RULE #5

Bullets are life. Don’t waste them and don’t be stingy with them when you need to gun and run.

~ The Scavenger’s Handbook

Grey was impressed and a little worried that Cake’s makeshift bomb actually worked. At first, he was afraid that it might explode in his hands before he could throw it at the building where that bastard Oats was hiding. By no means did the flimsily connected wires jutting out of the ruptured spray paint can inspired any confidence. However, by the time the old son of a bitch finished speaking, Grey was too far gone to think about the consequences. All he wanted was to gut Oats like a pig.

The explosion from the makeshift bomb still echoed through the street, when Grey jumped out of the cover of the fallen piece of wall. He had a rough idea where the old man was, so he released a couple of shots in that general direction. Knowing how that bastard thinks, he was certain that this would buy him a few precious moments to slide to the nearby car. Well, things went almost according to how the experienced Scavenger thought they would. What he didn’t expect was that the entire façade of the building across the street would crumble in a thick cloud of dust. Either the bomb Cake had made was far more powerful than he thought, or the building was less sturdy than Oats believed when he chose is at the point from which to launch his ambush.

In addition, the bloody tourists thought it a great idea to pepper the bastard and his grandsons with their laser rifles. Not a bad idea in theory, however, theory didn’t account for shit out in the ruins proper. All they managed to achieve was to let everyone know where they had taken positions. The shots of their weapons left a nice clear line directly to each of the pretend soldiers as they passed through the cloud of dust and debris. At least they would make a nice distraction.

“Cake!” Grey shouted, realising too late that he hadn’t seen her escape the path of the falling wall.

“Still here!” Her angry voice came from further to his right accompanied by the telling bark of her rifle. “Can’t see shit!”

A second later a steady stream of sharp cracks answered her, as Oats boys returned fire. It was hard for Grey to tell what they were aiming at, but the lack of impacts near him made him confident that he wasn’t their target. That changed the moment he heard Oats’ crooked voice.

“Shoot Grey first! You can finish the tourists later! He’s the dangerous one!”

“Which one’s Grey, Pa?” The answer came in the form of a rasping cough. “Damn it, Pa. I’s as blind as a shrimpy-hound. Can’t see a damn thing ‘cause of this here dust…”

Good, the veteran Scavenger though. The more they talked, the better idea he had of where they were hiding. As a bonus, it turned out that Oats was telling the truth. The brats were as dumb as a rock. In just a few words they had revealed more than Grey could’ve hoped for. Most important of all was the knowledge that none of them had any form of a protective mask or even a simple rebreather. A plan formed in the Scavenger’s head.

“Cake! Do you remember the first time we went in the metro?”

“Of course!” The girl’s response came in between short bursts of fire. “It was so much fun, too bad I couldn’t… OH!” Grey’s heart skipped a beat as Cake spoke.

“Good,” he shouted back at her biting back the curses dangling at the tip of his tongue. “Can you get to Joshua and warn him?”

“You want me to risk my life for that snivelling idiot?!” To emphasise her frustration, the girl let out a long burst, that was the only reason he could think of which would explain her actions.

“No for him, you idiot! For me!” Grey tightened his grip on his own weapon, feeling the precious seconds tick. He didn’t have much time to spare. He had to act before the dust cloud settled. “Can you do it or not?”

“Shit! Fuck! Damn it! Cake’s always the last one on his mind… Fine!” Her response reminded him that he should really address her constant swearing, right after the talking-to-herself part.

Still, Grey had received the answer he wanted. Soundlessly wording a short prayer. He rushed into the thick dust. The world around him slowed as the adrenalin kicked in and he had to push back the fear that Oats could hear his thundering footsteps. The sound of a bullet colliding with the car where he used to be didn’t help at all. If he had to venture a guess, he would bet that it was the doing of that ancient relic of a man. Oats was many things, but Grey had been honest when he called him a tough bastard. The bloody man was a survivor. Almost seventy years old, he was still alive and moving on his own. Not only that, but he was taking pot shots at Grey and only missing due to luck. Still, the bastard should’ve walked away. Not that that would stop the veteran Scavenger from hunting him down like a rabid dog. After all, a man’s word was a sacred thing, and Oats had given him his word that he would die before allowing anything to happen to Milk.

