Book one

Memories


They say war, war never changes. But conflict sure as hell does. Maybe what they meant was the nature of war, experienced through the eyes of one man, caught up in a firestorm of raging insanity larger than he can imagine. Maybe they meant the loss of innocence that alway prevails, the destruction of memories that insues. This is what war is. And this, this never changes.
Andy's personal journal '08


He was running. He was running faster than he his feet had ever moved.

Trees blurred past as he bounded over uneven terrain and through razor-grass under foot. A sloped rock face jutted up and out of the ground in front of him, boulders lining the way up the face towards further outcroppings. With easy footing, long grasps and a tight grip he hoisted himself up the side, continuing forward without pause, his bounding stride carrying him..

Well, that way would be a factual answer as the moment, given that he had no idea what was in that direction, but a better way to sum it up would be say that he was definitely running from the other way, and trying to put as much distance as possible between him and where he came from.

The place underground.

The place of pain.

Speaking of which, his head was hurting a lot less than it had been before. Before the pain had been excruciating, whereby even the littlest thought had brought waves of nausea and a dizziness that almost blacked him out a few times. But now it was only a dull throb, easily ignored.

As he ran on over the broken ground his mind began to wander and he remembered the last time he had ran through the forest like that. He had been running from them as well. He had just instructed his little brother to stay quietly hidden under a fallen tree, that he would lead them off in another direction, and that he would double back for him later on.

That had never happened. They had stopped the hunt after they had caught him.
At least his little brother would be safe.

And there was no way in the world that they would ever catch him again.

He ran on.

Passing though the forest he wondered briefly whether the fallen tree he had told his little brother to hide under could be re found. He didn't know how much time had actually passed since that fateful afternoon with his brother, but he figured that his brother wouldn't be hiding there anymore. But he couldn't remember where they had lived though, and he was having trouble remembering his brother's name, and his own, as well as a lot of things, come to think of it. He remembered while inside the underground place, one of them had talked to him at the very end, just before the pain had started. Just before, the treatments.

"Remember yourself and all that you are. What you are, and what is you. Temper yourself during the process, focus on yourself and what it is that makes you especially you, and you will stay you." the One had spoken.

Trying to remember everything about himself, until once the pain started, every thought of every memory had brought even more pain, until the pain was everywhere, in every fiber of his body, consuming him.

And then, remembering with a clarity as if experiencing it all over again, the first time that he went hunting with his father and his little brother, who hadn't accompanied him and his father before. They had been walking in front of their father as they rounded a medium sized boulder and stumbled onto where a 4ft scorpion had nested for the afternoon. He had pushed his brother out of the way, only to get the scorpions to bury its stinger lightning fast twice in his chest, unleashing a torrent of venom into his body.

Running through the forest thinking of all of this, hands felt for where the scar would be on his right chest, between the third and fourth rib.

His father had been standing right behind him at the time and had yanked him by the collar away from the scorpion, at the same time planting the muzzle of both barrels directly into the creatures face and dropping both of the hammers on the shotgun at once. He was carried back home and his father provided medical care for weeks while the venom went through it's cycle of acting up, when it would surge through his veins, burning him from the inside, then subsiding, and the promise of relief, when his father would make him eat as much as he could to strengthen him, only for it to flare up again.

Then it was months of relearning to walk, grab onto things, hold them, not fall over, not to twitch uncontrollably, until finally there was only the occasional facial tic, which eventually subsided as well. But it was the pain that he would always remember from that scorpion bite, and it was that pain that would help him now get through this pain.

This new pain.

And it would be endured as well, for as long as it lasted, until feelings of himself being lifted and carried out of the chamber by two other mutants, each supporting an arm. Each thinking that he was unconscious and not paying any attention to him.

With an ease he wasn't contemplating yet, he had taken both of them in a neck lock, one under each arm, and with two resounding snaps, their lifeless bodies fell silently to the ground. He had taken a large hammer off of one of the two dead bodies, and being naked for the rest, had legged it. Finding the surface entrance had been definitely more luck than wisdom, but he had figured that if he kept following the stairs upwards, that he would eventually get to the surface. And what with his head still hurting like it was then, deeply thought out planning wasn't going to be a staple tactic for the time being. As goofy as that may sound to more prudent ears, it actually worked. Once he was outside, he had started running, and hadn't stopped yet.

In front of him the ground dropped away, stopping him in his tracks just on the edge of an outcropping from a cliff and pulling him from his thoughts back to reality.

+++ standing at the bar +++

Reality was something that this wasn't going to take care of, even if it was Gob's best pour.

"Yer drink's gonna evaporate, smoothskin."

I looked up from my self reflections on the content value of the shot glass, to see Gob's lopsided smile at his own wit, which inevitably pulled his cheeks taunt, exposing his dentures that showed through the rotting holes in the flesh of his face. Ghouls weren't pretty to look at, and it got worse when they smiled. I threw a few caps on the bar counter

"I'll buy you a drink if you promise to stop smiling. You're lucky I'm not as squeamish as most."

Gob pushed the caps back at me, "Boss ain't in." and poured a healthy three fingers, after topping mine off.

"So what's the celebration?" he asked as he took a sip. "Or is it the bad times we're recollecting?"

"It's the day I lost my older brother as a kid."

"Ouch. Bad times then." It was silent for a second, "Look buddy, if you don't wanna talk about it, that's cool. But you're the one who offered the drink. So I'm guessing you're the one who wants to talk."

I looked at him and wondered if all bartenders throughout history had always been the same.
Probably.

One of the reasons that made the bar a winning concept in society no doubt. I shrugged, "We were out hunting, the two of us, when we saw a pair of mutants with their pets with them-"

"Centaurs." Gob chimed in, helping.

"Whatever. Godforsaken-unholy-mutated-hell-spawns would fit as far as I'm concerned."

"Too long, people these days need sound bites or they're easily confused."

"Anyway, they let them loose on us and chased us further and further away from where we lived, until we didn't even recognise the area. At one point my brother picked me up on his back and carried me all the while with those things after us-"

"Centaurs."

"Shut up. And give me a refill. Eventually he got too tired to carry me and hid me under a hollow log, saying he was going to lead them off, and then come back for me."

"Did he lead them off?" Gob filled the glass halfway, eyeing the door for his boss

"Yep."

"But he never came back, did he?" tipping the bottle, he filled it to the hilt.

"Nope." I looked in my glass, remembering what was now a lifetime ago as I gazed into the amber liquid, "I must have stayed in that log, drinking some rainwater that had collected, for at least a week before I decided that if I didn't leave, I would starve."

"Then what? You obviously didn't turn savage." the obvious remark. Wasteland savages were slightly higher on the food chain than wild animals, and only because most of them could pee standing up.

I grinned at him from behind my drink, "I learned a few tricks here and there." I searched for a smoke, found one left in the canister, lit it and took another swig of my drink.

"Actually," I continued, "Since I was lost anyway, I wandered around until I found the remains of an old road. I followed that for a day before stumbling onto a trade caravan. I was so hungry I just walked up to them and asked for food."

"And they just gave it to you on the basis of your charming personality?" I liked his wit.

"One of the caravan guards was a woman, Claire, and I guess her maternal instincts must've flared at just the right moment because she adopted me basically on the spot. I travelled with them for 12 years until she was killed during a milk run to Rivet City. That's when I left the caravan."

"Never saw your brother again, huh?"

"Nope. Seen my share of mutants though, and killed most of those I saw, if I had to. And you know what the kicker is?"
"Wondering whether the one you killed might have taken your older brother." He ventured,

"Wondering whether I'll look into the dead face of one of them, one of these days, and recognize my older brother."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usZtSl8mX08
That lead us to who knows where,
who knows where
But I'm strong,
strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother







edited by D.Foxy

Oh please tell me this has to do with Acky.

I'll be diligently reading it none-the-less.

Really interesting! Glad I read through it to the end, only thing i'll say is that you should put a blank line between paragraphs, or indent at new paragraphs. When I looked at it for the first time it look like a big solid block of text, rather daunting for a forum read. Oh yeah, and try to space out conversations with blank lines so you can tell easier who's talking, not sure if thats a rule or just my personal preference. Good read, I want to find out what happens, write more!

Wow, a good fanfic. A nice change Props to you, Andy. It seems you're a man of many talents.

Thanks guys,
High praise from all of you.. wow.



guess I can keep it up then
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So long we go
His welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bare, we'll get there

When faced with any situation imaginable, the brain works in a very certain and most fascinating way, that can be summed up in the following:

The current chain of events is to be drastically interrupted, and alternatives to the current status quo have to be found, ranging from optimal, to feasible, to the outright silly.
By the process of elimination, using parameters guided by current standing priorities, the most optimun course of actions remains.

In this case there was a cliff in front of him, and as he peered both ways along the ledge saw that the cliff curved back in both directions the way that he came, forcing him to retrace his steps to get around the obstacle. Pausing, he could faintly smell the stench of the familiars that his assailants bred and kept, floating on the night breeze towards him - blind chance had made him run continually downwind from them.

If he went back now there was every chance he would run right into their arms. Looking at the massive hammer he held, he knew that even though he could hold his own in a fight, a direct attack would be suicide. This would take cunning he pondered to himself.

The brutes declared their ill feelings towards the loss of their quarry to each other as they trampled through the undergrowth and trees, following behind their trackers, whom scampered forth with their miss - shaped bodies, tasting the air with their forked, tentacle-like tongues. To lose their quarry would be to bring down the wrath of the ONE back home. A thought none of them wished to harbour for very long. The ONE had made it clear that this quarry was not to get away.

Especially one whom had withstood the treatments obviously so well. Thus the three brutes had been giving chase for hours now, and the ONE would be expecting results soon. They came out of the trees at the same outcropping where he had stood only 5 minutes earlier, their pets whimpering as they tasted the air, the only, and faulted way the creatures could smell anything. Noting he hadn't climbed down, the three mutants split up, one following the cliff to the left, another following it to the right, while the last ?the leader of the bunch, stayed standing on the outcrop and awaited their return, wondering where his quarry was hiding, knowing it had to be close by as his pet whined and licked at the ground, searching the rocks ledge from side to side.

Gripping the hammer by the handle between his teeth, and holding onto the outcropping with his back up against the rock, his hands held onto it so that he stayed suspended on the side of the cliff and below the outcropping, with the mutant leader standing only 2 ft above him.

Certain that the other two were sufficiently far away, he flipped himself up and backwards onto the cliff outcropping, planting his feet squarely in the chest of the colossal brute who was standing there, sending his adversary crashing on his back and knocking the wind out of him. Not wanting the brute to sound any alarm he twisted as his feet impacted the mutant in its chest, and taking the hammer from his mouth he backhanded the brute across the temple area of his helmet, satisfied in the notion no alarm would be raised as head and helmet were launched off the cliff falling silently into the ravine.

Rolling with the motion of his swing, a phlegm of radioactive goop sailing inches past his head, he came up with the hammer in a full overhead, two-handed downward drop, bringing the full weight down on the creatures skull, and caved it in before more goop could be spit.

All was silent on the outcropping again.

Quickly the bodies were dragged into the undergrowth, and examining the corpse, a treasure of supplies and equipment were retrieved.

First off; there being a massive automatic weapon of some kind ?he had no idea what, with a thick barrel and belted ammunition ?but it sure looked shooty! There was more belted ammunition that the brute had wound over his shoulders and around his waist, literally hundreds of rounds of ammunition, but for the moment he wasn't sure how to operate the imposing firearm and felt it best to leave it for the meantime.

