"I'm a lonely stranger in this time bomb town"

The bullet riddled, wooden sign by this side of the road red "WELCOME TO DUDLEYTOWN, CONNECTICUT. ENJOY YOUR STAY." The ominous slant to the gray painted letters made the "ENJOY YOUR STAY" part sound like an order, or a threat. Jim Pherson sat in his wood paneled station wagon, engine idling, watching the streets of Dudleytown through army surplus binoculars.

Pherson could see no activity on the streets, which, of course, did not mean that the town was genuinely safe. It simply meant that there were not enough scavengers and vermin to fill every building and spill out on to the streets.

Pherson knew that there were three possibilities, One, the town was deserted and everything in it was his for the taking. Two, an armed scavenger gang was held up in those seemingly unoccupied buildings, waiting to pounce on him and strip him to his shorts. Three, the town's population had been wiped out by plague or radiation, neither of which would show him a warm reception.

Pherson went over the possibilities in his mind, finally becoming annoyed with himself over his own lack of decision. his motto was "no pain, no gain", and he was not accomplishing anything by sitting here idle in front of a potential goldmine, aside from wasting fuel.

He checked the rear compartment of the woodwagon. Instead of rollicking toddlers, it contained rifles, shotguns, knives, an AK-47 assault rifle with two spare clips, an M-60 tripod mounted machine gun, and a fifteen foot belt of M-60 ammunition. He also carried a stack of National Enquirers that he had discovered among the ruins that had once been Boston, enough reading material to last him a year. Who said literacy was no longer a useful skill?, he thought to himself.

Pherson gunned the engine. It made a loud, satisfying growl. He pulled out fast, his screeching tires making long, black trails of rubber on the pavement. As he drove into town, he could see that it was totally deserted. He drove up to the doors of City Hall and stopped.

Pherson had removed the P-38 automatic pistol that he kept in the glove compartment, preparing to leave the car, when he felt the pressure of a piece of cold steel jabbing him in the left side of the neck. A voice whispered in his ear.

"Put the gun down or I'll blow you away mister."

Shit. Some punk kid was pointing a shotgun at him through the window. the kid must have been about 20, no doubt a member of a scavenger gang. Pherson could see other members of the gang moving in on him from the front of the woodwagon.

"You hear me man? Put the gun down or I'll mess up your nice upholstery with your brains."

Pherson decided to comply, although his patience with this kind of scum had been tried once too often. He spoke calmly, not wanting the punk to get sudden trigger happy. "Take it easy, kid. You sure have a way with words. Most of you guys usually can't even say your own first names."

The pressure of the kid's shotgun on Pherson's neck suddenly became more intense. "Get out of the car, big mouth."

Pherson came out of the woodwagon slowly, his hands in the air. The kid held the shotgun on him, while one of his buddies, a big fellow with a mohawk haircut and a T-shirt printed with FLEETWOOD MAC and a penguin, took the P-38.

Pherson couldn't help giving Mohawk a look of disgust. He had seen some ugly scavengers in his time, but this one took the cake. The guy's mohawk was flame red with green highlights, and his nose looked as if it would be more at home growing out of the ground than on someone's face. "I didn't know Fleetwood Mac was a Punk band," Pherson said sarcastically.

The kid with the shotgun became enraged. "Man, you mouth off like that one more time and I swear you'll be lookin' at the world through another set of eyes, in the back of your head." Another scavenger walked up to where the kid had the shotgun in Pherson' 5 face. "Hey, cool it, Zeke." He eyed Pherson up and down. Pherson guessed that he was the leader, since the others seemed to keep out of his way. He was dressed in leather from head to toe, with a black leather jacket with a turned up collar and zippers on the front pockets.

"Don't mind Zeke," he said. "He's been uptight ever since we took his security blanket away. Ain't that right, Zeke?" He turned to look at the kid with the shotgun. Everyone laughed. The kid's face was turning the color of raw meat.

The punk with the leather jacket looked back at Pherson. "My name's Stinger, and these are the Renders." He spread his hands to show the entire gang. "We own this town."

"There goes the neighborhood," Pherson said.

Stinger laughed. "You're a funny guy. Have you ever thought about becoming a stand-up comic?"

"It's crossed my mind."

Stinger looked over Pherson's shoulder at the weapons stowed in the rear compartment of the woodwagon. "Looks like you're well equipped for a peaceful drive in the country."

"The country isn't as peaceful as it used to be."

Stinger moved towards the back of the woodwagon. He looked at Pherson. "We're gonna take your weapons, sucker." He motioned for some of the other scavengers to help him open the tailgate.

