Unchosen 1

She walked into town, a sawed-off shotgun slung ever-so-jauntily over her shoulder, wearing beat-up combat leathers and a fuck-off smile. It was sundown, I recall, and there she comes, sauntering in with the sun at her back throwing her shadow before her like a carpet. She walked right past where I was taking my ease on the porch, and mine weren't the only eyes that followed her. My first thought was that she wouldn't leave this hungry, desperate collection of shacks alive, but there was something about the way she gripped the handle of that shotgun that told me that she wouldn't go easily, whatever came. I found myself curious, one of many emotions I'd attempted to kill in myself years before. When she shoved into the corrugated steel shed we used for a pub, I tucked my long knife back into my boot, and followed.