Next a dangerously large combat knife was retrieved, double edged and serrated with an oversized hand guard. A quick further search netted numerous trinkets that hung off of the dead brutes ragged attire, and a bag of what smelled and could only be..

dried jerky...

He physically drooled.

The first of the two remaining brutes to arrive back at the outcropping came from the right, and again the smell of the brutes pet was first to arrive, shortly followed by the slave pet itself and it's master. The brute approached cautiously, not sure where his leader was at, and nervously unsure what to do about it.

Wielding the combat knife this time, he planned to come up behind the centaur and simply kick it into the ravine, and then jump on the brute's back, slice his throat open and then letting the body fall silently to the ground where it could gurgle to death quietly while they were both facing away from him.

That had been the plan. Rarely does a plan survive the first moments of battle.

The centaur had flown over the cliffs edge as previously conceived and perfectly conforming to the plan, but the unholy shriek that it screamed out after being kicked in the nuts that then echoed all the way down into the ravine, ending abruptly only when it hit the ground, had definitely not been part of the plan. And the brute, already being nervously on edge due to his missing comrade, jumped physically, involuntarily squeezing off a round from the hunting rifle it carried, a thunderous report from the weapon adding to the noise of the centaur falling. That hadn't been part of the plan either.

So much for the quiet approach.

The brute turned towards him, his hands fumbling with the rifles bolt action. Both he and the brute looked at the massive combat knife he held in his hands, and then looked up, eyes locking in each other for a frozen second, the breeze all but calming down to a perfect wind still moment where they both did nothing.

Somewhere a Yao Guai screamed into the night air.

He stabbed the brute straight in the throat, severing the spinal cord and killing the brute before it ever hit the ground.

He looked over the items he had found after quickly going over the second body. He smiled at the hunting rifle, remembering the massive rifle of his father that he had learned on. This weapon seemed smaller than the rifle of his memories, with the trigger guard removed, and the bolt action was so light he could cycle through it using only his pinky finger on the bolt handle.
Kneeling as he was beside the body, he had the rifle already pointed in the general direction tat the third brute had gone off in, when the brute charged out through the trees towards him, holding an incredibly large, self-made, two-handed great sword of some kind poised over his head to strike, the weapon made from junk metals, intimidating spikes jutting out everywhere.
He grinned as he remember something his father had once told him about the difference in weapons and about idiots who brought a knife to a gunfight..

Moments later he sat in quietness again, the third brute laying dead in front of him with a neat hole in his head. He remembered the dried jerky and ate hungrily as he gathered up all the trappings from their previous owners, and bundling it up tightly in a pack he could easily carry, started to make his way further away from the place of pain.

In front of him the sun was starting to creep over the distant hills, it's light slowly pushing back the veils of night as he ran, emerging from the shadows and forging into the light ahead as he steadied into an easy running pace he decided that east was a good direction to go in.

All he needed now were some sunglasses for the sun in his face..

He was free.

For I know
he would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother



edited by D.Foxy, the chuck Norris of words and the putting together of them so that they sound good

If Im laden at all,
I I am laden with sadness that
everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness

"Then what happened?"

"Huh?" I looked up from my drink. The alcohol steadily doing it's magic on my cognitive awareness. Gob was still there, happily helping himself to another handsome three finger belt of scotch as he kept an eye on the door of the saloon. I fished a baggy of bottlecaps -the wateland currency of choice. Well, that or munitions. But I took the bag from my pocket an tossed them on the bar.

"Here" I said, "Just leave what's left of the bottle and add another one to it in case Moriarty walks in. Make it a good bottle though."

He picked up the bag, weighing it in his hand, gauging the content.

"Christ, who are you? The new Tenpenny around here? How much is in here, couple hundred caps?"

"Nah. Maybe a hundred and fifty, I think. It was two hundred caps when I filled the baggy. And I haven't bought anything substantial of late. Use it to pay off your debt with Moriarty if you want."

Gob went to the back room, talking over his shoulder; "Hang on, I'll be right back." I finished my drink as Gob was returning, another bottle in his hand.

"Unfortunately, as generous as it is, it wouldn't pay off the boss. But it's a start."

He put the bottle on the counter.

"Here," he continued, "You drink for free, paleface. Boss said that this could only go if someone was dumb enough to pay more than a hundred for it, and it's worth the money to see the look on his face when I tell him it's sold." I looked at the smoked glass bottle that was almost full still, and turned to read the label

"Chivas Regal 25 Year Old Blended Scottish Whisky"

I looked up and smiled at Gob. There was a true streak of evil genius hidden behind the rotting fa?e of his.

"You know this is priceless, don't you?" I asked.

"Really?" he said, slipping into his *dumb-hick-ghoul* routine that somehow Moriarty always seemed to buy into. "Cuz this here look-its like any old bottle of watered down gutrot-booze we normally peddle to you smoothskins... Three finger I assume, my good man?" He poured the drink, "So, then what happened?"

"What?" I was still mesmerized by the thought of the heavenly nectar soon to be coating my insides.

Gob rolled his eyes, "Geez, you haven't even tasted it yet and you're already on cloud nine. After you left the caravan. After your step mother died. What happened then?" He emphasized the last sentence, gesturing at himself, switching from *dumb-hick-ghoul* to *dumb-injun-ghoul*

"Me barkeep, pour you; paleface, golden firewater from far away shores, many moons swimming." He continued, on a roll now. "You smoothskin paleface drink golden fire water, not be glum with Gob. Tell story. Smoke peace pipe."

"Sorry, smoked my last a minute ago."

A patron was coming out of one of the upstairs rooms and down the stairs. He muttered some quick goodbyes and left. I didn't look up.

"Here, found these upstairs." Came a velvet response. A voice like a warm autum breeze, something always remembered as soothing, with an undertone of more, just beside my ear.

A semi full pack of cigarettes landed in front of me on the bar, followed by a book of matches that said 'Red Rocket' filling station. It was now that I did look to my right in search for the source of female voice. Behind the patron who had said his goodbyes as he left, she had followed him downstairs ?quietly as ever, and was now standing to my right, pulling up a barstool and nodded at Gob who was holding the bottle in an inviting fashion.

I took my time grabbing the pack of smokes and extracting a cigarette as I looked at the flawless profile of her face. Then I lit up, cupping my hand around the flame out of habit, and let my gaze wander down her body as she sat there, sipping her drink. Something about the view of a flawless womans bodily curves, especially when they approach the perfection of mathmatical arc, that makes a man take that much longer to light a cigarette.

Celeste worked the saloon ?as a blond tonight, and paid Moriarty a kick back to use one of the rooms, eyeing in at a very well rounded and curvy twenty-five or twenty-six years old, and I had enjoyed her company on several occasions in the past. That is, until she confessed that although she didn't know her age for certain and that she was probably around eight to ten years younger.

Ouch.

Well, that had stopped that gravy train dead in it's tracks. Even if the law of the land was mostly lawless, I did have morals. And in her room one night, I explained as much to Celeste that evening, who took it in her own special fashion;

"So, now you know you won't [censored] me, even though you have already..." She summarized, "And well, I might add."

"And you don't mind I'm [censored] others, but you do want to stay good friends and occasionally you do want to sleep with me, and pay my usual fee, but we won't be [censored], just sleeping, because.. we're good friends."

"That would be the gist of it" I had said, looking at my socks while I sat on the edge of the bed feeling all of fourteen, while she paced back and forth. "And this all is going to continue until such time that you, me, and the whole world are completely sure I'm of legal age -whatever that means in this Hell-pit society, at which point you'll have no problem [censored] my brains out seven ways to Sunday whenever either of us gets a notion to do so, but not until then?"

"Uh-huh" She was standing in front of me, legs slightly parted, hands clasped on her hips, head tilted a little to the side, her blue eyes scrutinizing me while wearing only a necklace I had given her at an earlier date.

I was having some trouble concentrating and wondered if I should have waited until she was dressed before starting the conversation. She bent towards me, my eyes fixated on that what a man fixates about when a woman bends towards him, a smile flourishing on her face that millennia ago had sunken thousands of ships off the coast of Troy, and gave me a peck on the nose.

"I can live with that."

And with that she spun and twinkled off to her wardrobe on the other side of the room. I fixated on that other part of a woman's body that men fixate on when they see a woman leave. The tattoo of a stocking seam running up the back of her legs and ending in two superbly tattooed garter bands, offset with tattooed rosettes. The Asian dragon on her back seemed to flow over her shoulders and down her back, almost alive as she walked.

"I think I love you." I said in a weak voice.

"I know you do."

I am alone for one and other

But that was then, this was now, and I was feeling the effects of Gobs wonderous elixer start to take hold. Looking at Celeste, there were other things I wanted to take hold of just then, but restrained myself in lieu of our public surroundings.

She noticed though.

"By the lecherous leering one can assume that you'll be darkening my doorway later on tonight"

She kept looking straight forward as she sat at the bar and took another sip of her drink, but was unmistakably talking to me.

"And run the risk of you ravishing my body, taking advantage of my intoxicated state? Me waking up with the life all but svcked out of me, a shell of the man I was? Nooo thank you."

"Hasn't stopped you in the past.." she turned slightly in my direction, dropping her shoulder, and tilting her head, her eyes teasing. The effect was immediate, and had a profound effect on me, which she was quick to notice "..and you seemed willing enough."

It was true. Since our 'little' talk I had slept with her on numerous occasions, with more than just sleep happening once or twice. And she always seemed to act in her teasing way whenever I had enjoyed maybe a few drinks too many. Know of myself that I had never made a premeditated plan of it and that she always seemed to be the one to conduct the seduction side of things, was what kept me respecting myself in the mornings afterwards. But only barely.

"Sweetheart. You come too late, and after too much. Gob has been pouring the good stuff tonight-"

"You're bankrollin' this party smoothskin, not me."

"True. But be that beyond the point, any inclination towards a possible act of passionately desired love making can only end in humorous catastrophe."

"He's too drunk to [bad word]." Gob added, "Also, he's usin' them big words again. Sure sign he's hammered."

"Why tonight?" Celeste addressed Gob, but was looking at me. A hint of concern crossed over her features.

"Lost his brother as a kid."

"Oh right, Big Brother Day."

I stood up and walked over to the jukebox that was in the corner. Punched up the usual with practiced ease and walked back, realizing that I was actually staggering by now, and not so much walking.

"Then who ... what happened, where?" she asked Gob, referring to his earlier inquiry and also trying to steer the conversation away for my source of drinking tonight.

"Him is the who," he gestured in my direction with the bottle, "As to the what happening where and when.. that's where I've been trying to drive this train wreck of a conversation towards for the last half hour-"

"Must by the booze." I chimed in, "You shouldn't really drink and drive, ya'know?" I gestured with my empty glass towards the bottle, "Like the man said.. I'm bankrollin' this shindig, and I'm not driving anything."

Neil Diamond 'He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother' slowly building as it came out of the speakers.

It's so long long road
From whitch there is no return
while we're on the way to live why not share

And the load doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy , he's my brother

"I was part of the Rivet City security for a while. Harkess took a look at me and asked if I wanted to carry a shotgun." Rivet City had been rougher back then. The council still allowing the shanty town to exist up on the flight deck.. that is until a dozen or so raiders made their way quietly into the shanty town, and let rappelling lines off of the side where 50 more where waiting to climb aboard.

"I remember that fight. Folks here were scared that the raiders were gonna hit us next. That's when we started building the outer wall." Gob chipped in.

