Chapter 14: Cassandra Boykins.
When Autumn heard Rem say that she was gone, she moved her hands away from the corpse and looked at them, soaked in blood. Rem, on the other hand, glanced at the deceased woman, stared at the lack of life in her eyes, and shook his head at her in pity. She didn't deserve for it to end this way. He exhaled and reached out to her, placing his hand over her bruised face, and when he removed his hand, her eyes were fully lidded. She looked more peaceful that way. When Autumn saw what Rem did, she started to slowly stand. She stared at the woman for a couple of more moments while Rem glanced up at her, and then she turned around and started walking away. Rem watched her and then he turned back to the woman. After staring at her for a while, he reached out for his trail carbine and placed the butt on the floor for support before using it to push himself up.
When he was standing, it started to feel more and more regretful that he hadn't been able to save her. Why'd you have to scream for help? Then he just shook his head and turned out the room, walking out in search of Autumn, turning the radio off as he did. When he found her, she was washing her hands at a sink, watching the blood go down the drain. Autumn spoke, "We were too late." Rem approached her slowly and he stopped near her, placing the butt of the rifle against the floor, "No, she screamed for help while I was in here and when she did, the guy shot her. Out of frustration, I think." He looked towards the man who was wearing the merc veteran's outfit. He was on the floor, bleeding into the ground, unmoving. "Oh," responded Autumn, and Rem nodded as he reached up to his neck. It stung a little, and when he looked at his hand, he saw blood. "She was raped and beaten, wasn't she?" Autumn asked, with a tone that drifted away.
Rem breathed in and out, finding it hard to say, but he couldn't lie to her. It'd be insulting, "Yeah." Autumn frowned and shook her head, "Why are there people out there like this, Rem?" Rem was still standing in the same place while he watched her wash her hands, which were clean by then. "I don't know. It's just how it is. Same reason why the sky's blue, Autumn," he said. Autumn turned the water off and turned around, leaning her weight up against the sink. Rem stared at her, knew how pensive she was, and he breathed in and out again, "It's not easy." Autumn listened, and when no elaboration came, she asked, "What isn't?" Rem leaned his weight on the rifle and responded, "Helping people. Helping people is really damn hard." Autumn looked down when she heard that, thinking about Jesse, and herself. "Sometimes you see things. Things that'll be with you for the rest of your life. Like her," he gestured back towards the room where the woman lay motionless.
"Even as a follower, you know, you'll see things. Sometimes you lose patients you feel you could have saved barring unforeseen circumstances. For example, if she hadn't screamed for help, I might've gotten the chance to get rid of the guy before he could shoot her." Autumn was silent but eventually, she began nodding. Rem, after seeing that response, removed his duffle bag and obtained a couple of rounds of ammo from it and loaded three into his rifle, bringing it up to its maximum of eight. After that, he secured the duffle bag over his left shoulder and began tying his weapon to his back. Autumn spoke while he did, "If you had known they were super mutants, you would have handled it differently." Rem stopped for a moment and glanced at her. He never saw this topic of conversation coming, "Yeah . . . " he answered, and nodded to further his acknowledgment, "I would have scouted more. I could have picked some of them off from afar, led others into some frag mine traps, and all of that." Autumn nodded, "Yeah." Then she inhaled and exhaled as Rem approached her.
She looked up to see him standing over her, in front of her. She stared into his bright blue eyes, perused the details of his slim face, and could see a difference all of a sudden. He looked more like a person now, and less like another random denizen of the wasteland. "Here, excuse me," he said, and she moved out of the way. Rem leaned over into the sink and turned it on. Then he cupped water in one hand and splashed some on his neck, washing away the blood. Autumn crossed her arms under her breasts and watched him as he did so, and then she turned to look at the woman. From where she was standing, she could see her face, her long black hair, her breasts, and nearly the entirety of the rest of her upper torso. "She could be someone's sister. Someone's daughter, or even someone's mother." Rem grabbed wiped away the water from his neck and glanced at her, "Yeah. She could be."
Autumn shook her head, "Is she the only one?" Rem shook his head, "No, there were others. They're outside." Autumn answered quickly, "Outside where?" Rem paused, didn't really want to say it, but he did eventually, "In those big cargo crates." Autumn nodded, "She was the one we kept talking to from the other outpost, isn't she?" Rem released a sigh and nodded to her. It really was a very depressing thing to think about, but Rem was more accustomed to it, whereas Autumn couldn't stop dwelling on it. "Wow, it's so surprising, the way things happen. I never would have guessed. They could have had a gun pointed to her head. She could have been crying while she was talking to us," all of a sudden, she choked up and sobbed. One hand reached up to her mouth to cover, and Rem turned to face her entirely. He wanted to say something but at the time, he couldn't come up with anything.
