My kind of town is a story, set in the Fallout Universe, chronicling the day-to-day struggles of the residents of Silver City, Nevada. The story itself is told through the eyes of the local Sheriff, Dennis Greene, a man born and raised in the desolate little mining town. Although the machines stopped working more than two centuries before, the people have stuck it out through thick and thin.

I hope you enjoy reading it.


My Kind of Town: Welcome to Silver City, Nevada
Introduction:


"War... war never changes...

When the bombs fell, and the Earth shook, and the skies were filled with ash... it seemed as if the prophetic words of men before had come true. Armageddon. In one atomic spark of defiance, the whole of mankind very nearly met its end. Still, as the dust settled... and the skies cleared... it seemed that there was hope for survival. Those who lived through the devastation did so in large, underground vaults. There, they were sheltered from the nuclear hailstorm... the last hope for humanity to reclaim its former glory.

Others, however, survived through the sheer fortune of being isolated... self-sufficient communities far outside the blast radius of Chinese strategic targets. One such community, a gold-rush era town called Silver City, Nevada, is home to a man named Dennis Greene.

The place was already a ghost town, long before... forgotten to history when the mine stopped producing and the coal ran out. Dennis Greene, the local Sheriff, likes it that way. He keeps peace the only way he knows how, a fair hand and a hard line. It is his law that has kept the town from being overrun by animals, raiders, and the desert itself. The town isn't very large, a school... a saloon... and a couple of shops and houses. But things are peaceful there for them. To the people of Silver City, the Great War didn't change much.

But war... war never changes...

The New California Republic, in a desperate bid to control more land and draw more new recruits, has begun an Eastward push into the Nevada territory. Every step of the way, however, they have met with resistance from the pseudo-knightly Brotherhood of Steel. Technophiles and Isolationists, the Brotherhood believes that it is their sole duty to preserve and record the technology from 'before'... going so far as to take it, by force, from those in possession of it. This philosophy rears its ugly head even more as the NCR expands into Nevada, where a number of the most important Brotherhood research sites are located.

As tensions flare, and violence erupts, Silver City finds itself on the very edge of what might-well become the greatest conflict since the Great War. Brotherhood Paladins slaughter NCR soldiers by the tens of thousands... while entire bunkers of pre-war relics are sunk beneath the sand in tremendous explosions orchestrated by NCR commando teams. The death toll rises higher by the day, and the need for supplies has both sides feeling the strain.

While the Brotherhood of Steel has the ability to bring in food and water from their bunkers further North and West, the NCR has set up a blockade along most of the major routes in an effort to cut off the defenders from their supply trains. In reverse, the Brotherhood of Steel has completely severed all communications between the advancing forces and the chain of command back West.

Both sides are desperate... and find themselves descending upon a small mining town with little to offer its inhabitants... much less an army.

It seems change is coming to the town of Silver City...

But war, war never changes..."





Chapter One: They Came in During a Storm...


"Morning, Mr. Franks... how's the coffee today?"

John Franks, the town barber, glanced up at me from over the edge of his newspaper. Flashing a toothy grin, he gestured to the mug beside him... then spat in it.

"That good, son... order yourself a Nuka-Cola. You'll live longer."

Chuckling, I settled in onto the stool beside him and took off my hat, tossing it onto the counter. The diner wasn't particularly busy yet... but it was Sunday... and once mass let out, the church would empty its parish right on into Joe's. I would have been among them, myself, if I hadn't gotten called down to the Sully ranch for help catching a Pan-snake. By the time the damn thing was in the sack... service was more than half-way through.

I figure God'll forgive me. I do right by him most every other Sunday.

On the other hand, that snake was a real monster... black as sin and twice the size of my arm's length. Hector and Louis Sully, plus me, plus my dog Rascal... and we still took nearly two hours tryin' to haul that behemoth up outta the grass and into the back of my truck. I drove it on out into the middle of the desert... then opened the tailgate up and let 'im out. Most other folks woulda' shot 'im... but me... I know better. You gotta respect the wildlife out here in the desert. A monster snake like that doesn't get to be that big by accident.

I just freed the snake-king! Ha ha ha! Oh hell, but in all that thinkin' about the snake... I wasn't listening to what Franks was saying.

"-and said to her, 'Girly... so long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules. And I say you're gonna go back up their and put on some damn clothes!' Ha-ha! Oh, lord, the look on her face was priceless. She couldn't figure out for the life of her how I'd found out about her plan!"

Laughing quite sincerely, I closed my eyes and rubbed my fingers against the side of my head. Tension. They say it can cause some pretty crazy things. More often than not, my head is killin' me.

"He, Franks... you seen Doc Barlowe anywhere around town today? I think I need him to whip me up another one of those miracle cures of his. This damn headache is back, and I just can't seem to shake it."

Frakns got real contemplative... then shook his head and chuckled again.

"Nope, I haven't seen him since last night. Said he was heading up to check on the family what just moved into the house up on Ellis Ridge Drive. 'Parently, one of them looks like he might have radiation poisonin' or somethin'. Wasn't real clear... we only caught each other in passing. I kin send 'im yer way if we cross paths again."

Waving the offer away, I glanced over my shoulder towards the window and peered out in the direction Franks had been talking. Ellis Ridge Drive was up the top of the hill. Someone new had moved in there? I hadn't ever seen anyone up there before. "New family, huh? Haven't seen them around at all. How new?"

To this, Franks merely shrugged. "Seen 'em once or twice, m'self. The wife talks with mine every now and then... but seems like they prefer to keep to themselves. Not bad folks, though. Think they moved in 'bout two weeks or so... why?"

I waved this off, as well, instead choosing to rise up to my feet. Tossing a few caps over the counter, I called out to the kitchen quite clearly: "Susan! I'll have my regular... but make it extra slow! I'm gonna' run over to Doc Barlowe's place and see if he's in. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes!"

Susan Klein, the rather buxom woman who ran the diner, popped her head out through the kitchen door and flashed me a grin.

"Well, alright then sweetie! You go get that head 'o yours looked at... and tell him to fix it right, this time! Susan says so!"

I bobbed my head with a chuckle and waved, then shoved off from the counter and made my way out of the diner. It was a nice enough place... and the cook was definitely a delight... but sometimes, even just -thinking- about how loud it can get in there sets off my nerves. That was kind've the case, just now, I think. I think I got to thinkin' about all the church-goers filing in... 'n damn it all, but can they talk! Havin' all that noise in yer head is alright, sometimes. For instance, it kin distract you when yer walking the fifty feet to Doc Barlowe's place.

Sometimes, though, it's just a right damn pain. I'd thought it was gone... but sometimes it acts up when the weather is 'bout to change.


Doc Barlowe's place was pretty dark when I got there... but somethin' didn't seem quite right.

Normally, Barlowe's dog... Ginger... can smell a person coming by a mile. The first thing that set me off was, no barking. I climbed up the steps and moved to knock on the door... but it pretty much swung open with the first thump of my fist. Now let me tell you what, I read a lot of detective novels as a kid... old books from before the war about men of the law, solving crimes and mysteries no other man could solve. This... was beginning to feel a lot like that.

Inside, though, the place was fine. Dark, sure... but when I pulled the curtains open, it shed some light. Nothin' really looked outta place, either... save for Doc Barlowe's books bein' scattered all over his desk. My thoughts went back to what John Franks had said... about the folks up the hill with radiation sickness. I looked over the pages he'd left open, briefly. One of them was just a picture of some old man with boils and red splotches all over his face. The other, though, had some pretty smart things to say about treating radiation.

My nerves eased a bit... he was probably still up at Ellis Ridge.

That didn't quite explain the feeling I was getting... like standing here in the Doc's house, I was supposed to be seeing something which I didn't.

