Small Town at the End of the World

Name's Columbus, don't ask me why. My Pa just called me by it, so it's my name. Never think about it much anymore, did when I was younger. Thought about my Ma, too. Never got to see her face. Pa said she died when I was just a little one, I hadn't even learnt to walk yet. Funny though, you'd think that I'd have something, some sort of memory of her. Nothing. Well, that all be in the past anyway. No point dwelling on something that means little in the bigger scheme of things. So, with Ma gone my Pa raised me on his lonesome. Can remember living in Creekville, well as far back as I can remember. Small place, only round fifty of us left now. There were more when I was younger, but that was back before the Fremont Brothers Incident and that raid by them raiders. Was about fourteen when the raiders hit, got handed a shotgun that didn't shoot straight and was ordered to defend myself, my town and most of all the Raiment of the Saviour. I guess that needs a little more explaining. See, for as long as I have lived in Creekville so has Father Aspren. Pa says that Father Aspren was old when he met him as young man, and I can believe it. He's got the typical long beard, once white now yellow and matted with time and grit. Thin as a skeleton, his cloudy eyes as big as the balls on a brahmin, and a voice as rattly and high pitched as any I've ever heard. He calls himself the Maker's servant and says he was given the divine task of preserving the Raiment of the Saviour till he comes for it. Don't know what that is, can't say I really care much. Don't care much for Father Aspren either, but old Doc Hallaway does so I got to at least be respectful round the old coot. See, Doc Hallaway is kind of the leader of Creekville. Nice enough fella, except for him believing anything that comes out of Aspren's mouth. Makes us all attend what Aspren calls his services once a week. Walk away from those with a pounding head and half a day's work lost. It ain't like I can slack off in what I got to do, ain't like any of us can.

Like my Pa before me, I'm the town's hunter. Take my leaky old row boat out everyday, hunt them 'gators for meat and hide. Along with the small brahmin herd, and the mutfruit Miss Deedee finds, the 'gator meat is what we rely on for food around here. Pa always said that he once read in a book that the 'gators were once plentiful down here. Said they used to weigh about eight hundred pounds and grow as long as fourteen feet. That was before the bombs, he said. I think he was just talking it up as he did. In all my years I ain't seen nothing like that out there. Biggest I ever bagged couldn't have been more than four feet long, not a lot of meat on it either. Pa said they used to be green and blended in with their surroundings, camouflage he said. Shoot, all the 'gators I get are white. Easy to spot in the waters and on the banks though. Guess hunting camouflaged monsters like them would make my little trips more interesting, but also more dangerous.

Don't care much for danger. One day I might lose a finger or two like my Pa to a 'gator I think dead and isn't, but at least the hunting ain't as bad as what Bo and Hasbo do. Its their job to go down the Hole, about twenty clicks from town. Don't know why Aspren and Hallaway put those boys through it. I mean young Hasbo always looks sicker than that brahmin that got that wasting sickness and I had to put out of its misery. Nothing but skin and bone, at least Hasbo ain't started foaming at the mouth. Yet. Don't want to have to be called on to put a bullet in the kids head. Still they get sent down the Hole, and I ain't never seen them bring anything back. Miss Deedee plies them full of what little meds we got twice a month. Med-X supply ran out a way back, during the Fremont Brothers Incident, patching up all the folks they hurt. Got plenty of Rad-X and a good supply of Rad Away. Seems Doc Hallaway insists Bo and Hasbo get good doses of the stuff. Been tempted myself to go and have a look at the Hole, see what the whole deal is. But, like I said, I don't fancy danger much. Better to not know and stay healthy than getting yourself sick or even dead for mad old Aspren. Talked to Miss Deedee about it, but as always she just told me to mind myself and worry about getting my 'gators. So, that's what I do. Long as a bring the meat in, I got a place to live and Jock hands out the rounds I spent hunting from the armoury. My Pa didn't raise a fool though, and after the Fremont Brothers Incident, I make sure that for every three I shoot from Pa's old rifle I get four back from Jock. Feel bad duping the fella, he's not exactly the pick of the litter if you know what I mean. Got himself a nasty head wound during the Incident and never been the same since. Was the town's quartermaster before that, and none of us have got the heart to tell him he can't do it now. Noticed though that Doc Hallaway double checks his inventory every week. Probably for the better. Not that we get many traders out here though, blame Father Aspren for that.

