Chapter 2: Red Cloud

After about two weeks on the road, Shade came across a small town in what used to be Nebraska, the sign said in faded letters, some repainted, on an old and rusted sign, Red Cloud. The town was burned to the ground and littered with bodies; the road was covered in debris, only a small path, barely the size of the car. Deciding that it'll be better to scout ahead on foot, he stepped out of the car and silently moved forward. Smoke and ash hung in the air like a thick fog, it was getting dark, and the flames provided the only light, creating an eerie reddish-orange ambient light. The blackened frames of the houses created a skeletal look in the smoke, giving Shade a sense of dread and slight fear. He un-slung his custom R91 assault rifle, flicked off the safety, and raised it to his shoulder, walking slowly; he headed into the ruined settlement.

"Hello? Anyone there?" Shade shouted.

No one answered, he continued forward. As Shade continued he noticed the bodies changing from unarmed wastelanders to a scrappy police force, than the corpses changed to what looked like raiders wearing combat armor, black with a white eagle claw on the front. About ten minutes later he came across a few men carrying hunting rifles and a machete on their hips. They were wearing the black armor and rank patches, a private, a 1st sergeant, and a 2nd sergeant. They were standing around a fire, passing a bottle around and laughing.

"Hello? Who are…" Shade started to say but couldn't finish.

They turned around quickly, swinging their rifles up and level with the intruder, the men began firing as fast as their bolt-actions would allow. Shade jumped into cover behind a half standing wall, landing roughly in the ashen dirt.

"We'll find you! Than blow your ugly face clear off!" the private shouted savagely while firing, but with a slurred voice.

Hmm… they're drunk, slowed, inaccurate, and not thinking well. That'll help, A lot.

Shade thought to himself as he quickly jumped up and fired six rounds at the 1st sergeant, three narrowly missed and created a small cloud of plastic and wooden splinters sprinkling harmlessly onto his shoulders, the others found their mark, one in the man's gut, hitting the man's kidney, causing an immense amount of pain. The other hit his right lung, collapsing it. The last round hit the man's neck, killing him instantly, staining the white talon a dark blood red.

"What… YOU BASTARD!" the private screamed at Shade, spit flying out of his mouth. He emptied his rifle; it made a few dry clicks, indicating that he ran out of ammo. The man began reloading the magazine as fast as possible but his current state caused him to drop his rifle, as bent down to pick it up, the R91 squeezed out two rounds, one hit the man's shoulder, fracturing it and sending bone shards into his arm. The second round hit his skull, but grazing it, causing the 7.62mm round to tumble, tearing through flesh or bone just the same, leaving a gaping hole in his left shoulder, nearly knocking off the man's arm. He went flying backwards and landing in the fire, causing a large cloud of embers to come off into the night sky.

The last man realizing that he was next, ran toward another wall nearby, stumbled and fell, scrambling to hide from the incoming rounds. The sergeant threw a grenade over the wall, the grey and yellow, baseball sized item flew the 20 feet and landed next to Shade's foot, He quickly kicked the grenade to the left about 7 feet, he than dove to the right a few feet, just out of the range of the grenade as it goes off, creating a large cloud of smoke, ash, and dirt, large chunks of shrapnel flew almost everywhere, one whizzed past Shade's ear, singeing a few hairs off. The 2nd Sergeant, feeling confident that the intruder was dead, went over to check on his dead mates, the sergeant could handle slaughter, but not the death of a friend. He then began puking near his dead comrade, Shade put a round through the man's head, blowing the top half off, and the man fell on the other corpse, adding blood to the already expanding pool.

After the battle, Shade checked the bodies for anything useful, he found a few .308 rounds, some caps, half a bottle of vodka, and a damaged 10mm sidearm, the firing pin was bent and the tension spring was shot, useless without a replacement, but he kept it on him, never knew when he'll need it. After about a half hour of going down roads and turning around, he found a way out. As he just reached the end of town he found a sad sight, a young man, perhaps around 17-18, hard to tell with shotgun blast mutilating your features. He had a dog curled up next to him, the dog was still alive, and as Shade approached the canine lifted its head and made a sort of quizzical sound at his approach. The dog had tags made from old military tags with new writing imprinted on, it read Dogmeat.

"C'mon boy, let's go" he said to the dog as he bent down to pet it, it slowly got up. While walking away it looked back at the boy, with what seemed like immense sadness.