Shoving the thought aside, I showed myself to the door and closed it behind me with a 'click'. Ellis Ridge wasn't that far out of my way... but I'd promised to be back to the diner in a few minutes. Making a mental note to head up that way once I'd had breakfast, the last thought that crossed my mind was why in the nine hells Doc Barlowe would have taken Ginger with him to a house-call.

Before I had a chance to ponder it further, though, I'd been svcked in by the delicious aroma of eggs fried lightly, three or four strips of bacon, and toast.

Call me a lousy detective... but I do my best investigating on a full stomach.

"Mornin' Sheriff... you got a minute?"

The voice pierced through my fog of thought like a skinning knife through Brahmin hide. I recognized it immediately as Doc Barlowe... but the tone in his voice was different. In sharp contrast to his usually chipper attitude, he sounded tired. As I turned around to face him, I found that he -looked- decidedly tired, as well. I tipped my hat to him with a small, empathetic smile... pain evident within.

"Sure, Doc... always time for you. What's the matter?"

I don't think I've ever seen the man cry. Not when he got shot defending that raider, Harrison, we'd taken in from the desert... and not even when his wife passed away a year or so back from a Cadazor sting. The first was a testament to his courage and resolve. The second was a testament to his ability to compartmentalize. But now, on the edge of his tired looking eyes, I saw fluid.

"Me 'n Ginger went for a walk last night, after I got done with a call. We were out by the creek a ways... following along the outskirts of town... when I got to smelling something particularly foul. I thought maybe it was just a dead animal... but Ginger got real agitated. Started barking up a storm. I decided I'd take a look... see if I couldn't find the damned thing and just... roll it off further down the stream." He inhaled sharply, then shook his head. "Sheriff... what I found wasn't just some dead animal. It was Joshua Gibson."

I blinked stupidly. Joshua Gibson ran the Dry Goods Store. His wife was one of the teachers up at the school. Even as this thought settled in, however, Doc was looking like he was gearing up to say more.

"It don't look like he was shot, Sheriff... I don't think it was a murder... probably just got piss-drunk at the saloon again and decided to walk home in his usual stupor. I kept tellin' him he was gonna get himself killed livin' like that... but far be it from me to tell a sot like him what to do. No, that's not the... disturbing part. I found something else there... chompin' on what was left of him."

Now I got concerned. However, Barlowe seemed a bit hesitant to finish that thought.

"Doc. Don't leave me hangin' there... what did you find?"

There was a flash of fear in his eye as he leaned in beside me and whispered the words you never... ever want to hear. The mirror behind Susan's counter had broken centuries ago, but I can tell you that I -felt- myself blanch. The Doc took a couple steps back and shook his head, gesturing over his shoulder for the door.

"When you... get a moment... you know... to come by my shop... you should take a look at her."

Suddenly my headache was back... only now it felt more like a throbbing knife dug straight into the side of my head. I bobbed my head to Doc and gave my eggs one last forlorn look. I wasn't hungry now. I didn't know if I would ever be hungry again. Pushing up from my seat, I thumped the counter a little less enthusiastically than usual and called back over my shoulder to Susan.

"Great stuff, as always, Suzie! I wish I had time to sit and finish my plate... but duty calls."

Again, she popped her head out into the diner from the kitchen and grinned from ear-to-ear.

"You sure are a popular man. One of these days, I'll have to find out what all the fuss is about."

Laughing hysterically, she disappeared once more through that swinging door to continue slaving over her grill. Despite all the things weighing heavily on my mind, I found myself now caught up on the antics of that woman. She was rather openly flirtatious with me, and not-so-much with other folks... but it was always hard to tell whether or not she was joking.

After a moment, I shrugged. Doc was already waiting outside the door. Susan, still cooking away, glanced out through the window and caught me standing there looking sheepish. Without warning, she was in the center of the diner... smiling sharp and looking coy. She glanced over my shoulder to offer Barlowe a friendly wave, then abruptly planted a hand on either shoulder and stared me right in the eye with that disarming look of hers.

"Tell you what, sweetheart... you c'mon back after you get done with what you gotta get done... and I'll fix you up something on the house. Sound good?"

I nodded. Or at least I think I did. I wasn't entirely sure, really. Now don't get me wrong... the woman doesn't make me woozy or anything. I'm not the sort who gets so distracted and disoriented by the proximity of a woman that he forgets how to speak. Mostly, I just get this way when I'm pretty sure they're tryin' to get my attention. There wasn't much doubt about it now, either.

If I'd have claimed not to notice the tension between us, there... I'd have been the only poor soul in Suzie's Diner what hadn't. Of course, thankfully, the tension was broken rather abruptly by Doc Barlowe stepping back into the Diner... and now, the Doc looked like the worst of his condition had passed.

"Sheriff... I know you hate getting pulled away from breakfast for this kind of thing... but I really would like to figure out what to do with the girl. Either she's... not right in the head... or she was so starved that Whiskey-Jack Gibson's pickled and bloated corpse looked appetizing. Either way, you're the only man who can make a decision on it. I'm ruling Gibson's death accidental, so you don't need to investigate... but the girl."

Susan took a few steps back, seemingly aghast. "A... a cannibal girl? Like... a little girl? Oh, how dreadful! I dare say, she must've been half-starved-to-death if she was willing to get within a hundred paces of Josh Gibson... live or dead."

I know it's wrong to speak ill of the dead, but sometimes that woman makes me laugh. Josh Gibson was a sad story... but it was one he'd brought upon himself. I didn't feel too badly for him going and getting himself drowned. It was more pathetic than it was pitiful. I spare no pity for a man who wastes his life like Josh Gibson. His wife would probably want to know. She'd been expecting this call a long, long time.

And then, abruptly, a kiss was planted on my cheek... and Suzie disappeared with rather upbeat chortle.

"Go on, then, Sheriff... you take care of business. Suzie's is gonna be here when you get done."

So it would be. But that didn't change the fact that now I was left standing there looking like a complete dunce. Doc Barlowe saved me any further humiliation by filling in what would have otherwise been a long, awkward silence.

"So, Suzie Klein hmm? I always figg'ered you were married to your job, or somethin'. Looks like there's some flesh and blood in you after all. Most folks always just assumed you were made of the same stuff as yer badge."

I chuckled, but the pain in my head hadn't faded entirely. Doc saw me wince and moved to say something, but I shook him off and beat him to it.

"Yeah, headaches are back. Let's just take care of business first... then when we're done, you can whip me up one of those elixirs of yours."

Doc agreed, and disappeared out the door in front of me. Me, I moved back over to my plate, scooped up my cold toast, and picked my hat up off the table while stuffing as much of the slice of bread as I could manage into my mouth. Offering Mr. Franks a thump on the back, I tipped my hat the man and headed back towards the door.

"You have a good morning, John. I think I might stop by later for a trim and a shave."

Franks chuckled and raised his still-full mug of coffee in my direction. "I'll keep a seat open for you, then, Sheriff."

And that was that. Much as I didn't want to go see this little girl, who in my mind, had to have fangs and claws and all sorts of other monstrous appearances... I knew there was no way around it. Since my last Deputy and his family had moved further South, into the more civilized areas, all these particularly unpleasant duties he had so willingly undertaken for me... were mine again.

In hindsight... maybe I should have given him that raise in pay he wanted.

I understood that strange feeling once we got back to the Doc's place.

I knew why I couldn't quite place it... why it was nagging at me so much. It was the sensation of being -watched-. I'd sensed there was something monstrous in the room -long- before I'd been able to -see- it. Now, as I watched Doctor Barlowe hang his hat on the rack and step inside... I knew that I was going to come face to face with something evil. He glanced around for a moment or two... then stepped into the other room and spoke to someone whom I couldn't see.

