Fallout: Nuclear Heat

Chapter 1: Introductions

The year was 2293 and the Australian wasteland was as unforgiving as ever. The past few years have been so hot that all of the little water that Western Australia was getting was evaporating in mere minutes and dragging it over to the Easterly side of the continent and Whitlam, one of the few settlements but certainly the largest in WA, was suffering. Without water they weren’t able to feed their livestock or water their crops efficiently since the town thrived on its own independence. The townspeople couldn’t take it anymore and decided that they needed to send someone to ‘Oasis City’ for some water.

Oasis City was gigantic and took up the whole eastern side of Australia. It was created by the denizens of vault 200, the only legitimate vault in Australia. After these people emerged from their vault in the ruins of Canberra thirty years after the Great War they started to rebuild… Using the GECK. In just a matter of 40 years Canberra, Brisbane, The Gold Coast and Melbourne had become a part of this huge city with giant walls surrounding it as if to mock the people in the desert just west of it, a certain feeling of exclusion and hatred fell over all of those that were not allowed to enter this magnificent city.

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“You want me to do what?!” asked Joseph, confused.

“We want you to travel to Oasis City and pick up the supplies that we have arranged for them to leave us via Big-Wing,” said the Mayor of Whitlam, whom also happened to be Joseph’s father.

A Big-Wing was a giant mutated Kookaburra that had been domesticated over the last few decades by the ‘Beast Trainers’ of Whitlam. These giant birds had wing spans of about twenty-five feet and were around fifteen feet tall, very odd looking creatures indeed, they had been trained to carry mail to and receive it from various locations around the Desert and were a very valuable asset to the people of Whitlam.

“Sounds like a fantastic idea, dad, but how do you propose I do that? That place is hundreds of miles away, the heat will kill me. Literally,” replied Joseph.

“We have foreseen the dangers of this trip and have done all we can to counter them, for instance you will not be taking this trip on foot, you will be riding in a motorcycle that has been repaired by Gizmo that has an umbrella fixed to the back that will provide you with shade. In addition you will be wearing an experimental type of light armour that was used by police officers that contained riots before the wall, the armour consists of a polyester fabric jumpsuit but with thin plates of ‘Kevlar’ attached to it. And a last resort you will be carrying a compact Assault Rifle with you at all times just in case you run into any troubles out there,” explained Joseph’s Father.

“I don’t like the sound of this, but it sounds like I don’t really have a choice in going or not,” said Joseph unhappily.

“Then it’s settled, now, go see Gizmo at his shop. He’ll give you all of your equipment and send you on your way,” replied Joseph’s dad before turning away.

Chapter 2: Gizmo

As Joseph walked out of the town hall he decided to reflect upon himself and his city, trying to figure out his and its current situation. Joseph had shoulder-length brown hair that was naturally straight with a side fringe. He had a pretty scrawny build but was a great shot with any small to medium sized firearm and had a knack for handling guns with high recoil really well. He had had his ears stretched for a little a few years now, he had learned how to make his own wooden plugs for his ears from the one of the local tribes which was situated about twenty minutes away from the city limits. His ears were at about 30 mm and he loved to make more, it’s how he made money to go out and have fun with friends. Even in post-apocalytia.

Whitlam was nothing like any of the other settlements in Australia it was founded in 2113 by his great-grandfather Ryan Alexander and was situated IN and around Uluru, a gigantic ‘rock’ in the middle of Australia. The whole interior of it had been mined into a series of tunnels which led into smaller squares of mined out areas as to replicate houses and shops etc. All of the entrances of Whitlam were protected by reinforced bus-doors and the like and the inhabitants also had a substantial advantage over any of the other settlements by being extremely cool because they live, in essence, underground. Needless to say Whitlam is a very desirable place to live because of its size and its independence which teams up with its isolation making it less ideal for raiders.

Okay so Gizmo’s shop is outside of The Hollow (what they called the inside of Uluru where the first families ancestors lived and where the first shops were and where the town hall was) in the outer barrier (the surrounding area of the base of Uluru which had many houses and shops made out of wood and corrugated iron) just next to the gate. Joseph thought to himself.

As Joseph began to walk he started to think of Gizmo and how weird he was. Gizmo always wore a leather hat on his head with multiple eyeglasses attached to it and he always had an old vault 196 jumpsuit on that he scavenged a while back. Gizmo had ADHD and talked without stopping for a breath for what seemed like infinitum, but Joseph liked him.

