Chapter 25: The Game
Lennie walked slowly out of the street, rubbing his face of the sweat that formed. As we walked, he bent down to the ground level occasionally, and felt up the tracks, changing directions accordingly as we made it towards the group of trees and rocks. As we walked, Lennie tried to move faster than all of us, but left off with a huff and puff while he shuffled his feet in the dust. Joe grabbed arm wound and turned himself around as I looked up at the moon above.
"We don't need to be doing this. There are some other things we can do for food." Joe said.
"Yeah, Lennie, you could always sell your body to Logan." Rilee smiled.
Lennie's face grew somber. "I-I..." Lennie sighed as his eyes met with Rilee's.
"Let's just go back." I said to them.
"Where? The club? You've seen 'em in there, that guy's already pissed off at us, and if he sees us in there eating his food, he's going to flip." Lennie shoved his arm back to the club.
"Flip what? Another random woman?" Joe asked.
"Listen, ya'll. I get that you're new here. But you guys have no idea what he's capable of." Lennie shook his head.
"Oh yeah? What exactly is he capable of, Lennie?" I asked him.
Lennie looked at me in response for a long moment as his eyes glanced over to the girl with the black hair and mask. Rilee looked away.
"What is he capable of?" I asked angrily.
"Take it easy. Everyone." Ulysses told me as he held out his arm in front of me.
"We're all tired, and it's getting to our heads." Ulysses guided us away from my interrogation.
"I ain't resting." Lennie grunted as he turned around to the mole rat den and walked off.
"Lennie, come on!" Rilee yelled as she walked after him.
"The man's hungry. Let him eat." Joe eased her with his arm.
"'The man's' a boy." Rilee scoffed as she pushed away Joe's arm, and walked after him.
Ulysses, Joe, and I stood next to each other as we stared at the two walking away angrily.
"Ten bucks says the dude bites the dust first." Joe mumbled to us.
"Shut up." I whined quietly as I pressed on.
Rilee walked after Lennie. "Dude, what is going on?" She asked him.
Lennie shook his head, "I just don't like asking for favors from Logan. I just want us to go back."
"Listen, I know you guys have bad blood, but you made the choice to help these people. You're the one who led us to him." She put her hand on his shoulder. Lennie looked down at her hand and then looked into her eyes, and smiled warmly. "And besides," She smiled. "It's not like you owe Logan anything."
Lennie continued looking at her for a moment. "Let's just... let's just get this job done, okay?"
"You got it, boss."
A few yards away, the rest of the group watched the exchange. "I don't understand these kids." Joe sighed as he followed after me.
"It's probably because you never liked kids." I said as I looked at my feet.
"I developed that attractive trait over the years, one of the perks of being old, young whippersnapper." Joe said sarcastically, laughing afterwards that broke out into a nasty cough that made Joe spit up onto the dirt.
"Are you getting sick?" I asked him.
Ulysses looked over at Joe and gave him a once-over. "That's probably the case, or it could be because of-"
"Can it, poindexter." Joe interrupted Ulysses as we caught up with Rilee and Lennie.
"It's just over here..." Lennie yawned as he moved some wood out of the way.
"Dogmeat. Stand guard." Ulysses commanded his dog. Dogmeat looked up at his owner and whimpered. "I'll be right back." He eased his companion.
"Are you sure it's here? Looks a little small to me." I told him.
"That's what they want you to think. About a little ways on, it'll open up to a place we can crouch in, they like close corners, but enough to birth young." Lennie explained as he moved more random rubble out of the way.
"Cover your noses. These things like to sleep on their own p-" Lennie stopped talking to move a piece of rebar out of the way, opening the small place into a large cave that echoed out voices. Lennie stared in awe.
"I thought you said they like to keep their dens small." Joe said sullenly into the echoing cave.
"They do..." Lennie said questionably as he inspected the damp walls with his hands.
"This place is huge, they're probably using this for several different families." Lennie guessed.
"Yeah..." I said as I looked up at the high and rocky ceiling.
Ulysses and I turned on our flashlights to illuminate the cave. We then heard some scurrying feet below the cliff in front of us.
