[WP] It's the year 2035. Automation has decimated rural America, with scattered towns forced to fend for themselves as the population moved to megacities. It the ruins of Salina Kansas, a group of raiders is preparing to attack a convoy of autonomous trucks.

Robert and his team hid behind their fortress of straw. It was a perfect hidingplace, for heaps of straw lay scattered everywhere, and so the vile urban folk didn't pay much attention to them.

It also had the advantage that making a diminutive circle for your eye was enough to provide with perfect vision of the road and its periphery.

And so they observed the autonomous trucks in silence. They didn't have the fancy and deadly guns urban folk had, but they had rakes, and machetes. They weren't as efficient, and they surely wouldn't kill you as fast. But when you carried the hatred Robert and his henchmen carried, sometimes you didn't want to murder your enemies fast.

"They are sleeping," Robert whispered. "We can go and attack them now. They won't expect it."

"What if one of them is doing guard inside the truck?" Anne said, her voice brittle and quivery. "What if when we enter he blows our brains out with a single bullet?"

"What difference there is, Anne?" Gregor said and spat. "We will die sooner or later. Our life is shit as it is. What do we have to lose? Some heaps of straw? I'd gladly die defending my beliefs. Automation is a mistake. It makes us lazy, useless, stupid. It wilts the brain."

Gregor stood up, shouldering his rake. He walked straight toward the trucks as if unafraid. Robert and Anne trailed behind.

Soon, Gregor pulled open the door of the truck. He did it very gingerly as to not wake up the driver and the other man at his side. He stared at his rake, and shook his head. He needed a sword, something more silent in case there were more people hiding in the loading space.

And so he gestured Robert to slit both the men's throat.

Robert nodded. His face impassive save for his eyes, which were eager as those of an eagle swooping down to catch an unaware rabbit.

Cautiously, Robert stepped up the truck. The snores of the men danced in his ears. He placed the sword on the driver's neck, and with a clean sweep, a shower of blood smeared the windshield. Then, he stretched over the bleeding corpse and rammed his machete into the other man's heart.

Big mistake. The man opened his eyes, and managed to scream before gurgling and drowning in his own gore.

Desperate screams echoed in the load space, followed by the clattering of many steps, and the grating of a distant door bolting open.

"Get in! Quick!" Robert said, worry engulfing his voice. He pushed the driver's corpse out of the truck, and grabbed the wheel.

George barreled inside, pushing the other corpse outside as he di--

A gun was fired. There was a thud, and countless pieces of brain fed the soil.

"Anne!" Robert howled.

"Don't look at her. Drive!" George screamed.

Robert fumbled for the keys. Where were the fucking keys? "Do you have the keys? Look for the keys!"

Two shadows loomed at their sides, approaching them.

"The driver had them in their pocket," George said and took a deep breath. "It's too late now. Our time had to come some day. Thank you for everything, Robert."

George got out the car, rake in hand. The moment he set foot on the ground, one, two, three gunshots thundered in the vastness of straw-filled lands.

Robert took a deep breath. He looked at his sword. And for a moment he contemplated getting off the truck and try his luck. But this was not a matter of fortune anymore. He was a dead man, with a decision to make.

He stared at his machete again and raised it to his throat.

He wouldn't die in the hands of these filthy urban motherfuckers.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread