Chapter 5: Humanity

Gob shifted Moria so that she hung over his right shoulder to be able shoot with his dominant left hand. He still had the spare 10mm pistol that he had been issued so long ago. It seemed like this fight was lasting weeks, and the unending march before it that blurred everything together.

As Simms's short speech ended everyone rushed for the ramp. A few extra shouted directions from the sheriff and they managed to form a loose column. The sentrybot-handcart was in front, flanked by Evan and Simms to spearhead the attack. Cornelu lay on top of it. Directly behind them, in the shadow of the contraption, Timebomb and Maggie carried Perez and the blood pack that was attached to him, respectively. Harden, Crazy and Zoiks protected them from bullets with their armored bodies and laid down cover fire. Gob was at the back of the line with Karen, Walter, Sam and Ethyl.

Everyone ran and fired at the raiders in front of them. Even Crazy Wolfgang, who was still pretty messed up from the missile explosion and the previous fight in Bigtown, added his lead to the barrage, though he started to lag behind.

The charge managed to steer around the wreckage of the car that was halfway down the ramp. A few people slipped in the blood from the dozen or so mangled bodies there. After thirty terrifying, never-ending seconds of running and screaming and ducking bullets and shooting and running some more, Gob found himself on flat ground. They made it. By some minor miracle, all of them did.

He could hear Simms continue yelling orders, getting things organized. "Get the wounded behind the handcart. Sam, pick off the ones that are still fighting. Finish them!" The sheriff slammed the butt of his grey rifle into the connection between the sentrybot and the handcart to let the robot get back into the fight. Gob set the unconscious Megaton woman he was carrying down with the others that were hurt and turned back to the last of the enemies.

Of the massive group that had been attacking them, only a few still had the ability and inclination to fight. But few of the refugees did either. Only Gob, Sam, Zoiks, Simms and the robot turned back to the fight. The confusion that the charge had caused in the raider's already unorganized line made them easy to pick off for the experienced marksmen and the automated gun. Gob and Zoiks made very little difference, but fired anyway. With a few last bullets the battle for Arefu finally came to a close.

Returning to the wounded, Gob tried to make himself helpful. He had no medical training but figured he could do basic things if someone needed him to. The first person he happened upon was Moria, right where he had left her. He checked her over for any blood stains and found that while being toted around she had been shot in the back of the calf.

Everyone was pooling their stimpacks now, the result of another efficient instruction from Simms, and Gob grabbed one. He jabbed it into Moria's hurt leg and pushed the plunger. He did not know that it would have healed fine with only a quarter that dosage of the potent healing agent, but ignorance is bliss.

Giving the Megaton shopkeeper another inspection for injuries he saw that there were a few flakes of dead skin on her neck. Assuming they had brushed off of himself when he had been carrying her, he swept them away.

They did not move.

Looking closer Gob noticed that her skin was drying out everywhere, along her face, arms and newly healed leg even. While he watched a small slab of flesh on her check came loose and fell off.

It was well known that Moria had been especially close to the bomb when it went off, but no one had thought that maybe the radiation she had received would change her. It just did not happen very often. But God could clearly see the signs, he had gone through them himself.

Moria Brown, former eccentric shop owner of Craterside Supply in Megaton, was undoubtedly turning into a ghoul.

Stevie, Red and Kimba emerged from Northwest Seneca Metro Station completely exhausted. Kimba was bloodied, and the old Wastelander was hurt so badly that Red had to help him along. The rescue attempt had been a misadventure, to put it as delicately as possible. An ill-conceived disaster from the start was more accurate.

When the group of six managed to find the Family's hideout in the bowels of D.C.'s pre-war subway they were met with surprising hospitality. Keeping things civil they asked to see Ian West and a man named Vance came out to talk with them.

He was the head of the Family and spoke of how they were trying to help Ian. When the leader talked his voice and demeanor sent chills up Stevie's spine, an unease not at all dissuaded by the strange metal container strapped to the man's back. Lucy had exploded at the man and demanded to see her brother. Vance dropped a bombshell then, claiming that Ian had willingly joined the Family, and that they were indeed helping him with a self-realization. The already tense situation snapped and Lucy opened fire. Vance pulled an outlandish sword that he lit aflame, presumably with a flammable liquid stored in the reservoir on his back.

When the smoke cleared Stevie had a burning cut on his leg, a bullet in his forearm, a few new dents in his armor and the only other people alive were Red and Kimba. They heard more Family members coming from deeper in the tunnels so the three had run, abandoning the senseless mission. They passed Murphy and Barrett, two ghouls who Stevie sometimes did business with, on the way out. They had a mutually beneficial relationship, but the two certainly did not stick their neck out for him when he passed by with an assortment of new holes in his body.