Sure that some of the traders that come here never want to be coming back. Firstly we don't have much to trade, although some of them seem partial to the 'gator skins I bring in. Don't know what they do with them though. Unfortunately any visitor that wants to get through Creekville's barricades has to get Father Aspren's seal of approval. I'm sure Hallaway wouldn't mind letting anyone in, but the good Father always has the last word. The last fella that came through got questioned so badly by Aspren that he just threw his arms up in the air and left. Of course none of us are allowed to be there when he talks to them. Says it is the Maker's business and none of our concern. Like I said, I don't give a hoot about the Maker's business but it's sad to think about what trade goods we've had to pass up because of it. Nothing to do about it though, well I suppose I could leave. Maybe find another town where there ain't no Father Aspren and his Maker. Then again, I remember the raider attack. That weren't much fun. Some traders that have gotten past Aspren, and I managed to talk to, have said that these raiders take what they want when they want it. Again, like I said, don't like danger much. It would also mean having to leave Tessy, Hallaway's daughter. She never says much, can count all the words she's ever spoken to me on my fingers. Sometimes though, just sometimes, I catch her giving me that little smile of hers. Breaks my heart every time, makes me wonder if maybe there's a chance. Then I think about her family. Bo always gives me a threatening look with those dead blank eyes of his whenever he sees me looking at Tessy. Doc Hallaway appreciates what I do for the town, but I know that in his opinion he thinks his daughter deserves better. Maybe someone who's got something, what they call it, potential. All I got is Pa's rifle, a bed in the common hall, a leaky boat and a handful of stashed ammo. Not much at all, and nothing compared to the likes of McGredy.

McGredy, grew up with him. His Pa and mine never saw eye to eye, but we tried to be friends. It didn't work out too well. As soon as McGredy got his growth spurt and got bigger than me, he turned mean. Started running with older kids like Bo and his cronies. All the younger kids, and there weren't many of us, were their targets. You got something nice, maybe a treat from Grandma Jezebel, they came and took it from you. You could try and fight, but that only meant getting kicked and punched for the trouble. Better to either give it up, or hide it before they found out about it. Complained to Pa once about it, told me I had to stand on my own two feet and learn to deal with my own problems. Then he went back to the bottle of rotgut. Once I thought of stealing his rifle and teaching McGredy and his thugs a lesson or three. Never did it though, too dangerous. So, for most of the time I was a child it was spent staying clear of Bo, McGredy and the rest of them. Changed now though. McGredy runs the herd, just like his Pa before him. Makes McGredy one of the most important folks in town. His brahmin providing milk, meat, bone and hides. Some we trade, most we need to just survive. McGredy is more the type of upstanding Creekville citizen that Doc Hallaway wants for his daughter. Shoot, can't say I blame him. What I got to offer Tessy? Not much, nothing really.

So, I guess it was strange when McGredy invited me over to his place to talk about his little proposition. I went, don't know why. Shouldn't have. I went and I listened to what he had to say, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested. Only problem was that it was dangerous, and we all know how I feel about that. A drank the shot of rotgut in a single gulp when he had finished talking, and I never touch the stuff. I shouldn't have believed what he was saying, it had to all be a lie. Problem was, I knew it to be true. everything he said about Aspren, the Raiment of the Saviour and Hole. I can't explain why, but I knew it was true. When he told me why he was telling everything he knew, the coldest shiver I ever known ran down my spine. I knew what he was going to ask me to do next, and I didn't want to have any part of it. Still, I knew I was going to do it. I was going to have to do it. No other soul in Creekville would, not even McGredy. Oh, sure he would if he could have, but since an angry brahmin crushed his leg a few years back he always walked with a limp. His excuse was a braced leg, mine was only that I didn't like danger. It wasn't going to hold this time, there was no choice. I was going to have to go down the Hole.

Need more man. Asap. This stuff is gold.

What he said. Looking forward to more.

Brilliant! Keep it up.

Keep coming, friend. Feels like reading a good prelude of Fallout 4.

