Chapter 2: On the Run
The woman who blew Albert Tanner out the window stood smiling, her widowmaker tapping her shoulder blade, the steel buttons hitting the Damascus steel barrels with a resounding tack, tack. She was a slender girl, she could pass as maybe as young as seventeen or perhaps eighteen, but she was older, you could tell in those shinny indigo eyes. She had a round face as if it were perfectly round face - or perhaps a bit of genetic artistry - that even looked girlish. Her soft colored brown skin was a unique feature of having fiery red strawberry hair at the same time, something uncharacteristic of a woman of nergoe heritage. Around her wrists she wore bangles and bracelets, and her fingers were adorned with assorted with a few rings, around her neck she carried a tooth of some sort and a domino chip with seven dots.
But she was a woman, either through years of killing or perhaps experience, she was a woman. Yet she was more than a woman. She was a woman who carried a shotgun and a Colt MK4 Delta Elite was tucked, hammer cocked and locked back in the waistband of her belt Mexican carry style.
The now-would be widow, sat cringing in bed. She expected a fight, but never expected the slender, chocolate skinned woman to blow her husband out of the window like that, blew out like a candle on a birthday cake. The way she carried out the act as if it were like a voluntary reaction. She raised the weapon, squeezed the trigger and death came out from a barrel.
True her husband was a bastard, a bigot but she never wished him death. He never hurt her or beat her; he was always kind, albeit a bit clumsy, he wasn't very apt in the art of love. Mrs. Albert strolled the streets, horny and hungry for pleasure and to feed that odd need she felt in between her legs. She had happened to meet the young female violinist, and she was instantly seduced by the girl. The young, fresh looking teenager. But as she got involved, she realize the girl wasn't as young as she looked, and when they made love, which was the first for Albert's widow; it was a whole new world of colors and flavors. But all that seemed dull as she reawakened in a nightmarish reality where the violinist murders her husband.
"Why did you kill Albert?" She asked from the bed, her legs shivering from under the covers in fear. Any moment she could have urinated on herself in just fear. What made her more afraid is how angelic the girl looked, how pure and clean, not the murderess she saw before her.
"Easy," The girl began. "He had a knife, he threatened me... bamm, problem solved." She formed gunfinger and made a pow-pow sound. It was childish popping sounding effects, but it was mean and unplayful.
"Charlyn... I-I… Just go. Go, please... Go." The widow began to weep bitterly. She hugged her pillow, the stained, off white head rest and wept into it, further staining the fabric.
"Fine," Charlyn hissed, "you don't have to tell me twice." She was getting annoyed now. She began to walk towards the window; she didn't even take on the merc, as if absorbed in her own world. Charlyn felt confused, wasn't sure how to feel. She reacted with her usual instinct, and now the woman whom she was falling in love with has pushed her away... just like so many others.
"They will kill you… they will hunt you down like a dog." The wife muttered just above a whisper. Charlyn didn't turn to answer; she knew people would be after her all her life. Hadn't it been so for so long? So the Atomic Union Workers wanted a piece of her. Bring them on. There was plenty Charlyn to go around.
Like so many of the others, she thought broodingly. The Violinist was adept at hiding her outer emotions. From the outside one could see a haughty girl, but in the inside, rage was brewing, that unchanneled anger.
Now the merc, she thought as she got a glance at the man. Can't have him thinking I left him ignored. That'd be rude.
Her indigo eye's scanned the merc who came upstairs and had gunned down the angry lot of thugs. She watched as he artfully took aim with one pistol and fired a shot, almost point blank into a guy in dark leather and a hooked nose. Ole' Beak got it point blank in the sternum and due to the penetrating properties of good ol 9mm Luger. Ol Beak fell down the steps, the confuse forcing the Regulators to back out. Another got shot in the back as he turned and ran. Charlyn didn't care; chivalry was dead in this world.
After the Regulators ran back, nursing the wounded and carrying off one dead man, Ron walked in, his cocky, cracked commando smile endearing and charming spoke, "Don't thank me at once, darling."
A cruel lopsided smile rose on her face and she answered Ron Spears. "I suppose I should thank you for hurting those bad men. So, 'thanks.' Anything I can help you with? I was on my way out." Charlyn said in a quick and sardonic tone. She quickly walked past him and took the books on sociology and other materials on the coffee table.
"This is my fee for today's festivities. I am sure the eggheads in the west may give me a nice coin for this." She muttered in respect to her love affair with Albert's widow. Charlyn nudged the merc by the shoulder with her own as she walked by.
