The Badlands
Introduction

From the center of Hell's Half Acre, you can walk three-hundred acres before you reach flat, uninteresting ground. And even from there, you'll be forced to walk miles and miles and miles just to get a drink of water, and a bite to eat. The only wildlife outside of this place is the occasional cactus. Out there – out in the Wasteland – it was flat, boring ground. But in Hell's Half Acre, the story was completely different.

With mountainous rock formations, giant rocky hills, and a system of connecting underground caves, Hell's Half Acre was the biggest inhabited area left in the world, easily. Each opening to a cave was a settlement, and there were many outer colonies. The Capital, as everyone calls it, is in the center of Hell's Half Acre. Underground.

A couple of hundred people live in the Capital, and there are still the other towns and settlements to put into account. The whole three-hundred acres are fenced off, with constant guard keeping watch around the border. A single opening, everyone called it The Portal, was the only way in or out of Hell's Half Acre.

Me and my pal, Tommy. We're the ones constantly watching the Portal into the badlands. After the Great War, and then a whole other war between the Brotherhood and that shadow government, more and more people want into the badlands. Everyday, me and Tommy have to turn them down, or let them in. The people have to prove their worth, with story, skills, or simply being put into a fight with some sort of animal.

Some people, though, they don't like our requirements to get into the safe haven of Hell's Half Acre. So, they do what any other hopeless bastard would do; and that's try to shoot their way in. No one ever wins in a gun fight, considering they're always greatly out numbered.

Tommy looked over my shoulder, and saw me writing all this stuff down on a piece of crumpled up paper. The paper was covered in rips, from trying to write on the crude wood table. Laughing, he said, “What are you writing all this stuff down for? Sending it to a loved out way out in civilization?”

I looked at Tommy, “We are civilization, Tom.”

“Nobody here is civilized, buddy.” Tommy replied.

“Well ain't that [censored]?” I said

He was right, though. The only decent members of society were the snobby older people living in the center of the Capital. High up in their tall buildings, looking down on everyone, thinking about how they're better than all of us. The sad thing was that they were right.

Crime was dealt with swiftly, and without mercy. But that didn't stop people from committing it, constantly. You get caught, you're kicked out the city. It's simple, until people decided just to not get caught. Most towns and districts are like shanty towns. Chases consist of roof top jumping, close quarters shooting, and getting crammed in between two building in a narrow alleyway. Oh, and it usually happened underground.

A long beep overcame the sound of music in the small security room. I slid over to the center console, and look at the screen. A few people were talking towards the badlands, about a kilometer away from the Portal.

“Tommy, camera's got movement about a click away from the gate. Why don't you make yourself useful, and check it out?” I said.

“Sorry,” Tommy replied, “you go do it. I'm listening to music. Wonderful, music.”

“Huey Long can sing to you later, Tommy. C'mon, we'll both go then. That's fair, isn't it?”

Tommy stood up with a jump, and waved his arms around. “His singing is more than a voice. It's like heroin for the soul, baby! Speaking of the soul, let's go reject some pitiful one's from salvation.”

Good read, I enjoyed it. Just remember capitalization, it was missing in a spot or two.

Out of curiosity, is the "Hell's Half-Acre" bit an homage to the short story? (The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre, I believe it's called.")

Cool story - but you're mixing your tenses a little bit ("replies", "looked").

Thank you both!
I think I got the capitalization errors? And, it's name comes from the Hell's Half Acre badlands in Wyoming.
As for the tense mistakes, that's a new one for me. Huh, I'll fix those.

Just read over it and didn't notice any mistakes. I think you got 'em.

As for the story itself, it seems like it'll be interesting to read. I guess I'll keep an eye on this from now on.

Interesting and a good read, only thing I saw was when you said: No one every wins in a gunfight, considering..

Chapter One
A Day in the Life of...


It was the same old process, accepting or denying people. It was mostly denying them access, which was really the unfortunate thing ? at first. You start out, feeling for the all people, wishing you could let them in and bend the rules just a little. The longer you keep guard, the more you start to realize all these people you're letting in, will probably be the same people shooting, running from, and trying to kill you.

"There's only... Three or so people there." Tommy said, observing through a pair of binoculars. They weren't that far off.

"I can see from here, Tom."

"Oh, I know, so can I. But these things look cool, eh?" Tommy looked at me, smiled, and pointed at the binoculars still attached to his eyes with his other hand.

The three people finally arrived; all of them were males. An older man, with two younger fellows. They were all old enough to fight for themselves, though. They all looked the same ? same clothes, same faces, same sad eyes ? it was obvious they were all related. Obvious to me, at least.

He leaned over in his chair, and propped his chin up on his arm, with his elbow on his knee. He sighed, blew air out of his mouth so his lips vibrated, and started to talk.

"Name? Uh, names?" Tommy said.

"Joseph, Kerry, and Mack Weaver." The oldest man replied, pointing with the names said. He was Joseph.

"All right," Tommy said, "Give me and my friend here, one reason to let you all in. Just one reason for the lot of you."

