Of all the things in the wasteland, it was corn that survived mostly unscathed. Tatos had once been mere tomatoes, but the wave of radiation and mutation that had swept the world had changed them from sweet and tangy fruit with a soft and pleasant flesh to a solid and starchy, if still tangy, spud. Mutfruit had once been a simple berry bush, but instead of bunches of small and sweet berries, it now produced two or three bulbous and tart fruits.
No one knew what the hell punga fruit was before the war.
But corn... corn never changes.
Corn had been the king of the American heartland before the bombs dropped. Corn grown for food, shipped to supermarkets across the country. Corn grown for fuel, to supplement that which the atom did not already provide. Corn grown for feed, to raise and fatten the steak and poultry of America. Vast fields of corn once dominated the landscape. And after the war, corn remained even where humanity did not.
Corn was ubiquitous in the world of post-apocalyptic America. As it once fed the first Americans, the indigenous people of the land, and as it once filled the bellies of a large and hungry nation, it continued on, feeding the scattered remnants of humanity who called the once great country home.
Terrance grunted as he knelt and examined the edges of the field he had found. The mere presence of corn was not always indicative of settlement, not in the midwest, but its placement could be. Nature was not a kind or caring mother, as she let her children sprout where they lay, but humanity preferred order to chaos and set their crops in rows almost instinctively.
This corn was in rows.
Aware of the possibility of danger, Terrace checked that his pistol was loose in its holster and started to walk through the rows of corn towards the dilapidated shack he could see a short distance away. He did not hide as he walked, but stepped carefully and made sure to keep his head as high above the corn as he could. Raiders and other monsters in human skin didn't grow crops, and people who did generally shot people who did not on sight. Still, he kept his eyes moving and his ears open, because sometimes raiders would hide in the homes of those they killed, hoping to lure in more victims.
A unnatural quiet pervaded the area as he stepped out of the corn rows onto the cracked and broken remains of an old country road. Broken and rotting wooden rails ran along the other side of the road, outlining an area that was clear of any plant life, even grass and weeds, in the middle of which squatted the shack.
He glanced to one side, at an old and apparently discarded shovel and an ancient bag of fertilizer, then took off his wide brimmed hat to reveal his face to the sunlight and raised his hands high. "There's no dust on that tool, and that sack would never last out here in the weather. I know someone is watching. I am armed, but I come peacefully. I only want to trade for some food or water, if you are open to trade. If you're not, I'll be on my way."
He waited quietly, and after a few seconds, the shack's front door creaked open. A rifle barrel poked out, not quite aimed at him but ready for use, and when he didn't move, the face of a young lady followed. "You say you want to trade for food, but you just walked through a field of it," she said, disbelieving.
Terrance shrugged, his hands still high. "I'm no raider, and this is obviously a farm. I'm not stealing anything if I can help it."
The door opened slightly more, revealing a thin girl little more than thirteen or fourteen, her face slightly gaunt and her limbs thin enough that they shook while trying to keep the long hunting rifle upright and motionless. "What you got to trade, mister?" she asked, her voice a mix of fearful and curious.
"I have some purified water, some meds, a little bit of ammo of different calibers, and caps. Some pre-war canned food too, if you want to trade for variety in your diet."
The door opened a bit more, and she stepped into the light, revealing a head of roughly trimmed red hair and a bad case of malnutrition that was not hidden by the tattered handmade dress she wore. "Yeah, okay, we can… we can…" She stumbled, and the rifle dropped to the dirt, the girl following shortly after.
Terrance waited a moment more, then dropped his hands. "Well, shit," he said eloquently before he walked over and started to drag the girl inside.
Clair wake up to a pounding headache, her mind slow and fuzzy as she stared at the fire, her body shifted slightly in the blankets she was wrapped in. I don't remember lighting a fire, she thought, didn't have the time or energy to gather wood for the night anyhow. She'd known something was wrong for a while now, her body growing weaker and weaker, but she hadn't thought herself so far gone that she would pass out in front of…
The stranger!
She convulsed weakly, pushing at the blankets that felt far too heavy and constricting, her eyes already looking for her rifle, or her pa's old pistol, or even just a knife. If not for him, than maybe for herself.
That was when the stranger appeared, leaning over her with a bowl in hand. "You awake now, miss?" he asked, his voice deep and gravely. She nodded slightly, her heart racing, and he gave her a small smile. "If I prop you up, think you can eat a little?" She nodded, and he grunted and pulled on the back of her dress slightly, helping her slide back until she was resting against one of the shack's supports. He handed the bowl to her, then grunted again as he sat across the fire from her, picking up his own bowl and spoon.
