Chapter Three

The Ritual Site

Marcella sat in her tent quietly, her head bent over her connected palms, praying in solitude to her God.

"Please guide me through this new challenge, my Lord," she whispered under her breath. "Please let the girl be stronger than the Blackhalls. Lend her your strength."

There was no answer, there never was, but she knew in her heart that her lord heard her. Her words were soaring through the air like a graceful dove, falling into the heart of her all-powerful deity.

She had been uneasy about it ever since she saw them coming up the beach. Outsiders like her, but not traveling for the same reasons. She knew in her heart that they would inevitably meet the foul man who dwelled in isolation in Blackhall Manor, just as she knew God listened to her prayers and did not ignore her. His evil drew people to him, like moths to a flame.

The secrets of Blackhall's gritty history was well known to the others in her fraction, whom she had not seen in years, ever since they had split up to spread faith throughout post-war America. Marcella was truly surprised, and slightly nervous, to see that she had been assigned the East Coast (by far the worst area of the country to be effected by the bombs), only because Point Lookout was on her list of places to visit.

Point Lookout…home of the Blackhalls. She remembered hearing the stories from one of the Mothers who cared for her when she was a child. They still sent shivers down her spine.

"Please lord, give me strength."

She had spent nearly a month already in Point Lookout, and while she could have moved on at any given time, for her work there was done, she had remained, because she was too curious as to the factuality of the Blackhall stories. She felt like God had sent her down this road to accomplish a larger goal that even she was not aware of, perhaps even larger than the Blackhall history itself.

Weeks before Charon and Glenda arrived on shore, Marcella had tentatively arrived on the porch of Blackhall manor and knocked on his massive front doors. Elderly Obadiah Blackhall had appeared in the doorway, sitting in a wheelchair. As soon as Marcella made eye contact with the man, she knew in her heart there was something sinister about him. She had also easily detected the hopeful glint in his beady eyes.

Obadiah said nothing, and only stared at her, waiting for her to speak.

"My name is Marcella," she had said, "and I'm a Missionary visiting Point Lookout to spread faith to any who are interested."

Obadiah hadn't moved a fraction since he'd opened the door. Marcella swore he reminded her of a statue, and it made her uneasy. "I'm surprised," he said after a moment, "I haven't had my door knocked on before. You are very polite. Please, come inside. I am Obadiah Blackhall." He rolled his chair to the side to give her room to walk past.

Marcella entered, nervous, but somehow confident the man would not hurt her. She gathered from her perception that he wanted something from her, perhaps a favor of some sort.

When the doors had closed again, he invited her to sit with him in a small living room. The chairs were old and moth-eaten, but much more comfortable than her cot on the beach. "Too few people are willing to sit down and have a conversation these days." Obadiah said solemnly as he rolled around to face her. "They're too paranoid. But you seem very relaxed."

Marcella wondered if he was being sarcastic, or if he was hard of seeing, for she defiantly didn't feel or look relaxed.

"Tell me about your faith." Obadiah asked after a moment of silence.

The missionary swallowed hard, building up courage. "Only if you tell me about yours."

The old man raised a bushy brow and gave her a pointed look. "Is it normal for you to contradict those who are willing to listen to you?"

"I don't know," Marcella said, trying to ignore the terribly evil feeling she gained from sitting in this house. If she could just touched a wall, or lay upon one of the floors, there would be so much to learn. She could sense this mansion was a tomb of hellish memories. It felt like…something was clawing at her from beneath her feet. "Is it normal to tamper with the dark and abnormal?"

Obadiah seemed to understand now that Marcella was here for a reason, and it wasn't to spread her faith. "Oh my," he sighed, "I have had many visits from people like you in the past. They all have heard some form of absurd story about me and my family, but if it makes you feel special, you are the first to be so straightforward."

"I am interested in you and your family, Obadiah Blackhall, but first, I have a very simple question." Marcella leaned forward with sharp, unyielding eyes. "Does it exist?"

Obadiah stared at her for a long moment, studying her and weighing her like a list of pros and cons. Then, finally, he said closed his eyes and said, "Yes."