"Oh, yeah, thanks for the help. Though I could have taken them, I am glad your ammo and not mine got wasted." She said coldly. Her hands grabbed the ends of the window and she opened it. The fire escape was still there.
Out of habit she checked the loaded barrels of her shotgun. Smiling happily as it snapped shut, fully loaded and clean. She began to head out of the fire escape and looked back at the merc, testing the escape with her foot to make sure it was stable. Ron Spears the Mercenary, a man with short cropped high and tight haircut (military style) just stood there, waiting to be noticed or at least invited.
"You want something?" She asked, staring at Ron. He reminded her of a dog that wanted to come along on a trip but needed it's master's consent.
Ron shook his head calmly. "Where you headed from here?"
She halted in her tracks. Are all people this talkative? Asking and knitting questions? Charlyn thought with cold contempt. But with her little memory she had, it was something she had to endure.
"Going away from here before someone decides to be a hero and I have to make someone a widow or a bunch of kids orphans... or get killed myself." She always acknowledged that there was someone faster and deadlier; reason why she always made sure she was a step quicker... and a little deadlier. "You wanna come?" It was her version of an offer. She hated walking on her own and perhaps the merc might know something. And if she found anything fishy about him, she'd kill him.
Simple and easy.
She looked back at Mrs. Tanner and blew her a kiss. The woman seems frozen in a livid and frightened state. Charlyn decided she had tasted enough of her pain and headed for the window. "So you comin' Merc? We head downtown or something. I saw a place somewhere outside town that looked interesting."
The corner of Captain Spears mouth turned up in a smile. He nods. "I was gonna go downtown, too. Yeah, I'll come with you." He gave the widest shit-eating grin he could afford, his smooth face and boyish demeanor almost endearing to Charlyn, of course, she didn't believe in innocence. He wore leather armor which almost looked like football gear and had a red bandanna around his forehead and a pair of shiny stainless steel dog tags around his neck.
She gave an untrusting eye, not sparing Spears anything. Honesty was a vice in the wastelands. A very poor virtue in these parts.
"Fine," She crept out the window and reached the main stairwell of the fire escape. The escape ladder was padlocked to the main stair case. And it was a new lock, the old pre-war one snapped off a long time ago. Grabbing her small lock picks, she began to pick at the lock, working the tension wrench and pick the manipulate the tumblers. Her brown bag was placed at her feet. It had most of her stuff, she still had another bag stashed somewhere.
"So, you have a name? Or do you charge in berettas in hand and save people from a raging mob?" As usual, she spared no one her dry and caustic humor. No one. She used the tumbler to pick at the lock. At an other time, she would have used her own gun to blast the lock, but doing so at such a close range would break pieces of steel into her face and eyes. And she didn't want that.
Ron chuckles. "Ron, Ron Spears. What about you?" He watches her pick the lock and follows her down the ladder, keeping a barely safe distance.
The fire escape began to shimmy slightly as Ron made a move forward, it felt like the old thing would shake off its hinges and send them down several stories below. "That is very unwise." She said with caution. Her voice alone conveyed the message as she spoke the ominous words from over her slim shoulder.
Snap.
The lock came free and the ladder slid down. "Piece of cake." She tucked her tools away and faced Ron. "The names Charlyn. Some call me Violin." She grabbed the side handles and slid down the ladder military style; hands on the side, legs on the side handles and gently slid down.
Her bag was on her shoulder as she plopped down on the wet snowy side walk. It wasn't as cold as it looked. Summer was climbing weakly to this area of Idaho, and it was welcomed. Ron waits for her to get away from the bottom of the ladder, then slides almost all the way off of it. Then he kicks off of it and flips backwards, landing like a cat on his feet. He walked after her calmly.
"Violin, huh? You play one or something? My mom used to play one."
Charlyn didn't respond, she walked ahead of Ron, she wasn't really into small talk and would spend most of her time replying and not looking him in the face. "Yeah, I play a violin. Have to sing for my supper." She said tersely.
Passing in a narrow alley, they passed through the ruined area of Moscow, a place of rotting buildings and bones interwoven into the very asphalt.