As he watched her, she continued crying, as silently as possible. The tears rolled down her cheeks continuously and it took him a while before he finally said something. "Let's give her a funeral." She glanced up at him, and then looked ahead again, and started nodding. Rem hadn't ever given anybody like this a funeral, but when he proposed it, it felt like it was something he should've been doing for a while. "Will we bury them?" Rem shook his head, "No. We can't do this for the others, too. They've been gone for a while. Getting close to bodies like that can give you diseases, so we can only give her a funeral." He stepped ahead, towards one of the dead mercs, and spoke, "We'll burn her." Autumn remained standing there with her eyes pink, but then she nodded. "Alright."
While Rem went on about finding dry grass to make a bed of it for the girl, Autumn sat by on the staircase, listening to the lonely sounds of the wasteland. It was so hard to fathom that in this very location, something so horrible had happened but the rest of the world would never hear about it. And even if it did, nobody would make it a big deal. It made the world feel so empty.
Once Rem had gathered enough grass and cloths for the incineration, he climbed up to one of the iron cargo crates and started making a bed of it. Once it was ready, he climbed down and looked towards Autumn, "It's ready." Autumn stood up as Rem walked up the staircase, brushing past her. When he emerged from the outpost, he was carrying the woman in his arms, wrapped in dark sheets so that the only thing that could be seen was her face. Autumn watched Rem descend down the stairs and go past her, and then she watched him put her over his shoulder to carry her up to the roof of the cargo crate. She followed, and when she got up there, she watched Rem place her in the middle of the bed. "I wonder what her name was," asked Autumn, and Rem answered, "We're going to radio to the other outposts once we're done here. You can find out." Autumn nodded, and as Rem straightened up and stared down at the woman, he breathed.
Then, he reached into his trench coat and pulled out a box of matches. After taking one out of its box, he struck the tip against the black strip. The fire burned bright, and then he tossed the wooden stick into the grass, where the fire began to spread. The woman's face was lit up by the orange luminescence and somehow, it gave her an ethereal glow. Autumn stared silently beside Rem, who also stared silently for a while, until he broke the sounds of crackling flames and spoke. "I've seen a lot of people pass before, and many have gone on without recognition. Not tonight. A woman passed, murdered, and though we don't know her name we certainly know her face, and that will forever remain etched into the walls of our hearts. Until the day we, too, pass on. Rest in peace." He closed his eyes and when he did, Autumn stared at him. She turned to face the body, which was slowly catching fire, and she closed her eyes, too.
Her body was eventually entirely on fire, and the smoke that came from it reached high up into the sky. They stood there together for a long time and eventually, he turned around, moving towards the ladder that led down to ground level. Autumn turned to see him go, his words echoing in her ears, and then she turned away and followed him, leaving the crackling flames behind her. As Rem walked, he walked like he wasn't thinking about the fire anymore, but he was. It had been a long, long time since he had seen a proper funeral like that one. The only few times he had seen them was when fellow soldiers in the NCR were felled, but never when it was a random wastelander he didn't know. It felt heavier than usual to have given the woman a funeral but at the same time, it felt like they had given her the smallest, most insignificant due she deserved for having at least lived.
When he was at ground level again, he went from one of the dead men to the next, routinely turning them over onto their backs and seaching through their stuff. The two he killed outside the outpost had marskman carbines, which were respectable weapons in their own rights. He acquired ammo for them, a bottle of purified water from one of them, and went up towards the outpost. Autumn watched him as he went on about it, calmly, like he had done it many times. Unbeknownst to Rem, she felt a subtle kind of elation, or something close to it, from the fact that Rem had made these men pay for their transgressions. Each one of them was dead now, and none of them was going to get a proper funeral. "Rem," she uttered, and Rem was at the base of the staircase when he stopped and glanced back at her. "Can . . . can you teach me how to use one of those guns?" When she asked him that, he was surprised. "Why?"
Autumn crossed her arms over her stomach and answered, "I can use pistols, and I can load them and all of that, but I want to learn more about weapons. So I can defend myself." Rem slowly nodded, "Alright." Then he started walking up the staircase, and she followed him. Once they were inside she watched him search through the one with the shotgun. He ignored the caravan shotgun he had and only took a bottle of purified water from him, before moving on to the leader of the group, who didn't have anything of value on him except for a wad of caps. Two hundred and thirty caps, to be exact. Rem took them and poured them into a small bag, which then went into the duffle bag. After that, he straightened out and started looking through the rest of the outpost. Autumn raised an eyebrow and followed him into the room where the woman died. Her blood was still fresh on the floor, slick. "What are you looking for?" she asked, while Rem looked through tool cabinets and other things.
