Friday Snippets: She Deals in Lead

This week's Friday Snippet picks up, again where we left off two weeks ago. Dell, after escaping the nuclear wasteland of Columbia, has headed toward the little town of Mexico. She still deals with her choice to leave Roy, the man who loves her more than life. On her journey, she has been clotheslined by two brothers on a back country road for the gas in her motorcycle. We left her last week, under the gun of the younger brother.

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Dell stared down the barrel of the gun, down into the darkness of her own death and she did not look away. The boy was terrified. Dell eased the hammer down on her shotgun and stepped back, easing away from him. The boy was sobbing and the pistol wavered in his hand, bobbing like a cork. It was hard to breathe. She swung her leg over her bike, revving it to life. His voice wavered through the cool of the night.

"Where are you going, man?" he asked. "Are you just gonna leave us here?" His voice cracked. His face had twisted into something ugly, changed by the realization of what he was doing. The gun vomited flame. Dell threw herself low over the lines of the bike, hugging herself to its frame.

She could have, should have killed him, should have slid the bike around, ridden it to the ground and unloaded the shotgun into his chest. But then she thought of what his brother would see when he woke. She couldn't bring herself to do it. She hated herself for it, but she could pray that the boy missed.

She hunched low as the night winds pulled at her coat. She was sure that at any moment she would feel the white hot slug between her shoulder blades, feel her own lukewarm blood on her jersey. Bullets whined past her ear and then her arm bloomed in a sunburst of pain. Blood splattered across the right lens of her gas mask. She didn't stop.

"She was sure that at any moment she would feel the white hot slug between her shoulder blades, feel her own lukewarm blood on her jersey.

Bullets whined past her ear and then her arm bloomed in a sunburst of pain. Blood splattered across the right lens of her gas mask."

It wasn't until she saw the shadow of the brothers' truck against the ridgeline that she slowed and allowed herself to breath. The air was stale and thick inside the gasmask and she ripped it off. Sweat flattened her curls to her head and burned her eyes. Her face was extremely pale and her hands shook violently as she brought the bike to a stop beside the truck. The smell of blood was almost overwhelming. The fuel gage on her bike hovered above empty.

Dell swung off the bike and slumped down beside the truck, easing her arm out of her coat. She cut the hem off of her jeans and tightened it in a tourniquet around her upper arm. For a moment, she let herself breath.

After she forced a hose down into the truck's tank, she cradled her arm in the curve of her body and with her teeth, tore open one of the Snickers Roy had packed. Swallowing down the chocolate, she cringed at the prospect of siphoning. Gas welled up in her mouth and she spat it out. She paused, her hackles rising. Someone was nearby. She was certain. She let the gas drain off into the bike's tank and pulled her shotgun into the shadow of her body.

So say we all.
Bri