The Bounty Hunter

The sun was high in the sky by the time the man finally died. Battered and bruised, the only thing keeping his broken body upright were the chains binding him to the pole. Red dripped down his fingertips, each droplet staining the ash at his feet.

The Marshals didn’t take kindly to deserters. They liked murderers even less.

It wasn’t until the moment the last rattling breath left his lungs that Mel pushed herself up off the dusty wall she had been leaning on. To watch. To witness.

After all, she was the reason a man had died.

Barely twenty, Roger Hilstrock had deserted two weeks into the four month training camp. In the dead of night, he had taken his horse, a week of rations, and his gun. If he had merely left, the Marshals would have left the Wastes claim him.

But instead, he had killed a guard on his way out. And so Mel was called in.

After all, who better to track a dead man walking than a ghost.

The Woman in question brushed a lock of bone white hair behind her ear as she walked towards her horse, ignoring the Man who fell into step beside her.

Or attempting to, at least. Deputy Preston Smith was not an easy Man to avoid. Especially in the stupid hat he somehow hadn’t managed to realize made his ears look almost as big as his head.

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard the reward.”

“I don’t need to.” Mel finally reached her horse, already saddled for the journey ahead. Mounting up, she finally spared a look for Preston. “Besides, I’m already contracted.”

“Break it.” That made Mel pause in place. For all that it sounded simple, breaking a contract was anything but. In a world where reliability was of more importance than money, a Marshal’s word was their life.

And Mel was as dependable as they came.

She raised an eyebrow at the tablet the Deputy handed her. More accurately, at the photo of the regal Woman that graced the screen.

“What did our esteemed Lady of Orleans do?”

“Killed her husband and took off into the Wastes.”

That was unexpected.

“Alone?”

Preston rocked back on his heels as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “With her personal guard.”

Mel swiped across the screen to the next photo and felt her other eyebrow join its sister.

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Huffing out a breath, Mel reached up to scratch under the brim of her hat. Some days, she really hated her job.

“Fine.”

Preston’s face lit up. “You’ll do it?”

Mel picked up the reins and nudged her mare forward.

“If I don’t, who will?”

She didn’t wait around to hear the Deputy’s response.

***

There was a reason it was called the Wastes. As Mel nodded to the guards on duty at the gate, she resettled the guns at her hips. Most of the townspeople assumed that the name referred to the landscape left barren after the bombs had hit.

They would be wrong.

During dark nights, the real reason was whispered softly around a crackling fire, as if the wind itself would hear and carry word back to those who didn’t need to know.

The Wastes weren’t the land, they were the people left outside the giant walls when the bombs dropped. Or, what had once been people.

Mel had once found a book from Before, that had featured something called a zombie. From what she had gleaned, the only difference between a Waste and a zombie was that the latter feasted on brains.

A Waste wasn’t that picky.

Standing in the stirrups, Mel leaned forward until she was practically resting against the mare’s neck.

Her first day of training, she had been led to Sally’s stall. It had taken a lot of work not just to make Sally ready to ride, but to get the horse to trust her.

Mel had never regretted it.

“Run.” And off towards the setting sun horse and rider went.

It was several hours before Mel found the first sign. Slowing Sally to a walk, she reached out a gloved hand to swipe through the blood smeared on the ash coated wall. She rubbed her fingers together, grimacing in distaste at the iron-like smell.

Humans were disgusting.

Wiping her hand off on a passing bush, Mel took a look around. The blood was a few hours old and she didn’t think that a Lady would be stupid enough to stay in the same place where she had bled.

Then again, the fact that she bled at all was reason to doubt her intelligence.

Letting out a deep sigh, Mel nudged Sally back into a gallop.

It was almost three in the morning when she stopped again. But this time, it wasn’t for a clue. Mel sat frozen in the saddle for a single moment before she drew her guns and began to fire into the night.

The Wastes screamed as they died their final death. Mel hadn’t feel the need to make it peaceful for them.

It only took four rounds before the ones still able to flee did so. She took that as a good sign. Her last time with a murder of that size, it taken over ten rounds of ammo before they had run. Mel was still bitter about the gun and arm she had lost to a particularly vicious female Waste.

On she rode.

Ten hours later, Mel finally found them. The Lady was leaned against a dying tree, a heart-shaped locket glinting at her throat. Left for dead. Dismounting Sally, she walked towards the body, ignoring the heartbeat coming from the ramshackle shed she had stopped by.

Mel ignored the dirt floating up around her knees as she pulled the body forward until she could access the panel hidden under the Lady’s hairline.

“Out of battery,” she muttered to herself, before raising her voice enough that the man hiding in the shed would hear her. “Did you have a plan at all?”

The soft shuffling quieted for a moment. Mel just shook her head before pulling out the memory card and letting the husk drop. In single motion too smooth to be human, she drew, aimed, and fired.

A moment later, she heard the body drop. She waited a moment more before resheathing her gun.

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“Neither do we,” came a shuddering voice from behind the Woman.

When she turned around, she came face to face with a graying Waste, his drawn gun as steady as his voice was shaky. Tears dripped down his face, carving clean lines in the grime that covered it.

“He was a child.”

“So are you.”

Mel felt the burning pain a moment before the gunshot registered. Gasping, she raised a hand to cover her wound, taking a step back from the man.

“He was my child and you will never understand that.”

The man fired again, but this time, Mel was ready. As quick as her programming dictated, she dodged the bullet, drew her own gun once more, and fired. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

“You’re right. I never will.”

Mel looked down at the torn and jagged wires poking out of the brand new hole in her torso and groaned. As she strode back to Sally, her silver coat glimmering in the sun, the Woman ignored the other Wastes hiding in the surrounding buildings.

The human who had reprogrammed the Lady was dead. Her bounty was complete. Mounting up, Mel took one last look at the scene before her, logging it all for her report. Honestly, she didn’t know why humans kept trying. Didn’t they know they had already lost the moment they had booted up the first of Mel’s kind?