With such thoughts running through his mind, Grey entered the building. The inside was far more decrepit than he had imagined. Rusty rebars instead of walls, half-collapsed support columns, expansive holes in the sealing with some going through the floors to the very top of the structure. And everything was covered in a thick layer of soot from what had to be a devastating fire. It was a miracle that the entire residential block hadn’t collapsed on its own by now. No wonder Cake’s makeshift bomb had wrought so much damage. It took Grey a moment to locate the nearest staircase through which he could reach the second floor. The visibility was poor and he could feel the abused structure shake underneath his boot. However, despite every instinct in his body telling him to be careful and slow down, he moved as fast as he could.

As an afterthought, Grey released the straps of his backpack and let it drop from his shoulders. The damn thing was slowing him down and would only get in his way once he reached his target. Just a few more steps and he would be on the same floor as Oats. For a moment Grey wondered if Cake had found Joshua and if the damn tourist would listen to her to fire at the walls of the building instead. The last thing he wanted was to be shot by them. He wanted to add on accident, but something told him that if the pretend-soldiers did shoot at him, it would be quite intentional.

Grey pressed his back against the wall separating the staircase from the corridor of the second floor and quickly peeked through the doorframe. Just as he expected – more burned apartments. The people of the past must have loved mazes with a bloody passion. How the hell was he supposed to find where Oats was hiding? Grey couldn’t start searching room by room.

“Grey, son? Did I’s kill you?” The ancient bastard chose the best moment to try to bait him out. Grey could almost kiss him for this. “You’s got’a tell me if you’s dead? It’s the polite thing to do.”

Oats’ accursed cough echoed through the floor, as Grey made his way towards the far-end apartment.

“Come on, my boy. Don’t be like this. The fact that we’s hate each other, doesn’t mean we should forget our manners.” Grey stopped at the opening leading into the apartment and not a moment too late. The dust was settling fast and he was not in the mood for a fair fight.

“Pa! Why’s you shouting? Them tourists stopped shootin’ at us…” One of Oats’ boys yelled from the floor above.

“You keep your mouth shut when you’s speakin’ to me, Lettice! You got that!” The old bastard then added in a quieter voice which Grey heard from the next room. “Can’t see a damn thing ‘cause of this fuckin’ dust.” Then in a louder voice, he added. “Egg, you breathin’ son?”

“Yes, Pa,” the answer carried with it a hint of pain. “Only nicked me leg, but I stopped the bleedin’ like you’s taught me.”

“Good boy. Hey, Egg, you still have that Shrieker with you I’s gave you back when.”

“Of course, Pa!”

“Good, good. Bacon, Lettice! Go slice them lot up, even if they’s dead! Can’t be too careful.”

A single wall separated Oats and Grey now. The few seconds it had taken the experienced Scavenger to move closer, were some of the longest in his life. He flexed his wounded wrist in an attempt to shake off some of the stiffness in it and placed his finger on the trigger. Taking a deep breath, Grey stepped into the next room coming face to face with the ancient man. That was when a sound he had hoped to never hear again split the air. Half a second later the floor shook as a series of explosions shook the entire complex. Those idiots had a cluster-rocket launcher.

“Cake!” Grey shouted as the image of his adopted daughter’s mangled corpse filled his vision.

That single moment of hesitation was all Oats needed. With a savage scream, the relic of a man barrelled into Grey. On instinct, the experienced Scavenger, rolled back, using his opponent’s momentum to throw him into and through the wall. Curse the old bastard, but there was far too much life left in him. Most of all, Grey wanted to curse himself for taking this long and then missing the one chance to end him quickly. However, the usual self-loathing he felt whenever he screwed up was replaced by cold anger. All this time, Grey was simply going to kill Oats. Nice and clean. Out of necessity, sure, but mostly to honour Milk’s last wish, that should it come to it, her parent didn’t suffer.

“What’ya waitin’ for, son?” Oats barked, as he stood up with a groan. A long and very abused knife firmly gripped in his left hand. “Afraid I’m gonna cut you? Thought you was more of a man than that.”

“No,” Grey’s voice was barely above a whisper. In one fluid motion, the Scavenger pulled up his rifle and put a bullet through Oats’ right knee. “I didn’t want to miss.”