A strange sort of fear boiled up in Marcella's heart, and she bit her lip, trying to seem imploring, but only sounding petrified. "You must destroy it then…I know of a place-"

"Destroy it?" Obadiah mimicked, appalled, his eyebrows raising so high his forehead wrinkles deepened considerably. "Who do you think you are?"

"I am nobody but one of his children," Marcella pleaded, "and I don't think you, your family, or the locals in these swamps know the true power of that cursed book!"

"It is you who knows nothing!" Obadiah barked. "I invite you into my home, only so that you could insult me."

"You invited me in for another reason," she said softly, pulling back and looking him in the eyes.

He glared at her, and then let out a heavy, sad sigh. "If you came here looking for the book you're out of luck, young lady. It was stolen from my several days ago, by the locals."

"The swampfolk?" Marcella said, aghast. "You let one of the most dangerous relics in history land in the hands of those heathens?"

Obadiah glared at her, obviously sickened by her inability to understand the importance of the book to him, and his family. "I think you should leave." He said firmly, looking stubbornly at his wall of crumbling books.

Marcella stood with fists clenched at her sides, enraged and terrified. "This isn't over, Obadiah Blackhall."

Now she sat alone in her tent, unsure of what to do. She hoped the Ghoul and the girl would not take the unrighteous path.

"Fuck it's hot," Glenda groaned, peeling off her denim jacket from her torso and stuffing it into her pack. Underneath she wore a grimy white tank top that was decorated with blood stains. Charon knew why she kept it, but he couldn't comprehend. Glenda was so obsessed with hygiene, for her to wear a dirty, blood-stained tank top was laughable.

Charon kept on walking without comment, although he had to admit that it was indeed very hot out and the blazing sun up ahead was not making matters any better. The mist had cleared and the clouds had dispersed about an hour earlier. He just wasn't comfortable taking his armor off, even the top layers.

"Don't you think it's hot out here?" She asked, as she picked up a moldy stick from the ground and tossed it far ahead for Dogmeat to fetch.

"Not really," he lied easily.

She scoffed unbelievingly, but didn't seem to be in the mood for an argument. Instead, she lifted up her wrist to view her pip boy, which displayed an inch-tall holographic map of Point Lookout from when she last visited.

"We should be around their ritual grounds soon." She said matter-of-factly. "Last time I was here I came across this old house that was swarming with Swampfolk, as if they were guarding something. That may be where Obadiah was talking about."

Charon instinctively wanted to tell her once more that they should take into account what Marcella had said to him, but he was tired of running in circles with the stubborn smoothskin. She just refused to listen to him, or stop and think of what they were actually doing.

Surprisingly, however, Charon glanced over at her absentmindedly, only to see her giving him a very concerned look.

"What?" He asked, startled.

"You really are worried about this book thing, aren't you?" She asked, and for once she sounded sincere.

Charon paused, and then said with a raspy sigh, "I just don't think we should treat it so lightly."

A sly smile crawled over Glenda's face and he knew the split second of sincerity was lost. "I had no idea you were so superstitious," she said with a laugh. "Are you afraid of black cats, too? Or walking under ladders?"

He glared at her, his opaque eyes narrowing. "I'm not superstitious."

"You sure act like it," she said calmly, taking from her pocket the first cigarette she'd shown the light of day since they'd hopped off the Duchess Gambit earlier that morning. Sticking the slender, aged stick between her lips, she lit it with an old match and puffed out a pair of smoke rings with casual ease. She savored the flavor for a moment, before continuing. "It's not unlike anything we've ever done before, am I right? Get asked a favor, get it done, get paid. It's an equation that's worked for us for years."

Charon let out another sigh and let the subject drop. He expected Glenda to just keep going on about it, but instead she tossed an arm around his hip and walked close to him. This only made him exasperated for an entirely different reason, however, and it had nothing to do with some stupid book they were trying to find.

"How about this," Glenda said sweetly after a moment, looking up at him with her big, green eyes. "If the book does turn out to be the fucking Krivbeknih," she shook her head as if the idea were utterly ludicrous, "and we do unleash evil forces upon the world, I will let you eat that box of sugar bombs."

