And now ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you my second ever fan fiction story. This will be a little side project from my main story: "The Girl with the Blood Red Hair", and will be a horror story set in Point Lookout, because I haven't seen any horror storys set in Point Lookout yet. Then again I haven't looked that hard. All characters are OC by the way.
It Begins
Point Lookout is a horrific place, of this there is no doubt. Scavengers travel there in droves with intent to search the ruins of the mostly intact town and the enigmatic swamp beyond, and hopefully to find something of value. The foul swamp holds more darkness and more evil than anywhere else in the world however, even the Capital Wasteland. "The Capital Wasteland has super mutants! And deathclaws!" Some might say. This is true, but the Capital Wasteland also has civilisation, it has survivors, and it has people who work to make it a better place. Point Lookout has none.
The Capital Wasteland has nothing that resembles evil. It has psychopaths true, but nothing that can be called true evil. Point Lookout has this in droves. In its dark history, many unspeakable acts have been committed in and around Point Lookout. It is a place of unbridled malevolence, and intent dark enough to shame even the devil himself.
Few know this, none of them the scavengers who come to pillage this forsaken land. If they knew the true nature of Point Lookout, they would swim back to the Capital Wasteland, screaming in horror as they did so. The place attracts decadence, pain and suffering, and few scavengers have ever visited it and made it out alive. Those who had, were never the same afterwards.
This tale focuses on a particular group of scavengers, and their encounter with the true darkness that lies within Point Lookout, and the swamps that hide that darkness from the world. We go now to our heroes. Pray for them, because they will face evil and horrors beyond imagination.
*Our heroes*
Archer looked up into the sky as he and his crew trudged through the swamp, watching the sun as it began to descend. It was going dark, and in the short time he and his team had been there, Archer had learnt that you didn't want to be out at dark in Point Lookout. The first night they'd stayed here, a member of the team named Danny had decided to journey on ahead. Morning came, and he still had not returned. They found him a few miles away, all the skin ripped off his face, and the exposed muscles and brain dripping blood to the ground. It had been a lesson well learned.
Archer was of average height, but he was quite muscular and an experienced wastelander. He'd been adventuring and scavenging for 25 years, and there were few back in the Capital Wasteland that could honestly say they were more skilled than him. Archer was now reaching his 40s, but his skills and his reflexes hadn't diminished in the slightest. He wore a large black vest with a red long sleeved undershirt and black trousers, a common merc adventurer outfit. His outfit was battered from how many battles it had been in so far, but it still served Archer well. He also wore thick black combat boots that were good for kicking an enemy's face in. Despite his age, there wasn't a single wrinkle on Archer's face. He had short, silver hair and piercing blue eyes. A scoped magnum sat in a holster on his belt, a veteran of several battles with Archer. A hunting rifle, a more recent addition to his arsenal, was holstered on his back.
Archer had spent most of his life journeying and scavenging the Capital Wasteland. It wasn't easy work, but it was exciting enough for his tastes, and he couldn't imagine himself doing anything else. About 5 years ago, he'd been surprised by a Yao Guai. The beast had damn near sliced his arm off, but he was saved by a woman named Christa. She walked just behind him now, and she'd been the first to join his crew.
Christa was in her early 30s, meaning she was a fair bit younger than Archer and had been when they'd met. This hadn't stopped them dating however, and they'd been a couple for about a year. Christa had ended the relationship since said relationship mostly involved sex (Not that the sex had been bad), Archer was incredibly overprotective of her, and she thought they'd function better as friends. Archer hadn't been pleased, but he'd agreed, and now 4 years later they were still friends.
Christa was a bit shorter than Archer and not as muscular, but she knew a few martial arts, and threw a lethal roundhouse kick. She wore a white vest, dark green cargo pants and had a small bag on her belt. The attire was known as a wasteland surgeon outfit, which was fitting because Christa was the team medic. She learnt everything she knew about medicine (Which was a lot), from Doc Church back in Megaton where she'd spent most of her early years after her parents had been killed by raiders. She didn't talk about it much, and punched anyone who asked, so no-one did.