“Hey Gizmo, how are you?” asked Joseph.

Gizmo was startled by Joseph’s voice and banged his head on the hood of a car he was working on.

“Oh holy mother of cheese oh Joseph what can I do for you no wait why am I asking you that? I know why you are here for your equipment,” said Gizmo, not pausing for a breath, just as Joseph remembered him.

“Yes I am here for it. So that’s the armour, the bike and the compact assault rifle?” asked Joseph, his memory did fail him every now and then.

“Mmhmm yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes… oh wait, no no no no no no no no no no now you will not be using the Assault rifle, too heavy for you instead you will be using two modified 10mm submachine guns that I have, well, modified to have much more ammo per clip, to have less recoil and to just handle much smoother,” said Gizmo, still talking at warp speed.

“Okay then, I’m ready,” declared Joseph.

Then, without a word, unusually, Gizmo handed Joseph his equipment and sent him on his way. From now until his arrival at Oasis City, Joseph was on his own.

Please reply if you like it guys... It's the only way for me to know that I'm not making a complete fool of myself by continuing.

Chapter 3: The Departure

As Joseph mounted his bike and turned on the ignition he heard Gizmo run in.

“Wait wait wait wait wait I forgot to give you’re your map it’ll tell you exactly what route you need to take to get to Oasis City the fastest, I call it, ‘The Fast…er route’,” said Gizmo while trying to look off into the distance ominously.

“Thanks Gizmo,” said Joseph before speeding off into the desert.

Joseph had sort of a love hate thing going on with the wastes. Sometimes he loved it and sometimes he really, REALLY hated it but, as much as he hated to admit it, as simple an invention as an umbrella attached to a motorcycle is, it was working and was keeping Joseph quite cool.

About an hour had passed and the motorcycle, that Joseph had now named Gypsy, started to run low on gas. SH*T! Gizmo forgot to fill Gypsy up! Thought Joseph. I’ll have to travel on-foot to that abandoned town I saw about half a mile back, I think I saw a BP there. Joseph knew that his chances of actually finding any petrol at this BP were slim but he had to try. So he got off of Gypsy and pushed it behind a rock, hoping that no raiders would stumble across it.

It had taken Joseph an hour and a half to walk to the town but he had finally made it, the BP was in the centre of the town so that’s where he was headed.

“Why the hell are we even here Psycho? This place is a dump,” said a strange voice form around the corner.

“I heard that there was an untouched petrol station around here somewhere, If we’re lucky we might be able to get whatever’s left,” said Psycho.

Joseph now had his head poked around the corner of the wrecked car he was hiding behind, the petrol station was just up the rod and he wasn’t going to let these guys top him from getting to it. Joseph stepped further a little, hoping to catch the men by surprise. Bang! Joseph heard a loud noise coming from behind him and now the raiders were looking in his direction, there was no way he could surprise them now. He jumped out from behind the car and pulled one of his 10mm SMG’s out of its holster and fired 3 rounds into psycho’s head with deadly accuracy, the other man dropped his weapon.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?!” screamed The Man.

“Nothing, I just want the petrol from up the street,” Replied Joseph.

The man started to speak “Fine tak-,“

Another loud bang, this one was different than the one before though, Joseph looked around for the source of the noise but couldn’t find it so he turned his attention back to The Man, who was now lying on the ground with a bullet-hole in his head. Suddenly another loud bang and Joseph heard a bullet whiz past his head, he ran for cover in an alleyway just left of him.

Who the hell is shooting at me? Thought Joseph.

The alleyway he had just stepped into was L shaped and the exit out of the alleyway led into another across the street which was the direction Joseph needed to head in if he wanted to get to the Petrol station. So he made a break for it and ran across the street into the next alleyway, rounded the corner of that alleyway, exited out onto the street and turned to get to it. BANG!... BANG!... Bang!... Joseph could hear the terrible sound of death flying past his head, his shooter wasn’t very accurate.

Finally he had made it the station but he didn’t have time to stop and open the door so he picked up the pace and used his shoulder to smash through the door. He got back up, dusted himself off and ran towards the back of the shop to the storage room, it was locked.

“I don’t have time for these games!” he screamed as he kicked the door handle, breaking it off.

