a disheveled gate guard

He has the shape of a man who used to be bigger. The uniform still fits at the shoulders and nowhere else, cinched in at the waist with a length of cargo strap because the belt ran out of holes a while ago. Grey stubble climbs his jaw in patches, and a rime of road dust has settled into every line of his face, which makes the lines look deeper than they probably are. His rifle is immaculate. That is the first thing you notice once you get past the rest of him - the weapon is oiled, the sling is mended, the magazines are seated square in their pouches. Whatever he has stopped doing for himself, he has not stopped doing for the gun. He watches the road. Not the way a bored man watches a road, sweeping it and letting his eyes drift, but the way someone watches a door they are expecting somebody to walk through. Every time the wind moves something out there his head comes around, and every time it turns out to be nothing his shoulders go down a little further.

a disheveled man is here, manning the vehicular entry gate and preventing the horde from entering.