Vault Shadows
Chapter 3: Chasing Shadows
Not to far now. The grey-clad man recited in his mind once he reached the halfway point between Big Town and the repulsive destination, Paradise Falls. His eyes drift side to side, coming onto a shallow hill, just enough to shield his vision from the horizon. Padded feet made their way up to the crest of the hill only followed by a muffled crunch that only those too close for the owner of the feet's comfort could hear, all the while the giant iconic plaster man wearing red and white checkered overalls and wielding a proportional ice-cream cone creeps in sight. Kel sighs in relief, his chest relaxing, thinking he is about to find the person who he felt almost responsible to help and assure her safety, Alex. This new-found sense of relaxation is followed by him relieving himself of the mask that was snug from neck to head, a slight breeze taking the place over his skin and disheveled hair furthering that feeling of relaxation. He lets out another sigh resembling more of a sigh of imminent pain and annoyance, as he starts to hide the mask within his robe like cowl. Making his way to the entrance of the slaver encampment, he knows that hiding his face wouldn't help him here, recalling his time with the slavers.
"No fucking way!" The slaver guard exclaims as the ghostly site approaches through the heat waves "Kel the Ghost Killer?! You got some fucking nerve coming here! Eulogy would- ".
"Would do nothing," Kel gives the guard a look of stern disapproval as if catching the guard lying, "you do know why he hasn't sent anyone to find me?"
"Because you hide to well," the guard's voice begins to shake under the pressure of the man who until today was no more than a myth to the guard and his friends.
The myth-turned-reality squints at the greenhorn slaver, "try again." Kel's tone turns to one of a man who is waiting for a reason to strike.
"Y-y-you," the guard stumbles over his words begging for the interaction between the two men to be over. As if on cue the scarred individual starts to walk through the initial gate into the settlement but is interrupted by the guard who manages to muster just enough confidence to stop the man from entering. "Wait, Eulogy has a new policy on gaining entry," the urge for Kel to interrupt the man again is held back and lets him finish, "you need to enslave someone to be allowed in."
Kel takes his time getting into the personal space of the guard and gestures for him to hand over a collar, the unsuspecting guard forgetting the basic rule to not trust a stranger in the wastes, hands a newly fashioned collar. Without so much as a blink of hesitation the ghostly man kicks the slaver on the inside of the knee and applying the collar to the neck of the slaver, "there, now come on, there's a distance limit on this model, right?" Kel grins as the guard, visibly crying, stumbles over his own feet rather than his words this time.
The more veteran slavers watch the spectacle not interrupting the quiet man's stride, some giving a few laughs at the greenhorn's predicament. "Hey, Carolina, Ymir, Cutter," Kel lists off the names of some of the veterans that he once knew all to well, not in the traditional sense as a friend knowing a friend and saying hello after not seeing one another after a long time, but more like that of a friendly competitor in some game of cat and mouse where both sides think they are the cat.
Looking around, Kel can tell that they have seen better times since his last visit to this grotesque slaver den, nearly everything having been broken either from wear and tear from the irradiated world or from the near-barbarian slavers fighting over who gets credit for what slaves. The dirt floor of the open bar on the way to Eulogy's more like mud-cocktail, soaked with different liquors from what it would seem as the chaos that caused all the wreckage in the settlement. Shaking his head, Kel takes the thought of this place being run down out of his mind, his hair falling to the unscarred right side of his face.
Getting to the door of Eulogy's place the outside guard nods and moves out of the way for the man and his 'slave'. The captured guard stops the menacing figure that he has been shadowing in shame, "please, man I beg you, I'll be ridiculed by everyone for the rest of my life if you bring me in front of Eulogy like this!" The sound of the depravity in the voice of the slaver mimicking a symphony for the man leading the embodiment of cowardice.
"You think Eulogy or any of these fucks gave one thought as to whether or not to spare me from experiencing humility? No, and guess what, they never will, I had them running with their tails between their legs every time they came for me! Just like you now." The scarred man grinning sinisterly over just putting a slaver in the shoes of his captors, makes his way while dragging the other man by the explosive collar, a bleeping light indicate slight tampering to the collar.