Joseph didn’t need to look very hard for the petrol, there were small canisters of it everywhere. I could just take one and leave, but that would be stupid, my shooter could get a lucky shot I and hit the canister. There’s a camping supplies store next door, maybe I can find one of those huge bags that people who travel wear… backpackers! That’s it. Joseph thought to himself.

Chapter 4: Mr Big

A footstep, from the front room of the service station, It must be Joseph’s attacker. The footsteps drew closer, the glass of the destroyed door crushing beneath this persons feet. Joseph hid behind a stack of crates in the far corner of the room. He heard his attacker step in.

I’ll just take a quick peek, he won’t notice. Joseph thought.

He looked around the corner and his attackers nose was touching his, he knew he was there the whole time.

“Why are you in my town boy?” asked his attacker.

“I’m sorry mister uhhh?” asked Joseph.

“Name’s Mr Big,” he said with a huge smile.

Mr Big was a very tall man, at least 6.6”, but was quite slender. He had quite a mess of grey stubble on his face and had short, greased hair that was also grey. A calm but deep voice was probably Mr Big’s defining characteristic, Joseph had just never heard anything like it. Big also wore a long brown duster with blue jeans and steel-toed boots, he had a sniper rifle on his, which is obviously what he was using to try and kill Joseph. But probably the thing that caught Joseph’s eye most was that Big had an eye patch over his left eye which is obviously why Big was having trouble hitting Joseph.

“Do you know what I usually do to people who stumble into my town uninvited, I skin them alive… Usually, but I like you boy.” said Big, still smiling.

“Oh really? Then why were you shooting at me?” asked Joseph, furiously.

“I wasn’t shooting at you. I live here and I saw you run in, and break my door,” said Big, now with his smile absent.

“Well if it wasn’t you then who was it? And where were you if you live here?” asked Joseph.

“Next door. I was getting more ammo for my rifle and as I left I saw you smash my door,” explained Big.

“Alright then, maybe its just the shock talking but, I believe you. I need to get myself a large camping backpack so I can carry some of these canisters outta here, if that’s okay with you?” asked Joseph politely.

“No problem but if you say there’s a shooter out there then we have to be a little bit more strategic,” said Big with a grin.

He pointed to the back door and he and Joseph snuck out of it and entered next door through the entrance as well. As soon as they entered Joseph spotted what he needed, it was a HUGE backpack that had too many small compartments to [censored] and then two really large ones. He knew that was the one he needed because it would also fit perfectly on the ‘sissy bar’ on the back of Gypsy which would also double it up as a cushion for comfort. Joseph picked up the bag and left with Big and when they got close to the back door of the service station they heard voices come from inside.

“Are you sure you saw people?” asked one of the voices.

“For the last time yes! What do you think I’m stupid or something?” asked what was now definitely Joseph’s shooter.

The other just laughed and said “Yes, especially if you’re going to yell loud enough for these people to hear, if they even exist,”

“Shut up Buzzsaw,” said the shooter.

Joseph and Big wanted to bust in there and kill them, Joseph because of them trying to kill him and Big because, well, they were in his town.

“Look there’s no-one here okay? Now I’m going out for a smoke, you get back to your position, you understand, Dan,” asked Buzzsaw firmly.

“Yes,” he mumbled.

Joseph and Big heard Buzzsaw walking towards the back door so they hid behind the large bin next to it.

“Stupid kid,” said Buzzsaw with a cigarette in his mouth.

Joseph snuck up behind him and started to choke him while Big went into the service station to get Dan who, hopefully, hadn’t gotten far. Joseph wasn’t getting very far with the choking as Buzzsaw managed to pry his hands off every three seconds or so before joseph could grab hold again, so He kicked Buzzsaw in the back of his knee to make him fall to his knees and squeezed tighter, finally feeling his windpipe break. Joseph dropped hi lifeless body to the ground and then fell to his knees, he had just taken a life, killed someone with his bare hands. He started to cry but then BANG! Joseph got up and ran to the front room of the service station and looked out the window.

