the journal of a wasteland wanderer

September 1st, 2104

The day broke and the sun rose from behind the Nevada mountains. Old bastions of the world. The sky tinted orange and yellow like a heavenly call. My eyes gleamed in the light. I arose from the bed of a small community motel. Free of charge, luckily. I didn't have any water on me, pure water that is. Water has become a sort of currency since society collapsed. Every currency that sprung up has been backed by water. It's the only thing I trade in, that or services. Everyone's in need of some physical labor or sidework. 

Walking out of the motel I smiled at the clerk and left. In the parking lot sat my prized possession. My old world Toyota Camry, Elise. Elise has been by my side since I was a guard for an old junkyard town. Her parts were scavenged from anything I could find, and she ran well enough. I even added some extra junk to her. Armor plating if I get jumped by retched Highway Junkies. Which are basically these raiders that created Frankenstein esc trucks. Massive machines they call Diesel Destroyers, they're slow though, but if they do catch ya' better pray that you've got some car parts on you. Trust me, they really don't like it when you don't got anything for them. I've run into them before, but my old Elise can outrun any of their Diesel Destroyers. 

So anyways, I started her up and heard that baby purr. That noise would have made any highway junkie oil their pants. Driving out the parking lot I waved bye to Verdi and headed towards Reno.

Verdi was quite pretty. I liked the old mountains and whispering trees as the wind weeped between them. I-80 ain't a horrible highway to go down. Personally, I've been through worse. 

I stopped at a small shop in Reno to pick up some supplies, mainly water and food. The store I stopped at had a few people around it, looked legit enough so I parked and went inside.

Now, I'm not a particularly nice looking person myself. I've definitely got a few scars and some wrinkles that make me look a little hard on the outside. With that said, the lady at the counter looked worse. She had deep and sunken eyes that held no color, no light. A smile missing more than a few teeth, the ones that were there were as sharp as the knife I kept around my thigh. 

“Welcome to Graham's, I can see you're new here, what do you need?” She asked me, her voice coated with the sand under my boot. 

“Yeah, yeah, I need 2 liters of water, and do you have any canned foods?” I asked back, a little more hurriedly than I wanted to be.

“Okay then, whaddya got?" She looked at me funny, like I was insane or something. I'm not insane, not to my knowledge at least.

“I have a cartridge of 5.56?” I turned my pack around and started digging through it. 

“Throw in two and it's a deal.” She said, pushing a 2 liter of water and 3 cans of tomato soup towards me. Nodding, I threw in a second cartridge of 5.56 and shoved the rest of the goods into my pack and walked out.

Reno was a nice place. Multiple vendors dotted the streets and people smiled at me. You'd be surprised by people's friendliness in a post-apocalypse. I got into Elise and started her up, driving out the parking lot. 

I checked all my supplies in Elise and my pack before leaving town. In Elsie, mounted to the back seats was a gun I rarely ever used, an old AR-15. There were also about two and half gas cans full in the trunk. In my pack were two liters of water and three cans of tomato soup, along with 2 cartridges of .45 ammo. On my person was my combat knife around my thigh that I stole from a police station on a salvaging job that I did, and my 1911 in the inside pocket of my jacket. On the topic of my clothes, they were modest. A long sleeve pullover and a leather jacket over it, along with a pair of jeans. I also wore black combat boots that I also stole from the police station. With the window rolled down, I cruised out of Reno, a smile on my face and my pack in the passenger's seat.