Finally getting to finish my coffee as she walked up the craters embankment towards the gate, the old saying came to mind; 'Hated to see her go, loved to watch her leave.' And Eddy was right, I was happily doomed for life.

I was going to need extra meds for this trip, my current supply of various first aid medicinals and combat drugs ?yes, where do you think the hero antics actually come from? I'm not superman, ya know? Well anyway, with what I was worried we could run into, like that being everything, I wanted to be well prepped. So it was off to see the Doc.

Doc Savage ran the clinic and surgery in Megaton. He could even pull the right tooth when it was needed. Savage wasn't his name though, that's just what I called him on account of his bedside manners. Truth being, no one knew for sure what his actual name was, or his age, or realy anything about him. He just rolled up to the gate one day wearing his crusty top hat and carrying a worn doctorbag, claimed he was a surgeon , and moved in. Simms called him Doc Holiday after some western reference, I called him Savage, which seemed to tickle him, and most others just called him 'doc', or 'sir', which was fine with him as well.

Walking into the clinic I noticed the place seemed empty, and called out, tentatively. No answer. His drug cabinet was right there, and I probably could have had it opened in a minute or two, but refrained from old habits. Besides, two minute locks weren't really a challenge to me.

"Savage?" I called out again, and quieter I added, "Where you at, old coot?"

"The 'old coot' is standing right here, boy! And feelin' mighty proud 'bout gettin' the drop on mister super trooper here." I froze, he'd entered behind me. "I was eating inside the Lantern, seeing as the outside counter was filled with a pair of love sick kids acting half their age. Well, you at least. Miss Celeste being a lady of course."

Why does everybody think she's a lady? Guess they don't know her like I do. But it was true, somehow in the last two years, living up in the saloon, she had transformed not only into the even more spectacularly beautiful woman she already was, but into a kind of wasteland royalty. With an almost regal air about her, but nothing stuck up or conceited at all, more a quality of not letting the wastelands harshness get to her. Always a pleasant word for everyone, and from everyone ?including the wives, a pleasant word or a tipped hat. And she always looked great.

Hmm. My mind was wandering again, wow, I really was brain dead this morning. Doc noticed, "Are you sure you didn't hit yer head harder than you said you did yesterday?" He squinted at me, "I'm inclined to take the stories from miss Celeste last night with a grain of salt, or yer pecker actually is a foot long and all you have to worry 'bout is Kryptonite. Watcha be needing." I gave him my list of must-haves, wanna-haves, and wishfully thinking. He looked it over, eyeing me every so often while muttering. "Can do, could do, might do.., Yeah.., I can miss most of what you're asking. By the looks of this, you're planning on bleeding a lot. Where you tracking to?"

"Past Anacostia. Out to the DC Armoury. Through Dog Town." Doc shook his head as he went through his cabinet ?it wasn't even locked, and continued his commentary.

"Then you are planning on doing some bleeding. Christ, why don't you just let me shoot you now. It'll save you the trip out and you won't go wasting these." He came back with a bag filled, "Seems a shame to be giving these to you now, knowing where you're going."

"Well, rest assured, you ain't giving them to me, and you know it. What's your price Savage." I ended the opening barter query with my nick name for him. He gave me a smile for it.

"You don't know the half of it, and yes, it's gonna cost you. But seeing as you're going to have expenses enough keeping that lady of yours happy, so I best not rip an arm and a leg out" I was going to say something, but sometimes the mark is just too easy. Instead I kept with the bartering.

"You want cash, bottle caps or on a quid pro quo." With Doc you could never be sure what the payment would be. It all depended what he needed at that moment, and could literally be anything.

"I'm tempted to take you for every cap and round of ammo you have for all the dope you just scored, not to mention the odds of you actually coming back." He eyed we warily, "But if you can get your hands on one of them portable water purifiers, I'll call it square with you." This I could do. He was referring to my Roboco inc. AKWA-ScrubbR™ that I had found and together with Moira we had salvaged it and gotten it working as new again. Once figured out the process could be reverse engineered and reproduced using mostly available materials ?if the bombs had never fallen I would have been a mad inventor according to my dad. It wouldn't as portable as mine was, but it would work up to a liter or so a day. I said as much. Doc wanted to know how big was 'not as portable'.

"About the size of a coffee brewer with a radio attached to the side." Giving dimensions with my hands held apart.

"Uh-huh, but then I want it to run all charges; E-cells, Micro fusion, straight fission batteries, and off a generator, with a cute little plug attached to a wire." Christ he was playing hardball. Time to switch tactics.

"Okay, can do, but then I want free physicals for Celeste for the next uhh.., three months. No hassles." He blinked at that one, and without knowing it accidentally spilled some beans.

"Dontcha mean for the whole term?" He asked confused.

Term?

"Huh?" I asked dumbly. He fuddled along a bit before recovering from his faux pas.

"I uh.. did I say term? No, no, I meant treatment, he, he, that's right. My mistake." Of course he wouldn't divulge anything else, quoting doctor/patient confidentiality, saying I should ask her if I wanted to know. He ended with a curve ball though

"I'll do her physicals for the next uhh.., well lets say until after the winter. How that." And adding as an after thought, "But my radio seems to be on the Fritz.." I told him I would ask Moira to look at it. Grumbling he agreed to it, as long as she didn't try 'improving' it.

Walking up to the house I puzzled over what the doc had said about Celeste, determined to ask her before leaving. But that was quickly displaced by thoughts of a more urgent matter such as this expedition I was gonna track for. But even that was wiped from my thoughts as I reached the house and came face to face with disbelief, shock and bewilderment. Not necessarily in that order.

First one came when I opened the front door to my house. I just stood there in the doorway, looking. There was stuff everywhere. It was as if after a swap meet everyone decided to store what was left over in your house, and then organise it. It was like a very neat bomb had gone off. I couldn't even take it all in. There were crates of tebby bears next to crates of grenades, stacked next to a ?was that a flak cannon? And he said Eugene was excessive, Geez.. All manner of rifle types were stacked in the corners and against anything that prevented them from falling over. There was just too much. I couldn't even get to the fridge for a beer!

Then I was hit by the full force of the gruesome twosome standing behind me.

"Hello, Mister Andy, siiiir." In unison, arms clasped behind there backs, grinning. I knew better, but asked anyway, semi dreading what was to come.

"Yes, girls, what is it?" I was feeling that effects of my caffine infusion start to wear off, and I wanted to reserve some energy for yelling at Carl. Moira did the talking.

"Well, since I'm always your assistant and everything and that cool cuz you know way more than I do, duh. But with you gone and me finishing up you-know-what-for-you-know-who-birthday-you-know-when.." it was like watching a cartoon sometimes with these two.

"Yeah, I know. Don't advertise."

"Right, well, uh, I was thinking would it be okay for me to have an assistant for while you were gone" in unison again, "Pweeeeeese??" I am such a svcker for cute kids.

"Do you have any, freakin', idea -the two of you," me pointing, mild astonishment from their side. Good. "..how long I will have your sorry little asses," eyes squinting, apprehension doing its thing on their side, time to let them off the hook. "?scrubbing the floors, walls, ceiling and furniture if so much as a single thing is broken, bashed, blown up...," they weren't listening anymore, and again in perfect sync,

"Yes sir, mister Andy siiiiir. Thank yoooooo." Running off again, I hollered after them, "..cracked, warped or wasted!! And get Permission from Jenny's dad, too! And get back here in an hour, I got work for you two as well then!" Cleaning certainly came to mind, and more things for them not to do that I still needed to think up. Staring at everything, I wondered if I could even get to my stogie stash without knocking something over when the guilty party showed up at my side, his SPAS-twelve gauge in hand, a duffle bag under his arm, and looking like the [censored] we went through yesterday only ended for him five minutes ago. I was too flabbergasted to remember to yell at him for the house. All I did was stare. He had a significant amount of human goor plastered all over him. His hiar, face, cloths, the shotgun, even the dufflebag was covered in it. He smiled weakly.

"So did the party kick in after I left?"

Walkways were created through the house to facilitate movement between vital areas. The bed, the fridge and the gun cabinet. Everywhere else was piled high with the trappings that Carl had brought home with him.

"To compensate for the spent ammo." He defended. I mentioned that all the ammo he had shot yesterday were the .308s he blagged off of me, to which he said that he had also wasted a lot of ammo while getting it. I would have whacked him in the back of the head if I was near enough, but wasn't. Fifty-fifty, I stated flatly. He beamed.

"And you're hauling all of this up to Leroys as well!" I put in as he dragged himself up the stairs. Nodding that he would do it as soon as he woke up, I heard him close the door, and a large pile of something metallic falling over behind the door. Followed by some choice French.

+++

More cursing, this time a combination of English and Dutch, to what basically boils down to South African, or Afrikaans, as they say. The cursing followed the disappearance of the fresh animal tracks he had been following and were no longer visible on the broken urban tarmac.

"Schyte, bloody asphalt everywhere. Can't see the spores for crap!" Searching the sidewalks and around the gutters for clues, it was obvious that as out of place as the person was, he was an expert tracker, and quickly re-found the trail his quarry had taken. Checking that the prints left in the earth of a cornerhouse garden were from the same animal he was after, the foreign tracker took in his surroundings and checked the heading on the internal nav-comp of the wrist-mounted PDA he wore.

In the states they had sold under the brand-name Pip-Boys, in SA they were know as EIKLs, which Stood for 'Eigen Info Komputer Lightgewicht' which means the same, really, it does.
His EIKL ?pronounced 'I-kel' was top of the line, as there were still places in Fry-Staat where they could be made. Everything about the man was new, top of the line. But then, he was on vacation.

"Welcome to the Yanks version of bloody Jo'burg" he muttered to no one but the wind.

The tracks were the biggest he had ever seen, and it would make a monster trophy, not to mention he would be able to stock up on venom glands and meat in one go. Although admittingly, scorpion meat wasn't a bush tuckers favourite of his, but it was eatable and he could discard it or use it for bait if he encountered something else more palatable.

"I could go for some fresh Rhinox just about now" He thought, which led to his ration bag of dried biltong, and lunch. Gauging his position secure enough to take time for a quick snack, the wayward big game hunter sat down, unfolded a red and white light picknick blanket, opened a small flask of red wine, and had some of the Rhinox biltong he loved.

Dani?l Ferdinand Orlando Xavier Yves Boerson ?Danny to his friends, 'D. Foxy' to anyone he wanted to impress,

'D.Foxy, foxy-smart, not foxy-foxy' sometimes, it actually worked. Only his mother called him Xavier, after his opa.

He was eager to finally corner the creatures and finally get to see the actual size of the monster. From the tracks left behind Danny guesstimated the king scorpion to be at least forty feet long, with a good number of ten- and twenty footers along. And the largest he had seen before this was not even thirty feet long, in Russia. Heck, even in the nuked Kalahari desert ?must have been something there worth bombing, the scorpions didn't get larger than maybe twenty-five feet. Amazing.

Noises came from across the street in one of the darkened town houses. Checking that his gear was at hand, and deciding the noises weren't loud enough to warrant anything but healthy caution, he continued to enjoy the afternoon summer weather and his wine.

'Bloody winter back home.' He thought with a smile. 'and they said I was crackers for wanting this walk about.'











^{I know, I know.. but my editor asked nicely, so what a budding writer gonna do, I ask ya?}

Thank man, really glad you like it. I'm glad everyone is liking it.

Not Alex.. right. I gave it a guess







'kay everyone, that's a rap for this story as far as this bit is concerned -yes, I know there's a whole safari I left out. That's tomorrows story

Again, thanks for reading, I hope it was as fun to read as it was to write. -which doesn't include Dee's involvement without with this would have been a lot rougher to read..
as in hieroglyphics :hehe:
THankd Dee

I'm having fun
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"What the bloody hell was happening?" Danny heard the noises from the other side of the street swell into screaming howls, and then dust blew out the front of three houses, through the cracked windows and underneath the doors, in billowing clouds. Danny put down his wine, and as he was going for his sidearm, the fronts of the three houses erupted outward, glass wooden planks and doors exploding into the streets.

