CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nathan and Dogmeat made their way along the side of Main Street, from the Boathouse turning left where the road went under the Fitchburg railroad bridge. It was early Sunday morning and the weather, for March, was holding up, not hot, but certainly not cold or wet.
If it wasn't for the fact that the road was deserted apart from abandoned vehicles and the cheerful singing of birds in the distance, you might have been mistaken into thinking that this was one man and his dog just out for a Sunday stroll.
Military training bleached Nathan's mind of Cait, the Commonwealth and anything else for that matter, this was a mission and he needed to get his head into the game, and quickly.
Having walked under the bridge Nathan decided that it might be a good idea to walk up along the racks towards West Concord at least.
Once up on the track bed Nathan could see that there were no houses to his immediate left all the way to the Concord Turnpike that ran right across the back of West Concord. On his right were the rear gardens to the houses that ran along Neshoba Road, they were so overgrown you would have had to stand on their roof's to spot him and his four legged companion.
The walk took twenty minutes as the two moved along the backs of the gardens, here and there they had to cross open spaces but they stopped and checked every time before moving again, Nathan was running on instinct and military discipline, Super-Mutants could smell a human from half a mile away at least.
Once passed the Turnpike, a raised section of highway, Nathan dropped the pace yet further, 'Sorry boy,' he said, 'this place is too exposed from here on in so we need to be cautious, OK?'
Dogmeat whined quietly in reply as though he understood every word his master had uttered.
'Good boy!' Nate said while patting the hound's right flank.
On Nate's right there was wide open brush that was completely overgrown, on his left he counted four blocks of houses before there was another brake. These houses were the backs of Courtland Avenue, he knew he wasn't far from Sanctuary now because he could still see flames from the burning buildings and the smell.
The brake in the houses was were two tennis courts were situated, their hardcore surface now dull and mossy and the nets nothing more than hanging threads. Dogmeat's ears shot up and he keened a low guttural sound that meant 'danger', Nate immediately dropped into a crouching position.
'What is it boy?' Nate asked in a hushed tone.
Dogmeat bent forward on his front paws and reared his back end slightly more up in the air, something he did when he was preparing to attack. 'So it's more your size than mine is that it?'
Dogmeat would not ordinarily have taken this stance if indeed the enemy was a Super-Mutant, because he knew enough that they seldom travelled alone, so Nate was able to determine that this predator was smaller.
Nate brought out his map slowly and quietly from his top pocket just under his combat armour. He realised that they were directly opposite what was once an animal hospital, it must have had dogs and the like still living there were the world went to pot. The decedents of whom must still be living close by. Nate did not want to fire his weapon this close to the Mutant's, neither did he want Dogmeat to go one-on-one with another dog that too would have been very noisy.
The decision was made. They would feel their way around the outside of the tennis court on to Courtland Avenue, from there they would make their way to the end of this stretch of the road where it turned left and continued up towards Baldwin Road. There was a thick cops of trees on his right, were the road bared left, the railway was on the other side of the trees.
Leaning on one of the concrete supports for the Baker Avenue Bridge Nate took out his map once more. To his right was a large open space where there was once a pond which was now dry, and on his left a single three story high building that looked like it was a laboratory or something similar.
On the right the ground dipped down alongside the track bed and Nate chose this as their route for the next ten minutes until they reached the Bridge over the Assabet River. From the Bridge one would have seen the Red Rocket Gas Station almost straight ahead but now there was nothing but a huge wide crater and lots of twisted metal, cars had been tossed about like a child's room might have looked after a temper tantrum.
'OK, Boy, there is no way forward from here so we are going to follow the river to our right, until we see the Nashoba Brook branching off on the left.' The walk was precarious for Nate as it was along the sunken river bank, nettles and brambles had grown like a thick wall in places so as to make a journey of five minutes seem like it had taken twice or three times longer.
The Nashoba Brook was about five maybe six feet across and its water very shallow so that it was easier to walk through than climb along either bank. Like the nettles and brambles, the water held no surprise or shock for Dogmeat, he just plodded through whatever was in front of him. Twenty minutes along this waterway and they reached a tunnel.
