The Wasteland Soldier, Book 1, A Fractured World

Eleven

With an idiotic grin spread across his face, Mauricio nodded in an exaggerated fashion as the man begged for his life. Then he slashed the man's belly wide open with a machete.

Chuckling, he knelt down to ransack his pockets as he lay at the roadside, clutching his bleeding stomach and moaning. Mauricio found nothing and checked the man's shoes. Sometime people hid things in their shoes. Still nothing. Frustrated, he opened the battered satchel that was tied to his bicycle. There was no food or weapons and only a meagre collection of items he didn't recognise. His vision wasn't strong enough to make out the finer details so he threw them on the ground. It had always been this way. Objects close to him would blur and become indefinable. Mother had said they would find him eyeglasses to fix the problem but he preferred the dark sunglasses he wore and was in no mood to swap them over for something practical. Thinking of her, he scooped up the discarded odds and ends and stuffed them into his own pack.

Annoyed at his paltry loot, he kicked the dying man and took the bicycle. He wiped the blood from the dull edge of his machete and sheathed it, the fearsome weapon hanging from his belt. The red slashed blue sky above stretched over the endless cratered landscape of brown scrubland and mountain ranges. He jumped on the bicycle. He had no idea what today would bring or if he would even see the night sky again. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. The road was wide and empty and he stopped pedalling once he felt a downward slope and let the pedals spin freely. He sailed ahead, yelling in delight. It was already the second best part of his day. As the road curved around a bend, he slammed his feet against the surface and gasped; the road snaked down the mountains and there, spread across the barren ground, was a vast town, of concrete buildings and black roads, surrounded by miles of craters filled with rubble and twisted metal. He could see the tiny dots of people moving about.

"Yeah," he cried out, thrilled at his new discovery.

He had to get back and tell everything. Not only had he found a bike and rode it without using the pedals but he had also found a new playground for the family to venture into. The cave was horrible. He hated the cave. It was cold and dank and where he slept was hard and draughty. He cycled back up the road, towards a narrow track in the rocks and was about to disappear from view when he heard it. It came from far away, little more than a distant rumble, possibly thunder, but then it grew louder and more intense and the ground beneath his feet began to shudder. The sound took shape, formed into a grinding and mechanical sound, drowning out the pleas of help from the man he had attacked and left on the verge.

Quickly, Mauricio ducked back along the path through the rocks, wheeling the bike with of him. He threw it into the dirt and crouched from view, holding his breath.

A heavily armoured vehicle rose over the brow of the hill. Its engine roared savagely and a large gun was mounted at the rear and manned by a warrior. His face was obscured by a scarf and thick goggles. Mauricio saw plating across the wheels and windows and a fearsome spiked crash bar. A huge yellow sun streaked with red was painted across the front. The road was wide enough for more than one vehicle and two smaller cars flanked it; one a jeep, one a pickup truck with a smaller weapon mounted in the flatbed, a cartridge belt hanging from it. Both vehicles were rusted, dented and battered. They had grilled windscreens and iron meshes fixed over the tyres. More cars and bikes followed, bristling with armed warriors, and at the rear of the long convoy were trucks covered with tarpaulin. The man riding in the lead vehicle thrust out a thick arm covered with ink and the entire convoy began to slow. It ground to a halt and Mauricio felt his mouth turn dry. Not a solitary engine could be heard. The man pushed open his door and stepped slowly from the lead vehicle, arching his back as he did so. He was tall, long grey hair plaited down his back. He walked to where Mauricio's victim laid bleeding and groaning, skin deathly pale, filmed with a cold sweat.