The Locket's Owner

It was late in the morning already. After stretching and aching, Jack rolls out of bed. “Ouch. Shit,” he whispers to no one in particular. He lifts his shirt, revealing a large home made bandage of duct tape and a pillow case covering his side, just below his ribs. Blood has stained through the middle of the bandage and the excess was beginning to seep through the outside.

“Dammit,” He lifts himself up and looks out through the dust caked windows at the Wastes. Dead and dry, very little survives out here. He slowly hobbles to the bathroom connected to the bedroom. Staring into the mirror he examines his scruffy beginnings of a beard and picks up the can of shaving cream. Looking down at the sink he doesn’t see a razor and begins to search, finally finding one in the medicine cabinet. “There you are,” Jack begins to lather the shaving cream on his face.

After shaving, Jack looks down at his bandage. It’s a bloody mess, and looks like it was applied by a first year medical student. He grabs the duct tape used to keep it on and begins to pull it off. “Fuck!” The pain sears through his body, as every hair near the wound is being ripped from its base. Looking around, Jack finds a new pillow case to make a new bandage, and prepares it to take the old one’s place. Five minutes later, and plenty more duct tape, Jack leaves the bathroom to find clean clothes.

He looks through the closet, but has difficulty finding a shirt he likes. Finally, he finds a nice black pin striped button down shirt, and precedes to examine the lot of pants available. After thoroughly searching through everything available, Jack finishes getting dressed, returns to the night stand beside the bed and grabs a small heart shaped locket and puts it in his pocket. He then heads to the kitchen for breakfast.

Searching through the cabinets he has trouble locating a cupboard with food stored in it, but eventually comes to one with different cereals to choose from. Searching for the bowls and spoons doesn’t come any easier, before turning his attention to the fridge. Luckily, the milk still has two more days before the expiration date. As Jack eats, he reads the back, and side, of the cereal box.

After finishing his breakfast, Jack goes to sit in the living room. He settles on the couch and pulls out a large case from under neath the couch. He places it on the coffee table in front of him and opens the latches on one side. Inside is a high caliber hunting rifle. He picks it up and checks to see if a bullet is still inside the chamber. After loading the gun he takes aim at various items around the room. He settles his focus on a vase near the front door of the living room and fires.

“Shit!” A panicked voice exclaims for under a cloth that until now appeared to be a pile of clothes against the wall. “This is a nice rifle,” Jack responds as if this was a normal situation, “I haven’t seen one that fires old bullets in ages.”

“Fuck you,” the lump under the sheet enthusiastically returned.

Jack puts the gun down on the table and stands up. He walks over to the sheet and removes it, revealing a mostly naked man with multiple cuts and bruises on his on his face and arms. “Is that how you normally greet house guests?” Jack asks and he returns to the couch and sits.

“Fuck. You.” the man repeats, this time somehow sounding even angrier.

“You know why I’m here,” Jack continues, pretending he didn’t hear what the man said, “Where is she?”

“Who?”

Jack places the locket on the table, “The girl who owned this.”

“How would I know?”

“You handed her off. Yesterday. To that slaver.”

“Fuck off, mutant Elf,” the man on the floor spits in Jack’s direction.

“Rude.” Jake picks up the gun from the table and begins to load it.

“It doesn’t matter if you shoot me, I won’t tell you,” the man on the floor tries to roll onto his side. His legs and wrists, hog tied behind him, make it difficult.

“You know, that’s fair.” Jack puts the gun down and gets up.

“Wait, what?” The man on the floor, confused, watches in fear as Jack leaves the living room. Shortly, Jack returns, holding a bottom of whiskey and a glass. “Hey, don’t drink my booze, asshole.”

“Funny, you’d think someone in your position would be nicer,” Jack sits on the couch, opens the bottle, and pours himself a drink. He finishes, puts the glass down and turns back towards the man on the floor, “Where is the slaver taking her?”

The man on the floor laughs, “Guess.”

Jack lets out a long sigh, and puts hit elbows on his knees as he leans his head towards the floor, “Last chance.”

The man on the floor laughs, “You know who I work for, right?”

“Yep,” Jack responds.

“Then you must be incredibly stupid.”

“Maybe, but that won’t save you,” Jack stands up, grabs the bottle of whiskey and walks over to the man on the floor. “Last chance.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” The man on the floor asks incredulously. Jack begins pouring the whiskey all over the man on the floor’s body, emptying the bottle. “Stop, you fucking monster, fucking stop!” The man on the floor begins struggling violently as Jack empties the bottle. Jack turns around and walks over towards the couch and begins looking through the drawers of the end table. The man on the floor furiously struggles as he attempts to scoot himself towards the front door. Jack finds what he’s looking for and walks slowly back towards the man on the floor.

“I just need a location.” He says calmly, as if to himself.

Continuing to panic and struggle, the man blurts out, “Look, look, I’m sorry! Please! Please don’t!”

Jack continues walking, as if he didn’t hear the man’s pleas. “Where?”