I looked him straight on, "I was part of that fight. There was a two day battle just to retake the marketplace. Me and a couple others held a position just inside the marketplace doorway, fighting off raiders from inside the market, as well as from outside on the bridge. Harkess himself led the assault that cleared the other side of the bridge. If we had lost that position at the stairwell, we would have easily lost the whole city. Afterwards, Harkess said I could stay on for life if I wanted, which was awkward since I was just thinking around that time to start moving on."

"Why leave, smoothskin?" Gob, the ever practical, "Sittin' on a sweet gig like that, three hotmeals and a rack. You were on drugs, weren't you?"

I grinned at Gob, "Just got restless living with the caravans I guess. Too young still to settle down just then.." I shrugged "Or maybe just not ready to settle down."

Celeste took that as her cue: "Well, you settling down for the rest of the night. C'mon, ya lug."

She pulled me to my feet spite of my protests, and turning to where Gob was standing behind the bar said; "G'night Gob." And to me she said "Say good night to Gob, my big security man."

"Goodnight to Gob..., big security man."

I really don't remember any of this, but they both told me later on so I guess it's true.


He's my brother
He ain't heavy
He's my brother
He's my brother
He ain't heavy
He's my brother


edited under stern eye for D. Foxy :stare:

Price check on kicked ass!

The next bit is.. uhh.., well it introduces a love interest and I was wondering what I can write about..
There's nothing explicit, of course.. but it is a wasteland.. and I do want the atmosphere of the story to reflect that aspect in the most natural fashion possible.

Any ideas?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Settling into an easy stride, he could basically keep up the pace indefinitely, barring things like sleep and hunger. He noticed he didn't need much sleep ?a short nap was always enough, but he was hungry, and that was something he was going to rectify right now. Coming into a clearing that had once served as a picnic area and camp ground, he picked a place near an old Airstream? camper, cleaned out the remains of some animals nest and when about installing himself. Finding a perfectly usable can-opener was already a bonus, the three cans of ancient pork 'n beans and two cans of Clam Chowdah? he also found on a shelf that the previous inhabitants had never sniffed out was gold. Now he would have food whether he caught anything or not. Putting away everything except the hunting rifle and some ammo, he set out to explore the surrounding area and maybe shoot something worth eating.

Half an hour later he was roasting molerat and dog on a stake that he rotated over a fire in front of the camper. Hunting skills he'd learned from his father, along with his little brother, had been coming back to him. Not anything specific, but just the natural flow of stalking a prey, and then the chores of cleaning it and making the fire. He hadn't seen any Yao Guai, but he'd found some tracks that hadn't looked too old, so he had gathered a large pile of wood for the fire. It would attract animals, especially with the meat roasting over it, but it would keep them at a respectful distance as well. The picnic site was situated in a dale in a rather thick wooded area, and thus didn't have him worried about anyone further away spotting the fire.

As he slowly rotated the sign post that now served as the roasts stake suspending it over the fire, he gazed into the flames, their captivating dance drawing him inwards, its hypnotic effect allowing his memories to roam. He was going over the last chain of events, starting with the present and working his way backwards in his memories. For the most part to make an account of how long it had been since he had lost his little brother ? name still lost in his mutated transitional state, and how long he had been gone. As he went from event to event in his mind, other thoughts were doing their own thing, some more in the back ground than others.

One thought in particular was adding it all up and re-adding it all like an accountant at a shareholders meeting, desperately trying to achieve the desired quarterly results. And each time the little thought came out at the same answer; it didn't. Add up that is. And so the little thought started to grow, encouraged by other thoughts that the little thought passed on its way up the priority ladder, until it swam into his mental view, a whole and complete thought, checked and re-checked for goofiness and proud to be:

"How the hell did I kill ?first two, then three more, for a grand total of five super mutants?" And as a subset the thought quickly added for emphasis: "..with basically my bare hands?" Wow, the thought contemplated briefly, proud of his cognitive worthiness.

He looked at his hands, really seeing them for the first time actually, what with all that was going on. He saw how his hands went over into wrists and then onwards to become his lower arms, only to continue to go up past his elbows to his flexed biceps and deltoids. He looked down at his body, and his hand felt from the top of the neck, along the traqezius, over his chest and came to rest on the washboard rack of his abdomen.

Nope.

Nothing out of the ordinary there.

He grinned at the flames, fleetingly.

He had been in good physical shape before- well.., just before, but he was pretty sure he hadn't been this buffed. Getting up from his seat on the log, and turning to face the Airsteam? camper, he looked at his reflection in the campers aluminum siding. His face, lost in a massive, balding ? he was pulling clumps of hair out since he escaped, distorted head, mounted on a massive neck that crowned a hulking physique, supported by two tree stump sized legs and sprouting a pair of arms that bulged muscle after muscle, like an angry sea. Grognak the barbarian on steroids.

Another small thought hid in the corners, not wanting to even exist, afraid that the arrows of reason would end up all pointing towards it's little hiding place, and then finding itself in the spotlight of fully cognitive existence, with an open mike.

"You're one of them..."

The little thought looked around in shock - that was it, wasn't it? But the Siamese twin thought was there as well, and it shrugged in defeat and gave the mike to its twin, "you're now your little brothers worst nightmare and you can never see him again."

Two Yao Guai who had sniffed the air and tasted the roasting meat stopped dead as an inhuman bellow of rage and despair tore through the woods and trees, a primal scream that only comes from the true understanding of loss. The Yao Guai turned away. Easier meals could be had elsewhere.



edited by Acky, but Foxy Dee friend help lots too

EDIT: Ohhhh... nevermind this.

I woke up with my head pounding mercilessly, a reminder from the night before. I noted that that was the only muscle or part of my body that ached, and concluded that I hadn't been taken advantage of whilst in my diminished state.

Pity.

Our agreement was a couple of years old now, and to be honest, things were pretty obvious to everyone in town, even if I still pretended to be upholding the platonic side of the deal. I looked over at where she lay beside me, and smiled as I realized how drunk I must have been to be left alone all night. Sunlight slipped in through a crack between two wall panels, creeping over the floor and up the bedpost to lay across her rising chest as she softly slept, and caress her cheek, as a lovers arm would.

I sat up and fished a smoke from that pack, lit a match on the headboard and drew in a satisfying cloud, exhaling little rings. Her birthday ? or the day she had chosen at one point as being her birthday, was in less than two weeks. And this safari I was going on would last ten days at least, the client had said.

So that meant that any planning, scheming and shopping I was going to do in preparation for her birthday, needed to be done today or tomorrow. With tomorrow being the deadline since I was expected at the citadel at dawn the day after that. The bigger problem would be keeping it all a secret from her, seeing as her internal radar was probably where the origin of where woman's intuition came from?

"Watcha thinkin' 'bout - and gimme a smoke. No. Better yet, gimme the smoke first, then tell me watcha thinkin'." Like I said, it was uncanny, like mind reading. Looking over as I held the pack open, her head propped up on one arm, taking the cigarette with the other, the sheets sliding down to the point of overwhelming male fixation.

Damn she was gorgeous.

I stalled, "Uhh.., do you mean thinking of as in; 'just then', or thinking of as in; 'you-just-grabbing-a-cigarette-little-miss-sixy'."

"Just then, I can fairly guess what you're thinking now, and you can forget it." She pulled the sheets up, Doris Day styled, only her head sticking out. "Last night's 'humorous catastrophe' was certainly on the mark." She pouted, "You didn't even cop a feel! All you did was fall over in bed in a coma, and snore like a ripper. Guess who undressed you."

I smiled as she continued while getting out of bed, "I gotta tell Gob to stop pouring you the good stuff. You can't handle it."

"Hey, wait a minute" Some things, a man must defend, like his right to get blitzed, "It was because it was the good stuff that I didn't want to handle it. I wanted to wallow in it.., bathe in it if I could."

"I'm surprised you even mention bathing, seeing as it isn't Christmas yet." She jested as she stuck her tongue out, I just threw a pillow in her general direction. Last Christmas Celeste had asked Walter to build a heated hot tub on the roof of the water treatment building. Blindfolded I had been led by the hand, up the stairs, onto the rooftop and all the way into it, and had enjoyed the single most romantic evening of my life. Perfection had been just as it started to lightly snow while we sat submerged in the steaming water. She made sure I wasn't too drunk that evening.

"Ah yes, I fondly remember slipping in the snow afterwards and almost flying off of the rooftop, butt-naked with only a towel for a parachute.."

She threw the pillow back, and clocked me square in the face.

I lit another smoke, content to just watch her for the moment. She had just finished up taking a sponge bath at the sink, details of which I could divulge, but then I would be forced to shoot you - the unsuspecting reader.

Sorry.

After brushing her hair into a single ponytail, she chose a cropped halter top and a pair of high riding thongs to wear, with a pair of urban cammo BDUs over them and a tactical assault vest over the halter top. Then a pair of buckled biker boots, because everyone knows how important matching shoes are to a woman.

From another wardrobe she took two low slung holsters she fastened around her waist, securing them around her thighs with Velcro? straps. Next a double shoulder holster was put on and tightened, and finally, the guns came out.

Twin 9mm Beretta's, went snug under her arms, then two Colt .45 ACP were secured in their holsters along her hips. Next a small .32 auto was slipped into one of the boots, and a sheathed bowie knife was clipped to the outside of the same boot. Her logic being that in a fight, anyone who saw her going for that boot would automatically assume she was going for the knife, and wouldn't expect it when she pulled the .32 instead. Basically, the knife was there for camouflage purposes only.

"Where exactly are you off to dressed like that? A good argument?" I was eyeing her appearance and suddenly realized she was armed for another Armageddon. As she took a heavily modified Chinese assault rifle from the cabinet, along with half a dozen clips that went into the various pouches on the combat vest, it was confirmed that this was a special event. "Christ, did somebody say something bad about your hair, or do they just owe you money?"

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, and retrieving a pair of small rounded sunglasses she put on, pushing them onto the tip of her nose so as to look over them at me.

"Cute."

And she was. Working the whole babe-with-machinegun angle for everything she had, although I suspected that she had been referring to my remarks, not her looks.

"The salvage barge is due up from Rivet City with the last of the materials for the outer wall." She explained, "Stockholm asked if I would mind providing some backup as they haul it up here from the barge on Brahmin. And then if I would mind providing the work detail with a bit of extra protection while they worked. Did you see anything out of the ordinary over by Springvale while you were out yesterday?"

"Nope. The Raiders who where squatting in the school were cleared out again early this week, and it didn't seem like they had returned yet." Then I gave the bad news. "That isn't the biggest problem though.. the water in the river is way to low for anything to get under the 405 bridge. They'll have to unload at the Super-Duper and haul it up from there."
Her face paled a little. The old SD mart was a notorious hangout for all sorts of wasteland scum, and usually in numbers that warranted respect. I looked straight into her eyes, that were speaking volumes..

On a side note: I don't pretend to be the dear Abby of relationships or anything. Hell, I'm just a shmuck like the rest of them. Although I like to think of myself as a shmuck that can value the moment of a situation, and guys.. when she's looking at you with them big ol' peepers, not stating the obvious but wanting you to state it for her. Then don't be dim, and state the obvious. You'll get mileage out of it, I promise.

"You wants me to ride shotgun down there with you?" She squeaked like a schoolgirl on prom night. See guys, it ain't half difficult, you just have to pay attention once and a while and you'll have great results, just like me, and my book 'wasteland lover' can be bought at the better supply merchants in your local post apocalyptic, wasteland settlements.

