Hello, everyone, hope you are all doing well. Today, we end the Big Town rescue and move further on the mission given by Lucy to Damian. Please enjoy.
"Thank you! Thank you so much for rescuing us!"
Damian turned around to see Red approaching him with a small leather purse. Damian, Shorty and Red, had ran all along from Germantown to here. They had just entered Big Town and all the inhabitants had come out to greet them.
"Here, this is to thank you. Without you, we'd be dead, or worse!"
Damian took the purse in his hands. He untied the string and poured the contents into his hand. There must have been at least the equivalent of 300 caps. Damian put half of them in his bag and put the rest back in the pouch before handing it to Red. Without saying a word, he insisted that she take it back. A broad smile appeared on her face.
"Super Mutants!"
Damian looked over his shoulder. A group of five mutants with studded sticks and rifles were walking down a hill towards the city.
"We're going to get slaughtered! This is the end!" cried one of the Big Town inhabitants.
"Do you have any weapons?" asked Damian.
Red looked surprised at Damian.
"Do you have any weapons?" he repeated.
"Yes... Uh... Dusty has a gun and I think Kimba, Flash and..."
"Okay, stand in front of the bridge and do exactly as I say!"
Damian drew his assault rifle and ran to the sandbags. The inhabitants of Big Town looked at him in amazement before a few people reacted and went to join him. The weapons were more than rudimentary. Dusty, the guard Damian had talked to before leaving for the police station, had an old rusty rifle and the others had pistols or revolvers.
"Now, hold your gun firmly and aim it at the chest or head! Exhale before each shot! Control your shots, or you will miss your target," Damian said.
Crash course in weapons handling ended when the Super Mutant fired at Damian and the others. The young man raised his rifle and fired three shots, hitting the Mutant in the abdomen and throat. The other Super Mutants were charging towards the bridge. At first the Big Town's folk panicked, but after a few successful shots, the locals became confident and eventually eliminated the mutants.
"I don't believe it! We did it!"
The cries of joy came from everyone in Big Town. Some hugged each other, while others cautiously approached the dead bodies of the Super Mutants for a closer look.
"Thank you! Thank you so much! You saved us at the police station and helped us defend ourselves! Now the mutants will think twice before coming back!"
Shorty patted Damian on the back before making a shy expression.
"Tell me, do you know a place called Arefu? Damian asked.
"I think it's North of here, but I've never been there and don't know exactly where it is," said Shorty.
Damian watched him walk away. He sighed sadly. The inhabitants of Big Town had gained a little confidence, two of them had avoided being devoured by the mutants and their houses hadn't been burned to the ground by the attack that followed. However, Damian knew that the attacks would continue and that one day the whole town would be a mass grave occupied by Super Mutants or Raiders. He didn't have the heart to tell them, however, and Red and her companions were already fully aware of that. Damian quietly slipped away as the town celebrated its victory over the mutants.
Arefu wasn't very far from Big Town. On an old stretch of highway crossing the landscape, Damian could see houses and some fortifications. At the entrance of the bridge, another hut and a small enclosure with some brahmins.
Damian walked through a small parking lot where rusty car wrecks piled up. Wooden tables and benches were rotting in the open air, not far from a large white metal panel that was half broken. One of the vehicles carried a projector and was parked so that the image was projected onto the metal panel. Noticing the bodies still in the cars or still sitting on the benches, Damian guessed that the place was an open-air cinema. Curious, he quickly searched the pick-up truck that carried the projector, hoping to find a reel that was still in good condition and thus have a reason to buy the projector that Moira was selling. His search came to nothing, so he hit the road again.
Dead silence reigned in Arefu. The Wasteland weren't a very noisy place, of course, but to pass by a town that was supposed to be inhabited and not hear a sound other than the slight whistling of the wind wasn't reassuring. Even Big Town, which not long-ago was at the verge of becoming a ghost town, was a livelier place.
