The wastes, as always, were an infinite sea of dirt and twisted metal. It wasn't boring by any means, but it wouldn't make for a good vacation. Say if you and your loved ones happened to have time off together, as a reward for being loyal to your unsightly corporate overlords, you would be much better off hitting up Fiji, or Colorado in the winter, than take a sojourn through the wastes. Unfortunately for Beards, this wasn't an option. He'd been born into this world while his mothers insanity was still taking hold. Of course, by the time Beards had become the ripe old age of one, radiation had turned his mothers brain into a pool of gravy. Not literally of course, but I'm sure you can make the connection between a pool of gravy and stupidity. It was then that Beards lonely and without love was said to be raised by a pack of ravenous Deathclaws. This is, of course, [censored] outrageous.

Beards had found himself heading towards Phoenix, Arizona. It was an area he knew as "Black Fire". The population had decreased dramatically in the area since the bombs fell, probably because without the promise of work people realized it was retarded living in a city whose heat index exceeded 110 degrees. Unfortunately for Beards many obstacles lay in his path, like this one.

"Give me your [censored] gear or your scrap" The words came from a small wiry man with an Assault Rifle that had been banded together probably hundreds of times.
"You'd probably have it if you hadn't said anything and just shot me, I didn't even know you were there." Beards replied.
"Fine." and with that the man shot. The bullet flew wide due to the barrel falling off. Beards laughed, then shot the man with his shotgun. The small mans head exploded in a delightful shower of skull bits and gray matter. Beards methodically took the mans equipment, leaving the gun to be swallowed by the Wastes.

It wasn't long before Beards stumbled across a settlement, it consisted of eight hastily constructed shacks.
"I'm friendly, just looking for some trade" Beards shouted, holding his gun up for them to see. Beards didn't see anyone, but figured he was being watched. "Anyone there?"
"You can come in, but we hold onto your weapons." A voice came from behind him.
"No, I don't let anyone touch Miss. Starlett."
"That the name of your gun? Pretty name, for a pretty gun. I'll tell you what, you give me a token of your good will, and I'll let you come in armed." Beards turned around to see a man with a disfigured arm. The man held out his good arm, "Maybe some food, some caps, a stimpack?"
"Here." Beards reached into his pack and threw the man an unlabeled can.
"Welcome to Banksworth stranger! The towns named after me, as I am Banksworth. It's all right guys he's okay!" Three men with guns stepped out from behind various rocks behind him. "Would've been a shame if we had to kill you, haven't had a proper visitor in near six months."
"Yeah, listen, I don't like to talk, and I'm thirsty, so where's the bar?"
"Oh no we don't drink stranger, we hold on to the ways of Joseph Smith."
"Joseph Smith?"
"Yes, it's all in this book we found." The man said taking a book from his back pocket and presenting it to Beards.
"Religion died with the bombs." Beards said pushing the book away. "I'm going to rest and head out, if you don't have booze then you don't have anything I want." The man didn't look shocked at all.
"Whatever you say stranger."

The night went by without a sound, as most nights do. The wastes however were noisy as [censored]. There were mutated coyotes chirping at the moon, mole rats snarling in the distance, giant ants skittering about. The world had been reclaimed by the nature we had taken it from, all it took was some radiation induced evolution. All the raid left in the world couldn't kill a single giant ant. Blind maybe, but not kill. Night was, as always, the worst for Beards. It wasn't fear or question of his own mortality that kept him awake, no, for Beards it was boredom. Living as he did, a child of destruction, he never felt alive unless there was a 10% chance of an encounter with a hostile life form. Unfortunately he wasn't an idiot, and realized he would never feel alive if he was dead, which was very likely if he spent the night sleeping in the Wastes. Day came slowly, after a night of tossing and turning Beards was able to stand, clip on his ammo belt, throw on his dusty and torn coat, and strap Miss. Starlett to his back. He left without saying goodbye to the Mormons of Banksworth.

The day was the same as yesterday, which is to say, [censored]. The wind was blowing away the tracks of the molerats and giant ants of the night before. The wind couldn't remove the remains of a coyote though. It's ribbed legs clasped together in a futile effort to chirp it's attackers away. Coyotes were one of the species that got the short end of the stick during the last hundred years of genetic mutation. Somehow they gained the ability to chirp like a cricket, which if you know anything about science, doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, even if a giant cricket appeared due to mutation, and it managed to fornicate with a coyote, they shouldn't be able to produce any offspring due to both the high chance of sterility from radiation, and that they're two incompatible species. In any case, along with the chirp they had become herbivores due to weak teeth that fell out before they reached being six months old. There were still cases where a coyote would TRY and bite into some tasty meat, but since they only had gums to chew with it just made you feel sad for the little beasts. Needless to say, they were dying out at an incredibly fast rate. Luckily for Beards, the legs tasted great, so he ripped them off, threw them in his sack, and continued onwards. The sand sea, as Beards sometimes referred to the brown [censored]hole before him, stretched out as far as the eye could see. There were mountains somewhere ahead of him, probably another fifty miles or so as best as he could guess. To his immediate left was the remains of pavement. Since scavenging was the only profitable job left in the world, Beards decided to try his luck and see if anything lay at the end of the black tar path.