She stared at him, astounded. She'd never seen anyone quite so old. His face was covered in wrinkles and lines and more than a few scars, the bits that were not covered by the large and bristly white mustache anyhow, and his hands were covered in the rough skin of someone well used to hard labor. He was wearing a thick and crudely crafted hide shirt and a heavily worn pair of blue denim pants, and beside him she could see his broad brimmed hat and some sort of padded chest piece.
What really caught her eye, however, was the shining gold chain around his neck. Her mother had once worn something like that, until she'd traded it away for food and medicine during the bad year.
Something about the way she stared must have upset the stranger, because he leaned back slightly and glared at her. "Go on, eat up," he said gruffly, digging a spoon into his own bowl. "We'll talk after you eat, this stuff ain't much good once it gets cold."
She looked down at the bowl and saw that there was corn kernels (there was always corn kernels) as well as some cut tato and some small pink cubes that looked so familiar she felt a spark of hopeful joy. She swiftly swirled the soup with her spoon, her hand jittering so hard it splashed slightly, and pulled out one of the small cubes to examine it.
It's was Cram! She hadn't had Cram in years, but she remembered how wonderful the canned meat byproduct was and how full it always made her feel!
Ma always said that it took a real illness to put her daughter off her feed, and she was right, because Clair immediately started to scoop the food almost desperately into her mouth, ignoring the nearly scalding temperature as she guzzled the meal as fast as she could. For a moment she almost flinched when she realized how she was acting in front of the stranger, but the short and obviously amused grunt the man gave before tucking into his own food at a more sedate pace set her mind at ease, and soon her spoon was clacking against the empty bowl.
The man chuckled again and handed over his own half full bowl without a moment's pause.
She ate the second bowl slowly, savoring every drop while she tried to figure out what to say to the stranger, who was sitting quietly and watching her, a slightly bemused light to his eyes despite the somewhat stern cast of his face. Eventually, she set her bowl down. "I… don't really have much for repayment," she muttered, looking around the shack. "I… I have a water pump that pulls up clean water, or clean as it gets, anyhow. Or maybe… maybe a tool or two I can spare? I don't use the rake or the garden spade much any more." She flinched as she spoke. Pa had often warned her about strange men, and after the bad year, she knew from her ma that those warnings had at least some truth to them. The stranger could demand anything, take anything, and she'd be unable to resist in her condition, never mind fight. The very idea was terrifying, and she felt her heart start to race.
The man stared for a moment before he smiled gently. "Easy, girl. It's a can of cram, a tato, and some water, nothing to be worried about. If you don't mind, I'll just take a bit of corn to replace my stocks before I go. Looks like it's all you got right now. Speaking of…" He leaned over, grabbing his backpack and dragging it to his side before rummaging a bit and tossing a small plastic bottle to her. "Take one of these."
She looked at the bottle, sounding out the words in her head like her pa had taught her. Lint-rock Cron-che Vitt-a-mins. Vitamins? Her ma had traded away one of the last of their chickens to someone during the bad year for some vitamins to try and nurse pa back to health. Pa had been angry about that, angry about her trading a good egg laying chicken for medicine that would only delay things a bit.
He hadn't lasted much longer after that.
She took one of the pills and looked at it. It was shaped like image on the front of the bottle, a strange square drawing of a man with lumpy hand and a ragged, spotted shift with a bow tie on it. The stranger gestured at her, and she ate the pill without further delay, finding herself delighted to realize it actually tasted slightly sweet and pleasant instead of bitter like other pills she'd had before.
"What's your name, miss?"
"My name's Clair, sir," she said quietly. "Clair Jackson."
"Clair then." He looked around the shack. "Call me Terrance. Clair, do you have anything other than corn to eat here?"
She shook her head. "The last hen stopped laying eggs a while ago. I… I ate her. Used to have some canned goods, but I ate them too. Used to trade for more food, but I haven't seen any traders for better part of a year, not since…"
After pa had passed, there had been more traders visiting her home than before. Ma had been… accommodating to the traders. She'd send Clair out to scrounge for tubers, and when she got back, Ma was always ready to make them a big meal, the traders and Clair both. She saved up a fair number of spare cans for them before the traders suddenly stopped showing up one day. She'd left to find out what had happened, and a year later, she was still gone.
Terrance only nodded. "Eating nothing but corn is what almost did you in, young lady. You can't live on just corn. There's enough vitamins there to last you a few months, but you need to grow some more crops. Do you have a neighbor to trade with or something to keep you going?"
She shook her head. "Used to be Tommy Kann lived a few miles away, his and his folks, but last time I went to visit, his folks were gone and Tommy was dead. Very dead." She swallowed hard, trying not to remember the look of her best friend lying on the front porch, eyes open and flies crawling into his mouth... she blinked a few times and forced the memory away. "I got some tatos from their fields before I left, but I dropped a lot of them running from a big lizard on the way home. That was a couple months back."
He frowned. "There's nobody else in the area?"
She shook her head. "Not any more. The Kanns were the last ones here aside from me. Everyone else either died or moved on."
