Chapter 2: Elk
It was cold, dark, damp and miserable. The path was muddy and... not really a path come to think of.
"Mr. Young" I said stumbling over a log before finishing with "where are we going?"
"There's a facility this way, used to be a park rangers cabin. It-" He responded
"You think there's going be an expensive piece of Vault Tec air purification technology in a park rangers outpost on-" I paused checking my Pip-boy, "on Squak Mountain!"
"No, but it'll probably have supplies of some sort, so shut it" he responded. I kept my mouth closed for the rest of the trip which took about ten minutes. We hid behind a low fence that snaked it's way along a path up to the outpost. The outpost was two stories, though the second story was much more just a raised are for the ranger to look over the forest. Two irradiated elk stood in front of the doorway to the first floor, where any supplies would be.
"Harold go up there and scare those elk off" Young said.
"Right sir" the young sounding man apparently named Harold said. He walked up to them shouting abuse at them, but for whatever reason they just glared him down as he walked up. One of the elf lowered it's antlers at it. He then walked up to it and placed his hands on it's antlers to try to push it out of the way. The moment his hands touched it's antlers the elk head butted him to the floor where it promptly brought it's large hooves down on his ribs with a sickening crack. He screamed like all hell. The elk were apparently startled because they scampered, just in time to, because from the opposite side of us several pairs of feet could be heard.
"Who's there!" a taunting voice said. "Did someone have a run in with the kanken? Oo you must be in SO much pain!" It continued.
They entered from the woods. There were five of them. They wore torn wind breakers except for one who wore dirt stained khaki's that had been cut off at the knees along with an unzipped leather jacket. He held two knives made from lawn mower blades. He'd painted a majority of his body with mud. He walked over to the dying security officer, and cut his throat. I winced and looked away. The painted man looked around as though he'd heard something. At this point the security team and I had made our way silently into a small ditch just below the fence.
The man painted with mud nodded to the corpse and one of the other raiders went to search it. The man painted with mud walked slowly over to the small fence pushing it over with one of his knives. Officer Young tensed up. The man came closer and closer until he was right on the edge of the ditch we were in. Officer young grabbed his right leg and pulled it out from under him then proceeding to shoot him five times in the groin. The man let out a loud scream, officer Young told his officers to open fire.
The battle didn't last long. After a minute it became clear that we couldn't win. Two of ours were dead, one wounded and captured. Aside from the one we'd already killed we'd taken out two. We'd ran a short distance the other way our retreat helped by a kanken as they were apparently called.
We sat down to make camp a fair ways off the road. On what appeared to be a scenic overlook. It was only Young and I. We sat there for sometime. We couldn't sleep not that we weren't tired. According to young we had to stay the first night up until day, that way our eyes would adjust to the light more better.
We'd managed to find a backpack left by a hiker who'd slipped and broken his neck before the war probably when a nearby radio reported that the world would be scorched. The pack contained a pack of cigarettes, some pork and beans and a pocket knife, along with a note. The note was something about a homeless influx into the woods.
It was a long time until it was deemed light enough for one of us to sleep. Young logically took first watch. When I woke up he'd fallen asleep, irresponsible probably, but I couldn't blame him. He'd been through a lot. I quickly looked through our stuff to be sure nothing had been taken. I was parched so I took a swig from my canteen. It was empty, a bullet had torn through it, apparently as we ran.
"I hate this place" I said throwing the canteen down the side of the scenic overlook. It made enough noise as to wake Officer Young. We sat there for sometime eating pork n' beans. It wasn't that it was bad, just slightly irradiated. I took a swig from a canteen which hadn't been shot. It was then shot out of my hands.
"Shit" I said stumbling to my feet and taking out my pocket knife. Officer Young drew his pistol.
"Do you think they followed us?" I asked.
"No" he replied. With that two people wearing rain ponchos walked out one holding a pistol, the other holding a rifle.
"You raiders?" One asked.
"No!" I yelled, "Do we look like raiders?"
"Well no, but-" He just sort of trailed off of that sentence.
"Just follow us." The other said.
We followed them around for another hour. This continued until we reached a small clearing with mobile homes around the edges of it. There tires appeared to have been well kept. There was a truck that had about twelve extra tires. I took several steps when I saw what pulled these trucks, it was two sets of two headed cows. I tried to occupy my mind by thinking about the biology of it, how two heads could cooperate. Or were there heads controlled by the same brain. That seemed more likely.
"Your friend seems distracted by the brahmin," one of the men said jokingly to Officer Young. We didn't walk much further. There was one quite long mobile home with two guards at the entrance, and one standing on top of it.
"Get in there" said one of the men. We walked up the steps to the mobile home.