"Eulogy!" Kel walks the 'slave' up the stair, kicking in his left leg, dropping him to the creaky wooden floor. "I got something for you in exchange for some important information!"
The charismatic, pig of a man looks up from his desk where he had been counting a bag of what seemed to have been two thousand caps, "Willy… What the fuck?" Eulogy's focus shifts from the slaver under his command to the man he had felt was his Moby to his Ahab, "Now, now, now, what do we have here?" The tone of his voice displaying a clear sense of accomplishment as if Kel had not just walked into the settlement with little to no confrontation from anyone.
The scarred man looks around noticing that one of the main slaves was missing, Clover, the name came in an instant. Kel lets out some bottled anger for the man in front of him by punching the collared guard in the temple, putting him down and out. "He'll be fine, what happened to Clover?" Kel asks expecting someone like Tenpenny or some other big-wig to have come by for her.
"Is that what you came all the way here from your hole in the ground to discuss? I never would've pegged you for a man with a heart. If you must know, that whore from the vault came in here with a temper and nearly took all of us down, but for some reason she stopped and just gave up two thousand caps for the whore! Bitch was only worth a bullet." Eulogy ends his rant trying not to let the side of him that cared about Clover out for anyone to see.
Kel allows the comments to slip by without any repercussions for the head slaver, "Aside from your rude ass comments, did you say, 'that whore from the vault'? Are you sure it was the girl on the radio?"
"How could I mistake her for anyone else? Pip Boy, leather jacket with a snake, the blackest hair in the wastes, eyes like emeralds, and scarred more than yourself." Eulogy says with a sigh, rattling off the appearance that Three Dog liked to broadcast.
The foreboding man takes himself aback with the news of Alex being menacing and tough enough to not only scare Eulogy, but the entire settlement. What happened to her, is she ok? What could have happened to the innocent, trusting girl he once knew? "Alright, Eulogy, enough messing around. Where did she go? If you know you better tell me or else I'll finish what that girl started," Kel says through gritted teeth, a sense of urgency surrounding his words.
"Look, Kel, I'm gonna level with you, I have no fucking idea where she could be, she was here this morning and that's why everything here is a mess. She was headed South from here with Clover," Eulogy's usual confidence and charisma leaving him as he speaks. "I don't want to know why you're looking for this woman or how you know her, but I can assure you, whoever you're expecting isn't who you're gonna meet."
Kel takes the news with more than a grain of salt, "we'll see." With that close, Kel's muscles tense as he throws the switch for the collar on the knocked-out slaver, making his way to the door.
Reaching the entrance to the encampment, raw emotion takes over Kel's body pulling him to the ground while letting a yell of anguish and anger fly from his throat, "Fuuuuuuck!" Rage fills the vision of his right eye, red being the main theme of the newly fabricated world, the man grips the handle of his combat knife, looking for the nearest living organism to him.
Sniff sniff, a mole-rat brood mother examines her pups and lover before the make there way to a nearby patch of green to eat before calling it a day and finding their hole they call home. While eating the family hears nothing to peak their interest except the feint sound of the grounding crunching with heavy steps; unfortunately, their eyesight was practically nominal and could not prepare them for what was to come next.
The grey clothing covered chest rises and falls with the relief of physical and mental exertion, blood soaking the knife still tightly gripped within the palm of his right hand, the crimson scene of a massacred mole-rat family stained the ground, one mole-rat still squirming, one of the pups trying to make a getaway. The still angered man walks over the pup, pinning it down in a way it can not bite the man. The expression on the man's face turning deadpan as he wraps his free hand around the rough, leathery skin of the pup, small squeaks escaping the desperate animal. Kel looks away from the rat and the massacre as he tightens his grip until, SNAP, and then silence. The man wipes a tear forming from his good eye and shakes away his emotions, recouping and orienting himself back in the direction of Agatha's House.