Small Town at the End of the World (part 2)

So there I was, sitting on one of them cracked wooden pews in what Father Aspren called his House of the Maker. He was standing in front of the townsfolk, preaching his nonsense with growing enthusiasm. Sweat was pouring down his face, and I swear that his eyes seemed to be getting wider and wilder with every praise to this Saviour of his. I sat but I sure as anything didn't listen to what he was spewing forth, 'specially not after what McGredy told me. I could see McGredy sitting in the front row of the pews, next to Doc Hallaway and Tessy. He was watching Aspren like all the others, his face seemingly awed by what the old coot was shouting about. Now, nobody in Creekville would say that I was a man prone to fits of anger. Shoot, some of them probably would think of me as meek and soft if it weren't for the fact I got to go out and hunt them 'gators everyday. See, thing is I've never let my temper get the best of me. Never seen the need to get so riled up about something that I forget what I'm doing. Even when I was young, I never really got mad at Bo and his crew. Sure I was upset at times, like the time I thought about getting my Pa's rifle and going after them. That was nothing but empty headed dreaming though. In spite of ll that, I was angry now, real angry. Angrier that I ever been before in my life. Sitting there in the House of the Saviour, listening to Aspren telling his tales and filling Tessy's head with his lies, I was angry. Fact is, angry doesn't quite do it justice. I was mad, madder than a brahmin bull with a split-thorn in a hoof. At that moment I wanted nothing more in this world, not even Tessy, than to drag that fool Aspren to his knees and have the town see him for what he was.

I remember standing and storming out of there, blood pumping in my hands and head. Other folks turned to watch me leave, but I just ignored them. Father Aspren didn't pause from his condemnations and sermons as I left him in his House, don't think he even noticed. I often wonder what my Pa would have said about my small act of defiance on that day, the one that would eventually lead me down this road. Wonder if he would have stood up and cheered me on, but more likely he would've just given me a stiff clip on the back of the head and told me to mind myself. Doesn't matter now, though. What's done is done, but guess you want to know what happened, what was down that Hole. Well, after I left the townsfolk to their preaching I went to my room in the commons and got my rifle. Packed my hidden stash of shells into my Pa's old pack and then went down to Miss Deedee's to fill my canteen. Thought about sneaking into Jock's place and seeing if there was anything there I could use. Don't like the term steal, but that is what I would have been doing. Even if I thought this town owed me something for all the hunting I'd done for it, it still seemed wrong. I had some dried 'gator meat, not the tastiest stuff but it would do. As for other supplies McGredy said he would have one of his boy's, the one's that tend the brahmin for him, waiting for me on the outskirts of town. Guess there was nothing for it now, nothing but to just get on with what I said I was going to do. So, I left Creekville. Had no idea at the time that this was it. I wouldn't be back, never. Had I known I might have said some goodbyes, told someone to take my Pa's old row boat. Most of all I would just liked to have seen Tessy's face one last time. Still dream of her sometimes, still breaks my heart when she smiles at me in those dreams. Nothing for it now, she's as gone from life as the rest of Creekville is.

Followed the directions McGredy gave me, and met up with his boy on the broken road leading to the Hole. The kid had a muck smeared face, and looked more than a little terrified. Shoot, can't blame him. Told to meet me on the road to the Hole, probably warned of the hell he would have to face if he whispered a word of it to another soul. Gave me a pack and small wooden box before scampering off like a rattled hare. Pack was full of food, mostly dried brahmin meat, and a small lidded box with a syringe of Med-x and a handful of Rad-X capsules in it. Guess the Rad-X made sense. Don't know what was down the Hole, but Hasbo and Bo always got dosed up good when they went down there and when they came back. The Med-X bothered me more than a slight though. Never thought about getting hurt till I saw it. Kind of reminded me that this wasn't just hunting 'gators, this was real dangerous stuff. I tried to put it out of my mind as I opened the wooden box that Mcgredy had sent to me. Damn, if the Med-X made a streak of yellow course through my veins then the .32 revolver made it bubble and boil. Had my Pa's rifle, but that was for hunting. Never crossed my mind it could be used for killing a man. The revolver, all metallic and shiny, was a different story. It wasn't made for 'gator hunting that's for sure. I was suddenly and truly afraid. Scared stiff, you could say. My legs felt like they were turning to lead, my arms suddenly becoming very heavy. Last time this had happened to me was during the raider attack on Creekville. I'd frozen up, the shotgun nestled into my shoulder and a raider was in the crooked sights, but my finger just couldn't squeeze the trigger. It was Pa who gave me the smack 'cross the back of my head that day, jolting me back to the life and death struggle I was a part of. There was no Pa and no smack this time. It was just me, my Pa's rifle and an old .32 revolver.

