Primal Gambit

Chapter 20: Under Incendiary Circumstances

Drexel pounded his scarred chest and laughed manically. His counterparts all laughed and pushed each other, grabbing equipment from tilted lockers and slamming weapons on the table to make last minute adjustments. Fresh propane canisters were screwed in as submachine guns were tied to primitive rope slings and thrown across backs. The pack of marauders screamed at each other as adrenaline pumped, while a salvaged record player nearby played classics from the 1950s. Adjusting the goggles that made his faded green eyes look two times too big, Drexel lifted his flamer from the table and held it against the light – in praise of his dearest Maggie.

When a fellow marauder lunged for the weapon Drexel kneed the antagonist in his groin and cackled.

"Find yer' own flamer, bozo!" The dimwitted chop shopper retorted with a grin. The marauder collapsed to the floor, clutching his nether region with a winced face. Drexel began to shuffle to the music.

He was malnourished, his bare chest battered with too many scars to count – matched in number only by the crude tattoos he had given himself on drunken nights. The man had a thin frame: thin legs that could barely carry him and thin arms that could hardly manage to lift his fire spewing love. Old suspenders tucked into his working man's boots. Dangling from his bandolier were spare canisters of propane and magazines for his gun. He had looted a lone incendiary grenade from a fallen scavenger and cherished it with his entire being, hoping that this raid would offer the chance to finally use it.

The clan's underground dwelling offered the perfect masquerade against outsiders, constructed out of rubble beneath the tattered Tabby's Parts and Repair. Browned shoestrings held dangling light bulbs overhead as the group finished their suit-up. Drexel pulled thick black gloves over his hands and a furry old-world hat over his matted hair. The band of five loaded into a shoddy gated elevator hand-cranked by a fat man who rarely left the spot.

"Hussy," The leader, Axle, began: "get outta that chair and lift us up or I'll blow you in two." The fat man did as he was told.

"Tub of shit deserves it – just look at how good we feed him fer spinning a wheel all day long." One of the highwaymen punched and laughed.

The chains clacked and clanked as Hussy escaped their view and they rose to the garage. Walls of packed earth surrounded them, crumbles of dirt falling down the tunnel past them. The music would have completely escaped earshot had loudspeakers not been installed on crooked posts surrounding the entire premise. The classic oldies still wrought about unhindered adrenaline and rage amongst the marauders. On a table littered with scavenged metal to be smelted down rested a goliath harpoon tripod that had been salvaged and stripped from the vehicle when it first arrived.

One of the working mechanics, Jester, made last minute tunings to the amalgam of metal. A blowtorch illuminated his yellow teeth and gaunt cheeks in unhealthy light. An open bottle of rum sat next to a tool box that seemed to have exploded moments ago. It was left ajar; various tools littered the ground around the sweltering chopper. The top of the roll-cage had been outfitted with spotlights, the front with barbed wire. Two makeshift steel tusks were installed on either side of the front bumper in mimicry of one of The Yard's more legendary beasts. The additions would surely terrify and demoralize the less fortunate.

The group piled into the jeep; their weight dropped the vehicle from the lift and nearly decapitating Jester, who laughed through nervous sweats. The driver turned the jeep over and shifted into first as the front tires ate mud, regurgitating it out from the back tires before catching grip and yanking them all into The Yard like a bucking bull.

Chop shoppers were an intriguing bunch. Families born through generations of extensive inbreeding, they knew nothing of what the world once was. To them, taking what they wanted was the social norm – if what they sought after was protected or owned by a lesser man then it was acceptable to claim it through force. Choppers were by no means discretionary and as such they would not think twice about beating one of their own to obtain what they were after. They relished in chaos; the unconscious pioneers of a new world order.