Many years before Nathan was born, this watercourse would have run straight into Warners Pond. Nate even recalled there being a set of lock gates like on a canal ahead and over to the right somewhere. At some point Commonwealth Avenue, West Concord, had taken priority over the water and it had been tunneled so that the road could run over it smoothly.
Nathan peered into the darkness his ears straining for any sound that might have been unfriendly, but there were none. 'Dogmeat, I hate to do this boy, but I really need you to go in there and scout ahead. You think you can do that, eh?'
The hound barked a single affirmative in the form a low, 'ruff!'
Whilst listening down the tunnel, Nathan began to hear what he could only think was the sound of drums and possibly other instruments. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction, away from him, so it made it difficult as he listened. He was suddenly startled by a loud screech, a shrill sound like a large vehicle might make after slamming on its brakes. Dogmeat had obviously made contact with something. Several more high pitched sounds mixed in with growls and the snapping of teeth followed, before all was silent once more in the tunnel.
Nathan pulled his night vision visor down over his eyes and moved forward in to the tunnel, as his feet splashed in the shallow water his nasal passages were assailed by the incredible stench of dead and decaying bodies. The night vision visor immediately picked out the movement ahead but before Nate could react he was forced to vomit.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure lumbering towards him, it was low to the ground but fast. The visor reflected its long sharp incisor's and its equally large eyes. Nate needed to defend himself but couldn't stop the flow of vomit. Backing out of the tunnel, Nate managed to duck down just as the creature launched itself at him. About the size of a small dog, it catapulted its greasy black body from its haunches, Nate swung his weapon towards it catching it in mid-flight.
Its jaws snapped around the barrel of his CM 14 Combat Rifle only just missing his right hand, where Nate had held the weapon out from his torso. Nate swung the beast around smashing its dense body against the concrete tunnel entrance. It snarled like a rabid dog, foam coming from the corners of its mouth.
Nate swung it again this time toward the opposite side of the tunnel where broken iron railings waited to welcome the soft under belly of the beast. It gave out an ear splitting scream as it was driven on to one of the spikes. The CM 14 was bent and Nate threw it to the ground, drawing his CM 1911A1 .45 caliber pistol and pointing it straight down the tunnel as slick black creatures scrambled towards him.
The next critter to leap met Nates' out stretched right arm where he held the pistol, its powerful jaws opened mid-flight almost swallowing Nates hand. He pressed the trigger and the pistols hammer smashed the two front teeth that slid down the back of the weapon, threatening to bite into Nate's hand above his thumb. The second time the hammer depressed, a bullet was dispatched that tore through the centre of the creature. Killing it instantly.
Nate didn't care if he was heard now, Dogmeat was lost and he was out numbered. But incredibly the body of the creature acted like a silencer around the gun. Shot after shot hit one and then another until only one creature was left alive in the entrance of the tunnel.
The last creature to immerge from the tunnel entrance was twice the size of the others and its foul odour clawed at Nate's senses threatening to overpower him with its insane stare. Nathan raised his gun and pointed at the thing, covered in blood and filth, it stopped and just stared deep into his eyes as though pleading somehow for its wretched life. Or to be put out of it misery once and for all.
Nathan clenched his teeth and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. His clip was empty. Such was the madness that had gripped him in his desperate fight for survival, he had forgotten to count the shots. The beast seemed to relax sensing that it might live another day. Nathan slumped to the ground. There was no way he could reload in time.
He drew his right leg up towards his body and grabbed for his knife that was strapped to the bottom of his trouser leg. The beast lurched at that moment, it had timed its jump to get inside Nathan's lunge. The body of the beast knocked his forearm away, defecting the orientation of the blade and then it was on him. Its fangs but inches from his exposed face.
Nathan closed his eyes and thought of Cait. He felt the rough edge of its tongue scrape against the right side of his face. It withdrew and sneezed, sending a shower of blood and gore over Nate. He opened his eyes, 'Dogmeat! Is that really you boy?' and he wrapped both arms around his dog, his hands squelching in the goop that hung off its body.