Reapplying the mask, Kel assures himself that he won't run from a situation only to get caught like he did in Germantown. No more running like a coward, no more expecting the easy way to work, no more! The only thing the man retained from the massacre being the heavy steps as he dredges his way across the wastes, only expressing minimal stealth only due to the fact of his missing equipment he left at Agatha's. Working around some rocks Kel sees the rickety bridge leading to the old musician's house, stopping himself he grabs the last purified water in his possession and sits atop a rock. Between sips, the water is splashed in the man's face to recompose himself and to wash any blood from his hands and face, the cool water being the only good thing he's experienced in the past ten days aside from humiliating that slaver in front of all his peers. Kel lays on the jagged rock, soaking in what sunlight was left in the sky as the moon began to take the place of the sun, the air cooling in the familiar area, memories of his time in the vault back when things were easier and the women he was chasing was as he remembered, coming and going along with the hope that both Eulogy and Three Dog have everything all wrong with either Alex still safe within the walls of the vault or the person on the broadcasts had not been Alex; however, another escaped vault dweller that changed their appearance in the guise of Alex.
Kel traces his rough, dry, scarred hands along the surface of the even rougher, cold stone he was laying upon, seemingly writing the emotions he had felt through the day upon the rock. He listens carefully, a high pitch sound coming from Agatha's luring his attention to the shack, is she? No way she could be. The sounds emanating from the shack pick up the man from his rock, pulling him across the bridge, bringing him inside. To his surprise, once Kel had pulled the creaking door ajar, the sweet sound of a violin being played by experienced hands filled his ears allowing him to feel a sense of happiness unlike the usual happiness stemming from dark humor and morbid tales made light by the narrator of said stories. "Agatha, I'm back!" excitement lacing the words escaping his lips.
"'Bout time, I thought you weren't coming back. I was a day away from asking the caravanners to try and track you down, or at least your body," she smiles at her familiar guest returning. "As you can see I found someone who could go out and get not only some sheet music, but this beauty!" she exclaims, holding out her violin in pride.
"I could hear it from across the wastes," the boy, in comparison to his hostess, pays a compliment to the lady, for her musical prowess did not go unnoticed by Kel. "Who helped you? Also, how long ago was this?" He asks as he starts for his belongings lying inside of the locker, his fingers running along the cool metal, feeling his rifle for anything being out of place, an action he had grown accustomed to.
The elder nearly started to cry, tears welling in happiness that has been foreign to her since her husband had passed, "There was this lady who came over nearly a day or so after you left, and get this, she thought that this was Three Dog's place. I think she was going to kill me," her tale followed by an innocent chuckle.
Kel's eyebrow over his white eye raises in curiosity, "do you remember what she looked like?" He looks around for anything missing, in case the stranger had taken anything from the old lady, his eyes widen, the scoped revolver that had belonged to her husband to hunt and fend off enemies. "Agatha, what happened to Blackhawk?" he asks referring to the missing revolver from its usual display case.
"Well, I couldn't just give my thanks, she went through so much for so little and she had herself a pistol just like my husband's, so I thought it was the least I could do to give her a better weapon. Plus, it wasn't seeing any use just lying around." She smiles her usual smile similar to that of a grandma, even more wrinkles forming along with her already wrinkled features, leathery skin folding together.
Seeing the lady, he had visited with over the past few years, in such a state of pure joy puts a smile across the face of the man who had recently lost control of himself. "I'm glad to see you in such good spirits, I just wish I could have been here to see the girl who had recovered the violin and given her my thanks along with anything I could have given her for her service." A silence falls between the pair as Kel starts to think of the talk with Eulogy Jones, then it hits him, "you never said what the lady looked like."
Agatha gets an assuming look about the boy, thinking he was getting lonely without a girl in his life, "Well, you're in luck youngster, she looks about the same age as you. I think you'd like her, she had shiny black curls, and the greenest eyes on what's left of this planet. That's all I can remember, aside from her having a pet dog with her, and not one of those hairless beasts, more like a cattle dog."
Kel's eyes widen, his heart racing in anticipation of Agatha's answer, "do you by chance know where she was headed to after she left?"
She shakes her head gently, no words needed as to why she did not know, the violin clearly having been her center of attention once it was brought to her. Kel nodded once, understanding the situation, only thing left is to recheck Megaton, maybe I'll be able to catch her there getting supplies or something. His thoughts forming from the words of a slaver with nothing to gain from helping Kel. Seemingly able to read his mind Agatha changes the topic, "Enough of this mystery woman, let me warm up one of the mirelurk cakes waiting for you and fetch an iced-cold bottle of Nuka-Cola. How does that sound?" her motherly instinct kicking in ass she heads to the half-kitchen half-living room.