"There's the sonuvabitch now!" Lennie pointed next to the ledge we were on, where Nathan scurried away.
"Get over here, you! I've finally got you!" Lennie shouted as he chased after it, jumping down small ledges and tumbling off small hunks of rock.
"Lennie, wait up!" Rilee yelled as she followed him. The two chased the mole rat down about two stories below us. I sighed, pulling out my weapon and saying, "Dammit", but before I could walk forward, Ulysses, held me back, and held his finger to the air, and looked up. The ceiling started to shake and dust and rocks started to crumble down, descending onto our head as the cave's walls thumped periodically, and grew more intense with every mini-quake.
"Something's coming. Something big." Ulysses told us.
"Shit." Joe whined as he jumped down the rocks.
"GUYS, GET OUT OF THERE!" Joe screamed into the cave as he chased after the two.
Immediately after, a large roar shattered our ear drums and almost brought the cave down atop of us, and sent me to my knees from the force of the quakes. Next to me, the ledge used for everyone to jump down diminished back to the ground with a long rumble and a big crash. I then looked down the ledge, where Rilee, Joe, and Lennie where, shooting at Nathan as the roars came closer to them. Joe ran to Lennie and stopped dead in his tracks as the source of the quakes emerged.
The three looked up at a colossal, wrinkled, obese, pink mole rat waddled from the depths of the large cave, towering above us by several feet with its sharpened claws and outstretched teeth. Lennie, Joe, and Rilee stared up at the beast with their mouths open as they slowly backed away from it. I went down to my stomach and held onto the ledge, looking down at them.
"MOVE!" I shouted down to them, cupping my hands around my mouth as the mole rat opened its mouth and roared at them.
The three of them split up as they ran around at the rat, making it roar as it tried to stomp and bite everyone, thumping the ground heavily as it did so. The three narrowly evaded the rat and ran past it down the cave. The hairless beast moved its massive body around, breaking through the rock and dirt mounds in the cave and causing it to go down at its feet, around Joe, Lennie and Rilee as they flanked past it..
"We can't just sit here." I said to Ulysses.
Ulysses looked at our surroundings. "We don't have to. Over here." Ulysses said as he pointed to our left, where a long ledge stood at the end of a long gap.
"We're going to have to jump it." Ulysses told me as he back away from the gap.
"Let's go." He said as he sprinted forward and jumped the gap. The adventurer caught the cliff's edge with his torso and pulled himself up with a grunt.
"Come on." Ulysses instructed me as he turned around.
"I can't make that jump." I told him uneasily.
"You have to, they need our help." Ulysses said as colossal rat ran down the cave, biting at the ground as it whipped its fat neck through the air.
I stood back and sprinted forward with all my might and leaped from the ledge, throwing my arms forward. I flew downward from the ledge, and smacked my head into rock as Ulysses held onto my arm.
"You're fine." Ulysses said as he pulled me slowly up.
"Really doesn't feel like it." I moaned as I felt my head.
I looked down to the ground that was at least two stories below me in horror as I dangled off the edge, quickly I looked up at Ulysses as he clenched onto my arm. I lifted my second arm onto his and he pulled me up and over the ledge. I panted for a moment, and realized my work wasn't done yet. I got up and sprinted across the ledge, looking down at the three as they ran from the rat.
"What are we supposed to do?" I shouted at Ulysses as he ran next to me.
"Shoot it." He responded.
I pulled out my pistols and fired them both at the mole rat, only making him run faster as the bullets practically phased through him.
"It's not doing anything!" I yelled as I fired at its face.
"Wait, what about the radiation grenades?" I asked him.
"You won't be able to throw them that far, and the radius is going to hit the three of them even if you do. We can't afford to use poisonous explosives that we can breathe in." Ulysses responded.
The mole rat roared in a high pitch, screeching my ears as I sprinted alongside it. Down below, several mole rats ran out of hiding, and charged at Rilee, Lennie, and Joe.
"Cover them until I come up with a plan." Ulysses ordered as he looked at it, sprinting as fast as he could.
I aimed my pistols close together in my hands and fired at the smaller mole rats, dropping them on the ground as the three jumped over the corpses. I looked down at Joe, who was falling behind and coughing as the cave started to narrow.