"The supplies that the freeside outpost sent. If they're not here, then they had friends, and those friends made off with the supplies." Autumn nodded slowly, understanding now. A few minutes later, after Rem had looked through just about anywhere he could think of, he approached the radio and sat down. Once he turned it on he heard static, and beside it, there was a book full of frequencies, which he looked through. When he found the one he was looking for he radioed, "Freeside outpost, this is Southwest Camp Golf. Do you read?" As he waited, he turned to Autumn, "Close the door." She looked towards it, walked to it, and closed it. At about the same time, Rem heard a response. "We copy. Who are we speaking to? Over." Rem held the radio to his mouth and spoke, "This is Rem. I came here from the North Charlie station to figure out the situation. Everyone's gone. Over." There was a long, but expected, pause.
"Copy." Rem stayed silent for a couple of moments and spoke into the radio again, "The supplies aren't here. I suspect they had friends, and their friends took the supplies elsewhere. Over." Moments later, he got an answer, this time from a female. He recognized her as Julie Farkas, "Understood. Are you sure everyone's gone? Over." Rem was about to respond when Autumn spoke, "Ask about her." Rem turned to look at her over his shoulder, thought it was useless to ask, but when he turned back to the radio he spoke, he did, "I'm sure. Do you know who the woman with the long black hair and green eyes was? Over." Julie responded, "Cassandra . . . Boykins. Why do you ask? Over." "We gave her a funeral. We just wanted there to be a name to go along with the face. Over." "Copy." A long while went by and Rem radioed again, "I have a question to ask, Julie. Over." Julie responded, "Go ahead."
"I have someone here with me who is looking to join the followers. Originally, she was going to come here to learn, but in light of these recent events, that's not possible. Would you by any chance be able to take her?" Julie responded, "Does she have any skills?" Rem shook his head, "She was learning things at Sandra's outpost, but otherwise, no." Julie responded a little later. By then, they were ignoring radio protocol. "I see. Well, I suppose we could take her in and teach her, if she's willing to learn." Rem responded, "She is, no doubt about that. Can I bring her over as soon as possible?" Julie nodded on the other side, "Yes. You can." Rem glanced at Autumn, who was standing beside him now, and answered, "Will do then. Over." After that, he started switching the frequency to the West Novac outpost. "This is Rem. Does anyone read?" It took a couple of moments but he got a response, "Rem. We read. What's the situation? Over."
Rem shook his head, "Everyone's gone. Over." Moments later, Sandra spoke, groggily. "Rem. It's Sandra. You said everyone's gone?" Rem nodded as he answered, "Correct. Everyone's gone. The supplies that were shipped in from Freeside are nowhere to be found, which means they likely had friends who took them elsewhere. Over." Sandra leaned back in her chair, one arm across her torso and her other elbow resting atop it. She sighed, too, and then spoke, "What's the plan for Autumn?" "I'm bringing her to Freeside. They said they'd take her." That was some good news, at least, but it still felt like too many of her friends were dying lately. "Good. Well, you better get a move on. Don't want to be there when their friends get back." Rem nodded deeply, "Definitely. Rem out." He set the radio down and put the frequency book in his duffle bag, in case he needed those frequencies later, and turned to Autumn, who was glancing at him.
"We're going to go back to the 188 trading post and then we're heading to the Freeside outpost." Autumn heard that, nodded, but didn't forget that he said he'd teach her how to use other guns, "You're going to teach me how to use those guns, right?" Rem paused as he was pacing, like he had forgotten about it entirely. "Oh, yeah, sure. I'll teach you how to shoot." Autumn stared at him, and as he started to walk past her, she looked like she had more to say, but didn't. "We should get out of here before their friends get here," he commanded, and with that, he took a quick glance out the window. He surveyed the surroundings closely for a little while and eventually emerged before descending the staircase. Autumn followed behind him, but while he began walking straight back in the direction of the trading outpost, she stopped and looked back at the fire.
As the orange brilliance of the flames shimmered in her green eyes, she thought about Cassandra, and what she must have been like. She might have been shy with a good sense of morality about her or she might have been talkative and more promiscuous than she should be, but in the end, she was a Follower, and the fact that she wanted to help people made the final verdict on the class of person she was final. She was a good person, because she had likely helped many people before she died, and she more than deserved the brilliant funeral she was given. Rest in peace, Cassandra, she thought, as Rem called, "Autumn!" She turned in his direction and started jogging, carrying the two weapons Rem had acquired from the men he killled earlier.