Didn't take long to find the Hole, suppose it was that adrenalin that kept me going faster than normal. Got a surprise when I found it though. Never seen it for myself, but was expecting something grander. It was just a hole in the ground, no longer and no wider than an average man. Bo and Hasbo had set up some type of pulley system at the top, not that it would help me much. Looked like it took two to operate the thing. So, I just tied the rope tight with a careful knot on the crossbar and started to climb down. Didn't stop to think what I was doing as I entered the Hole, if I did I don't think I would've done it. Climbing down was dark, but as I got closer to what I hoped was the end of the climb I started to see faint light glowing below me. Hitting the dusty surface of the cavern floor, I found that Bo and Hasbo had set up some sort of lighting system. Wasn't much, just a faint glow given off by weak bulbs. Found the power source nearby, one of the same batteries Jock managed to get his hands on from the traders. The cavern was narrow, stretching left and right of me. I didn't have to make a choice of which direction to go in. The lights the two of them had strung up on the cavern wall only went one way. Now, I know this might have just been my imagination, perhaps the fear rushing through me, but I swear I could hear scratching coming through those cavern walls. Don't know what it was, and glad I never found out if the noises were real or just in my mind. Regardless, I quickly pulled McGredy's revolver from its box and loaded it with six of the twelve cartridges that were there. Pa's hunting rifle was nearly useless down here in the semi-dark, but it felt good having that revolver nestled in my hand. Funny, never thought of myself as a fighting man, but down there in the Hole with a gun in my hand I felt like I just might be. Didn't know then that I was going to have to be.

I followed the lights for a good while, the cavern corridor twisting several times along the way. I could see, even in the dim light, that some of it had been made by nature but there was also evidence of man's hand everywhere. I shook my head solemnly as I thought of poor young Hasbo having to toil down here. I now knew why he had been chosen by Aspren and Hallaway. The stick thin, short kid was slight enough to crawl into the smaller spaces that needed expanding. Felt sorry for him, couldn't give a molerat's ass about Bo though. The rough hewed corridor came to an abrupt end, the exit sealed off by an odd angled but most certainly sturdy looking door. I remember how sweaty my palms felt reaching for the small ring that was the handle, I remember how the spit in my mouth suddenly gathered and my throat couldn't swallow. Mcgredy told me what I was going to find behind the door, still a part of me wasn't sure if I wanted to see it. I was going to, the other part of me that wanted to prove Aspren was a twisted freak was stronger, driving me forward. Some nights I lie awake wondering if I did the right thing. Maybe I should have turned 'round and headed back to Creekville. Nothing in my life would have changed. I would've kept hunting 'gators and stealing looks at Tessy. Every week I would have sat through another of Father Aspren's services and pretended to be listening, and every year I could left the small string of 'gator teeth on Pa's grave like I always did. Can't do none of that now, never will again. All because I opened that damned door.

Thanks for the replies, glad you're enjoying it. I know it needs some tightening and cleaning up, but its great fun to write something just for the fun of it again. Part 3, the conclusion, will be up tomorrow!

Oh no! It ends in three parts that is the worst news I've heard all week

Small Town at the End of the World (part 3)

Had to put my shoulder to the door to push it open all the way. Must have been Bo's work. He was good with hammering out metal, but when it came to wood he always had a problem. He'd made the table in the commons, and that thing rocked and creaked whenever the weight on its surface changed. Never mind that though. I got the door open, and with the .32 held in front of me I pushed my way into the chamber beyond. More lights had been strung up around the room, but most of the light weren't coming from them. Most the light in the chamber weren't the yellowy-orange kind, like the pale light of the sun. No sir, this light be different. Seen similar light before when out hunting 'gators at dusk. A pale green glow that seems to float above the water sometimes. My Pa used to call them wisp lights, said they be nothing more than gas or some such. Still, they used to give me the shivers whenever I saw them out there. The shivers I got when I saw what was making this light in the cavern chamber didn't match them though. Felt like my spine was trying to force its own way out of my back. See, I took a few more steps into the chamber, and then saw that some iron bars had been erected in one corner. They dropped down from the ceiling and deep into the ground below. More of Bo's work, but these were sturdy and well made. Seems that someone had decided to turn the one corner of the chamber into some sort of jail, a cell to hold something in its place. Can't say I blame them when I saw what it was. Now, I seen some things in my life that are strange. Seen a brahmin give birth to a deformed calf that only had one head, once found the claw of some long dead giant crab thing floating in the swamp, and that body Jock discovered just outside of town that time sure wasn't human like a human is meant to be. This though, this was not like anything I seen before.