Her vest was stained red with blood, and was more often than not covered with the stuff. It wasn't her blood though. Usually it was the blood of a creature she'd headshotted with her dual 10mm SMGs, or the blood of someone she'd treated. Christa had shoulder length dark brown hair, which had been dyed a burgundy colour at the tips. Her eyes were large and brown, and she had a light brown tan. Her dual SMGS hung from her belt, in easy reach.
"It'll be dark soon." Archer said needlessly as he, Christa and the rest of the group stopped for a second to decide their next course of action.
"We'll have to find somewhere to camp soon, or we'll end up like Danny." Christa added.
"Why couldn't you save him doc? You're supposed to be the best!" A thuggish looking brute in a merc cruiser outfit (White t shirt, torn black vest and brown cargo trousers) said. His name was Todd, and Danny had been his brother. Todd and Danny were the two most recent members of the team, having been members less than a year. Todd was the team's 'tank' and melee combat expert. That was a nice way of saying he was a brute of limited intelligence, who liked getting doped up on Buffout and smashing the crap out of an unlucky beast with his trusty sledgehammer, which he kept holstered on his back. Todd was bald, had small, grey eyes, lots of stubble, and was pretty much a solid wall of muscle. He was also around 6 foot 5, making him tower above every other member of the group. To make matters worse, he had a short temper, and had been incredibly devastated by Danny's death. More so, he had been pissed off, and immediately blamed Christa for being unable to resurrect his savagely mauled brother.
"I'm a doctor you idiot. I can't bring people back from the dead." Christa leant against a dying tree, glaring at Todd with a look in her eyes that said she thought he was an imbecile. The look wasn't far from the truth.
"He wasn't dead!" Todd roared in response, fists clenching angrily as he did so.
"I nearly slipped on the man's brains my friend. Most live people don't have their brains lying on the floor." A suave looking Hispanic man had spoken. He sat on a small rock nearby, and was currently putting a cigarette to his lips.
"Shut your mouth Enrique, before I shut it for you!" Todd yelled at Enrique. The Spaniard didn't bat an eyelid. He whipped out a lighter, engraved with numerous symbols and made out of a blackish metal. He then used the engraved lighter to light his cigarette, before taking a big puff of smoke.
"How would you shut my mouth my primitive friend, when you have trouble shutting your own?" Christa put her hands to her mouth, barely managing to avoid bursting into laughter. Archer eyed her curiously. She'd always found Enrique's insults hilarious. Archer himself was much more partial to Enrique's persuasion techniques. His uncanny ability to mediate had got them out of several bad situations in the past. Of course, Enrique also had a large sniper rifle holstered on his back which was in good condition, just in case he failed to talk his way out of a problem. He would then run away and snipe the enemy from a large distance.
Enrique wasn't particularly strong or muscular, but having a silver tongue, he didn't really need to be. Like Christa, he had a brown tan, but his was much darker. He had short, pitch black hair, with a fringe that occasionally dropped over his face from beneath the pre war hat he wore. In addition to the hat, he also wore a merc charmer outfit, which only added to his suave appearance. He wore a silver chain around his neck from which a silver medallion hung. He claimed he had found it in an abandoned mansion before meeting Archer, but had never revealed where the mansion was.
He and Archer had met shortly after Archer began dating Christa, and they'd become fast friends. After a drunken night in Moriarty's saloon, they'd both woken up naked in the Republic of Dave, with no idea how they'd got there. That had been the most interesting night of Archer's life, and surprisingly the most fun too.
Todd took a full five seconds to realize that Enrique was insulting him then stomped towards the Spaniard, obviously intending to break his nose, and probably his neck. Before he closed the distance between them by even half however, a bullet whizzed over his head. The shooter was a serious looking man with a black moustache, who wore leather armour and was currently leaning against a tree next to Enrique.
"If you two want to flirt, do it when I don't have a hole in my leg." The man said in an annoyed tone. The gun he had fired was a Shanxi Type 17 Chinese pistol. Usually considered absolutely useless as a firearm, the man had customized his extensively. Now it packed as much a punch as a typical magnum, if not more of a punch.
"Sorry Logan, but your B.O was getting on my nerves so I thought I'd just leave you next to that tree." Enrique quipped, as he had been supporting Logan as they'd limped through the swamp until only a moment ago.
