The Wasteland

Chapter One: Beginning

"Whatever you want, you won't find it here" I said out loud making sure everyone heard me.

"We already killed one of you rats. Why not kill the others?" Said the leader. He was tall and had broad shoulders. He had a thick coat on and a scar on his left eye.

I took a step forward in anger and that's when he clicked the safety off on the gun and pressed against Cadence's head. "Stop or I'll shoot him right here, right now"

I stopped and took a step back with my hands in the air. Think, how can we get out of this. As I was thinking I asked "what do you want with us anyways?"

"To kill you of course" that's when he shifted his aim away from Cadence to me. His finger was on the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down when he pressed hard against the trigger of his .45. In the nick of time I dogged to the right. He took his aim again and fired another shot. I jumped to the left. I looked around for anything I could us as cover. I saw an old concrete highway divider. I ran for it and slid behind it. I took off my bow and grabbed an arrow. I jumped up and took aim right for the leader. I took a deep breath and released the arrow. It flew through the air with the grace of a dancer before hitting him right in the head. He fell to his knees then onto his back. He was dead.

I readied another shot and took aim at the guy holding Sam hostage. I took a deep breath and fired. He swung around and fell. Dead. I grabbed another arrow and took aim at Cadence's guard. He threw his hands up and surrendered as did the rest of the raiders. I moved slowly from my cover.

"On your knees, NOW!" I commanded. Without question they did as they were told. "Sam, Cadence, take anything you can from these bastards. Ammo, food, even their masks" I put the bow back around me. "If they resist. Shoot them" I turned and walked back to the bunker.

Three hours later...

"Sooo we really not gonna talk about what just happened?" Sam was frustrated because me and Cadence decided it was best to ignore what happened with the raiders.

"Yes Sam, we're not talking about it" I said

"Why? They found out where we are! We need to move out and find another safe place" she contested. She was upset and scared. This has been our home for five years. Besides we couldn't just leave.

"If we had another safe place to go, we'd go, but we don't. We need to stay and hold out till we find another home" I sat with my elbows on my knees. Thinking about what to do next.

"What if we head west?" Asked Cadence sounding excited.

"What? No to risking. Way to risky" I said shaking my head.

"We can make it though" Cadence said. He wanted to go west because there was an old bunker about 100 miles west of our current location, but it'd take days to get there.

"Please Conner, we don't have any other options at the moment" Sam said kneeling in front of me.

I looked at her and saw that she was pleading and hoping for me to say yes. I sighed and stood up. I walked over to Cadence. "If we do this, we do it carefully. No unnecessary risks" he nodded in agreement. "Copy that, you're the boss" he said sarcastically.

"Sam?" I asked while turning away from Cadence. "Yea?" She responded while looking at her weapons on the table. "Load the bags. Important supplies only. Take as much ammo as you can carry"

"Copy that" she turned and disappeared behind a door that lead to the supply room. "Cadence" I said. "Get our outfits ready and the radios. I'm going to go get an actual gun from storage" he nodded and we split up. Each with our own task.