Part III: The Great Sandbox

Chapter 1: Departure

Chloe woke up while it was still dark. She wandered into a stairwell and watched the sunrise poke out over TenPenny's defensive wall from a third story window. She thought about her mother as a young woman. Amanda McGinty. The stories that travelers and caravaners would tell her about her, and the adventures they had out in the desert. Ghouls and marauders, strange mutated monsters, kindhearted knights. Her mother had apparently been quite an adventurer, good with a rifle, and always ready for a fight. Chloe didn't feel like she had taken after her at all.

Those stories always had a dull, numbed, anesthetic feeling to them. They played through Chloe's mind in a melodramatic sepia. Now that she was in her own story, Chloe was shocked by the unnerving uncomfortably and the burn of high adventure.

(********************************************************************)

"Get up," Chloe kicked Dameon in the shin, "Dameon wake up."

Dameon opened his eyes. His face was shielded from Chloe's view by the visor of his black baseball cap. He lifted the brim, "huh?"

"It's time to go," she repeated, "it's morning."

Dameon stood up and took in the Federalist Lounge. The bar was empty save for himself, Chloe, and the robot who was mechanically scrubbing a chair.

"Yeah," Dameon retrieved his things and walked over to the register. He put down a few cigarettes on the bar, "thanks Shakes."

"Thank you," hummed the robot.

Dameon and Chloe walked out into the lobby. Chloe pushed open the door to bright daylight and squinted at the sun.

"You!" Randy called out from afar.

Dameon walked forward, towards the heavy front gate.

"TenPenny said to bust you in da mouth if you try and bring another visitor in here for free," Randy boomed.

"TenPenny said that? He said 'bust me in da the mouth'" Dameon wiped his chin.

"Fuck you, smart ass."

Dameon went to circle Randy. He stopped short, made a pistol with his hand and smiled. Randy watched, bemused. Dameon then waived for Chloe to follow him outside.

They began to walk west from the tower, parallel to the great sandbox.

"Gonna be rough out here," Dameon looked back to Chloe. She was still wearing her tattered jeans and a white undershirt. Her face had healed from the Rad-X.

"You look much prettier when your face isn't bright red," Dameon smiled.

Chloe was uncomfortable in the morning heat, "Is this the way to MegaTon?"

"Yeah. Would be shorter to just head back through Fairfax but they may have sent people back there to see what the hell happened. Safer to curve around north a bit."

Chloe nodded.

"I mean, that's what 'Daring Dashwood' would do," Dameon sniggered.

"You're the only one who gets to have a fake middle name?" Chloe shot back.

The pair continued out into the desert. Chloe coughed into her hand. She was feeling much better than the day before. Even the landscape was less bleak. It had turned from bare scorched earth to a kind of rocky scrub with hardy weeds and gently rolling hills.

Dameon looked back to Chloe and just stared for a moment. "I don't see how you were so sheltered, living with a trader you must have met a lot of people during childhood. Wandered the desert," Dameon walked down a rock pile into the blinding sun.

"What do you mean?" Chloe sounded offended.

Dameon motioned for her to stop. He knelt down and pulled out a pair of binoculars to scan the area.

"I mean," he whispered, "You don't know what a ghoul is? You don't know what cargo is valuable? You were sleeping, unarmed, on a pile of caps in the middle of a lawless desert. Just sounds naive to me."

Chloe blushed, "I've heard of Ghouls. I knew who Argyle was. I just . . .I never saw one. They didn't seem real to me. Like a ghost or an alien."

"Those are real too." Dameon smiled.

"We weren't unguarded. Our mercenaries just disappeared the day before. I'm not a child or an idiot. We talked to the trade caravans all of the time. I'm just. . ." Chloe closed her eyes.

Although physically better, Chloe was mentally exhausted. She picked a small towel out of Dameon's bag and draped it over her shoulders to shield herself from the blistering sun.

"Mercs left huh? Convenient," Dameon looked at something off in the distance through his binoculars.

