Impulse Purchase 

“It was an impulse purchase,” Dakota Christmas said, deftly cracking open her double barreled shotgun, 12 slender fingers ejecting then replacing the still smoking shells. “And by purchase, I mean I stole it. At least originally. Filly little mutants. Didn’t deserve it anyhoot.” 

And with the, Dakota Christmas, star of the hit reality show Doomsday, CA, siting atop her pilfered motorcycle, brought the weapon to her cheek, sighted, opened fire.

“Fudge! Only winged the bugger.” 

Through the haze of my radiation suit’s visor, I could see, some 100 yards distance, a three-armed young man grasping his shoulder as he scrambled for cover. 

 “Anyway, I really appreciate you coming in to the fallout zone to do this interview. Not a lot of normies make the trek.” 

I could see why. 

To get here, this intrepid journalist was forced to fight, lie, cheat and steal. And that was just for the requisite paperwork from Sacramento. Since entering the Fallout zone that was once the city of Los Angeles, my life has been in peril. First the indignity of being strip searched by a two headed border guard, then hoards of zombie like construction workers wolf whistling and me, then a half-man half-iguana who professed want to cover me in molasses and… well gentle reader, I trust you get the point. 

But it was all worth it, just for a chance to interview, in the irradiated flesh, this starlet. 

“I’d come to LA to chase my dreams of being an actress, or failing that a getting into adult industry, or if things got really desperate, working in advertising,” Dakota said, her blond pigtails tantalizingly dancing across her trademark quadruple-kini swim top. “Then the big Kaboom happened and…” 

The reality star pause, her eyes as sharp as an AMEX bill, peered towards the horizon. We sat in the ruined wreckage of what Dakota assured me was once Rodeo Drive. It was a commanding vista. If one scrunched their eyes just right, you could almost see the majesty that was Beverly Hills, but no more alas. Naught but broken windows, bombed out cars, and thousands upon thousands of stick thin skeletons, all signs their humanity gone save for the rusted clasps of Prada handbags. 

 Dakota remained silent. Her eyes vigilant. I asked the buxom beauty what was the matter.

“Bugger, it’s just a lot of them.” 

I was about to ask her whom she meant when the sudden sound of revving engines wafted to my ears. From what once must have been Santa Monica Blvd, resplendent in their glory came a parade of mutants riding vehicles of every description. Trucks, motorcycles, buggies, half a dozen diesel powered Pruis. 

A lump formed in my throat. I asked the Ms. Christmas what they wanted. 

“Payment.”

Payment I asked. For what?

“Remember how I said this Harley was stolen at first? Well, turns out that was a terrible idea. Boot-Kutta, and his gang rolling this way have been done hounding me for weeks. I can’t go hardly nowhere without one of his pardners trying to rustle me up. So, I thought Dekota, why not just pay for the dang thing? I’m sure Boot-Kutta would understand. He was a reasonable man after all. So I told him I’d pay for the dang thing.”

I looked over yonder way, and could clearly see the so named Boot-Kutta riding atop the roof of a pickup truck, sitting on what very much looked like a throne made of hubcaps and human skulls. His face, bone gaunt. Saliva dripped off overlarge incisors. He was not, this journalist must admit, the picture of reasonability. 

“Mutties love their motorbikes its true. But there is one thing they love more: untainted meat.”

Before I could ask her what she meant by that—perhaps she had a sirloin, or a flank stake hidden in the saddlebags of this Maltese Falcon-like motorcycle? — She’d revved her engine, with a billow of noxious tire smoke was riding away.

“Good luck normie!” were the last words I heard her speak as Boot-Kutta and his hoard descended upon me.