Chapter 29 The Death Zone
Arry and her father didn't speak much over the next day till it was finally the next morning and he, Arry and Paul were walking up towards the southern end of the Dam.
As they walked in silence her father suddenly noticed the rad-crows nesting in his radio dishes again and he quickly ran up to them as they squawked angrily before quickly flying away.
"These rad-crows are going to be the death of me one day!" Her father said angrily as he put his hand in the small dishes and threw out the makeshift nest the rad-crows had built inside.
"Maybe when I get back we can work on something to try and stop them, together?" Arry asked looking at her father who sighed and nodded.
"Before you two leave I...I just want to say why I haven't been talking very much to you for the past day." Her father sighed looking at his two children. "It's just that well I'm not going to be winning any father of the year awards am I? I mean sending both my children back out in the wastes to go off chasing some crazy radiation monsters? I just feel as though I should be going with you but I know for a fact that I would just slow you down and it makes me feel like I'm not protecting you like I should."
"Come on Dad don't be like that I can look after both us." Paul said with a grin.
"We'll be back soon Dad I promise…no detours this time I swear." Arry said with a small smile looking up at her father who nodded.
"I'll be waiting." Her father replied solemnly.
Arry thought to herself for a moment before turning back to her father.
"Would you mind keeping an eye of Infinity for me, I wouldn't like to think he's alone…" She asked looking up at her father who quickly nodded.
"Of course sweetheart now you two better get going the suns already starting to rise…be safe." He said as Paul opened the door to the stairs that led down to the bottom of the Dam. Taking one last look at her father Arry began to walk down the stairs till she and Paul both arrived at the bottom.
Once they reached the bottom Arry took a deep breath as the two began to walk towards the Death Zone.
As they walked Arry glanced at her brother who was fiddling with something in his backpack.
"What are you looking for?" Arry asked turning to her brother.
"Those serum bottles, did I pack them or did you?" He said digging around in his bag.
"It's alright Paul I've got them." Arry said quickly turning to her brother who looked relieved.
"Oh good it would be embarrassing if we had to go back and get them." When he finished Arry looked up at her brother who seemed to be very nervous.
"Are you alright Paul you look a little nervous?" She asked looking at her brother who quickly shook his head.
"No of course not." He said quickly. "I mean it's not like I believe in those silly children's stories about the Death Zone." He laughed. "So how long do those serums actually last for?" He added changing the topic.
"North said it should last at least 48 hours based on the concentration he found in each of the serum bottles." Arry said as she turned to Paul.
"He thinks?" Paul said sounding concerned.
"Don't worry I trust North he wouldn't make a mistake that would risk our lives." Arry reassured knowing that North would never have said that to her if it hadn't been true.
Arry thought back to the conversation they had had back with the Matriarch about the creatures that the serum had used their blood in and she could not imagine how any human could have ever have survived so long in such a radiated zone that from what she could tell had been like it ever since the bombs first dropped. She understood how people and animals could form resistances over time but how could these creatures have built a resistance to something that was an instantaneous event when the bombs were dropped? Was that fast of a resilience to something even biological possible?
"We should be on the look-out for Beach Raider Scouts." Arry said glancing around her in the morning light as she felt sick knowing that if she had only been so cautious the day before Infinity would never have been shot.
"Did anyone manage to find the Bach Raider scout that shot Infinity yesterday?" Paul asked turning to Arry who shook her head.
"No, whoever it was fled…" She said angrily. "But if we find them…" She said in a low voice.
"Not sure whether or not I like the new you…" Paul started looking down at Arry who turned to him in surprise.
"New me? What do you mean?" She asked.
"You're not the same person you were back in the vault, but then again I suppose neither am I." He sighed.
"Sometimes I think about what would have happened to us if we had just stayed in that vault." Arry said.
"Nothing." Paul laughed. "I suppose just like those who lived there before us we would have just simply grown old and died and then would be replaced by the newer generation."
"Can you imagine doing the exact same job for your entire life stuck in that vault?!" Arry said shaking her head. "I would have gone absolutely insane." She laughed.
"I quite enjoyed my job working on these things." Paul said proudly looking down at the pip-boy on his hand.
