A Raiders Life For Me

Chapter Five: Shot Through the Heart [And you're to late...]

AN: This chapter is different from the previous by switching the perspective to Tophat.

This chapter contains racial slurs.


I took a drag of my cigarette as I gazed out across the parking lot. I've been on guard duty both nights since Luce, Candy and Jax left for Evergreen Mills two nights ago. Why some of these lazy northern D.C. raiders wont bother keeping watch is beyond me. Maybe it's because they haven't had the luxury of a nice shelter like the one I've had for a while now. I took one more drag from the cigarette as I continued to watch over the parking lot with Soapbox at my side.

"Want a smoke, Soap?" I asked him. "Might warm you up, it's cold tonight."

His blood shot eyes left the parking lot and looked towards me. His left hand lent out onto the Nuka Cola vending machine. "No thanks. You... you know I don't smoke."

A gave him a flirty smile and said, "Your loss. Just ask when you're ready to toughen up."

"Very funny." Soapbox responded. He removed his hand from the vending machine and took several steps away from the building. "I wo...wonder how Lu.. Luce and them are doin'?"

I exhaled smoke and answered him, "I bet they're living the life in Evergreen by now. Free food, warm beds, no mutants, lots and lots of sex and drugs. Lucky bastards." I laughed to myself as I took another drag of the cigarette.

Just then a door opened up from the Mart and one of the Northern D.C. boys came out.

"Hey, our spotter on the roof spotted a couple wastelanders coming from down the road. Get ready for them!"

I dropped the cig onto the concrete and smashed it out with the heel of my boot. Soapbox was already crouched down behind a car waiting for them to wander up towards us. I grabbed my chinese pistol and joined him.

We waited there for only a couple minutes when I could hear the foot steps approaching. The three wastelanders stopped only a couple feet shy of the car Soapbox and I were hiding behind.

"Now!" I yelled as I stood up and aimed my pistol at the group. I pulled the trigger repeatedly, firing off rounds towards them. Soapbox followed with a couple shots of his own.

We definitely took the group by surprise, they didn't even know what was going on. One of them folded onto them selves after being shot and collapsed onto the ground. One of them stopped dead in his tracks and the other ran towards me wielding a long dagger in his hand. He charged right at me and once in range he swung his dagger at me.

I arched my back and threw my hips backwards to dodge the slash. I took my right arm, my pistol wielding hand and torqued it across my left side. I let loose and gave him a back handed pistol whip.

The wastelander fell onto his ass from the blow, as he looked at me I aimed my pistol at his face.

"Please!" He cried, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The muck covered man started to wheep in front of me.

"Throw the blade away, ass hole!" I ordered to him. He did accordingly and slid the dagger away from him. Soapbox had apprehended the third man and was bringing him towards the front of the store.

"Stand up." I demanded. I walked towards the man and helped him back up. I put the muzzle of the pistol to his head and marched forward to join his buddy.

We reached the vending machine and I told them both to turn around and face the wall.

"I'll sea...search these two Tophat. Go check the dead guy for shi..shit."

"Sure thing, Soap." I headed towards the fresh corpse and checked the pockets for anything worth scavenging. Six caps, a butter knife, bottle of muddy water and random bits of pieced of mechanical equipment.

As I walking back to Soapbox and our new prisoners, two black D.C. Raiders came out to see if we handled the
wastelanders.

"You two owe us for that." The elder raider said.

"We..we don't you niggers sh.. shit!" Soapbox said to them.

The younger one mocked Soapbox back "We, we, we spo-spotted the-them coming cock sucker! Heh heh."

"Just search our new property Soap. I'm going to go inside and get a new pack of smokes."

The three raiders surrounded the two prisoners, beating, insulting and spitting on them while I made my way to the front door.

I flicked the safety on my pistol and started to push the sliding doors open when I heard an unfamiliar voice.

"Evening Gentleman." A young voice spoke out from behind us. I turned to look who it was and saw a young man. In clean blue clothes with yellow numbers on it, fresh shave and pretty damn handsome if I must say so myself. He looked about six feet and had a strong muscular build. His combed brown hair was neat and clean. He had a Chinese Assault rifle aimed at my three comrades with the prisoners.

"If you ritzy looking fellows would kindly place your weapons on the ground that would be swell." The man had a sly and cool demeanor. He was pretty damn confident in himself. Or stupid.

I don't think he spotted me over by the door so I crouched down and raised my pistol to get a better bead on him.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" One of the northern men asked him.

The man didn't say anything to him but just made a sign for them to lower their weapons.

Soapbox knelt down and dropped his weapons and the other two followed.

"Turn out your pockets, got any food or medicine here?" He asked them.

The elder black man responded with "Hah, hah. You think you can just rob us and walk away?"

