Fallout: Tunnel Rats
As dawn rose over the once vibrant city of London no birds sang, no larks, no robins not even the pigeons could be heard. They hadn't be heard in a long time no one alive could even remember what they looked like any more, there were drawings but who in their right mind would take time to look at a book to find out about a pointless creature?
You could hear the dogs howling and scrapping amongst themselves but they weren't exactly the same music as birds. If you were lucky or unlucky you might hear the laughter of another person. This was a different morning one so common the previous occupants of the city would have been disturbed, silence.
If you happened to be in the vicinity of Archway tube station you would hear a whistling coming from the depths of the tube line.
The darkness went mainly undisturbed in these tunnels; it was infested with all sorts of radiated monsters that were best left to their own devices down in the tunnels. As it was a rarity that they dared stray up to the surface. This was where the phantom whistling was coming from, from the top of the dead escalators nothing but this high whistling.
Then a flickering light appeared at the foot of these escalators. The light appeared to be spilling from one of the tunnels and was bobbing in a walking rhythm. The whistling gradually faded into a humming sound with one or two notes being whistled. Then all at once brilliant light spilled out from round the corner as a figure span the corner holding a torch.
"Some whereeee beyond the seaaaaa, she's thereeee waitin' for meeee" the figure approached the bottom of the stairs with a saunter and began striding up the escalator taking them two at a time.
"if I could fly like birds on highhhhh, then straight to her arms I'd go sailin'" the young man sang, apparent by his voice, deep and soothing and perhaps if times were different he could have made a living with it.
The young man reached the top of the escalators and flinched at the bright morning sun spilling into the tube station. He seemed displeased by the morning sun and stopped singing and he looked down to his wrist and tapped the old wrist watch that lived there. He put it next to his ear and could tell it had broken and took it off his wrist and tossed it aside in the debris that was scattered around the entrance.
The young man appeared in his early twenties and was dressed in a ragged assortment of clothes. He covered his chest and arms in and old military style black jumper with padding on the shoulders on the elbows. Around his shoulders and draping down to his feet he wore a torn and damaged black cloak, with a hood. An old bandoleer was bound to his chest with several pouches on it containing all sorts of trinkets. He wore some old fingerless gloves which had protection over the knuckles. To go with his old military hardware he had an old service satchel still brandishing its red cross to resemble the medic.
His trousers were a khaki green combats and were very muddy un-tucked out of his black ankle supporting boots which themselves were worn and scuffed. He also had knee pads on matching his elbow ones. His belt was a similar style to his bandoleer and had pouches along it but on its side was a holster where an old service revolver sat in a comfortable fashion next to an sheathed military sabre. His second gun and old Lee-Enfield no.4 mk1 was draped over his right should and was clearly looked after.
His hair was past his ears and unkempt matted with sweat and grease and slicked back to keep it out of his eyes. He was clean shaven though and clearly made an effort to remain so. His features were pointy and mousy; not the best looking man to work the globe but had a childish charm behind his eyes and smile.
The watch which was cast aside flew through the air and clanked off something metallic. There was quick rustling noise straight afterwards. The young man looked in the direction of the rustling but didn't move his torchlight. The sound of the noise was just out of the sunlight near the top of the escalators. He moved his right hand down and pulled out the revolver slowly and cocking it as he did so.
He turned his body, looked, angled the torchlight in the direction of the noise then pointed his gun there.
In the gloom suddenly lit was a body of a fully armoured man. A gaping hole in his chest where he had been hit by some heavy explosive, which was the only reason that strong armour would allowed such a big hole in. By his feet lay the old watch; more importantly struggling on some of the innards was a wild dog. It's grunting and snuffling was inaudible over the young man's singing before now they were quite loud. The dog now aware it was being watched stopped its snack and turned on the man. Growling and snarling at its new found opponent.
The man rolled his eyes, "Seriously!" he sighed. He holstered his gun and bent down and picked up a largish piece of rubble as the dog began to bark. He stared and the dog and considered it for a moment as it snarled away guarding its prized meal.
Bouncing the rock in rock in his hand he took aim and then much like a pitcher and a baseball game cast the rock into the air. It struck the dog straight in the head, without a yelp but a sickening crack sound, dead. The dog slumped to the floor blood oozing out of its crushed head.
The man seemed surprised at his own throw and smiled in victory. "Win some you, you lose some." He mused and walked over to the corpse and took off his satchel and cloak laying them near the armoured man's feet. He looked at the power armour and the insignia at the collar. A white lion with a crown on it, stood out on the red power armour.
"Royal Guards? What were you doing around here?" He looked at the armour for a while longer then reached up and took the helmet off to revealing the dead man's face. He hadn't decomposed much so could only be a week dead and most.
He juggled the helmet a while then spoke again to the corpse, "Well I know a man who'll pay handsomely for this,(holding up the helmet) and" he reached up and yanked the holotag from the corpse's neck "Mr...Smith guess your comrades at the palace will want to know you're no longer with us." He placed the tag in one of his pouches and placed the helmet down next to his own belongings.
He moved the corpse forward, a little hard due to rigour mortis, and the heavy armour. He cut the dead man's backpack off of him with a knife he grabbed from his own satchel.
He then sifted through the contents and pulled out a few cartridges for a shotgun and then smiled as he pulled some .303 cartridges from there as well, just the right ones for his rifle.
He continued and found a few personal but useless mementos. Then his hand clunked into a cold hard object. He pulled it out and smiled and the Nuka-Cola bottle.
"Thank you Mr. Smith" he said patting the corpse's leg, "Some ammo, breakfast" he indicated the dog, "and something cold to wash it down with"
He then began to make a small fire out of some of the dead man's bag and lit it with an old lighter from a pouch. He cut some meat of the dog and skinned it. He pulled out a small square pan out of his own bag and began to fry to meat on the fire and sipped at the Nuka-Cola.
He leant against the wall opposite the body and raised his open bottle to the corpse.
"Cheers" .