"C'mon now, missy... the Sheriff is here to see you. He wants to ask a couple of questions."

Really, I didn't. What I wanted to do was stay about as [censored] far away from this little fiend as was possible. We'd had a couple of incidents over the years... kids wandering into town, being used by outside groups to get information on our settlement. Most of the time it was harmless enough, some group or another from nearby wanting to find out whether we were the sort who would like to trade... who would be willing to help out in a pinch. In those cases, I'd happily met with a few of the neighboring leaders and worked out some suitable deals for water and the like.

With one working truck, though... the hour-long drive to Stillwater for supplies and trade was always harrowing.

But I digress. The point was, there were other instances when the kids had no such benevolent intentions... and we'd even wound up in a gunfight with one of them. I'd tried my best not to kill the little bastard... honest... but its hard to put a round in someone's leg when he's got a damn grenade launcher. In my five years of being Sheriff, the only human being I'd ever had to kill was a fourteen year old boy, with a big-ass gun. It was not one of my prouder moments. I really didn't care to have to repeat it, when we found this girl gnawing on another resident in a few days.

That thought froze in my mind as the Doc reappeared, a frail young girl with deeply sunken skin following behind him.

She didn't look like a monster, unfortunately. What she did look like, was a frail, scrawny pre-teen, maybe thirteen at the oldest, with a mop of ragged hair and a sheen of muck and dirt and filth covering every exposed surface of her skin. I tried not to notice the fact that her rags hardly managed to cover her emaciated frame... but it did suggest that she had either been out in the desert a while, or incredibly poor. Both of these would be in favor of suggesting her act was one of desperation, rather than depravity. Steadily, I felt my resolve to have her shipped out of town fading. The Doc led her over to me with that inviting voice of his, directed her to a chair across from where I was standing, and then gave me a look which almost dared me to say what he knew I had wanted to say.

After a long moment of silence, I took a seat across from the girl and looked her in the eye. As creepy as it was, I did my best to smile warmly and offer a gesture in her direction.

"Before I start asking you any questions about yourself or how you got here, have you had anything to eat or drink yet today?"

The girl shook her head slowly, then redirected her eyes to the floor. "I'm thirsty. Can I have... some water?"

The town well was rather plentiful. Not many places can boast having their own, clean water source. Stillwater was the closest... and that was seventy-some miles away. This girl obviously came from a place that knew the value of water, if she was embarrassed to ask for it. That supported the belief that either she'd resorted to munching on Mr. Gibson out of desperation. Or, maybe, she'd been kicked out for being an abomination. The trouble is always telling which is which. With a nod towards the Doc, I turned my attention back to the girl and offered up my sincerest smile.

"Right then. Doc will get you some water... while you answer a few questions for me. First off, do you have a name?"

The girl looked up and nodded. "Christine Jeanette Winslow... everyone... called me CJ."

Nodding slowly, I pointed my thumb back at myself and laughed. "Sheriff Dennis Greene. Nice to meet you, CJ. Once we're done here, I'll have the Doc run a bath for you... and I'll pop on over to the shop to pick up some proper clothes for a young lady."

There was an awkward silence, but eventually this earned a bright smile. While CJ busied herself with picking at the scabs on her arm, I eased back into my seat and watched in silence. The girl was strange, there was no doubt about it... but I couldn't quite make her out to be a monster.

"Right then, so we have a name. But where did you come from? This is a small town, after all... I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed a girl matching your description by now. Are you from somewhere else, nearby?"

Suddenly the smile was gone, and the blissful act of picking at scabs became the violent digging of sharp nails into her skin. Her knuckles whitened as she dug them deeper still, until at last I was forced to move over and place a hand on her shoulder. Immediately she froze, and trembled. Looking her in the eye, I swallowed that strange sensation I got from the girl and knelt down beside her.

"Stop that... you'll hurt yourself! CJ, you don't have to answer the question. We're just trying to figure out more about you, is all."

The girl continued to tremble... but she did slowly retract her dagger-like claws from her skin. I heaved up a sigh of relief... but upon breathing in again was assailed by the acrid smell of urine. Blinking, I took a couple of steps back to avoid the puddle pooling at the base of the chair and grimaced. C.J.'s face reddened deeply, and she immediately brought her knees up to her chest and curled up out of sight as much as possible.

I know the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress. I've lived with them since I shot that damn kid... despite the Doc's best efforts. You never really recover from something like that. It stays with you forever. The best you can hope for, most times, is to learn to cope. On the good days, you can pretend to forget about it. Distracting yourself helps a little too. The terror of reliving one's most horrifying moments over and over in their head... is enough to make a grown man piss his drawers.

A traumatized young girl... it wasn't even a surprise.

Extending my hand again towards her, palm out, I gestured over my shoulder to the bathroom.

"Don't worry about it, sweetie... c'mon... we'll just run that bath a bit sooner, is all. Let's go get you cleaned up. Doctor Barlowe owns one of the only houses in town with running water. I'll bet you've never had a bath with hot, running water before. There's not much else quite like it."

CJ extended her hand warily, clasped my own, and pulled herself up off the chair. I hoisted her up off her feet to avoid tracking prints from the growing puddle any further across the Doc's floor, calling out for him.

"You'll have to hold the snacks and drinks, Doc... we had a bit of an accident here..."

Barlowe appeared from around the corner almost immediately. Frowning, he looked first to the floor... and then to CJ with concerned eyes.

"Poor kid. I tell you what, Sheriff, you run her a bath... I'll take care of the mess... and then you can pop on over to the shop while she gets cleaned up. I'll keep an eye on her until you get back. Oh! Did you get any information about her?"

I plopped the girl down in the middle of the bathroom floor gently, twisted the handles for the faucet, and stepped back out into the hallway as steaming-hot water poured into the tub.

"I got a name out of her. Christine J. Winslow. She goes by CJ. I asked her where she came from... but she just started digging her nails into her skin and shaking. It reminded me... of back when... y'know..." it made me uncomfortable just trying to talk about it.

Doc waved away my rising wave of discomfort with a nod of understanding, signaling that I need say no more... then turned away to set about cleaning up the mess made of his living room. I thought I'd been fairly traumatized already, but when I came back into the bathroom I found CJ had stripped off her clothes and begun spinning around in the center of the room staring up at the glowing light bulb.

There had been, at one point in time, an orphanage here in Silver City. Before it burned down... there had been plenty of naked or half-naked little kids running about in the streets chasing after bugs and playing with sticks and just generally being your typical destitute commoner. Hell, we had a few advlts who could barely afford to keep themselves covered.

When you live in poverty, such sights aren't particularly shocking.

What horrified me so deeply about CJ... was that as she spun, I could see the hundreds of thousands of deep wounds permanently scarred upon the flesh of her back. She had been, literally, whipped bloody. It made me cringe just to see those marks... much less have my mind envision the sadistic way in which they had been applied.

Spotting me, CJ stopped her spinning and gestured towards the light. Then she grinned coyly and raised a wash cloth up for me to see.

"Neat fire-less candle... but... what's this thing for?"


Sighing quietly, I cursed myself to the nine hells and back for not simply telling Doc to ship her off to another town with the next caravan.

Really good story so far. An interesting setting and a narrator who seems very human, and therefore not without his imperfections and insecurities. I especially appreciate the way you were willing to unflinchingly describe disturbing and unpleasant things like cannibalism, PTSD, and the realities of facing down young kids with big guns and bad intentions. Keep writing, and I'll keep reading.

Gibson's shop wasn't originally my intended destination.