“Okay, look! If I tell you, will you stop? Please? Come on, man!”

“Where?”

“The Capital! Capital City! He said something about the President, and something else! Um! Fuck, just put the lighter down man! Fucking gods, man!”

“Something, else? What else?” Jacks lights the lighter in his hand.

“Something like, like, umm, herams or some shit! I don’t know, just put down the lighter!”

Jack looks down at the lighter in his hand, and look back at the man on the floor, “Sure.” He drops the lit lighter on the man. As the flames erupt the man begins to scream. Jack turns back to the table, picks up the rifle, the box of bullets and walks to the front door. As he opens it he pauses, “Thanks for the info,” and walks out.

Ellie sits in her cell, her leg shackled to the dead body of some unlucky soul. Desperate, she continues to pull at the shackle, hoping to separate the far end if possible. The stench emitting from the body, fills the cell, sapping Ellie’s efforts as she tries to resist taking heavy breathes. “Dammit,” she pants, exasperated from her efforts. A clicking noise, down the hall from her cell, grabs her attention as she goes silent in an effort to hear what may be happening.

“This is the last one, right?” A deep, apparently male, voice from down the hall tips Ellie off to who might be heading her way. “Yeah,” a second voice, this time female, confirms, “Almost done for tonight.” “Good” the male voice responds. The heavy thumping of boots against the floor begins to get louder and louder and it approaches Ellie’s cell until she begins to hear the lock to her door begin to interact with the metal key. “Fuck these old fucking locks,” the male guards exhales as he finally gets the door open. The guard is huge, dark green skin, pointy ears and one tusk poking out from his bottom lip. “Fuck, he’s an Orc,” Ellie think to herself.

“Get up,” the guard commands Ellie.

“I can’t, dumbass. I’m chained to a dead girl.”

“Hmpf,” unimpressed the guard looks down at the shackle and then to his keyring. “Fucking non electric shit”, the guard leans down a tries two or three keys before getting the right one. Quickly, after seeing the shackle fall off, Ellie kicks at the guard in the head. She jumps to her feet, dashes out the open door and turn down the hallway.

“Fuck!” The Guard yells in a deep bellow.

Ellie, running full speed, looks back as she runs, but in that instant, goes face first into the waist of the female guard. Falling to the ground, she hits her head hard.

“Dumbass,” the female guard chuckles and yells down the hall to the male guard, “How many times does that have to happen before you learn?”

“Shut up,” he responds, still in the cell.

The female guard leans down, grabs Ellie’s wrist and pulls her to her feet, “Get up, bitch.” She yanks Ellie with her as they leave the prison. In the yard snow falls heavily all around the grounds. A truck with a brown canopy over the back runs to keep warm, a small weaselly looking man in the driver’s seat. “Hurry up,” he barks at the guard. The guard pulls Ellie to the back of the truck, and lowers the back gate. Three other young girls, from 12 to 16 years in age, are huddled in the back, shivering in cold.

Ellie, shocked from the sight of the others, pulls at the guard’s grip. “Fucking stop!” The guard yells, and struggles with Ellies resistance as she picks her up by the armpits and throws Ellie into the back. “Fucking bitch.”

“That’s all of them,” The male guard announces from behind the female guard, “Thank the fucking go..”

Bang. A gunshot rips through the head of the male guard spraying the female guard with brains and blood. The girls in the back of the truck begin to scream in reaction. Bang. The back left tire of the truck explodes as its air escapes. Bang. The front driver side tire explodes. The driver dives into the passenger’s seat, while covering his head.

“Fucking show yourself!” The female guard screams raising her modern laser based rifle up, looking for any sign of the shooter she can find. She slowly trudges through the snow, searching for any movement to give her an idea of where to aim. “Fucking coward!” She screams again, “I’ll find you!”

“Yes, you will.” The sudden speech from her left surprises her as she turns. Bang. A bullet flies through her blood soaked face as her limp body falls to the snow. As Jack emerges from woods, stepping over the guard’s dead body, Ellie screams in joy from the back of the truck, “Jack!”

She jumps out of the back, and runs to him, jumping into his arms.

“We need to get warmer clothes on you.” He comments as if nothing had just happened.

“I knew you’d come,” Ellie cries into Jack’s coat.

“Luckily, I didn’t have to sneak you out of the capital again, huh?”

“Yeah, that would’ve sucked,” Ellie responds, beaming with joy up at Jack’s smile.

“Freeze, you fucking mutant elf,” a voice appears behind Jack. The driver stands with a laser pistol aimed at Jack’s head.

“We prefer to be called Elven,” Jack responds non calmly.

“No one fucking cares,” the driver retorts.

“Stay still,” Jack says to Ellie.

“Do what he says little girl,” taking advantage of the man’s lack of concentration Jack quickly turns, snatches the pistol and shoots the driver in the head.

“Holy shit!” Ellie exclaims.

Jack puts the pistol in his jacket pocket and turns towards the truck, “Let’s go free those girls.”

“Yeah,” Ellie responds distractedly.