"That sounds great, Agatha," he says passively, making his way to an old rusted chair placed on one side of the scrap table, the all to familiar feeling of the rust on his palms strangely soothing. Pulling the chair up to the table, a plate with a freshly oven-heated mirelurk cake at the center, served to him with a cap less bottle of Nuka Cola. "Thank you, you have done so much for me and there never seems to be an end to your kindness," the man says with a choked voice.
Agatha puts her hand on his shoulder, comforting the clearly hurting man, "Kel, you have been nothing but helpful since my husband saved you all those years ago. I don't know what this girl means to you or what you went through in the past ten days looking for her, but I know you are in pain, physical and emotional. Just keep holding onto your persistence son, you'll find her, it's only a matter of time, if she's in the area you just need to get out there and look smarter, not harder." Her words not only wise, but causing an emotional response from the two, a tear falling from the scarred man's good eye next to the chipped plate the cake resided upon, "I know you have to of heard the stories on the radio about her, but if she is the same girl you have talked about then she'll be kind to you, and hopefully welcoming to an old friend."
The reassurance cheers the young man enough to finish eating the meal prepared by the closest person he could consider a mom. "Thank you, again, Agatha, in the morning I'm going to head out and try Megaton, hopefully she'll have been through there or someone that may know where she might be," his words followed by a mouthful of rich, flavorful mutated crab cake washed down with the cold cola, a slight tingle tickling his throat.
…
Muscles stretch, lungs expand with a morning yawn, an eye dilates, all while a body makes its way out of under a blanket on a spare bed that kept it warm the night prior within the house of an elderly lady. The owner of the body groans away the pain from the nearly two weeks that had passed while undergoing a fruitless adventure. Aches from the bruised shoulder blade to the pulsing gunshot wound come and go as the male's body, that could tell a story with the scars riddling it, slips into the now iconic grey-clad stealth suit and cowl. Slinging the small backpack over one of his shoulders, yet under his cowl, the grey ghost makes his way to the door with only the sound of a maintenance check of the sniper rifle the man wielded being heard. Satisfaction, as per usual, the rifle had been just as it was before he laid his head to rest that night, and with that exceptional test the door before the man was slowly opened with eager hands to start the next part of the current journey. Sunlight creeps over the horizon as dawn approached, as quickly as he opened the door, he exited and closed the door as to not wake the man's hostess earlier than need be. The rifle sways only slightly to keep moment for the wielder's movement to not be impaired as it carefully makes its way across the bridge and maintaining a southward direction as to not lose itself in the rocky terrain of the wastes it had as a home.
Along with the growing sun to the man's left, the silhouette of a high fenced settlement breaks through the horizon, his right eye taking in the spectacle, the sight of people making this world work for them even in the current condition always manages to astonish him. From within the bag upon the aching back of the man, eight short tones tied to vibrations can be heard, eight o'clock in the morning, the brain of the man takes note and on time like usual the defensive gates of the city screech open as an old jet turbine turns the mechanism that opened the gates. Crack. Pop. Crack. The man moans following popping his own neck as if signaling to himself that it was time to find any sort of answers.
Coming upon the town Kel looks from a distance as the inner gate opens. Pale pink blaring in contrast to the grey environment, the pink form gathers detail as it starts towards the path Kel was on, white hair cut in an odd fashion, chocolate brown eyes, high heels unfit to be traveling the wastes, and finishing the awkward ensemble, a slave collar seemingly deactivated. Clover! He realizes just before reaching the gate. She has to know… that might be where she's headed.
Kel, a good distance behind the woman, trails her, watching her carefully. "Aw fuck!" the lady in pink exclaims as four voices sounding as if they were coming out of a radio point out the girl and the sound of plasma zipping through the air gives away the unseen threat's identity away. The Enclave. Outnumbered and out gunned the grey-clad man watches as the chase between trained, power armor wielding soldiers chase a scantly dressed woman in heels, with only a sawed-off for defense, begins. Opposing the start of the day, the lungs compress, a sigh bellowing from his lips as he turns away from the presumed death of a former slave, and the aching muscles march to the town they were originally heading to for answers, now distraction free.