The right-hand lanes of the bridge were the only way to enter the town as the two left-hand lanes had been blocked by piles of debris, tires and burnt-out car wrecks. The town seemed to take its name from an old sign overlooking the road. A word in white lettering was the only thing still a bit legible on the sign, and Damian noticed that a few letters were missing, giving the place its name. Just before he arrived, Damian had also noticed that the highway had collapsed for several meters, just behind the huts. Whether this happened before or after the birth of the town, it was both an advantage and a disadvantage for the inhabitants. Potential attackers would have to attack from the bridge entrance and the height offered another significant tactical advantage thanks to the 360 degrees view of the Capital Wasteland. On the other hand, the inhabitants would find themselves trapped with no other means of escape than to throw themselves off the bridge and land about 30 meters below.
As he watched the wreckage of a bus while moving towards the city, Damian felt a blast a few meters ahead of him. He dove to cover and looked around, looking for an Enclave power armor, Super Mutant or Raider. Instead, he saw an older man, with a greying goatee and wearing a grey cap with goggles, as well as faded jeans and a leather jacket with two bullet belts across his chest, standing behind a wall of sandbags. The man frowned before raising his hands at the sky and shouting at Damian.
"You are not with them! Damn, I almost cut you in half!"
Damian didn't have time to answer or think about what was going on, as the man was already giving him great signs to join him.
"Hurry up! Before they see you!"
Damian got up and approached on the double.
"Alright, tell me what you are doing here?" the man asked authoritatively, once Damian had joined him.
"Why don't you tell me why you tried to blow me up?" Damian replied angrily.
The man clenched his jaw a little. He squinted his eyes and looked at Damian for a moment before answering.
"I thought you were on of the Family. They're a bunch of lowlife gangers who've been giving us a lot of trouble lately. So right now, I've got an itchy trigger finger."
"The Family? What's that? Some kind of Raiders or slavers group?" Damian asked.
The man shook his head.
"No, if that were the case, Arefu would be a burned ghost town. I think they're just a bunch of punks, you know, the kind that make noise, break things, but they never got into town. But last time they killed some of the cattle, just like that for no reason."
Damian noticed that the person he was talking to was constantly staring at the entrance to the bridge.
"What are you so afraid of? Damian asked. "It just seems like another bunch of Raiders to me."
The man sighed.
"There's... There's something weird about these weirdos. It's not right... I mean, they outnumber us and they're better armed than us, so why don't they just come busting through our doors and kill us?"
"Look," said Damian. "If it'll make you feel better, I can go and take a look at the other residents. Anyway, I have to get this letter for Lucy West's family."
Damian grabbed Lucy's letter from inside his armor. The man looked at the letter for a moment, looking suspiciously before nodding his head.
"I have to stay here and watch the ramp in case the Family decides to come. Go and see the West, the Ewers and Karen. Tell them Evan King sent you."
"All right, I'll do that."
Damian felt King's gaze on the back of his neck as he walked to the first house next door. Damian knocked on the door. Almost immediately, a woman's voice answered.
"Yes? Oh, is that the postman? I hope you're finally bringing me this season's catalogue. I've been waiting weeks for it."
"Uh?" Damian said, wondering if the woman was kidding him or if she was serious. "No, Evan King sent me to see if you're okay."
The idea of answering "Yes, I have your catalogue, let me in" or "I'm the Family please open the door" seemed a funny idea to him but he was sure that King would empty his magazine on him immediately afterwards.
"Oh, Evan? What a gentleman," replied the woman. "Come on in."
Damian heard a series of locks being pulled and saw the door open. He pushed it open and discovered a room inside that contained a kitchen, dining room and bedroom. A man in his thirties with brown hair and wearing jogging pants, boots and a hooded sweatshirt appeared in front of Damian and gave him a nasty look.
"What the hell you think you're doing? Get the hell out of here!"
"Wow, calm down," Damian replied.
The man's eyes flashed lightning and Damian, not intimidated at all, gave him the same look.
"Alright, say what you have to say and leave," the man said finally.
A woman with a squared haircut and wearing the same outfit came forward with a broad smile and a plate with what looked like a cake.
"Oh, my poor darling... Walking in this heat must have made you hungry. Sit down and have a piece of pie."