"C'mon" I said, "Let's see if Gob has some coffee brewed."



edited by Dee once again.. and no, still no account for the sponge bathe scene, sorry.
Stop PM-ing me for it, it ain't happening

hey, this was all I found in the second one, I'll edit once I read the third

Wielding the combat knife this time, he planned to come up behind the centaur and simply kick it into the ravine, and then jump on the brute's back, slicing his throat open and them letting the body fall silently to the ground where it could gurgle to death quietly while they were both facing away from him.

In the above section when your protagonist is 'Planning' you change from present, to past tense with *slicing* instead of *slice* and you mispelled *then* with *them*.

Change up that spelling and tense error and I can't see anything wrong with it, interesting read! Way to make the character kick some ***!

For the third post: I didn't find anything gramatically wrong with it but it's not really my style, or what I'm looking for in a story, nice...... description, I guess.

Breakfast was coming along nicely. Of course, breakfast was the same as lunch and dinner, but the notion of three square meals a day was planted firmly in his head, even if the notion of dietary variation wasn't. Although sometimes he would steal a snack in between, after checking thoroughly that no one could see him do so.

He chewed on the piece of dried jerky that was from the new batch made of ant meat. There was a cavern a few miles further out that he had seen the giant insects foraging about. Gathering his muster ? understandably, he didn't like underground places anymore, and a wooden club he had dubbed 'the bug swatter', he went in after the insects. Luckily, fluorescent fungi grew everywhere, lighting his way in a dim manner, casting eerie shadows as he saw the insect gathering in front of him in the tunnels.

He hated tunnels.

Killing scores of bugs, he ventured deeper and deeper into the caverns, raiding their egg piles for the soft meat as he came upon them, fending off the smaller worker ants as well as the larger warriors. The warrior ants actually had some bite to them, but the bus swatter was functioning perfectly. This continued until deep in the caves, off in a side chamber he encountered the queen ant.

She, was enormous.

Like.., really, really huge. His first thought were simple and primal; "Gonna need a bigger bug swatter." But other thoughts ?yes, they were there too, wanted their time on stage in front of the big mike, doing what they existed to do.

To be ideas.

One idea made it's way to the big mike, cleared it's throat and declared;

"But she's only trying to protect her family. You of all should be able to relate to that." A cheer went up somewhere.

He paused, wondering if he should decapitate the maternal insect. He could see his reflection caught in the multi-facets of the queens eyes in the dim glow of the fungi. It was the reflection of a monster. Something else was there as well though, something behind the monster image of him poised to strike her dead.

"She doesn't want her family to die. Kill her, and her family dies as well."

A standing ovation, the thought took a bow.

He made a decision, and keeping a wary eye, slowly let the queen ant go, and retreated slowly backwards out of the chamber.

"Just keep yer kids outta the campground, and we'll call this square, 'kay?" he rumbled at the insect, who in turn backed silently out of sight. On the way back to the surface, he didn't come across a single ant, warrior or otherwise.

"Mommy musta told 'em too leave me be." He pondered, not displeased with himself and the way he had handled things. He also vowed not to kill any of the ants anymore, unless they wandered too close to the camp ground, since that's what the deal was.

It tasted good. He smiled, he had a lot of it already and more that still needed to be dried and smoked.

Making the jerky was something he was just doing. It had come about on the night of his self realization towards his mutant existence. After that, he had stopped running and stayed at the camp ground and the Airstream? camper. And after he had finished off the last of the dried jerky that he had had, he decided he wanted to make more. He vaguely remembered how he and his dad had done it, but as with many things, he was fuzzy on the particulars. And that frustrated him into a seething rage more often than not. He knew he had to learn to keep his temper, if only to not accidentally destroy the camper. So he took it slowly with the jerky, only trying to smoke a small piece at a time, so that it didn't matter if it was spoiled, which happened a lot in the beginning.

His first blessing was that the camp ground was situated among a wooded area of Hickory trees, and so the wood he used for the smoking process was grade - A from the beginning. The second blessing was the sheer number of animals that were attracted by the smell of the smoking meats, and as such he had a steady supply of fresh meat to try and smoke properly.

He found that it was daunting art to master, with differences for each of the separate meat types he wanted to smoke, the differences in the size of the meat slabs he had sliced, the size of the wood chips, whether they were damp or dry and all sorts of matters that needed attending. He was getting good at it. And there were no more hunger pangs and three square meals a day.

As a matter of fact, he was slowly getting buried in jerky, having made far more than he could eat. The was jerky all over the Airstream?'s interior, in the cupboards, the cabinets, under the little kitchenette counter, in boxes under the fold away bed, stacked in crates in the small shower stall annex port-o-potty. There was enough to go into a well supplied business of wholesale jerky distribution, if he could have imagined himself doing so. He had erected some crude fencing and dragged a few of the smaller egg-shaped caravans in towards the middle of the fire pit circle that was in front of the Airtream? camper. Mainly to keep the dumber animals from venturing too close while he slept. He slept of course, outdoors.

Winter approached and he erected a wind-proofed lean-to up against the campers side to keep him sheltered from the worst of the increasingly biting autumn winds. Also, keeping the fire going helped a lot, and with plenty of wood around, he was off collecting wood, chopping wood and sorting wood for the fire.

One evening as he returned armed with a good sized tree trunk he had dug up, he heard a twig snap somewhere off in the undergrowth just after undoing himself from his burden of wood carrying. Quickly noting it wasn't super mutant in origin, he was truly unconcerned what type of beast it might be. With winters onset, more animals had been lured to his camper by the sent of the jerky, and the prospect of easy food, only to become preyed upon by a different class of predator themselves. He noted the whereabouts of his weapons ? close at hand as always, and naturally went about what he was doing as if nothing was afoot.

She was hungry, wounded and in a vile mood. To toughen matters, she was with young and would have to build a den to deliver them, soon her instincts told her. That her wounds weren't healing properly wasn't a good sign either she knew in an animal way. Her olfactory senses almost exploded out of her nose as she sniffed the smoking meat jerky from afar. Keeping the source upwind, and homing in on it like radar, she was now at the edge of the clearing in the undergrowth scanning the scene for activity.

Activity came in the form of a hulking beast that tromped through the growth, bursting into the clearing and carrying a tree of all things, when obviously there were so many perfectly good trees right around here. But strange or not, the implications of that kind of raw might weren't lost to her, but the hunger, mixed with the adrenaline from her wounds and the simple fact that she was pregnant and had hormones raging through her body made her take a very out-of-character decision.

He threw another log on the fire and went back to sharpening the massive combat knife he carried when he caught eye of her. She was a large dog, obviously with pup, and also hurt. She slowly advanced, head held low, ears flat, softly growling as she made her way closer to the fire, one paw shuffling in front of the other, tail flat and slowly swaying from side to side.
Holding the knife, he watched the dogs behavior for signs of imminent attack. The growls continued softly as she slowly - and painfully aware of her own wounds, settled down on the other side of the fire. "You just cold too, huh?" he ventured in a soft rumble, so as not to startle her. "Bet yer somethin' hungry too, huh?" he grinned and threw a piece of jerky in front of her and she whimpered a thankful response as she wolfed it down. He threw some more pieces down for her, and after securing the rest of the food firmly inside the camper, settled in along with his new company for the night.

In the days that followed they became increasingly accustomed to each other's presence, and within the week she was eating the dried jerky happily out of his open hand. A few times he had tried to look at her wounds, but she had growled him away. The third time he was determined and when he bent to look at the wounds and she growled, he pointed a finger at her muzzle, and growled back. She dropped her head and flopped onto her side, staring at the flames in submission.

Carefully he opened her hind legs apart, the wound was one the hind quarter, a deep gash that might impede on the pregnancy, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that it was heavily infected, with inflammation all around the edges and a steady stream of pus oozing where the scab had ruptured. At least he wasn't smelling any gangrene, which would mean cutting away the rotten flesh, which would mean more growling. He cleaned it as best he could using water from melted snow. On a hunch that animals were animals and that everything reacted the same, more or less, he got one of the two medical stim-packs that he had found in an old first aid kit in one of the other campers, and applied the hypodermic needle to the animals flank. After drinking some more water, she fell asleep.

The next morning she awoke feeling a million times better than she had in a long time, probably since the carefree days that she had been a pup as well. All except the multiple medicine balls she carried around inside her, stretching her to the point of bursting ? ladies, unless you're octo-mom, you simply have no idea. And men.. forget it, just.., never mind. She looked up to see where her benefactor was, noting he wasn't lying in his usual space when a noise from one of the smaller egg shaped caravans got her attention.

He came out of the smaller caravan carefully so as not to break anything, it being a tight fit any day. Walking over he bent and very tenderly picked up the dog. She made a small whimper at the pain of movement, but nothing more. He walked back to the caravan and carefully again, climbed inside and laid her down in the prepared nest. He had used branches, moss, pieces of cardboard and even some tattered blankets moths hadn't completely devoured in constructing the nest for her. Now he hoped she liked it. Not one to complain or be ungrateful, she looked around once and laid her head down on her paws, and closed her eyes.

He closed the door to the caravan as quietly as he could.







edited by Dee, who mentioned something about being hungry, and then left suddenly. :bolt:

Interesting, the only thing I noticed on my first "story" read through was you forgot to put a space before one paragraph, the one bigging with 'As he slowly rotated the sign post....' now I'm going to read it again and post anything I find, here:

Alrighty, I didn't find anything gramatically wrong or mispelled but the thought process 'thing' was somewhat hard to follow. And in my opinion, you kinda dragged it out, I just skipped about half of it the first time I read through so I could see what the heck he was thinking about.

Good post! Keep up the interesting story!

I didn't think the thought part was that bad.. granted I'm a person who can write a scene that takes place only in a character's mind and it take up 10 full single-spaced pages, so to me, yours is more than fine in length

But now I feel so awful for him

I opened the saloon doors and strode out onto the gallery that overlooked the fine town of Megaton.

Well, maybe not fine, but ok at least, as long as that damn bomb didn't blow up.

I justified my continued proximity with the following motivational; there have been people throughout the ages who lived at the base of volcanoes, behind flimsy levies and dykes while below sea level and directly on top of seismic active areas, so why not next to a dud nuclear device? Besides, it wasn't as if they were going to get the time to worry about it like someone saying: 'Hey, there's a hole in the dyke, the ocean is coming through' , 'Gee, is that volcano just erupting?' or 'Golly, all the buildings are moving by themselves.'

Nope.

One minute everything would be fine and dandy just like is was now, and the next they would all be charred shadows, plastered over a radiated scenery.

I had looked at disarming it, after letting Lucas know of course. But it being a Chinese bomb, made with Korean components and of course no manual anywhere to be found when you needed one.. and certainly not in English. I got as far as narrowing it down to two different wires. Cut the correct wire and I was sure it would completely disarm, but cut the wrong wire and honestly I had no idea what would happen. But I wasn't going to rule out a detonation, so we left it alone. That is to say, we stabilised the device as much as we could. Dismantled as much of it as we safely thought we could, by taking out the fission batteries and disconnecting ignition fuses. There still was a chance of it going off, but at least it was a smaller one.

Celeste came outside, grabbed my ass playfully and said that she and the rest of the salvage pick up would be waiting for me at the gate. I'd told her I'd need to fetch a few things before being ready to go. My first stop was Leroy's.

Leroy Brown ran the supply depot / general store in Megaton together with his wife Mabel. Leroy and Mabel were as wholesome as June and Ward Cleaver, only more so. It was these kinds of folks that made you have hope for humanity still. It was for these people that we risked our lives to build a wall to protect from the Raiders and other scum that was out there.