'To think I tried to shoot you!'
Dogmeat for his part did seem genuinely happy that he didn't get shot, but he was wounded, Nate noticed as the dog turned away to look back down the Nashoba brook, 'Come here boy, just give me a minute and I'll get you sorted.' Nate washed away the filth from his hands and then unbuttoned a pouch on his utility belt.
'Don't know if this will work on you but here goes nothing.' Nate tore open a small sachet that contained sulfanilamide, a white powder form of infection prevention and a cauterizing agent.
'Well boy, that's that! We almost got killed before we had got started but it's given me an idea.'
Nathan looked at the dog and how covered in blood and guts he was, the smell was terrible, but Nate thought that if he did the same thing they might yet get through this mission without any more problems. Nate unbuckled his heavy combat armour and laid down his broken CM 14 rifle and then picked up one of the dead mole rats. He ripped out its insides and smeared them all over his vault suit turning the blue material a dark purple, almost black, colour.
The smell would mask their normal sent as well, but from here on in Nate had only his pistol and Dogmeat his teeth and claws. The decision was made to go above ground and not through the tunnel, it wasn't through fear of more mole rats but the strength of the smell.
The climb would have to be up the right hand side of the brook as the left side was now the outer edge of the crater that the exploding Red Rocket station had made. There were no buildings on this side just dense overgrown trees, bushes and tall grass. They made their way forward towards Warners Pond to Commonwealth Avenue.
Once they had reached the other end of the tunnel, Nate realised why there was such a terrible smell. The lock gate was packed tight with rotten bloated corpses of those who used to live in Sanctuary. Nate lost count at thirty four bodies, men, women and children. It had soon become apparent that the Mutants hadn't posted any guards and so the journey into and around Laws Brook Road was simple and straight forward. Here and there the smoke from the burning buildings was still wafting with the breeze.
Warner Street was a sparse affair having only one house on its left as you turned into it and a further six on the right that were all well-spaced out. Still no guards but now Nate could hear the noise more clearly. It was drums. 'Ok boy, from here on in we need to keep low and go unnoticed, do you think you can do that?' Nathan asked his faithful companion. Dogmeat gave a low 'ruff!' to indicate he got it.
Pistol in hand, Nate and the dog made their way slowly and carefully down Pond Street towards the damaged bridge. The ground changed from the green shuts of early spring into the churned up arena of battle, and the sight that now greeted the two was not one that Nate might have expected.
Like silent sentinels the entrance to Sanctuary was guarded, but not by huge green beast's of war. There like some macabre freak show exhibits stood ten poles, each standing no less than six feet tall and on top of them were the heads of the fallen, Nate immediately recognized Sturges head.
Nate shook his head, closed his eyes and said a silent prayer before looking back at the severed heads. 'Dogmeat we need to find someone alive, someone who can tell us what happened here, do you could find that someone?'
Dogmeat was eager to please, first he looked at the figures. Then he whined on recognizing an old friend, before looking back at Nate and going down on his haunches.
'You ready now? Good find 'em boy' Nate had every faith in his trusty hound after all hadn't Dogmeat tracked Conrad Kellogg all the way from Diamond City to Fort Hagan?
Dogmeat quickly made his way around to the left once they were over the bridge.
Nathan almost didn't recognize this way around the backs of the houses that led to the old footbridge, which once took Nate and his neighbors to vault 111. Now the brook had been dug out, deeper and wider and the foot bridge removed, the vault entrance remained up on the top of the hill but it was isolated from the rest of the area by a large concrete wall topped with barbed wire.
In between the houses, or what was left of them, Nate could see a large group of Mutants dancing and chanting around a large fire, pausing for a few minutes Nate was able to count their number as upwards of seventy. He patted the dog and told him well done for getting them this far, but Dogmeat was suddenly aware of something.
'What is it this time boy?' Nate inquired.