"There's a dead end up ahead!" I echoed in the cave.
"Why wouldn't there be?" Joe wheezed faintly below me as he jogged.
"We need to get the explosives up here." Ulysses pointed at Rilee as she shoved a mole rat corpse away from her as it its lifeless body fell on her.
The three runners reached the end of the cave, and turned around to the monster mole rat as it readied its stance for eating. It swiped its paw at the, but only the agile Lennie managed to jump away. Joe clenched onto its cold-skinned paw with his bloody knife as it picked Rilee and him up into the air and towards its face.
"Give me the explosives you used." Ulysses commanded her from the ledge.
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?!" Rilee shouted as she tried to wretch free from its grasp as Joe slipped off the hand and held his knife into the paw with one hand.
"Guys!" Joe shouted "I know this isn't the time... but my ass stitches just ripped." Joe called out to us painfully.
Rilee tried to move her arms out of the grasp of the mole rat as it brought her and Joe towards its mouth. Her face turned red as the veins in her head and neck popped out, along with her arm. Joe kept stabbing the beast with its knife as much as he could. She reached on her armor and pulled off a small pistol, connected to a net of frag grenades. She lifted it up into the air as the mole rat brought her into its mouth, swallowing her whole as she dropped the gun to the ground.
"RILEE!" Lennie shouted as he stared in mortification.
"Lennie, get the gun!" Joe shouted as he climbed on the arm of the mole rat.
Lennie looked off to the side to the explosive rifle Rilee crafted and picked it up, looking at it in his hands, and then back to the mole rat with his mouth open.
"I've got to get down there." I told Ulysses.
"Why?" He asked me as the mole rat crashed his arm into the cave.
"He's not gonna do it." I said as I looked off to the side to the wall of jagged rock.
"You don't know that." Ulysses told me as I gripped my hands onto the rock and started to climb down.
"I do." I answered as I climbed down.
"Ulysses! You're supposed to be the smart one, help me out, dammit!" Joe shouted as he desperately held onto the arm of the mole rat. "Aim your bow above me and shoot!" Joe shouted as he climbed up the arm.
Ulysses unsheathed his bow and fired it into the stalagmite and kept the line there for Joe as I climbed down the rock, slipping off and regaining my balance. I hopped off when I had the chance and started running at Lennie.
"Lennie, shoot it!" Joe shouted at him as the mole rat slammed its head around the cave.
Lennie looked at the rat, and then the gun in his hands as I ran to him and grabbed it from him, and fired the net of grenades with my right arm at the rock above Joe. "No!" Lennie shouted as he tackled me.
The cave echoed loudly with the orange blast full of shrapnel as Joe jumped onto the diagonal line of wire and slid down towards Ulysses' gun. The rock then gave out and started to collapse over the rat, breaking the rock that held up the wire and dropped Joe and Ulysses off the ledge, as both were attached to the bow. They rolled off the fat of the large mole rat as the rock above it crushed its head. Joe and Ulysses then fell onto the damp, cave floor, making them crawl away as small rocks fell atop of their bodies. I ran toward Joe and picked him up while he coughed from the dust, and helped him and Ulysses run away as the cave fell over around us. We ran until we reached the end of the cave wall and turned around. I let Joe go and he slumped to the floor, coughing and wheezing as we looked at the dead rat.
Soon the cave no longer rumbled, and all was quiet. Lennie looked at the rat, his face was blank, and his jaw was open. His eyes were red.
"Lennie-" My words were cut off from a muffled bump in the cave, signaling our senses over to it.
The bump then gave off again, blowing open a hole in the rat's stomach, and setting the bits on fire. Pools of blood poured out, along with the motionless body of Rilee as she slid away from the rat in the stream of blood. In her arm was a sawed off shotgun, which she used to crutch herself to her feet as she limped over to us, wiping the dripping blood from her face and hair as she held her rifle with one arm.
"Holy shit." Joe said with his eyes wide open as he stared at her.
Rilee spit rat blood to her side and looked at the rat behind her, "Bon appetite, guys."