All he could see was big standing there while Dan was lying on the ground. Big dropped to the ground and now Joseph could see that he was holding his gun up to where Big’s chest was and now he was covered in blood. Joseph was crying in his helmet but that wasn’t going to stop him from breaking every bone in Dan’s body. Big was the only man that had been nice to him in the wasteland besides the tribes people. Joseph sprinted out of the front door, picking up a piece of jagged glass as ran. Dan turned around and saw Joseph running towards him, Dan fired twice… And missed. He started to run away, he got past the car that Joseph was hiding behind previously until Joseph put his foot on the hood of the car and launched himself up in the air landing just behind Dan. Joseph grabbed Dan’s left shoulder and pulled him back, he drove the piece of jagged glass into the right side of Dan’s throat. He fell to his knees and Joseph walked around him to see his face. He was a ghoul. Joseph took three large steps back and ran forward, kicking Dan’s face in an upwards motion, killing him.

Welcome to the desert, Joseph. He thought to himself.

Please give feedback guy's it would really mean a lot.

Ah yes, Ownage, we meet again. I do recall your last, not so long lived, story. And here you are again, gracing with yet another tantalizing tale from your terrific treasure trunk (Alliteration FTW!).

Unfortunately not so many people are into the whole...review...scene. The best advice I can offer on that matter is to become popular, review other peoples works and what not and you might find yourself with more replies. Some authors never any get replies, ever. I try to lessen those numbers, so here I am. Let us see here, hmm,...

Long Review:



Short Review That Says The Same Thing:



Other then the aforementioned advice, I have nothing else to say. You update frequently and the story is certainly progressing with quick turn of events, so I'll keep watching this one.

Thanks Yttrium. Most of the stuff you said I feel I already knew but didn't want to change or edit because the story had already progressed too far from my vague details (and sometimes no details at all) but from now on I will try much harder to work that out. I'd also like to ask if this alright for a first attempt? Because let's be honest here, the first one only contained an intro. Thankyou for your review and I hope to improve on everything you said and to, one day, make it into that sig of yours.

It's great for a first attempt, I just try really hard to nitpick, so I might make things seem worse then they are. And I wasn't asking you to edit, no sir, best to keep the suggestions and try to improve, so when you do look back you can really see how far you've come. And as long you don't leave this high and dry, then you have a pretty good chance of making it on my sig Keep writing, it's an art you can never really master.

True dat.

And thankyou. Anyway Here's the next chapter, Now I don't expect you to comment every time you read my latest chapter, please tell me if there is anything that I do in the story that I could improve on every now and then. Also I know this chapter is short but I was really busy today and I didn't have enough time to write a larger one, which I was planning to do, and I am trying to set myself a minimum of one and a maximum of three chapters a day.

Chapter 5: Darkness Wakes the Beast

Joseph was walking back to Gypsy with his hulking bag full of petrol behind him, it was beginning to get dark and Joseph didn’t like that, in fact, he was terrified of it. Ever since Joseph was a child he had always hated the dark, it made him feel uneasy because of tales he was told as a child of ‘The Beast’. The tales spoke of a terrible creature that hunted children during the night and that if you were ever to step out of the confines of Whitlam, you would be devoured by this nocturnal beast.

“What the [censored] was that?” said Joseph to himself, almost in a whisper.

Suddenly, to the left side of the road Joseph was travelling down, a tonne of sand kicked up and a giant beast emerged with a circular mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, was covered with what looked like pink skin and looked about 50 feet long.

The stories, they were true. Thought Joseph.

He started to run, not looking back, it’s not like he needed to anyway, as he could hear the terrible beasts scream from a mile away and the sand kicking up behind him.

Run faster dammit! Joseph screamed to himself in his mind.

He could see Gypsy, only about 50 metres away. But the beast seemed even closer.

After running for what seemed like a lifetime he had finally made it to Gypsy, now it was time to escape the clutches of the beast. Joseph quickly unhooked his bag, opened it and poured a canister of petrol into the tank, then he strapped his bag to Gypsy, jumped on and turned the ignition. She started with a breeze, Joseph was scared still so he pulled the acceleration back as far as it would go. He went speeding down the highway, the beast still wouldn’t let up, Joseph how close it was because of the cracks in the road that it was making but then, suddenly, it stopped, but Joseph didn’t care he just kept on riding.

SMASH! The beast sprung out from underneath the road right in front of Joseph, He flung up in the air over the beasts mouth and a canister of petrol came fell out of Joseph’s bag while he was still in ‘mid-flight’, he knew what he had to do, so, without hesitation, he pulled his SMG from it’s holster and sprayed at the canister. Now, Joseph wasn’t a holy man but he was praying that just one bullet would hit that canister and blow it to smithereens, his praying paid off. The beast let out a deafening scream that sounded like a mix between nails on a chalkboard and a train coming to a screeching halt as it fell to the ground, the creature was stunned, not dead, Joseph could tell because he could hear it breathing.