The lone wanderer gave a coy, "Yeah." In response.

I took one last deep breathe and clinched the trigger on the weapon. Click. No fire. I panicked as I forgot to turn the safety back off. The man looked over to me and quickly raised his weapon back at the group in front of him. He opened fire, shooting the two black men and Soapbox.

"Oh, shit, you're going to pay for that! I yelled at the lone wanderer. I shot a couple rounds off at him and with my other hand I tried to push the door open.

The stranger knelt down and fired a couple rounds back at me. I was able to get the door open and I rushed inside the Super Duper Mart to warn the others.

"Guys! Everyone! We're under attack! Drop your cocks and grab your socks, lets go!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I sprinted to the back of the store. All the Northern D.C. Raiders got their weapons ready and started to keep watch over the store. Some of them got on top of the shelves to see better and others walked up and down the aisles to make sure he didn't get past.

The next couple minutes were intense, waiting for the man to enter the store. I was knelt down in the pharmacy looking over the counter when I heard the first couple gun shots. Screams of a couple men echoed in the store, he was inside. More time passed in between time when another couple shots rang out, with another scream following. And another, and another.... and another. We were being picked off. This guy was damn good. Fear began to set it when I realized I couldn't hear any one else in the store. I dropped down from my position and crawled over to Luce's private stache he had in one of the cubby holes. I opened up an ammo box and grabbed several shotgun shells. Behind the box, was a sawn-off shotgun. I grabbed it and loaded the gun.

I crouched down and walked towards the pharmacy door and waited to see if I could hear any body.

Time seemed to be going by slowly as I waited. After minutes of waiting I could hear faint footsteps approaching the door. On the other side of the wall, only mere inches from me was somebody. I stood up and aimed the shotgun at the wall. After holding my breathe I prepared myself for the blast of the shotgun. I squeezed the trigger at the wall, where the man was standing. The blast made my ears ring and I temporarily lost my hearing. I shot the weapon again in the same spot simultaneously with the first shot.

I opened the weapon and dropped the two shells out and loaded two new ones in their place. I closed the weapon and advanced to the door. I popped around the door way to see if I got the lone wanderer. My eyes expanded and I lost my breathe when I saw who it was.

"SOAP!" I shouted out and knelt down and grabbed my friend. "Oh, shit... Soap! Soap! Wake up!" After a short minute I regained my bearing and stood up. I kept the shotgun at waist level as I walked down the hallway into the commons.

Only a couple foot steps away from the doorway, I felt an arm come from behind me and come under my left arm. The other arm came up under my own right arm and put me in a full nelson. It was done so quickly I didn't have time to react.

I cried out, "Fucking bastard! Let me-" I was then lifted from the ground and slammed into the wall face first.

Then tossed onto the floor. I lost my grip on the shotgun when I got thrown into the wall.

I was on my back and looking towards my attacker, wielding my own shotgun at me. The weapon was pointed right at me.

"You can't kill me... Do you know who I work for? If you kill me you'll be in a world of SHIT!" My anger was mixed with fear, I didn't want to die. And I wanted this prick to die. Only problem was that he was the one who got to decide.

The lone wanderer shook his head at me several times, saying, "You don't know when to shut up; you don't know HOW to shut up!" His facial expression showed that his playful demeanor from earlier was far gone. I guess he didn't like being shot at.

"What, you going to shoot me? Then shoot me! But you better fucking know who will be after you until you're dead your self."

"I'm willing to take that risk." He said to me, in a flinch of a move he lowered the shotgun to my leg and fired. The first shell slammed into my right leg in the thigh, blowing blood all over the both of us. I cried out at the top of my lungs, my eyes watered and I grabbed onto the sides of my leg, which was a bloody mess of tissue. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse he aimed the weapon to my other leg and shot. Doing the same to my other leg.

I threw my head back from being shot again. My legs were almost seperated from my torso from the blasts and blood was all over.

I laid on the floor of the Super Duper Mart, bleeding to death. The man stepped over me and was fumbling around with the computer that kept the pharmacy door locked.

I looked back to the ceiling as I waited to die. I could hear the sick bastard singing to himself as he searched the pharmacy.

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

I could hear him throwing things around, obviously searching for something in particular back there.

I closed my eyes, waiting to die, wishing I would die so I couldn't feel the pain anymore when I heard the intercom to the store click on.

"We're back, somebody open up the... hang on... something ain't right here..."

I wanted to shout, to warn them to be careful. But I couldn't, the words just wouldn't come. Just a moment after the intercom alerted the stranger to their presence he entered the hallway where I was again and stepped back over me. He turned and gave me one last grin before heading into the commons.

I dropped my head back down onto the cold floor and I could hear a gun battle erupt once again.

I cried myself to sleep.

Eternal sleep...