To call it human wouldn't be right, but there it was. It had a head, body, arms and two legs. Thing is I never seen a human glow like that before. The green, hell I don't know what to call it, glow seemed to be coming from deep within it. Lit it up from the inside like. Could see the bones in its arms and legs, and the ribs in its chest. One eye socket was nothing more than a ball of that green glowing, the other was a pale grey. You know how your eye got those two parts, the white bit and then the other coloured. Some folks are brown, or blue, or like Tessy green. Well this was just all grey. Never seen anything like, and haven't since. Funny though, you'd think finding a man thing that seemed to glow would be bizarre enough, enough to chill the blood in your veins. Wasn't the glowing that got me all a shaking, nope. It was that one, unnatural grey eye. Felt my hand starting to shake, and had to look away from the thing. It gave this long growl like a real hungry dog and then I think it screamed, or at least tried to. I didn't look to see. Instead I found myself looking at something just as puzzling. On the wall opposite the cage was a shrine, I guess it was a shrine, all ringed by glowing candles and pages from that book Father Aspren always lugged around. Didn't occur to me at the time, only later, that I was looking at what the old coot called his Raiment of the Saviour. Can't say I was that impressed, not as impressed as I was of the glowing thing in the makeshift cage. They didn't look all that divine or holy to me. It was just a pair of coveralls, nothing more. A faded and dirty blue trimmed with a yellow stripe, and for some reason the number seventy-four was stitched into the either side of the neck collar. Nothing special at all. The only thing that made me walk over to the shrine, other than not having to think about the now moaning thing in the cage, was the round thing placed at the bottom of the shrine. It sat on a little ledge, covered by more pages from that book of Aspren. Don't know what it was, what it is, looked like some kind of over sized bracelet. Got all these dials and buttons on it like some type of radio, but also this flat glass like thing covering the front of it. Did nothing, and never has, when I pushed buttons and turned dials. The groaning from the thing in the cage seemed to grow louder when I picked the thing up, so I put it back carefully. I know what McGredy wanted me to do down here, but suddenly that didn't seem quite right. Free the prisoner, that was his plan. Didn't tell me it was this thing though. How could I free it? Didn't know anything 'bout it. Could be dangerous. Maybe if I tried to talk with it, perhaps that was the best thing to do. I remember walking over to it, revolver held at the ready. Then it happened.

Hard to explain what it was really. It was kind of like if a light was suddenly turned on real bright. Difference was that the light was bright green, nearly white. Also never come across light that seemed to have a force behind it, well except for that laser pistol thing I saw in the Red Stick Settlement that one time. Knocked me back, my skin all tingling, and off my feet. Must have hit a rock or something real hard on the ground, cause there was only darkness after that. Woke up later, can't say how long, my head pounding and felt this warm trickle creeping down the back of my head and running into the collar of my shirt. Touched it and my finger came back sticky with blood. The glowing thing had retreated to the corner of the cage, hunched over and rocking back and forth slowly as it held its knees. Kind of pathetic to see. It was the voices that got me back onto my feet real quick like. They were coming from just on the other side of the door, all muffled and garbled. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to. So, I just stood my ground and aimed the .32 at the doorway. Didn't surprise me much when I saw it was Father Aspren who stuck his head in first, followed closely by Doc Hallaway. Did surprise me to find McGredy with them, and the bastard was smiling from ear to ear. Like to say that my Pa didn't raise a fool, but I knew there and then that I had been played for one. Didn't know why, but knew that I'd gotten myself mixed up in something I didn't want.

Father Aspren glared at me with his mad eyes, and then rushed over to the cage. He started cooing words to the thing in there, but it just growled at him in response. Looked back at Hallaway and McGredy, couldn't help but notice the shotgun barrel Hallaway had levelled on me or the other .32 tucked tight in McGredy's hand. I kept the .32 aimed at them, but the way McGredy just kept grinning told me something was more than wrong. Hallaway ordered me to drop the revolver, McGredy then told me it wouldn't fire anyway. I knew it was true, don't know why, so I just let it drop onto the sandy floor. Got myself in this mess, and nothing to be done 'bout it. Aspren marched over till he was standing in front of me. Looked crazier than a nest of riled up bloatflies. Started shouting and hollering, something about 'O Maker, why hast thou cast us off for ever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?'. Them words have always stuck with me, don't know why. It was more chilling when he went on about the time for the sacrifice being ready, and that maybe this one would bring the saviour back from the bowels of the demon. He looked at the thing in the cage when he said both 'saviour' and 'demon'. Never been the quickest thinker, sometimes things come a little slower to me than others. Pa said it was a lack of focus, but everything kind of clicked in place this time.