Gypsy and Joseph both landed relatively safely on a nearby sand dune and by relatively, I mean Gypsy was leaking Brake Fluid so from now on Joseph had to be extra careful. Then sand started to kick up everywhere, for miles around, it seemed. That scream the beast let out was an SOS. Joseph had to get out of there. He pushed Gypsy back up onto the road and sped off again. Sand was kicking everywhere, all over the road and on Joseph, the creatures were lined up next to the road, waiting to strike. Joseph looked to his left and saw a tunnel that was used for interstate trains, he quickly turned off of the road barely avoiding being eaten by an emerging beast. He had made it to safety, he hoped. Anything is better than being out there. He kept telling himself, hoping he was right because it was REALLY dark in that tunnel. Really dark indeed.

Not Bad i like it

YUSS! Australian Wasteland! Keep this up, Ownage.

Splecial thanks to Yttrium, bosmight342 and Schmuty Buncis for commenting in my fan-fic and encouraging me to continue with it.

Before you read this I would just like to say that Joseph's mission is taking somewhat of a backseat for this chapter to add in a new character because I felt that just having Joseph be on his own the whole time would be boring and would lack some sort of drama. Some may not like this and find the way I add her in to be a bit cheesy and that I didn't execute it very well and I understand that but do not fret, I will make sure that it will work for the next few chapters and beyond. Furthermore I would like to apologise for how short this chapter is despite my absence for two days. Thanks for reading btw.

Chapter 6: Childhood Fears

Joseph felt around frantically, begging there was a switch to turn on Gypsy’s light at the front.

Eureka! Thought Joseph as he flicked the switch.

The light flickered, Joseph could see something moving in the distance. The light finally switched on properly.

Joseph began to scream “OH SHI-“

A feral ghoul came at him (bro) and knocked him off of Gypsy, he reacted sharply by pulling his SMG’s out of there holsters and pumping a round of lead into the creatures torso. After getting up Joseph quickly reloaded as he now understood that what he had just killed was a feral ghoul, and they are NEVER alone. Joseph wanted to get out of there but at the same time he realised that if there were ever a time to conquer his fear of the dark it would be now. So he took his giant camping from the sissy bar on the bag of Gypsy and laid it across the beam of light generating from Her, looking for a torch. He found one, but only a cheap plastic one that barely worked, which was lucky considering the batteries were hundreds of years old. He mounted the torch to the side of his helmet with some rope that he had also found in his bag.

Let’s do this. He thought to himself, pushing away fear into the back of his mind.

Joseph turned his head around looking for any sign of movement but couldn’t find any, so he started to walk. The tunnel was quite long but didn’t split into different parts or anything like that, it was just a straight tunnel. After a few minutes of walking he heard something to his left os he turned his head to reveal a maintenance tunnel with the two doors ripped open.

This is it, time to kick some a**. Joseph thought.

Joseph turned his arms towards the tunnel and began to walk. He could hear people screaming and had the foulest stench in his nose like raw steak that been laying in the sun for a year, it was grotesque. Joseph could hear something moving above him, some liquid landed on his shoulder so he look up only to see a crazed ghoul clinging to the ceiling, it dropped down on Joseph and started to claw at his face and chest wildly but luckily for Joseph the armour was holding up well but it wasn’t going to make him invincible so he smacked the ghoul across the face with his left SMG and got up quickly as the ghoul fell off of him then he opened fire, killing it very quickly.

Well that wasn’t so bad. He thought but, little did he know, he was about to eat his words.

Hundreds of inhuman screams began to boom down the corridor, no doubt the other feral ghouls, Joseph stood his ground since he felt that if they were all crowded in a narrow corridor he would be able to spray bullets at them without worrying about missing. He could see them running towards him, wailing like banshees, he lifted his SMG’s up to shoulder height and fired wildly, the ghouls started to come tumbling down, one after one, bullet after bullet. He reloaded and then began repeated the process. It wasn’t long before the ghouls were getting too close and Joseph was getting to low on ammo so he started to charge towards the twenty or so that were lucky enough to survive but to no avail, the front-most two picked him up by his shoulders, burst through the broken doors and smashed him down to the ground, Joseph was done. WHACK! Joseph heard a blunt object come crashing down on a feral ghouls skull, the ghouls looked back and saw Mirah.

