With a grunt of annoyance, he lay himself down on the ridge of a cliff, left arm reaching forward for the smooth wooden stock of his decades-old rifle to rest on. Cli-click, click-click-click… click. A final adjustment of the elevation knob of the rear sight brought it up a ways, and then down a fraction. A distant scream, high-pitched, had ruined the pleasant day he’d been having. A bright blue-sapphire eye peered through the ring of an aperture rear sight, focusing on the tip of the front sight a couple feet away from it, and one final click switched off the safety. A good 200m or so, he wagered. Down in a valley slightly off to the right of where his lookout faced, he aimed for the side-long silhouette of a man’s head. A dreadfully difficult shot to be sure, but not impossible. It was the man who had her upper body pinned down, the man who’d ripped her shirt open, the one who laughed and grinned as his pal presently forced himself on her.

WHOCK! Breathing heavily, the second man’s laughing and grunting stopped, his long greasy hair framing a fat and harshly scarred face waved about as he looked around, panic setting in quite quickly, needless to say. The skinnier of the two crumpled over a little to the side, part of his body landing on the exposed female. A modest entry wound under one shoulder, with a terrifying exist wound under the other.

“Two-fifty, maybe…” he grunted, steadying the front sight on the easier target. Perhaps three hundred if the bullet dropped THAT much more than expected… really got to figure out a better way of judging distance. Once again, the man was felled before the victim even heard the shots. Pushing the stinking, unwashed rapist off of her, screaming in panic as the blood oozing from his chest smeared on her pale flesh, she ran. Something was picked up off the grass as she went, and he did not stop her. She clutched her ripped, ragged clothing to her body, wishing to keep covered even on the escape. Fall was pushing into Winter after all.

One of the casing of .30-06 had ejected from the semi-auto rifle just over to the side, rolling down to a dip in the rocky surface. The other had likely ended up tossing itself off the edge of the cliff. Fuck it. Following a brief trail through the woods, he pocketed the incredibly light NAS3 casing. Shell Shock Technologies sure did make a mint off their new design once it started getting accepted by Militaries. Couldn’t make enough of them! Too bad everything had to go to shit. Taking a left once meeting a wooden cabin that had been serving as his home, the blonde stranger headed on down to the scene of the crime, trudging along trees and rocks that were all too familiar.

Kneeling down at the two corpses, his nose wrinkled. Hadn’t even been dead for an hour yet and they already stink to high Hell. The hefty rifle slung over his back, safety having been engaged before he’d even gotten up from his prone position on the ridge, wiggled and shook as he began searching their pockets. A wallet with no money, not that it’d be any good if there was any.

“Keep it, Jimmy.” The crocodile-skin wallet was tossed on the skinny one’s back, his long-expired ID giving him the last name of Taylor. A couple rounds of 9x19 was pocketed, yet no side arm was present on him. Moving over to fatso, a Beretta 92 was found holstered. Finish heavily worn, one of the grip panels were either deeply scratched or cracked, some rust developing on the slide, and he imagined the rifling, and likely bore in general, was not in a very fit state. Into the right pocket of his jacket it went. Pockets, one spare mag, though no ammo in it, and it was also developing a little bit of rust. No wallet, though there was a wad of cash. Plastic bills; not much good for starting fires he figured, so tossed that to the grass. 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, and even the occasional 100 dollar bill lifted and drifted about as the occasional small breeze graced the valley.

Aside from a second wad, this one being various clippings as well as startlingly amateur-looking photos of nude women, not all of whom appear ‘legal’, the larger of the two had nothing on him either. The shooter’s eyebrows ruffled; it wasn’t unheard of for people to wander around these parts, but still, it was certainly not common. The nudie girls danced along with the money as he picked up the black polymer AR that fatty was so kind to bring with him, and then the ‘tacti-cool’ Ruger 10/22 with adjustable stock and comically large optic of skinny-mini. Then something caught his eye. A single piece of lined paper.

Leaving the firearms to fall to the grass, the buttstock of the Ruger clunking against its owner’s head, a couple long strides brought him to the unfolding sheet of loose-leaf. Gingerly lifting his boot to pick it up, ignoring the slight grass stains left over, his previously generally uninterested features took a distinctly interested turn. He grasped the rifle and riflette, then headed for his shack in a jog.