"Hareboars?" He exclaimed, "Here?" Pulling a shiny P90 from its holster, he shouldered the compact automatic weapon, hoping his picnic would get trampled over. Quickly counting over two dozen, half seemed to be heading down the street away from him, while the other half was heading rather squarely in his direction.

"Oh bother!" Danny muttered under his breath, as he selectively opened fire on those whom he thought to be on a true collision course with his lunch. Also, with so many creatures rampaging towards ones self, indiscriminately opening fire on the lot has never proven to be very wise, or life extending. He took down two, then three more and then another two before needing to reload. Fifty rounds didn't go that far with these beasties, also noticed that they weren't hareboars, the ears too short, but some kind of mutated cousin.

'Tech heads at uni would have a field day here with their bio kits' he considered as he slapped another clip homeward and put down another three. "At least I'll get to find out what they taste like" he anticipated, hoping it would go well with red wine.

The rest of the pack charged past, and Danny almost sat down, when the other half came back from the opposite end of the street, tearing around the corner and back past the ruined houses towards him! Another seven mutant rodents were dropped with controlled bursts, wondering why they had come back. Quickly Danny realized that the over grown rodents were running from something. And in their initial urgency, having come across the houses directly blocking their path, had continued forward without thinking too much about how 'houses' ought to fit in the grand list of obstacles to avoid. The retreat from the other half of the herd led one to think that the rodents were [censored] scared of something in that direction as well, and that it was probably coming this way.

Just as he slipped behind the garden wall that had partially shielded him from the stampeding rodents, the reason for their hastily relocation efforts stuck it's head around the corner of some house ruins at the end of the street, followed by a head poking through the rubble of the three houses in the middle of the block, where the herd first came charging through

'Mortum unguis Americanum' ?the North American Deathclaw

"Bloody brilliant, two of 'em." He muttered quietly.

The closest beast immediately swiveled its head and scanned the street, first down the street where the other deathclaw was coming from, slowly pivoting his way. Eyes darting from every surface to every following surface and structure, its senses on full tilt. Completely alert, completely focused to kill. A snarl escaped as it continued looking for the vanished rodents, its nose telling it that they went both ways. Confused, and irritated for it, the snarl quickly turned into a bellowing roar.

Danny moved silently along the wall, grabbing his pack and his riflecase on the way, leaving the meal, and past the house in the hope of finding an open rear entrance in the back.

'Who the bloody hell is boarding up all these houses, after a nuclear strike?!?' Talk about a city not making any sense, he thought as he worked his way to the rear.

'Every bleeding structure in Cape Town had their windows blown in, and most doors had been ripped off since the war, what with the place being completely over run by Kaffer zombies.'

In the back of the house a backdoor was hanging on its hinges. Weapon pointing the way, and a quick room for room search, Danny found himself on the upper floor, front bedroom over looking the street below. Through the bay window he saw the beast cautiously move into the streets.

'Time to unpack the hammer.' He thought as he turned to his riflecase. Opening the large case revealed a broken down rifle of unusual design, to say the least. But Danny had broken down this rifle a thousand times already, and put together equally as many times, the motions honed to a quick and efficient ritual.

Starting with the shoulder stock that sits up on the shoulder and houses the recoil piston which expands backwards with each shot. The firing chambers are positioned in front of the recoil piston, in a bullpup configuration, the trigger housing infront of the ammo feed. After the recoil piston and spring are inserted, the weapon goes up on its ass vertically, and the rifles foreguard is dropped into the shoulderstock where it is turned and secured until a snap can be heard as the foreguard secures correctly in place.

The weapon then goes back into a horizontal position, where the rotating dual receiver assembly is slid into place, fitting tightly into the dual chambers, but able to still slide freely in tandem. The double barrels are inserted into the foreguard, and locked onto the blow-back, gas delivery system that operate the firing mechanism. Each barrel is fastened with a locking nut that fixes in place with a twist of an Allen key.

Finally, the upper receiver cover is fit into place, which equipped with low profile rail, houses a twenty power scope. The box clip holding five rounds sits just in front of the shoulder when fired, with casings being ejected into an attached collection bag ?those casings were almost priceless! Especially a million miles from anywhere where anyone might have even heard of an Olin/Winchester Salvo Rifle, let alone what a .338 Lapua magnum T83 Duplex cartridge was.

Hell, it was hard enough to remember the name when you did know the weapon well, let alone never heard of it. Extended bipod for added stability at longer ranges finished off the weapon. Granted, it was the size of a mini-van, and weighed almost as much, but firing a twin duplex round and putting four, heavy grain slugs on target at the same time, inflicted kinds of instantly gratifying carnage that were rarely witnessed in the post-war world, aside from idiots setting off nukes with short fuses.

Moving into position to plot a firing solution for the rifle ?built in ballistics processor would take a few seconds and then show adjustments in the rear sight. Looking out the bay window Danny needed a moment to find the beast. It had moved all the way to the other end of the street, in the direction of the other one.

"No, no, no, noo.." he whispered frantically. Danny avoided hauling the hammer around fully assembled whenever possible, due to some inherent difficulties of transporting a large weapon system. A much closer snarl put Danny's mind to ease about the deathclaw down the street. Danny didn't give a [censored] anymore about the deathclaw down the street. Danny was suddenly fully interested in the juvenile deathclaw that had come in the back entrance of the house as he had done, and was wondering what was for lunch upstairs.

He could see its head through the door and the broken banister railing in the hallway beyond the room. It was sticking up from the stairs, sniffing the air, and most likely hadn't seen him sitting in the gloom of the bedroom, half hidden by the bed.

The five pound satchel charge filled with C4 he had also brought was an option, but then the house collapsing was also an option too. Those cancelled each other out nicely. No big 'Whammo' then. Using the hammer was impossible just to operate at that angle, especially since it was facing the wrong way to start with. The P90 was half a meter out of reach on the other side of the large rifle. It might as well have been on the moon.

All that rested was being able to pull his other beloved from the riflecase ?it was readily prepped for if he had caught up with the scorpions, compact enough to wield and most importantly, definitely carried the 'oomph' he likely needed to fell this beast, since he honestly didn't know what it might take.

'I can always fall back on the C4 and hope for a soft landing downstairs' he considered, as his brain thought up and rejected some other silly notions.

One of the deep, deep joys of this story is the way the super-mutant elder brother and his family are slowly, slowy growing deep in characterization...

Few people can make a character come to life. Even fewer can do it with a 'Monster'. You have done it. You have made him a monster in body, and an innocent child at heart.

KIKAIMEGAMI WHERE ARE YOU??? :stare:

Another great chapter - I told you Carl was a danger! I've been on the recieving end of husband's "friends" too many times, know trouble when I see it!! Lol.

Arms ever so slowly reaching forward, the juvie deathclaw's head swaying in the same tracking motion Danny had seen the larger one do outside.

'Some kind of extra sensory perception? Like a dolphins sonar maybe, or a better anology might be bats radar' He caught himself thinking as he steadily continued for the open case.

As his hand curled around the weapons grip and Danny slowly started to ease it free of the case, the young deathclaw became restless and vaulted clean off of the stairs and onto the hallway landing, stumbling and rolling through the door of the bedroom, taking the door of its hinges completely. Danny yanked on the short barrelled vierling shotgun, selector set to two by two shots per trigger. All barrels were a matching ten gauge in a star configuration, and he had the two side by side barrels loaded with quad-naught magnum gameshot shells, the upper barrel loaded with an armour depleting discarding sabot round and the last cartridge in the lower barrel, a custom hollow thermite round, for those heat-fearing scorpions.

The deathclaw snapped its head around as the weapon snagged on the case, taking a fraction of a second to find and lock on to its target. Finding it through the visually spectrum as well as audio and-

Sssssnnnnuuuurrrrrrrgggggglle

?olfactory. Rhinox jerky is known to be pungent at best.

Danny's head ducked as the animals mouth closed around empty space, its nimble body setting off against wall, floor and doorframe. Still gripping the shotgun, and rolling under the queensized bed, Danny desperately wrestled to get the weapon freed, as the animal snapped under the bed as it looked for something soft to sink its claws into.

Suddenly talons tore though the mattress, shredding it in places and then totally disappearing as the creature ripped it from the bed. Weapon still snagged and Danny pulling in every way to free it, with the deathclaw striking at him as he lay on his back looking up, the animals head lunging at him, again and again.
Again the budding predator struck forward, this time drawing a long gash in Dannys upper leg.

"Bloody HELL!!!" And with that yell, Danny freed the custom firearm. Rolling it upward and braced directly on the ground, he pulled hard on the first trigger, unleashing sixteen caliber thirty eight slugs all at once into the shocked beast. The force of the blast slamming the animal into the back wall, motionless.

As Danny weakly got to his knees and just flipped the selector to single shot, the dazed animal burst from the wall and back to consciousness, pain from the multiple projectile wounds driving its rage.

KAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH'tsssssschaaaa!!!!!

Aiming center mass, Danny fired the sabot round. The animal coughed but kept its forward drive. Pointing the weapon straight at its head and with the final round in the weapon, Danny fired. The thermite round burned brightly at it entered the animals opened mouth, instincts taking over the deathclaw chomped down as the round hit the back of its throat and the main thermite charge ignited, erupting the animals head in a shower of cranial content.

'Damn, there goes the trophy head.'

Wow... Just wow! This is fantastic mate! Keep writing because you've certainly got me gripped to the story! And you have a crowd of D.Foxy, Sub Rosa and mALX (my favourite writer, read her story!), that's really good man, keep them leashed =P

I hope no one minds that I went and invented some background for 3Dogg -I like the guy, what can I say Also, he's a 'safety' character. you know he'll survive the story

Also,re reading the first chapters agin I realized what the power of research could acomplish -Jenny Stahl and her brothers are just as old as Moira.. :facepalm:
at least I didn't goof up with Sarah Lyons.. :hehe:

So... book two is actually being structurized :ahhh: and, and, and dare I say... organized before committing to word :wacko:

i know, i know.. I'm completely jinking myself here and everything fom now on will read like crap because I'm trying to out think myself and be the smartest kid in the class.

And you, my fiends and audience get to watch me crash and burn, from heights Icarus would pale and shy from.

The good news is; if this bombs that I can go back to writing by the seat of my pants, in a desperate struggle to keep up with a story I can hear being dictated, just over my shoulder behind me



@ Iain
Thanks man
My son was born in Aberdeen

^{GOES OFF IN SEARCH OF HIS PROGRESSIVE SMILEY DISORDER MEDICATION, WHICH CONSISTS OF A PAGE WITH 500 EMOTICONS I HAVE TO LOOK AT FOR 5 MINUTES UNTIL THE URGES SUBSIDE..
DOESN'T WORK FOR CRAP..}
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The amazon ran in a hunched crouch towards the public telephone that was attached to the side of a ruined building in the Washington heights district. In her wake, on a fifteen foot long leash, her boy scampered after her, trying to keep up. She had been running since getting away from the carnage at the supermarket, and he was nowhere in the same shape she was in.

They were up against the back wall of a short strip mall, the projects complex and abandoned highschool on the other side of a ruined row of street-side buildings and old storefronts. That street and the ruins beyond were the demarcation line of their turf, and one of the few ways to gain access to the neighbourhood behind the project tower. The elevated highway to the north had toppled over almost in one piece, creating a natural barrier dubbed the great northern wall that separated them from the scum up in Tacoma park.

Leaning against the buildings wall, grateful for it to be over, he heaved his breath in heavily, heart pounding. The amazon looked back, pity and contempt mixing into her features. It was a cute pup, and possessed stamina certainly in some areas, but this just wouldn't do. And she certainly didn't feel like breaking in a new one so soon. But it had alerted her to the problems in the basemant, and that had most likely ended up saving both their asses. She knew it, and was even willing to let him brag about it, a little.

"In through your nose, pup. Then slowly out through your piehole. Breath with the diaphragm" she tapped his chiselled abs, "Not with the chest." He was grabbing his sides, still calming himself down. He nodded. Soon the young slave wasn't hyperventilating anymore, and indicated ready to continue.