I had just barely cracked the door open when I was bowled over by a gangling creature of flailing arms, legs and crimson red pig tails, and awash with freckles. Her workmen overalls were a tad too small, with bony chicken legs sprouting underneath that disappeared into what must have been very oversized workman's shoes, Tie-die t-shirt and the strangest metal headgear contraption that I had ever laid eyes on.

It appeared to be a vegetable strainer that was worn as a helmet, with numerous pieces of interconnected electronic print plates of some kind fastened to it, and a lot of little LEDs that blinked on and off, and whirly bits. Crowning all this, the gizmo had four spatula's of various design that rotated as well as rising and falling, with copper wire coiled around them, linked to a pulley system that was hooked up to a small electric motor, all powered by a few Ecells taped to the back.

"S'cuse me mister, sorry, whoops, oops.., didn't see ya, sorry." She stopped as we almost collided, and examined something of great interest on her elbow as I collected myself. She was the epitome of the tomboy-just-barely-teenage girl in all their glorious awkwardness.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you: Moira Brown, 14 years old.

"Hey there slugger, what's the rush? No.., scratch that. What in the name of weird are you wearing on your head? And please don't tell me that it's the latest fashion and all the rage and how lost I'll be without it, cuz I'm not buying. I'm still trying to get your mutfriut juicer to work without taking my head off?"

"Oh hi there, sorry I didn't see you. Do you like it? Can you guess what it is?" And without even a pause to actually let me answer, "It's my latest invention. I'm branching off into electronics for awhile. Until my dad lets me in the chemical cabinet again that is."

"What's it do?" I was able to squeeze in.

"I call it the Death claw Removenator."

"Re-movenator?"

"Yeah, it was either that or calling it the re-locatornator. And that's just lame."

I nodded. I would have said something, but didn't trust myself not to burst out laughing and so I just listened, while trying to keep a straight face.

"See, brain functions are nothing more than electromagnetic fields so I align myself with their brainwave patterns and then throw this switch here.." the spatulas started spinning faster around her had as the LEDs started blinking at a faster rate. A small boom microphone slid down into place in front of her mouth ?kinda neat that was, and she continued, "Now all I have to do is insert a command that will make them go away." She focused on the microphone and closed her eyes tightly shut.

"Wow, that's remarkable but-"

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVEE?"

"Uhh yeah, ok-"

"..AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY!!!"

"Riight.. And is it working?"

She flipped a switch again powering down the contraption, flipped the mike out of the way and in a conspiratorial tone asked:

"Have you seen any death claws around lately?"

I had to admit that I hadn't.

She beamed, "See, then it must be working!"

I decided to change the subject before my brain exploded.

"Listen Moira, about that thing you were helping me with," I started. Moira really was smart and a whiz with the soldering iron, just sometimes she worked better when she was told what to do, instead of thinking it up herself. The juicer was a good example of that. "The thing is this safari is going to be for the next ten days.." her expression turned sip and she hung her head. Anticipating my next sentence she said as she sulked,

"I get it. You want me to wait 'til you get back before you continue, right?" the glumness in her voice was painful to hear. Luckily it wasn't what I wanted to say.

"Actually, I was hoping you could button it up for me while I was gone. You know what to do and have been assisting me at every step up 'til now.. Seems only right I let you finish it up, unless you don't think you're up to it?"
From glum to glee in zero seconds flat.

"Really? You mean it?! I can finish it off for you?!? Sure I can! Don't you worry, I get it done!! Yay!!" And with that she was poised to dash off. I checked her briefly, she turned and was all bright eyed and bouncing.

"Just one thing. Don't blow my house up. 'kay?"
Walking into the supply store Leroy commented, "I dunno whether that was the nicest or the dumbest thing I've seen you do of late. You know we had to fumigate the whole place for a week after that little stunt of hers."

"No worries. I'll make sure the explosives chest is locked tight before I go. That should minimise the damage potential." Something about damage potential sparked a little thought that had been unsuccessfully nagging for attention. It's pleas had finally been heard.

I ran back outside. She was down by the Broken Lantern, showing her latest technological breakthrough to little Andy Stahl, who stood by and didn't understand it, but thought it looked pretty. I stepped up to the railing and cupped my mouth.

"Moira!"

She looked up, "Do *not* install the plasma rifle!" Rebuttals and noises of disappointment floated upwards from below. Now hopefully everything would still be standing when I came back.








thanks for the editing work Dee. I truly do owe you a massive debt of gratitude.
:)

Hmmm.... story wise this half of it has been pretty lame, when the guy was spiling his troubles to Gob it was funny, and interesting, now it just seem like a wasteland romance. And for me, wasteland romance = :shakehead: . But other than that, I didn't find anything wrong.
I just hope this half of the story picks up soon, so far the first post of it has been good and the rest has been :banghead: to read. Sorry, that's just my opinion.

Don't worry, it's not a wasteland romance. I just need to set things up first.. before shooting them down
I'm also trying a few things, narrative wise.. which might make it seem a little 'off' at times.

I'm just glad it's been awhile since I've read any Terry Pratchett.. after a few of those books I even start to think in that style :wacko:

I am going to keep following both story lines interwoven, that is to say.. I'm gonna try. This is my first stab at creative writing in a long time, and if I look at the story arc I have so far.. then this isn't going to be wrapped up in a few small posts...

Thanks for the comments everyone -and thread views as well, you lurkers
wow, I'm being read :blink:

:lmao:

Andrew
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER EIGHT

The wound seemed to be healing, but there wasn't any way to know whether there was any internal damages. He was pretty sure that there shouldn't be any internal bleeding, simply because the dog was still alive, and she'd been in her new caravan/maternity den for three weeks now.

Quietly closing the door after filling her drinking bowl and adding some more ant-meat jerky ?seemed to be her favorite, and quietly lumbering back to his place where his newest achievement was getting the final touches; a newly forged two-handed sword to replace the old one that had come apart while cleaving a charging death claw in two ? well, mostly in two.. that's when the sword had snapped.

The death claw, already missing it's right claw to an easier swing - blood gushing from the amputated limb, still wasn't dead despite now having a sword sticking halfway through its side. Grabbing the animal by the back of the skull and forcibly head-butted the creature, finally to death.

So the sword needed replacing.

Remembering the small forge that his dad had built and used for when they needed nails and the like, as well as the knives that they had forges together, for each other and eventually for friends and trade even. This had been before his little brother had even been born. And he remembered it! And as in such cases, he deserved a treat.

The forge was built a few hundred feet away from his little enclosure, mainly not to disturb the dog. The furnace was made from stacking old bricks together and for mortar mud was used to cement the bricks. Then all the street and traffic signs from around the camp ground and connecting roads were collected and laid them on top of the forge's open fire pit. Instead of bellows to feed the flames, he just blew into the fire, which worked fine.

The steel melted easily in the forge, and because of the rusting of the signs, the ingots when they were rolled out of the forge were of similar composition to the ingots of the ancient Japanese master sword-makers centuries before. The discipline of knife forging that was stuck in his mind from childhood was also similar to that of feudal times, involving hammering out the metal after heating it, then folding it, and then hammering it out again.

Both of these similarities were of course, completely lost to him in the sheer joy of bashing the red hot steel with his trusted hammer. This had to be hands down the most fun someone could have with a hammer without killing anything! After two false starts due to over enthusiastically pounding the steel to bits, he settled down and after a few days of diligent metal working the crude shape slowly transformed into.. well, a rather large knife.

Looking at the weapons shape as it was grind over the stone that was used for grinding a sharp edge on metal, seeing it steadily loose it's dull edge, realization that it was more than a knife ascended upon him.., and that it was more than a sword as well really, considering it was a good foot longer than the old junk metal one acquired during the escape. But it was thinner too, not the massive broadsword design of its precursor, but somehow it retained the same solid feel as the other one had. He could wield it in one hand if so desired, and slash with both hands gripping the hilt if the need arose.

The spine of the blade was straight as an arrow, but the actual width of the blade varied a little between the hilt, the middle and the point. Where it was a little wider in the middle than at the bottom close to the hilt and hand guard. The hand guard was something he had worked on extensively as well, although it had started as an afterthought it was now a beautifully engraved round shielded form, with patterns and swirls etched and painstakingly scratched into the surface.

A combination of soot and abraxo? cleaner was rubbed into the lemmet using a molerat skin and some turpentine. Why the choice had fallen on those particular ingredients probably had more to do with their accessibility than wisdom but the effect brought out the grain of the layered metals, washing it into a deeply darkened hue, to the point of almost being blackened completely. While the blade retained a dull shine from the different layers. He wished he was better with the putting together of the words and making them all sound not svcky.

Looking up from the wavy patterns in the metal, a different kind of whimpering now came from the camper the dog was in. Quick to his feet and at the door in a flash he spoke softly through the door, letting her know it was him. more whimpering. Opening the door they locked eyes, and his first observation was that she was panting and shaking.., and pooing.

And the poo was moving!

It's a rare and happy occasion when a single little thought can cause so many conflicting emotions and other thoughts to go completely ape crazy.. the little thought looked around, and the applause demanded an encore:

"Me a daddy now!"

His head shot up in surprise, putting a dent in the doorframe that would fit a bowling ball and jumping back out of the camper doorway nearly taking the door along for the ride, other thoughts, ingrained thoughts, thoughts that had survived the change.. these thoughts, elders they were known by the newer thoughts, now tried to grab the mike together, with confusing results -

"Gotta boil blankets, gets clean water"

Since this was no way for properly dignified thoughts to behave, they tried again -

"Doh! Me gotta boil water, and get clean blankets, hur hur"

Luckily panic wasn't something he dwelled on often, and seeing his mix up, he went about what needed to be done in a calm fashion. Ponderings about why water needed to be boiled, and the blankets were needed was a mystery, but they echoed from long ago, accompanied by the urge to hand out cigars to everyone .. but lacking anyone to pass them out to ? he had found a sealed humidor, but had almost coughed a lung out after trying one.

The echo's were from the birth of his own little brother, and he stopped dead in his tracks as he remembered the event. His father running as he had just a minute ago, near close to panic, but just keeping it together, his mom in another room, and although he couldn't recall any facial features, her voice was crystal clear after all these years. "It's a boy!"

And her voice echoing in the memory "Come and meet your new baby brother."

"What shall we name him?"

His father's question came from somewhere from behind.

+++

"Andy?!?"

I was just coming out of the Leroy's supply store and froze, the hair on my neck stood on edge like razorgrass. I knew that voice, even it had been years. From the sound of it he was at least more than arms length away, so I relaxed and turned. Sure enough, big as life and twice as unpredictable, walking down from an upper landing, was Carl 'boathouse' Johnson.

"Boathouse? Is that you?!"

Big goofy grin, trademark mirror shades, smoking something so foul smelling that it could keep bloatflies at bay, carrying a daypack over his shoulder, a dead kennedys t-shirt over standard fatigues and combat boots.

Yup, it was boathouse.

When it came to sidearm, Carl wasn't packing his normal Webley .45 conversion, but some kind of massive pepperbox contraption in a custom fitted side holster.

"In the flesh, and still doing my best to make humanity look this good." Shoulders were clasped, smiles exchanged, time that had past evaporated as if never existing, except for the few more gray hairs. He looked me over, "Your looking not half bad, for you know, you." More smiles, verbal jabs.

"Where are you staying? Common house? Screw that, I have a solid couch, very comfortable I know from extensive hands on experience ?no, you're not getting my bed. Cheap too, and I mean it, you're not conning me out of my own bed. Free beer?" More laughs from Carl.