The ghoul, not having expected this remark from her at all, let out a snort of laughter, something he rarely did. He pressed his palm against his forehead and said, "Deal."

"I think we're here," she said suddenly, straightening up and nodding ahead of them. She looked around quickly to find Dogmeat, and when she didn't see him, she pulled from a pocket a silent dog whistle and blew on it. The husky bolted out from the bushes and joined them. There was blood dripping from his jowls.

"Do you see anyone up there?" Glenda asked, squinting to see through the trees. Ahead of them in a small clearing was a pile of rubble, and what appeared to be the remnants of an old house. Surrounding the pit was a collection of small poles, which had tiny dolls hanging from segments of string.

"I don't see anyone," Charon replied. Glenda pulled out her assault rifle and started forward again, careful to keep her steps quiet. Charon let her walk ahead a little further than himself, who mimicked her action. It was not because he was a coward who wanted to send a woman into danger first, but he'd be damned to deny he loved the way her hips swayed when she was in sneak mode.

As the two got closer to the rubbish pile (with Dogmeat trading carefully behind them), they started to smell something strange. At first, Charon wrinkled his nose in distaste, but with each step it grew stronger. When they were about fifty yards away, Glenda raised her arm to cover her nose with her sleeve, her face an uncomfortable grimace.

Soon enough, Dogmeat had smartly whined and fell back to where the smell was endurable, but Charon and Glenda were nearly sick to the point of vomit. It was a disgusting, foul stench that Glenda had never experienced before. She could tell it was some sort of wretched mix composed of rotting carcasses, shit, and a sulfur spring.

"Jesus Christ," Glenda snarled, giving up on her sleeve and grabbing the bandana around her neck and wrenching it up to cover her nose and mouth. Besides her, Charon pulled a black cloth from his pocket and tied it around his face.

"That is rank," she said, bringing her rifle butt to her shoulder more tightly. "I don't remember ever smelling something like this before."

Charon grimaced as the smell penetrated his flimsy mask. "You sure this is the place you passed the last time?"

"Positive," Glenda replied, pointing towards the posts with the dolls. "Those I recognize."

"This doesn't look like a ritual ground." Charon said with exasperation. "Looks like a garbage dump."

But the problem was, and they both knew it, the source of the smell wasn't clear. Sure there was garbage, but it was mostly broken glass bottles and junk that really didn't emit a smell. What they were being exposed to was giving their stomachs a good battle.

They figured it must have been coming from beyond the rubbish pile. They searched the surrounding area, but the smell lost it's potency as they put distance between themselves and the ritual ground. Baffled, the two stood, trying to understand what was happening.

Finally, Glenda exclaimed, "Charon!" He looked at her, raising his sinewy brow. She looked as if she felt stupid, "I think it's coming from underground!"

Simultaneously, they both looked down at their feet. The ground was soggy and more mud than grass, but it seemed solid and normal enough.

Charon looked around and spotted something under the wood beams he hadn't noticed before. "What's that?" He asked, pointing it out to her with the end of his shotgun. Glenda walked over to it and kicked off the debris.

"It's a cellar door," she said excitedly, looking at him and raising her eyebrows expectantly. Charon stared at her for a split second, before he understood what she wanted.

"No." He said firmly. "I'm not going down there."

She smiled maliciously. "Scared?" She taunted.

"Yes," he said, crossing his arms and towering over her like a giant, "scared of the smell."

"We can take it," she reasoned with a roll of her eyes, and before he could stop her, she wrenched the doors open and they were blasted with a deadly wave of sick.

Although she had been the one to open it, Glenda was certainly the first to abandon it. She leapt back so fast she tripped on her own feet and fell on her back. But the wet ground didn't seem to bother her as much as her exposed sense. She clasped her hands over her mouth and nose and held back the vomit.

"Idiot!" Charon barked, dragging her to her feet and pulling her away. They joined Dogmeat, who was whining and looking very conflicted. A part of him seemed to want to run away and never come back.