Paul Westford ran another General Store just down the other end of Main Street... dealt mostly with caravaners and scavengers who worked the local circuits... but he's an old friend of mine and would have gladly loaned me a few pieces of clothing once I'd explained the situation. Trouble was, I really didn't want to explain the situation. Not to him, and not to anyone else. Not just yet, anyhow. There were too many variables involved.

Folks around these parts don't tend to take real kindly to being eaten... and they're a might bit prone to paranoia, what with having nothing else better to do.

If word got around that Sheriff Greene was up at Doc Barlowe's place patching up a cannibal and giving her 'donated' clothes, CJ wasn't going to be the only one in danger of getting skinned alive and strung up as a warning. I'm just one man. Folks around here respect my authority because I do things the right way. But nothing about this felt particularly right. Here I was, standing on a dead man's property, looting his merchandise in order to deliver it to the animal we'd found at the edge of the river feeding off him like a vulture.

Strong convictions die hard, I guess. It's different when you think about it in those terms. It's... different, again, when you look that animal in the eye and see only your own image reflected back. There wasn't much else to it. I'd expected a monster, and found instead the first human being I could actually relate to. Something about that, in itself, made me shudder as I stepped out of the store with a linen sundress and an old bonnet I'd lifted off a mannequin.

I noted, quietly, the desolation of he town around me. Up at the mine, the sound of chainsaws and metal-cutting power axes filled the air. Tumbleweeds the size of small vehicles bounced around as they followed the direction of the wind. All around me were voices and sounds and things all moving along as if there were nothing to be concerned about.

And then, there was me... living in guilt and dread... standing perfectly still as the storm of 'moving on' and 'progress' passed me by.

It felt very much like that time I'd gotten caught in a small quicksand pit. There wasn't anything I could do but wait for someone to come along and help pull me out of it. The only problem was, with this, I didn't really feel like anyone understood what the problem was.

I didn't feel bad about killing that boy. He was trying to kill me... for what, I may never know.

What I feel bad about... is not feeling bad. There's no guilt... but that which I feel for not feeling guilty. Doesn't that mean something? How is it that I can justify the action without feeling the slightest twinge of remorse?

I'd never killed anything before, not even hunting. My father gave me this gun, and he said... "If you pull that trigger, you make sure you -really- want whatever you are pointing at it to die, cause you can't take it back once you've done it."

I'd lived by those words. I'd kept the peace, kept the town safe, and I'd never had to kill anyone to do it because folks knew that I didn't draw my gun without meaning to use it properly. But now I had the blood of a young boy on my hands. Surely that was something one ought to lament... but then... why did I feel only sorry for myself? Why did I not mourn the loss of the boy's life?

And if the boy was deserving of death, why then was I standing just on the other side of Doctor Barlowe's bathroom door, intending to offer up my stolen collection of clothes to the young girl who had -eaten- their previous owner? Was she not as equally monstrous?

Forgive me, though... I've gotten off topic again.

As I said, I was just outside the bathroom door... clothes in hand... when Doctor Barlowe stepped into the hall and gestured for me to take a few steps aside for privacy. It was obvious that whatever he wanted to say... he had no desire to say it within CJ's earshot.


"Denny... I did a little poking around, after you gave me that name. I... had this feeling I'd heard it before. A long time back, now. Sure enough, I was right! Back when your father was the Sheriff, a small caravan team from further West rolled into town. They were driving this beat-up old Chryslus Motors Highwayman, called themselves the Winslow Courier Group."

I nodded quietly, and he continued.

"So, they came in during a storm... this beat up old car... and it's got this white flag with a big two-headed bear on it. Real distinctive like, too, it says NCR... somethin' somethin' Repbulic. Now, these folks... they introduce themselves to your father as 'The Winslow Courier Group'. They say that they're from out West, and that they're looking for stable routes Eastward into Nevada. Your pop invites 'em into town, sets 'em up in one of the empty shacks up the hill, and points them along on their way in the morning. That was that."

I waited patiently until the end, listening the whole while, and finally raised a brow.

"Let me guess... they had a kid with them going one way, but didn't coming back?"

Doc shook his head and laughed. "No, no... see... they never came back at all. The Crimson Caravans expanded out this way only a few weeks after that day. One day, one of their caravaners comes into town and says he found some old car in the middle of the desert with a couple of mutilated bodies in it. Your father didn't think much of it until they told him that this car was still -running-... and proceeded to describe that Highwayman from the month earlier."


Now that made sense.

If she'd been witness to whatever painful death befell her parents, that'd be enough to screw up -any- kid twelve times over.


I bobbed my head and sighed, then turned away to knock on the door gently.

"Don't worry too much about it, Doc... I'll put some feelers out there tomorrow to see if anyone is looking for her. If nobody is, then I suppose we can put her up here until she's ready to decide for herself what she wants to do. It'll be-"

The door opened slowly, revealing the rather soggy-looking girl standing there unabashedly. I offered her the clothes I had selected with a grin, holding them up for her to see. The look of shock and glee, presumably at having clothes which might actually provide some protection from the elements, was enough to make me feel like the entire near-panic scenario on my way back had been worth it.

"Oh wow! A dress! I haven't had a dress since..." but the words caught in her throat, and I could tell that allowing her to begin cycling through the circular thoughts which come with this kind of an attack would probably lead to her requiring yet another bath.

Mercifully, I intervened. "Aye! Well... it looks like it should just-about fit you. If it's too loose or too tight, we can always take it ba-... er... over to Westford General Supplies. Paul's an old friend of mine. He'll fix it right up for you."

Almost like a charm, that glassy look in her eye faded. A few calm moments later, and her trembling had completely stopped... which made it infinitely easier trying to help her figure out which limb went through which gaping hole in the dress.

It was the blind leading the blind, for the most part... but we eventually figured it out with a bit of help from the Doc.


Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I felt that little twinge of wrongness fade away. A flash of terror followed after, like the dying flails of my conscience trying their damnedest not to go without a fight, but this too passed.

The only thing I could think about, now, was the description of that flag. I knew -all- about the fascists who carried it.

The New California Republic had been the ones to send the boy I killed. His mission, like that of other children sent to other area towns just like mine, was to create instability in the region. Then the NCR could just waltz in and play the hero.

I was nothing but a casualty to them.

So, CJ and I had something else in common then.



__________________________________________________________________________________


Well, then... that's the ending point for Chapter One!

I do hope that any of you who have been reading this were satisfied with the pacing of it, and have been enjoying things so far.

I know my hero has a lot of self-reflective thoughts... but that's because I try my best to make the story feel like it's being thought, rather than told. It's not so much his written account of things, but rather the reflected thoughts of a man struggling to cope. I find it easiest to achieve this if I simply put myself -into- his mind, rather than pre-writing the whole affair and simply slapping it up here for you all to read.

This does, however, have the side effect of making it an incredibly long process to come up with each new submission... as well as offer a great deal of room for me to make errors in continuity.

If ever you find yourself reading something in this jumble of thoughts and emotions and semi-accurate memories that doesn't -quite- make sense, consider it to be a distortion of the facts made by a man struggling with serious psychological trauma. Do feel free to point any of these out to me, however, as you spot them. I'd love to add to the imagery of it all by having him make conscious efforts to address these failings directly now and then.

Anyways, cheers!

That's it for tonight!

Chapter Two: "Better the Devil You Know..."



The first thing I can remember was jerking upright with a gasp.

The second thing which came to my attention was that it was still dark. I had the distinct impression that it had been a sound which woke me from my sleep... yet as I listened now, the only sound I could hear was Suzie lightly snoring. There was an echo in my mind, though. A single sharp crack... like a bullet... only it had faded away now. Immediately I recognized it for what it was. It wasn't an echo... it was a memory.