"You had me at free beer."

Walking down the landings, over the doc's roof of his practice-come-surgery-come-house and down to ground level -how the hell doc ever gets a good nights sleep -ever- with half the town walking over his roof all the time beats me, he probably takes drugs- to where little Jenny was playing.

"Jenny" I called, she skipped over, also fourteen like Moira, but seemed only twelve years, and cute as a button.

"Jenny, remember what I was saying 'bout doings for others and earnings and everything?"
She nodded, I continued, "Well, I heard that you broke your knife trying to pry open that old ammo box I found last week and couldn't open either." She was looking down, making circles in the sand with her feet, worried she was about to get scolded for something.

"I'm sorry, Mister Andrew, sir. I only broke the knife, honest I did and I didn't hurt the box none, honest it's just the same as it was first when you brought it back and I figured maybe the hinges were rotten through or something and so I thought it would be ok, especially if I opened it and there was like a million caps or bullets or food maybe in it.." I held my hands up in surrender, smiling at her wonderful innocence.

"It's ok, it's ok.. don't worry. I was more concerned about you and if you might have been hurt. But obviously it was only a material loss, and your mouth still works fine. Listen," I was squatting, at eye level with her. I pulled a switchblade from my boot. Without opening it, I started to play with it, slowly twirling it through my fingers. "My friend here is staying up at Poncho's in the commons house. His name is Carl" and over my shoulder at Carl, "You have a lot more stuff up there under key?"

"Duffle bag, weapons bag and rifle case in a footlocker and chest, numbered twelve and fourteen. The guy, Poncho?" I nodded, "Swore these were the only keys." Holding up two in his hands. "I'll take those." I said, he tossed them, looking puzzled.

Continuing with Jenny while I still played with the switchblade in my fingers, now handing her the keys, "If you would be so kind as to fetch my friend Mr. Carl's belongings from the commons house from lockers twelve and fourteen with these keys, and bring them up to my house?"

She was really only looking at the knife in my hands, mesmerized at the weapon handles finish. The two wooden sides had been replaced and coffee grains rubbed into the wood, creating a rich, dark colored handle. The brass finished top and bottoms of the knife were polished to a fine dull yellow.

Now for the sinker.

"Well, then I would be happy to pay you for your services with this here switchblade I refurbished the other week." Great big saucer shaped eyes and a huge face-cracking smile that went from ear to ear and probably all the around the back as well. Her head pumped in acknowledgement of her task.

"Yessir Mister Andrew sir, certainly will do sir, you can count on me sir, I'll get everything and won't drop anything. Even I'll go twice or even three times I'll go, to make sure I don't drop anything and get it to your house first thing right away!" She was drooling over the knife. I put it back in the boot, her eyes following it all the way back in.

"You might want to get your brothers to help as well, since some of it might get a little heavy. Tell 'em I have a few comics I salvaged and they're laying up at the house. If they help you they can have 'em. I also have a few soda's in the fridge.."

I stood up, happy with my handling of things. I turned to see Carl just in time as he scooped his jaw up off the ground, which was impressive considering his height. It was my turn to grin lopsidedly.

"Pillar of the community.. setting a good example.." I muttered sheepishly. He let his jaw go to point at Jenny who was off to find her brothers, his jaw immediately fell back on the deck as he tried to speak, dumbfounded.

"Is uhh.. I mean.. is she gonna.. will she just, I mean you trust her, riight?" Carl kept looking up at where the girl had stood.

Jenny's fine. Everyone here, actually. So..," I paused as we started up the embankment towards my house, "how did you find me exactly?"

Eyebrows were going mental on his forehead, "By my superior reasoning, deduction and elementary, Watson." What a goof, "and coming across a ham radio operator up north who'd heard of you helped a lot. So as I saw myself travelling southern trails I figured I'd look you up. Found three ham radios on the way down, first one only needed a new battery ? which I didn't have, second one was crap, and the third one I found was even worse, but it had a working battery. By then it was a matter of either me going back sixty klicks to say hello, or continue for sixty klicks, and say hello." We looked at each other, goofy grins.. I guess cuz we were a pair of goofy guys.

"Hello." In unison.

"Really wish you'd called ahead though." I threw at him good naturedly. He did his best but-what-about-me routine.

"What? I travel from god know where-"

"Doing god know what." I grinned at him.

"Exactly," he continued without missing a beat, "Doing god knows what to god knows who and all their friends, to get here to be with mah matey.. only to have him tell me..," we passed a town settler who Carl happily dragged into the fray, "That's right good sir, only to have mah bestest buddy in the world.. tell. Me.. I should have called?!?"

"Unless you want to bum around the inner city ruins on a safari for the next week and a half? First I gotta go out and help bring in some salvage from a barge down by the river. You can come now too, if you want. But if you're tired?"

Some things in life..,

"Do I get to kill stuff? Then why are we standing here yapping when legitimate bad things are walking around with my name on them, waiting to die. And I hate to disappoint people"

...never change.




edited to Dee specifications

"Glad to see you're still trying to get your name into an edition of 'Better Homes and Wastelands'" Carl mentioned as he walked through the door to my house. "Christ what a mess."

It was a mess, no denying that. The workbench that ran along the left wall was completely filled with weapons, ammo, grenades, materials, and other assorted tech and demi-tech. In the corner on the left side of the workbench and under a sheet was my project together with Moira. Carl peeked under a corner of the sheet, "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yup, and don't mess with it."

"I won't. You always was the geek, not me. I just shoot stuff." He turned, "Where's this couch you mentioned?"

"Upstairs on the right. There are some shelves in there as well that you can use."

He went up the stairs and dropped his daypack on the old sofa. I went to the fridge and yelled after him, "You want something to drink? I'd offer a beer but we're moving out as soon as the kids show up with your gear. Soda? Coffee? I also got a couple liters of water ?clean of course. And if you're tired of living I can also offer the experience of a lifetime and some freshly squeezed mutfruit juice. You get to operate the juicer though."

Carl came out of the room and stood at the gallery railing, "Uhh, ok. And is that the juicer you're mentioning? That thing I'm now looking at?"

I came out of the kitchen alcove and looked up at Carl who was looking down at a large contraption that stood in the far right corner, bristling with blades, mini guillotines and roller/crushers, with a transparent water cooler tank on top and numerous chicken wire chutes that fed into the machine.

I nodded.

"Coffee's fine." Yeah, thought so.

I was getting stuff sorted and was putting some things away, or finding places for things. Carl, armed with a cup of Joe in hand, was still looking over the house, in a fashion of someone trying to get inside the person behind the house. He looked through the books I had found or traded for, and was currently poking through the weapons cabinet.

"Isn't this taking home defense a little too far, Andy?"

I was upstairs sorting out some valuable junk, and looked over the railing at him. He was holding a massive multi-barreled automatic weapon at the hip, the ammo feed coiling off the side onto the ground into a back pack that took munitions cassettes. Rechambered for the .308 cartridge it was also arguably the most expensive weapon in my collection, seeing that it fired a staggering 3000 rounds a minute. Fifty round bursts in a single second, with a cassette holding 250 rounds each. I really didn't have a use for it, other than toying with the idea of building a vehicle around it.

"That's Eugene." I said.

"Eugene? That's a useless name." He looked at the weapon as if it had cooties, and put it back down. "Well, that fit's at the moment" I agreed, "It's a bit of a useless weapon until I can mount a tank around it, or something."

There was a rap at the door. Carl's hand dropped to the pepperbox at his side. "That should be the kids with your gear. IT'S OPEN!" Carl relaxed, for a brief moment, and then chaos reigned supreme. The door burst open and a blur of bodies started piling through the door, one after another they kept coming until there were seven children standing in my living room surrounding poor Carl, asking if the gear was his, what was in the rifle case, what kind of sidearm was he wearing, did he kill many raider scum like Mr. Andrew did? Carl was being pushed back slowly, until he backed into a seat and sat down, calmly took the rest of his coffee from the work bench, and took a sip, trying to shut out the mayhem. I figured I better save my old comrade in arms, seeing he was in way over his head.

Coming down the stair, I used my voice I reserved for recruits, and children on occasion, "RUGRATS! Front and center, Arrrrh-HUU!" It worked. Jenny, her brothers and a couple other kids who had been shanghaied by Jenny no doubt, hopped to and turned in a semi militaristic manner. Well, they left Carl alone at least. I trooped them upstairs to square away the rest of Carl's gear. He beckoned the two brothers.

"Hang on.., uhh yeah, you two.. I'll have those here for now. That's cool." They had brought the large bulky sea bag and the slim carrying case inside. Moira was the only one who had also come along who wasn't carrying anything. She had lost the head gear as well.

"Hi ya, Mr. Andy. I thought I'd get started all ready if that's okay?" I introduced her to Carl. Walking over, she shook his hand, vigorously pumping it as she exclaimed, "It's a pleasure to meet you, mister Carl, sir. Any friend of mister Andy is a friend of mine. Anything I can do you for, you just ask Moira, that's me." Carl promised to do so and Moira let go of her handshake, but leaned in and asked in a side glance, "You don't have a death claw problem do you?"

I swatted her away, "Git ta yer corner, ya snake oil seller!" I jeered.

To Carl I commented, "We gotta saddle up now you have your gear. The rest'll be waiting for us.." I moved to the work bench where the gear was laying that I had been sorting out for the safari. Alice pack, deuce gear ? customized after more than ten years usage with clip pouches, aid kits, grenade slots, knife sheath, light stick. I buckled it on, and attached a low slung holster to my left side that carried a modified colt .45. It had a threaded barrel extension for a silencer, under barrel laser dot that could swapped out for a Xenon? tactical flashlight and an extended clip that held ten more rounds than a normal sized clip.

The only other weapon I grabbed off the workbench was my oldest and my fondest weapon that I had; a genuine Chicago typewriter, also known as the M1928A1 Thompson caliber .45 sub-machinegun, or Darling, depending on who you were. It was also heavily modified through the years, making the Cutts Compensator detachable in a few seconds and replacing it with a suppressor ? the barrel was threaded like the colt. All the internal parts had been re-machined at least once, with a few additions that helped with heat dispersion from the receiver, spent brass extraction and ammo feeding into the chamber.

There was an attachment for either a laser dot or tactical flashlight on the side an a top fitted rail that could have a number of sights mounted in seconds. I pocketed the suppressor and filled the pouches with thirty round clips, leaving the larger drums for the safari. Okay, so I took two drums as well. Sue me.

Other than the pepperbox Carl was strapping, a short barreled pump shotgun went into a sheath on his back, and out of the rifle case he pulled what I was hoping for, a Browning Automatic Rifle, or B.A.R. "Is it still chambered for thirty-aught-six?" I asked, admiring the craftsmanship of the weapon, and its prime condition.

"Nope. Too tough to get ammo for. Had her rechambered for .308 Winchester a few years back. Lots easier to get shells for." He was checking clips, and loading pouches.

"Well in that case," I mentioned, "..check the hopper for Eugene. It fires .308 as well."

He looked and beamed, "There's a couple hundred rounds in here buddy, thanks."

I grinned, "Seeing as you'll most likely need them in the next couple hours takes all the altruism out of it for me. Pure self-centered thinking here, pal."

Jenny was marching the other kids out of the house, their hands filled with soda pops, comics and assorted candy and bubblegum I knew I no longer possessed. As they all left, she turned to me, her eyes on my right boot. "Someone's looking for their payment, me thinks." Carl chirped. I knew it, but wanted a little fun as well.

