Lone Gunfighter of the Wastelands

by Rachel Aukes

  The crowd screamed with pleasure.

  A voice droned over a loudspeaker, and Joe turned to Bobo, who’d paled.

  “Listen, we stand a chance out there if we work together.”

  Bobo seemed to regain his senses and nodded. He seemed to be a fighter, which was exactly what Joe needed. He hoped the two of them would be enough.

  The door to the dance floor opened.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The wall of bars behind Joe and Bobo closed in, forcing the pair into the arena.

  As they entered, the voice on the loudspeakers began.

  “For our next event, we have two participants who are sure to bring you enjoyment. Bobo ‘the Butcher’ Neche ruthlessly killed fourteen MRC soldiers guarding a caravan of supplies meant for orphaned children in the Salt Flats.”

  The crowd booed as Bobo’s image rotated around the large screens. Joe had never known a caravan to deliver supplies to an orphanage. Those caravans delivered supplies to the MRC administrators and their murcs, and no one who really needed them. The speaker sure knew how to spin stories to work a crowd.

  He glanced at Bobo, who was gritting his teeth. “It ain’t true,” the prisoner growled.

  Joe turned back to the audience as the speaker spoke again.

  “Our second participant is Joe Ballast, also known as Havoc the Bounty Hunter, also known as Havoc the Raven. He murdered countless innocents during the Revolution, and later in the Shiprock Riots. Unable to quench his thirst for blood, he became a bounty hunter, taking money to kill anyone without question.”

  The crowd booed even louder as an image of him in his exoshield, covered in blood, ran across the screens. The picture looked like his guild photo, except that it’d been heavily doctored. While he was impressed that the speaker knew he’d served in two wars, they clearly didn’t know about Wilds Rising, which would’ve really got the crowd going.

  The speaker continued. “Havoc was finally caught when he tried to murder an MRC administrator in cold blood in the Midlands earlier this week. He faces justice today on the Devil’s Dance Floor!”

  The crowd cheered.

  “You’re a bounty hunter?”

  Joe turned to see Bobo glaring at him.

  “I’m in here because of one of your buddies,” Bobo spat.

  Joe shook his head. “Don’t listen to them. They’re just trying to rile up the crowd and turn us against each other.”

  From the continued glare on Bobo’s face, the speaker’s words had delivered the desired effect.

  Well, crap.

  The speaker continued when the cheers quelled, “These two convicted murderers will face none other than Wendigo, part man, part polar bear, all wild animal!”

  That announcement really got the crowd going. The ground rumbled beneath Joe’s feet from the applause and foot stomping. He took the moment to scan the ground. The broken wood pike lay nearby. Other tools lay near the edges of the arena, by the cage bars. A hoe was nearest to Joe, and a shovel lay a little farther away.

  He frowned. He was going up against a mutant, and all they provided were old garden tools? He felt naked without his exoshield. Worse, he felt helpless without a decent weapon.

  “The bids for each participant begin at two hundred credits and will be increased in ten-credit increments. The event begins in sixty seconds,” the voice said, and a countdown appeared on the screens.

  Bystanders outside the cage tapped at tablets, and Joe wondered if the Sloan brothers were entering bids at that moment, too. Who was he kidding? Of course they were. They’d probably sent him here just to make money off his death.

  Joe cast another look at Bobo, who was still glaring at him. The guy knew he wasn’t the one who’d captured him, right? Joe turned away, jogged over to the edge of the cage, and picked up the hoe. He felt the weight and swung it a couple of times. The wooden handle seemed sturdy enough, though the metal was rusty and stained with dried blood. He looked around, trying to determine where the mutant—Wendigo—would come from, but he couldn’t tell. There were over a half dozen doors along two sides of the cage. Any one of those doors could be holding back a monster.

  Bobo had picked up a pitchfork, which made Joe slightly jealous. As far as old garden tools went, Bobo had a far better weapon.

  The countdown was at thirty seconds.

  Joe walked to stand in the center of the cage so that if his opponent emerged from any of the four sides, there would be some space between them. Fear gave Joe adrenaline, which he needed, but his muscles were still sore and weak after getting stunned.

  Exoshields weren’t light, so Joe was stronger and faster than many, his body accustomed to carrying the extra weight. Still, he needed that strength and his newfound mobility to make up for the lack of armor. Adjusting to the difference was going to be tough at first.

  His body wanted to fight and move, and he had to force himself to stay calm. He had a feeling he’d need every ounce of energy in a fight for his life. That was assuming they’d let him win, even if he did beat the mutant. For all he knew, they’d gun him down if he survived.

  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  He refused to think like that. Negative thoughts did nothing to win a fight. He needed to focus on his enemy: his strengths, weaknesses, the way he moved, and what was going on inside that head.

  A bell sounded. Joe gave a start. He did a three-sixty, searching for Wendigo, and stopped when he caught the movement of a door sliding upward. Out came…holy cow, the mutant had to bend to make it through the eight-foot high doorway. After he stepped through, he straightened to full height.

  Bobo cursed, and Joe agreed. The crowd cheered and began to chant “Wendigo” over and over.

  Wendigo, the mutant with polar bear DNA, was a monstrosity. They say no man is an island, but this mutant was sure as hell a mountain. He stood naked, though clothes aren’t necessary when you’re covered in white fur. His hands were huge paw-like things with webbed fingers. Instead of fingernails, he had long claws that looked like they’d been dipped in silver.

  He was obese, or at least he looked fat, but Joe suspected that those layers were as much muscle as they were thick, protective hide. He could’ve almost been mistaken for a real polar bear standing on its hind legs—until you saw his face. That was an unfortunate mess of DNA experimentation: The nose was all polar bear on a flat face, with a humanoid mouth full of sharp teeth. His eyes were humanoid, but they bore no humanity as he strode, teeth bared, toward Joe.

  Wendigo’s first steps were like those of a toddler with outstretched arms, walking toward his mother. Then he picked up speed, and what had seemed like clumsy steps became an earth-pounding gallop that thundered like a stampede.

  But it was only one guy, not a herd.

  Joe gripped the hoe and glanced at Bobo. “Get ready.”

  Wendigo ran straight at Joe, since Bobo had moved off to the side. As the mutant closed the distance, Joe realized just how massive he was. He must’ve weighed over eight hundred pounds.

  The mutant barreled toward Joe, a flurry of white fur and spittle like a bloodhound after a scent. Joe stood on the balls of his feet with knees bent, ready. Even at his current speed, Wendigo wasn’t fast, but if he tackled Joe, it’d be game over. Slow: good; heavy: bad. Worse, those claws looked like they could slice through skin, muscle, and bone like cheese.

  As Joe suspected, the Wendigo arced one of his arms back to swing when he was nearly in range. A right-hander. The swipe came just as Joe rolled to the right. As he came to his feet, Joe used his momentum to swing the hoe around. The metal blade struck the mutant’s left shoulder.

  Wendigo gave an inhuman scream and clawed at the hoe. The blade had gone deep enough to stick in the bone. The mutant’s forward momentum yanked the hoe out of Joe’s hands to dangle from Wendigo’s back as he made a slow turn to come back around. Joe eyed the two halves of the wood pike, and started toward it when he caught movement to his right.

  He was too
late.

  A sharp white pain stabbed at his thigh, and Joe fell to a knee. He found Bobo standing over him, sneering and holding the handle of the pitchfork. Three tines of the fork were stuck in Joe’s thigh.

  “Sorry, pal,” Bobo said, his sneer growing to cover his face. “I just needed to slow you down, so I can kill that thing while he’s eating you. Good plan, huh?”

  Joe grabbed hold of the pitchfork. “That’s a lousy plan,” he gritted out.

  Bobo went to pull the pitchfork out, but Joe held it firm. Every tug was agony, but he held on. Bobo’s sneer fell as his eyes grew wide.