"Enrique, Xianghua here is the only thing keeping Todd from beating you to within an inch of your life, so I could do without the sarcasm." Xianghua was the name of Logan's Chinese pistol, named after an old girlfriend. This was mostly because, as Logan put it: "The girl was the same nationality as the gun, looked just as pretty as it, and packed more of a punch'.
"Oh it wasn't sarcasm Logan, believe me. The smell of your sweat could drop a deathclaw." Logan didn't look amused, but that was normal. He was a very serious man, and the team's lone wolf. He was also a covert ops expert, which basically meant he liked sneaking up on enemies and stabbing them with the combat knife he kept tied to his belt. He was also a rebel, and clashed frequently with Archer. The fact that he was actually older than Archer however, and the fact that he had almost as much combat experience and skill as him, made Archer keep him around. There was also the fact that Logan was skilled at hacking terminals and demolitions in addition to his stealth skills. Logan had long, black hair that almost ran down to his shoulders. This had earned him some insults from Enrique, but a quick kick to the balls had shut Enrique up and put a permanent end to the insults.
Logan currently had a hole through his leg. This wasn't a fashion accessory, but a wound he had sustained during a battle earlier that day. While searching an abandoned farm in the middle of the swamp (Why there was a farm in the middle of the swamp, nobody knew), they had run across another group of scavengers. These scavengers hadn't been friendly, and had immediately opened fire. Archer's crew killed them, but Logan took a bullet through the leg during the battle. He was not pleased about it.
"Enough." Archer spoke up, putting an end to the argument. He had a sense of power about him that made it impossible not to obey. That was probably one of the reasons why he was such a good leader. "We need to keep moving. We have to find somewhere to make camp before nightfall, somewhere safe and secure where we can rest, and where we can treat Logan's leg."
"How about there?" Enrique asked casually, pointing at a large building in the distance as he did so. They were on a fairly high hill, which meant they could see most of the swamp, and they all saw the structure that Enrique was pointing at. The building itself wasn't that large, but it wasn't alone either. It stood in a large camp of several buildings. The camp was surrounded by a towering fence, and had a watchtower at each corner.
"Looks secure to me." Christa said, already standing up as she did so.
"And it's not too far away." Archer added, looking at Logan's blood soaked leg as he did so. "Alright, let's move."
*Later*
"Turtledove Detention Camp." Christa read off a sign as they arrived at the camp.
"A prison?" Todd asked, showing his embarrassingly low IQ by stating the obvious.
"Looks like a nice place." Enrique said sarcastically as he looked over the prison. The darkness gave the camp an uninviting appearance, and a sense of dread seemed to loom over the place. Several skeletal corpses littered the grounds surrounding the numerous prison buildings, and the whole place smelled like death.
"It's not pleasant but it's safe. It'll do for tonight." Archer said as they walked through the camp's front gate, which currently hung ajar. He immediately took charge. "Christa, you see if you can find any medical facilities around the camp that you can use. Take Logan with you. Enrique, get up on one of those watch towers and take first watch with your sniper rifle. Todd, you search the west side of the camp for any supplies. I'll search the east side." Nobody questioned their duties, and the team immediately split up.
*Christa*
Christa took over Enrique's duty of supporting Logan, and took him on a search for any medical facilities they could use. The search proved unpleasant, as Logan's limping made it slow going and Logan didn't like her very much, so limped as slowly as was humanly possible.
By now it had gone dark, and the moon was the only light as they searched the prison. In the short time they'd spent here, Christa had always found Point Lookout extremely creepy at nighttime. The swamp seemed much more malevolent and threatening once the sun fell, and there was of course Danny's fate. Whatever creatures roamed Point Lookout at night, they were more dangerous than what roamed during the day.
"Hey, careful!" Logan snapped as Christa accidently loosened her grip on him, and he almost tripped over a rock. She had been so caught up in her thoughts that she'd forgotten all about him. "Snap out of your fucking day dreams would you? I'd prefer not to bleed out because of your stupidity!"
"At the moment, I'm the only thing keeping you standing Logan. I could leave you here and just walk away." Christa replied irritably.
"What, and leave a patient in peril? Don't you doctor types make an oath to always help those in need?"
