Franklin Lawson couldn’t be arsed to leave his first location. He had a prime spot atop a water tower that was covered in supplies. Everything from guns, food, and water. There was even a bag of tootsie rolls. Of course there were Mule Punch energy drinks and, to his surprise, a bottle of amphetamines. He took one because taking more than that, he feared, would make him too jittery.

Thirty minutes ago there had been quite a bit of commotion a half mile or some from his location, although the sound carried in a weird way up here. He was relatively sure it had come from the southwest, so he had kept watch on that direction for a quarter of an hour without spotting a single soul. It had sounded like an explosion and then machine gun fire.

Franklin kept a steady stream of thought spewing out of his mouth hole for what he assumed were his eager viewers on his live stream.

“…gonna buy a helicopter, and then get a guy to teach me how to fly it. I figure that will set me back a million or so, but I’ll have twenty four more. Might get a nice house in the valley. I love it down there, grew up a skateboarding punk. Not like, a punk rocker, more a punk with blue hair and a bad attitude. I ended up getting into a lot of trouble in high school. Goddamn. Barely a week went by where I wasn’t in detention.”

Franklin rose and hustled to the back side of the water tower. He went prone, tucked his right foot close to his ass for stability, snugged the butt of the M24 to his shoulder, and brought his head close to the telescopic sight. He slowly shifted the gun around as he scanned for targets. The scope brought the world into sharp focus and showed him a whole lot of nothing.

The tower had been fitted with four two foot by two foot barriers, and each was set at one corner of the compass. They provided excellent cover, and whoever had devised the location was a goddamn genius in Franklin’s opinion.

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The ground below stretched out in an ocean of chaff and dirt. A barn rose in the distance and next to it sat a squat home whose roof had caved in. The front door hung open, but the only thing behind the entryway lay debris. He’d been here for almost an hour, and so far no other players had ventured into his killing field.

The kill counter decreased by one, so he had that going for him. And he seemed to have found the perfect location because he hadn’t been prompted to move to another zone. Yet.

“Where is everyone? I’m not gonna hurt ya. I promise. The bullet will be instant.” Franklin chuckled as he restarted his stream of dialog. “I think the other thing I want to buy is a hot dog stand. I’ll have it stationed outside of my house and it’ll be stocked day and night with free dogs. I’ll give away thousands. The smell alone will lure people from all over the city. I’d actually go for a dog right now with extra onion and mustard. Call me crazy, but the only fucking condiment that a hotdog needs is mustard. The onions are to add crunch but I can take ‘em or leave ‘em. One time I met a guy who put fucking mayonnaise on his dog. Who does that? An idiot. That’s who.”

Franklin paused and took his eye away from the telescopic sight, and turned to regard his bounty. He could practically live up here for a week.

That gave him an idea.

Franklin took an energy drink to the edge of the tower and dropped it. He hoped it would land and not blow but that had been a silly thought because it exploded on impact. The noise alone had proven this to be his idiotic moment.

Franklin went back to watching the surroundings for a good ten minutes. No one had moved in his direction to investigate the can. That meant he could probably reach the ground and then get back topside in a minute or two.

He packed a bunch of goods into a pair of large plastic bags and shuffled them to the stairs. The hard part involved hoofing them to the ground and not spilling the supplies everywhere. After what seemed like forever, including his gun constantly banging against the guard surrounding the stairs, he reached the ground. Franklin glanced around and, when no one started shooting at him, he hustled to a clear section of field and dumped the bags of goods. He had even included an extra handgun that had no ammo.

“Trap set. Time to go back up top and wait for my first victim,” Franklin said for his audience.

Then he hightailed it back up the stairs until he was back atop his tower.