  Joe glanced to see Wendigo within swinging distance, though the mutant’s confidence seemed shaken by the hoe hanging out of his back. Joe put all his strength into holding onto the pitchfork while rolling away from Bobo. The tines in his flesh tore deeper, and Joe cried out, but he held on. Bobo hadn’t expected that, and in the end, Joe tore the pitchfork from the man’s hands. He’d also rolled out of Wendigo’s direct path, leaving Bobo in his place. Bobo, with no weapon of his own, made fists and threw a punch. It was like punching a tree.

  Joe would’ve laughed if he wasn’t in so much pain. He pulled the pitchfork out, grunting as he did so. One tine broke off, remaining in his thigh. Blood trickled from that wound, while it ran in streams from the other two. He blamed himself for having tunnel vision on the greater risk—that being Wendigo—and not considering the secondary risk of Bobo being a fool, because only a fool would get into a fistfight with a mutant.

  If Bobo had wanted Wendigo’s complete attention with that punch, he’d gotten his wish. The creature roared and swung with a closed fist—or paw, rather—sending Bobo flying several feet. That the mutant hadn’t swung out with his claws, instead mirroring Bobo’s punch, meant Wendigo was either not very bright—mimicking the actions of his prey—or that he liked to draw out the fight to have as much fun as possible. That Wendigo had swung first at Joe, in what likely would’ve been a killing blow, making Joe suspect that the mutant was running off pure instinct, with little activity going on upstairs in that brainpan of his.

  The mutant set about walloping on Bobo, punch after punch. By the third punch, Bobo was done for, but Wendigo hadn’t seemed to figure it out yet.

  “Wendigo has defeated Bobo ‘the Butcher’ Neche in one minute and twelve seconds. Justice has been served,” the voice over the loudspeaker announced.

  The crowd cheered.

  Joe was bleeding strength fast, which meant he had to finish this fight even faster. He swallowed and pushed himself to his feet, using the pitchfork for support. The pain narrowed his vision, and he favored his left leg.

  He took in a deep breath and yelled. “Hey you!”

  Wendigo’s head whipped around to Joe.

  “Yeah you! I was wondering, do you like penguins?” Joe asked.

  Wendigo frowned, confused by the question. After a moment, he stood and turned toward Joe, his left arm hanging limply. He let out another roar and charged.

  Joe readied himself.

  This was going to hurt.

  Like before, Wendigo pulled back his arm to swing. Joe waited until the last moment, till the mutant began his downswing, and fell to his knees. At the same time, he planted the pitchfork handle against the ground and angled the tines toward Wendigo. With Wendigo’s size, he couldn’t stop, let alone slow, in time, and he ran straight into the pitchfork. The tines pierced his stomach while Joe rolled away, narrowly missing being tackled.

  The crowd gasped, but their cheers and goading quickly resumed. Screeching, Wendigo pulled the pitchfork out of his stomach and dropped it. He howled in pain. He struggled to his feet just as Joe was struggling to stay standing.

  Joe eyed the pitchfork, the nearest weapon, but it was inches from the mutant’s feet. Not the easiest spot to get to at that moment. Wendigo followed Joe’s gaze, snarled, then stomped the pitchfork into the ground with a single smash. He bellowed in rage, pounded his chest Tarzan-style, and ran at Joe.

  Joe ducked to the left, but this time Wendigo’s claw connected. Pain seared Joe’s right shoulder, which he ignored to pivot behind the mutant. Joe grabbed the handle of the hoe still embedded in Wendigo’s back. He yanked. It didn’t budge. Well, that didn’t work as planned. He yanked again, but Wendigo was already turning, swinging as he did so.

  Joe lunged back to escape being shredded. He spun on his good leg and ran, or at least tried to. It was more like a slow jog. Every movement fed agony upward from his left thigh. He clutched a hand to the wounds, but it did nothing to stem the pain. Wetness ran down his right arm, and he knew his shoulder had been sliced, but that pain was far overshadowed by his injured leg.

  Joe had no weapons, and could hear Wendigo gaining on him over the crowd’s wild cheering. Joe tried to go faster, but his leg was responding less and less to his commands. That was when he saw a handle in the dirt twenty feet ahead.