"Brailee," whispered the man, clenching his teeth and staring at Damian.
"Oh, don't mind my husband, Kenneth," continued the woman, smiling even more. "He woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning."
"I just came to see if you're all right," Damian answered. "Evan King sent me."
"Oh, how nice of him," smiled the woman. "I'll have to think about thanking him. What a pity we have to stay indoors when outside the air is so pure and the grass so green and beautiful to look at."
Damian raised his eyebrows. He looked down at the plate of pie she was holding in her hands and decided that if he took just one small bite, he would become as disturbed as that woman.
"Yeah, we're fine," Kenneth spat. "Now, why don't you leave us alone? And by the way, why don't you tell Mr. King that we're not going to solve the Family problem by sitting on our hands."
"Why don't you go tell him yourself?"
Damian stepped aside slightly and invited the man to follow him outside. The man seemed uncomfortable about leaving his house and noticed that King had heard everything. He looked at Damian again and slammed the door in his face.
Damian was beginning to understand why Lucy West had moved to Megaton. If all the residents and her family were as nasty as this Kenneth or as crazy as his wife, then Lucy had every reason to want to leave this place. Damian arrived in front of a second two-story cabin. Damian heard King inform him that it was his and that he lived alone. Damian nodded his head and walked to another smaller cabin across from King's house. He knocked on the door and a woman's voice answered. After explaining that it was Evan King who sent him to check that everything was okay, the woman invited Damian in.
"It's nice to see a new face in Arefu, even if it's not the best time to come and visit the area."
"Finally, someone who looks normal," thought Damian as he looked at the blonde young woman in her twenties who lived here alone.
"My name is Karen Schenzy, what's yours?"
"Damian Franklin. King wants me to go around the houses and make sure everyone is all right."
"Well, look, aside from the fact that I'm scared, I'm glad you're here to check up on me. But, that's not going to solve our problem."
"Well, I've got to go and make sure the Wests don't need anything."
Damian turned to the door and for a moment he thought he heard a disappointed sigh from the young woman.
The West's house was the last one in Arefu, right on the edge of the collapsed part of the bridge. Damian grabbed Lucy's letter and knocked on the door. Damian had no answer.
"Mr. West? My name is Damian Franklin. Evan King sent me to check on you and your family, and I also have a letter from your daughter, Lucy."
Still no answer. He knocked again, harder, and felt the lock on the door open. The door opened slowly, and a dreadful smell came from inside and caught him by the throat. Damian covered his face with the inside of his elbow. A buzzing sound from a small cloud of flies reached him from inside the hut.
The West's house consisted of one room. A small table with four chairs, a refrigerator, a metal shelf full of everyday objects, a wardrobe, two bunk beds and a double bed for only furniture. The floor was strewn with crumpled paper and the contents of the table had been turned over. Damian activated the lamp on his Pip-Boy and began to light up the cabin. Blood splashes covered the walls and floor in places and on the back wall, written in blood, "The Family".
Damian noticed that two people were lying in the double bed. Covered with a sheet, the two people did not move. Damian drew his pistol and slowly moved forward. He approached his hand. The smell made him nauseous and it remembered him of the basement of Andale's house.
Damian took off the sheet. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and controlled himself not to vomit. Both people were dead. Their sockets and cheeks were hollowed out and they literally had nothing but skin on their bones. Reluctantly, Damian came a little closer and lit the corpses with his Pip-Boy's lamp. They somehow matched the description Lucy had made of her parents, even though identifying a dried-up corpse like these was difficult. He noticed large bite marks on the throats of both bodies. The wounds were very deep, and it was probably that which killed Mr. and Mrs. West. However, Damian was intrigued by one thing. Although his medical knowledge was far from equal to that of his father or some of the doctors in the Wastes, he had seen enough wounds and dead bodies to know that a wound that deep, inflicted on this part of the human body would have resulted in a very large loss of blood, resulting in death. But in this case, there was no blood, at least not in enough quantity to stick with the wound. Damian also found that the wounds were not animal bites but had been made by a human with sharp canines. The idea made him shudder, but he had to face the facts. Someone had attacked the Wests by biting their throat and that someone had drunk every last drop of their blood. It was the only way to explain the absence of blood on the sheets that covered the corpses and their mummified appearances.
