Take the All-Mart! Read Online Free

Besides, they forced all the pizza joints and arcades to close up shop.”
    “The bastards.”
    “They should all rot in hell, yeah.” Trip turned back to the map and frowned. Most of the town names were crossed out or labeled with warnings like “Rad Zone”, “No Man’s Land”, and “Hookers Have Mutant, Sentient Crabs”. Trip sneered. “We’re running out of options, here. Vishnu’s leather ankles. I hate the Wasteland. They should just pave over the whole thing and be done with it. There’s nothing out here. It’s like a... a...”
    “A giant wasteland?” Rudy suggested, leaning in to look at the map himself.
    “Maybe we can risk making it to Jersey.” Trip started to flip the page. “There’s always some action to get in on in Jersey.”
    Rudy stopped him, stabbing the stem of his calabash at one of the few towns that wasn’t crossed off. “What about this one, then? We’ve never been there, I don’t think, and it’s pretty close.”
    “Seriously? Shunk?” Trip read the hand-written label dubiously: “‘The beer capital of the Wasteland’?”
    “That’s probably not saying much, mind ya — Wasteland’s known more for its fortified wines — but it might be worth checking out.”
    Trip eyed Rudy suspiciously. “You just want to go on a bender.”
    “So?” Rudy smiled. “Anyway, where there’s booze, there’s money.”
    “Fine,” Trip rolled the Rand-McNally up and slapped it against Rudy’s chest. “At least it’s on the way. If it turns out to be a no-go, we can still maybe make Jersey.”
    “Think we’ll be there by lunch?” Rudy jammed the Rand-McNally back into the glove compartment. “I’m starving.”
    “Should. Unless we see a flea market.”
    “Oh, well, yeah, of course. Some boiled peanuts would be awesome.”
    “This far North?” Trip twitched, taking the Wound off autopilot. Lacing his fingers behind his head and closing his eyes, seeing through her telemetry, he had her speed up, slaloming around a crater and passing a slow-moving steam-powered VW van. “You’re dreaming. Best you’ll get are those roasted almonds in paper cones.”
    “Bummer, they’re always stale.” Rudy reached under his t-shirt to twist his nipple, backing off the flow of THC-analog to simple buzz-sustenance level, and stared out his window at the gray and brown landscape flashing by, chewing the bit of his pipe. “So, All-Mart looks... bigger.”
    “Shut up.”
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3: THE CITY-STATE BOOZE BUILT
     
     
    Throwing up twin trails of dust behind her, the Wound tore down a hard-packed dirt road winding through sickly barley fields toward the squat and ugly city-state of Shunk.
    Ringed by a wall of junked cars filled with concrete and piled four high, Shunk was built around a decrepit, ancient brewery, smokestacks half falling over but still billowing thick, black smoke. The four-story tall twin rows of six grain silos — the tallest structures in the city-state — proudly proclaimed, in crudely painted lettering, the beer’s slogan:
    MORTY’S FINEST: IT’LL GET YOU GOOD AND DRUNK!
    Seeing this, Rudy giggled in anticipation. Trip just groaned.
    The road ended at the city-state’s main gate, a rough gap in the wall of junked cars two cars wide. The gate itself was a flimsy two-by-four wood frame held together by sheets of chicken wire haphazardly stapled to it. At the side of the gate, a town guard sat on a rusty beer keg, chin on chest asleep, a Kalashnikov on his lap and a dozen empty plastic gallon milk jugs around his feet. A kid that couldn’t have been older than ten stood next to him. Unkempt and dirty, the kid looked bored out of his mind, even with the Uzi slung under his arm. Disinterested, the kid watched as the Wound slowed to a stop in front of the gate.
    The kid elbowed the adult in the shoulder. “Time for work, Dad.”
    The adult came awake with a startled growl, and before his eyes were fully open, his hands found the Kalashnikov,