A few giant rats. He'd avoid them

"Or. . . well not convenient for you, I guess," he continued.

Chloe tried to look off into the distance but the dust had picked up with the wind, obscuring everything to the west.

Dameon brooded on his last words. He ran up a rock pile and looked around. They had only gone maybe six miles from TenPenny. He could see the tower off in the distance.

Mabye Alistair is staring down at me now, giving me the finger. . .

They continued walking.

Chapter 2: Tall Tales

It was another few hours of walking in fits and starts, waiting for Dameon to scope out any danger, before the two stopped to rest alongside a desiccated tree. It branches were bone dry and cracking.

Chloe looked up at the white branches. Dameon went about cleaning his rifle. Chloe sat in silence for a few minutes, but the empty howl of the wind irked her.

"You're not much of a talker," Chloe mused.

"Me?" Dameon wasn't paying much attention, "Guess not. Alone too often. Don't know how to begin a good conversation."

"Well," Chloe began, "you could start with your name next time. Or maybe where you're from."

Dameon looked up in thought for a second, "Nowhere. . .and everywhere. I never had a fixed home or family or anything like that."

Chloe stared at Dameon. He was silent for a moment.

"I never even knew my mother. Too young, I think she died in childbirth, or maybe a little after. Don't really know."

"You were raised by your father?"

"Yeah, well I guess he was my father. . .no way of knowing for sure. His name was Gavin Rayes. He was, well not a trader, a uh. . .survivalist sort of. We lived as nomads. Set up camp, hunted, scavenged, moved on. Like ancient Indians. He taught me my skill set. Guns, traps, hunting," Dameon laughed to himself, "Guess he didn't know much else. When he died when I was eleven I think we were on the same reading level."

"What happened to him?"

"I. . .I don't know," Dameon looked up to the sky, "When I was eleven, guess I could have been twelve. . .one night we both fell asleep out in the desert. I woke up the next morning and he was gone. I spent the day looking for him and found him dead, maybe half a mile away. Shot. Never found out who did it."

"You raised yourself from eleven?"

Dameon nodded, "Well I had some help. I hung around a caravaner for a while. She taught me how to really read and got me into books. When I was sixteen I took my first trip into the metro area and bumped into a brotherhood patrol. Earned enough of their trust for them to teach me how to hack. The rest was self taught, trial and error. . .learned by observation."

Dameon thought about what he had just said. He then heard a voice being carried over the hills. He froze and motioned for Chloe to get down. She complied and then slowly crawled towards him. Dameon then gestured for her to freeze while he checked it out.

Dameon looked over a nearby rock. He peered through his binoculars. About three hundred yards away he could make out four people. Three men and a woman. They were all similarly dressed in brown overcoats and combat fatigues. Dameon could see that one of the men was pointing a rifle at the others. He couldn't make out what anyone was saying.

"Stay here," he said softly to Chloe. She nodded.

Dameon crawled closer to the man with the gun. He had his back towards Dameon, so Dameon picked up his pace to close the distance. Two hundred yards, then one hundred. The man began to turn his head. Dameon dove behind a small dune. He peered over. The man with the gun hadn't seen him. . .one of the others may have. Hopefully they wouldn't give away his presence. Dameon looked up.

All clear.

Dameon closed the last few yards. While the man's back was still turned, Dameon drew his pistol and fired two shots into the man's back.

"Oh," the man fell down. The other strangers seemed to let down their guard. Dameon ran over to the man he had shot. He pulled a knife from his belt out of instinct to strip the man's gear. The bleeding man tried to stand up. Dameon quickly stabbed him in the neck; blood sprayed onto the dirt.

Chloe turned away, horrified. The other strangers backed away from Dameon in fear.

Dameon stared them down. They had pistols, still holstered. The dead man must have gotten the jump on them. They looked weary, and bit frightened of what Dameon's intentions might be.

Desert wanderers.

Dameon put away his knife.

"I don't know what to say other than thanks," one of the wanderers said to Dameon. He nodded.