After walking for a few hours he came to a rusted burnt out trailer park. Well, he didn't know it was a trailer park, but it was a flat area full of slabs of concrete, and the rusted remains of trailers still sat upon the concrete. Beards knew that there were probably people here, but since there weren't any signs of civilization he decided to keep quiet, take out his gun, and walk slowly. The first trailer still had paint flaking off, it was white with a yellow stripe displayed horizontally across the entirety of the middle. The door was closed, but through several rusty holes Beards could make out the dark interior. The remains of the carpet were red, probably from the crusted up blood of the occupants who could've been killed in a hundred different gruesome fashions. Beards couldn't see into the back room, as it was too dark to make out. He decided that the best course of action would be to open the door and see whats inside. By open I mean destroy. Beards swung one heavy fist at the door and punched a hole through it. It wasn't very hard because the door had all ready been decaying for awhile. He withdrew his fist and shoved the barrel of his gun through, waiting for a noise. No noise came though, so he proceeded to open the door the old fashioned way, by using the door handle. It opened with a creek and sunlight splashed over the interior. There wasn't much. As he stepped inside the trailer shook from his weight, threatening to fall over any minute. It was stable enough though, just the effect of worn out shocks playing with his mind. He searched through all the cupboards and didn't find a thing. This detour was turning out to be a waste of time. He decided to try his luck with the next trailer, and again nothing. It wasn't until the sixth trailer that he found something, and it was then that he realized not only was this detour not profitable, it was also dangerous. The sixth trailer was chock full of headless half decayed and fully decayed corpses. That meant this place belonged to either raiders or cannibals, or more likely, cannibal raiders. He looked towards the setting sun in the west and it was then that he saw the silhouette of stakes shoved into the ground. On top of these stakes were the silhouettes of skulls. Unfortunately he had come in from the back, and so missed the warning signs that the raiders, cannibals, or angry tribals, had kindly put up. Then he had an epiphany. If this was their camp, and there wasn't anyone here, then he could find their ammo stash, because they probably couldn't have killed this many people without weapons. So he decided to check the next eight trailers really fast. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough. Midway through his casting about the sound of shouting came from the west.

"I'm [censored] hungry Wes"
"Well [censored] hold on, I'll start a fire in a bit, less you want to eat 'em cold."

Well then, Beards COULD escape, and probably be chased and shot down. Or he could sit here and wait it out until tomorrow. So he stayed in the trailer. He peaked through one of the holes and saw the raiders hanging out in the center of the trailer park. The center was about twenty yards from him. It was a large clearing with a firepit, the raiders took their soon-to-be meal and threw her in a trailer. Beards noticed one of the men, specifically the one that had muscles as big as his head, was carrying the ammo box and a minigun. A [censored] mini-gun. That [censored] [censored]. He also noticed the small guy next to him, that just so happened to be wearing a suit of faces. I say a suit of faces, and you probably get an image of someone wearing a suit of faces, or you say "what the [censored] are you talking about?", but I mean literally, the man was wearing pants, and a shirt, made out of peoples chopped off faces. Probably the victims faces. It was quite surreal.