Mirah was a girl that used to live in the village with her mother; they had come upon hard times since Mirah’s father had died from his long battle with cancer and were unable to pay Whitlam’s taxes so they were thrown out into the wastes, along with their possessions with no place to go or call home. That was a long time ago now, at least twelve years ago. Joseph remembered Mirah so vividly because she was his best friend practically from birth. Both Joseph and Mirah were about nineteen now and he wondered if she still remembered him.

“Not bad Prince Joseph,” said Mirah as she broke the rock she was using as weapon over the last ghouls head. “But not good either,” She continued to say.

Mirah had always called Joseph that, since his dad was the mayor of Whitlam and all.

“Thanks Mirah, I am so glad to see you again,” Joseph said as he grabbed Mirah and squeezed her until he heard her ribs crack. “Oh, sorry Mirah… Where have you been all these years?”

“Nice to see you too princey boy, after my mother and I were kicked out of Whitlam we walked down to the tribals village and they welcomed us with open arms. I saw you come in every now and then but didn’t say hi because, well, I was nervous. I missed you,” said Mirah.

“Aww, is the tom-boy getting touchy?” said Joseph mockingly.

“The tom-boy that just saved your as*… Yes, a little bit,” said Mirah, blushing.

Joseph smiled and asked “Why were you here anyway?”

“Because the tribe recently sent out a search party here, looking for any sign of life, if there wasn’t any we were to tell them and then move the settlement here,” Mirah replied.

“Oh, then I guess your mission is too important for you to come with me?” said Joseph.

“ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?! I’D SELL MY SOUL TO SPEND SOME MORE TIME WITH YOU!” screamed Mirah.

“Good, cos we’ve got a loooooooooooooooooooong journey ahead of us,” said Joseph with a huge smile that Mirah really missed.

I think I like this quite a bit Ownage. It's nice to see a fan-fic that isn't based in the CW or the Mojave. Hell, this isn't even in the Northern Hemisphere. i whole heartedly agree with Yttrium Joseph and hooks.

You've already shown a great deal of improvement with your writing, particularly in showing Joseph's thoughts and reactions. However there are a couple of points on readability that I'd like to share with you.

I picked four spots that I decided to knit pick over.

Run ons and perspective


Pacing


Sentence structure and description


description


All in all, I have enjoyed Joseph's journey so far. That fight at the gas station was very nicely done. I've posted these as constructive criticism and I hope it reads that way. Thanks for sharing it with us, and I hope you continue.

I'm gonna like this Mirah character

Chapter 7: NUTJOB CITY LIMITS!

Joseph and Mirah saddled up and sped off into the new day. Neither of them had had any sleep and they certainly didn’t want to sleep in that tunnel, nor did they want to become nocturnal considering what some of the other nightly denizens of the desert are. No matter how much He tried to make himself forget Joseph couldn’t stop thinking about how Mirah said that she would ‘Sell her soul to spend more time with him,’ He’d never felt so loved before in his life.

“Joseph, JOSEPH! Stop day-dreaming and keep your eyes on the road,” ordered Mirah.

“Yeah… Yeah. Sorry about that,” he replied with the voice of a zombie.

The next five minutes were silent, then they both saw a small town over the horizon and Mirah made a small but very high-pitched sound of excitement, yet Joseph remained silent. Mirah thought it was because he was tired but it was actually because he had learnt his lesson from the last town to not simply walk into a town, you just can’t. As they sped past the first two building that led into the town, and onto its main street, they saw a giant welcome sign painted on the right building. Joseph stopped Gypsy.

“Welcome to Dorrom,” Mirah said to herself quietly.

“You wait here, don’t go anywhere,” said Joseph pointing at Mirah.

Joseph peeked his head around the corner of the building, looking down the long stretch that was the main street, which ended in the town’s jail. The sides of the road were lined with approximately five shops, ten houses and their town hall. There weren’t many people out on the street, twelve at most, they all looked rather dazed and they were all shaking slightly. He looked back over to Mirah who was still sitting on Gypsy. She waved at him cheekily.

I can’t believe this guy, I save his life and then he returns the favour by acting like I can’t take care of myself. That’s so bull. Mirah thought to herself. She hated to think that about her childhood friend like that, but she did kill a dozen feral ghouls at once with nothing but a rock.