Now Stevie, Red and Kimba were just reaching the cold, bracing air of the Wasteland night at Northwest Seneca Station. Located a few hundred feet directly north of Arefu on the other side of the river, it was just possible for them to hear distant gunfire. A lot of it. It was punctuated with the low rumbling of an explosion.

Panic enveloped them and they hobbled forward. Across the Potomac the town was under attack.

They moved as fast as they could. Stevie pushed through the pain in his leg. Without the anesthetic of adrenalin he could no longer run on it. The bullet in his arm made it unsafe for him to use a stimpack on himself.

But it slowed them down, and they needed to get back as soon as possible, so without stopping he took out the combat knife he kept in his boot and jabbed quickly at the bleeding hole above his wrist. A choked sound escaped through his bared teeth, but he felt around for the metal with the tip of the blade and forced it out, then quickly followed the violent procedure with a stim.

It had been a long time since he had been forced to such extreme measures. That is what happened when people charge in without thinking. Even with his sadness at the loss of Lucy he was more angry at her senseless, grief-driven attack and the deaths it had led to.

The deep, jagged laceration on his wrist did not heal fully with only one stimpack, but it slowed the copious bleeding from the big veins he had damaged. Stevie paused for a second to stab another needle into himself, this one next to the slice across his burnt thigh. Finally he regained the full use of his leg and they sped up to a fast jog.

There was a flash of light and the sound of a blast at the bottom of one of the bridge's supports. Attention drawn, through the darkness Stevie saw a pair of raiders near it. One held a missile launcher. The other carried a stack of rockets in his arms.

The wide riverbed was only partially flowing, which was normal for autumn in the D.C. Wasteland, so they made it across in only a few minutes. Too late, when he looked up again the woman who held the missile launcher had already loaded another missile into it and she fired at the support.

Nothing happened.

The explosive's propulsion failed to ignite. It popped out a few feet and fell to the ground with no effect. Stevie heard the raiders swear and they started reloading again. Two scorched black circles on the tower of cement and a few loose missiles on the ground indicated that so far they had met with only limited success.

Above them the ambient noise of the fighting intensified. People screaming in rage and the sound of many people running reverberated through the bridge above them.

Rushing now, he led the way towards the raiders so he could get a clear shot. The one with the launcher, a woman, used it once more before Stevie could unload on them. The missile flopped to the ground like the other one had.

Stevie fired. The woman went down, dropping the tubular weapon. Kimba joined his target practice with her hunting rifle, but missed because of her own injury on her shoulder. The raider man fumbled the five missiles he was holding, each a foot and a half long, and tried to pull a handgun. He died before his hand touched the weapon.

Stevie knew from experience that the problem the raiders had been having was from the launcher being severely damaged and under-repaired. It was not igniting the propellant of the missiles. The missiles themselves, however, were probably still good, and the sentrybot would be able to use them. He grabbed seven, an armful, from the ground as he went by.

Moving on, they climbed the hill to where the overpass met the ground. Stevie led them up the right side, as the left was were the abandoned Arefu house was. The battle seemed to have died down judging from the volume of gunfire. A final crack of a rifle ended it, and Stevie poked his head out to see what happened.

Simms and all the others were out on the roadbed in front of the ramp. They had brought the sentrybot, which was severely damaged, and the handcart, upon which lay Cornelu. Everyone was hurt in some way, either majorly or not. A few, notably Lilith and Stockholm, were missing.

Sam was on guard while the rest tried to recover. Stevie called out to him before approaching, to reduce his chances of being shot for no reason. Some of the refugees turned to watch them. Most did not bother.

Red put Kimba with the other wounded and started trying to figure out how badly people were hurt. Walter and Crazy were the worst, hurt in a blast of some kind. Probably the missile launcher. But Stevie did not pay attention, eyes on Simms.

The sheriff turned away from organizing where the group was going to sleep to him, Stevie. A motion, almost a twitch of the man's dark skinned hand, indicated they should talk in private. Stevie set down the armful of explosives and followed, heading away from the others.

"Is she dead?" Simms asked softly. He faced out toward the expanse of the Wasteland. It was probably to keep an eye out for raiders. It was also likely that he did not want to face Stevie for this conversation.

"Yes."

"And the other two Arefu residents?"

"Yes."

A moment passed. "So are Stockholm, Lilith, and Dusty. Perez is likely too, and Walter and Crazy are close." Stevie stewed for a few seconds, then the sheriff added, "Harden was shot. Nicked him just below the armpit, glancing off of his ribs and the vest I make him wear. Less than a finger's length from his heart."