For a moment, I sat there stunned. I hadn't even realized I'd been dreaming, but looking down I found myself coated in a thick sheen of sweat. I mean no unkindness to her when I say this... but Suzie really wasn't that kind of a woman in bed. She was more of the warm, soft, affectionate sort. Pushing off the covers and crawling to the edge of the bed, I rolled out onto the floor and groaned with the strain of uprighting myself.

It felt like I'd been in a fight with a bear, and only just come out on top.

The boy... the recipient of that memory-bullet... he hadn't been so fortunate. He didn't feel anything anymore.

I wanted, more than anything, to feel some remorse for him.


CJ was standing outside the bathroom door when I finally managed to drag myself there.

In the four months she had been staying with me, living in the guest room of my house, Christine and I had been doing little else but talking about her past. It was hard for her to work through it... to cope... but as the days had turned into weeks, slowly we made progress. She also ate every scrap of food I had managed to keep in my kitchen... and had definitely regained her health.

That is to say, she didn't look so nearly like a child, with some meat on her bones.

No, over the course of a month or so, I came to the realization that I had a nearly-advlt woman living in my house... who had, unfortunately, never really quite learned the social graces required of city living during her time as a slave of The Fiends. This made for many awkward moments in our relationship, such as the one I am about to share now.

CJ took one look at me, cocked her hip and raised her brow, and leveled her voice at me in the most damning tone I have ever heard in my life.

"If you two are going to keep [censored]ing all the damn time... and believe me, I can -hear- it when you do... then could you at least put on some damn pants afterward?"

I glanced down at myself somewhat dismayed, regarding my shorts somewhat affectionately. Then, laughing out loud, I returned her vicious stare with one of my own. I'd heard this tone a great many times, from my mother... and it was about time it started serving me.

"Listen here, Missy! You're in my house! You eat my food! You drink my water, and my Nuka-Cola, and my liquor! You're using all kinds of drugs... don't think I don't know... and I've come home to find you passed out naked on my couch on more than one occasion. I let you stay here because, over the course of these last months, you've begun to feel like family to me. But if we're playing at being a family, here, then this is the part where I become my father..."

I watched with glee as her eyes widened in mortification.

"... and rule number one, don't rag on my damn boxers! Especially not after forcing me to bathe you and wipe your [censored] for a month while you were acclimating to living in a house!"

I saw her flush, and even smirk, a small bit in there.

Rule number two, equally important, is stop eating -everything-! I swear, Lord have mercy, you would eat the dish-rag if I didn't keep a steady supply of gecko steak in the fridge."

I [censored] you not... she shook her head, licked her lips, and sized me up.

"Oh, I think I'd find someon... er... thing... else to eat, before I got that desperate. No worries there."

I really don't know what's worse. Thinking about the fact that this girl, for all her other oddities, also has a taste for human flesh... or the fact that she has gotten comfortable enough with fighting her compulsion to make jokes about it.

I groaned and shook my head, moving past her into the bathroom.

"You know... my parents had it easy. Their 'big' talks with me involved not getting the neighbor girl's knocked up, not fighting with my brother, and the importance of always doing the right thing. Me? No such luck. I wake up one morning, and go from living alone... to having a teenage girl whom I occasionally have to help restrain from gnawing on the neighbors."

The huff from out in the hall didn't sound particularly offended. It actually sounded more amused, than anything. With a chortle of my own, I ran some cold water and splashed it lazily in my face. A moment later, Christine had wandered into the bathroom and propped herself up against the wall behind me.

"You know you like me. You keep me around because we're the same."

I'd never told her that, before. I'd never even made a hint about it. That was just something I'd kept to myself, silently, over the course of this whole scenario playing itself out. It wasn't true, either... I really did enjoy having her around. But... that sameness. I hadn't been the only one to sense it. She knew it immediately, too... my reaction gave it all away.

I tried, as hard as I could, to swallow down the shock of it and explain.

"No, no... it's not like that, CJ... I let you stay here because you needed a place to go. Because... I believe in always doing the right thing."

Her laughter was short, shrill, and cold. As she pushed off the wall to head back to her room, that sense of wrongness about her began to flood back in. My blood ran cold in my veins as our gazes met... and I swear, for a moment, I saw the animal in her. That... cannibalistic wild-thing. Her parting words did little to ease the feeling.

"You'n me, Sheriff... we're the same. There's a monster in you, too. I can see it sometimes... like tonight."

She vanished out the door, but not without lingering long enough to drive the coldness home.

"Our devils get along real good. It's gonna be a blast, once you finally get bored of her."


I didn't return to bed that night. My whole body felt like it was on fire. In my head, I could hear the near-mad cackles of that boy I'd shot. He'd been ranting and raving about something. I never really listened to what he'd been saying. But now, as I played the memory back, it was crystal clear. He was screaming about monsters... terrible demons that had come and destroyed his village... killed his family. They had forced him watch the unimaginable tortures inflicted upon his mother and sister... then beheaded his father and left him in the desert for dead.

As I sat there, listening to echoes from the depths of memory, I felt something for the child I'd never managed to sum up before.

He'd not been there for the fortune he was being offered. He knew he would never see the money promised. He had accepted the mission to kill me... because he wanted me to kill him. He wanted to silence his own echoes. Trauma. Some trauma can never be undone.

Sometimes, you have to live... and die... with your demons.

I stood outside CJ's door for hours... listening as she screamed out in her sleep for someone to put an end to the nightmares.

I glanced back towards my own room, thinking of the table where my gun lay. It was a kind of mercy, really... but not the kind I wanted to give.

Sliding my back down the wall, I settled in on the floor and spent the rest of the night outside the guest-room door. It was strange, but... I swear... the screams of anguish stopped the moment I sat down... and she slept without a sound the rest of the night."

"Better the Devil You Know, I suppose..."


________________________________________________________

To put any questions or comments in regard to the seeming discrepancy in age to rest, before they come up, I want to specify very clearly that Christine Winslow is sixteen. Although I tried to touch upon it slightly in the story itself, I feel it an important enough fact, due to her current and -future- behavior, that it bears repeating.

The reason she appeared to be much young is, aside from not being very tall, she was particularly thin and scrawny from a lack of food and water.

This is what caused the initial statement of her -appearing- to be thirteen or so.

Once she'd had a few months of food and water in her, some of that female figure of hers came back. She's not an overly well-developed young woman... but nor is she really the 'childish' creature he made her out to be. Physically, anyways. Emotionally, she is more so.

This, too, is a classic symptom of PTSD.

As the trauma of survival is as much a part of this story as the act of survival... I felt it important to make these distinctions available to the reader who might not have otherwise grasped this from the disjointed thoughts of the narrator. Else, something might well have been lost.

Morning came quicker than I had thought it would. I awoke, yet again, with a start... instinctively wiping drool from my face as my eyes tried desperately to resist opening.

When they did finally open, however, they were greeted not by the streaming sunlight from the window... but instead the slightly blurry image of a young woman's face only inches away from my own. Words drifted slowly to my consciousness

"Hey, chief... top dog... big guy... boss man... lord and master... you're late. Y'know... like, probably by something around three hours or so. She is gone already. Didn't look real thrilled about waking up alone, either. Nice one, Sheriff. You're gonna be a real hit with all the ladies, I bet. Love 'em and leave 'em. That is a real saying, right? I saw it on a poster, over by the saloon. I feel stupid when I don't know what's real and what's just... mumbo-jumbo from before the war."

CJ trailed off for a bit, giving me time to upright myself and get my bearings. The first thing I noticed was the smell of something cooking.

I'd found an old oven some years ago, while digging around through some old factory. There'd been a bunch of them, actually, but we brought as many as we could back to town... my old man and me... and we spent hours and hours learning how they were supposed to work. There were these books inside them, see, that told you how. Once we got them working, we started selling them, real cheap, to the townsfolk. Now, most every house in Silver City had a stove... and most of 'em still worked.