Chloe quickened her pace and joined the others.

"He and another one attacked us in the Sand Box, we never saw him coming," the woman wanderer said softly.

"Where's the other one then?" Dameon reached for his rifle.

"We were able to lose him in a storm. We thought we lost both of them but he," one of the men pointed to the dead man, face down in the sand, "he ambushed us out here.'

Dameon nodded. He looked around for any trace of the other, phantom attacker.

"Just thieves. Highwaymen, I guess," one of the wanderers muttered, "wanted our water. We told him, 'we don't have any more water. That's why we had to turn back."

"Fuck are you doing out here anyway?" Dameon pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from his pocket and began to strike the box against his palm.

The wanderers looked at one another in silence for a moment. Then one piped up, "Looking for cargo."

"Looking for cargo?" Dameon peered into his cigarette pack. Half of the cigarettes were prewar, tightly rolled. The others were newly wrapped, rather loosely, in yellow paper that crumbled at the touch, "Awful place for it."

He peered around the vicinity.

"Nothing near here but an old, abandoned church and the Sand Box."

"What's the Sand Box?" Chloe asked.

Dameon turned towards her, "Used to be a huge complex of military bases out here," Dameon pointed west, to a large sand dune "Chinese wiped them out with nukes, reduced everything to glass. . .or sand. Wait. . .I guess they're the same thing. Like thirty miles of nothing but sand and wind now. Hell to travel through the heat, sand, and mutants. Yeah, those mutants love it in there."

"Yeah," the female wanderer nodded.

The strangers fell silent again, for a moment. They looked at one another as if looking for approval.

"Ever heard of RidgeFeild?" one asked.

"RidgeField?" Dameon paused to think, "No."

"They call it minefield too. Minefield. That's actually what it is. Through the Sand Box, west of here next to some hills. It was a secluded town, in the shadow of a ridge, far from where any of the bombs fell; it's still intact even after all these years. And. . .as far as we heard it's still unscavenged."

"How could a town go unscavenged for two hundred years?"

The female wanderer spoke up, "It's not called minefield for nothing. The whole town is a minefield. Must have been put down soon after the war. Still very dangerous."

"Sounds flimsy," Dameon leaned back, "Desert myth."

"No, it's real. I'm telling you. Go north near the top edge of the sand box. There will be large bunker that survived the bombs. That's as far as we got. A traveler told us that past there we'd see a water tower at the crest of a hill. The town would be just down that ridge. Huge haul, tons of cargo."

"Why didn't this traveler scavenge the place himself?"

"Said he was afraid to tamper with the land mines," the woman said.

Dameon studied the woman's face.

Seemed sincere.

He looked at the others.

"Say. . .give us thirty caps to split and we'll let you in on a big secret about the town," one of the men said sheepishly.

Dameon raised an eyebrow brow, "what secret?"

"Thirty caps," the man insisted.

Dameon frowned, "how can a pay for what I don't know?"

"It's a good secret," the man protested, "I swear."

Dameon shook his pack of cigarettes at the strangers.

"There's a sniper in the ruins of the RidgeField library. He's got a great vantage point, near the top. Can see the whole town. Heard he was a crack shot, and he'll shoot anyone who approaches. Some kind of nut bag. He's the one who laid all the mines."

Dameon dropped the pack into the man's palm, "I'll be wary."

After a muted goodbye, the wanderers headed off back into the desert. Dameon watched them disappear behind a hill. Chloe was nervous; she could tell Dameon was thinking about what they had said.

"We are still going to MegaTon, right?" she raised her eyebrows.

Dameon turned around, "I'm weighing it. MegaTon is east of here. RidgeFeild would be west, but not too out of the way."

"You said you would take me to MegaTon," Chloe stared at the beginning of the Sand Box. It looked inhospitable.

"I'm still going to MegaTon."

"Well what do I get for walking in there?' Chloe pointed towards the great open desert.