Dogmeat's ears went forward and he began to sniff the air, his head began to move wildly, first looking ahead then back at Nate and he issued a low keening sound almost as though he were trying to whistle. Nathan patted him again and then gently eased him forward saying, 'show me, come on, show me.'
This was the tricky bit, getting across the open ground between houses seven and nine, where the path to the vault and the bridge once lay. The ground used to drop down to the footbridge but now the water had levelled everything up and it needed skill, timing and a whole lot of luck to clear the dead ground without being seen.
They were both covered in thick sticky blood that had stained them both almost black, it had formed an almost natural camouflage against the war torn landscape, that and the fact that the smell masked them from all but someone or something stumbling over them. Alas the best laid plans of mice and men…
Nathan was holding on to Dogmeat's collar as they quickly ran across the open area, Nate was crouching best he could all the time looking to see if they had been noticed. Then it happened! As they pushed open the rear gate to number nine it had become stuck so that it wouldn't open enough for them to pass through. Still watching the open area Nate pushed against the gate with all his might, until it gave way, but it didn't open it snapped. The sound was not heard by anyone because of the dancing and chanting and general noise being made elsewhere. Except that was for the super mutant hound who had laid out across the back of the gate where he had been left on guard.
The muscular grey green beast was built like a fleshly battering ram, three quarters of a ton of solid muscle mass, and it didn't take to kindly to being awakened in this fashion. Nate fell forward as the gate gave way and the gate fell in pieces on top of the mutant hound. At first the thing just lazily opened one eye, and whimpered, then a second eye and then it heaved its incredible weight up on its feet, Nate sliding down its left flank and under its thick chin.
Dogmeat leapt straight on its back and sank his teeth deep into its back, the beast now erect raised its head high in order to groan out the dulcet tone of warning that Mutant hounds were renowned for. That was when Nate slammed his combat knife into its throat. Pushing the blade straight up until it hit the underside of its skull, blood gushed out like a burst water main.
The beast rolled back towards Nate threatening to flatten him as it toppled over to its left, only quick thinking prevented Nate from being crushed, literarily. So far embedded was Nate's knife that he found himself unable to pull it clear and thus retrieve it, if the hound was discovered then the knife would have been a dead giveaway.
Dogmeat wasted no time and was back on the trial of something, passed number eleven now and the only house left that made up the odd numbers was fifteen. Fifteen was the house with the rear storm cellar. Nate's hope were raised on the thought that Dogmeat might have found survivors because up until now he had seen none, out of the two hundred plus residents.
The wrought iron storm cellar doors had been torn away and a gaping black hole lay beneath Nate's feet, the cellar was empty of human life but all around there were mutilated bodies of Super-Mutants, someone or something had put up one hell of a fight. It was shortly thereafter that a tiny blue light caught Nate's eye from deep down in the blackness. Dogmeat ran to the edge of the cellar and peered down inside, barking softly but excitedly. 'What is it boy, is it friendly?' Nate asked the dog.
Dogmeat went down on his haunches as he did and sniffed vigorously before turning to Nate and almost nuzzling him down the steps. Nate may have lost both his CM 14 and his combat knife but thankfully he still had his pistol and flash light. The light barely pierced the all-consuming darkness but where it did it reveal, reluctantly a survivor, of sorts.
'Sir, is that you?' came the broken metallic voice.
'Codsworth!?' Nate almost tumbled the length of the ladder to get down to the faint light.
'Sir I'm sorry – if I'd have known you were coming home I'd have tidy up a bit!'
Nate didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
'Codsworth are you alright my old friend?' Codsworth was smashed almost obliterated, one cracked eye socket on a thin armature that was connected to his torso, even his stabilizing gyro's had gone.
'Codsworth we are going to get you out of here, I promise.' Nate bitterly spat the words out, and rage filled his heart.
'It's alright Sir, Don't mind me I'll be as right as rain once I've had an oil change, just you wait and see!'
Nate gently picked the wrecked robot up, scooping him in his arms like a mother might a new born child. Then he placed the long body across the back of Dogmeat. 'Let me strap him down to you boy, then we can get out of here and back to Preston and the others.'