The second thing I noticed... was something sizzling. It occasionally popped and hissed, and for a moment I struggled with memory to place that sound... until at last I lighted upon the answer.

"Bacon. You're making bacon...?"

CJ seemed to blink, and shook herself out of her self-obsessive daze. Grinning from ear to ear, the girl darted out into the kitchen... dragging me along with her.

"Don't worry, it's no-one you know." she offered, reassuringly, flipping one of the fatty strips over in the pan. "I went over to the shop earlier, the one that friend of yours runs... and I saw that someone had brought in a Spine-boar! It was -just- being cut up for meat when I got there, so I used the money you gave me for this week... and... and I bought the whole thing!"

Spine-boars are rather large, extremely unpleasant creatures. If you ever come across one in the wild, your best bet for survival is to run like hell before it spots you. Killing the damn things is a pain, too, because their skulls are so thick that they can stop a normal round dead in its tracks. Their bone structure has a naturally-occurring metallic plating. Folks who go hunting spine-boar for their meat, usually bring armor-piercing rounds instead.

All of this added up to bacon... famous in the pre-war and post-war worlds alike... had become a very rare treat. I could almost forgive the girl her second cannibal joke in less than a day. I did, in fact, have to forgive her once she spoke next.

"I... thought about what you said last night, even though I think you were joking. You feed, clothe, shelter, and bathe me... and ask for nothing back. So I thought, maybe it would be good... if I did something nice for you... and today, with you being so late, I decided to make breakfast!"

I can't really imagine what this moment would have felt like, were she actually my child instead of a largely-independent young woman sharing my house, but I'd like to think that it would feel just about as warm and fuzzy. Around here, in my world, warm and fuzzy doesn't happen real often. It's appreciated when it does. And so I did something I hadn't done in years: I blushed like a damn fool, and dragged that monster-girl into what I'm sure was the biggest hug she'd had since her folks died.

It all reminded me a lot of my own childhood, really.

"Well, now... I certainly didn't expect such a rapid turn-around. What happened to that sassy young thing that was living with me before today? I'd just started getting used to her constant sarcastic ribbing."

The coy smirk I got in return told me that the sarcasm wasn't going anywhere... though it faded somewhat as she realized there was something she wanted to say. She struggled, for a few moments, trying to figure it out.

"When... I went back to bed last night... I had the same nightmare I have every night. I was... back there... with them... and it was worse than death. But then it changed. You... killed them. You killed them all. And you took me home." She paused at this spot, then laughed and shook her head. "And I won't tell you the rest. But it was a good dream, after that. I... can't remember the last time I had a good dream."

And so we stood there, like that, for a long moment. It might have gone on for longer, had not a loud crackle of popping bacon interrupted it.

After the bacon was done, I toasted some bread and fried a couple of eggs. I couldn't let the poor girl make an admission like that and then still expect her to cook breakfast. So, she sat and watched while I explained the finer points of cooking a good, filling, morning meal... and when it was all done we sat and enjoyed the simple pleasure of a well-earned meal.

It was all very... familiar. And then she said something that put the whole ordeal in perspective again.

"Y'know... I eat so much because... I'm always hungry... for something I know I can't have. But I eat more, and... pretend... and it goes away. I'm... sorry it's such a pain to keep me here. I would understand if you put me out. But you... keep letting me stay."

I... really didn't know what to say about that. The truth was, I had suspected as much for quite some while, now.

I nodded quietly, then shook my head and laughed. "No, you're right... I'm not going to put you out. You do whatever you need to do to keep yourself in control... and if you ever feel like you're slipping... you come to me... and I'll do what I can to help you get yourself in check. Okay?"

That earned a bright smile, and the subject drifted off into obscurity.



The rest of my morning went by rather un-eventfully.

It was nearing noon when I finally got into the office. There was a note, on my desk, detailing a theft over on The Golden Road. It didn't seem too terribly serious, just your average break-in... probably one of the local drunks. The report didn't detail very much missing... a few caps which had been sitting on an end table, a jet-inhaler, and twelve bottles of luke-warm beer. I figured that it could wait until after most folks were back from lunch, and instead got myself to typing up a letter to my folks.

It was a fairly long, detailed letter. I told them about the boy... about the nightmares and the self-doubt. I told them about CJ... and Suzie... and Joshua Gibson... and how big a help Doc Barlowe had been in helping me keep on top of things even when my mind bogs me down. I told them how much I missed them. How nice it would be to see them again, maybe once things in New Vegas settled down.

It would take me damn near a week to get there, unless I took my truck... but I couldn't do that without leaving the town truck-less.

It was almost five hundred miles. The realization of the slim chances I'd ever see New Vegas left me feeling isolated.

My thoughts turned, quickly, back to the things in my life which had been going pretty well of late. And so quickly I began to write about how well the town was doing, and about the trade deals I had managed to secure with some of the neighboring settlements. I told them about Deputy Wiles, a friend of my father's, getting killed... only to come back from the damn-near dead and decide it was time to retire. I told them about Mrs. Jackson's new baby, and Mr. and Mrs. O'Hare adopting an orphaned boy from New Reno.

They'd like to hear about that, I was sure. Those were the good things. Those were the things that made living here worth the trouble.

I printed my letter out onto a piece of paper, sealed it up in an envelope, and took it over to the Post Office.



CJ came by the office as I was preparing to close up, her face pale and her body shivering.

Without much warning, she crawled up into my lap and draqed her arms over the back of my shoulders... and chair... lazily. I could smell the liquor on her breath, and one look into her eyes was all it took to know she was hyped up on enough jet to put most people into a coma. Despite the anger which initially welled up inside of me, it faded quickly... and I wrapped my arms around the girl to hold her close to her.

I'd found my thief, at any rate.

"Christine... kiddo... you're going to kill yourself if you keep this up," was the only thing that came to mind, until of course the realization that she had been the one to rob that house earlier set in. Frowning sharply, I brushed the hair out of her face and shook my head. "... assuming you don't break into someone's house while they're home, and get yourself shot dead."

Her voice was soft, and slow... she had to work for every word.

"I... let you down again. I'm... I'm sorry, chief... big guy... boss-man..." she sniffled quietly and shook her head, eventually slumping it back against the arm on my shoulder. The misery was evident in her voice.

"... I tried. I tried so hard. I hid it all from myself... 'n... I told myself I wasn't gonna use it... 'n I wouldn't drink 'em... 'n... 'n then the shakes came back... and... and... I started gettin' dizzy... 'n... I waited... till I felt like I was gonna die..."


Her clothes reeked of sweat and adrenaline, and I found myself inclined to believe her story.

Still, this meant that I was going to have to go pay the Bismark household a visit and apologize for my ward. What would I tell them? That she's an addict, and needs help? It might be the truth... but I doubted that it was going to help the situation any. Then again, they had put right in their report that the drugs she stole were in their home. What then, do I point out that it's the pot calling the kettle black?

The whole situation slowly wound itself up inside my head, until it was nearing full-blown panic.

The Silver City Sheriff's Office closes at five o'clock, PM.

Any time after that, is mine... unless it's an emergency. Sure, sometimes someone thinks they're having an emergency, and I feel so bad that I'm inclined to help them take care of it, and then the definition of emergency gets forever skewed in their minds, and they continue to call on me during my off-hours with inane little things which, really, they could handle themselves... ugh...

... but for the most part, any time after five PM was mine.

That was before. Now I had two major calamities of my own going on, and the both of them had chosen my personal unwinding time to erupt into full-on catastrophe.

