Chapter 4: "War" by Poets Of The Fall

Zoiks watched the death. After the missile explosion she had retreated to the car that Simms, Perez and Gob squatted behind. Looking up at the higher fortifications to get an idea of how they were faring, she saw it. Stockholm moved for a spot on the roof directly above a recently improvised window. Then a splash of red erupted from his temple and he fell. Through the window she saw his feet dangling, so his body must not have made it completely through the hole that was apparently there.

The moment passed and she turned her attention back to her own situation. Her cover was crowded with other people. The sheriff sat facing her and the Ewer's house, his right arm limp by his side. Perez was next to him behind the rusted hulk of a car. The young, wounded and steadfast man was covering one corner of the vehicle in case a raider managed to get close and Gob was keeping a steady, measured fire. The relative safety and the dwindling volume of bullets gave Simms an opportunity to take stock of other parts of the fight, which Zoiks saw him doing.

"Simms! What' de plan?" she yelled. Her speech was measurably improving, but she still had to struggle to be understood even when not in a warzone.

She was unsure if he got the question because before he could say anything Evan, from another bit of cover a few feet away, called, "They're retreating!"

"Alright! Get me and Perez up and back into town, we need to regroup!"

Zoiks lifted Perez as Gob bent down to get the injured sheriff and limp back into Arefu. Evan, the sentrybot and the person in the window of the Ewer's house covered them. One person did not follow.

Dusty, the slightly disturbed sentry from Bigtown, was dead. Right at the beginning of the fight had had been hit and went down. He had been the forward most person, too far away to grab and drag back, and moments later another barrage finished him off. Zoiks had only managed to continue the fight by first vomiting up her dinner and discomfort. Her NIPC, the computer in her head, helped her face the eerie stillness of the human she had just seen running and shooting moments before. She had reminded herself that the battle might be the last stand for the group. Everyone needed to be in the fight or they would die. They had taken her in, fed her, protected her, and they faced the reality of possible annihilation.

She 'manned up,' as some call it, and fought harder than ever to stop her refugees, her comrades, her family, from being killed. Even if it might mean her own life instead. So far it had yet only cost her half a dozen bruises from her combat armor stopping bullets, a gunshot wound to the back of her shoulder and a few dislocated fingers on her right hand from a swung wooden bat.

Zoiks vaguely felt them through the adrenaline as she pulled Perez to his feet. He was bleeding from the gut and still he did not let go of his shotgun while they moved. Likewise, she supported him with her left arm while her right hand aimed her own weapon. The backup assault rifle that she usually had slung over her shoulder would have been better for the situation, but it had been disabled by a stray bullet early in the fight.

They followed the sheriff and the ghoul, staggering up the few feet towards where the main entrance to the town had once been. The ground leveled out and the low, looming house to the left provided an illusion of safety. The other fortifications were destroyed, a direct hit from a missile had blown the sandbag wall completely apart. A charred corpse lay nearby, having suffered similarly. The open chest cavity and severe burns that made it indistinguishable showed that it was assuredly dead.

With all protection gone the other defenders had moved back twenty or so feet so that the road where the ramp crested and leveled out kept them out of sight of attackers. Crazy sat up against the concrete guardrail eying them, as if he was not totally convinced they were on his side. Walter, one of the oldest refugees and one of the original Megaton survivors, was also blackened from the blast and was curled up and rocking manically. As Zoiks and Perez tried to get out of sight of the attackers below Simms and Gob vanished into the Ewer's house before Gob returned to the battle. Zoiks heard Evan saying something behind them, which sounded like instructions to the sentrybot. She could not tell what it was about.

Suddenly Zoiks's leg gave out and she fell. After hitting the ground face-first the pain of her head, the new bullet wound on the inside of her knee and all her other injuries hit full force. She screamed, one long loud burst of high pitched sound conveying all of the agony her body was sufering. Without her to brace against Perez tumbled forward, but turned as he did so he could land on his back. She could hear his shotgun's report above and ahead of her so she pulled herself toward him.

Someone's hands reached her and she thought that the raiders had finally broken through. But then they dragged her up, away from the firefight. She looked, expecting to see Gob, or maybe Evan, pulling her across the asphalt to safety. Instead she found it was Perez, bleeding stomach and all, who was rescuing her.