Simms turned to him at that. "I understand why you did what you did. I even admire how you did it, making sure you didn't undermine my authority by disagreeing in front of everyone else. If it wasn't for that, I'd have grabbed Sam's rifle and shot you on the spot if you ever came back.

"But we were attacked, and you weren't here for it. Against my explicit order. How do you think the others feel about you three just waltzing in here after they had to fight and bleed and die to get out of that town alive?

"If we didn't need all the help we could get, I'd ban you, here and now. But you know I won't do that, because we need you, shady past regardless. You know these Wastes, we don't. But that is all you are from now on, if you chose to stay. A guide. A hired gun, maybe. Once we get back on our feet, you can go back to scavenging and merc-ing, or become a trader, or fall off a cliff or I don't give a shit. But you're not joining us."

Stevie held the sheriff's gaze, then replied, "Understood, sir." It was much more than a juvenile attempt at sarcasm, the decades old man was better than that. The emphasis was much deeper, and Simms flinched for the revolver that Stevie knew was hidden in the left inside pocket of the brown coat he wore.

But then he smiled, something that Stevie saw as a feral, evil smile of power and corruption, and acknowledged the double meaning. "If that is what it takes, I would gladly." Then he walked away.

The insinuation into his past infuriated the old Wastelander. Pain from the wounds on his arm and thigh suddenly became a burning expression of his fury and he reveled in it. He had spotted a nest of mirelurks, blue crab-monsters, when crossing the Potomac with Red and Kimba. They were not nocturnal so they would be sleeping. Stevie decided to go slaughter them to blow off some steam.

Perez came out of unconsciousness, which is significantly different from waking up from sleep, an hour after the last raider died. A pack of pre-war blood ran to the crux of his arm and he was not leaking the vital fluid back out through openings in his body, which was good. He had been healed. Well, mostly. He still hurt like hell.

For a few moments he just lay there, the ache that enveloped him countering the feeling of relief in his muscles. He was not fighting. There was no immediate need to jump up and run around and fire his shotgun and drag people across the ground through a hail of bullets. That was a luxury in itself. He was alive, and he did not have to move. He fell into a normal sleep.

A commotion woke him. From the chill in the air he could tell it was still before dawn, but around him he felt and heard people moving and whispering anxiously. Then a loud crack split the night and he jolted up. The group was in a building, makeshift and composed of debris like most structures since the war, and everyone was looking out a pair of windows on one side of the room. Perez had an actual bed frame, so raised as he was he could see out one of the portals to the outside.

The ancient overpass that Arefu was built on made another loud noise and suddenly dropped sixty feet to the partially dry riverbed below. The roar of crashing blocks of concrete and displaced air was deafening for a few seconds.

Delirious from sleep and pain, Perez did not understand any of it. Everyone else just went back to sleep. Just one more settlement to scratch off the map of the Wasteland.

When Perez awoke next it was for good. He opened his eyes and saw brightness through the window. It was daytime, time to get up.

He found his body sluggish in its responses to what his brain told it to do, but he assumed that could be attributed to the fatigue of fighting an all-out battle in the middle of the night. The day before had been intended by Simms to be a rest day. So much for that.

The blood bag had drained into his veins while he slept, so he removed the needle and the empty packet before standing. A lot of other people were still sleeping so he quietly found the exit. He stepped out to find that the building he was leaving was the previously abandoned shack outside of Arefu. That made sense. It was the only building nearby that they could take shelter in after the attack. He chided himself for not putting that together sooner, but chalked it up to the fatigue.

Simms was up, and he was digging holes. No, not holes. The figures that lay nearby clearly identified the rectangles dug into the ground as graves. Over the loud protest of his muscles, Perez went to join him.

There was only one spade so he started with a rake and a hand shovel. While they were working Zoiks came over from the wreckage of Arefu with another body. She and Evan King seemed to be searching the ruins. A fire downwind of the group was the destination of the raiders they found.

"How are you holding up?" Perez asked the sheriff.

That earned him a look. With all of the natural authority in the man's face, it was a potent look. "Fine," was the curt reply.

"Just wanted to get across that some of us understand you are only human. The image of the solid leader that will guide us through this, that won't be tarnished by little things like natural emotions. The image of being an indestructible hardass might be, but that is not the image that is important."

He could see Simms's temple throb at his arrogance for speaking so openly, and for insinuating that he was not in fact an indestructible hardass. But that was a quality that made good raider gang bosses, not good sheriffs and regulators. Perez knew that, and he knew Simms knew that.

After a few minutes the dark man in the brown trenchcoat put down his spade, sat down on the edge of the grave he was digging and cried. Tears streaked down over the grim on his face, through his black beard and vanished into the thirsty dirt below him.