The first, of course, was CJ. Not only had she passed out in my lap, clinging to me, higher than the Lucky 38's rotating tower... but she'd overdosed... and I'd been forced to rush her over to Doctor Barlowe's place during his personal time. He pumped CJ full of some more drugs, designed to help her body regain control of its faculties, and told me to take her home to get some rest... but to bring her back in in the morning.

The second was, as I carried her out of the office, finding myself face-to-face with Suzie Klein. She looked rather... well... to be honest I couldn't tell what emotion she was displaying. What I did know, was that her eyes were narrow and her body language seemed to be a bit hostile. At first I thought CJ had been right, and that this was going to be a long, painful argument I really didn't have time for right then. After a moment, however, I realized that the hostility wasn't being directed at me. It was being directed at Christine.

After a moment of silence, she turned that wrathful gaze of hers on me... but it lost some of its edge.

"She's not your problem, hun... you know that, right? You could just... let her rot... 'n nobody would think the less of you. That girl's bad news. There's somethin' wrong with her, 'n everyone in town seems to sense it."

The words made me flinch, inwardly. Of all the people I had expected to hear those words from... all the folks whom I had worried might say something... I had never thought in my wildest speculations that it would be Suzie, from the diner. Suzie, quick with a smile and a slice of pie, was standing in front of me... telling me that she wouldn't think less of me for turning a young girl out to die.

I suddenly felt a bit chilly toward the woman... and I suppose it showed, because she very quickly fell quiet.

After another awkward silence, she looked away.

"I don't like her... not at all. She's vulgar, and crude, and... and... a thief! Why do you even care what happens to her, Denny? What does it matter to you? While you pretend like she's your kid or something... the rest of us have to deal with her. Have you heard the things she's threatened to do to me if I don't stay away? Have you seen the way she eyes everyone up, like a piece of meat? The girl is trouble! She's... just... trouble... and it's not fair that the same day you notice me, she has to show up! And now... now it's going to ruin everything... because you're looking at me like I'm crazy!"

I was, I suppose... even though I didn't mean to. In fact, I hadn't even noticed it until she said something. Her words had so jarred me at first that I didn't even really understand they were words until I had had some time to process them. I'd seen her lips moving, but really all I had been hearing was the tone of her voice... and I hadn't liked it. My ire was raised, I knew, and if I wasn't careful... it was entirely possible I might say something I would regret.

Instead, I eased my back against the door and shook my head.

"Suzie. I don't think you're crazy... and... I do think we need to talk about this... but... my head is just spinning right now. I have to find some way to go talk to Mr. and Mrs. Bismark and apologize for the burglary of their home by a ward of the Sheriff. But first I have to take her back to Doc in the morning, so that he can administer some anti-withdrawal medication. And then I have to come up with some clever way to explain to you... why my moral compass won't just let me throw a young woman to the wolves because she's been abused and neglected for too long. And right now... all of that is weighing very heavily on me..."

I glanced down at CJ and groaned.

"Not to mention, she isn't exactly light as a feather... and my nerves are shot... and... please... can we just talk about this once I've had some time to get my head on straight? I don't want it to end up being a fight. Which it could be, in my current state. I want to talk about this like two civilized advlt human beings. Alright? Will... you do that much for me?"

The moment her expression eased, I leaned in and kissed her cheek.

"Come by for supper. If Christine is still out... I'll... do my best to explain why I feel so... compelled to help this girl."



It would, in retrospect, prove to be a very eventful dinnertime conversation.

Of course, I didn't know that... then.



I spent the time between putting CJ into her bed and getting dinner ready lost in throught.

I'm going to admit, thinking has never been my strongest suit. I'm more of the... figure things out as they go along sort of guy. There are tons of folks much smarter than I am... way smarter than they have any right to be, even... but I like to think that, in my own way, I can put the pieces together. I have a knack for simplifying things into such a way that even an idiot can understand them.

It's probably a good thing, being that usually... I'm the idiot who has to understand them.

At any rate... I found myself thinking... and thinking... and thinking... and no matter how much I thought, I kept coming to the same conclusions. I sure as hell couldn't tell Suzie the truth. Not the whole truth, anyhow. She could probably stand to hear about the traumatic mental injury part of it... about CJ and I sharing a condition caused by traumatic mental stress. I could explain to her that aggression and drug use are related to this condition.... and that such things are common.

I even considered telling her about my own former addiction... though it worried me.

But there was no way I could tell her the things which weighed most heavily on me... about the lie regarding the discovery of Mr. Gibbons' body... or the way that the Fiends had sixualized and warped the girl's natural hunger and thirst mechanisms. How they had repeatedly drugged her with everything from jet to psychotropic neuro-stimulants (Don't ask. I only know the word because Doc explained what it was to me. Psycho has some of these in it, for instance. Don't ask me to name any of them for you, though. Like I said... dumber than a [censored] brick, me.), force fed her human flesh, and repeatedly violated her in ways which she had described so graphically that I can't even bring myself to repeat.

It had been nightmarish, just to hear it. But to hear her describe it so calmly as she had, as if it had all happened to someone else... it was absolutely surreal

The part of her which understood what had happened to her for all those years... for the entirety of her childhood, right up until the group which had captured her got themselves killed by the encroaching NCR... that part of her had been shut down, and locked away. She'd missed a few spots. Some things just couldn't be erased... even from the warped, violent, sadomasochistic part of her mind.

Those terrors... had been the ones which had caused her to literally wet herself on the first day we had met.

Those things... were things which couldn't just be shared freely. They're things that only someone who understands the condition... who suffers from it... can really understand and relate to. To anyone else, like Suzie, it wouldn't mean anything much. She might sympathize, but she wouldn't be able to really understand and forgive. To someone like Suzie, it wouldn't change the fact that CJ was 'a psycho'... a danger.

All sharing the whole truth would accomplish... would be to forever draw a line.

It would be to say, "We're on this side. You're on that side. This is just how it is.", and that never works.



For the remainder of the time I spent thinking, I forced myself to think about what it was I was cooking.

This wasn't as hard as you might believe, actually, being that by this point I had pretty much exhausted the entirety of my 'stress' reserves. Doc says, "You only got so much in you, before it starts to give out."

I think that that means that, after a while, you just spend all your energy stressing and worrying... until you run out of energy to worry and stress anymore.

He calls it a 'panic attack'... and I've had 'em since I was a kid. They got pretty bad after the incident with that boy... but really... they tend to be mild. I've learned to cope with them when they come, too. You start to get to feeling like you're dying... but you don't. You just keep on going. And going. And going... until you got nothin' left... and give out.

Then you got it beat.

Once you got it beat... you can start to focus on things again... just like it never happened.



In the end, my steaks turned out pretty damn good. I won't give away my recipe... since it's a family secret and all... but I will tell you that the secret to the flavor is all in the marinade.

I was just taking them out of the oven when the doorbell rang.

From the kitchen, I could hear CJ moving to answer the door. In all my worrying and thinking, I guess I hadn't heard her get up and out of bed. I added the final dash of spices whilst listening to muffled voices in the other room. And then, without any warning, her voice called out shrilly:

"Hey! Chief! There's some soldier-guy here at the door. He says Doctor Barlowe sent him to see you. I think he's brought friends. Looks like they're setting up a perimeter around town. Want me to shoot him?"

I trudged out of the kitchen, took one look at the NCR armor and beret, and snarled. After a moment, however, I shook my head and waved the man inside.

"No, no... don't shoot him. That would be rude. But if he does anything stupid... keep my gun handy. The last time we had his kind here, I felt real bad about killing him. The second time around, not so much so."

When CJ had disappeared into my room to fetch my gun, I turned my gaze upon the soldier. His armor read "Corporal Haverson, 22nd Expansion Corps." with a big red and white emblem beneath it. He didn't look a whole lot older than me. Settling myself into a chair, I gave the Corporal a polite nod of my head before gesturing to a seat across from me.