'Stap me down, sir? I do beg your pardon but I am a type II Mister Handy, and I simple must insist that you do not under any circumstances strap me on to the back of that flee infested, …Sir what is all this sticky stuff,? I really must protest!'
'Codsworth, I promise you a shiny new everything once we get you out of here, but until then you need to pipe down and let us do our work.
'Harrumph!' was all that Codsworth uttered before falling silent completely.
Nate and Dogmeat were to retrace their steps back to the South Bridge Boat House, but first Nate wanted a closer look at something that had been bothering him for a few minutes now. Some of the Mutants were green as they should have been however most were not, they were a very definite greyish colour and their eyes were a bright burning red colour.
'Codsworth, did you notice anything strange about the mutants?'
'Strange sir? You mean like them attacking Sanctuary and killing every living thing? No sir I did not, why do you ask, oh and Dogmeat please stand still you are making feel quite sick.'
'Codsworth, I'm trying to understand what happened, now focus!'
'Sir might I suggest that you retrieve my appendages, in particular my round saw blade, it should have all the DNA you require I'm sure.'
'That's great Codsworth, did you get any footage on your eye camera's before they, err,'
'Before they ripped them out you mean, oh yes sir and everything is stored on my hard drive, now have you found that saw blade yet?'
'Here we are Codsworth, you don't mind me snapping the blade free do you only the rest of your arm is too big to carry?'
'Oh no sir, be my guest, it would seem that's now my lot in life, to have my arms ripped off and then bashed over the head with them.'
Preston Garvey was standing by a burning brazier talking quietly to a couple of guards when a corporal came looking for him at a rather hurried pace. 'Sir, please you must return with me to forward HQ.'
'Hey what's the rush, have we got word from Nate?' Preston sounded optimistic while knowing it was too soon.
'No Sir, but it's something equally as important!' the young Corporal said enthusiastically.
At the forward command post Preston was handed a field radio set, 'Garvey here, what's all the fuss?'
Lieutenant General, hold on to your hat, it's Maxson here in Boston.'
'OK Governor Maxson, what's got everyone so excited?'
'I have just been contacted by the Brotherhood and they are offering their assistance with our little mutant problem.'
'Have you been pulling strings Arthur?'
'No Preston, I can assure you they contacted me.'
'What's it all about exactly?' Preston held the receiver away from his face to inquire if they had heard from Nathan yet.
'Preston, Elder Hartley said that the Brotherhood have six hundred and forty seven men of all ranks, on standby in power armour suits, ready to come to our aid!'
'Arthur, with all due respect, you said come to our aid, what aid? We aren't either under attack or at war. Heck, Nathan hasn't returned from his Recon mission yet, so I ask you again, come to our aid?'
'Preston, we know from our own records that there are upwards of five hundred Super-Mutants on the Green Mountain reservation, and that we have lost communications with one settlement and two forward supply and trading post's. We have to accept that we are facing over whelming odd's even with our mechanized units, we are simply out gunned.'
'Arthur you just can't let six hundred plus knights march into the Commonwealth on its first day, we have an army, a very well trained army. Look! I'm not saying we don't want them what I am saying is at least let us wait until Nate returns.'
'Preston they have been good enough to share their Intel with me and they say that our figures are wrong, the Super-Mutants numbers are much higher, they put them at around eight hundred.'
'How? It isn't like they can breed or anything, I just can't except that Arthur, I'm sorry.'
'They aren't breeding Preston they have sent out a call to arms, to all the other Super-Mutants within a hundred mile radius.'
'Arthur I am blind and I am at the front line, you are in Boston, I say we wait until Nate gets back and that's my final position.'
'OK, Preston I understand, I will however redirect those Brotherhood forces to Nashua. It's a large settlement in the former state of New Hampshire, they number over six thousand residents and they have requested our help.'
'Arthur that's fine by me, if nothing else they will be protecting our right flank.'
Governor Maxson wasted no time in replying to Elder Hartley and though they had doubts about each other and the long term goals, they both agreed that Super-Mutants were a common enemy.