Joseph approached Mirah again and reached into the bag behind her. Mirah flinched when he did so because she thought he was about to grab her b**b.
“What’re you looking for?” She asked.

“You’ll see,” he replied.

He had found what he was searching for.

“Now, close your eyes,” he said, she did so. “What is the one object that you hold nearest and dearest to your heart but you had to leave it at Whitlam?” He asked.

Mirah let out a rather audible gasp as she snatched what Joseph had in his palms. It was her father’s old magnum, ‘Dundee’. None of the younger ever knew why Mirah’s father called it that but they always snickered about it whenever its name was uttered. Whenever Joseph asked his father about the name he would just say, ‘It was the name of a wise and strong man ma’ boy.’

“Thankyou so much Prince,” said Mirah as she leaped off of Gypsy and hugged him.

“No problem Mirah, No problem at all.” He said.

“Where did you find it anyway?” asked Mirah.

“I’ve always carried it with me, so I’d always have you with me no matter where I go,” said Joseph with a soft voice and sombre smile.

A small smile emerged on Mirah’s face as a tear rolled down her cheek, but the smile soon faded as Mirah wiped away the tears from her face and then punched Joseph in the stomach.

“Thanks Prince,” she said trying not to make eye-contact with him.

“No problem, once again,” said Joseph while picking himself up off the ground.

Joseph also pulled out a cigar box filled with bullets and handed them to Mirah.

I hope she knows what she’s doing, I don’t want to lose her again. Thought Joseph.

Mirah loaded her gun and the two walked over to the wall Joseph was hiding behind earlier. There was no-one there.

Where did they go? Joseph asked himself.

The two stayed put with their guns not drawn, but at the ready. They figured the town must just have a low population and that everyone was congregating in the town hall, since there was no noise coming from any of the other buildings. So they decided that this was the perfect time to investigate the exterior of some of the buildings. They took to the left and decided to split up and look at two separate houses. They were basically identical, except one was yellow (the left house) and one was a pale blue (the right house). They were both single storey houses that were laid on a cement foundation that had stairs leading up the front door; they were also about the same width as well.

“You see those houses over their? You take the right one and I’ll take the left one,” said Joseph.

Mirah just nodded, so the two ran over to the sides of the houses and jumped the fences to the backyard. Joseph searched the backyard of his house thoroughly, looking for any reason for them to avoid the town, because if it was friendly they could trade and even sleep there, but Joseph needed something more than just nice words to get him to stay in a town in the desert. After five minutes of searching this small backyard he couldn’t find anything.

Maybe these people aren’t horrible people after all. He thought to himself.

“Psst!” whispered Mirah with her head peering over the fence. “You have to see this,” she continued.

“Okay,” replied Joseph.

Without another word he took a smell run up and jumped the fence that separating the two backyards. Immediately Joseph could see what Mirah had discovered. It was a man with his hands tied to the clothes line with a crucifix scratched into his stomach.

“What the [censored] happened to him?” Joseph asked.

“Him has a name ya’ know!” said the man, who’s voice was weak and aery.

“Sorry sir, what is your name,” said Mirah in the nicest way possible.

“Names Terry and before you ask, the townspeople did this to me. They’re a bunch of religious radicalists. They found a St. James Bible in the town hall when they first arrived here some thirty years ago, in the town hall apparently. And according to these nuts anyone who wasn’t born in this village does not know the true ways of god and must be punished,” said Terry.

“Punished?” asked Joseph.

“Yes, punished, weren’t you listening? Most of them get abducted and taken to the old jail for ‘Preparation’, the other not so lucky ones, who choose to spit in their face when they tell them that they will never believe in god, get what I got, a homemade crucifixion. They’ll take me down after I starve to death,” explained Terry.

Joseph asked “What do you mean by preparation?”

I'd like to give a special thanks to kdn003 for reviewing my fan-fic and trying to help me make it better, I appreciate it guys. I would also like to ask if any of you guys got my joke about the name of the town, if you didn't, allow me to explain. Earlier on in this chapter I say that Joseph had learned his lesson about entering and how one can't just simply walk into one (meaning that the place could be dangerous, but that's not part of the joke) and then I revealed the town's name to be Dorrom, which is an anagram for Mordor, the land in which all of the events of The Lord of The Rings trilogy take place in. If you are into meme's you should get that joke and if not sorry.