When Zoiks approached with another body ten minutes later both men were digging ditches again.

"Thanks Perez," the sheriff said softly. "I think I needed that. So, you probably want to know what happened while you were out, huh?"

At Perez's nod he explained the strategy of the retreat, the improvised car attack that Simms had thought up and the evacuation after the raiders started going after the bridge supports. The deaths were confused, in the heat of the fight no one was sure the order, but Dusty, Stockholm and Lilith had perished. The last was killed in the missile explosion that had destroyed the sandbag wall and she was only identifiable by process of elimination. No one else was dead or missing, save Bittercup who was found later. The final charge out of Arefu pushed the survivors through the last of the raiders and the battle had ended.

Then Stevie, Kimba and Red had returned. The rescue for Lucy's brother had failed. After that Simms organized a move into the abandoned house to fend off the Wasteland night's bitter cold. The body of the Bigtown girl named Bittercup was there, mutilated and desecrated by raiders. Apparently she had disobeyed Simms's order for everyone to stay in town.

Since then the supports that held up Arefu had finally given way. People were recovering the bodies and looting the weapons that had been used during the battle. Stockholm had been found under the twisted tin sheets of the Ewer's house and his ragged combat armor lay folded next to a growing pile of armaments collected by the scavengers.

With the story retold Perez asked, "So what are we going to do now?"

"Now we are going to have to find someplace else to live. It means more marching, but I'm not going to push the group. They had a tough night, they can sleep in. When everyone is up we will bury our dead, hopefully to give people some closure but also to remind them we are real people, not savages. Then we will eat and move out."

The funeral was a success, at lest for what it intended. The losses depressed everyone, but the occasional whiff of burning flesh brought to mind the raiders and how they did nothing for their dead except mutilate them. The ritual made them feel a certain sense of normalcy and humanity.

When Crazy Wolfgang wept for his 'bodyguard' Perez helped comfort him, gently patting him on the back to avoid aggravating the man's freshly healed bones. Simms stood over Stockholm's grave a moment and a few drops of moisture fell into the hole to join the ones from earlier. Lucy and the other two Arefu residents were remembered, but their bodies were still in the tunnels where the Family lived. Red, Kimba and Timebomb said goodbye to Dusty without as much emotion. No one really mourned Bittercup. From the other Bigtowners' accounts she sounded like a slut and a bitch.

Then the guns and other scavenged equipment were distributed. Perez received Stockholm's old armor from Simms, which made him feel a little safer. Unexpectedly, after things were wrapping up and everyone was getting ready to head out, Stevie showed up. He carried a cloth sack over his shoulder and a huge metal pot under one arm, which caused some curiosity. Someone asked, "What's in the sack?"

"Food." He set the bag down and added, "Wait here, don't leave yet." Everyone looked to Simms, and when he did not object they settled back down again. Certainly, no one complained about postponing another tiring, mind-numbing march. Stevie went down to the river and filled the pot with water before lugging it back up. "Do you want a hot, fresh meal, people?"

Sam shouted, "Hell yeah!" but the others were not as enthusiastic. Perez was more curious about what the food was and how Stevie had obtained it.

He got his answer when he flipped open the top of the cloth bag to reveal the distinctive bluish meat of a mirelurk. Mirelurks had some of the best tasting meat in the Wasteland, but were more of a delicacy than a staple due to the difficulty of killing the creatures. "Just went hunting, so I figured I'd grab enough to feed everyone. Found this big pot too. Perfect for what I wanted."

Stevie set about making a good sized fire, mostly burning wooden parts from the rubble of Arefu, and started cooking the food. Perez saw Zoiks take two good sized mutfruit from the strange plant she kept in her wagon and offered them, and the two cooks spent a few minutes chopping the luminescent pods to add them to the mix.

The final ingredient was four crushed tablets of Rad-x to help protect the refugees from the radioactive ingredients. There was plenty of the thick, hearty stew to go around. Almost everyone had a second helping and it helped raise their spirits.

During the meal Perez sat next to Zoiks. He thanked her for the mutfruit, it added a pleasant tang that accented the saltiness of the crab meat, and they talked for a while. There was a natural ease between them since they had saved each other in the battle. The companionship was enjoyable.

Finally, stomachs full and injuries mostly healed, the refugees of Megaton, Bigtown and Arefu and the strays that had joined them headed off. Their destination: the rocky outcrop North of them that Stockholm had pointed out the day before. They were going to take the solid foundation, plant their flag and finally have a place to call their own.

AN/ Shit. Sorry for not updating yesterday like I said I would. I had the chapter written, I just forgot. A lot on my mind with end of the year exams, getting ready for college and all that. Sorry.