Glenda glared at the door. "What is down there?" She gasped. Then, miraculously, a spark lit up in her eyes and she was renewed with some sort of mystical energy Charon believed only Glenda to possess. "Let's find out."

Bursting with adrenaline, the miniature girl jumped to her feet and started back toward the hole of death. Charon, bursting with reason, grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back. "No, we are not going down there."

"Why not?" She whined, looking at the whole as if it were a buffet of delicious food awaiting them and not a stomach-emptying hell.

"Because I'd rather not die from whatever poison is down there that lures in idiots like you."

Glenda pulled away from him and put her fists on her hips. "We need to get that book." She proclaimed.

The Ghoul looked conflicted, and threw his hands up exasperatedly. "We don't even know if this is the right place."

"How else are we going to find out?"

"Ask the locals?"

Glenda gave him a blank look, and he growled and gritted his teeth so furiously she feared he would crush them to dust. "All right, I get it." Damn that fucking contract! Charon roared to himself.

Satisfied, Glenda grabbed her gun back up from where she dropped it and turned to Dogmeat. He wagged his tail half-heartedly. "Okay, Dogmeat, just stay put and wait for us. It's no place for a dog down there."

The canine barked in agreement, looking extremely relieved, and she kissed him briefly on the top of the head before tentatively approached the cellar. Now that she'd been blasted with it, the smell was less intense.

"You want to go first?" She asked Charon with a hopeful smile.

Charon shoved Glenda between the shoulder blades and sent her tripping down the stairs.

Inside, there was hardly any light. The gray light from up above filtered down the staircase and gave them a little bit of illumination, but otherwise the only source of light were a stray few candles flickering on the walls.

"Looks like a tomb," Glenda said, her voice shaking with excitement. "And look at those candles, it means there are people down here!"

Yeah, probably our tomb, Charon thought irritably. He was by no means a coward, but he was much more cautious than Glenda, who didn't even stop to think what could be dwelling down here in the dark, waiting for them.

At the end of the staircase, which was longer than either of them thought it would be, they found themselves staring down a long, underground hallway. Bits of ceramic floor tiles suggested it may have once been part of the house above, but now it was more earth and dirt than anything else.

The smell, getting stronger by the minute, was surrounding them like a thick, suffocating blanket. Glenda continued to grip the bandana around her nose and mouth, though she didn't think it was helping much. Together, they started down the passageway, keeping their weapons hot on their hips.

"Where do you think this leads?" Glenda whispered, as they came across a fork.

"No idea." Charon answered.

She pointed the end of her rifle down one direction. "I'll take this way and you take the other."

Charon shook his head and dragged her closer by the arm. "We are not splitting up," he said sharply. "Not until we know where we are."

"Nothing's going to happen!" She whispered.

Charon gave her a knowingly look. "Nothing good ever happens when we split up. Remember Tennpenny?"

Glenda looked away childishly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"When you so ingeniously chose to accompany Roy Phillips to kill the old man, and so cleverly chose to do so alone, you nearly became a pile of mush on the pavement." Charon growled at her, keeping his grip as solid as steel.

"Whatever," she said, adverting her eyes and started down a random direction. Glenda hated when Charon brought up the notorious story of Roy Philips, the ghoul who had organized the feral attack on Tennpenny. She hated it even more when he brought it up in a way to prove how wrong Glenda is nearly all of the time. She didn't speak to him for a long time as they walked.

This path was less straight, and was a mess of twists and turns and ups and downs. Knotted, ancient tree roots stuck out every few feet, and even with the Pip-Boy light and the candles illuminating their way, Glenda still tripped several times. The path was also much, much longer, and at several times they had to crouch to walk through the narrow tunnel.

Near the end of it, they could see a dim light in the cavernous room beyond, but at this point they were on their hands and knees. Glenda, being the smallest of the pair, crawled forward and peered outwards, trying to see if she could make out anybody in the gloom. What she saw was instead quite…disturbing.

She gasped, and clapped her hands over her mouth. For her entire career in the wastelands, Glenda had never seen anything so foul and gruesome. A huge, deep pit full of rotted corpses, dead animals, sick, mucky water, and the remnants of uneaten food.

