Patastrophe

The Red Army Is the Strongest

In the morning, I plugged to phone into the pack which had been charged just enough to get the phone's juice up to half and continued following the trail of many footsteps and skid marks, possibly of other people being dragged around. After a five kilometers, I found a red, dusty truck which was lying on its side, the hinges that once probably held its doors rusted away along with the interior of it. The back of the truck appeared to have been secured with strips of animal leather and metal. I took a couple pictures of it and the items scattered around it, moving on after doing so. The folk I was looking for appeared on the horizon after another couple hours of walking. I checked how many shots the pistol that the old lady had discarded had: six. I walked closer to the folk so that I was able to hear the sounds of light machinery and construction before I took out the pistol again and shot it to the ground once.

All the figures I was able to see turned their heads in a couple seconds' notice like any smart person. I grabbed a large scrap of metal and slammed another one of the like into it.

Wham – Not on offensive cause.

I paused.

Wham – Armed with guns.

One of the figures waved his hands at me with what resembled a shield and a hammer at hand and slammed the hammer into the shield.

Wham Wham – Not armed with guns.

I walked over as they watched me and I saw a couple guys wrinkle their noses once I got close enough for them to see my features and vice versa. There were seven of those in sight – four girls and three boys. The guy who'd made the whams walked over to me and grinned, not a grin you'd want to see every day.

"Well folks, looks like we got another one for us!" The other boys and a girl went back to their jobs.

One of the girls -Slick, black hair, large blue eyes and a very pronounced nose- took in my sight from face to feet.

"She would fit in the dark well." she sneered.

The other girl watching us laughed like a poorly-oiled catapult. "Might as well put her there."

"C'mon, you know how mad Tint gets when you bring that up." the boy tried to defend.

The girl with the slick hair closed up the space between us with two long steps. "Right. But Tint doesn't say that we can't have some fun with her." she said in a voice that made me uncomfortable.

"Hey, she knows the whams, she could be of better use," the other girl said. "maybe she knows good shit." she added.

"Do you?" the first girl squinted at my eyes. Without breaking eye contact, I mumbled "Better than wasting oil on my hair.".

She took another step and pressed her foot onto mine, the heel of her boot squeezing my toes with the ground. "What'd you say?"

I was slightly amused when I found out that she -and consequently, probably the others as well- appeared to be older than I thought, probably at her mid-twenties now. That was a slight advantage if she wasn't quite the combatant.

I repeated it out loud. She slapped me, my right cheek -left-handed?- burning for a moment. Then, like any sensible and, to a lesser extent, honourable person, I decided and did beat the absolute shit out of her, both living and dead.

I pushed her away and slammed her face with a suckerpunch. She widened her eyes and tried to scratch my face with her long nails, hissing out her breath. I grabbed her by the waist, swung her around and onto the ground while she tried to reach her hands to my face and kicked her away from myself. I made a short dash back and grabbed the can out of my backpack, as well as some pieces of timber and metal from the ground as well.

"Wait Jenny, grab this." I looked up and saw the guy hand a blunt piece of metal to -apparently- Jenny and her friend while he pulled out a small utility knife.

Jenny ran across the field, metal in hand, right next to me as I finished my taping and set off the gas with my match. Fire poured out of the frame I'd taped together and Jenny took a step back, overswinging the metal from over my head. I let out a small flame for her to let down her guard before dropping the makeshift flamethrower and slamming her face into my knee with both my hands. She let out a cry of pain over a loud crunch and punched my stomach. I felt a heavy object hit my head -her friend- and fell on the ground, taken by surprise. The three looked down at me.

"Application rejected." the boy said. I saw, even watched, Jenny slam the piece of metal at my face.

I woke up lying on a bunch of collapsed metal furniture. I outright couldn't feel my face at all besides the sudden surge of pain when I tried to wrinkle my nose. My chest felt beaten up by a hundred of those training swords at school, and I was certain that the wave of pain from my stomach and left leg was because of a stab. I lied on there, coughing up blood occasionally. My phone buzzed. The sun glared right into my eyes. I took out the phone and looked at the screen.