"A guide who will keep you safe and get you to MegaTon without being eaten by a scorpion," Dameon spit into the sand.

Chloe looked away.

"I'll give you some of the cargo we get too, I mean MegaTon will be safe but you'll still need caps for food, water, anything. Nothing's free in this world. . ."

Chloe still looked unimpressed.

Dameon shrugged to himself, "We can split the haul."

She silently nodded.

"Think of it as a side trip," Dameon smiled.

They began to walk into the Great Sand Box.

Chapter 3: The Storm

The storm that Chloe had seen earlier slowly began to swallow them whole. It started like a dull yellow fog. Chloe covered herself in blankets and looked like a wandering alien bundled head to toe, her only sight through a small break in the headpiece around her nose. Dameon was wearing one of the Outcast's gas masks, firmly tucked under his hood. It was hot, stuffy, and generally horrible inside of the mask. Sweat beaded and condensation built up on the eyeholes. He couldn't see well.

Too risky.

He lifted the mask off.

"Do you want this mask?" he asked Chloe.

Chloe looked at his red face, scarred by streaks where the mask had been. She shook her covered head.

"Should be getting close to that bunker, unless they were full of shit. If we find it, let's wait out this storm," Dameon called over the wind.

The wind was now howling loudly, making it difficult for either of them to hear anything else. Although the Sand Box wasn't that wide, the temperature difference the radiation created led to a regular, stiff wind that kicked up the sand and the dust into roaring storms. At the peak of these storms, it was difficult to see, even a few feet in front of you. The irradiated dust would line your lungs, eyes, and ears, causing extreme discomfort and temporary blindness.

The two trudged on through the hellish conditions for several hours. Instead of dying down, the winds became more and more intense. The yellow fog swirled into an almost black darkness, turning the day into a muted dusk. Dameon wondered if he would be able to see the bunker if he walked within a mere foot of it.

Luckily for Dameon and Chloe, they were able to hear the bunker before they ever saw it. The half buried structure gave the wind a high pitched whistle as it rushed through the bunker's small, slit like windows. Dameon followed the sound right up to the bunker door.

There was a large above ground section to the bunker. It was about twenty feet long, and a few feet wide, giving it the appearance of a machine gun pillbox. Sand and wind rushed in through the window slits, but the outside door was shut tight.

Chloe got to the door first and wrenched it open. She peered in, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark interior.

She gasped in horror, standing dumbly in the open doorway.

Dameon casually nudged Chloe aside with his rifle. He then stared down at a bloody corpse of a mutant, which was lying dead on the bunker floor.

Dameon raised his rifle and took a step inside of the bunker.

"It's dead," he said. He walked up to the mutant.

The mutant was huge, maybe seven feet tall. It was humanoid in appearance . . . maybe it once was human. It had two over-muscular arms, and two tree trunk like legs. Its heard was large and ugly, covered in skin abscesses that drooped into its eyes. It was bald except for a wisp of hair on the chin, and had red sunburned skin. It was like an angry, saggy giant on steroids.

Chloe didn't move.

"It's dead," Dameon repeated. He then walked over to the dead body of a normal sized human who lay next to the mutant, by a closed steel door. The human had a knife in his stiff hand.

"The other highwayman those wanderers told us about?" Dameon thought aloud.

"They were right about this bunker," Chloe took a step inside. It felt good to get out of the direct wind. She shut the door. The bunker had an awful, over ripe smell, "what is that thing?"

"A mutant," Dameon reached into the highwayman's pocket. He pulled out a clip of ammo.

"A mutant?" Chloe edged closer to the body, "like a ghoul?"

"Some people say ghouls turn into them. . .but that's bullshit. I mean I think that's bullshit," he stepped back; "I've read on some of the prewar terminals that the old military had been manufacturing bio weapons, viruses, before the war."

"And?"

"Well, sometimes they used viruses for. . .I think they called it 'gene therapy' to introduce new DNA into cells. After the war, some assholes left in the vaults started testing them on people. Trying to make people who could survive out here in the early days. It was worse back then. They wanted people who could leave the shelters, people who could take lots of radiation. . .people who were really strong. . .some kind of social control."