She had seen the Enclave murder countless civilians; Trogs from the Pitt tear slaves' limb from limb and even a naked Fawkes at one point. But this took the cake, and it made her stomach uneasy.

Something tugged hard at her hair, and she nearly screamed in shock. When she snapped her head around to see what Charon wanted, she realized he looked worried.

"What?" She snarled, perhaps more angrily than she had aimed for.

"I asked you what you saw." He growled at her, although not unkindly.

Glenda bit her lip beneath the bandana and hesitated. She had never felt a loss of words before, but even when she wasn't looking, the smell of the carnage in the next room made her dizzy. She knew Charon could smell it, too.

"It's…" she couldn't find the words. How weird was that? She swallowed the lump in her throat and for a second felt about running away. Charon seemed too impatient to wait for her to answer, and dragged her down so he could get a look.

He was there at the tunnel opening for a split second, before he returned to her, a little shaken.

"I think we should leave." He said. "Now."

Glenda breathed out an unsteady breath. "We need to see what's down there."

"I think we saw enough already." The Ghoul said with zero humor. In the dim light of her Pip-Boy, Glenda could see Charon's stone face staring hard at her.

She said, nervously, "We need to see if the book is down there."

"Do you want to go diving into the pool of dead bodies then?" He whispered sharply.

Glenda grabbed Charon by the collar (with surprising ease, considering their astounding height differences) and shook him slightly. "Charon there is six hundred caps to be made out of this fucking book, and we are flat broke! I am not going to let some gore stop me from looking for it!" Her eyes were wide and stubborn.

And without missing a beat, he grabbed her back, with a fiercer grip and tugged her off. "There will be other jobs for you," he said reasonably, "preferably ones with less genocide."

For a spit second, the two of them stared at one another in the dark. Finally, Glenda tightened her lips and said, "Alright, we'll leave."

Charon sighed, relieved. "Ok, follow me; I'll get us out of here." He crawled past her, but instantly regretted it. As soon as he cleared the way to the tunnel opening, Glenda crawled faster than should be possible towards the hole.

"Glenda!" Charon barked, but it was too late. When she reached the opening she used her foot to propel herself out, her arms spread out in the air as if she were flying. She fell straight into the pit and fell forward, her knees buckling out from underneath her.

Falling to his knees at the tunnel opening to see where she had gone, Charon was gripping the dirt floor so tightly the scarce skin around his knuckles was turning milk-white.

Glenda emerged from the pool of carnage, covered head to foot in blood and bits of gore. Her eyes were shut tight and she ripped off her bandana and vomited all over the corpse of a dead child with a gargantuan head

"Glenda!" Charon roared, as she wiped off her face and started to wade ankle-deep towards the dry spot of land. She was going to look for the book.

Charon gritted his teeth together so hard, he may have been able to break them apart if he didn't know better. He swung his legs over the side and jumped down after her, landing in the soggy ground, blood and gaseous water rising up to his ankles. But unlike Glenda, he didn't trip and get smothered in it.

"Let's go," she said, still running up ahead, without meeting his eyes. Charon followed in a foul mood. He wasn't doing it because she had ordered it. He ran after her so fast, Glenda couldn't help but look over her shoulder and laugh.

He narrowed his eyes. She thought it was all a game. He ran faster, almost tripping over a dead feral, and Glenda giggled and ran faster. She was almost to the slight incline, which would lead them to dry land.

Right before she stepped onto solid, blood-free rock, he reached her; Charon grabbed her arms and spun her around to face him. "You stupid girl!" He shouted, making Glenda jump slightly, surprised at his anger. He shook her and squeezed her arms together so tightly it made her gasp in pain. "What defect do you have that makes you so impossible to be with?"

Glenda shook away her shock and then fought back, trying to get out of his grasp. At some point when she was running she had wiped off the rest of the blood on her face. "Let me go you asshole!"

"You know what Glenda, I will let you go!" He released her suddenly; causing her to stumbled back and fall on her ass. She was shocked he had done so, and stared at him without moving.