"Do you have all your gear there Carl? Nothing missing?" I winked at him, away from her.

He rummaged through the sea bag and rifle case, "No.., nooo.. nothing missing here. Hey, hang on." He looked up, mock puzzlement on his face, "I could have sworn I had a pool table somewhere in here," giggles from Jenny as he continued, "Yeah, I'm sure of it. You know, standard nine footer, couple of cues, balls.. a rack.." He looked up at Jenny, "Okay kid, waddaya done wit mah pool table? Ya eat it?!"

I looked at Jenny. She was still giggling, but in a little nervous now. I decided to let her off the hook.

"Jenny," I said slowly, as if addressing a child much younger than her. I winked at her as well, away from Carl. "Did you eat mister Carl's standard sized, 9 foot pool table, a couple of cues.. balls and a rack by any chance?" She shook her head from side to side, smiling at me. I stood back up and turned to Carl, "I believe her."

"That's good enough for me. So do I then, although for the life of me I can't figure out what I did with that pool table." Looking around, he shrugged, "Musta dropped outta my pocket, I guess."

"Well then, young lady, I believe this is now yours." I held out the switchblade for her. She gleamed as she took it, "it's the nicest thing I've ever had, mister.." finding the release button, the blade snapped open.

Moira came over to look as well. She looked over Jennies shoulder at the knife she was holding, turning in the light. "Wow, Jen! I saw mister Andy making that very one a few weeks ago. It's it, isn't it?" She looked up, I nodded. "He completely reforged the lemmet, I watched him pound on it from just a block of metal, didn't you, mister Andy?"

Now I was getting embarrassed, "Well," I ventured, "I felt bad that she broke her knife on the munitions crate the other day. And besides," I tried to make it sound a little lighter, "I have plenty of knives. Now scram" and she was out the door.

"Still a damn nice switchblade though" Moira mentioned as she went back to the corner project.

"Hang on," I commented, just ready to leave. I gestured around my head "All this, my entire kingdom, yours to play with for the next two weeks, provided you finish that on time for me." She grinned, "I know, you're cool for a grown up, mister Andy."

"See," I noted to Carl as we exited, "I'm cool."

"Yeah, yeah.. let's go Fonzie."






edited by the original fonz.. Dee B)

Hmm, as far as story goes, good story! Added a whole new prospective to the super mutant, although the part when it goes to the dogs perspective I didn't get at first. It's late and I'm too tired to look for mistakes so :goodjob: .

As we approached everyone standing just outside the gate, Celeste's brows went up in a questioning manner, but said nothing. Carl's jaw was true to form dragging over the ground and drooling visibly the moment he caught eye of Celeste. I said nothing of it, as this could get funny.

Stockholm was standing there, along with two Brahmin teams pulling old flatbed trailers. Each trailer had one person handling the beasts and one riding shotgun. I introduced Carl to everyone, who were all happy to see him. As I got to Celeste, he took her hand and kissed the cut-off glove that she wore, "Au chante, mamoiselle."

I leaned in and whispered loudly, "It's enchant? bonehead. You just commented 'with sings', any more orifices you wanna stick them size twelves in?"

He glared at me, and 'morphed into all smiles as Carl turned his gaze back on my unofficial/official girlfriend/partner. "I was of course referring to the song of angels that erupted as I set eyes on this heavenly being." Again with the kissing of the gloved hand. Celeste wasn't pulling her hand away. I wasn't sure whether she was going to take the mickey out of Carl, or me. Or maybe both of us.

She smiled, "Ooh, I like him."

Great. I decided to focus at the situation ahead of us, and try not to get svcked into whatever was going to go on over there between those two. Turning to Stockholm, I laid out what I had told Celeste about the water levels under the 405 bridge, which he nodded at. Then I gave him the update, "I called Frank and Mary on the horn back at the house and Mary said that Frank could see half a dozen camped out in the parking lot."

Frank and Mary Stone lived together with their baby daughter on the overpass south of the Super Duper Mart in a fortress that I had helped build. Frank was an even bigger geek than I was and the fort was impregnable. There were nods from the others, this was expected. "But," and now for the bad news, "Last night they saw at least a few hundred, whooping it up out front in the parking, going crazy all night."

"Drit." Was all the Scandinavian said, probably meaning something unsavory. "Listen Andy," he stated in his easy to listen to accent, "I'm grateful for your involvement today, and Lucas has already agreed to your usual fee."

I waved at it, "This one's community service" he put his hands together, in the Buddhist way of saying thanks. "Then please, let your tactical guidance lead us."

I smiled at the Scandinavian, he was a dead shot with any rifle, scoped or not. But his dad hadn't been reading him 'the Art of War' as bed time stories since the age of five either, mine had.

+++

Three had survived the ordeals of birth, four had not. Carefully they were scooped out of the nest, and each then laid in a tin can of their own, wrapped in a little cloth. He softly pinched the end closed on each one. Then they were all put in separate holes dug in the ground. Flagstones were then placed after each hole was filled, as tears flowed freely.

The others were seemingly in good health and without injury, as they svckled on the mothers food dispensaries. The mother was a different matter, the labor of birthing having taken more out of her, as well as reopening some internal wounds somewhere, because she didn't seem to stop bleeding after the birth, something that had him worried. She was kept on a steady diet of fresh meat he would hunt for her and then feed her, as well as clean water at all times in a bowl. But still she wouldn't get up anymore, content for now to be able to provide milk for her pups, grateful for the giant that she had trusted, and now who cared for her.

The pups were just over five weeks old when one morning she didn't respond to their yelps as they awoke and set into some early play. They climbed her head, licked at her nose and lips, even going so far as less-than-softly nipping on her ear, followed by a more urgent yelp under the earflap, directly into her head. If that didn't wake mom?

Awaking to the combined howls from them, it was what had been dreaded from the very beginning. Opening the camper door, the three pups sat in front of the half curled up form of their mother, their heads tilted back in howl, trying in vain to awaken her, or maybe to mourn her. He didn't know.

An old drum barrel was found somewhere, the insides scrubbed clean to the bare metal. She was laid out on the bottom of the fifty gallon vat, and with his bare hands curled the metal inward, working his way around until the top was completely sealed and squeezed together.
Another hole was dug, next to the others. And again, after the hole was filled with the casket and dirt, another flagstone was placed over it firmly in the ground. On the topside of the stone, he scratched "mama dog".

Nothing would ever disturb her, or her four other children, ever again.

With the remaining three pups sitting on his lap, he explained to them that she was now in doggy heaven, as well as the four others would be as well. And that they would run and play and chase molerats all day long. The pups licked his face, working their way at the tears that hadn't stopped since that morning..

"Me a daddy and a mommy now. Me gonna be busy."

Getting milk for them proved a trifle more difficult than first envisioned. He figured to corner the beast and then see from there. Holding them pinned down didn't really work well, and they really were squirmy, not staying in one place at all.. in the end he lightly swatted their two heads together, dropping the animal unconscious. The real trick then came from trying to milk the beast as it was now laying on its side. With his oversized fingers things weren't progressing very well. Certainly not where the collection of milk was concerned and as he huffed after not getting the udder to function, and walked off for a few seconds, letting frustration subside.

When he came back, the pups had each taken an control of an udder, and were happily, and hungrily nursing themselves as if taught to do so all their lives. Clapping happily, and doing little dance, he hoped that mama dog was watching from doggy heaven. She would be proud of him.

Shortly afterwards he left the campsite, having packed all the jerky and those belongings that were important, everything was closed off tight. As the foursome left, none of them looked back.



editor in charge of readability: D.Foxy

I liked how you were able to make a funny post, and give us a time base, it was a good post. Althought this guys side has been abit slow (REALLY REALLY SLOW), but albeit it being slow I still enjoyed reading it. Good job! Here's what I found wrong: Darn, I didn't see anything, good job!

Way to make critics everywere feel useless.

Just read the first three chapters and will read the rest in time.
Good story with a nice flow, although a bit confusing at times. Probably just me.

I have a bit of critic though: The second paragraph has an awful lot of "He".



The underlined parts come over a bit weak, in my opinion. If you'd re-write it and try to lose some of the he, and then i think the story would hold much more strength.

Keep it up though, the story is great!

Wow, thanks lavanoth musta been a pain highlighting all those "he" :hehe:

I know it's a weak area, but I don't have a name for him yet, maybe I should introduce the names a little earlier.. dunno.

Anyhoot, I 'll continue as soon as this head cold allows me to think again (couple days of snot).
Thanks everyone for reading, lurkers included :goodjob:
:)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Looking back, maybe the plan had been a little on the simplistic side. Not that I was going to give Carl the satisfaction of saying so. For one, that he was thoroughly occupied with other things at the moment, and that he probably wouldn't have heard me over the noise of the gunfire anyway. Carl and his automatic rifle were keeping both of the entrances suppressed in covering fire, moving his position every few bursts.

Celeste took up the slack during his reloads, holding our adversaries pinned down in the doorways with short, controlled bursts. From behind and overhead both Frank and Mary were providing sniper overwatch, picking off any who tried to sneak out. I was lifting a grate from a drainage pipe along the side embankment, and looked into the pipe. Crouched it would be a long duck waddle. Definitely not one of my best thought out plans.

"It's a great plan!" I exclaimed

"It's crap, you Muppet." Carl disagreed.

Celeste and Stockholm both looked at each other, "Muppet?!" and then looked both at me.

Great.

That little nugget I'd deal with later.

"Listen," I continued, "If we had more resources, I would be handing in a different plan, 'kay Carl? But this isn't a fully operation military installation where we can just pull close air support outta our asses. And with what we have, this seems like the best option." I looked around, "We three go on ahead and take out the half dozen outside, quietly."

I stared at Carl but he kept it to himself so I continued, "Stockholm takes a position up on the old silo that overlooks Riverdrive, once we clear the parking lot, you four" I motioned to the others, "bring down the carts to where the bridge starts and start off loading the barge and loading up the carts. If anything tries to exit the Mart, we contain it. It's a nice simple plan, that can only go wrong in maybe six or eight different catastrophic ways."

"Yeah, like what if they have other exits we don't know about? What if they can get access to the roof, and pin us down." He looked straight at me "What if their guns are bigger than ours?!"

"C'mon ya wuss," I jeered, "It wouldn't fun otherwise."

Well admittingly, it wasn't fun. The first bit had gone well enough, getting us into place without making too much noise. Contrary to belief, Carl could be very quiet when he needed to be, and did an exemplary job of it, moving like a large silent cat through the grasses and along the embankment. Celeste was a born cat burglar, and so I didn't worry that she would raise any alarms.

We had left the carts up the road, and after seeing Stockholm clamber up the side of the old grain silo, moved further into position around the Super Duper mart. I noticed a slight movement from up on the overpass and deduced that it must be Frank or Mary getting into position. I knew they had at least one silenced rifle up there, and just had hoped that they would understand our initial wish for stealth.

Along the embankment we passed a drainage pipe with a clearly worn grating cover. Carl pointed it out silently, using the hand signals from our patrols long ago. The final hand patterns were clear to understand. Pointing at me, then at the grate, then at the Super Duper mart and finally flipping me the finger and pointing at the grate again. Yes, yes, he was right. It was a frequently used entrance of some kind, it did probably go straight to the marts basemant ? where else would it go? And yes, I was the humped bunny who's problem it was to solve come the time.

Crap.