The man's draw dropped. "I-I-I Don't know what you're talking about. A reason? I thought this was salvation! I thought this was an escape from the harsh world?!"

"Escape?" I chuckled, "You're just going deeper into the core. It's safer in here than out there, sure, but that's only because we have food and water. But we still have famine. We still have droughts, animal attacks. Sir, we offer a rocky roof over your head. The world stays the same." The man shook his head. "Now, abide to the rules, or don't and leave. Reason, Mr. Weaver?"

The man sighed, "We've been through alo-"

"So've we." Tommy said, "Anything else?" Joseph shook his head. Tommy said, "Ciao. May God have mercy."

Even after spending half your life doing this day after day, it still builds up inside. You feel heartfelt no matter what. I always think about those people dying out in the wastes, and then turning into food for the Molerats, chew toys for the Dogs, and egg sacks for the Bloatflies. It's all to keep my sorry ass in this place, though.

The rest of the day, nobody else showed up. It was a slower day than usual, actually. The Portal opened momentarily, the night guys came out, we went in, the Portal shut. I went off to my shack. And that's every day of my life. It has been for years.

I laid down on my small cot, and shifted around. With each movement, there was a creak. Sooner or later the thing was going to snap from how old it was. Or from my weight, but it's hard to say for sure. I put my head back on the soft pillow, and covered up with a blanket. For the first time, I thought about how one day... One day my job would come back to bite me in the ass.

Chapter 2
Open All Night

The putrid scent of rotting meat filled my sleeping nostrils, and woke me up in an instant. I coughed, and pulled my shirt up and over my nose to block the scent. It was pitch black out, and my eyes were still blurry and unadjusted to waking up. A felt a cool breeze hit my face, and heard the sound of something moving right in front of me.

I twisted around, and pushed myself back against the wall. That wasn't a breeze, that was someone's breath. Someone's disgusting breath. I noticed the very distinct sound of someone's breathing. The breathing quickly turned in a menacing laugh, and there was another jerk in movement.

Cold, hard hand grabbed my neck. I punched the human form that was now on top of my, trying to strangle me. I reached around the floor, looking for a weapon. I felt nothing, and I started to get light headed. With a last sign of strength, I reached up and grabbed the person's face. I reached around, and grabbed the side of their head, forcing my thumbs into the sockets of their eyes.

They let go, and jumped back. I got to my feet, and ran for the door to my room. Hitting the switch to the lights, there was a quick jolt of electricity, a blue light filled the room for a split second, then darkness. The light had burned out. I grunted, and opened the door to my room.

The larger room was just as black, because the sight of the massive cave entrance blocked the moon from my window. I went for my front door, and grabbed my coat as I went outside. I grabbed a near torch, and jogged away from my shack. Tommy's place was jut right down the street, and I knew he had a gun that wanted to be used.

I reached his house minutes later, and started to bang on his door. I yelled, "Tommy! Wake up, dammit. I just got attacked!" There was no answer.

A hand touched my shoulder, and I twisted around extending the torch outwards. Tommy fell on the ground, with his arm covering his face.

"Jesus, man! You all most burned my alive. Where were you? I was just at your place."

"There's someone in there! Someone tried to attack me. Where the f-" I stopped short, "Why didn't I see you on the way here?"

"I came from the Portal; you're not going to believe what happened..."


The Portal was sealed shut, and nothing looked out of place. Tommy was taking me to the security room, when I noticed tiny holes going through the Portal's gate. They looked like bullet holes.

Tommy opened the security door, and shook his head while stepping in. I peaked my head through, and jumped back at the sight. I covered my mouth slightly, and shuddered.

"What the Hell is this?" I asked.

The room had obviously been broken into, and both the night guys were shot dead. There was a trail of blood from their chairs, to the corner of the room where there bodies were. They were literally covered in each other's blood, and littered with smaller, darker holes where the bullets entered.

"There was a resistance, of sorts." Tommy said. I gave him a confused look. He nodded, "Yeah... Go, watch the cameras."

I walked over to the screen, and picked the right video files saved into the computer. There were at least a hundred people all standing outside the gate, with guns on their backs and hips. Two of them busted into the security room.

I looked at the other camera view, that was inside the room. The guards flew back in their chairs, dead in seconds, the shooters continued to fill them with bullets. The killers dragged their bodies and propped them up in the corner. The screen went black.

"Ends there." Tommy said.

"Why?" I asked.

Tommy shook his head, "Dunno. But those people? If you take a closer look, those two killers are the Weaver boys we rejected today. I think the Rejects have been building a resistance, pal."

"Impossible..." I said, stunned.

"Very possible." Tommy replied.

oooh, cool! Interesting story. Grammer/spelling/punctuation errors:

hmmmm..... well geee, I can't find anyting! Nice job! (I feeel useless )

Thank you twice, RobCo.
The whole reject thing, though, is an excuse to take Tommy and the Narrator out of the Portal duty. So, it's not going to be hunting down people all in one night. And yes, it's a nameless protagonist!