A shadow fell over them. Again Zoiks thought her life was going to end. Perez turned to defend them, reflexes a second faster than hers. She turned to do the same, realizing that should have been her first reaction instead of squeezing her eyes shut, but it was Evan and the sentrybot maneuvering the rusted hulk of the car everyone had been hiding behind moments before. It barely rolled but they were trying to bring it up to the remains of the sandbags to reestablish some cover on the important spot. Evan was pulling, which allowed the robot to push and it protected him from the fire they were drawing, but the slow progress came to a halt after only a few feet.

Perez fell then, probably from blood loss and the exertion saving her had taken. Zoiks noticed that once again her pain was in a distant place, present but no longer consuming. Her body was going into shock. Knowing her mechanical strength could make a difference she hobbled over next to Evan, found a firm hold on the car and heaved. It budged and started forward again. The bare metal wheel almost ran over her lame foot but she managed to catch her balance and continue pulling with the others. In fifteen agonizing seconds the totaled vehicle was moved into place and they had cover.

Truly drained, Zoiks half-fell, half-knelt down next to Perez. A small puddle of blood was spreading around him. For a moment she was worried for him, but then from farther into town Karen ran out to help. She rolled him over, checked the wound and finally injected a stimpack into the bleeding hole in his stomach.

"Shit. He is losing too much blood! Where are the medical supplies?"

Crazy called out weakly in response. "Red had them last. Lucas gave them to her in Bigtown, when she was fixing me up the first time. Check her bedroll, in Evan's house. Cornelu had some stims too, if you run out ask him."

Zoiks was next to be treated, and a dull ache pulsed up through her sluggish right arm as her finger bones were set. A similar feeling came from her shoulder when the other woman rooted around for the bullet. Searing pain cut through the fog as her body came back out of shock from a stimpact and she clenched her jaw from the sudden feeling. When the Arefu resident was finished she left.

A strange thing happened as Zoiks accidentally bit through a part of her tongue, stopped because she could once again sense hurt and felt the muscle instantly fix itself. As the stim did its job the fire inside her dimmed to centers of heat around her shoulder, mouth and the back of her left knee, but the knitting together of cartilage in her hand continued to burn like it was in an inferno.

Gob turned back to them and yelled, "They're coming! All of them!"

At that Zoiks rose and hefted her gun. She swayed on her feet, but with her new scars no longer bleeding she was ready for the next round. Perez, at her feet, did not get back up. Karen arrived just then with two bags and dug into them. Moments later a blood pack was threaded into Perez's arm, then Karen left him.

Seeing Perez lying unconscious after risking his life to save her, Zoiks's previous protective zeal overwhelmed her. No one was going to hurt that man again while she was alive to do anything about it. She picked up his shotgun and rifled through his pockets for shells. If all of their enemies really were attacking all at once it was going to be one hell of a fight so she was going to need them. With so many dead or wounded more weapons lay about. She made a mental note of their locations and, without any more hesitation, moved up to the bullet-riddled car frame that made up the front line intent on killing as many raiders as possible.

Simms lay on his side just inside the door of the Ewer house with a limp arm and a new hole in his ass. One of the wild, spraying attacks that the insane raiders occasionally tried had put a pair of bullets into his left thigh. The first seemed to have slammed against his hip bone, the other had passed through and taken a part of his buttock with it. An iron pipe, thrown by a charging enemy, broke his forearm a few minutes later so he had handed his gun of to the closest person, Gob.

Now he was stuck inside, injured and out of the fight. Sam had a few stims, but they could not risk closing the leg wound without first getting the bullet out from were it was embedded in his hip. No one could spare the time to do that because everyone was needed to hold off the raiders. Simms had tried to poke around himself but without success. He could not see into the wound and just blindly reaching his fingers into the gaping hole was only a last resort option. That could cause much more harm than good.

So all he could do was watch the two others in the house fire out the window. He drew his heavy .44 revolver from where it was hidden within his brown trench coat, just in case. With so many enemies around he felt naked without some sort of weapon. From where he was Simms could see Sam and Harden using the excellent firing position, the ex-raider popping off sniper shots every ten seconds while Harden gradually lessened the number of short, controlled bursts he released from Cornelu's assault rifle. He was impressed with his son's clarity in a crisis.