Charon fumed, and almost slapped her across the face, but he resisted. Instead, he sneered at her and said, "you might want to try and get yourself killed doing stupid shit," he snarled, "but I don't have to do this! I would have been better off bouncing at the Ninth Circle my entire life!" He turned to walk away, but Glenda was on her feet in an instance.

"You stay right where you are, Charon!" She shouted, clenching her fists at her sides. For a second, he resisted her order and a jolt of fear pierced through Glenda's queasy stomach. But he came to a stop, his body trembling with rage. Here he was, standing shin-high in a pit from Hell, and he couldn't even bring himself to keep walking.

Glenda breathed a sigh of relief. "Now…now you turn yourself around and you come the fuck back!" She said a little hysterically. "You can't leave me that easily."

Charon tightened his chapped lips and turned toward her, walking back. As he stepped onto the dry stone, she half flickered a smile before saying through heavy breaths, "I didn't mean to piss you off."

He glared at her, and she frowned. She decided to leave him be for now, and she scoffed as she walked away. They then proceeded to put as much distance between them and the pit of death as possible. Down the next passage way, more candles were lit and the ground leveled out again, worn out by numerous people walking through over the years. This was obviously more utilized than the last passage they were crawling through.

And yet they still saw no sign of anybody else down here with them, except…

"Do you hear that?" Glenda said suddenly, coming to a stop.

Charon frowned, clearly irritated with having to answer her. "Hear what-"

"Sh!" She snapped, holding a finger to her lips. They stood in eerie silence for a moment, but it was only Glenda who seemed to hear anything from it other than the drip drip drip of water somewhere in the distance.

For a long time, Glenda stood perfectly still, her finger raised into the air to keep Charon from talking, and she stared hard at the ground, straining her ears. There were voices! She said to herself. She could swear she heard people speaking, as if in hushed whispers, somewhere in the dank gloom. She glanced at Charon, who was looking at her warily.

"You don't hear them?" She whispered. Then she looked around in the dark, as if the culprits would spring out of nowhere and surprise them. "I can't make out what they're saying but I can defiantly hear them…"

"Hear who?" Charon asked. He still heard nothing.

Glenda opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it and pushed the subject to the side. "Nevermind, let's just keep moving."

And so they started walking again, but this time Charon was keeping more of an eye on her than on the path ahead.

Eventually they came out of the tunnel and arrived in what appeared to be an underground crypt of some sort. The floor was tiled with thick, cracked slates of dark stone, and a shrine rested at the top of the incline, besides a stone table the length of a bed and a pedestal with a chiseled bowl at the top.

And Glenda saw there was defiantly something inside the bowl.

Smiling with self satisfaction, Glenda took long strides up to the bowl, where she plucked the black, tattered book from its resting place and waved in front of Charon mockingly. "See? I told you we'd find it here! Six hundred caps, Cher, six hundred fucking caps-"

A bullet whizzed past Glenda's head so fast, her black hair erupted into the air like an explosion. Her mouth was open in a silent gasp, and she seemed frozen, not yet understanding what had happened. Then, before she could fully grasp that she had been shot at, Charon stepped in front of her and blasted his shotgun twice.

A high-pitched voice cried out in pain, and looking around his shoulder, Glenda saw a shirtless man from the swamp tumble over and fall to the ground, dead. A local.

"What the fu-"

"Get back!" Charon bellowed, pushing her behind the stone bed, where the two of them barely managed to squeeze behind to avoid being pelted with the bolt-action rifles carried around by the insane locals, who had descended upon them the moment Glenda had touched the book.

"What is going on?" She cried, as the swampfolk fired round after round at the stone bed, and Charon blindly fired back. Glenda could hear bits of rock crumbling away not even three feet behind her.

"Shut up and shoot!" The Ghoul barked, and Glenda stuffed the book in her bag before pulling the assault rifle from her shoulder and peering around the edge of the stone structure to fire at the inbred idiots. She took out four immediately, while the rest continued to wave their guns and furiously fire from the hip, failing miserably.

