Tales of the Wasteland

Honey part:1

 

Life is too hard. I spend my days working in the hot blistering sun on old man's Subbon's farm harvesting his ripple berries and fuddo sticks which are apparently from the corn family but i have seen a picture of corn and it doesn't look anything like it; fuddo sticks are brown with a gewy middle and a black outside, people just call them fuddo sticks because they look like logs. They taste alright though. I grew up eating it and my gran-mamea gave me the recipes for her famous fuddo sticks stew with rodent meat and I cook it often. Gran-mamea was always good like that. She made the best things and she did so much in her life, she raised my mother and her four sisters on her own while running a trade 'n' snatch poste which was basically a post with a little shop and there house where travellers could rest, trade or work, no one ever snatched anything though cos gran-mamea would make sure that they knew that she had a sawn off shotgun under the counter loaded and ready. She would tell me the stories of the different travellers that would come to trade and rest at the post.But that was when i was only a child.  When I reached the age of eighteen gran-mamea had passed on and my family moved to Westwide which is a small town that rests alongside a river. Apparently we live in the state New York but i can't be sure if it a rumour or if it is true. I have never been into the city or remotely close to it because with the Mutiees, which are mutated humans that a freakishly tall and bulk they hate humans and kill any human that is in view. They usually make their own weapons out of rubble that is near their camps but I heard at the inn bar the other day about some guy who had been taken prisoner and kept at their camp that they have a full on shop with weapons such as guns, ammunition and food. He also spoke about them being pretty brutal but he admitted that some of the mutiees were alright and took care of him. A lot of people that were listening to this man called bullshit pretty early because we all know that everyone that gets dragged away by mutiees are never seen again. This poor man though I could tell the way his facial expressions were that it was sincere.

I lay on my rusty old squeaky bed wondering why I was named Honey. It’s not like I’ve ever had honey because bees have been extinct for years and now a myth. And my hair isn’t blond its red, really, really red; not like the ginger red like the actual colour red. Dad reckons it’s because mum ate too much cherry apples when she was pregnant.“I beg to differ father.” I said to him.                                                             “You’re an in denial Honey.” He would yell back from the kitchen. I would shake my head and go back to my book. Life seemed simpler back when I was young but now I’m here in my old, dirty, rusty meatal hut that is only five meters by seven meters but it sits in the middle of town so it is safe. The houses that sit on the outskirts of the town get broken into and the tenant’s get either murder by raiders if not robbed of everything they have, forcing them to sell their house for anything and every time it happens the price goes down and a lot of the time they can’t buy anything and end up homeless.

I have little money so I work from 5-8, dawn to dark, and my dream is to escape this small rundown town and explore the country, go to the city, just get out. But to do that I need to have money to buy some good body armour and a gun and water and food and everything else. I need equipment to survive because when you go out there everything can kill you. Radiation is a big way to die because a lot of the places are still highly radioactive and if you get too much exposure, well, let’s say you don’t live longer than fifteen minutes. So to cut a long story short I’m stuck here in this little town with only my friend Sabina. My parents moved a few towns over and they run a purification water plant and my brother joined an outlaw group and I only see him once a year on my birthday but he has to send me a letter saying where to meet him and what time, it is usually around 2am we meet. He has to stay out of the sight of the law or else he will be arrested and executed or sold to the givers which are basically slavers who buy people for slaves. I make sure that I keep it to myself and tell no soul, not even my parents. The only good that would do would put him in prison. My parents don’t approve of his life choices but I honestly don’t mind it, as long as he swears that we he would not kill innocent or helpless people. I long to see him again. My birthday is a few months away and I’m still awaiting his letter. I miss his sweet diamond eyes and strong manly voice. No matter how tough he is he has a sweet nature and I believe he will soon wake up from this fantasy he is living in.

The next week I was out at the market looking to treat myself to something special. I was speaking to Hayden Winters who runs a little stall in the middle of town selling little steel knick-knacks shaped like anything you request. He is around the same age as me, a little older I think but he is kind. He leans against the post of his stall as we talk, he sucks on a cigarette butt and then blows out little rigs. The smell of them shows that they are out of date and are almost sickening but I ignore it and continue talking. “Well I get paid a few pins a day and whatever I harvest for the day I get to keep almost half. So it’s alright I guess. I can trade you some Fuddo sticks for a necklace with a deer pendant.”

He nods. And then drops his cigarette and kicks dirt on it and smiles, his sun kissed skin and thick dark hair are the main features of his face, so are his dark eyes but he has a scar up by his eye and although it doesn’t make him look ugly it distracts me every time because he wouldn’t tell me how he got it even though we are good friends and talk whenever I can.  I have even offered to help him run the stall but he declines every time. “How about. You and I go have dinner and I’ll give it to you for free?”

I laugh. He has been begging me for months to go to dinner with him but there is nowhere in town that is good and well people will talk. Hayden is known as the town’s beauty and if anyone sees us together after closing time they would assume were sleeping together and I don’t want that. It’s awkward. “Well. I have enough for a drink but that’s all.”

A cheeky smile arises on his face “I can do that. Now scram!”  I laugh and walk away.                                                                                                                                  When I reach the end of the market I’m pulled by my waist into the ally way that is between the inn and the hospital with a clammy palm over my mouth. I struggle for my knife as I’m being dragged further down the alleyway trying to scream but can’t. The first thing that comes to mind is raiders. They are feral and among the killing, robbing and torturing, they also enjoy raping and I’m now fearful. We get behind the hospital and I’m realised. I stand there puffing for a second and then reach for my knife in my boot and turn around about to stab the person but there hand grips mine and over powers me. I look up and I just want to scream out in rage.