Angels Over The Mountain
Null
John used to know what it was like, waking up every morning pissed off that it wasn't the weekend yet, getting angry at a traffic jam, being bored on a Friday night. Truth is, he would love to have that back, but some things cannot go back to normal, ever. See John also used to hate his neighbor with a passion, but just like everything else in the world, that is gone now, hell even the world seems to be gone now, but he would guess that is what you would call life. Life, all he wants is his to end, maybe it will someday, maybe he will fall off a cliff, maybe he will be eaten by a shark, maybe he will be shot, maybe, just maybe he will die in his sleep, nice and peaceful. Until then though, his life is a constant hell and he will have to live it everyday.
Today is no different, he has his set of daily chores that need to be completed in order for him to stay safe in this nightmare of a planet. See his chores are all planned out, first he has to fix the engine on the "car" so he can one day (hopefully) reach someone away from his hellhole of a "home". Next on the list is to get fresh water. See the trouble with that, is the water isn't fresh anymore, is all contaminated. which brings him to his next chore, fixing the water purification system. Then after that he has to go to what is left of the town he knew so well, the town he grew up in, the town his normal life ended in. Then his next and final chore of the day is maintaining his "fortress", so nothing can get in, and harm John. John peaceful little John, how he wishes he could die, and be with his family, but his wishes wont come true, not today anyways.
Today, John is going to be the worst day of John's life, the worst day since the Resonance Cascade, the worst day since his wife and kids become zombies, the worst day since his neighbor (whom he hates with a passion [and also works at Black Mesa]) disappeared, the worst day, in twenty years, is going to happen today. You see, John's life of solitude (which has done him well so far) is about to go out the window, today John is going to have a run in with someone from the word outside of his hellhole. Today, today is fucked.
Chapter 1
(A.N. This is chapter 1, if that wasn't obvious enough, anyways please note that even though JOHN hasn't been described and/or been givin a last name yet, be patient because it will happen. Anyways I hope you Enjoy the story and know that I will be working on new material every week. (mean [hopefully] a new chapter every week, i will also do "The story so far" fo uh...people who are lazy so, yeah, enjoy)
Chores of the day
John woke up at dawn. He didn't really know the time, date, and year anymore. At dawn he goes to his bathroom, well it isn't really a room anymore. As soon as you open the door you can tell it was a base of operations for the military, you can also tell that its north-east corner was destroyed by a bomb of some sort. The whole North-East corner is covered in black soot. As you look down the wall a little more you can see outlines of where people were. You can also see that even though someone tried really hard, they could never get all of the blood off of the walls. Inside of this restroom, there is half of a toilet and a sink on the North-West corner, which happens to be the only intact thing in the room for some odd reason.
After John used the bathroom, he had to start working on the engine. All he really had to do now was put it back in the car. The car was a black 1972 Plymouth Hemi Roadrunner. John had been working on it for sometime, trying to make it look like it did before the Resonance Cascade happened. With much work he has managed to fully restore it, mostly from parts he found in his old town.
After the engine was slowly lowered into the car, and every last hose and wire was connected, John gave it a spin. The car growled with a pump of the gas. The growl was so loud it could have been heard from L.A. to Washington D.C., if those towns still exsisted. Then to his surprise it started to grumble, then died. He realized he was forgetting one crucial item: Gasoline. John decided that he would have to find a way to change the fluids that the car runs on, and make it run on something that is all around this wasteland. That substance was water, which in turn would turn into steam. He is going to make it a steam machine, it wouldn't be hard for John either, he paid attention in Chemistry and auto shop. It would take him a couple hours at most.
After John completed the car and made it into something that would come out of a steam punk movie, he moved onto getting fresh water. He didn't want to use the car so he set out on foot. As soon as he opened the door, the sunlight cause him some temporary blindness. After a couple of seconds (during that time everything was in negative), he started walking down the road until he reached the gate. It seems he had forgotten his key, no matter though he would just use the side entrance. He laughed to himself because the side entrance was like something out of a video game, it was hidden and was hard to find, unless you knew where it was located .
The entrance was covered by thick brush and debris. It was so well blended into the side of the mountain that it looked like it almost natural. John pushed aside the debris and brush, revealing a small trap door of sorts. He lifted it up, underneath this door was a deep tunnel, the tunnel had flood lights strung across the right wall. It was obvious that it had taken some time to build, and was made by an amateur. After John walked through the tunnel, he reached another trap door, he lifted it up, he was on the other side of the gate. The sky was cloudless, since his fort was in the middle of the forest, the green of it stood out. It was a very beautiful sight, a sight for sore eyes. John has not been out of the fort was for some time, and was amazed of how beautiful the forest was.
It only took a couple of minutes for John to reach his location. It was a small hole creek that ran down the side of a hill. The water was muddy, you could not see through it what so ever. He pulled out a bucket that looked like it had been through some hard times, and filled it up with water from the creek, just enough to last him a couple of weeks (the water was going to be used as drinking water only). It took him several minutes to get back on his side of the fortress. All he needed to do now was fix the water purifier.
The device looked like some sort of still used for the creation of alcohol. All John had to do was replace the filter. He had to create the filters by hand, and it took him a very long time to do so. Luckily for him he had one left. He took off the top of the device and replaced the filter, which looked like black tar, and then he was finished with 99% of his chores, all he had to do now was fix the wall. No problem.
The walls to the fort were almost twenty feet tall. They were obviously made out of scrap metal and anything else that was left lying around. What John had to fix in the wall was a big hole in the middle of it. The hole was a result of the skirmish he had with some zombies that had stumbled upon his fort a couple of days ago, he had to result to using one of his last grenades to finish them off. John had been gathering the metal since the skirmish, and was going to repair it now. But something odd happened. He heard gunshots, Since the twenty years John has lived here, not once has he heard any gunshots other then his own. The gunshots were close too, just over the hill.
John didn't want anyone entering his fort, even though he was lonely, this fort was his discovery and his alone. He started patching up the hole as fast as he could. The gunshots kept getting closer, and closer. Then suddenly they stopped. John paused from patching up the wall. He stood up and started to walk through the hole, he was wondering if maybe someone needed his help. Then just as soon as his curiosity started, it stopped and he started working on the wall. He was half way finished then he heard the cocking of a gun.
"Put your hands up slowly" said the figure.
John looked up, horrified. He was caught without his smg! As he did what the figure said, he looked up and to his surprise, was a rebel with an shotgun standing right above him. Then when John started to see the man's face, the man hit him with the butt of the gun. Everything went black, and John drifted out of consciousness.