He was also shitting himself with worry. Harden was ten. Ten. The armor he was wearing, the impressive gun that he had gotten from somewhere, none of it mattered. He should not be fighting in this battle.

But the whole group might be overrun and killed if the raiders were not held off. And Harden had joined the sudden fight of his own free will. He had been told to go tell the others back in town, not to find a defensive position, pick up a gun, which Simms realized must be Cornelu's, and start shooting raiders. What could he do?

One of the Arefu residents burst in the door, interrupting Simms's thoughts. It was the girl who had chosen not to go on the rescue mission of Lucy's brother. It seemed so long ago. Simms though her name was Carol. She had a light burn on her cheek and the hair on the right side of her head was blackened and gnarled.

She saw him and his leg and pulled out a stim from the two bags she carried.

"No, you have to get the bullet out first."

"Yes, I know. Hold still." She set the needle down next to him and lay beside his leg so she could see the injury. Pain raced up Simms body as she probed the second entry wound.

"No, the other one," he said through clenched teeth.

In moments a small, deformed bit of metal went plink onto the ground. Relief flooded the sheriff's body as he healed by the woman. She discarded the used stim.

"Thank you Carol."

She gave him a look and said, "It's Karen. And you're welcome." Then she looked around, saw there were no other wounded, and left again.

From outside Gob yelled, "They're coming! All of them!"

Jumping into action Simms went over to where a body hung from a hole in the ceiling. He pulled it down and caught it to find that it was Stockholm, the sentry from Megaton that he had know and worked with for fifteen years. Dead. Even after all of the death and killing he had seen and done over his lifetime, it affected him.

But he did not have time for that, so he slipped his revolver back into his coat and reached for Stockholm's hunting rifle. The window was about three feet wide and half a foot long. Below it was a wooden dresser that stopped any bullets that might come at them, and the position was occupied by Harden and Sam. Simms looked out over them for a glimpse of what was happening.

Gob was right, all of the two dozen remaining raiders were charging up the ramp towards them. Because most of them had been held back until now these fresh one had plenty of ammo, and none of them had injuries to slow them down. Instead of using the cover on the right side of the highway they ran straight up the open left lanes for the main entrance. Simms did not know that Evan and Zoiks had moved the car, so he still thought the town's entrance was defenseless.

They were not going to survive unless he got outside and organized some of the others to hold them off. And it was certain that they were going to lose the first line of defense, at the very least. The town might very well be overrun completely.

"Harden, Sam; keep hitting them until they get close, then get outside and fall back farther into the town. We are going to have to retreat, and I don't want you getting cut off from us." He looked at his son for the last part. A glance from the sheriff could emote with surprising accuracy. It was understood, clearly and explicitly.

He emerged from the Ewer's house and was pleasantly surprised. There was cover for the front entrance. Zoiks, Evan, and Gob crouched behind a familiar rusted car that had been moved to block most of the space between the building he had just left and the concrete guardrail. The sentrybot rolled back and forth behind them, shooting from one end of the car then moving to the other and repeating. Crazy Wolfgang sat propped up against the guardrail ten feet behind the car, Karen working on him. Perez lay unconscious next to them. Timebomb had his hands over his head and was cowering even farther back. Walter was severely burnt but was alive and rocking back and forth disturbingly.

A completely destroyed body lay among the scene like an accent to the macabre theme. Broken or dropped guns were scattered around. Next to the charred corpse was an assault rifle, a normal brown one. It was slightly hot to the touch but he picked it up anyway, putting his back away.

Simms joined the others on the front line. The raiders were still about halfway down the ramp. The car was right on the crest of the hill because it tipped a little when he leaned on it. It gave the sheriff an idea. They would need to retreat soon anyway, in about fifteen seconds the cover would be useless to them.

"Harden, get back!" he shouted over the gunfire. "Everyone, stop shooting and lift the car."

Evan, Gob and Zoiks looked at him like he was crazy, but followed the command. They slung their weapons over their shoulders and pulled up on the bottom of the ancient vehicle. It tipped up, hinging on the two wheels closest to the raiders. Just as they were about to flip it over Simms called out, "Sentrybot! Ram the car! NOW!"

The military robot stopped its circuit and ran full force into the upturned vehicle. It was pushed over the edge of the plateau that Arefu was built on, then fell down the ramp towards the charging raiders just as they were getting uncomfortably close.