There were dozens! Dozens, and neither her nor Charon had even heard them coming. But the Swampfolk, in small numbers, were not an issue. The fact that they were both trapped in this underground shrine surrounded by swarms of angry locals could not be good for them.

"We need to duck out of here!" Glenda shouted over the ear-splitting blasts. Charon knew she was right, and began to search for an escape route immediately. The only other way out of the incline was a small crevice between the rocks, which appeared to lead somewhere. But the problem was, it was dreadfully small, and to reach it, they would have to cross twenty feet of Wild West. With dozens of angry locals firing like young raiders given their first gun, it would be nearly impossible.

Unless...

Charon grabbed Glenda's pack and ripped it off her shoulders before she even knew what was happening. "Keep firing!" He ordered, when she turned to see what he was doing. Glenda didn't argue, and began unloading lead rain onto their enemies, keeping them away from the stone bed. Charon began digging through its infinite depths, until he found...

"Get down!" He roared, throwing something small over the edge of the bed and tackling her to the ground with his weight. Glenda gasped as the breath was knocked out of her, and screamed when the explosion rocked the whole cavern. Bits of rock from up above fell on top of them, and the clustering swampfolk were blown to smithereens. At least most of them were; the ones still coming down the passage ways wouldn't be harmed.

Without wasting time or explaining, Charon dragged Glenda to her feet and dragged her to the tiny passage way to their left. One of the locals with a bolt-action fired twice in surprise, missing them by centimeters. The Ghoul managed to squeeze himself and his ally into the crevice, and they started shuffling in the dark as fast as they could, parallel to the crevice walls.

"Could have warned me about the grenade," Glenda growled, tucking her rifle close and pulling her magnum from its holster and keeping it aimed at their point of entry. Whenever she saw a mutated face come around after them, she fired with surprising accuracy.

Charon kept his grip tight around her hand as he led her into the dark. He had no idea where this small path led to, or if it even led anywhere. He had only improvised in the heat of the moment.

"Six hundred caps," he groaned, "this isn't worth it."

Glenda, however, was in much higher spirits. She had been in bigger jams than this in the past, especially whenever trying to escape the Enclave. If they escaped, which she knew they would, then soon enough Obadiah Blackhall would be emptying the caps into her eager, outstretched hands.

But sometimes, Glenda wasn't always the most intuitive.

"What's that noise?" Charon asked suddenly, stopping in his tracks and straining his ear in the pitch dark.

"I don't hear anything," Glenda said, giving him a worried look. She had just done the same thing several moments ago, hadn't she? "Do you hear voices?"

"No I don't hear fucking voices!" He snapped at her, "I hear...Wait a minute, turn on your pip boy light."

"You have to do it; I can't reach it with my other arm."

With a bit of difficulty, Charon felt up her wrist until he hit a switch near the dull-green screen. Instantly, a bright, florescent light flooded the whole passage way.

And Charon saw the man standing directly next to Glenda.

"Glen!" He roared, trying to stop the inevitable. But he was too late. The man grabbed Glenda by the waist and dragged her away from him. Charon felt her hand slip from his, and he tried to grope in the dark for it, but she was already gone.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Glenda screeched, as the man pulled her through the narrow passage. He was skinny enough to walk through it normally, but she was still squeezed uncomfortably between the two walls. Somewhere along the way back to the cavern, she dropped her magnum, and she prayed to God that Charon would find it. That had belonged to her father.

The swampman smelled of sulfur and filth, and she felt light throwing up as she was jostled against the two walls. Soon, they were right back in the cavern, and the remaining swampfolk were surrounding her like bees after honey.

She tried to fight them off, first by going after her rifle, which was taken from her and lost, secondly by throwing as many punches as she could muster.

I'm the Lone Wanderer, Glenda thought wildly as she was gradually overwhelmed and restrained, there's no way in Hell I can go out like this!

As she was being dragged away, gunshots were fired in the distance, and one of the folk stumbled back out of the crevice holding something small above his head. At the last possible second, Glenda caught sight of what it was.

Charon's belt, dripping with blood.