"You were always good at your job whereas I was so horrible at looking after that garden!" She paused. "At least our brothers and sisters hopefully won't have to live there much longer."
"How were they?" Paul asked stopping and turning to his sister who did the same.
"They miss you…"
"I suppose I have a lot to apologize for next time I see them." Paul said sadly as Arry quickly decided to change the subject.
"Hey do you remember that time you, Miles and I let that New Year's firecracker off outside the Donald's room at midnight when we were kids?" She grinned looking up at Paul who smiled and nodded.
"I remember, it was your idea wasn't it?" He said with a laugh. "Boy did we get into so much trouble especially when they found our other little surprise we left in…"
"You know if it wasn't for all these sign's and my pip-boy beeping like crazy I would never have known we were approaching the Death Zone." Paul said crossing his arms and he looked at the signs that littered the ground in front of him warning people to 'Go Back' and to 'Stay Away.'
As Arry looked out into the distance and into the Death Zone she had to admit that nothing looked at all different there from the area they were already in, everything was still dead and the only sound she could hear was the wind.
"Be careful alright and if you see or hear anything tell me." Arry said turning to brother as she started to feel sick inside as the nerves she was feeling got worse.
"Let's just hope these work." Paul said as he watched his sister pull out the serum bottles. "So we just drink these do we?" He continued as he watched Arry pull out two small syringes from her bag and look up at him.
"Do you want me to do it or will you do it?" She said filling up a needle and looking to Paul who looked a little pale.
"Does it have to be a needle? I mean…ow!" Paul said instantly stepping back as Arry stuck the needle in his arm. "I wasn't ready!" He said quickly pulling the needle out of his arm and dropping it on the ground irritably.
"You're such a wuss sometimes you know that right?" Arry laughed shaking her head as Paul crossed his arms.
"Then let me do yours." He said stepping forward to grab Arry's second needle as she quickly stepped back.
"Hey I'm fine." She said quickly looking up at Paul before biting her lip slightly and giving herself the needle in her arm before pulling a painful expression.
"See it does hurt." Paul said crossing his arms.
"Well at least I didn't make a fuss about it like you did!"
"Yeah well…" Paul didn't' get to finish as Arry heard something nearby and instantly stepped in front of her brother and pulled out her shotgun from her backpack and looked around her. "Is someone there?" Paul asked looking around him cautiously as he took out his pistol from his bag.
"I'm starting to wish we did bring a ghoul or Mark with us." Arry said looking around her realizing that without either they wouldn't be able to have the jump on any Raiders or Death Zone ghosts around them.
"I would use my pip-boy but the radiation readings are going off the charts and I wouldn't be surprised that when we go further into the Death Zone that it actually explodes…" He looked down at Arry who looked a little concerned. "Not blow your hand off explosion more of a little electric shock explosion."
"Come on let's get going and see if we can find those creatures…" Arry said quietly as she stepped over the danger sign on the ground in front of her and the two walked into the Death Zone.
As she walked Arry could start to see signs that this place was in actual fact a lot different than the places she had seen outside of Old Sydney. Unlike in the wastes around Old Sydney not even grass or weeds grew in the ground and all around her lay old bones half covered up sand and dirt. She could tell that the bones not only belonged to animals but some of them were also human and it appeared as though they had been there for an extremely long time and had never been disturbed.
Feeling her heart beat hard against her chest she turned to her brother who looked just as nervous as she felt.
"If these ghosts of the Death Zone do exist…" Paul started. "Then why don't they ever leave this place? There is obviously nothing to eat here." He said looking around him at the barren ground. "Maybe those two doctors were wrong and the Beach Raiders did actually create this serum all themselves?"
Arry was about to answer when she noticed something on the ground that looked a lot different to anything she had seen before, it was footprints but they looked different.
"Paul come look at these." Arry said turning to her brother who looked down at the prints not understanding what Arry thought was so interesting about them.
"They're just footprints?" Her brother shrugged. "If there are Raiders around here it must belong to them."
"These are not shoe prints though they look as though the person who made these was bare foot and were almost dragging themselves across the ground." She said turning to her brother who looked around him nervously.
"Maybe the Raiders weren't wearing shoes…?" He looked to his sister who just gave him a funny look. "Alright you come up with a better idea." He said quickly.