"Geraldo, Ivan, Chainsaw, come and give me a hand with this. Zeke, keep your gun on our friend here." Zeke followed the order happily.

The Renders began unloading the weapons. Stinger turned to Zeke, "Kill him," he said. Zeke grinned, flexing his trigger finger.

If you kill me you won't find out where the Playboys are hidden," Pherson said, looking at Stinger.

"What?"

"You heard me. I've got a whole stack of Playboy magazines hidden in a secret compartment in my car. If you kill me, you'll never know where to find them."

Stinger walked over to Pherson, looking him straight in the eye. "You better not be jivin' me, man. You got real Playboys, not cheap carbon paper rip-offs."

Pherson grinned. "The genuine article."

The Renders began to whisper and murmur among themselves. Pherson knew he had hit paydirt. "He's bluffing," the ugly guy in the Fleetwood Mac T-shirt said. "Don't kill him, man, he got real Playboys," someone else said.

Stinger stared into Pherson's eyes, as if he could tell whether or not Pherson was lying just by looking deep enough. "All right, man, tell us where they are and we just might not kill you."

"There's a hidden switch on the dashboard that unlocks the compartment. If you let me flip the switch, the compartment will open up, and they'll be all yours." Stinger allowed Pherson to get behind the wheel of the woodwagon. Zeke followed him, sticking the shotgun in Pherson's ear. Pherson flipped the switch, and a loud beeping sound began to emanate from the dashboard.

"What in the hell is that?" Stinger asked.

Pherson got out of the car. "A warning signal."

"Warning signal? What are you talking about? Where's the secret compartment?"

Members of the gang were examining various parts of the car, watching for the secret compartment to open up.

Pherson smiled at Stinger. "There is no secret compartment."

Stinger was fuming. He removed a .45 from a hip holster, and pointed it at Pherson's face. "Go ahead and shoot," Pherson said. "But first I should warn you that a time-delayed explosive device has just been activated in my car."

"Man, shut it off" "I can't. In fifteen seconds, this whole goddamn town is going to go up in one big explosion.''

"You're lying," Stinger snarled.

Pherson grinned. "Suit yourself."

A heartbeat passed. The scavengers were getting very nervous. "Shit, man," someone said. "He's not kidding. Let's get out of here."

Zeke was shaking all over, the shotgun wobbling in his hands. "He's nuts."

The Renders panicked, scattering in every direction. Stinger didn't move at first, trying to call Pherson's bluff, but he finally bolted through the doors of City Hall. The scavengers had taken cover inside a dozen abandoned buildings, waiting for an explosion that never came. Pherson ran behind his car, where his weapons had been left in a heap on the ground. He removed the tripod from the M-6O machinegun, preferring to fire the weapon from the hip. He swung the N-GO in a 360 degree arc, firing a full burst at the buildings behind which the Renders were taking cover. Bullets tore large chunks out of the walls of the buildings, hitting scavengers stupid enough to position themselves behind windows.

As the smoke cleared, Pherson leaned inside the driver's side of his car to shut off the beeper. The trick never failed. He was proud of himself.

The Renders began to realize that there was not going to be an explosion, and fired at Pherson from several different directions, Pherson crouched low and fired back with the M-6O. He could hear screams as his bullets hit home. He managed to get behind the wheel of the car and start up the engine, as lead flew in every direction.

Pherson laid the N-GO down on the passenger seat as he sped away. He reached under his seat, just in time to avoid a bullet that came through the window on the driver's side and left through the window on the passenger's side, just missing him. He was searching frantically for something that he had placed there earlier. Suddenly, his hand closed around what he was looking for: a pineapple grenade, genuine U.S. Army surplus.

The Renders were spilling onto the street behind Pherson's car, their guns blazing. Pherson spun the woodwagon around, took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to pull the pin on the grenade, and hurled the grenade out the passenger window. It dropped to the ground, rolling towards the Renders, as they attempted to run away from it. The grenade rolling down the middle of the street after the gang reminded Pherson of a bowling alley of death. He had just bowled a strike, and the Renders were about to become pins.

There was a massive explosion, rocking the woodwagon on its suspension. The Renders were no more.

Pherson turned the car around and left Dudleytown, Connecticut in a cloud of carbon monoxide. "Nice town, lousy welcoming party," he said to himself,

Pherson was not entirely sure where he would go next. Hartford, maybe, or Bridgeport. Maybe he would cross the Hudson into New York. He heard a rumor that someone was guarding a large gasoline supply there, If they weren't too heavily armed, he could probably fight or negotiate for it. Who knows, maybe he would settle down, although he doubted that he would for a long time to come. He was having too much fun.

THE END

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