"I didn't, but if I did, I don't think the oath would apply to needlessly confrontational jackasses like you. Now shut the hell up for five minutes so I can focus on finding somewhere to treat you." Logan looked like he was about to reply, probably with an offensive phrase of some kind, but stopped himself before any word left his mouth. He didn't speak again as they continued to search, and before long they came across an abandoned medical tent. The tent was empty, apart from a single skeletal corpse that lay on a table in the middle of the tent. Christa pushed the pile of bones off the table, and helped Logan climb onto it. As Logan lay back on the table, Christa put down her medical bag on a nearby bed, and took out some white rubber gloves, which she quickly put on.
"Alright, let's get to work." She said pleasantly, but with a sadistic look on her face.
"You won't make this hurt will you?" Logan asked, a look of worry appearing on his face for the first time.
"Well Logan, I always try to make my treatments hurt as little as possible. For you however, I think I'll make an exception."
*Enrique"
Enrique would never admit this to anyone, lest his cocky facade be destroyed, but he was scared. Point Lookout, it chilled him to his very bone. It may have been the dark, imposing nature of the swamp, with its trees that always seemed to be leaning towards you, as though the whole swamp was a giant hand and the trees were fingers that were trying to grab you. Maybe it was the freakish dolls they kept finding everywhere, hanging on poles in clearings or surrounding rotting corpses. The dolls conveyed an aura of dread, and the hairs on the back of the Spaniard's neck stood on end whenever the group came across any. Whatever the cause was, Point Lookout was affecting him, more than any place they had been to before this had ever affected him.
He'd seen people be torn apart by ravenous deathclaws, or be raped then mutilated by psychopathic raiders, yet this place unnerved him more than anything he had ever seen or experienced in his entire life. It was as if a dark presence was bearing over him, watching his every move.
Bullshit. Enrique thought to himself as he sat on a chair in the south west guard tower, smoking another cigarette. There was a table in the watchtower, and Enrique was currently leaning on it, taking a long drag from his cigarette at the same time. He felt the sweet nicotine fill his lungs, but the usual calmness that a smoke brought didn't appear.
Enrique picked up his sniper rifle from the table where it lay, then sat up and walked to the edge of the watchtower. He pointed the rifle over the tower's sandbags and at the swamp around the camp, looking through the scope to spy for any threats as he did so. There were none, so he sat back down, depositing his rifle back on the table as he did so. He put his legs up on the table as he sat, and continued to enjoy his cigarette. He couldn't relax however, and had a sickening feeling that he was being watched, by some inhuman thing that hid in the swamps, using the darkness and the trees as cover.
You really are getting paranoid. Conveniently there was an ashtray on the table, so he finished his cigarette and deposited it in the tray, before reaching for another one in his pocket. As he searched for his cancer stick, Enrique didn't see a dark shape climb over the fence, and sneak into the camp.
*Archer*
Archer sat in what used to be the prison warden's office, drinking a bottle of vodka as he did so. The only thing the Russians got right. He thought randomly. Archer's mother had once said he had a drinking problem. He had politely and respectfully disagreed, then told her to go to hell. He'd been drunk at the time, which added some validity to his mother's statement. He'd cut down on his drinking since then, but still loved nothing more than a bottle of vodka at the end of the day.
He'd been searching the prison for a short while now, and found nothing of use. No sterile medical supplies, no guns that were in working order, and no food that wasn't older than him. He had however found some barracks, providing somewhere for the group to sleep for the night. There was also a luxurious double bed (Well, luxurious compared to the filthy bedroll he'd been sleeping on recently), in the warden's office, which is where Archer would be spending his night.
This trip hasn't exactly paid off, truth be told. He thought as he leaned back in the warden's chair, drinking deep from his bottle of vodka as he did so. We haven't found much, and the stuff that we have found isn't nearly valuable enough to justify coming here. He looked over at the bag that they carried their scavenged goods in as he thought this. He carried two bags, the bag containing his belongings, and the bag containing the scavenged stuff that they intended to sell. The bag of scavenged stuff wasn't even half full, and the stuff that was in there wasn't worth much. He wouldn't make more than 50 caps if he sold everything in that bag back in the Capital Wasteland.
