CHAPTER SEVEN: THE ROAR
Good morning Commonwealth, it's Travis here with some updates! Looks like the Minuteman campaign down south is going to take a little longer than expected. Raiders and Gunners seem to be preparing for some sort of last stand around Quincy.
As reported in the Publick, General Delaney aims to dislodge the group before Winter. High hopes it seems, but I'm not doubting him folks.
Let's get the day started off with Louis Armstrong and 'What A Wonderful World.'
The light tapping of a drizzle on a metal roof woke me up. Outside I could hear the sound of workers boarding boats to cross the river and begin their shift at the water treatment plant and the clanking of tools as railway workers set off down the tracks. In the bunk above me, I heard movement as James shifted in his sleep.
Oh right.
I suddenly became very aware of the fact that I was still in James' duster. I took a deep breath to calm myself but it backfired as my nose was filled with his scent.
I felt like I had dreamed last night's events rather than experienced them. James had opened up to me, at least a little. I had a feeling I didn't know the whole story just yet but it was at least something. Longfellow's words came to mind, I needed to watch over him as much as he was taking care of me.
My mind wandered to the moment when I leaned up against him as we watched the sunset and despite myself I felt red creeping up my face. Well, maybe we don't need to get that close all the time.
I calmed myself and got my blush under control when I heard rustling and a groggy "Mornin' Summer." James groaned slightly as he lowered himself from the top bunk and stretched. I sat paralyzed on the bed, desperately searching for something to say-er write. I settled on a wave and what I hoped was a casual smile.
James went about his morning ritual. Waking up Ada, lacing up his boots, combing his hair, brushing his teeth, etc. I took off the duster and handed it to him. He gave a sideways glance before waving his hand and saying "Oh keep it, it's only gonna get colder and I've got another in Sanctuary." I blushed but still insisted, it didn't fit me anyway.
"Alright, alright I'll take it, but keep the scarf." More than happy to oblige, I kept the purple woolen scarf and helped him into his duster. It was humid so I stored the scarf in my pack, but not before a quick sniff while James wasn't looking.
Since we were pretty much broke, we decided to just eat our rations as we walked rather than spending it on another breakfast.
We set off north along the railroad tracks. I tried to stay closer to James up front as we walked but it was difficult. James walked fast and I think I'm getting a blister or something from all the walking. Hopefully we'll be to this city soon.
The tracks were much more populated up north. Every couple hundred yards we'd pass a group of rail workers clearing debris, digging up tracks that had been buried, correcting the railroad grade and repairing rails where it was possible. James had said the General was somewhat obsessed with getting the railroads functioning again. General Delaney thought it would be able to drive the Commonwealth into the future but over 200 years of neglect meant getting the railways in functioning order was a big task, not to mention getting the trains that would ride them up and running again.
It was probably the most relaxed walk we'd had so far. James didn't even bother having his rifle out. There were already patrols guarding the workers so there was no need.
The sense of calm soon changed after we crossed the bridge. No longer were there any rail-workers, no longer were there any songs. The din of pickaxes and general work faded behind us, and all that could be heard was a quiet but definitely present sound in the air. It was dull and constant and very rarely changed pitch. Not so much a hum but a growl.
James had tensed up, I could sense it. His happy smile had been replaced with a straight line, and once again his rifle was out. In an almost unheard of move, James turned off Ada's radio.
Suddenly feeling quite nervous myself, I pulled out the laser pistol I had been given and had yet to use.
I nudged James, who had drifted to the furthest left of the tracks he could go and not fall down the slope into the brush below. He was constantly looking to the east with a grim look on his face. I was confused? What had changed so quickly? The only thing I could see were some ruins of a prewar town to the east. Maybe it was the noise.
I tapped his shoulder lightly and he jumped a little, "What's up Summer?" I quickly tapped my ears a few times before giving a confused look and gesturing with my hands.
"They say you can hear it for miles around. That, Summer, is the sound of the largest feral horde maybe ever, all stuck in Lexington town square." Despite his grim and ominous tone, I still had no idea what a feral was, so I waited for an explanation.
"Ferals are… ghouls. Used to be at least. They're-they were people who've been exposed to so much radiation that it's changed them. Destroyed their minds and bodies until they've become nothing but a husk. A very hungry and very angry husk that attacks everything it sees." These monsters sounded terrifying. If there were enough to make this much of a racket, then I sure as hell didn't want to mess with that horde. No wonder James was on edge.
We walked in silence, as if the menacing horde might hear us miles away. Our only companions were the jostling of our packs and the mechanical whir of Ada's servos. We passed by empty junkyards and greenhouses. All evacuated or abandoned by their original occupants for fear that whatever held the horde back might give one day and send it rushing over them.