The amazon opened the change box and flipped a hidden switch. Picking up the reciever and getting a dial tone, she dialled a pre-set number: star-six-nine-hash. It went over a few times before being answered.

"Yeah?" came a metallic, hollow voice on the other end of the line.

"It's me, cut the defences." The woman kept her sidearm ready while on the phone. There were a lot of gruesomes on this side of the compound, but it was the most direct route, and the rest needed to know what had happened.

"Hang on," And after a short while, "?'kay, cutting it in fifteen after hang up. Can't keep it cut for longer than thirty ?that's three-oh, due to a horde of undead men trying to get through all day. G'luck."

-click-
Tuuuuuuuuu-tuuuuuuuu-tuuuuuuu

Only thirty? Crap. That would be cutting it real close to cover the dead zone. The turrets could track and cover the entire length of demolished buildings, and getting over the rubble was tricky work in the best of times. Certainly not with a clock ticking along with heavy caliber machineguns and defence lasers tracking you. She looked at her pup who had just barely caught his breath. She could make it, but he wouldn't.

Smiling sadly she unclipped his chain, and told him to get ready.

"We only have fourty-five to get in." as she counted down the last five seconds.

He groaned as he readied himself for an all out sprint. He had run the gaunlet many times before and knew a path that worked for him. Granted, usually they cut the perimeter defences for a bit longer, but he had done it in just over a half minute before.

Four, three, two.., GO!

Getting up shakily, and examining the gash on his leg, Danny stumbled over to where his rucksack lay on the ground. Sifting through its contents, and pulling out a small portable medi-dispencer, Danny applied the machine to the wound, activating the medical diagnostics processor, that quickly selected the correct compounds and applied them directly to the wound. Three minutes later and after taking the machine off of the wound, a layer of quick drying gelatine bandage was bonding nicely to the wound, local anaesthetics numbing the area, happy drugs making him not even notice the wound, and only making it slightly stiff in the knee-joint.

'Made in SA, happy day!' he hummed a popular commercial from back home, unaware of a large amber coloured iris peeking through the window.

The shotgun blasts had certainly attracted something's attention. The male deathclaw had wandered down the street after concluding that the molerats the pack had been herding were somehow now gone, and what worse, it smelled like they had disappeared in all directions at once. To a somewhat peckish deathclaw, with an even more peckish family of deathclaws following in its wake, this was a severely annoying turn of events. Following a sent towards the corner of the street, the male was met by its mate, a slightly smaller momma deathclaw also very intent on eating and to a somewhat lesser degree, feeding her juvenile young. She screeched irritation at the pack leader as it arrived at the corner. The male in turn snarled contempt at his mates critiques, the scent have led in this direction as well, why hadn't she caught anything coming her way?

Besides, the male now knew which way the herd of plump molerats had progressed to and summoned the female to follow. As they turned to make their way back down the street towards Danny's position, the scream from one of juvies could be heard. It was in fact the young deathclaw as it tumbled into Danny's bedroom stake-out. Quickening their pace, and scanning each of the houses as they passed them, the two parent deathclaws continued looking for the wayward young. While the momma deathclaw peered more intensely into each of the houses as she made her way down the street, the father was onto a scent that he somehow knew just had to do with all of this nonsense. Then the shotgun reports rang out loudly. Both animals stopped suddenly, the male looking over its shoulder at his mate, checking she was alright. The female screamed her mate onward, knowing instinctively what gunfire could have for consequences.
The large pack leader turned and resumed in its former direction, snarling under its breath at the lack of reciprocating concern. At least he'd checked that she was safe. Subconsciously, the deathclaw was considering the animal kingdoms equivalent of divorce, and maybe an early dinner.

As the last gunshots sounded, the male came abriast with the house where its young had just had its head removed. Motioning in animal terms for the female to stay back a little, the male crept towards to house, staying well under the view from the upstairs bay windows. Carefully pearing into the window, the male saw its decapitated offspring slumped up to the wall first, followed by Danny's shape as he tended to his legwound.

Gggraaaak' nnnnnhhaaaaa? Came a short bark for the female, questioning.

Sssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggg!! Came a hissed response from the male, his mate backing up a few steps in a more timid fashion.

Turning back to the window, the male stood upright and with just enough room to manoeuvre, thrust one of its clawed arms through the window and began groping madly for the rooms occupant, determined to catch whatever was responsible for its offspring's demise, as well as then getting its mate to finally shut up so that they could continue after the herd of molerats.

Danny's happy feeling all but evaporated as he saw the massively clawed arm smash throught he window and grab directly for him. Coming up a few feet short, Danny easily jumped up and backwards, evading further damage for the moment. Unfortunately, Both the hammer as well as his P90 were outside of his reach, and inside the reach of the creature outside. Luckily he had his rucksack within reach and quickly reloaded the vierling with four gameshot rounds.

'And try not to ruin the bloody trophy head again, ya nob.' He told himself, intent on getting one for mounting back home. Thinking he could shoot the beasts arm and hopefully clear it from the window long enough to grab the rest of the gear and his rifle case, Danny heard the same scraping noise he had heard with the first baby deathclaw entering the building. Leaving the wildly clawing arm and quietly looking down the stairwell in the hallway Danny confirmed his findings.

Sure enough, two relatively small sized deathclaws were just emerging fro the back where the kitchen entrance was, poking around and sniffing the air. As they slowly made there way into the house, and looking around the landing, Danny decided he needed to deal with the large deadly arm in the bedroom first.

A tall oak cabinet of sorts stood at the top of the stairs in the hallway, along with a number of other pieces of furniture. As both of the smaller deathclaws ventured into the living- and dining room first, He quickly put his back behind the cabinet a toppled it down the stairs crashing and blocking the stairwell nicely. He moved to the other pieces.

Outside, the noise alerted both of the advlt creatures, the female screeching in apprehension, the male pulling back its arm and peering through the bedroom window, curious that it was now empty. Moving to the smaller hallway window next to the bedroom, and seeing Danny, it punched as hard as it could through the smaller window opening, only to get itself stuck in the crumbling masonary. The female deathclaw gurgled, watching her mates failed attempts, as it tried to pull its arm free of the structure.

KKKKGGGGAAAAAaaaaaaa. She breathed for emphasis at her mate.

RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! the male roared in obvious frustration. The female took another step back.

"I will deal with you in a bloody minute!" Danny yelled at the creature, mistakenly thinking that the creature was addressing him. Tossing the second heavy set chair from the landing onto the dresser drawers that in turn lay on the cabinet, along with a side table and the other chair. He then shouldered and fired two barrels at the animals tightly wedged arm that stuck through the wall at him. More bellowing roars could be heard from the male outside, the arm jerking itself free, taking more of the outer wall with it.

"Crap." Danny realized, "I could've snagged the rifle while he was stuck." He popped his head into the bedroom and as low as possible retrieved the heavy salvo rifle, the case and his shiny P90. As he pulled it to the safety of the back of the room Danny noticed just in time how the two baby deathclaws were physically pushing all of the furniture up the stairwell.

Taking a grenade from the case and checking the clip on the P90, he shouldered the small weapon and put multiple short bursts through the banister railing at their heads as he walked towards the stairwell. The furniture dropped back down, but they continued to push at the barricade from below. Replacing the half emptied clip for a fresh one and standing at the top of the stairs, Danny completely sprayed the entire content of the clip straight through the furniture at the creatures underneath, the wood from the cabinet and other pieces splintering everywhere as the high velocity rounds from the P90 shredded the makeshift obstacle. As the weapon clicked clear, he pulled the grenade from his pocket and dropped it through the barricade and down the stairs.

"Catch Fido." Calmly walking back into the room.

+++

The male deathclaw was not having one of its better days. Not only couldn't he get a hold of the juicy prey that was held up in here, but now it was stuck, and his mate was being more useless than when it had been carrying the young. The male didn't want to dwell on the instinctive fears associated with that particular recollection. That had been hell. And hell had only got worse when his mates own ageing deathclaw mother had suddenly shown up at their lair to help with the delivery ?a natural occurrence within the deathclaw species, among others.

But hell hadn't improved much after the young had arrived, aside from killing and eating his mates mother. The male deathclaw was constantly being pushed to provide more and more food for everyone. Also, instead of actually being of any value on a hunt, the young only seemed interested in the kill once it was killed, getting in the way the rest of the time ?like right now, only caring once they could eat it. And then screech for more.

She wasn't much better. Seven times she had been in heat since the young were born and still she would screech and hiss in rage, trying to claw his eyes out, every time he even thought to instigate mating. It was like some kind of mind reading, except the male had no notion of the concept, only the experienced aggravation from the consequences. And now this.

Pain resulting from the two shotgun rounds allowed for a brief adrenaline surge to let the male deathclaw break its arm free while outing a tortured, ear-shattering scream. In three steps the male was standing in front of its soon to be ex-mate, arms outstretched to strike just as the P90 started burping within the house. Pausing, the male deathclaw saw the female turn her attention from his imminent strike to the sounds of her young coming from the house. A whimpering hiss escaped her throat as she reached out to where her young would be in the house, the long drawn out salvo mixing with the further screaming from her babies. Timidly, she looked up at her mate, just as the grenade blast inside silenced all screams.

The male stood poised to kill its mate, having had enough frustration without being able to kill something long enough. Seeing the fear enter her eyes as they locked gaze and readying himself to strike her down, he hesitated as she looked away when the weapon fire began. Again readying himself, the male hesitated a second time as she whimpered softly for her young, unaffected by the prospect of her own pending demise, and reaching outward behind him as a blast quieted everything, she then looked up at her mate. It lowered its arms somewhat.

The male deathclaw was weary from everything. Its offspring dead or dying, whatever it was in that house dug in too deep to get at easily, multiple wounds that stung, and certainly no more interest in this female, but to tired to even kill it. The deathclaw just wanted to leave.

As it lowered its arms slightly, four .338 high density 550 grain slugs slammed into the base of its neck, ripping through tissue and spinal cord, paralysing the animal partially in the arms and legs. Pain and numbness washing over its whole body, the male deathclaw turned one last time towards the house, where two barrels protruded from the broken bay window.

Danny had taken careful aim, counting on the multiple bullets to tear through the animals nervous system, and drop it on the spot. But it was still standing! The recoil completely absorbed by the inertial dampening piston and the twin barrels dropping back onto the target, he saw the animal not only standing, but also turning and approaching the house again.

Seeing it still standing, Danny decided it needed to be taken down thoroughly. Sighting in to the animals head, and applying five pounds of pressure to the trigger, he just saw the brow of the beast no longer furrowed in rage, but softened, and awaiting. Then the rifle erupted, recoil being fed into the rear of the weapon once again, a twin duplex casing ejecting into the casings collector with the other one.

Crap, another trophy head ruined.

"This town owes me a trophy for everything I hauled back last night, or a statue." Carl could be heard before he could be seen prior to walking through my front door with a genuine swagger about him. I knew I should have locked that instead of leaving it wide open. Straight through to the kitchen and fridge, his muffled voice from the interior of the fridge. "you want something while I'm in here?'

I had a steady stream of fresh coffee that was brewing on a hotplate, and a cup in hand, which I mentioned. His head popped above the fridge door, "Anything you wanna add to that brew?" he checked, a half emptied bottle of scotch in hand. I declined, he shrugged, and kept the bottle as he closed the door, walking over to where I was standing. He had a number of pages of hand written paper in his hands, that he was fanning himself with.

"Oh buddy boy.." he fanned me as well. I swatted him away, half annoyed.

"You wanna try to keep that sourpuss face on after you take a quick gander at the shear number of IOUs we racked up from everyone around town today. We practically own this burg now buddy" Carl laid them all out in front of me.

"We?"

"Well yeah.., you graciously provided the storage space as well as the initial openings for trade" he sat and took a slug straight from the bottle, "And I collected it all from the store ?which wasn't a walk in the park by the way." Pointing the scotch bottle at me, "There were some v.e.r.y. peculiar people at the gathering when we popped it, and I'm glad to say some of them won't be ever leaving that place again." Lifting the bottle for another swig from it, he paused, "Besides, I'm just holding to your fifty-fifty deal."

I looked over the papers. Granted, Carl had hauled a significant amount of gear from the site, and after distributing it around town to the various people, trading for needed items or future services, Carl and I were ahead of the game for awhile.

A bunch of rifles to the sheriff for town defence had awarded Carl with the license to settle and build a house of his own within the town walls, if he wanted. Another paper addressed to me gave me limited access to the towns armoury, if ever I needed extra munitions, or wanted to store any excess that I might have. I chuckled, he was probably worried that I had another nuke stashed in here. I looked over at Carl, "Did you mention the flak cannon?"

"Uh-huh. Sheriff said he would replace any used shells double, if he could have access to it during any assaults." I nodded that it was fine. Carl continued, "So I said, hell no, that you wanted triple the shells or you would let it sit and collect dust while wasteland scum [censored] the Brahmin and killed all the women." I looked at him, half realized he might of actually said this to Simms.

"You didn't?did you?" He grinned, "Awe man. You did!" I took the bottle and added to my coffee, shaking my head. Worried all of sudden that I might have some explaining to do to Lucas.

"So we finally settled on replacement of shells used double, and a .45ACP as well as a 5.56mm with a linkage." He tried to look beaten, "I really tried for triple the shells, but he's tough."

I looked over the rest. Free food for life at the broken lantern, an IOU from the saloon for the delivery of a number of bottles of assorted booze, signed by Colin Moriarty. "Wish I could have seen his face for this one." I muttered. Carl giggled.

"he tried 'miss' counting the bottles six times, hoping I wouldn't notice. The ghoul..,"

"His name is Gob." I stated. Carl looked over at me.

"Er., yeah, right. I keep wanting to say 'Bob' and forget." Stopping suddenly, "Speaking of which, since when did you start giving zombies anything more than a second glance?, and a bullet?" I told him people changed. "Apparently, but anyway, Gob, asked whether the boss might want to take a nap before attempting to count to fifty-seven."

Priceless.

Leroy had taken the bulk of the items, and by the looks of the listed invoice of goods versus what it said he owed in either cash, ammo or whatever else I might ever need, he was selling himself woefully short. I guessed there was some added gratitude for me tutoring, Moira. And putting up with a teenager.

Speak of the devil. It has red pigtails, accompanied by her partner in crime. Carl saw them first as they came in. "Uh-oh, I need another drink." Taking the almost empty bottle back from me, and heading for the kitchen for a new one.

"We're baaaack?" in unison, of course. I didn't want to cringe, but it overcame me, and I showed weakness. They were quick for the kill.

"we got my dads permission.." -one started

"..and mine. And they both said," -and then the other continued,

"?that we could sleep over," -constantly,

"..as long as you were gone and," -over

"?as long as it was okay with you and," -and

"We didn't break anything and helped," -over

"you in anyway," -again..

"..possible. Pweeeeese, can we also sleep over while you're gone, pweeese, mister Andy siiiir." It's the unison. I have no natural defence again their unison barrage. Chicken[censored] Carl was still hiding in the fridge. I mentioned to the girls that he would have things here as well while we were gone, and that they also needed his okay. Why be greedy when you can spread the suffering, he capitulated with a stream of acknowledged agreements, coward. At least it gave me a second to compose myself with at least half a straight face.

"Right then munchkins, we got rules around here and you're going to know them and love them." Moira rolled her eyes, "That goes double for you, miss Brown. You think these are the old rules, that you already know. Well, guess again young lady. These are all new and improved rules, just for the occasion." I moved them to the cabinet closest to the front door, where outside attire is kept.

"Rule one; No playing dress up! Some of the armours and stuff in here I pulled off of dead raiders last week and aside from not being washed yet, a lot of it has spikes and other assorted sharpness and I have no idea whether its been dipped in poison or not, so leave be." Moving over to the ham radio set up next to the front door, I stopped and pointed at it.

"Rule two; No monkeying with the radio settings. Use the pre-set channel select only." I squinted at them, "And if you want to talk to people, be nice. I might come across some of those people while we're out there and if I find out you two where pulling prank calls, I march you out to them so you can apologise in person." They giggled, but nodded.

"We'll be nice." How do they do that without practising together?

"Uh-huh, over here then." Kitchen was next. "Rule three, a super rule; Anything and everything of an alcoholic nature in this fridge will remain intact and inside this fridge for us grown folks for when we return from the harsh unforgiving wastelands, and are thirsty." Now Carl actually took their side.

"Dude. That's harsh." The combined four puppy hound eyes looking at me made me almost capitulate. I compromised.

"Okay, subset 'A' to rule three; You may designate one," I held my finger up, "One bottle of wine, each. For the duration, and don't let me hear that you two downed them in one evening and staggered through town plastered. Choose either a red or white so you have something for with your dinners" which reminded me, "Rule four, cousin to rule three; please eat everything else in here or it'll be crawling out by itself over two weeks. Use the stove or oven if you want, no blowing it up, thank you in advance, and wash up afterwards." Again the squint, "If I come back and there's a seven foot pile of dirty dishes in the sink, I'm making you wash them using a toothbrush, and you get to dry them off with a shoelace. You can decide who of you does what."

Trumping them upstairs. "Rule.. uhh, where was I?" and in unison;

"Five.."

"Right, rule five, the handful, like the two of you, the bedrooms are for sleeping in, and so help me god if in half a year there's a double shotgun wedding for Cromwell to minister."
I had an idea, trumping then back down stairs to the front door, pointing at the threshold. "Demarcation line. No one else but you to are to pass over it. That includes boys upstairs and kids in general. Not in the house. You want to run one of your scams you may use the front door as a storefront, that's fine. But no one but you two in the house. And maybe your daddy's whom I'm gonna ask to check up here from time to time. And sheriff Simms if he needs to get into the weapons locker. Which brings me to rules six through the rest of numbering. The weapons locker."

HOLY [censored] MAN....

I knew you were good...but this...


This is. F.R.E.A.K.I.N.G. FANTASTIC!!!!

You got 3 dog down to the life!!! AND you're spot on with the fighting tactics... er.... care to come to my dojo sometime?


The idea of Archie being armoured in Japanese Style armour with a Brahmin horn helmet is just sheer [censored] genius!

Man, I'm goint to tell everyone I haven't told already to come and read, at least THIS part...


p. s. WHY HAVEN'T YOU ANSWERED MY EMAILS???

awwwh shucks, I'm freakin' blushing over here..
Thanks buddy
..a lot.



Googlemail giving me the whoo-haa all day long. I'm thinking tomorrow -it happens on ocassion...

Andrew
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Danny inspected the bloodied and caved in skull of the female. "Hmm, me thinks that the slugger isn't the weapon of choice for these beastlies, either. Oh Bother!"

--half an hour earlier--

He was standing in the hallway again, the females body now wedged where the males arm had been wedged earlier. Except her entire upper body and head were wedge in, with her arms now pinned to her side, screaming her heaad off and struggling backwards and forth. It was the result of Danny retreating from the bay window after the final dramatic shot to the male's head, once it had turned and stared Danny straight in the eyes, pleading him to end its misery.

"That was some bush weirdness yer don't read 'bout it the books." He said to no one in particular, thinking back the last few minutes.

After the fatal shot that felled the male and pulling back further into the bedroom, he heard one of the younger deathclaws gurgle, still alive, and trying to dislodge itself from the rubble below in the stairwell.

'Fido lives?' Danny exclaimed in thought. 'Tough little wasteland beastie...' Quickly checking up on the female deathclaw through the window, who was still transfixed over the body of her mate, the game hunter walked into the hallway, peering tentatively over the railing. The furniture was still piled on top of the cabinet that lay blocking the stairwell, severely damaged but still a solid obstacle.

SKRRRIIIII!! the head of the surviving deathclaw young smashed its way through the back of the cabinet, slamming one of the chairs to the side, creating a hole that it could start to crawl out of.

"Whoa, not-so-solid barricade anymore." Pulling two more grenades from his belt and letting both of the spoons fly sideways, Danny dropped the grenades down the stairs.

"Bad Fido, down Fido!." And walked a little to the rear of the hallway as the grenades exploded below him.

That was when momma deathclaw had awoken into action. With a feral scream that would have rivalled her mates, where he still alive, she bolted for the house, all her rage and instinctive hatred focused on the human she could see through the hole in the hallway wall.

Her sprint took her to her top speed in less than the five steps distance to the house, her head colliding frontally through the hole, momentum carrying her further into the house, just not far enough.

"Christ all bloody mighty!" Danny took a step back in surprise. The creature, only momentarily dazed, began screeching and howling as she noticed that her plan had royally failed, and was now completely constrained in the walls hole. Danny chuckled.

"Who's a daft [censored] then, hey sweetheart?" he approached the pinned animal, keeping clear of her mouth and accompanying teeth. "You are the missus, right?" he looked at the smaller sized head on the creature as she thrashed around, taking in her softer lines around the jaw, the smaller nose bridge, the lighter brow. "Gotta be. Unless there is such a thing as a fruity deathclaw, in which case you still wear the skirt, darling." He was pretty sure it was a female.

Now how to go about shooting it, without ruining the last bloody trophy head he could claim today. There would be no fireside boasting of today's exploits if he didn't secure at least one flipping head to mount. Christ, he might as well not even mention it ever happened if he didn't get a decent trophy. Danny scratched the stubble on his chin as his surveyed the problem.

He was in the house, and she was stuck in a hole in the wall of the house. Going back to the bay window and leaning out he deciding that a shot with the hammer would as best nick her in the bum, and that might piss her off enough to either let her break free and leave ?not good. Or force her to squeeze through the hole into the house where he was ?really not good. Him getting out of the house to shoot her from behind meant digging out the remains of the staircase while she watched. Again, not an option. Danny was coming fast to the conclusion that using a firearm to kill the captured deathclaw just wasn't going to be an option, from which ever way he approached the problem. He was going to have to assemble the slugger.

"Sorry darlin'," he said to the female deathclaw as he went back into the bedroom for the components that were in his rifle case still, "This is gonna hafta get messy."

+++

"I mean it, if this place is messy when we get back, I'll have your daddies give you both a tannin' that you'll remember!" The girls were waving from my front door, shouting reassurances and giggling in a way that carried no reassurances what so ever.

"And we got plenty of tannin' lotion, as well!" Carl chimed in, only slightly missing it.

"I told your daddies to check in on you two a lot!" And with that they disappeared from view.

Carl turned towards me. "you just finished building that, you know? If you weren't happy with it, why not just tear it down and rebuild it like other people do?" I grinned. If I had noticed one thing from these kids then it was that ?to a point, they thrived on responsibility. As if constantly trying to prove to us, the advlts and parents, that they could handle the dangers that awaited grown-up life in the grown-up wasteland.

And speaking of grown up talks, I turned to Carl as well came up to the gate. "Once we're well and clear of here, you are going to tell me what the hell brings you all this way south."


"Are they gone yet?" from the side of a mouth in whisper.

"Smile and wave, just smile and wave." Through a clenched grin

"Girlfriend, we are gonna have sooo much fun these next two weeks" Giggles now a mandatory response.

"Does your brother really like me?"

"Ieeuuwwwe!"

+++

Messy wasn't going to cover it. This was turning into a blood letting. Revving the electro motors and riding the swing along with the momentum of the rotating ends, Danny drove the slugger back into the chest of the female, ripping and shedding more of her briastbone and chest muscles. Her one freed arm nearly took his head off, and ducking just in time Danny reversed the melee weapon and carved into the inside of the deathclaws elbow. The engine whined in protest, tendons and blood spewing everywhere. Danny wondered whether the slugger needed a new power cell already.

The slugger was another south African invention, and Danny was a past master with it. Consisting of a central staff that housed the twin electro-engines each spinning in counter rotation to each other, and two aluminium baseball bats fixed to both its ends. The bats were studded with hundreds of small steel spikes, and the counter rotation cancelled out any forces on the center staff when they were both spinning at their full eight thousand rpms, making it the deadliest quarter-staff in the history of the weapon. The rotational forces served that certain motions were extremely heavy while other swings and thrusts almost happened by themselves, the rotation adding to the force of the swing.

He finally was able to kill the animal and sever her head, but the damage it had sustained was substantial, and possibly ruining.

"Well," he said dropping the head and turning to the task of clearing the stairwell and continuing his quest for the king scorpions. "I'm going to have to bag one of these beastlies before leaving because this is just too good a story not to brag about by the fireplace in the lodge."

He also put in a small prayer that the cheese outside hadn't been trampled on.

Celeste stood on an outcrop, and with the afternoon sun warm on her back, she was well aware of the effect she was having on the workmen. Her 'decent' button down dress was all the more see through with the sun behind her, and she concluded that the garters and stocking would have been less torturous to the poor guys.

'Can hurt business none.' She thought wryly. It wasn't that see needed the caps, there was a rather large bag of them under her pillow after last nights gymnastics. And they had been truly of Olympian gold standards. She had sore bits. Shifting her weight slightly to the other leg, and bracing the carbine on her hip, a number of groans could be heard from the men below. No, there wasn't going to be any business done by her this evening. They would have to wait until she wasn't sore anymore, which felt like it could be days.

Smiling, she realised it was that one aspect of him that she loved over anything else. His respect for her and his non possessiveness. The way that he respected what she did, and didn't try to change her, or use petty jealousy, or with under-the-radar suggestions. Sure, the cash was so that she didn't have to work, she knew that. But never was it said ever, that that was what it was for. In his eyes, she was free to do what she saw fit, and with that, he had caught something of hers far more illusive. Her true loyalty. And his free thinking never took her for granted, either. That had been clear since the first evening he had shown he cared more for her than just casual entertainment. She thought back to that evening.

The salvage miner had rolled into the saloon, whooping it up that he had struck it big with an old department store in the ruins, slapped a very full bag of bottlecaps in front of Gob and had stated that he was going to taste every drink in the bar, and then he was going to taste her. And not one to be stingy with his new found wealth, everyone drank on him that night.

The evening had progressed in high spirits, thank in large to the free spirits, with continuos music blasting for the jukebox, and people dancing. She had danced with many men that evening, including a slow shuffle with Andy that the miner had cut in on. Reflecting, this was where the seed of destruction had been planted.

Eyes locked in mutual gaze of affection, a slow shuffle passing between them, giving excuse to move closer on occasion, but teasingly so. Then a tap on the shoulder.

"Reckon I might cut in and finish the dance with this one." A glance at her, for approval. She smiled and mouthed 'it's okay.' And he turned to the other man.

"Sure. I wasn't planning on dancing with you, but as long as I can lead.." Andy had said it in a jokingly and light hearted fashion, no harm intended. The miner saw things different.

"I ain't no queer, boy!" Pushing Andy away and grabbing for Celeste. "Hershey highway humpin' back crawlers!!" Andy was left standing on the dance for, arms out reached in disbelief.

"Just joking there, buddy. I don't want to dance with you either." But the mans mood was set, and he turned to Andy, still holding Celeste by the arm. "Yeah, well I'm gonna do more than dance with this one here, I done paid good money for her, and I'm getting mine back right now!" turning to her, "C'mon [censored], you gonna ride me good." And started towards to stairs.

Andy had a hand on the mans shoulder, stopping all forward motion in the man. "I know you didn't just say what others would wrongfully recollect you as just having said. And I know you are about to say things of a powerfully apologetic nature concerning what you just didn't say. You know, to take away any lingering suspicions that it might have been said." She shook he head quietly, behind the miners back. Andy's lifted his vice grip on the shoulder. The miner leered.

"Like ah said, bought an' paid fer." They went upstairs. Andy didn't sit down again until her door closed.

It might have ended there, except that the wastelander hadn't even been able to perform. And the more he tried, the more frustrated he became, and the more nothing that she tried worked. And there are limits to any woman's resolve in such matters. Add to that the rank unsavoury stench that came from what could only be the result of years of neglect in personal hygiene, as well as owning only one set of underwear, and Celeste had had enough after twenty minutes. The fact that he had even refused a sponge bath before ?a service often appreciated by her, and wanted to get to it, was now only fuelling the loathing she felt. Telling him to come back some other time when he was feeling more up to it, shattered the final resolve and unleashed a primal rage within him.

I was half turned towards her, giving her my fully attention, studying every littlest reaction from her, knowing the odds where stacked royally against me.

I suggest:

"I was sitting with my body turned halfway towards her, giving her my fullest attention, and studying the smallest reaction from her - because in this kind of situation I knew from experience the odds were royally stacked against me"

She pushed the bowl towards the patron, grateful for an excuse to get out of the firing line about to erupt. Three kids, the missus just passed away a years ago to green pocks, Edward remembered all to well the immanent signs of a feminine blow out.

I suggest:

"She pushed her bowl towards the patron. Me, I was glad for any excuse to even temporarily get out of the firing line about to erupt. Having been married with three kids, with the missus just passed away a year ago to the gree pox, Edward remembered all too well the imminent signs of a feminine blowout"

With women, you'll know you've won the battle, but you are guaranteed to loose the war. For the moment I was prepared to loose a little war.

Dear Andy, it is 'lose' not as 'loose' as your grasp of spelling.

Edd was just standing there

I thought he was "Ed"? Or maybe he's an egg-head...

But other wise, your grasp of dialogue and of the feminine mind is priceless as usual!!!

Just letting you know I'm still enjoying the hell out of this

Back to reality

I stood up knocking over the table lamp and causing papers, clipboards and various pens and pencils to shuffle about. Looking around at the dank and drab grey ships interior, I wondered again how well thought through this all was. But these were the authorities as far as anything went on board, and if only half of what I suspected was true, then this was waay to big to tackle alone. Sitting in the open administrative area of the ships Federal Boat Investigations or 'Feds', I could see various filing cabinets, desks and what had to be a holding pen. Coffee cup and ashtrays littered the desks, wastepaper baskets piled over next to them. There were stacks of manilla coloured dossiers on every desk, photos dotted tack boards, and a large 'ten most wanted on board' poster hung on the wall. A couple others were typing at their desks. I had been redirected here by the ships Marshals as the place to report my findings. Now I was wondering if these guys weren't swamped already.

"Listen. This was all ten years ago! How can it be of any bearing what so ever on what I've already told you?" I was getting aggravated. This had been going on for hours now.

"Sit down, slick. We'll decide what's relevant and what isn't." Special Agent Casey. Or Mullens. It was getting blurry. They would swap places almost mid sentence and then pound on me for mixing their names up. Saying if I couldn't even get that right, then what was possibly true or not true with my story? I told them I wasn't the one walking around telling everyone I was 'special'.
Yup. That hurt. Healthy right hook. Definitely done some boxing in the past. I think he loosened a tooth.

An other came in and relieved the former to soak his hand in something cold. "Listen," He said, setting a cup of water for me. "Look at it from our side. You come on board with a rather spectacular story about," he checked a notepad, "Some super-ghoul who you've been tracking, who himself tried to frame you for the murder of a local sheriff, "

"His son." I took a sip. Ouch, stinging. But no loose teeth, thank God.

"..the murder of a local sheriffs son, and is not only capable of raising an army of ghouls through," checking the notebook again, "surgically implanted cybernetic enhancements which give him control over them."

"Not just ghouls."

"Huh?"

"Not just ghouls. He can, and has, put implants in anything that moves and breaths. Ghouls, mutants, Yao Guai, deathclaws, humans. You name it, he has a control processor with your name on it. Five minutes under the knife with him and if he wants you to stand on one foot, while peeing down your trouser leg and singing 'I'm a little teacup, short and stout', then trust me, there will be embarrassing pictures afterwards."

"Okay, so super-ghoul, not only capable of raising a multi-cultural, equal opportunity, super army, but with a possible plot to ghoulify the entire eastern seaboard. And you think, he's here on board." Flipping a page, "No, wait. Better. You think he's masterminding all of this from on board the ship here somewhere in a secret lair. And that we, have never even heard a rumour hinting towards something like this, doesn't strike you as being somewhat improbably?"

"[censored] impossible is what it is. this hayseed thinks we're just a bunch of morons." Came from the other room.

"Just special!" I yelled back. [censored] him.

"Okay.., can we maybe bring this down a notch? Cool it Casey." Casey then. And this was Mullens. "Look, you said that you started going up against this guy a decade ago, then we need to know what happened a decade ago, right?"

I sat back down. First I pushed the desklamp out of my eyes, fished a smoke out of its pack, lit it and asked if they had any coffee on this tub.

"So, your girlfriend was in the process of being sixually molested and physically threatened by a perp, go on."

Still going great Andy !! Awesome story!!

Before she could react a large rusted bowie knife was thrust up against her neck, barely breaking the skin. His face, inches her hers. A putrid, vile smell emanating from his mouth as a cracked grin revealed rotten dentures, stained, yellow and infected. It was all she could do not to gag, inhaling his breath, knife cutting against her throat.

"Ah had enough for yer mouth, missy." Where they were standing, she couldn't reach the small .32 automatic she kept under her pillow, a woman's insurance policy towards fostering continued gentlemanly behaviour among her clientele.

Replacing the knife with his hand in a death grip around her throat, the knife started its travels downward, along the collarbone. "Sure sum mighty fine skin, all smooth and nice smellin'?"
Hooking the blade behind a shoulder strap and slicing it through. "Maybe I just gonna slice you a new gash an' git mah pleasurin' there.". The knife cut slowly further through the fabric, severing the neglig?e in two. As the sharp rusty tip of the blade traced a trail over and down her abdominal, she readied herself. He had tucked himself away previously, and would have to get it out again, unless he was just planning on gutting her, in which case she might get stabbed before knowing what was going on.

But Celeste didn't think so, the creep was obviously getting off on the power trip, and therein lay the plan. She wetted her lips timidly, batting her eyes. "I think you're more than man enough to pleasure any woman with what you've produced down there." Indicating the slightly growing bulge in his pants. "How about you pull that bad boy out and we just continue where we left off, hmm."

"Because I know there are things I can now do to- and with you, that you won't belief." He looked at her, her head cast down, and was now unsure what to do, spittle forming in the mouth corners. "You have no idea," Celeste continued, now slowly rubbing her legs together. "How much I get turned on by an aroused man." She looked up at him, dead on. "Are you turned on too?"

Still holding her in his grip by her throat, the other hand wielding the knife dropped momentarily to his waistband, hurriedly undoing the belt buckle and denims. He looked down for a fraction of a second to steer his hand. It was all she needed.

Kicking upward with all her weight and driving the knee straight into his crotch, she felt his grip tighten around on her neck as the now would be rapist had all the air knocked out of him. Slamming one hand against the inside of the elbow and the other hard against the wrist she turned and slid under his grip and was loose, jumping over the bed, her hand sliding under the pillow for the small pistol, but it was gone. In the same sliding move over the bed Celeste went for the door.

'Let the men handle it.' She thought. Killing or seriously maiming people in her room would look bad, and there were a bunch of manly men willing to solve this in their time honoured tradition.

+++

Carl and I were still dealing with the new town gate. Great for keeping the undesirables out, but was now showing teething problems and keeping them in. Stockholm was fiddling with it up top. Carl turned to me.

"So, you and Celeste. I'm puzzled, was she that desperate for a charity case?" So I told him my account of the events.

"..so Gob lures me back to the bar after her door closed. Buddy, I was ready to commit murder." Carl nodded.

"Figures. I remember a couple of scraps involving you and the ISP troopers at various times in the commons, usually over a girl, or two." He grinned. I grinned back sheepishly.

Institute Security Protectorate What a joke.

"Yeah, well, those goons never did have the best in social graces or common mannerisms." I thought a second, and smiled wide as I could. "And somewhere deep in me, beneath this mug, is a knight in shining armour, just screaming to get out." Stockholm yelled for me to try the powers witch again. Still nothing. "But not soon after she went upstairs," I continued, "Celeste come racing out of her room and down the stairs, half naked, the miner hauling ass in hot pursuit with a big ass bowie in his hands, pants half undone, and a half-inflated boner dangling." I looked up.