Plus they'd lost Danny the first night they stayed in Point Lookout, and Logan was wounded. This trip has been ill fated from the start. He mused, as he reached the bottom of the vodka bottle. Godammit, it's my fault Danny's dead. If I'd told the idiot not to venture out alone when it went dark, he wouldn't have been slaughtered by...whatever it was that slaughtered him. Fuck...what a mess. As Archer tried to drink away his woes (A futile endeavor...ask anyone), he didn't bother to look out of the window behind him. The window offered a view of the whole camp, and if he'd looked then Archer would've seen a dark shape run fast, heading towards an abandoned medical tent.
*Logan*
"SON OF A BITCH!" He screamed as Christa started to sow up the hole in his leg. The pain was unreal, and he was certain that the bitch was being as rough as possible.
"Quit whining." She said unsympathetically as she began to thread a needle along the path of the wound. "I thought you were supposed to be the tough guy?"
"You're making it painful on purpose!"
"Yep." She smiled sweetly, before continuing her work. "Remember when you said you'd seen bigger tits than mine on a Super Mutant?"
"That was months ago!"
"I've been known to hold grudges for a long time Logan."
"I was drunk!"
"Inebriation is no excuse." Another expletive left Logan's mouth as Christa continued to thread the wound.
"Aren't you supposed to knock me out or some shit?" Logan asked pleadingly.
"With what Logan? Should I punch you in the face until you fall asleep?"
"I..."
"Actually, that's not a bad idea." Before Christa could carry out her threat, Logan saw a dark form enter the tent behind her. She felt its presence, but didn't turn around, thinking it was a member of the team.
"Behind you!" Logan exclaimed, reaching for Xianghua on his belt as he did so. Christa would've ignored him, thinking he was trying to trick her. She then realized that the form behind her probably wasn't friendly, and turned around.
A horrific form stood before her. It was at least 7 feet tall, and was roughly humanoid in shape. It wore a green jacket with black trousers and muddy black boots. Christa didn't care in the slightest about its clothes however. It was the thing's physical appearance that made her blood run cold. Specifically, it was the thing's horrific deformities. The thing's left arm was horribly swollen, and was probably twice as thick or as long as a human arm. The left arm's hand was the size of a super mutant's, and its fingers looked like they would completely wrap around her head if it grabbed her face. The thing's left arm was stunted, and half as long as a normal arm. The arm itself was swollen, though not as much as the other arm, but the hand was human sized. The most disturbing thing about the thing however was its face. Or rather, what it wore on its face. The thing had ripped some poor scavenger's face off, and wore it as a mask. The face had small holes cut into the forehead, which string ran through that allowed the thing to wear the face as a mask. The face was familiar however. It was Danny's face, and the expression was set in a look of pure horror. It was also stained with blood around the empty eye sockets, from where Danny's eyes had been ripped out. The thing was also holding a severed arm in its small right hand.
The thing with Danny's face stomped towards Christa, roaring some kind of inhuman battle cry as it did so. Christa reached for her SMGs, but the thing batted her aside with the severed arm, using the limb as some kind of grotesque club. Christa was knocked flying into the wall of the tent, and landed painfully on the tent's floor.
Logan drew Xianghua from his belt, and managed to sit up, albeit painfully. He fired two shots at the things chest, causing it to stumble backwards. Blood spurted from the wounds in its chest, but the thing didn't show any sign of pain. It roared another battle cry, before rushing towards Logan.
"Shit." Was all he had time to say before the thing struck him with the arm. It hit him in the face with the severed limb, knocking him off the bed and causing him to land on his back on the floor of the tent. He dropped Xianghua as he landed, causing it to land a few feet away from him. A sharp dagger of pain shot up his leg as it hit the floor, and he swore under his breath. Logan's vision began to blur as the thing with Danny's face stood over him, severed arm raised over its head as it prepared to strike the killing blow. Suddenly Logan began to feel a great sense of dread. What if that thing takes my face? He thought hysterically. What if I'm still alive when he does it?
Logan felt his head swim, and his blurred vision began to darken. And now I'm going to faint. Well, at least I won't be conscious when this thing takes my face. The last thing Logan saw as he lost consciousness was the thing about to strike him, and the last thing he heard was Christa screaming for help.
Cliffhanger! If you're pissed off about that, then sue me. The darkness continues in the next chapter. Note that this will be less then 10 chapters in total, seeing as it's just a side project.
Oh and feel free to review.