The Fremont Brothers, during their rampage on the town, kept yelling that things weren't what they seemed. Remember Ali Fremont yelling that he wasn't going to get eaten up for nothing, and Dan had made a straight run for Aspren's House of the Maker with his shotgun in hand. Had they known? Were they to be sacrifices to this thing? I asked as much, and Mcgredy just smiled wider. Hallaway's eyes took on that far off looking, you know, the kind someone gets when they don't want to think about something. Aspren continued his ranting in front of me, calling on his Maker to approve of the new sacrifice, guessed it was me this time. How many, I yelled at them. How many, who? Mcgredy started to say something, and Hallway shot him a deadly look and a whispered, 'Don't'. Mcgredy just smiled more, the smarting bastard. Said there had been a few, one's chosen by Aspren. Mostly strangers they found wandering in the wild, but if there were none of them then someone from town was chosen. Freddy the Whistler had been one, so had old man Gordy. Folks always told me when I was a kid that Grandma Jezebel had lost her mind and must have wandered off into the wastes. McGredy told me otherwise, and then he said it. Said the word that nobody should hear, words that shattered nearly everything I ever took a chance believing in.

'Your Ma was one of the first. Doc tells me that she cried like the blazes when your Pa dragged her down here, ain't that right, Doc?'. Then he grinned. He told me that's why my Pa took up the bottle, got all pissed at Aspren and the others when her death didn't bring back the saviour. Seems my Pa once believed the frothy words spat from Aspren's mouth, believed them enough to kill his own wife to see this saviour returned. Had my world well shook up there and then. McGredy could have been lying, 'nother of his sick little games. The look on Hallaway's face told this weren't so though. Now, I don't know what made me do it, chances of it working were slim. Could have been the anger at what I'd been told, might have just been the fear of being sacrificed to the thing in the cage. I was as good as dead anyway, so I guess I thought I might as well not make it easy for them. don't know how to figure out what the odds were of swinging the rifle off my back, bolting a round in the chamber and then getting off a clean shot before I was gunned down. All I know is that they weren't good. Maybe it was because Aspren was standing in front of me, blocking Hallaway and McGredy from getting a clean shot. Maybe it was that I dived to one side, while at the same time pulling the rifle into my hands. Maybe it was all that 'gator hunting, the way drawing back the bolt and loading the rifle had become second nature to me. Could have been the dim light, could have been the glowing thing that suddenly leaped to its feet and charged the bars, could have been the way Aspren started screaming and waving his arms about in a fit. Could have been many things, but it was probably the fact that I didn't bother aiming at any of them. Not Hallaway, McGredy, Aspren, or even the thing in the cage. Only thing I ever been any good at was 'gator hunting. I could hit one of them, a good distance off, in the eye with a clean shot. Did it hundreds of times, can't ever remember missing. The lock holding the iron bars of the thing's cage together was much bigger than any 'gators eye.

I remember rolling over in the dirt, expecting a hail of bullets to punch their way clean into me. Nothing. I looked to my would be killers, and saw that all three of them had swivelled their head to stare at the bars of the cage that were beginning to swing open slowly. Funny the way that they all stared at their emerging saviour with terror in their eyes. You'd think that they'd be less afraid of something that was meant to deliver them one day. Hallaway was the first to bolt. With a yelp he dropped his shotgun and made for the rope ladder they'd dropped to get into the Hole. Aspren dropped to his knees, and with his eyes closed began spewing those prayers of his. As for Mcgredy, he let off a couple of shots that missed their marks by a fair bit before turning and chasing after Hallaway. The glowing thing that stepped at the cage took one look at the kneeling Aspren and then jumped forward with a howl that seemed to be full of unbridled hate and fury. I lay in the dirt and squeezed my eyes tight. Somethings you just don't want to see, 'specially if its your own gruesome death. There was a high pitched scream Aspren, and then a tearing squelching sound. I forced my eyes open, and stared at the glowing thing that hunched over the body of Aspren. It held one of the good Father's praying arms in each hand, ripped them clean out of their sockets. It slowly turned it glowing head towards me, the grey lifeless eye fixing me with a dead stare. It is quite something to be staring into the face of your own death like that, and I admit that the whole world has seemed a lot less scary and dangerous after that look. It didn't lunge for me, didn't come to tear me apart. Now, I'm sure this could just be my imagination again. Might be wrong, but I swear that the thing nodded at me. It was a small, slight movement of its head, but a nod nonetheless. Then it spun away from the corpse at its feet with a howl and lurched at a speed a didn't think possible after the other two.