"C'mon Wes lets [censored] eat her" one of the raiders said, there appeared to be fourteen of them. About ten too many to kill them all.
"You, start the fire" the man in the face suit demanded of one of his lackeys. Obviously the man wearing the face suit was Wes, their leader. The lackey started up the fire, threw on some logs and before long there was a roaring fire.
"Can we eat now?" The lackey asked. Then Wes pulled out a silver .45 and shot the man in the head.
"Now we eat." He said.
"What the [censored]!"
"He missed the other [censored], I wanted to eat today AND tomorrow, so he failed, and he's dinner." Wes answered. "You understand?" He said, pointing his pistol.
"I get it, long as we get to eat" the man said holding his hands up in a gesture of non-violence.
The count was down to thirteen, still nine too many.
"Hey, there's a [censored] hole in this trailer door!" The big one yelled. [censored]. [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored]. Well then.
"You two, watch the perimeter, everyone else, search a trailer."
Beards braced himself against the wall, ready to kick open the door. As the door to his trailer started to open he kicked forward with all of his might. The raider opening it slammed into the ground hard, her SMG flew across the ground. Beards jumped out of the trailer, and cracked her skull with the butt of his shotgun. Wes was standing there, mouth agape. Beards leveled his gun and shot. The solid steel slug tore through the face suit, and subsequently through Wes' skin, rib cage, and his heart, leaving a gaping hole where a once vital organ had been housed. Beards cocked his shotgun and turned to his right. The man to his right reacted faster than Wes, he shot at Beards and hit him in the shoulder. The bullet missed bone, and tore through his muscle. At the same time Beards dropped to one knee and fired his gun, blowing the guys head clean off. Beards threw Miss. Starlett to the ground and grabbed the SMG with his left hand. Knowing full well that a giant with a mini-gun was somewhere close by, Beards ran forward and ducked behind one of the trailers. The sound of a mini-gun revving convinced Beards to ball up. Bullets tore the trailer apart. Literally, apart. Where once was a trailer, was now a bunch of metal with holes in it. Lots and lots of holes. As the mini-gun revved down, Beards popped around the corner and unloaded the entire clip of his SMG into the giant holding a mini-gun. After all thirty shots had been exhausted, the man finally collapsed. Knowing full well that there was nine people left, and that he wasn't currently holding anything capable of killing a person, he dropped his SMG and ran back to Miss. Starlett. Bullets flew overhead, underfoot, and side to side. In an act of extreme athleticism Beards somersaulted over his shotgun, grabbing it midroll, and coming up behind the corpse of the giant. He cocked the gun, and shot the man on his side of cover before he could react. The man flew back into the trailer behind him. A second man was peaking out of the entrance of a trailer and started firing wildly. The bullets struck everywhere around Beardsley. He cocked his gun again and shot through the mans cover, sending blood and shrapnel spiraling into the air. Once more Beards cocked his gun, and with a grunt lifted the giant up and started using him as meat shield. Holding the shotgun in his left hand, using all of his will to ignore the searing pain in his right shoulder, he pushed forward. Bullets filled his cover some grazing his arm. There were three men in one trailer, all of them were shooting at him. After pushing forward five feet, the men had run out of ammo. Beards dropped the cover and rushed forward. He fired, dropping one man. He slammed into the next one and knocked him into the ground. He threw Miss. Starlett into the air, and grabbed it by the barrel. Swinging it like a bat he smashed the third man's skull in with the hilt. The man on the ground lay there, trying to catch his breath when Beards kicked his face in. Beards picked a grenade off his belt, and pulled the pin. He waited a second, hoping someone would take a shot at him, but the place was silent. So he tossed the grenade in the nearest trailer. A man ran out while the trailer blew up behind him. Beards cocked his gun and shot the mans right leg off. He started to reload the gun as he walked up to the man who was screaming in agony.
"Where'd the rest of you go?" Beards asked.
"You [censored] blew it off you [censored]!" the man screamed.
"No, I mean where'd the rest of your people go?"
"They ran away, and so was I. I'm [censored] dying!" Beards cocked his gun.
"What settlement have you been raiding?"
"It's a place two days west from here. They have a doctor, I can guide you if you take me with you. Use that fire to -[censored] A- to cauterize my wound." Beards shot him in the head.
Beards cauterized his own wound using a piece of burning wood. He grabbed up as much ammo as he could before he remembered the girl. She was stuffed in the trailer with the bodies, crying. She was a tribal, and looked to be barely sixteen.
"Where's the nearest town?" he asked.
"It's two days west of here, are they dead?"
"Yes."
"Can I go?"
"Yes."
"Can I come with you?"
"No." Beards walked away, as he always does. He grabbed a few clips and stuffed the SMG into his pack, he leaned over Wes and grabbed the .45. He fired a test shot. It fired wide, the gun was [censored]. He threw it aside. The area was as quiet as when he'd come in. It was a strange sensation, to be blinded by gunfire and rage and in a minute, it was done. Today was a record for Beards, perhaps it was a record for anyone. Unfortunately, without a Guiness Book of World Records: Wastelander Edition, he'd never know. He walked into the setting sun, his right arm full of scabs and blood. Miss. Starlett strapped across his back, blood still on the hilt glistening in the sunlight.
"Here's to tomorrow"

I haven't read this yet but I am curious about something. Is this the first chapter, or is this the entire story?

It's a series of short stories. It kind of has a story arc, but not really. I wrote these two a bit ago on another site and figured I'd post them here to see if there was any interest in the story continuing. I suppose this could technically be considered the first two chapters.