"Let's keep going…" Arry said taking a deep breath and trying not to think about what person or what creature had made these footprints.
After what seemed like hours the pair started to see large rocky hills in the distance similar the hills around Old Sydney where the Government had built the vaults including the one Arry and her brother had lived in.
"Do you think there are any vaults in those hills?" Arry asked as she and her brother stopped to look at them.
"I didn't think the government had built them this far west but then again I've never seen any plans of the area and where all the vaults were located. Not even the Donald's had that type of information."
Arry thought back to Hustler and wondered whether or not he would have had any idea since he seemed well aware of the locations of most other vaults in the region.
"Maybe we should go and see?" Arry said out aloud as she started to walk towards the hills in the distance.
"I doubt that anyone if they were still inside would even be alive, the explosions here would have mostly likely cracked the vault doors and let in the radiation or at the least caused some of the vault to collapse in on themselves from the shock waves." Paul said trying to convince Arry that it wasn't worth investigating.
"If these creatures exist here then unless they are hiding in the vaults I don't see anywhere else for them to hide…" Arry said looking around her at the completely flat ground which had no structures of any kind where these creatures could be hiding from them.
"What I want to know is if these creatures exist then why haven't they come after us yet? I mean I haven't seen anything at all not even any Beach Raiders?" Paul said looking around him.
The two continued to walk until they reached the hills but as they walked closer and closer towards them Arry began to notice strange markings and white pebbles on the ground around them, she would have just turned a blind eye to them but the fact they seemed to be arranged in some strange order made her wonder who had put them there.
"These markings on the ground look familiar." Paul said scratching his head and looking at the markings in the soil that stretched out from beyond the hills cliff face.
As they approached the cliff face Arry began to notice more and more of those strange bare foot footprints in the ground all around her but she didn't see or hear anything alive around. Looking towards the cliff face in the distance she squinted her eyes and saw what she guessed to be a small rickety wooden door.
"Paul…" Arry said tapping her brother on the shoulder as he jumped in surprise.
"I'm not scared." Paul said spinning around to his sister who pointed out the door in the distance.
"Come on." Arry continued.
Slowly the two walked towards the door where when they reached it Arry gently pushed it open which revealed an extremely short walkway that led down to a vault door which to her surprise was jarred open ever so slightly. Looking down on the ground she saw that it was covered in foot prints going in and out of the vault.
Quietly the two approached the vault door and once they were right beside it Arry noticed that the number on the vault door wasn't visible through the dust and grim covering it. Carefully Arry used her hands to wipe away the grime and dirt to reveal the words, 'A-88.'
Taking a step back from the vault Arry held onto her shotgun tightly as she approached the gap in the vault door but before she could take a step inside Paul stopped her.
"Arry are you…are we really going to do what the Matriarch asked?" Paul said as his sister turned to look up at him with a serious expression.
"Nothing leaves this vault alive." She said coldly. "It is because of these creatures working with the Beach Raiders that New Sydney is at threat and that Infinity could die, they must be stopped."
Paul watched after Arry as she slowly walked into the vault.
"You have changed…" He said quietly to himself as he followed in after her.
Once inside it was clear to Arry that the entire vault was running on secondary power as all the main lights were out and the only lights that were on were very dim dusty lights that only lit the vault enough so you could barely see a few feet in front of you.
"Come on." Arry said stepping forward so that she went first as to make sure her brother stayed safely behind her in case something jumped out at them. The two slowly walked through the dimly lit vault but as they walked Arry couldn't hear anything, not a single sound which added to her nerves as she wondered whether or not anything was actually inside.
"Arry…." Paul started as she glanced behind her at him.
"Shhh…" Arry said quickly looking back around as she thought she saw a shadowy figure move in the distance.
Feeling her heartbeat quicken again and her hand start to shake slightly as she held the shotgun tightly in her hand she saw another figure in front of her run past her in the shadows.
"Paul…Wait here." Arry said quietly but when she didn't hear a reply she turned around and noticed that he was no longer behind her. "Paul?!" She said a panic and as she spun back around she and looked directly into the pale face of one of the Death Zone ghosts staring directly at her.
