Chapter 1

The man walked alone down the dusty road. He was fairly tall, 6'-1", and a little on the thin side at 178 pounds. His hair was brown as were his eyes, and his face was what some women would call ruggedly handsome. He wore a khaki-colored shirt and jeans, and his boots were the type formerly called engineer's boots or jack boots with a medium heel. He also carried a light pack over his shoulder and two water canteens at his waist.

The most notable thing about him were his weapons. He wore two Glock G-21 pistols, .45 ACP caliber, in spring shoulder holsters and a pouch of extra clips at his belt. He also carried a 10-gauge autoloading shotgun on a sling over his shoulder. You could tell just by the look in his eye that he knew how to use his weapons and was not afraid to do so.

He had a deep sun tan, so that you knew that he was used to being outdoors. His hat shaded his eyes and much of his face, but he still carried a weathered appearance. The most incongruous feature about him was that the man was chewing bubble gum! That had a practical advantage in that it kept his mouth moist and more comfortable.

Walking at his side was a veritable giant of a dog. It was nearly 4' tall and weighed over 100 pounds. The dog appeared to be a cross between a Great Dane and a Rottweiler. The dog was male and had the same kind of piercing look about his eyes as did the man. Yes, indeed, they looked like a pair not to be trifled with!

The road they were gracing with their presence was nothing special by this time. The pavement had all but disappeared under a coating of the ubiquitous sand that covered the entire landscape, except for the mountains in the distance. Thus, the man and the dog kicked up a small dust cloud as they walked. There was no sign of where they were going or where they had been: they just walked.

They approached a tiny collection of dilapidated buildings as the sun began to set. The man was pleased to see the buildings because he knew that meant that it would be easy to obtain water, and that was always a concern in this sun-parched country. The man clicked his tongue twice, and the dog ran off into the desert. He was in hunting mode and would show up in due time with a rabbit or some other animal suitable for their supper.

The man walked to the door of the first building he came to and looked inside. It was already very dim inside the door, for there was only one lamp of burning oil to light the whole room. However, there was enough light for the man's sharp eyesight to pick out four men sitting at a table and drinking something from pottery mugs. One of the four sitting men glanced up at the man entering the room and waved him over. "Come join us for a drink, Stranger. News of the outside world will buy a few mugs of the finest rotgut whiskey to be found within the metropolitan skirts of Coltrain City."

The man approached the table with a smile and sat down in the proffered chair. It happened to be the one with its back to the door, but this did not seem to deter him from sitting in it. His overly keen senses would warn him if someone approached him unannounced.

"I don't know how much I can tell you of the world in general, but I do have some intimate knowledge of the land to the east of here. I will be glad to swap that for some of your fine whiskey."

That was enough to have one of the men hand him a mug and to pour a generous quantity of rotgut into it. Our hero took a small sip of the liquid and quickly deduced that it contained nothing but the usual water, ethyl alcohol, and fusel oils that were common to homemade whiskey. Confident that there was nothing in the liquid that would do him permanent harm, he took a swallow from the mug and began to relate what he knew of the situation to the east of Coltrain City.

"The land is just as you see it here and everywhere else that I have been lately. The drought has set in and water is hard to come by. I was in Hammerhead a few days ago and had a run in with a small gang of Wasters. I'm sure that you feel as annoyed by them as I do, and I was forced to eliminate them rather forcefully. Hammerhead is now a rather pleasant place to live, if that can be said of any place since the Global Warming plague has hit us so hard. There were six families living there when I left, and I did promise to check with them the next time I came through here."

"Well, Mister, it sounds like you have been busy lately. By the way, my name is John Crawford. If you don't mind me asking, what is your name?"

"Truthfully, it has been so long since I had a regular name that I have forgotten it. Now, most people call me Guardian."

"Oh, shit! Are you really the legendary Guardian? If you are, you have showed up at just the right time! There is a gang of Wasters who are threatening our families with destruction if we do not give them our youngest daughters. There are three girls and nine Wasters, so you know that we will never see our daughters again if we give in to their demands.

"The Wasters will be here tomorrow afternoon to claim the girls, and we can't do anything about it. We once had guns, but we have run out of ammunition, and the four of us and our three young boys don't stand a chance against that well-armed gang. We know that we will lose the fight, but we four are here tonight to bolster ourselves with this liquid courage before we defy the gang tomorrow."

"Perhaps I can help you. Do you know where I can find this gang of Wasters? I may be able to persuade them to leave you alone if I can find them tonight."

"Oh, God, you are a blessing! The Wasters are camped about two miles from here at a river, or what we call a river, nowadays. If you stand on our porch and look southwest, you can see the glow of their campfires."

That was the moment when the dog showed up with a jackrabbit in his jaws. He whined at the door, and Guardian said, "Quiet, Ajax. I'll be there in a minute." Guardian excused himself and left the room. He paused a moment to pat Ajax on the shoulders before walking to the corner of the porch and looking intently toward the southwest. Ah, there it was: he spotted the campfires' glow and filed the information in his superlative memory. Following that, he and Ajax walked off into the darkness to cook and eat the jackrabbit before visiting the camp of the Wasters.

Around midnight, the two approached the camp of the Wasters and found them amusing themselves with some women they had previously captured. There were five women and nine men, and the men were either getting blowjobs or fucking the women. In four cases, a woman had a man fucking her while she was administering a blowjob to a second man. One man had a woman to himself, and he was fucking her in her asshole. She was crying, so it must be painful, but the man completely ignored the tears.

Guardian drew a pistol and aimed at the lone fucker. He took only a moment to line up his shot before he fired. The lone fucker's head exploded under the impact of the .45 slug, and he was knocked away from the woman. She screamed at that, but surely it was more from surprise than from anything else.

Each of the men receiving the blowjob screamed in pain as the women bit down on them as they were surprised by the sound of the shot. All four of those men tried to kick the women away as they rolled in pain from the bites. Meanwhile, Guardian shot at the four remaining fuckers and hit each one somewhere in the chest with a bullet. The wounded or dead men pulled out of the women and fell to the ground.

Guardian shouted to the women to come to him, and he shot each of the blowjob recipients as the women moved out of the way. As a matter of long habit, Guardian swapped clips in the pistol and reloaded the nearly empty clip before he put it away. The five naked women came to Guardian, and one asked, "What do you intend to do with us?"

"Do you want me to escort you to your former homes, or is there someplace else you would prefer to travel to?"