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A post-apocalyptic story in the vein of Fallout or Mad Max, we follow the journey of the young shop keep, and his struggles with the realities of what the world has become. Having grown up in a small town and only heard stories of the world through trader’s tongues, our young hero goes goes out into the world to see the wonders for himself. When he finds himself in the middle of a slave revolt, he befriends a murderous mercenary and travels from dead cities to farming paradises. He finds that when the world is dying, people will do anything to survive.

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He jumped from his horse at the front of our shop and tied the tired animal there. We had a meager hitching post, scrap metal mostly. A dry trough was at the base. A single weed grew from it. He came into our place with a slam of the door. We were behind a mesh screen. Old fence and scrap bolted and hammered together to form a protective screen, we couldn’t be too careful. It wouldn’t save us from gunshot, but most bandits out here couldn’t afford guns anyway. There was a wooden shelf waist high that had a small hole in the screen above it. This was a common setup. You placed your wares on the shelf. A price was haggled, and the shopkeeper got his wares through the hole. And funny business and you wouldn’t get your trade back. You had to trust the shopkeeper. That was a hard thing to do in this world.

“I have food. You tradin’ food?”

“Canned? Fresh?”

“Ah, well, it’s uh, canned.” The trader pulled a silver tarnished can from his bag. My father nodded and gestured to the meager shelf. The trader started talking. Information trade was useful to bargain with. The new caravan was said to be 5 times the size of the one that passed by today. Guns. They were said to have guns.

“Yeah mate, there were carts and such, but there were guns too. 5 people at least. They had some pistols and a shotgun. I even saw one guy with a rifle.” The trader spoke as he emptied his horses pack. None of the cans had labels. Not worth much. Worth much more if the labels were still intact.

“Yeah? How many men? Were there women too? How many carts. Did they have a working car? Any tech?” I was eager for more information.

“Son, leave the man alone, let him trade in peace. That’s 10 shiners. You have anything papered?” My dad was a gruff man, always business. I suppose that’s the way it had to be to survive here.

“No, nothing papered. What’s this worth?”

“You want water or coin?”

“How much water is this worth?”

“A canteen or so.”

“Aw shit. Gimme the coin.” The trader gave my dad a sour face, and took his bag back to his horse. I reached through the hole and took the cans to our side of the screen and placed them in a bin. The trader came back with a canteen in his hands, and drank a little from it. My father went into the back room and reappeared with four coins in his hand. He dropped them through the hole on the shelf.

“What? Four coins? That’s it? Come on mate, that loads gotta be worth at least five, maybe six.”

“No labels. That makes them worth less. You know that. Where’d you get them from? Maybe if I knew that they’d be worth more.” My father squinted at the trader through the screen.

“Nowhere. I just, um, inherited them.” The trader grabbed the coins and turned to leave.

“Wait!” I said. “What about the caravan? At least tell us how many men. Are there women too?”

“Well, aren’t you full of questions? Questions are free; answers are going to cost you. The guns were only fair, but the rest of that is privileged.” The trader tipped his hat to me, jingled the coins in his palm, and left.