Another press of the trigger followed by a fresh scream of agony, as the round shattered Outs’ left clavicle. And another one, this time through his gut. One more after that, this time through the bastard’s left hip. Ever so slowly, the sounds of extreme pain were turning into the sweetest melody Gey had heard. All he had to do so that it would be perfect, was to tune it a little more. Just one more shot mixed with an insult as the Scavenger aimed the weapon and fired it into the ancient man’s ass.

“Under other circumstances, I would have skinned you alive,” Grey spoke in a cold voice, malice coating each word like rust. “I’d have fed it to you one piece at a time.” It was the honest truth, but he wasn’t one to break his word. Although not exactly as promised, he was going to honour his deal with Milk, after a fashion.

“Fuck… You…” The laboured words came out while Oats went into shock. It wouldn’t be long before death claimed him and Grey was sorry that he would miss the moment life left his eyes.

“Pa!” The shout came from the adjacent room and a second later a large man stepped into the open doorframe. “I heard gun–“ There might have been more the disfigured boy wished to say, however, no one would ever know.

Three rounds into Egg's torso ended his life. But just to be sure, Grey put an extra bullet through the poor excuse of a human’s misshapen skull. It was hard for him to believe that this thing was Milk’s child. Three-Scars wasn’t a looker, as far as Grey could recall her lover, but he was unmistakably human. But that was the thing about the Exiled Families, they were more than happy to twist the truth if it suited them. Quickly, the Scavenger had realised that Oats was trying to manipulate him, all those years ago. All he and the other heads of the Families wanted was to get their hands on the weapons in the large armoury located under the Circus of Rust.

Grey stopped to pick up his backpack. He knew that he should hurry to Cake’s side, but each step brought with it dread of what he might find. For years, he believed that he had destroyed every last one of the cluster-rocket launchers, along with the other dreadful weapons within the armoury. Grey had seen first-hand what they did to a person’s body, who was unlucky enough to be caught in its effective range. Seeing his adopted daughter torn apart, cursed with a slow death as a living corpse, was too much for him to bear.

Stepping into the street was like entering a new world. A place he had never seen before. The shredded husk of vehicles chocked the air with dark smoke. Dust and concrete dust flowed like fog between the lines of tall buildings. Debris the size of train carts obscured the street, making it impossible to tell where one structure began and where it ended. But the scariest of all was the quiet. There was no sound, no screams of pain, no shouts for help.

In a daze, Grey crossed the hellish scene and stopped at the large hole blasted into the building where the tourists had sought shelter. The anger and fury he felt a moment ago were no more. In its place was an empty void which threatened to consume him. It drained his strength and will and rooted his feet to the ground. All it would take was a single step and he would know for sure. But Grey couldn’t take that step.

He wanted to run away, pretend that everything was fine. That nothing had happened. A part of him expected Cake to jump out from behind him and proclaim that this was all one of her so-called pranks. She would say how sorry she was, before jumping to embrace him. That was how it was. How it should be. It was the only reason he hadn’t answered the call of the ruins. Why he had lingered in these parts when his soul demanded that he dive into the unknown. However, another part reminded him that he wished, no, desired to share this feeling with Cake.

“The least you can do is give her a proper burial, you heartless bastard,” Grey chastised himself. “Pull yourself together. There’s two more of the fuckers.”

The sparks of anger resurfaced, but all they did was give him the strength to step inside what used to be some sort of a spacious shop. Everything of value had been looted a long time ago, of course, and if there was anything that remained it used to be bolted to the floor. However, the cluster-rocket had seen to that, rearranging counter tops, deforming rusted metal tables and outright evaporating broken plastic chairs. Only thick black spots of smouldering polymers indicated where the latter might have been. It didn’t help that the contents of the upper two or three floors were currently occupying the same space.

Here and there, Gey could spot the white from the armour of Axion’s pretend soldiers. But if any of them were alive, or if those pieces belonged to the same person was something he couldn’t care about. All he wanted, all he feared, was that any moment now, he would see the mangled body of a single girl amidst all the chaos and debris. A gurgling cough caught his attention, and Grey turned his head, his hopes blossoming like the flowers of the acid thorn after one of the rare snow showers. Only to come rushing down when he recognised it was one of Oats’ boys, clutching his throat in a futile attempt to stop his cursed blood from escaping the bullet-size hole there. Almost as an afterthought, Grey put the thing out of its misery, too numb to torture the boy in a wasted effort to give voice to the pain he was feeling at this moment. The sound of his rifle rang louder in his ears than the previous explosions. It felt almost like a sacrilege to disturb the quiet of this place, alas, Grey couldn’t allow such filth to spoil Cake’s last resting place.