Don't know what made me do it, I should have just tried to get out of there, but I got to my feet and the first thing I did was stuff the so-called Raiment of the Saviour into my pack. Took the metallic bracelet thing too. Then, with legs that had still didn't seem to be completely under my control, I left the chamber and headed down the corridor. When I got to the rope ladder, the only thing there was a single hand gripping one of the lower rungs. A pool of blood seeped into the dirt floor beneath it. It was Hallaway's. Peering down the unlit corridor, I could see the green glow growing fainter and fainter down that tunnel of death. Then there was a scream. Could have been Hallaway, could have McGredy. I didn't care. Never climbed so fast in my life, scrambling up that rope ladder to safety but never sanity. Half way up, heard 'nother scream. Was definitely McGredy this time. It was long and drawn out, piercing and pained. Suppose I should have felt a touch of justice, revenge for the way he told me what he did. All I felt was pity, and disgust. Got to the top of the ladder, and quickly pulled the rest of it up behind me. Then I turned and ran. Don't know how long I kept going, but it wasn't counted in minutes or hours. It was days. I guess I was running from the thing down the Hole, but I was also running from Creekville and from my Pa. Not much in this world is good, and nearly nothing is pure. When the one thing you always thought you could count on, depend on, is taken from you I guess there is nothing left to do but run. Problem is you can't run forever, you've got to stop whether you want to or not. I stopped, I stopped and thought everything over. I had a choice, simple. I could keep going, try and make a life or I could curl up and die. Thing is, in some strange way, giving up and dying meant to me that Aspren and his fellow savages would have won. So, I chose to live. Hell, I even started to enjoy it after a while.

Guess if I stayed in Creekville, never gone down the Hole, I would have ended my days as a 'gator hunter. That would have been me, all of it. Columbus the 'Gator Hunter, nothing more and nothing less. Seen a lot of the world since leaving the Hole, some good but most bad. Made friends, and lost as many. Been hunter, but not 'gators this time. Had my hand at being a trader, barman and even a merc for a while. Was no good at that, though. Still don't like danger, but I guess the thing is I'm not scared of it no more. Oh, yeah, the Raiment. Sold that off a while back. The fella who bought it paid good caps, seemed really interested in it for some reason. Just hope he ain't got some crazy notion about it like Aspren did. Needed those caps though, got myself married and decided to set up home in the Red Stick Settlement. Good woman, homely type. She might not be as pretty as Tessy, but she's a fine wife and damn good mother to my boy. Smart kid, hell of a lot more than his Pa. Likes to tinker with things, taken apart most things in the house at least once but always manages to put them back together again. Sometimes better than they were before. His fourteenth birthday is just round the corner, glad I'm going to be here for it. See, the thing is, I got this real bad cough a few weeks out of the Hole. Doesn't bother me much, but it persists. Wife made me go see the doctor in Big Stick 'bout it. He said something was growing on my lung, wanted good caps to cut me open and pull it out. Told him exactly what he could go and do with his advice. Yup, boy's fourteenth birthday. Going to give him something really special. See, I kept that bracelet thing from the Hole. Thought maybe it would just start doing whatever it was meant to one day. Nothing though. Kid likes to tinker, maybe he can make it light up or make a whirring noise, or something. As for Creekville, well never been back. Sometimes I lie awake and think 'bout what's happened down there. Did Tessy marry Bo? What happened when they found that thing and the bodies down there? Is Hasbo still alive, or still sick and dying? Then I realise I don't really give a damn, don't miss it at all. Well, 'cept for the 'gators. Funny thing is, I miss the 'gators.

Thats is awsome. I think it came together really well. however it seems more like a prelude to something. Any plans to write more? i think you could really make this go somwhere.

Nope, that's it. Sometimes somethings just got to end. Wait for Ghoulag ...should be...interesting.