  He glanced over his shoulder to find Wendigo closer than he’d realized. He ducked to avoid a vicious swing and by some miracle discovered more speed. He limp-jogged with the injured mutant on his heels. To the spectators, they likely looked like they were racing in slow motion.

  The handle was attached to a spade, as rusty and abused as the rest of the implements. Joe bent for it, grabbed the handle, and swung the shovel with all of his strength. The wide arc brought power to his swing, and the flat back of the metal spade connected squarely with Wendigo’s nose.

  The mutant stumbled and fell back. Wendigo was as big as the Titanic was rumored to have been in Joe’s mind, so when he went down, he went down for good. Joe rushed around the beast to stand at Wendigo’s head. The mutant was cupping his face. Joe raised the handle high. “I’m one to call a spade a spade,” he muttered as he brought the shovel down in a vertical descent to the mutant’s throat. Even rusty, with the weight Joe put behind the thrust, the edge sliced through the soft tissue.

  The crowd fell silent as though the world had suddenly gone deaf.

  Wendigo’s hands flew to his throat, and his eyes grew wide as he struggled to find the breath that he’d never be able to find again. He looked young in the face, far too young, and Joe knew that Wendigo was as much a victim of the Devil’s Playground as he was.

  “Joe Ballast has defeated Wendigo in five minutes and twenty-nine seconds. See your personal concierge for payouts,” the announcer said after a moment’s delay.

  Rage rose like bile in Joe’s gut. He swung the spade and flung it at the cage. Metal clanged against metal. The nearby onlookers cowered.

  Someone yelled for Joe’s head. Soon, the entire crowd joined in on a bloodthirsty chant.

  Joe bared his teeth at the crowd. He wanted to do more, but he was struggling to stay on his feet. He turned away, only to see murcs running toward him, all holding blasters.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Nick Swinton stared at the door just like he’d stared at it for the past three days. The hideaway he shared with Romy was small and stuffy, and the bucket they used for a toilet stank. Champ was as antsy as he was, whining as she paced the room. She still limped from the blaster burn that had singed her fur, but from what Nick could tell, it looked like she only had a bad sunburn on her leg.

  “It’s been three days,” Nick said.

  Romy looked up from the tablet she held. “It’s been almost three days. You told me that your mom told you to wait three days in the shelter before leaving.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, but she just made up that number in her head. I bet it’s safe to leave.”

  “How do you know it’s safe?” she asked.

  He thought for a moment. “I’ll find out. Stay here. I’m going to check out the house.”

  She jumped to her feet. “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you should stay here until I know it’s safe.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Why? Because I’m a girl?”

  “No. Because it’s my house, and I know all the hiding spots. Sheesh.”
<
br />   He looked down at Champ, and then at Romy, before he turned back to the door. He took a deep breath and opened it. He peeked his head out and took another breath, this time of the cooler, fresher air of the tunnel. When he saw and heard nothing, he stepped out. Champ bounded out around him.

  “Champ,” he whispered, but she was already a dozen feet ahead of him and relieving herself near the wall.

  Nick walked into the tunnel, and Romy came out to stand next to him. They looked at each other before moving together down the tunnel toward his home. Champ took the lead, and since she didn’t seem the least bit worried, Nick felt confident no one else was in the underground passageway. Champ ran up to the sub-door to his house and waited.

  Nick bent down. “Okay, Champ. When I open this door, I need you to check out the place. Got it?”

  She cocked her head as he spoke, but that was the closest to an agreement he received from her. He shot another glance at Romy, who looked as scared as he felt, then he entered his code. The door opened and Nick jumped, even though he’d expected it.

  Champ ran into the house and moved erratically through the rooms, sniffing every piece of furniture. Her fur never bristled, and her tail wagged, even as she checked out the upstairs. Nick took that as her “all clear” sign.

  “It’s clear,” he said, as much for his own benefit as for Romy’s.

  Romy continued her light pace through the house as she checked every closet and under the furniture. She paused at Joe’s exoshield, then went about carefully stacking it in a pile.