The Wastes (Teaser)
Here is the very begenning of the story I have decided to begin writing. About halfway through I realized that it looks dangerously close to being a Fallout Fanfic, but it stops being so similar when the story starts to pick up, so I left it as is.
I've posted this here to see if anybody thinks i should carry on with it, or try a different idea. Please comment and let me know what you think! If I get some posative feedback, I'll keep up with it.
Thanks!
The gunslinger walked placidly along his way, head down, deep in some form of thought. His boots crunched the gavel with each step, creating a sound that beat softly against the ear, pumping slowly into the mind like a pulsing rhythm, heard form far away. The gunslinger had been taking in this sound for the majority of his walk, not taking much time to think. At times like this, he never dared think. This particular drifter has found over the years that if you plan to do something in any way unkind, then you shouldn't think on it too long, lest you goad yourself into turning around.
He walked with a slow authority. His hands thrust deep into the pockets of his buckskin duster, hat pulled down tight over his brow, and back hunched. Slung low on his hip you could see the gleam of polished steel on either side, and an observer would have caught the occasional glimpse of a sandalwood revolver grip when the wind caught his duster. His tail, which was a mess of matted orange fur and dirt, drifted lazily from left to right behind his boots, switching the direction of its unchecked swing every two or three steps. From the side of his hat poked a black and orange ear, protruding from a hole he had cut into the flimsy wide-brim gallon hat for comfort.
Not many of the muties came out looking as close to human as he did these days. After the war, and the bombs fell, mutations among children spread like wild fire, and now (after about 100 years of breeding.) these birth defects had become commonplace. Humans would simply come out looking like animals sometimes, and that was that. Unfortunately, this is not always a "giggles and rainbows" ordeal. This drifter was, in fact, one of the lucky ones. He would never forget the sight of his mother, or his sister, who had been born with patches of rough fur and her guts on the outside of her body. Most muties were none too fine to look at. However, this particular individual came right from the womb clean as a whistle and fit as a fiddle, with nary a defect to be found (Obviously disregarding the fur, tail, ears, snout, and other vulpine characteristics.). He was just swell and normal, as far as muties went.
Now, after 30 years of trudging the New Mexico wasteland, this wanderer was looking a little less fine. At first glance, you wouldn't really noticed how the years had treated him, save for the usual dirt and dust, but one dead giveaway was his ear. Only one poked from the left side of his wide-brim hat. The other was long gone and forgotten. Oh sure, the actual HOLE was still there, but the "dish" part had been blown away long ago, and now it's only trace is the empty rip on its side of the gunslinger's hat.
He continued his march, and tilted his head up to sample the air with his keenly tuned nose. He could smell them better now. Two men, and some form of pack mule, probably mutated. He quickened his pace and then he saw them as he crested a hill. Far down on the cracked and battered remains of I-25 were two men and an animal that looked as if it was distantly related to a dog, but had now grown bulbous and grotesque from its irradiated mutations. On the animals back were several large saddle bags and a blanket. These were the men the gunslinger was after.
He stuffed his hands even deeper into his pockets and continued along the old highway toward the wasteland merchants. He didn't want to have to do this, but times were hard, and as the litany goes: Desperate times call for desperate measures. When he reached the merchant and his bodyguard, he mumbled a gruff salutation as he passed. When he was parallel to the bodyguard himself, he drew back his duster slowly and revealed the large steel revolver hidden beneath. The bodyguard noted this action (Correctly) as a threat, and began to unsling an old pre-war machine gun from his back. Unfortunately, the gunslinger was faster by far. His hands were a blur as he drew the revolver from his left hip and fired three times, fanning his hand against the hammer of the gun for quicker shots. The bodyguard uttered a short cry of shock, and fell back off of the road, coaxing up a large cloud of dust and sand around him. Then, he lay still.
The gunslinger turned and pointed the long barrel of the six-shooter at the merchant before he could have a chance to draw his own weapon and swapped the revolver over to his right hand.
"Not a twitch from you." said the gunslinger in a low, coarse voice. The merchant made only enough movement to unbuckle his gun belt and the 9mm pistol that was slung in it fall to the ground. The gunslinger then proceeded to sort through the contents of the dog-thing's saddle bags for anything he could make use of. In the bags were several types of narcotics (A real rage now that law couldn't protect them.), medicines, some scraps of wrapped deer meat and other mutant flesh, and four boxes of .357 magnum ammunition. The drifter took the ammo, meat, and all but a few of the drugs, and stuffed it all into the courier bag that he kept strapped below his duster. He then turned to the merchant again and spoke:
"What ye got on yer person, son? Any money? If so, then hand it on here." To this the merchant hastily pulled the contents of his pockets out, spilling about 240 dollars worth of Old Coins and Old Bills. The gunslinger was shocked to see such antique currency around such a dried out place as this, but took it all the same.
That much done, the drifter then drew out a morphine hypo needle and a chemical powder that had become known around the wastes as "Fix-up", which promoted very fast wound knitting and healing, from his courier bag. He tossed both the hypo needle and the bag of powder to the merchant.
The merchant, surprised at this "charity", said "What's this for, then?"
"For your foot." Replied the gunslinger, still pointing his weapon in the merchant's general direction.
"But my foot's fi-" The merchant began, but his comment was cut short when the drifter's six-shooter roared a shot and a neat hole was blown into the merchant's left shoe. The merchant fell to the ground, clutching his injured limb and howling in pain. The gunslinger then continued his slow walk along the remains of I-25, confident that the merchant wouldn't be following.
By the time the Fix-Up had fully restored his foot, the gunslinger was long gone.