"Hey ya freakin swede.., you want me to fetch Moira?" A number of embarrassed mumbles sank down from the gantry above the gate.

"So, the guy is coming down the stairs, tucking himself in, cussing up a storm, Celeste is standing just behind me as he stomps over yelling about either he was getting his worth, or he was cutting it out of her. He didn't fail to notice my opened duster and the holstered .45 colt. I mentioned to him an anecdote about people who bring knives to gunfights." I chuckled. It's an old one, so I gave it a new twist. "I said people who bring knives to gunfights should really be worried when the gunslinger gives his weapon off, and I handed the piece to Gob behind the bar."

"You whaa?" I had a captive audience. The miner that night had looked somewhat stupified at my actions, taking the .45 and sliding it across to the bar keeper.

"Hold this for me, Gob." As I turned holding my duster open to show no concealed weaponry. The miner stood in a half crouch, legs firmly planted, blade swaying slowly back and forth as if a cobras head before striking, the other arm poised for balance. Classic knife fighters stance. I had a few options. In knife fighting, it's paramount not only to know where the knife is at all times, but which it's pointing as well.

If the attacker is holding the knife pointed up then you force the weapon away, turning yourself outside of the swing.
If the blade is turned downward, you will want to try and turn inward with the swing, and in both cases reversing the assailants grip on the blade, disarming him. The trick of course is to get this right.

The miner had some skills, swapping hands and inverting the blade constantly, trying to get me off balance. After two feints he lunged ?pointy bit up- and sliced a big gaping hole in my favourite duster from left to right. I tapped his arm sideways and turned the other way, rotating next to him and taking the duster off, entangling him, all in one go.

"you never advertised the Institutes gun katas, huh?"

"Nope. He shook my coat free and lunged again ?see, he got pissed, stopped thinking and screwed the pooch right there, dumb-ass."

Grabbing a barstool I parried an spun, completing the arc I smashed the stool over his back and neck that sent him reeling into the corner while I stood there, holding the stunted remains of the furniture piece.

"What the hell, Gob? We sit on these, ya know?!" I was holding most of a barstool leg in each hand, some side bits still hanging on. Gob grinned, shrugged and then pointed behind me.

"The bastard certainly didn't know the meaning of stay the [censored] down, and I had two rattan sticks in my hands, more or less. It took some convincing on my behalf that he really was too unconscious to get up after that. Then Simms broke his arm throwing his ass outta town."

The gate finally opened, creaking and protesting. Stockholm mentioning that it only needed some oil in a few places. We came around the corner, there she was, standing on an outcropping, weapon at hand, afternoon sun behind her, looking as indecent as I had ever seen her. Carl was looking for his jaw again.

"It was kinda 'on' from that evening forward."

+++

Seeing the two men round the corner and swing into view, Celeste smiled. There weren't many people she treated with a smile when they were going out into the wastelands, except if she didn't like the person. But she knew now, with those two, it was the wasteland that should worry. Knowing how she was seen in that light, she still giggled as the two approached, Andy wearing a loving smile and Carl drooling profusely, while making retarded noises. He regained posture and stopping Andy with an arm outstreched, adressed Celeste as she stood on her elevated rocky platform.

"I'm sorry!" Looking at his friend, "I am buddy, I really am. But this!" pointing at Celeste "Succumbus," now looking at her, "?has been throwing herself at me since the moment she laid her, her, beautiful, deep, mesmerising.., uhh, uh. Her eyes, on me."

Now in full ham-mode, "It'll never work darling, you of all people should know that by now. I, being the dashingly handsome, swash buckling gentile man of good standing and great hair.."

He wouldn't?, he did. He swished his hair back.

"And you, as sweet as you are, are but a harlet, confined by your own common existence to this dusty, wasteland burg, vested that I take you away from all of this." Grandiose gesture. She was giggling, I felt like slapping him upside the back of his head.

"But alas, I cannot. Too many a woman have I left heartbroken along the winding paths of my years travelled. Too many a promise, made in the nights passionate throws, by the lightest breezing caress of a kiss.." Walking up to her, he had reached to take her down-held hand, proclaiming his complete goofiness to her. I knew most of it was fake, and that the old saying 'brothers in arms, naer be parted by a woman's fair charms.' Was true between us. And we didn't cross those lines, anymore.

"I can only leave you with such fleeting passion, a kiss, so as that you won't loose your heart to foolishness ?my, foolishness. And may still yet live out a life of sustained mediocrity with bozo over there," jerking a thumb in my direction? Bozo? Mediocre??

"In blissful ignorance of that which we could never have. Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow. Allow me to make my way yonder, miss, so as not to torment you with the sight of my diabolically good bone structure." And with that, he kissed Celestes hand and turned to me.

"You heard all of that? Wow, must be embarrassing. I'll be over there, waiting. You try not to say any goodbyes that require a hotel room, 'kay?" With a practised strut, Carl walked a ways further, before swinging his arms widely and shouting as he skipped along, "I got to kiss Celeste.. I got to kiss Celeste, neener, neener, neener!!"

I had climbed up to where she was and held her. We kissed, a little tongue, nothing distasteful. She looked up, her eyes impossibly large.

"Off to bad places again?" worry hinted under the surface.

"Uh-uh, I'll tell you what happened afterwards, not guesimate the future. No use worrying about things before they happen, me or you." I kissed her forehead,

"You be good." I said.

"You be safe." Came back at me. I smiled, and she looked up puzzled as I didn't let up my hug.

"Can I get my carbine back?"

Sorry, needed to add the last bit to the last entry

glad everyone likes it, thank you

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



"Tango-two-alfa, tango-two-alfa, this is one-hotel-bravo please acknowledge."
A head looked up from a radio set, and shook. Another turned and left to report the unit being out of comms range.

+++

"One-hotel-bravo, this is tango-two-alfa. One-hotel-bravo, this is tango-two-alfa, anyone got their ears on, c'mon?"

Ffffiiii-TING!!

"Petey, as you may have noticed, those 'hick psychos' as you so aptly named them, are improving there aim, and actually shooting in this direction. Please refrain from doing something stupid, like dying, m'kay? Try hailing tango-two-charlie. They should be right behind us somewhere. Get me Donald on the horn, and I don't care if you have to string a wire and use tin cans!"

Ffffiiii-TING!!
Ffffiiii-TING!!
Ffffiiii-TONK!!

Crap. My punishment for being flippant, they were improving their aim. Or someone brought a scoped rifle to the party. And Petey wasn't making much headway with the radio. Well, it seemed to be working alright, so either no one was home to answer the phone -fat chance, or there was too much junk material and broken structure between them and us disrupting the signal -please let it be that. Third option, the radio only seemed to be fine, and was in fact broken in ways that we can't fix in the field.

Time to assess our situation.

Coming up into Boston we'd expected more troubles entering the area from the south -Dudley, -Brunswick King, -Savin Hill. These were the raider hellpits that all southern settlements had warned us about on the trip up from the Manhattan wastelands. But other than a really weird cult of hippies camped out in the ruins from the university of Massachusetts-Boston campus, as well as sticking to the interstate ninety-three as much as possible, we didn't hit any real threats until we tried crossing the Massachusetts turnpike into Chinatown.

Halted, the old man had us probing a way past the cloverleaf intersection of the two highways, where a whole bunch of scavengers were housed in some makeshift city, and didn't want us there. So much so that they opened fire before we even got to the gate to announce ourselves and who we were. So, having now crossed the I-93 westward from our main position on Telegraph Hill into Shawmut and then northward, we were to find a place to cut over the turnpike somewhere. It meant we were all the way out on the left flank, with a whole lot of space to be covered if help needed coming and a whole lot of unknowns in front of us.

'That was how we got into this mess. Now to focus on the mess itself.'

Currently we were taking fire from two different sides with the third being where we came from and the fourth going right in between our current groups of antagonists. Stuck on the intersection of Tremont street and East Berkley street -which was our line, tango-two-charlie was somewhere further behind us on Berckley, with the two groups of badguys being both on Tremont street, one to the left and the other to the right of us. The ruins of what once was the famed cyclorama building lay directly in front of us, across the street. Berckley street continued beyond it, and hopefully crossed the turnpike somewhere up ahead, otherwise, if we had to venture even further westwards, we would end up in the old business district with its collapsed banking towers and other assorted highrises that once fallen, created a maze defined by thirty foot tall piles of rubble blocking the way at every turn.

"Nope, ain't having it." I muttered to myself. The others thought I was referring to the shooting. Well, I wasn't having any of that either, but not getting svcked into the banking district was from the old man himself. And we needed to re-establish comms, because without it, there was no way I was going to advance and leave a hole behind me that two-charlie wouldn't know about. But this intersection was becoming dicey, and my worries grew that others would eventually occupy the large opposite building structures. Then we would need to vacate the intersection, whether we wanted to or not.

I looked over our little position, and we were okay, as long as the cyclorama stayed vacant. The men were doing fine, and I couldn't really ask for a better bunch of guys, ever since I made buck sergeant and inherited the squad from Mr. Nice. He had made section commander after our old commander caught a sniper round between the ears, which goes to show you that saluting never really accomplished anything useful. It was why Mr. Nice refused any rank from the old man stating:

"If I'm to be an officer, then that should be enough for the troops to follow lead. Nobodies business how far up the ladder I actually am, really. Besides, people tend to want to salute me less when I'm just a 'mister'. Ups my battlefield survivability, don't you know? And what's more if I'm going to be slogging it out with the rest of the lads, then I do want a decent rifle to shoot with and none of this 'officers sidearm' willy-nilly. My sidearm will be as big a bloody rifle as I can carry, and I won't settle for less. I say chap, you wouldn't happen to have an extra one of those machineguns by any chances, old boy?"

Mr. Nice was nice, in a gentle British way that made you want to do it right, because disappointment from him was intolerable. And now they were my responsibility. Petey ?already introduced, was our RTO, our radio tactical officer, and the clown of the unit. Moe, our medic, and also a pothead when we weren't on the line. Tex was one of the squads a-gunners, with his buddy Cowboy assisting and lugging munitions. No points for guessing where they hailed from. Moe was crouched next to Cowboy, and grinning at me

"Tin cans, that's funny sarge." I think I liked him better stoned.

Brrraat
Brrraat
Brrraaaat
Brrrat
Brrrat
Brrrat

"Tank! I know you brought more ammo than you thought you would ever need today but surprise! We're staying out tonight, and tomorrow, and maybe the next day. So keep those bursts short and preferably to the point." Mac sat beside Tank readying another belt. I glared at Mac as well. They were midwestern boys from the Chicago area they said. Well, they had the ganster attitude down square.

Brrraaaaaaaaaat
Braaaaat
Braat
Braa-
-clack-

"Dammit Tank, I said cool it!" The big coloured man turned and pulled an earplug free.

"What's dat, boss?" I motioned Mac, he heard me and tapped Tank on the shoulder.

"Sargento?" I looked back, now what? "Se?sargento Andrew, sir. We think that a couple of hombres are setting up over there on that tejado, eh si, you see?. Paco and I wanted to blast them off, if its okaay?" Wow. That was more English than I was used to from either of them, seeing as usually every other word they spouted was spanish. And I didn't hable espan'jole. With me it was more 'entienda .45ACP, puta?' Anywho, they were both the best with grenade launchers, even if I couldn't understand them half the time. I nodded. There was some yackity-yak between them with pointing and range finding and discussing and more range finding and probably a small revolution happening somewhere in the meantime..

FUMP!
FUMP!

Twin explosions erupted on the other side of the building's top and suddenly it rained three people off the roof and into the streets. Two loud reports rang out from the rooftop beside us where Wilbur and Ed were on CS duties. Counter sniping anything that got too close. I couldn't see what they'd shot, but I knew it was dead.

And there was me. And I had just thought of a plan to take the vacant building when I saw them coming, Carl leading the way.