"You republic types must have balls of pure steel, friend... or else you must be out of your mind. Coming here after the stunt the NCR tried to pull with those kids? Using them like disposable weapons. I ought to cut you down where you stand... but being that I'm not like you... I'll hear out whatever it is you have to say. Make it good, and maybe I won't decide to shoot you."

Haverson laughed pleasantly enough, as if I were joking, and brushed the threat aside.

"Sheriff Greene... you're obviously a man of great integrity. My only regret is that our previous President was not such a man. When the truth regarding the incident here came to light, he was damn-near crucified. Needless to say, he didn't run for re-election. That said, the military leadership is more interested in building bridges, rather than burning them. The Lieutenant sent me up here to... extend an olive branch, of sorts."



I really didn't feel like dealing with this political crap... but alas... Silver City didn't really have any other government than me.

I told you it turned out to be a rather eventful dinner...

This is the reason I never wanted to be a cop

..the font color makes my eyes bleed though :unsure:


but, great writing.

Tell you what! Just for you... I'll go back to using blue, like I did for the 'War never changes' intro!

Glad you liked it well enough to comment! ^_^ Especially since I've been secretly reading -your- work for a while now... and absolutely loved it. To be complimented by someone with your sort of talent, is an honor.

Haverson was pretty amicable, as far as soldier-types go.

A couple of the old guys here in town had been soldiers, once... they were usually the likable sort. Of course, we treated them with a lot of respect. That old mentality about this being America never died out here. Far as I'm concerned, it still hasn't. But there's a difference between being a proud American citizen and being a damn blind fool... and the Enclave had been full of a bit more of the latter than the prior.

The NCR seemed to suffer from the same condition. Too many damn-fool types, letting their ambitions and greed get ahead of their concern for the well-being of their people. Folks like them just can't seem to see how it doesn't do nothin' but shorten their life, and so they keep on going till their ambition gets them got dead. Maybe it's a Western thing. Maybe folks out here just got too much pride and promise.

But whatever the hell it is, it doesn't do us any favors. It just makes us weaker, overall.



Haverson wasn't a damn-fool type of soldier, though. That made me glad.

If there's anything I like less than dealing with men who have tried to kill me... it's dealing with the kind of idiot who thinks I'm just going to -forget- about it, like it never happened. The corporal here didn't even try to deny it. He'd admitted it flat out, they'd tried to have me killed. Once we got that out of the way, in the open like it was, the rest of the conversation pretty much could only go uphill.

Uphill, of course, is a matter of opinion.



"It's a damn shame, though..." Haverson continued, standing by the window to watch as another soldier approached the door to my home. "... but I have a feeling that Kimball might pull off the election. He's the last thing the NCR needs right now, if you ask me. We've already got the Brotherhood of Steel trying to wipe us out. Now we're going to put a damn despot of a General in charge of our country? That [censored] just doesn't sit right with me. He'd be fine out on the front, fighting the Legion. "

I nodded, only slightly listening to him speak. My attention was on the man approaching my door.

He stopped just outside, and raised his hand to knock... but before he could get around to it, I pulled open the door. He looked startled, for a moment, before eventually extending his hand in greetings. He was a dark-skinned man... with deep scars that told me he'd seen combat before. There was a certain edge to him, as well, which told me that he was equally uncomfortable with all the politicking required of him.

I put an end to his displeasure by returning his gesture with a firm shake and a nod of my head. Only then did he speak.

"You must be Sheriff Dennis Greene. I'm Lieutenant Arnold Curtis, NCR Expeditionary Corps. I'm the ranking survivor of this unit. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. To be honest, I'm amazed at how civilized you folks are out here. Things are looking far worse in regions which we all thought were easily the most stable. We were on our way South, to rendezvous with the 34th Advanced Infantry, when some psychos with a missile launcher came up over the hill and let loose. Captain Ballast, my superior... he just... disappeared. One minute he was there, and the next... there wasn't a piece of him bigger than my little toe. It was a [censored]in' nightmare. But then we get here, out into the ass-end of nowhere... and you folks have things set up real nice. I can dig that."

I winced at his description of the attack, but otherwise nodded my head in understanding. It might have sounded a bit offensive, at first, but the truth was that we were the ass-end of nowhere! That was probably why we survived so well.

I might have said something to the effect, but before I could manage it I spotted Suzie standing in the doorway looking worried. She gave each of the soldiers a menacing glare, then leveled her sights on me and growled.

"Why are these soldiers here? Why are they all over town? What in the hell is going on?!"

I waited to see if either Haverson or Curtis wanted to field her questions. When enough silence had gone on that it became obvious they did not wish to have any part of it... alas... the responsibility fell upon me.

"Suzie... this is Lieutenant Curtis and Corporal Haverson. They're... from the New California Republic. There's a war brewing down south, with a massive clan of slavers. These gentlemen were on their way to the front lines when they got attacked by the Jackals along the road. I haven't had a chance to speak with them much further, but it sounds like they could use a place to rest and re-supply. I was thinking I might offer to put them up in the Bunkhouse for tonight, and direct them to Paul's shop in the morning. He'd certainly appreciate the business."

Her expression paled.

"I thought I smelled rats. Denny... didn't you say these were the guys who tried to have you killed? The ones who sent that poor b-"

She never finished... the look I gave her stopped her dead in her tracks. There was plenty of fear in her eyes, too, as I moved to turn my back on her... speaking instead to the Lieutenant.

"Why don't you and your men stay here for tonight, then... we've got a sizable Bunkhouse down by the old gold mine. It's not the best lodging you're likely to find... but it sure as hell beats wandering around through the desert at night. As I was saying to Suzie, here... there's a shop in town, too. A friend of mine, Paul Westford, runs the place. If you tell him I sent you, I'm sure he'll give you his best prices."

Curtis bobbed his head appreciatively, then glanced back at Suzie and frowned.

"You sure your folks here won't mind that, Sheriff. I understand how... obviously... things didn't get off to a very good start. I'd like to say that I think things have changed... but truth be told I doubt they have. Politics is always the same. Nothing ever changes."

I waved off his concern and moved over to stand beside Suzie. Resting a hand upon her shoulder, I offered her an affectionate squeeze before nodding my head again to both him and Haverson.

"I'm certain. You'll find folks are much more agreeable towards you when you don't [censored], pillage, and burn your way through their homes. Silver City is a fairly reasonable place. My kind of town."



The Lieutenant left, shortly after that, to round up his men and lead them off towards their lodging for the night.

Suzie wasn't particularly thrilled about it, but I invited Corporal Haverson to stay and have dinner with us... Suzie, CJ, and me... so that we might get a better understanding of one another. It was a bit awkward at first... but I think we made some progress.

By the time Haverson had finished eating, gotten his things together, and left... even Suzie decided she'd liked him... and we'd all taken to calling him by his first name: Ben.

Corporal Benjamin Scott Haverson. It's a name that's stuck with me for a long, long time.

I'll get around to those reasons eventually, don't you worry... but suffice it to say that, had you told me then... that one day I would owe that man my life... I would have probably laughed myself right out of my chair. He was timid and squirrel-ish... quicker with a joke than on his trigger... and lacked any of the proper ambition a 'good little soldier' ought to have.

But if I were to write a list... of the individuals to whom I am indebted... then Benny-boy's name is right there on top of the list.




Funny the way things work out sometimes.

didnt read it all (only read a couple of paragraphs) but i like it so far, i have trouble reading stuff if it isnt a book or something on paper (for example...stuff on the computer lol) so i will probably come and go randomly and read a little bit every now and then.

Keep up the good (or great =p) work