Knowing the barge could arrive any minute, and would be a sitting duck as well, we hustled into position. Carl was furthest out across from the left entrance to the mart. Celeste held a position twenty yards closer in, covering the right entrance. I was furthest in, just a couple of meters from the drainage pipe. Celeste had given Carl her silenced 9mm, coyly adding, "Don't break it."

As Carl took the weapon, she had her silenced colt drawn. I had attached the suppressor to the Thompson, and loaded a 30rnd clip. Drums tended to rattle when running and I didn't need that right now when trying my damndest to be quiet. Besides, I could always switch to a drum later. The .45 was locked with the hammer in place, ready. From my point I advanced up to a plant holder, keeping it centered between me and our prey.

Our prey.

Kinda morbid, dontcha think? I probably would have if I had stopped to think about it rationally. But rational thinking was out the window here folks, other than the rationale of the plan poised to be implemented. And on an unsuspecting prey, who weren't going to get a chance to react if it went right. Rationally thinking we were going to commit wholesale murder on a group of people whose only crimes were that of guilty by association. Not even completely sure what their motivation might be, or even their allegiances. Not all wastelanders were raiders, and not all wasteland raiders were homicidal maniacs, hell bent on destroying what was left of the world.

Although most of them were.

These were sitting around, listening to a portable music box that blasted an unholy noise of screaming, something that might have been a guitar and bongo's. Several of them would get up on occasion and head bang a few riffs, or air guitar during what must have been a solo. Some were laughed at, other jeered. A new cassette was inserted into the machine and more music erupted. There were numerous open drinking canisters and bottles about, and everything had the air of a group who had no idea their lives were all but forfeit.

+++

His three boys were all in position and their prey was clueless to the approaching danger. Tall grass covered their movements, and their movements were quiet, cautious and with a low profile they were hard to spot. Their prey today wasn't to difficult, as prey went. Although his boys were almost two years old now, they weren't fully grown yet he knew and would get even bigger.

The largest was a male bull obviously, with two smaller cows grazing happily close by.
The lead was closest to the prey, followed by the assistant. The last was the cunning one that always had the tendency to move into a flanking position ? there was a distinct hierarchy among the three, and they all had completely different personalities. But they all differed to him as their supreme leader, always.

Lead took a quick account of everyone's position and looked at his master for the next signal, a slight tremble of anticipation shivered down his back. Any moment now his master would give the signal and he and his brothers would attack in unison, a well co-ordinated killing machine.

Judging everything was to his satisfaction, he looked his lead in the eye as it watched him, and silently he dropped his index finger, in a pointing fashion.

The hell and fury that was unleashed on the unsuspecting Brahmin bull was nothing less than pure savagery. The closest of the three Rotweiler-esque dogs took a bounding leap and landed squarely on the back of the bovine, and immediately sunk his teeth as far as they would go into one of the animals twin necks, chewing through layers of hide, fat tendon and sinew, digging for the delicate nerves and arteries underneath.

The second dog ? the Assistant was less than a blink of the eye behind the lead and copied the attack on the beasts second neck, at the same time shifting it's weight and pulling the suffering Brahmin down with their combined mass. The Cunning One, having circled in from the left and waiting its cue, now rushed in and first with one, and then with the other, grabbed the bull by it's exposed under neck and quickly severing both in a gush of frothing blood.

As its spasms receded into death throes, Assistant dog let go, and had to immediately jump physically a meter and a half into the air to avoid the onrush of the two distraught cows, now out for revenge.

Cunning One leapt sideways and bit into the horns of one of the heads of the cows as she rumbled past, flipping himself up onto the charging animals back, digging his paws into her back to stay on.

The second cow turned and came back for the other two dog still back at the bulls remains. Charging madly, two headed beasts with horns on both heads made for lots of pointy horns, in any animals brain.

He was happy to see them act perfectly as he had taught them. As the two headed bovine closed ground, they slowly split up, each walking in a separate direction. Each of the heads on the animal started tracking a different dog as it neared, until the animals spine succumbed to the pressure and snapped, sending the animal crashing to the ground.

Cunning One was riding the cow! Well, not for very long, but still, it counted. Jumping clear of the remaining cow as it balked and snapping at its legs, he drove the cow back towards the others. After performing the same procedure on the bovine, they had three new supplies of beef jerky meat for the coming months.

He was very happy with them, and reminded himself to treat the boys to something extra later on. And to play with them when they got back to their humble abode.






D.Foxy, editor of muppet.

Well, you don't have to give him a name in order to get rid of some of the "he".

Example:

He took his shotgun and pointed it directly to the raider.
He fired the shotgun and the raiders head exploded.

After taking his shotgun out of it's holster, he aimed it at the raider.
Pulling the trigger, the raider's head exploded with bits flying everywhere.

The shotgun was taken out of it's holster and aimed at the raider, who's last word died away as the trigger was pulled.


Or something like that.

Slash looked from her vantage point on top of the pile of shopping carts at Brass, who was hanging more than sitting in an old ruined couch that had been pulled into the parking lot probably last night.

Man.., last night had been a blast, and what the duke had said still echoed in her ears.

He had stood where she was sitting now, bon fires and burning barrels that were placed about, illuminating and accentuating his features as he looked over the crowd that was assembled.

"Can you count, svckers? I say, the future is ours... IF YOU CAN COUNT!"

They were all listening, whether they could all count or not.

He continued, sweeping his hand out in front of him in a grandiose manner, "Now, look what we have here before us. We got the Saracens sitting next to the Jones Street Boys. We've got the Moonrunners right by the Van Cortlandt Rangers. Nobody is wasting nobody. That... is a miracle. And miracles is the way things ought to be."

Now everyone was listening, no more joking. This was true, and couldn't be denied.

"You're standing right now with nine delegates from 100 gangs. And there's over a hundred more. That's twenty-thousand hardcoe members. Forty-thousand, counting affiliates, and twenty-thousand more, not organized, but ready to fight: SIXTY-THOUSAND SOLDIERS! Now, there ain't but a couple hundred of those Brotherhood of steel pansies kickin' around. And the different Mercenary groups can't number very much more. Hell, even those from the false government, the so called enclave, can't put out more than a thousand at best!!"

He had them now, "CAN YOU DIG IT?"

The raiders in the parking lot were cheering openly now, and cried out: "YEAH!"
The duke repeated himself, swelling the energy of the crowd, "CAN YOU DIGGIT?!?"

A crescendo was reached within his public. They were open for anything now.

"Now, here's the sum total: One set could run this whole region! One gang. Nothing would move without us allowing it to happen. We could tax everyone, because WE got the streets, svckers! Can YOU dig it?" The crowd went wild, they yelled over and again "YEAH!!"

He drove his point home, "The problem in the past has been the man turning us against one another. We have been unable to see the truth, because we have fighting for ten square feet of ground, our turf, our little piece of turf. That's crap, brothers! The turf is ours by right, because it's our turn. All we have to do is keep up the general truce. We take over one area at a time. Secure our territory... secure OUR turf..."

He looked down at his flock, 'Damn this was a turn on' he thought. And to his captivated audience he finished, arms held high, his signatory shotgun held triumphantly over his head,

"?because it's ALL OUR TURF!! Brothers!!!"

I was glad I had the headphones on when I called Frank. Carl wouldn't have been happy had he heard it. Frank had been watching the mass of people from his position high up on the overpass and with a parabolic microphone had taped the important bits of the Dukes speech, which he then played back for me after I asked '..how bad?'

I always regret asking those kinds of questions. It took less time to realize this Duke character had to die than it took me to dictate this. I've tried ?certainly the last couple of years, to be as empathetic to human life as possible, given the current world state. Live and let live. Only kill when absolutely provoked into doing so, and then only as a rule in self defense. Or in the defense of others.

But what this weirdo was proposing was so simple in it's design, and utterly devastating if put through. I didn't have any misgivings about the ratio of decent people versus the hordes of deranged homicidal maniacs who lived for the slaughter. Hell, that's what the freakin' wall around the town was for in the first place. If it had been only to stop the lower wildlife from gaining access to the town then we could have sufficed with a lot smaller wall for the town. It was a well known fact that Mireluks didn't use automatic weapons.. and death claws were very rarely packing grenades.

Nope.

The biggest threat out here these days was the beast named man.

Even the super mutants, although savage unto their own right, and not someone to come across in a dark alley, they were also relatively few in numbers. And tended to concentrate in certain areas, which were easily avoided for the most part. But if these wasteland scum gangs were able to unite like this guy was preaching ? and boy was he ever preaching! I even bought into it, listening over the headphones as Carl made himself a sandwich in the kitchen.
Then simply put, we were screwed. As in, everyone. Because I could count.

So I lied when I said that there were a few hundred. It was closer to a thousand. And I was packing more than I had let Carl know about before leaving. And I knew about this damn drainage pipe, I just thought it was wider in my earlier reckoning.

After a few hundred meters that felt more like kilometers I came across a side access hatch. As quietly as humanly possible I cracked the hatch a slight bit. It there was anyone directly on the other side of this and opened the hatch, I was ready to put as many .45 caliber slugs as needed to drop whatever was on the other side.

I waited another few seconds pushed further, opening the hatch to the point that I could see past the edge. It opened into a service tunnel of sorts that led around a corner into a sub basemant.

Bingo.

In the area beyond my position, a fury of commotion and semi controlled chaos was taking place. They had large floodlights in all four corners on, and everyone was running in one direction or another, grabbing weapons or ammunition or donning armour all of different colour and design.

This was actually better than I had hoped. I had been afraid that I would have to knock someone out first to obtain their garb, so as to blend in. but hell, everyone looked different, was wearing their own 'colors'. I wouldn't even raise an eyebrow the way I was geared up. A little retro military, but so were at least a half dozen other I had seen pass by.

I donned a respirator to cover the black streaks of camouflage that tore across my features, hopefully it helped. It certainly would if I had to pop smoke in here, and it would certainly make things more interesting. I wondered how things were going on outside, and walked calmly into the crowd of homicidal murderers, machinegun at the ready and silenced colt in hand.

"How are you doing, sweet cheeks?"

Carl dropped behind some sturdy cover to replenish his rifle. Celeste came up from her position and laid down two short bursts at each of the entrances. As she switched targets, one tried a desperate dash for further cover. A single booming report came from the overpass, cutting that attempt off at both knees. A second lighter report from the overpass stopped all further movement.

"I'm dandy." Celeste lobbed a grenade through the first entrance, switched to her assault rifle and spraying the second entrance for good measure, "..and if ever hear you ever call me 'sweet cheeks' ever. again. Then, so help me I'll cut your gonads off." Carl actually stopped what he was doing and looked straight at her.

"You love me?!" he blinked. Celeste just grinned.

Behind her a low fog horn could be heard closing in, she glanced back and saw the salvage barge steamed up to the shore slowly and set itself up on the shore. Two crewmen ran two the front bow of the barge and unveiled a mounted fifty caliber Browning that in seconds was joining in the firefight, covering one entrance, and then the other with a lethal hail of lead.

From the overpass the sniper activity seemed to stop. Satisfied with the arrival of the much needed heavy artillery the barge was supplied with, Celeste looked up to see if maybe she could make out whether everything was okay up there, or not. Shortly, a barrel was produced from their position, and the sound of thirty caliber shells could be heard impacting on the entrances in a quick staccato.

Now things were looking better.







<sup>A portion of this text has indeed been taken almost ver batum from one of the all time favourite movies of mine, and one to which I wished to convey my respects to as an art form, from one who occasionally has delusions of being an artist?

edited by D.Foxy.. can you diggit?</sup>