought. He was standing on the side of Shaman's Canyon, only a few miles away from where lay the Jefferson crater. The place was famous for being the place where the first bombs of the Third World War had fallen. The Third World War, or when humanity decided to shoot itself in the head. After only 6 months of war a truce was signed. The official reason was that terms had been settled but most people whispered that it was because each side was having problems finding anymore soldiers to send to the slaughter-houses that the modern battlefields had become. The War was finished but the Planet would remember it forever. In the first two months of the conflict each faction fired off more than a hundred H-Bombs in different places around the World. The result was the turning of our good old blue and green land into a hunk of rock covered in large deserts and toxicwaters. And humanity in all this? Nearly all those that remained locked themselves up in fortified towns and cities or « Havens » as they prefered to call them. Roland himself preferred calling them « Prisons ». But some people like Roland prefered the open land and spent their time travelling from one Haven to another. They were called the « Scavengers » by the locals because they made a living from searching the old towns for things that the people in the Havens would be ready to pay for. Some people cast a dark eye on Roland's profession but he preferred it to living his life locked up between four reinforced walls as the Haveners did. He pulled off his glasses and looked at the true colors of the ground. He blinked as the wind blew some dust in his direction. – Time to go. He walked to a nearby bush where his horse was waiting for him. He was a beautiful black stallion named « Hallen ». Roland patted the horse's nose when it looked up at him from the bush it was chewing. Roland patted it once more and climbed on to the saddle. He needed to hurry. He was still three hours away from the « Paris 400 Haven » and needed to get there before night fall. It was a well known fact in this area that one did not want to be outside after sunset. With a little tap from Roland's spurs Hallen was off. Slowly the rider and horse trotted through the rust colored canyons. No mark of civilisation was to be seen except the occasional rusting old car. Those old vehicules had become useless due to the fact that petrol was now a luxury and that there were no roads to drive them on. It was in these situations that man rediscovered how practical horses were. These days just about all land travel was made on horseback and Roland did not feel the need to complain. He smiled at the thought and whistled a little tune as he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out another cigarette. It was his last one. Yet another thing he needed to get his hands on when he arrived at Paris 400. He struck a match and lit the fag while taking deep breathes of smoke. His friends always told him smoking so much would kill him. He just laughed and answered that his job would surely kill him first. It was the hard life of a Scavenger, a free life but a short one. But he didn't care. In the state the world was in now life was hardly worth living. He looked up to the sky and spotted two hawks circling him. Roland didn't mind. With the scarce amount of food there was about, the good old birds needed all they could find and a seemingly lost traveler of the desert would surely be a nice snack. Sadly for them, they would miss out this time. * Hallen took a turn in the canyon and came upon a small depression. It was empty except for an old medium sized wooden hut. An old sign was hanging outside, the paint was nearly all chipped off but the word « Bar» that was still legible. Roland pulled on the reins and brought his steed to a halt. He climbed off and walked with the horse up to a nearby bush. You stay here while I go and see if there's anything of interest in there. Roland walked away from Hallen and towards the hut. He stopped on the threshold and looked at the dark interior. He put his hand down againt his leg and clutched the .50 caliber revolver hanging there. He hoped he wouldn't have to use it. Gun powder and bullets were hard commodities to come by. But still... No one can be too careful. After one last gaze at his horse, Roland stepped into the hut. The inside was dark with only a flew streaks of light passing through the dirty windows. The inside wasn't very special. A counter with a few old bottles standing behind it and and some tables and chairs lying around the rest of the room. A door at the back of the room led surely to the larder. Roland walked to the back of the bar. A skeleton lay behind it. It's fingers still clutching a sawn-off shotgun. Roland checked it. It looked in pretty good condition but there weren't any shells loaded. He was about to check the counter for ammo when a noise came from the back of the hut. Roland froze. Maybe he had just dreamed, the ambiance of the place making him imagine things but at that moment there it was again. A small scuffling and scratching sound coming from behind the door at the back of the room. Roland slowly moved to the back of the room, his pistol drawn and pointed to the ground. As he approached the door the sound stopped. Slowly he reached out for the nob. * At that moment the door shattered. Before he even had time to think of what was going on Roland found himself thrown to the other side of the room and his gun tossed aside. He looked up to see what he was up against. There at the otherside of the room eyeing him stood something that had once been human. Its body was irregular and featured difformations of all sorts. Its jaw had seemingly doubled in size and it was gaping at him impatient for it's meal. It was mutant, something bought along by the radiation caused by the war. These cannibalistic abominations were the reason why no one travelled at night for fear of being eaten alive by these creatures. This one had obviously settled itself in the hut and used it as a place to hide from the sun and ambush prey. Roland looked at the creature and the creature looked at him. The predator and the prey. It pounced. Roland avoided it but tripped and fell to the ground. In a second, the beast was on him, trying to bite and scratch him to death. Roland held the snapping jaw of the thing as he reached for his knife. Finally he felt the cold grip of the blade. He pulled it out and stuck it into the shoulder of the creature. It reared up in pain and moved a few steps away, clutching its wound. Roland didn't wait. Rolling away he scrambled for his gun. Just as the mutant prepared to jump again, he pulled up the gun. He fired once, twice and finally a third round. The bullets entered the chest of the beast who after a final roar fell to the ground and remained motionless. - Bloody mutant, growled Roland. It had made him waste three bullets. He quickly examined the rest of the hut. The hideout of the mutant contained nothing more than the remains of its previous meals, none of which were recognisible. The counter contained a few glasses and unopened bottles that he could always sell to some Haveners. Sadly he did not find any shells for the shotgun but finding the gun was always better than nothing. Having packed his loot into a bag he walked out. Hallen was still next to his bush happily munching on some of the grass patches there. The horse looked up when Roland walked out of the hut. He patted it and fixed the bag onto the saddle. He was about to the climb on when he heard another noise coming from the hut. But this time it was not shuffling. It was growling and roaring. A few seconds later the mutant came pouncing out. Charging at Roland. « Don't these things ever give up? » Roland though to himself. Slowly he slid his arm under the rug at the back of the saddle. The mutant was closing in. It was now only a few feet away. As it got close enough it reared up and prepared to strike. In a flash Roland pulled his arm out from under the rug. * The sword he now clutched in his hand slashed a deep gash into the neck of the beast. It fell to the ground clutching the wound and trying to stop the stream of blood that was pouring out. Roland slowly walked up to the dying monster. - You should have given up when you had a chance. he said. After a last flourish he plunged the blade into the head of the beast. After a last twitch it lay motionless. Roland removed his sword from the lifeless creature and wipped the blade on his dustcoat. Hallen had stood there motionless. He had seen his rider do this trick far to often to be disturbed. Roland put his sword away and got onto his steed. He had to hurry he had to get to « Paris 400 » before sunset. If he didn't, he wouldn't have only one of these creatures to worry about... Why had he already smoked that last cigarette!