Damian felt a tingling in his neck and nervously massaged his throat. He looked around and saw that something was wrong. He had seen the bodies of Lucy's parents, but he hadn't seen the body of her little brother, Ian. He looked under the beds and even inside the fridge and the wardrobe but found no trace of him.
The inscription on the wall gave place to various hypotheses in his mind. The Wests had been victims of the Family and Ian had run away from them. Yet the fact that the bodies were covered with a sheet made Damian say that it was Ian who had killed his parents and then blamed the Family. But why did he do it? What could have been the reasons for Ian to murder his parents? Lucy had said that she hadn't heard from her family for about two months, but the Wests must have been killed two or three days ago at the most.
Damian went back outside. He closed the door behind him and went back to see Evan King. The man was still standing guard. When he heard Damian coming, he turned his head briefly towards him.
"So, everyone's all right?" he asked nervously without taking his eyes off, the apprehension of discovering some bad news piercing his voice.
"Did you know that the Wests were dead?"
King staggered and leaned against the sandbags. He opened his mouth several times without any sound coming out. The announcement of the news had been made in the most brutal way possible, but Damian did not particularly want to be subtle with King after the reception he had given him.
"Lord," King whispered to himself. "The Family must have gone after them in the last attack. Hell, if there were more of us, we could..."
He raised his head and displayed an expression as if he had just realized something.
"Wait a minute, when you searched the West's house, did you see the whole family?"
"No," Damian replied. "Ian is nowhere to be found and..."
"It must have been the Family that did it!" King shouted without giving Damian time to finish his sentence. "The other night, I caught their leader chatting with Ian by the river. I'm sure they killed Davis and Matilda and that they took Ian to do something to him, I don't know what!"
What King had just said confirmed to Damian that Lucy's parents had been dead for less than two or three days, but it was impossible to say for sure who was really responsible for their death.
King took a deep breath and Damian already knew what he was going to ask him.
"Look, I've asked a lot of you guys already, but... I need you to find this kid. Ian doesn't deserve this."
Damian agreed to the request. Although he was almost convinced that Ian was responsible for his parents' death, referring to the sheets laid on the bodies, he still wanted to understand what made him do it. Moreover, he couldn't go home and tell Lucy that her parents were dead and that her little brother was missing. Nor could he let the inhabitants of Arefu, however unpleasant some of them may be, be terrorized and perhaps massacred by a mysterious band of Raiders."
"Any idea where I can start to look?" Damian asked as he approached the edge of the ramp and looked out over the Desolate Lands.
"I think the Family lives to the East or maybe northeast of here. They always walk around at night and we stay indoors as soon as the sun goes down."
The idea of ending up like the West made Evan King pale and he was probably thinking about how to set traps on his door for the night.
"The area is full of places where they could hide."
King, in turn, approached the ledge and pointed to two locations.
"There's Hamilton's Hideaway behind those rocks and a little further on, the old Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema. Oh, and there's also the Northwest Seneca station across the Potomac," he added, pointing to a place out of sight on the collapsed side of the bridge.
Damian nodded silently. For a moment he observed the Wastes and the points King had shown him.
He had already been to the cinema on his way here and had not noticed any recent human presence. He decided to leave this place aside and head for Hamilton's Hideaway. From there, he could go back up to the metro station and take one last look in the direction of the movie theatre he had passed through.
"What's Hamilton's Hideaway?" Damian asked, looking at the entrance to a cave near the Potomac riverbank.
"It's a small cave but I think it was used as a shelter during the Great War, or so I've heard."
Damian checked the magazine in his rifle and went down the highway ramp.
"Bite marks on the throat, corpses with not a single drop of blood left, mysterious individuals who only come out at night... What's next? A haunted castle with a giant radioactive bat?" Damian thought as he walked away.
Hope you enjoyed. Until next time.