He shook his head, then pushed his pack away. "Well, let's get some rest, it's already getting dark. In the morning, we'll…" He stopped when Clair gasped and struggled to her feet, stumbling to a window. "Hold on, miss, careful there!"
"Oh no," she mumbled, her body shaking as she stared out into the darkening sky, the sun already below the trees. "Oh no, oh no!"
Something about her mannerisms spooked Terrance, and his hand dropped to his pistol. "What comes out at night?" he asked quietly, resting his other hand on her shoulder.
She shuddered and stepped back. "Clawfeet," she said quietly. "They live in the swamp to the east. They're not too bad during the day, but around nightfall they get hungry and aggressive. They hide in the corn and try to get close to the shack at night. Get close enough, and they'll charge. Few weeks ago, one managed to put its foot though the wall. Would have gone worse, but the rifle shot took off one of its toes and the thing ran off screeching." She walked over to the small bed and grabbed something off of the crate next to it, tossing it to Terrance. It was a large, curved claw, easily the size of his thumb. "They're fast, but they also got a pecking order. If you can get rid of the first one that attacks, the rest will usually leave for the night."
Terrance picked up the rifle from where he'd placed it against the wall near the door and looked it over. "How many shots you got left?" he asked.
She shook her head, and her face colored slightly. "Ran out last week," she admitted quietly. "Clawfeet are smart. They know what a rifle is. After the last one I shot, they've been steering clear, but I always made sure to make a show of setting up atop the house every day before the sun fell. I think they've been watching me during the sunset, from the other edge of the field."
Terrance grunted. It was an old hunting rifle that had seen better days but was still workable, and he rooted around in his bag for a moment before handing the girl a dozen rounds of the right size for it. "I want you to go on up on the roof, now. Set yourself up, but don't go blasting at shadows. Just wait and back me up."
Clair was just opening her mouth to ask what he meant when the door swung shut behind him as he stepped out onto the road.
Terrance stood quietly in the light of an almost full moon, one hand resting gently on the grip of the 5.56mm pistol that had become his best friend over the years, the other hanging at his side, his eyes wide but unmoving.
Many would-be survivors had the wrong idea about watching out for danger. They'd focus on one point, then move on to the next, trying to look everywhere at once, a natural habit for a predatory species like homo Sapiens.
Terrance was not a predator tonight, he was prey, and prey viewed the world differently. Prey could not risk focusing on details, because the world was awash in details, and there was little chance of spotting the right one at any given time.
Prey watched for patterns. Sound. Movement. Scent. They took in the world around them not as a thousand little details but as one large, combined experience. When a predator stalks its prey, it might hide its sounds well, or its scent, or its movement, but even in perfection it could fail. A predator who was absolutely silent made a sound all its own, by the way its body blocked and redirected the sounds around it.
Terrance could feel the unnatural silence in the corn field now, the vague sense of something unseen and unknown but also unarguably present guiding his eyes. He saw the occasional cornstalk move just slightly against the sway of the leaves in the wind. Heard the brief moments of silence as the creatures paused in their steps to carefully shift their weight.
He didn't know what a "clawfoot" was, but he was fairly sure of what it was not. It was not a Yao Gui. The big irradiated bears would have simply roared and charged, trusting its bulk and strength to protect it against a lone defender. Giant Geckos might hunt in packs, but they rarely used stealth and certainly didn't stalk their prey. And humanoid monsters, raiders or mutants or ghouls, always used their arms and hands rather than feet as their means of attack.
The stalks stopped shifting, and in the growing darkness, Terrance could sense the watchful patience as the creatures settled and waited for the right moment. He didn't turn his head or move his arms, but quietly said, "Clair, get ready. I am going to do something to draw them out. Don't shoot the first one that attacks, I'll deal with it. I want you to find a good target from the others, something from the back, teach them to respect your reach. Got it?"
He heard a quiet grunt and took it as a yes. He turned slightly, twisting to have one eye on the roof of the shack behind him. The silence deepened, as if several creatures suddenly held their breath, but still they did nothing, so he started to lift his arms, as if stretching, and in doing so removed his hand from his pistol.
The reaction was immediate and violent. A multitude of piercing shrieks sounded out from the corn field, and a gangly creature lunged out at him, a pale pink and black blur that ran at him with long, bounding strides.
Terrance immediately turned, pivoting on one foot to spin one step further away from the charging creature as his hand dropped and plucked his pistol from his holster. He didn't bother to raise his arm to aim at the thing attacking him but fired from the hip, angling the gun slightly upwards. His gunshot lit up the night, giving him a brief flash that revealed dark black eyes and a beaked maw that curved so sharply that it looked like an open pair of garden clippers, and then the blur was past him, tumbling across the bare dirt to fetch up against the wall of the shack with a heavy and very final thud.