However now the defenders had no cover whatsoever. Immediately a bullet pinged off of the gun Simms had just picked up and bent it. Completely without thought he threw it after the car at the enemies.

"Retreat! Everyone back farther into town. Pick up people and guns as you go, we're going to need them."

The broken husk of the pre-war car made small vibrations through the bridge as it tumbled and slid its way down the ramp, crushing many of the attackers on its way down. But suddenly a major shudder ran through the whole structure. Right from the foundation up.

Everyone was already picking up the wounded and the discarded weapons, as per Simms's orders. Karen had Crazy up and walking, and Walter seemed to have broken the mental spell that had overcome him. Harden and Sam abandoned the Ewer's house. They were all headed deeper into the buildings, and when it happened everyone looked up from what they were doing, wide-eyed with fear.

"Maybe that was the car?" Karen asked hopefully.

"No," Simms replied, "the foolish man built his house upon the two hundred-year-old fucking bridge. They're attacking the supports! Some of you hold here. The rest come with me. We need to get everyone out of the town."

Crazy, Sam, Walter and the sentrybot stayed. In the few seconds respite they tried moving Perez and attempting to rouse Timebomb from his paralysis. Then they focused on picking off the odd raider that popped their head over the top of the ramp. Simms led the others in a swift evacuation.

"Bring Moria out and carry her. Harden, get Maggie. Someone grab the handcart. Karen, Evan; go into your stockpiles and fill the handcart with food." Simms ran through a checklist, but kept losing his place. So many people were dead or had left town. It was impossible to keep track of everyone. "Who else is still here?"

"Dad, Cornelu is just behind the West's house!" Harden shouted just before leaving to get Maggie.

"Zoiks, go get Cornelu! He is-" Simms stopped. Although she was lagging behind, trying to put in a last few shots at the raiders, she had managed to hear Harden over the gunfire and all the other sounds of warfare. She shot Simms a look that said 'On it' and took off, past the other buildings to the shantytown the refugees had built the night before.

She returned a few moments later carrying the ill man and pulling her rusted red wagon behind her. Comically, the potted Mutfruit plant Zoiks carried in the wagon was doing fine amid the bullets and explosions that were tearing up the humans. Still coated in the black power armor, Cornelu weighed her down and made it difficult to move. There was no way he was getting out fast enough if carried that way. In fact he was amazed that the petite woman could lift the immense load with the ease she did.

With all of the more important things to worry about, Simms completely forgot about the black metal helmet for Cornelu's armor. The armor did not activate without the final piece, and that was still hidden away in Karen's house.

Karen, Harden and Maggie came out of said house laden with her stockpile of food and a few bottles of pure water. They threw most of it into the handcart and some into Zoiks's wagon.

Gob, arms full carrying an unconscious Moria, kicked open the door to the West's house and hurried out. Seeing the ghoul could no longer use the painted assault rifle he held, Simms asked, "Gob, my gun?" The Gob did not protest and handed the weapon over.

Evan emerged from his house with an armful of dried brown brahmin meat and pre-war food packages. Ethyl followed him, but was not carrying anything. He dropped the victuals into the handcart as well.

Evan said, "I found Ethyl. She was hiding in the room I gave her."

Another shudder ran through the length of the decrepit bridge. It was worse this time. Simms lost his balance and fell, but angrily jumped back up. He did not have time to be falling down.

"Alright, good. Give Zoiks a hand with Cornelu, we have to get moving."

Evan grabbed Cornelu and together he and Zoiks managed to shoved his limp form up on top of the mostly full handcart. The extra weight slowed the contraption though, and the two of them could not pull it much at all, not to mention at a reasonable speed.

To solve the situation Simms called out, "Sentrybot, get back here!" The large metal robot was pockmarked with holes and the left arm hung by its side. That arm was the missile launcher arm, which it lacked ammo for anyway. It still could move and shoot its minigun arm, and that was all the group needed of it. Simms, Zoiks and Evan hashed the rods of the handcart to the robot. It was not pretty, but it held.

They did not have time for Simms to stop and check to see if they had forgotten anything. He thought they had all of the people, and there was some food and some water. The ragged band of refugees was as ready as Simms could make them. "Alright. We have to get off this bridge. The raiders should be pretty worn down. Don't stop until your feet are on solid ground! Charge!"