Dameon checked his gear. He shouldn't have traded so much of the Fort Independence/Fairfax haul. He was running low on ammo. He eyed the bunker's internal, basement door.

He walked over to the door and slid it open. Chloe stayed put. Dameon peered through the doorway. He saw a set of stairs leading down into inky darkness. He paused and searched for his flashlight.

"What do you think killed it?" Chloe was still transfixed.

"Huh? I don't know. The highwayman, I guess. I'm going to check it out down there, make sure we are alone," Dameon motioned towards the stairs, "Stay here."

Chloe nodded. There was no way she was going down into the dark basement.

Dameon clicked on his flashlight. He could only see to the bottom of the stairs. Somehow, the sand had gotten down there too. The basement door must have been opened . . .at some time. Dameon walked down to the basement. He could hear the wind howl upstairs. He looked around. The basement was empty. A poster on the wall read, 'where will you be during the Apocalypse?' a Vault-Tech Logo emblazoned on the bottom. There were a few empty soda bottles. . . Something to the left caught Dameon's eye. A large metallic object. Dameon walked closer to it.

A flame thrower?

Dameon smiled and picked up the overly bulky weapon. It would be useless to try and carry something so heavy across the desert. Probably useless in a fight as well.

Ah well. It looks. . .fun.

Chloe peered down the stairwell, searching for Dameon. She couldn't see very much. He was deep inside. Chloe turned and tried to look into the desert. The wind was blowing hard; she could barely see the sun. It was setting over the sand dunes. Hopefully the storm would die out in the cool night.

"Oooow."

Chloe heard a noise in the darkness. Her chest tightened. She listened closely. She heard what she could only describe as a dog's howl being carried softly over the wind. She heard it again.

"Dameon?" she called down the steps, "Dameon?"

"Yeah?"

Chloe saw the light from his flashlight. Dameon began to climb the stairs brining something large along with him.

"Look what I found," Dameon got to the top of the stairs and put down the flame-thrower. He dropped his gun and started fiddling with the bulky weapon, "still has some fuel."

"I think I can hear a dog outside."

"A dog?" Dameon continued to examine the weapon, "that's doubtful. Wouldn't come out here, nothing to eat."

"Maybe it's your dog? He could have followed us?"

"He shouldn't," Dameon looked up, "No, he knows-"

Dameon heard the howl over the wind. He could see Chloe's pupils constrict. It was getting dark out. He heard the howl again.

"Sounds close," Chloe backed up.

"Yeah," Dameon stood up and walked up next to her.

"Should we see what it is?" Chloe whispered.

"Can barely see anything out there anyway. Would be walking blind."

They were both silent for a moment. Then, instead of a murmur, they heard what sounded almost like a voice call out. Dameon walked up to one of the window slits and peered out, into the storm.

"We are really exposed here."

"Then we should leave," Chloe walked over to the bunker's exit door. Dameon nodded and began to lift his bag. Chloe opened the door to the storm and looked outside. She took a step into the darkness.

Dameon began to follow. Chloe walked outside, a few feet away from the bunker. She could see a little better from the outside, but everything was becoming dark. She looked back to the bunker and saw Dameon approaching. He reached for his holster and felt for his pistol. The slide was back. It was empty.

Dameon looked back to the bunker. He had forgotten his rifle.

"Wait here a second," he ordered as he walked back to the bunker. He opened its door; it slammed shut behind him in the wind. Once inside, Dameon walked over to his rifle and picked it up. He pulled back its hammer.

"I'm ready-" he heard a crash from deep within the bunker's basement. Then what sounded like heavy footsteps. Dameon ran over to the basement door and took a quick peek in. He then grabbed some rope from his sac and quickly began to lash the basement door shut.

"Chloe! There's something in here. We have to move! I'll be out in a second," he called out.