It has been said that the mark of a great writer is in the plots, and the characters, that he leaves to posterity.

Thus Homer and Ulysses. Thus Shakespeare and Macbeth. Thus Stephen King and 'The Gunslinger'.

And now...

Old Andy and his crew...Andrew, Archie, Celeste, Carl, the Duke, Shak, et al... in my mind at least they are growing into living characters I can close my minds and imagine.

Thank you, Andy, for giving us them. And creating the world they live in.

My votes are for Andy & Celeste

Having not even an inkling of a clue who Carl represented at the time, or even what they were, all I knew was that a small tactical squad of something was coming down Berkley street, crossing the turnpike bridge at the Columbus avenue. And looking really, really weird. None of the others had seen them yet, and Carl hadn't seen us. I was going ahead with my planned surprise.

"Moe, I want you to haul ass back to the Don's position and tell them we're crossing the road and taking the building on the other side of the street. Tell him he'll need to pull up this way a bit and put something that can cover the intersection when we're gone. Hopefully the two groups will come play patty cake, and then we can put them in a crossfire for a change. But hey! Make damn sure the Don doesn't light up this crossing until we do, or they might split up again and he could have some pop up behind him. And hurry! We ain't about to leave without you Doc, so get back quick!" As soon as Moe was gone, I turned to the twin taco's.

"You twos, get upstairs, uhh, arriba, arriba up to where Will and Ed are. Si, si. Gran tirador, bang-bang, tell Will and Ed to cover us until we're, uh, never mind. I'll write a note." Thirty seconds later they were off, squabbling over who was 'mayor mensajero' and who was only 'ayudante'. I filed in the others with what we were going to do.

Soon, Moe was back, and out of breath. In between gagging breaths, he relayed Donald's reply. "Dude? I'm wasted? man? gotta smoke less?, Anyway, the Don? told me? to tell you? that he'd have? an.. a-gunner up there.." thumbing a building behind him, "and, a, a couple of, grenadiers.. with HEAP rounds on call." He was finally caught up. "And he said he wouldn't light up dic before we did anything cuz he couldn't well know when we were exactly gone, now could he?"

I smiled. That kind of tactical insight was gold. And when mixed with Louisiana smarts.., well then you had the Don.


Just then Paco and Pepe let loose smoke canisters in each direction, providing us with the cover to cross. It was as we were crossing the street that the others noticed Carl and his group way up on Berkley street.

"Whoa, dude. Little green men from Mars. I'm not the only one seeing this, riight?"

"Holy [censored]. Aliens!!"

"It's Rosswell '47 all over again!!!"

"Extranjero!!"

"Sarge? Possible hostile close encounter of the third kind right out here in the open, no crappy vids needed, two hundred mikes and closing on foot.. or flipper. Dunno really. No mutilated bovine yet detected. Waddaya want to do about it." Give Petey a pair of binoculars, and there's no telling what he'll report seeing.

"Nothing, the cows are one their own, and so are the Martians. We have more pressing matters to attend to. Besides, they aren't the ones shooting at us. Move out." Once Petey and me had crossed the street, we signalled the others to center on us. In a New York minute Wilbur, Ed, Pepe and Paco exited the ruined building and crossed over to our street side, sporadic fire occasionally penetrating through the smoke, but nothing on target, or even close.

I got Wilbur and Ed to jimmy the entrance door locks in double time, and in moments we were in the building. The front gallery was an open semi circular atrium, with the entrance in the corner, and twin banks of escalators directly across from the doors on the other side of the foyer, leading up to the higher levels. A ticket booth was in the middle and turnstiles flanked each side. I instructed Petey to wire the doors.

"Put claymore here and here on these pillar, facing that way. And I want grenades strung all along these turnstiles, and on that side." They moved, and with purpose. Now to make it personal for them (yes, it's another sun tzu thing?)

A short whistle for attention. "Heads up, people. Take it on board that they will get in here and that we will have to contain them, also, here. The idea is that when they get together outside wondering where we are that we cut them up outside and then force them in here where we cut them down, completely. We have the tactical superior high ground and we'll hold it. They'll be unable to manoeuvre and it'll be like shooting holes in the air ?we just can't miss. To do this in here though, I want interlocking fields of fire from that balcony and to the sides of the escalators there and there. Tank, Tex, after you set up positions for in here it's time then you both gets topside. Find a way up on the roof and set yourselves up so that the intersection is covered as well as the approach from either end. Deny them avenues of retreat and I want lots of grazing fire patterns" They nodded, "And don't let them see you. This'll only work if they don't know we're all in here."

"Remember two-alfa, we're going for the big, fat, kill. No more mister nice guys." They all nodded. It was a new thing I was trying, out of respect to our old squad leader (we were known as 'the nice guys' unit before.)

Wilbur and Ed were done with the turnstiles. I directed them to the top floor that still over looked the inside atrium. "find a nice window location and hunker down, dig yourselves in. Same MO, don't let them see you and once the fireworks start alternate between covering the atrium in here as well as picking off anything straggling outside or attempting to leave. Also," I stopped them short, "One last thing. You guys and the taco twins are the only things watching the streets. If anything icky shows up, tell me! I don't wanna have to rely on those two, for relaying tactical intel that could be of vital importance to our continued living enjoyments, yeah? Good, go, make vacuum. Next item; Taco's, front and center!"
Explaining it to the two wasn't as hard as it may have seemed. They were to go topside with the a-gunners and after the a-gunners relocated to their indoor positions, Paco and Pepe would stay on the roof and also deny anyone the use of the intersection.

"Dos compadres! You-oh arriba, yeah? Up! Mucho bueno Boom-boom, asi como bang-bang, okay?" indicating that they could also use the rifles that they thought was only there to hold the grenade launcher in place. I gave them both a few extra mags of ammo for the rifles, just to get the point across. They never used up their munitions quota of clips. This time I wanted them to.

Ok, last item on the impromptu to do list. I got Petey to rig a few surprises by the escalators as well as the ticketbooth while Moe and I went about adding furniture to the firing positions in the upper area, generally trying to beef up the fortifications. Looking it over, it was thin. As sound as the plan was; lure separated badguy groups together, force them along a predetermined route to a predetermined killzone, and slaughter them. Text book. But our positions within the atrium and along the balconies overlooking the foyer were hastily constructed -thrown together was a better way of saying it.

'Not this time, Consigliary. No more meetin's, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks. You give them a message from me, I want Solozzo, if not it's all out war we go to the mattresses.'

We could use some mattresses, thinking beyond old movie quotes.

Tank came down just as Wilbur stuck his head over the top floor railing. Both started at the same time.

"Sarge! Something's happening out there.." "Boss? You might wanna come see this.."

I held my hands up at both of them. I hated it when people tried to talk at the same time. I stop-signed Tank and pointed at Wilbur, looking up to where he hung over the railing.

"Uhh, we got movement in the smoke, sarge.. lots of it." Dropping my arm and pointy fingering at Tank.

"Yeah, boss, same. But uh.., you might wanna eyeball it yourself." Hmm, when two of my best are anxious... I bounded for the stairs.

"Lock and load people, show starts in three minutes. Petey, Moe, by the numbers. First the claymores after the doors are popped, and keep any grenades you throw away from the turnstiles and ticketbooth. After the escalators and those go, do what you want. I'll be back before that though." And off I went after Tank.

Getting to the roof wasn't hard and I clocked it at under two minutes. I figured it would be similar for the others. I crawled up to Tanks position, Mac was using a range finder. I sighted in with the scope on my carbine, scanning the smoke at their end of Tremont. There was little to no breeze today, and the smoke hung like a thick fog over the street. But shims and shadows could be easily seen chasing through the billows of cloud that swirled lazily around.

"Remember, whatever they are, let them get to the intersection unchallenged. I'll pop smoke and give the signal." I moved away and making my way to the other side I stumbled across Paco and Pepe in a position above the front entrance in between the two machinegun positions. They had pooled their standard fragmentation grenades and the shells for the launchers as well as an assortment of molotov cocktails, pipe bombs and more explosive devices that were definitely home-made. Even a few dented lunch boxes were stacked to the side. This gave me to thinking as I approached Tex and Cowboy.

"Andy, we gots beau coup bogies out there in the mist, an' ah ain't givin' us a spittin' chance in hell that whatever comes rollin' through there we gonna be able to put a stop to with this here pig." Tex used the time honoured nickname for the heavy squad automatic weapon. Cowboy was bobbing his head in agreement.

"Fer sure Sarge. Ah done seen a whole buncha goonies boundin' 'round out there. Dunno what they think they're doin'. Ain't had any real shootin' gunfire come through the smoke lately neither." Sometimes I wondered if they were trying to be even less comprehensible than the taco twins.

"You boys packing party favours?"

Cowboy nodded vigorously. "Fer sure thing, sarge. Gots me mah speshullz an' a buncha plasmas that were laying 'round the depot doing no one any good, so I done took 'em." Floppy grin from under his floppy bush hat. I figured as much.

"Okido pilgrim." In my very bad southern accent, "you fellers stick it rait here, an' bushwhack them no-good varmin!"

"Sarge, don't do that, like.. *ever*, 'kay?" Cowboy bobbed his head in agreement with Tex.

Hrumpf. I thought it was aceptable.

"Right, never again. Whatever. The plan is this, a little different than five minutes ago. Wait for the signal, then wait for two-charlie to start putting rounds on the intersection, then silenced weapons and tossed grenades only until they figure it out, at which point it doesn't matter anymore so spray them with gunfire and get back down stairs. If what I think they are, is what they actually are, then we got ourselves a problem." And I was back over to Tank and Mac, motioning to Paco and Pepe as I passed them the signal of 'stay cool, stay down' hoping they didn't start doing push-ups. I pulled up next to the two.

"Change in plans guys, want you down stairs from the get go, I doubt the sixty will be of much use anyway, considering."

"Considering what boss."

"That they are most likely zombie wasteland raider scum, instead of the regular human wasteland raider scum, with the difference being these take more persuasion to lay down and die, and their bits die a little harder as well.."

More Holy [censored]! Andy...this should, and could, become the official FO3 novel!!!!

And Matilda the beeyatch is the demon we all love to hate. Great characterization!

GLADD to see the dangerous duke is alive ... as somebody predicted. Let's see more of him in later chapters, OK???

Holy [censored]...I just had a thought....what if the Duke raises a GHOUL army with FORCED ghoulification! Oh man! Talk about outta the frying pan and into the fire!

Perhaps what we need then is a contract on the Duke given to a certain 'bushman' ... :hubbahubba:

Tank and Mac came jumping down stairs and peeling around corners, gear, ammo belts and a couple munitions boxes, weapons, extra barrels and rucksacks all carried at once. They skidded to halt at the top of the first landing next to the escalators. Moe and Petey were on the other position.

"S'up, dudes?" came Moe, with Petey showing his furrowed brow in accordance.

Tank and Mac hastily set up the machinegun, loading a linked belt of heavy 7.62mm rounds into the reciever.

"In and set." Mac had the ammo laid out over the firing chamber.

"Puppies clear!" Tank slapped the reciever cover inplace
?Clack!-

Jacking the charging handle, he looked over at the questioning faces.

"Ghoul raiders." Was all he said.

"Aw crap! And I was getting short too."

"What are you smoking Moe? You are short, you five foot midget freak!" An old joke from Tank, who rated 'Damn' on Gods big list. "Man, I get boners longer than you." This, was a new joke.

"Pssssst!! Hey!" A voice came from the top floor, it was Ed. "Mac! You guys know what the [censored] is happening? They look like they're dancing out there in the smoke clouds, or having seizures." Mac yelled up what they most likely were. A steady stream of choice cursing could be heard from the top floor. "[censored] guys.. I'm dunno, but say it ain't so.. There're a lotta freakin' bodies out there in that mist."

"How many?" came from Petey as he fingered the blast triggers for the claymore mines.

"All of them?"