A small red sign, long has the neon light died from within, but it still stood. A Jack Rabbit wearing a duster and with two loaded six shooters in each paw and a cigarillo between it's mouth. The sign was busted and next to the rabbit was a pitcher of yellow beer or probably piss. Charlyn recalled she had met a man named Roshambo who made a living selling piss in bottles, a man with glazed slaughter house eyes and dirty white mustache and scruffy beard. Vidal had nearly lost her life to the man, having been whacked across the face with a hard bottle and he made a run for it before Red could put one in him for poisoning the patrons with his piss beer. She didn't know if Roshambo had been caught or killed or continued to do his devils work, she didn't know for sure, but if she had ever met him again, she would kill him.It had an out of business sign hanging near the sign. As they descended the small steps to the back door, Charlyn once again took out her lock picks and preyed at the lock. "Have to pick up some thing's here." Charlyn said from over her shoulders.
Ron yawns and watches behind them, one hand under his leather holster for his best throwing knife. He watches Charlyn alternately.
"What stuff?"
"You know… stuff." Charlyn replied vacantly not bothering to elaborate.
Entering the bar, it was a very dusty place the brown was layered by a thick film of gray dust. The sound of her feet was muffled by the gray blanket that was everywhere to be seen, her nose had even begin to tinkle with the hint of a sneeze, but she fought it, taking in shallow breaths. The days light shun through the boarded windows of the long forgotten bar. Taking some matches she had pilfered from her ex-lover, she lit some wax candles that lay standing with a lighter she had gotten on her way into Old Moscow.
The dull amber light filled the room and the tiny rats creeping about ran. One rat, a plump fella stared at her with muddy black eyes. It had no fear of man in all his years of life, having helped sire hundreds of litters, he was a grand father of sorts, he and his once brown coat now dusty gray, and his whiskers now silver strands, but all the same it had no fear of man.
Red was about to re-instill that fear. Her boot toe kicked the furry beast in the head, shattering the vertebra and killing the creature upon impact, she even heard the audible pop as it hit the wall.
"One for the rat catcher in the sky." She cheered cruelly. She hated vermin. The creepy eyes, the hair, the fleas, the worm like tail; it was something innate to her. She hated rats - period. Taking glance left and right she saw the bar was the same as she left it months ago.
It was a roomy bar complete with four different dispensing machines. The red cigarette dispenser had long been raided of it's nicotine laden bounty and a candy machine that fell to the early raiders and of course, rats. The classic orange-copper tinted Nuka-Cola machine, which oddly after how many years of neglect (and abuse) could still give a fresh Nuka-Cola - this of course, if you knew how to shake it just right - then there was the candy machine. The glass broken and the candies nibbled on and rotting.
The sign of dead vermin could be seen. The third machine was a coin machine. It was out of service, the red sign painted in bold couldn't be missed, lest you couldn't read.
The bartender's area was webbed, and glasses of old liquor had been long plundered during the end times, before the rebirth of the world. Maybe two or three bottles of booze or copper tops remained. Near the cash register was a packet of expired 9mm JHP rounds, they were hidden behind a plank of wood Charlyn had set up within the register. She grabbed the box and sent it to Ron, who caught it with his left hand, he looked at the brand: Kendo Arms, he saw the trade mark katana on the black and red box.
"Could come in handy," she said flatly, "down payment for you saving me from the mob."
Jumping over the bar counter, she went near a floor panel and picked up a crow bar that sat webbed in the adjacent nook to her right. Swallowing whatever disgust that welled up inside, she took the bar and removed the sticky material that was meant to entrap insects and small prey.
"I have some -" She thought on the words between her prying and lifting motions to snap the open the boards. "Personal things and other stuff. Oh, and be a dear, Captain Ron and fetch that colorful map on the wall to your... far right; the one of the upstate area." With that, the board snapped and a thick waft of dust rose up, there she saw was a hefty OD green .50 Caliber ammo box, and snapping the lid open, she saw what she was looking for: one leather duffel bag with multiple straps lay underneath.
"Gravy pot," She said with a confidant smile as she lifted the bag out of the compartment. Slinging the bag on her shoulder and placing the lesser bag within the larger one. It was one fit and it was light.
"Hid it here for years... and still good. So we can now head up upstate. Find somewhere warm to sleep. Oh, and one more thing - what are you Captain of?"
Ron cocks one of his eyebrows. "I... never said I was a captain." He figures she saw the dog tags and made a wild guess, or maybe even heard of the Nightmare Company or Ron Spears, or perhaps she saw the double silver bars on the lapels of his jacket. He shrugged and walked over to the map, grabbing it off the wall and rolling it up. He walks back, taking a moment to really process her question. He remembered all too well.