We continued to put distance between us and the horde and the distant noise slowly faded to a barely audibly murmur. James seemed to relax. His death grip on his rifle slowly loosened, his jaw unclenched, and he looked over his shoulder less frequently. He slowed down to my pace. I looked up at him, and he replied with a reassuring smile, "We've put a bit of distance between us and it. Fort Starlight's just ahead."
I returned his smile and scribbled, 'Intimidating name.'
James snorted. "Oh yeah, The Institute was really quakin' in their boots at that one" he managed to get out before breaking into laughter again. I laughed along with him.
Starlight was sadly not as pretty as the name implied. It was surrounded by high and ugly concrete walls, topped with barbed wire. Heavily armed Minutemen guards patrolled the ramparts, nodding at us silently as we passed. At consistent intervals there was a mean looking metal turret, positioned so it had a wide sweeping view of the fields around the fort.
Even from outside the walls I could see two great pre-war structures, one an old cinema screen, and the other what must have been the projector house. Perched atop the cinema screen were radio towers and dishes, sticking out like spikes in all directions. Compared to other towns there were hardly any traders or travelers milling about. The only people moving in and out of the fort were squads of Minutemen heading out on patrol, carrying submachine guns and automatic rifles. At least one group was headed towards Lexington itself.
After going through a smaller chain-linked fence, we reached the main gate, which was a massive metal sheet wedged under the wing of one of the projector houses roofs. We were stopped at the gate by a tough, bearded guard lazily wielding a combat shotgun.
"Papers?" The guard requested gruffly.
James handed the man a small booklet. The guard glanced at it a moment then back at us, "Only a man and a bot're registered fer this."
"Well you'll see on that paper there that I'm a Specialist? She's my lost soul. I'm charged with taking her to Sanctuary City. Was hopin' we could stay the night here before it got too dark."
The guard looked again at the paper then back at us and shrugged, "Fine then. Head on in, s'probably room in the barracks for ya." The guard returned the papers and banged twice on the huge metal gate. I winced at the thunderous sound and resisted the urge to cover my ears as the gate screeched open slowly.
The inside of the fort was even uglier than the outside. To the right of the gate was a squat concrete building with a rusted sign reading 'Quartermaster' where several Minutemen were milling around, chatting casually and playing cards. Past that was a small pen with several brahmin grazing lazily in the late afternoon sun. The only remotely pretty thing was the small statue, set in front of a small pond at the center of the fort.
I assumed the memorial was just like the last two I had seen. I decided not to bring James to check that one out. I didn't think he'd like to see another memorial anytime soon.
Near the statue was a huge artillery piece and beyond that appeared to be a meager garden of sorts. In the very back of the fort I could see four or five long and squat metal barracks, set along the base of the cinema screen. All in all everything was very… short. And gray. But at least it was safe.
James seemed reenergized. He led me through the fort, giving me a basic tour and talking excitedly about how close we were to Sanctuary City. The fort was bustling with military activity and the place was stuffed with all manner of supplies and munitions. It had to be one of the most heavily armed places in the Commonwealth.
"Sanctuary City is just ahead. We're almost home," James beamed.
The thing about the late raiders of Lexington is that they were terrible builders. Sure they can cobble together some poor excuse for a wooden shack if they need to, but they're not architects or engineers. When the late raiders of Lexington had put up their big wall, they had expected it to stop things trying to get in, not things that were trying to get out. That's not to say the walls were gonna fall over at the slightest breeze. The supports were shoved into the ground the furthest the raiders could be bothered to push them, and some sandbags and bricks were thrown on for good measure, but no real effort was made. No deep support posts, no concrete foundations, just a bunch of wood and sheet metal stuck together. What was the point when all your enemies would just come at you from outside anyway?
Here's a fun experiment. What happens when several hundred mindless zombies bump into a rotten section of wall over and over again? I'll save you the time. It collapses. And collapse it did. Not just one little piece, a quarter of the whole wall just gave up and collapsed, taking a dozen or so ghouls with it. Not enough to seriously dent their numbers.
And how convenient for the poor hungry ferals, that a tasty snack was waiting a few blocks up the street. A nice squishy Minuteman patrol wandering the outskirts of Lexington, fearing exactly what had just happened.
I'd say it's very convenient.
And so, the first few brave ferals stepped over the rubble and wandered off north towards that patrol. That small trickle of ghouls turned to a stream, then a river, then a growling and snapping tsunami, hurling itself north with a vicious and hungry anger, ready to demolish anything in its path. It was coming for Starlight.
I am awoken by the sound of wailing. A wailing siren and the panicked shouts of people.
I was having the most wonderful dream of the night before the world got loud
I get off my cot and wrap James' scarf around me. I grab my laser pistol and make sure it is loaded. Something is wrong. I have to find James.