At that moment the two opposing groups of wastelanders dcided to meet in the middle, one group consisting indeed of ghoulified raiders. A combination that quickly leads to feral state because of the unbridled gourging of human flesh and brain matter. Hence the large subset of ferals of all kinds that always congregate around raider ghouls, knowing their less mentally afflicted brethren will always lead them to fresh deposits of nourishment .

The other group was nothing of the kind. I was crouching on the roof near Paco and Pepe, to keep them from prematurely playing with their ordinance. The other group didn't move like the others. More fluid.. more precise.. like.. we.. wou-

"Those are mercs." Awe [censored]. This just made thing messier.

"Tex, Cowboy. Hold your fire!" I motioned the two chicanos by my side to not throw anything until I got back. I must have flown down the stairs to the others. "Petey! Haul ass trooper, and bring the radio. Move!" The others were slightly apprehensive.

"Dude, you ain't leaving me with these guys are you? They're telling short jokes again. They ain't cool like you, Sarge." The jokes were all coming from Moe today. I had to talk to him about what, and when, he was toking these days. Ease of mind came first. We were going to get hit hard no matter how it jumped.

"Tank, Mac, leave the pothead alone or the next time you get hurt he just might swap out the IV drip for battery acid." Moe giggled.

"Battery acid, good one sarge." Now I knew he was stoned. Back up the five flights of stairs. It was starting to take a little longer to get up on the roof. Petey had already climbed up higher onto the top of the atrium roof behind us, kicking the radio into submission and hopefully, some functioning comms.

I had Tex relay what the other group was doing on the far side of the street as I sighted in through the scope on my carbine again, this time closely observing the second group.

They were moving up the street in pairs of two, leapfrogging forward, taking full use of the smoke and available cover. Briefly from across the way I spotted something flash inside a broken window of a second story building.

"Sarge! Don says he hasn't anyone up that street, and it isn't anyone else of ours since they're all over with the Don. He has two-Echo and two-Dog on station, says give the word and he'll bring down the pain."

The.radio.is.working?!?

"Nope, but this is," He was holding a signalling mirror, "And I saw lil Mikey up on that roof. See? Basic morse did the rest.." Awesome! At least there was some modicum of communications possible between Donald and me. Mirrors. And I was about to offer up smoke signals as an idea.

"Andy, them seizure luvin' freak-and-a-halves are comin' through the smoke cover fast. Lord Christ have mercy." If it looked as bad as it sounded, then it was bad. I on the other hand, was paying attention to the other group still, and they opened fire just as Tex finished praying. First it was selective fire at targets as they emerged from the mist, but soon they went weapons free, and were engaging the raider in long salvos. Their sniper ?or snipers, were in the room of the ruined building I thought I saw.

'I thought I saw a counter sniper.. I did, I did..' Hmm, maybe I'm stoned.

now that there was the din of gunfire below us, I started barking directions.

"Silenced weapons only! Selective fire and target the raiders! I don't know who the others are but I'm not firing on them just yet." And could be making a fatal judgement call for it, but that was for later to worry about. "Tex, Cowboy, time to leg it and set yourselves up on your balcony. When you're done Tell Moe to pop the doors." I called Petey down from the atrium roof and instructed him to throw my smoke grenade as soon as the door were blown. Satisfied that the three could handle things I legged it back down stairs, but not before checking in with Ed and Wibur.

They seemed to know everything already, -from hanging over the railing and yelling up and down the atrium. At least they knew what was going on. I headed further downstairs and was nearly there when Moe triggered the explosives wired to the doors. Ideally, we would have been showering them from the roof, along with Don's assistance, and everyone would be scraping at the paint to get in. Say like fifteen bad guys piled up against the doors trying to break it down, and then blasting them open? Yeah. Now we maybe grazed one of them, and severely startled another. But the grenades certainly did their work. Landing in between the charging raider ghouls and accompanying other ghoul mutations, the grenades and the home-made explosives from Cowboy and Pepe wrecked havoc in the streets and intersection. Adding the launched grenades and hand mortars from Donald to the rest tipped their resolve to stay out in the rain, and the raiders started coming in the building.

"Wait for it, Moe.." I cautioned quietly, "Wait.. just a bit more.."

"Dude! They are all bonafide, genuinely viable targets, sarge. You don't have to pick the prettiest one out!" Moe was almost loosing it. I was close to a brown note moment myself. "Punch 'em, punch 'em!" He klacked the charging handles of the claymore mines twice, mouth open against the over pressure, but that's obvious.

The blast tore through a dozen or so ghouls, making up somewhat for earlier, and doing exactly what I hoped. Enraging them enough to all want to enter and assault us, in here.

Moe was firing blindly from cover with his shotgun, just pointing it over the barricade and pulling the trigger until the weapon cleared, then slapping a new magazine into it and repeating, venturing a peek every second mag.

"This is great! There's so many of them I don't even feel guilty for not aiming!" Truth be, he wasn't doing to shabby, considering he basically had his eyes shut the whole time. One head shot after another came from the twelve gauges muzzle, I couldn't believe it. Mac noticed it from where he was, and just shrugged. Close next to Tank, the sixty barking contentedly, with Mac feeding it a steady stream of blue beans.

A CLIFFHANGER!!!

:drool:

MORE MORE MOOOOORE!!!!

Thanks everyone

I'm going to do some extra editing of everything above and beyond what's allready done (thanks Dee) to add some clarification, situational explanation and surrounding detail

Also, I've been here a year today B)

yay me :celebration:

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More explosions. They had reached the ticketbooth and continued for the escalators. "Turnstiles.." I explained to Moe, who had been reloading the shotgun and looked at me with a I'm-all-out-of-grenades look on his face. He nodded and smiled understandingly. We both peeked.

The foyer resembled what I always imagined a large pre-war rock concert to be like, with a teeming mass of teenagers trying to all get to the front at the same time. But without the guns and killing, I think. In any case the foyer was packed, and after the initial stoppage the mob was now being pushed forward from those behind, trying to escape the unyielding artillery and grenade rain outside. The front was being pushed past the turnstiles, detonating the boobytraps we had planted there. They then pushed for the escalators.

"Let 'em come.." I wanted as many on the escalators as possible. The problem was the fixed stairway in the middle of the two escalator banks. We didn't have that wired ?not enough explosives with us. We never seem to have enough explosives with us. The raider ghouls were coming up those as well.

"Mac! Could use some help here." I motioned for the stairs that separated Tanks position from Moe and mine. I moved to the center as Mac moved towards me. Two ferals, quicker than the rest bounded up the stairs and straight into our combined rifle fire.

"Now Moe! Blow the stairways!" Grabbing the next set of charging handles, Moe sparked the explosives that were under the escalator steps, sending more anatomical pieces of undead flying about. A hand and half a head flew past and landed nearby. The hand was still trying to pull itself forward, while an eye in the half skull looked about, the other half blasted away. Ghouls are soo creepy. I put a short burst from the carbine in both, until they lay still.

The explosions also did the job of denying the ghouls the escalators as approaches, forcing them to swarm around the tickbooth in order to get up the remaining fixed staircase, and to us.

"Ticketbooth, NOW!" Moe grabbed the detonator handles and clacked them twice.

My world changed.

The ticketbooth was situated inbetween the rows of turnstiles, in the middle of the escalators with a fixed staircase behind the tickbooth. The rear wall of the tickbooth was a solid two foot thick concrete wall that rose maybe thirty feet or so into the air, -about twenty feet above the ticketbooth where they would have hung banners or posters of the events inside. The back of the wall, facing the fixed stairs, had a large, faded map of the Cyclorama printed on it, and above that posters would have also been hung. This is important to know to understand how we rigged the ticketbooth, that was built onto the front of the concrete wall with aluminium siding.

Inside the ticketbooth, we had taped C4 against the back wall about five feet off the ground, laid a two meter square steel-plate that Tank found up somewhere against the C4 and pushed a table up against that, packing it in. Then the table was stacked with every bucket and crate we could find and filled them with scrap metal and junk. We had a really big claymore pointing straight at the seething crowd.

The blast tore through the concrete wall and travelled up the stairs, clipping me in the head with a formitable piece of rock. Glad I had my helmet on for a change. I loved my helmet and vowed to wear it more often. Like under the shower and to bed.

"Whoarre yoweahh ukaaiiii, bose?" Huh?

Disorientation actually kills more than anything else on a battlefield, aside from shock, in my humbled opinion. And not just because I was trying to shake it vigorously for my head. I've seen to many kids on the field get clipped by a blast and then wander around aimlessly. It was my first impulse as well. To get up, check the inner ear balance and walk it off.

Standing up and walking anything off is always a bad idea during a firefight, hence the lethality.

"Are you okay, boss?" Ah, my hearing had cleared up.

It was Mac again, and sounding a lot more like Mac. It was looking a lot more like him too. I nodded and took my rifle he was holding for me. Checking around me I saw Tank happily letting the M60 do its thing, and Moe was actually aiming at what he was shooting at. Somewhere above us I heard Tex and Cowboy whooping it up, their weapon still barking down death on the foyer. I asked for how long I was out, Mac signalled for just a moment. He grinned. "Everyone took a hit from it, boss. Even Tank was looking surprised. You just had to be standing there with your arms wide and caught it in the chest. But she did wonders, take a look."

We made it to the top of the stairs. It had worked well. The foyer was a slaughterhouse. After the C4 exploded the shockwave blasted the steel plate, table, buckets, crates, toolboxes and of course their content as well as the other assorted junk we had piled in there, outward into the foyer, shredding through the zombies, tearing limbs off and decapitating bodies. But the blast had also ripped through the back of the wall toppling it forward and into the foyer, crushing everything else that wasn't hit directly by the explosion. The glass roof of the atrium bursting and a million fairly chunky shards raining down was just gravy. There was nothing left standing in the foyer, and only a hand full were still moving, or parts of people that were still moving. Creepy.

Wilbur suddenly was hanging over the railing at the top again. "Sarge! Those other guys out there? You were right, they are mercs! Ghoul mercs!!" A pause, then he reappeared at the railing. "They're inbound! Heading for the front entrance!" A voice behind me.

"Se?or sargento?" I turned to see Petey being supported by Paco and Pepe. A large red spot growing on his chest. I only heard myself yelling for Moe.

The next five minutes can be summed up in one word. A fur-ball. And we were in it. They stormed the front entrance, and they were good, first tossing in smoke and teargas grenades, then entering in a crossed fashion, cutting to the sides, giving us nothing but lateral targets to continually adjust our fire for. They would grab the body of earlier casualties laying about and use them as makeshift ballistics shields to advance behind. Grenade launchers shot smoke up into our positions and up into the balcony where Tex and Cowboy were behind. Then a fragmentation grenade went off up there, dispersing the smoke. Someone was screaming. A few ghoul soldiers made it to the top of the stairs almost, Mac drop kicking ones head clear back into the foyer, I took out the other two from point blank range with head shots. Gore and splintered skull splattered everywhere. Explosions from beyond where the ticketbooth used to be. Looking up, I saw two pair of arms emerge over the railing and drop another four grenades from there position on the mercs. It wasn't having much of an effect. The stutter from the remaining sixty suddenly quit, with Tank yelling stoppage, grabbing a carbine and taking down another two heading for the stairs. The taco twins piped up from Moe's old position.

"No m?s de granadas, sargento." I pointed to my rifle.

"Bullets! Balas, balas. You still have those?" They nodded smiling. "Then shoot! Bang bang! R?pido, for Gods sake."

Another grenade slammed in at the top of the stairs, I returned fire, emptied out the clip and ducked for another one. Only three clips left. Coming up again it was obvious that they were pushing for the stairs now, and we needed to retreat to where Moe was patching up Petey and hold there. It was across from the stairs further up in a mezzanine , Wilbur and Ed knew to pull out and down to the stairwell so that together we could cover the escalator landing in a modest crossfire. It was our only fall back position. After that it was drop back deeper into the ruins and slug it out there. Not really an option with Petey leaking body fluids everywhere.
Tex or Cowboy had stopped screaming and their sixty was working again, a small conciliation that we were pretty much screwed.

Then the angels arrived, swooping down from the heavens on outstretched wings.