Fire. Screaming. A tremendous explosion. Men screaming either in horror or rage... sometimes both. The stench and taste of blood. Copper tang, like a penny. The musky scent of urine--one of the rookies who couldn't handle himself, maybe, or even one of the bodies that pissed itself a few minutes after death, or maybe that one kid with the little freckles that had been whining about having to piss for the past mile. Mutants roaring, ghouls screeching. The second in command, Chase Segal, holding his intestines and staring at Ron, blood smeared on his face. "CAPTAIN, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
Ron snapped back to reality and coughed. He spoke up, and sounded very shaken.
"I was leader of a group called the Nightmare Company. We were a paramilitary defense group for a Vault in the east."
He says nothing else, because it's obviously a very emotional subject.
Charlyn smiled, but softly. "Well Captain, your silver bars gave you away and well, the way you move, the way you handle your beretta for example. Obviously you are military and one of rank. Don't ask me how I exactly know this just call this my 'sixth sense'. ESPM. I think ESP." She tapped the side of her covered temple with her fore finger. She had a deep insight into many things, she could see little details one ignored and saw a thousand possibilities. It was a handy trait to have, but it was unpredictable and often left her feeling confused when she knew so many things about others and nothing about herself.
Edden. Edden... Something entered her head.
Who the fuck is Edden? She thought. Then after a moment, the Red Violin thought about the name and recalled the place of darkness and remembers a brown skinned man with cold golden eyes calling her that name. He stood next to her and handed her a grenade. His look was gaunt and stoic, the type that didn't show affection, be it for someone he loved or when he was placing a pistol to someone's skull and squeezing the trigger.
He had the eye's of the hunter. Of a predator.
'Remember, Edden. Take cover.' He had said, his voice hinting a sense of concern, but it was hard to decide if it was comradeship or something more...
The past faded and Charlyn was back in the world. A piece of the puzzle set down in the giant mosaic made by amnesia or self inflicted mental trauma.
"Well, it seems I found something, a piece of the puzzle. Call me Charlyn or Edden. Charlyn is my name, I guess, but do call me Edden if you please." She said to Ron. He nodded his head, but his eyes seemed vacant again.
AWW, GODDAMMIT-- another flashback?
Edden... Eddins. Eddins... PFC Michael Dwayne Eddins... his body swinging from the wreckage of the watchtower, disemboweled with a trail of organs leading ten feet to the ground, swinging helplessly, his eyes bulging in their sockets with his face black, mouth fixed in permanent agony...
Ron cleared his throat. "Edden. Pretty name." He tucked the aforementioned dog tags under his shirt and seemed to be more self conscious about his silver bars. "I saw an inn about a half a mile north of here. They said they had running water and a working tub in every room. And not that swill that looks browner then shit, or the kind that makes your piss glow green."
"Thanks, I think the name is pretty too. Just hope it's my real name." She said in agreement. But still she felt some frustration in getting fed bits and pieces of memory. As if someone from within was giving her what it wanted, making her dangle for the carrot before the eyes, so to speak.
Edden gathered her stuff and didn't really pay mind what Ron said till she hoped over the counter and grabbed a coin from her pocket. She was feeling a twitch in her left hand.
"As for the Inn, how far is it from the Nuka-Cola Facility on the map?" She asked. She wanted to head there, but some warm water and good bath never killed no-one. And she knew the cold was being generous, but from her tip from the desert of Arizona, she figured she smelled a bit wild.
Caffeine was low and she had no more caffeine tablets. Reaching in for a silver dollar coin, she dropped in the slot of the Nuka-cola machine and punched for the Nuka-cola classic. Slapping the button there was a rattle but no response. Grabbing each ends of the machine, she began to shake it like a maniac and threw two kicks near the dispenser slot and a knee.
The machine rattled and the sound of a cola falling into the basket was heard.
"Gravy." She said as she grabbed a bottle. Doing a reverse snap kick, the machine rattled and dropped three more. She took two and offered the third to Ron. "You want one?" This was a rare moment when she looked at him directly.
Just as Charlyn - or was it Edden was handing Ron the cola, a rat who had crawled up the back of the Nuka Cola machine launched itself at the unfortunate girl.
Rats were highly intelligent, very social beings. And unlike many animals, they had the ability to not only see effect, but also cause. So when the rest of the rats who lived in the abandoned bar saw the woman in the brahmin-smelling clothes crush the hapless old rat's vertebrae, they frenzied. A single volunteer was selected to bring about justice.