“I’ve got plenty of bullets left, asshole.” Yes, that sounded like something Cake would say…

As if struck, Grey took a step back, franticly turning his head left and right. It wasn’t his imagination, that was Cake’s voice. There! By the far wall, slunk between a pair of broken counters, he saw the girl. She was alive; however, it was early to celebrate. Forgetting everything else, Grey rushed towards her.

“Cake! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Of course, she was hurt, that was a stupid question to ask. Even from a few steps away, he could see the nasty on her forehead. But right now, he was acting more like a worried parent than anything else.

“Grey! You came for me!” She made to stand up, only to slide back down. “Uhm… Grey… I don’t like having things stuck into me,” the girl gave him a weak smile as she tried to move her left arm pointing to the piece of steel having impaled the forearm.

“No one does, sweety,” Grey whispered, as he placed both his hands around her face and pressed his forehead against hers, feeling the warmth through his gas mask.

“I don’t get it…That’s not what Missy said when I visited her last week…” She began to argue with him while he examined the wound.

He wasn’t a proper doctor, but as a Scavenger with some years behind his back, Grey could tell that the piece of steel had gone cleanly through the muscle. He could deal with that, once they made it a remotely safe place. All the noise must have attracted unwanted attention.

“Why were you at Missy’s?” He asked as he began to examine the girl for any other wounds.

“Because…” Cake closed her mouth and flinched as Grey touched the back of her head, letting out a quiet hiss. “Ouch!”

“Go on,” he urged her to speak while pulling her head down gently so that he could get a proper look. The Scavenger let out a sigh of relief at the sight of a small gash splitting her hair, nothing that some instant glue couldn’t solve.

“Uhm… Missy told me that if you asked, I should tell you it was woman’s troubles…”

Woman’s troubles? That didn’t sound right, unless… Menstruation, you idiot! Grey wanted to smack himself for being this dense. Of course, Cake would go to Véi Dron’s doctor for woman’s troubles. She was a teenager after all and he wasn’t the girl’s mother to explain all the changes that came with that. But still, using such a childish term was odd. She should be used to it by now. Unless it was the first time it had ever happened. That was a warring thought. Grey wasn’t an expert, but for her period to start this late, didn’t sound like a normal thing. Or it could be completely normal, considering that although appearing human, Cake was a mutant. There was no telling how different she was compared to normal women.

“Fine. So, what did Missy say about sticking things into people?” He asked, helping Cake stand up.

“Well… Man, I’m gonna throw up,” the girl heaved a few times in his arms, showings signs of a concussion. “She told me that it’s been a long time since someone stick it in her while poking me with her needles. And that she wouldn’t mind it at all if you were the one doing the sticking.”

“For the love of…!” Grey nearly dropped Cake who was leaning into him for support.

“Hey!” He caught the girl before she fell to the ground. “What’s wrong with you? I’m in pain here! Anyway, you’ve always told me to do as she tells me, but you and I agree that it’s not a good thing…”

“I’ll explain it later, Cake,” preferable after he was dead. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Not to mention that Grey had absolutely no idea where to begin explaining in a way that would make sense. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Uhm, Grey?” Cake stopped and pointed to her right. “What about them?”

He had missed the three Axion brats huddled like scared children behind one of the counters. They were in bad shape, battered and bloody, but at least they were alive. Something that couldn’t be said about the other three that had entered Sector 6 along with them. It was then that the Scavenger realised that a part of him had hoped that all the pretend-soldiers had died in the blast.

“How did you survive?” Grey directed his question at Cake, surprised that there was anything left of the tourist at all.

“We were on the upper floor when the whole place went boom!” She slapped her uninjured hand against her thigh imitating the sound of the cluster-rocket.

“You lot!” He barked at the brats and for the thousandth time since accepting their offer, he regrated giving them his word that he would take them to Sector 7. “Move or get left behind.”