Chloe couldn't make out his words from the outside. She walked over to the bunker's window slits.

"What?"

"I said-"

BANG!

The force of the blow nearly knocked Dameon over. Luckily, he had just lashed the door.

BANG!

Something was banging on the basement door. Chloe began to back away from the window slits.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" Dameon screamed.

Chloe ran off, into the storm. She looked back to make sure she didn't lose sight of the bunker.

Dameon was torn between fleeing and securing the basement door. He heard another slam. No human could hit so hard. He quickly grabbed one more piece of rope to finish the job.

Chloe's eyes darted widely all around. She could see the bunker. There was only blackness beyond it. She heard a howl again. Closer now. Too close, she had to get back to Dameon. She turned as she heard a loud crunching noise coming towards her. Less than ten feet away, a seven foot tall, four hundred pound mutant was charging at her from out of the dust.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"GET BACK HERE!" Dameon shouted from the bunker. He had finished lashing the basement door and ran to the one that led outside.

Chloe was running at full speed back to the bunker. The mutant was gaining behind her. It began to close, ten feet, then seven, then six.

Dameon could just see Chloe coming through the storm. He saw the shadow behind her. She was opposite the bunker's entrance.

"The windows! The windows!" Dameon screamed to her.

Chloe was panting. She was too scared to scream. She could hear the mutant's loud breath behind her and thought she felt it reaching for her. She was at the bunker now. She dove into it through one of the window slits and crashed down onto the bunker floor.

"Get down!" Dameon screamed.

He ran up and fired his assault rifle through the narrow window slits, striking the brute but only slowing it down. The banging on the basement door continued. Dameon saw the rope he had tied around it pull taught, and he heard it begin to snap from the tension. He turned back to the window and emptied his rifle into the mutant's skull, bring the hulk down.

"Get in the doorway!" Dameon shouted, pointing to the door to the desert, and the howling wind.

Chloe immediately bolted towards the exit.

"Tell me if you see any more coming!" Dameon threw down his empty assault rifle. He then ran around frantically, unthinking, and then remembered the flame-thrower. He picked it up and waited for the door to the basement to burst. The mutants continued to bang on it, but the ropes were holding.

Dameon ran to the exit, next to Chloe. He stood there for a moment.

"Let's run!" she screamed.

Dameon paused. The banging continued, but the ropes still held.

Can't wait.

Dameon fired the flame-thrower at the basement door, burning the ropes to singes. Two snarling mutants forced the door open and began to charge. Dameon emptied the flame-thrower on the doorway, cascading burning gasoline onto the two brutes. The fierce wind from the outside rushed in, in a torrent, turning the whole bunker alight with flames, and making a firestorm.

Chloe had to pull Dameon out of the inferno by his coat; his hand was stuck on flamethrower's trigger from adrenaline.

It took hours before he realized how badly he'd been burned.

(********************************************************************)

Chloe winced at the sight of the burn marks. Dameon just stared down in silence as they sat in the smoking bunker. His left calf has been singed badly, black in some places. It smelled god-awful. He had taken injections and gelled it but it felt weak and flabby. He looked at the two charred mutants. They lay smoking on the ground. Chloe turned to stare.

"Are you okay?"

Dameon looked at his wound for a second, "I'll be fine. It's mostly skin,"

Chloe nodded. "I should have a gun too. Where's the pistol?"

Dameon winced. "It's out of ammo. I sold too much."

"Greed. . ." Chloe looked outside.

"I still got my rifle," he said, while clutching the long gun.

"Can you walk?"

"I'll be fine."

"Let's go. We shouldn't stay in one place all night," Chloe's eyes looked weary.

"I don't want to get to RidgeField until dusk. We shouldn't approach it in the light."

"That's what you think about?" Chloe mused.

Dameon pulled out a capsule of jet.

"Bottoms up," he inhaled the mist and closed his eyes. The burning pain in his leg faded away.

Dawn would come in a few hours. The winds of the storm were dying down. Night was going to sleep.