The sound of his shot barely faded before a second, louder gunshot rang out as Clair found her target and fired. Another creature somewhere in the cornfield shrieked in agony, and the stalks suddenly exploded in all directions as the remaining creatures fled.
Terrance reholstered his weapon and waited quietly, observing the world around him once more and finding that the darkness was now empty as it should be. Still, it was best to be cautious, and he was quick to pull himself up onto the roof and sit next to Clair, who was looking out into the night warily. "You said they tend to keep away once you deal with the initial attack?"
Clair nodded.
"Good." He settled himself slightly and drew his pistol. "Go inside and get some rest. I'll keep watch, just in case. In the morning, you can keep an eye out for me while I rest up. Deal?"
Clair smiled and started to climb down, then stopped and looked at him for a moment. Without a word, she slid her rifle up onto the roof, leaving it for him in case he needed it, and then headed into the shack.
He waited quietly until the the first snore drifted through the night before he picked up the rifle and started to inspect it.
The clawfoot was even more disturbing in the sunlight.
It must have been a bird of some sort back before the species mutated. The stubby, digitless forelimbs and strange pink skin certainly fit, as did the few small feathers that still clung to its body. But nature had not been kind to the creature. Its beak was twisted, curving inward to form a pair of natural shears that also happened to leave the creature unable to fully close its mouth. Its legs were unnaturally long, easily twice the length of the rest of its body, and each digit was topped with a large and vicious claw more suited to a hawk or eagle. But it was the long, almost graceful neck that gave away the creature's origins.
"Grus americana," Terrance mumbled to himself, pulling out a small sketchbook and an ancient mechanical pencil.
"What's that?" asked Clair, rubbing her eyes as she stepped outside.
"Before the war and FEV and everything, this would have been called a whooping crane. Was a big bird even then, but I guess when it mutated it grew a set of natural weapons and an aggressive nature to match." Even as he spoke, the pencil moved across the page, and when Clair had a peek she saw a remarkably lifelike sketch of the dead creature.
Terrance noticed the attention and glanced at the girl. "Feeling a bit better today?" he asked.
The girl swiped at the fringe of red hair trying to fall into her eyes and smiled. "I'm still feeling a little weak, but I feel better than I have in ages. Never really thought about the problem with eating just corn. Thanks, sir." Terrance nodded and continued working on his sketch.
Clair gathered up the hoe and the fertilizer and dragged them into the shack. She came out with his backpack and set it on the ground next to him, then returned to the hut and came out with a small sack and her rifle, which she put next to the backpack. She started checking over the corn, pulling off ripe ears and stuffing them in the bag. "So," she said, drawing out the vowel sound for a moment. "Where are you going once you're done with your drawing?"
Terrance stiffened, the pencil freezing in place for several seconds before he sighed and tucked the book away, his head remaining bowed. "I'm heading south east. A long way south east. Got an appointment I need to keep."
Clair walked over to stand next to him, dropping the sack in the dirt next to her and picking up her rifle. "Sounds good," she said, a smile on her face.
The shack burst into flames.
"Fuck!" shouted Terrance, stumbling back in surprise. He looked around for a moment, as if he could find a means to stop an already furious fire on a whim, then looked back at the young woman basking in the fire's warmth. "What the hell did you do?"
"I burned it." She said this in a calm, almost detached manner, and when she turned to face him, her smile had vanished, replaced with a face that was desperately, deliberately devoid of emotion. "My family is dead and gone. So are my neighbors. Haven't seen a trader in ages, guess they're dead too, or maybe they forgot me, or maybe they just don't want to travel miles and miles for one girl, who knows. I could stay here and hope the next random visitor isn't a monster who wants to eat me or a raider who wants to rape me and then eat me, or if I am real lucky maybe I'll starve to death because there is fuckall for me to eat around here that isn't corn. Or, I can follow along and see where we end up."
Terrance stared at her for a moment, then gave her a small smile and walked over, standing next to her and setting a hand on her shoulder. "Fair enough, miss. But did you really need to burn it?" he asked.
"Need? Maybe not. But now I can't chicken out a mile down the road." She leaned over and hoisted the sack over her shoulder before giving Terrance a small smile. "Besides, I took everything of value with me."
A/N: So, been toying with the idea of a Fallout fanfic for ages, but needed to make sure I was comfortable working on something that'll take this amount of effort, because I have no intention of just following the pre-plodded footsteps of the game. I have some solid ideas, and needed something for practice writing, so now is the time I guess. No promises on update schedule or the like, but I am aiming for and update every couple weeks.
Much of what is seen in this story will be new. The fallout world is not universal by design, but varied based on the original local cultures and wildlife, something I intend to embrace in this effort. You'll undoubtedly see deathclaws and ghouls at some point, but there will also be new and unique things, like the Clawfeet above.