It's raining outside. All the world is in motion. On the southern wall, people are running back and forth, taking up positions, shouting, hauling ammo crates, and turning on one is idle. The gardeners have traded their hoes for rifles. The great metal doors are closed and barred, the gatekeeper now shouting at the top of his lungs as he piles sandbags and crates against it.
I whirl about and spot James' telltale hat and duster. He's on the wall, helping someone carry a crate of ammo over to one of the turrets. I push my way through the crowd to him. All around me people are shouting orders and moving to the wall.
By some miracle I made it to James. He has a look that I've never seen him wear.
Fear.
Pure and complete fear. His eyes were wide and his face was drenched, with sweat or rain I had no idea. He licked his lips as some rain dropped off the brim of his hat onto his face.
I wanted to shout, to scream and ask what's happening. I didn't need to.
James' eyes darted towards Lexington then back to mine. "It's OUT Summer! It's coming this way!"
Shit. The Horde? The thing loud enough to create a monstrous sound so loud it's audible from miles around. The thing that had instilled fear into any living thing from here to Diamond City. The thing that was now heading on an unstoppable collision course for Fort Starlight.
Suddenly, everything was silent save for the droning of the siren, wailing like a wounded animal into the raining sky. Every head turned to the southern wall, where a shapeless blob shuffled forward.
First it was just a shambling mass, vaguely curious about the loud siren, motivated only by its own momentum. The spotlights lit it up, and for a minute all was still. The ferals almost looked innocent, like a radstag caught in headlights. A glowing one hobbled forward, its head engorged with glowing sickly green tumors and its body practically bursting at the seams with neon goo.
The glowing one roared. Not a growl or a guttural gurgle but an angry roar that told of 200 years of pain and radiation and hunger. Following its battlecry, the endless army of the irradiated charged headlong into Fort Starlight.
"FIRE. FIRE AT WILL!"
The world exploded. The sound was so great it nearly split my skull. I desperately covered my ears to block out the combined gunfire of dozens of Minutemen and turrets and the howls of ghouls.
The ferals charged the wall, any that tripped or was shot down was left to be trampled by the next one. One would fall and two more would rush forward. There was no coherent plan of attack, just a mass surging forward towards the wall.
James was desperately trying to feed an ammo belt into a nearby turret, and once he had finished, he gave it a smack and it whirred to life. He heaved up the ammo box and ran past me to the next turret.
As he passed James ordered, "FIRE SUMMER, DAMNIT!" I jumped, astonished at the anger and fear in his voice. I fumbled with my laser gun.
I aimed it down at the horde and squeezed the trigger...nothing. No stream of red hot energy came shooting out of the gun. Nothing happened. In a panic, I started squeezing the trigger over and over again, still nothing. I smacked it twice, nothing was working.
James must've noticed my troubles over the roar of the horde. He marched over and angrily grabbed my pistol, flipped a switch, fired a few shots, and handed it back to me without a word.
I did what everyone on the walls was doing. I fired. I fired and I didn't stop. When my fusion cell was spent I reloaded with a calm precision. I didn't know what was happening, but shooting this just felt… right. It frightened me. I calmed down the more I fired. It was as if the motion had been one I had done my whole life. Aim. Shoot. Kill. Just a monotonous motion. I fell into my own world. All around me I was aware of screams from the fellow defenders. I was vaguely aware of runners like James running back and forth along the wall handing out ammo and reloading turrets. I was aware of the horde, coming in an endless river throughout the night. The fight was soundtracked by the sound of ferals hammering the massive metal gate and the ever present call of the siren.
The horde broke with the dawn. The endless river thinning out into a stream, then a trickle, then just a few confused ferals, themselves seeming stunned at the destruction before them. James had bags under his eyes, sweat or rain glistening on his skin in the early morning dawn, he looked absolutely disheveled and I could only imagine I did too.
All along the south wall, there was a sea of feral bodies so thick you couldn't see the ground. Some were burned to ash, some were dismembered, and some were still moving, either trapped under the fallen or too crippled to walk. Already an armada of flies, bloatfly and normal, had set upon the feast of corpses that now littered the south wall. The main gate, now dented beyond belief, couldn't be opened for some time due to the stack of bodies that lay on the other side. Not that anyone minded, we were all more than happy to remain inside for a moment..
Me and James stumbled down the stairs and off the wall, supporting each other as we made our way back to the barracks. Without a word we collapsed into bed.
I couldn't see the details of the room around me, only that there was a bright white everywhere.
I saw I was in a line, to my right and left were people dressed in white and black jumpsuits. Their faces were fuzzy and indecipherable. I felt like I was underwater and had a really bad head cold all at once.
"Designation X7-77, are you paying attention?"
Thanks for reading, follow if you'd like :) Combined two shorter chapters into this one.