Despite Charlyn's superb reflexes, the entirely unexpected attack surprised her completely. Her arms were laden with nuka-cola bottles, and even when the furry creature landed on her shoulder she didn't drop the precious liquid to be shattered against the hard floor.
Take this you smelly human!
With that, the rat, his claws digging into the leather, bit hard and deep into her neck with teeth hard enough to crush bone and eat the marrow. At this point Charlyn's eyes bulged, and she frantically reached for a weapon - any weapon -, but the rat quickly jumped away. Before anyone had time to react, it had scurried in underneath the rubble, its blood-covered nozzle in a ratty grin.
The cold emotionless void filled Edden, even when blood trickled from behind her neck wound, she didn't care. The rat was what mattered. She grabbed her widow-maker and let loose the double barrels. But as the smoked cleared she didn't see that ratty grin with her blood dripping from its whiskers. She didn't know the rat had marked her. The rat, the one who would be a god called Dirt-Napp had marked her. He was small now, but things change. It wouldn't be the last time Dirt-Napp and Red Violin meet.
A second rat made the jump, inspired by his brother, Dirt-Napp. This rat wouldn't meet with the same success as his brethren.
Her hand grabbed the rat in mid air. "I... hate... rats." She said stiffly as her thumb pressed harder into the vermin's skull, and the last pitiful squeak was heard just before the creatures head splattered in her palm like an overripe grape. Looking at the ruined creature in her hands, she cast the creature away, overpowered by the scent of rat. It fell with a wet thud in the dark corner. Dirt-Napp would looked from the distance, he would mourn his brother and someday, he would avenge his brother. The Human female would pay.
Grabbing her bottles she tucked them in the bag. Before treatment she needed to sterilize her hands. Ron being a combat veteran had produced a bottle of old liquor. Not much for taste, but it was sterile. She dabbed her hands and rubbed, killing whatever germs or bacteria that may be floating in the air, especially from the rat. Placing her free hand on the wound, she checked her chest pocket and found it. Removing a single Quik-Heal, or Quik-E syringe, she gave herself an injecting and felt the healing chem work in a flash as her wounds began to heal. Causing accelerated mitosis of the cells which brought about healing but too many would make you hungry and sleepy, right now she felt a bit of lightheadedness and in need of a bed.
"Let's go before more rats jump out of the wood work." Ron suggested, offering her a hand with the gear, but she declined, standing on her own.
Ron smiles, taking the nuka-cola. He opened it easily with a knife and drank the entire bottle in two swallows. He threw it out one of the windows and followed Edden out of the bar.
"From that last little nibble, I'd say they don't like you either." He looks at the map and laughs. "This inn is a real geographical oddity. It's a half a mile from everything, us and the factory. It's to the east if you want to go."
Edden seemed to agree with the Captain. "Fine. Let's go. Lead the way... Cap'n." She turned to look at the old bar. "It was a nice stash den while it lasted. Fuckin' rats." She muttered in contempt. The quickest ways out of town was to follow the eastern block area and traverse through the alleyways to reach outside of Moscow and to find this fabled inn. By now three of the surviving AWU men would find the rest of the Union and begin to work up a posse. Some time wasn't a luxury.
A warmth bath would be nice. She thought. Grabbing her shotgun, she decided she'd carry it all the way. "So, let's go. And when we reach the Inn, I play a tune for you on my violin." It was a promise in gold. Charlyn had been itching to play a tune, one of he tunes she heard on a holo-disk that an old ghoul gave her in Dogtown Denver. The ghoul was very kindly and had taught her many of the extinct sounds long forgotten after the great war. Now she wondered ever became of the ghoul. The ghoul in question was a lanky figure dressed like a man fit for a funeral with his black spaghetti tie.
Ron walks behind her all the way to the Inn, aptly named the Cold Oasis. He opens the double doors and enters, nodding to the man at the front desk. A man in a three piece suit with a stupid looking tie with silly red dots on the material.
"Hey. How's it going? Can we get a-- 'scuse me." Ron began, approaching the desk, fighting his temptation to tap the bell, he noticed Charlyn looked a bit lost.
He turns to Edden. "You do want your own room, right?"
The man behind the desk brought up a book and a pen, and placed in front of them. "Please care to sign." He said, also motioning to a sign on the wall reads:
ROOMS AVAILABLE--TWENTY DOLLARS A NIGHT, THIRTY WITH SHOWER. Breakfast in the Common Room:
There was an addition to the notice. It was drawn in red paint that one could swear was fresh blood.
NO MUTANTS ALLOWED