Chapter 24: A Modern Day Man
Manny poked my face on the brink of dawn. My eyes shot open and I grabbed him by his medium-length hair.
"If you touch my face again, I'll make sure you won't be able to do that again." I threatened tiredly.
"Ow." Manny said quietly as he left the tent.
Everyone seemed more social today, but reserved to keeping to themselves, unwilling to share food and water, only stories and jokes.
"What's our ETA?" Tai asked Manny.
"By the way we're traveling, a few more days, as long as nothing gets in our way, that is." Manny said as he adjusted his holster.
We kept walking towards the city. It seemed to get bigger as we walked. I started to see large buildings more clearly. Dimitri pointed towards a pointed tower in the middle of the city.
"What is that tower, molisch?" Dimitri asked Manny.
"It's a symbol of the city. It's called The Washington Monument, but that's all I know about it, haven't been too close to it to find out what it's like there. Would like to see what it's like to see the top of it. Maybe we can stop there when we're inside." Manny said.
"Hmm." Dimitri said as he scratched his head.
"Not going to happen. We're not here to sight-see." I said in a crisp voice. Manny sighed. "Alright." He agreed…
Miles away, a wounded, bloody faced man spat out blackened spit onto the ground as he rolled over. Smoke pillars surrounded him; broken metal was laid across his body, reminding him of his injuries. He groaned loudly as he rolled over to his side. Something was broken, he just didn't know what. He dug his fingernails into the dirt and crawled to the center of town. It was the quietest Megaton ever was. The black birds that flew over his head heard only the pained grunts of a crippled man crawling on his hands to find something to prop him up. He whined out in pain and he dragged his wounded, stiff body across the dirt until he found a staircase and rested on it. He leaned his face against the cold scrap metal and it soothed his sweating face. He breathed heavily and with a morning taste in his mouth, he recalled everything that happened to him. His instinct was to get up; and he almost did if his body wasn't so weak. His chest bobbed up and down with heavy breaths as he lifted himself up the hospital stairs to look at the town.
Everything was battle-torn. People clearly fought back. Holes and fires once spread through the town, but died down along with the unlucky group of people who decided to fight for a cause. They had no one backing them up, no law system, no friends, no family to defend them. What they were left with was a gun in their hand and the need to keep what was happening from happening.
But they failed. They all failed, and now they were dead. Joe saw this and looked down at the ground. What happened at Megaton should never have happened, he knew that. His excuse to not fight back wasn't good enough. Someone should have been there to protect these people, even if he couldn't. He couldn't protect anyone; not his wife or his best friends. They weren't even best friends, Joe thought. He wasn't a man, he wasn't a sheriff or deputy or mayor. He was a failure and he let the only people who he once would have died for go away on a march to their deaths. And now, there wasn't a thing he could do. He failed at his one job…
But failure doesn't always signify the end. It only shows the status. A failure is a mindset; a temporary setback. Failure isn't always something that is decided after you've tried everything, in fact, it's the opposite. And if one thing was certain at that point, failure was the last thing on Joe's mind.
He pushed the hospital doors open and limped to the front desk. Dead doctors lie on the floor. Bed sheets and gurneys were scattered everywhere. They dragged them from their hospital beds, without a care for their medical condition, and Joe could have been one of them. For some reason he was gifted the chance to fail again, but that wasn't going to happen.
He was going to get better. He was going to track them down. He was going to kill the people that took those girls from him and most of all…
He wasn't going to fail again.
Chain was going to die, at any cost. Joe's done a lot of stupid things in his life, but this-this wasn't one of them. And he wasn't doing it to be remembered as a hero or celebrity, he was neither of them, they were just titles others gave him. He just wanted to save his friends, even if he hated them and even if they hated him. Because that's what a man does, he sucks it up and does what's right. He would have to fight for them because he's the only one who could, despite his injuries. He would have to die for his friends, he thought, because that's what a man does. He sucks it up and he does the right thing, even if people aren't there to cheer for him from the sidelines.
"Alright guys, this area is known for some raiders. Saw a bunch of patrols around here, so keep your eyes open." Manny said.
We all nodded our heads in agreement. We pulled out our weapons and surveyed the area as we walked. Doc stood there, and Tai glared at him. We didn't see anything as we walked, although we heard gunfire way off in the distance. The sun started to set, but we kept walking because of fear of an ambush. The sky was pink now, so we quickly scrambled for the tents. Manny went and found wood and refilled our canteens. He waited until it was dark until he got the fire and food started, "In case the raiders could see the smoke" Manny said. This night was packaged steak and an irradiated plant with proteins in it.
"Very impressive, molisch." Dimitri said as he nodded his head.
"Hey, what's a... 'molisch' anyway?" Manny asked, attempting to sound like Dimitri.
"It means 'boy' in Russian. I'm sorry; I did not realize I was speaking in my other tongue." Dimitri said.
"It's alright. I kinda like it. Nice nickname for me, what do you think?" Manny asked him.
"Good enough for me." Dimitri grunted as he took a bite from his food.
We finished our food and went to sleep, trying to rest over Doc and Tai's constant arguing.
Joe treaded a needle through his leg as it bled onto the hospital floor and sewed it up. He shut his teeth in pain as he snipped off the last of his stitches. He got to his feet and hobbled around, grabbing at tables and walls to keep himself up. He stumbled forwards and groaned loudly as he fell over. He lifted himself up to see the reflection of himself in a mirror that was cracked from age and newly-made bullet holes. He saw a pale faced man with gray bags under his eyes and rosy cheeks with a stubble on his chin. His hair was a mess, his body covered in blood from his stitching and dirt from crawling. He still wore his sweatpants and white t shirt that the hospital gave him. He dug his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a badge that he almost forgot about. He rubbed the dirt off of it and read the description. "Megaton Sheriff" it shined to him. For once, Joe used his intuition; he thought like the sheriff he was supposed to be and looked up at his reflection. He rubbed his thumb across the badge until his wedding ring Natalie got for him almost fell off his thinning hand. He pushed it back onto his ring finger and nodded to his reflection.
He broke open the door to the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, slamming the top against the counter and breaking off the cap. He took a swig of the drink as he limped over to the armory. He put the terminal password in, only to realize a grenade blast already opened a way into it already. He went inside and looked around.
It had been ransacked, the weapons and armors taken from the cabinets. The only thing left were blue jumpsuits. Joe picked one up and read the back. A yellow 101 was imprinted on it. He stared at it in silence. He dropped it back to the ground and looked outside toward the hills where a blast door sat with dozens of people inside with their secrets and plans intact as they had won another battle of trickery. His investigation had been concluded. He found someone to blame.
Joe went back into our house and looked around, resting on a chair. He spotted a backpack atop a fridge and squinted as it as he took in more whiskey. He pulled the bag down and ammunition and candies spilled on the ground. Joe raised an eyebrow at the bag as he opened it up, not realizing the intention of the household contraband. He opened it up and looked inside. My old vault jumpsuit was still inside, along with my bulletproof vest and 10 millimeter pistol. He sighed at it and stripped his hospital clothes off and donned my vault attire. He spotted a weird sight. Jellybeans and bubblegum were at the bottom of the bag, and Joe shrugged.
And as the sun set in front of him, Joe walked out of Megaton that night with a limp: feeding from a bottle of whiskey in one hand and jellybeans in the other. He headed to the hills, he headed for 101 without a plan, because that's how Joe wins: by surprising everyone, including himself.
Dimitri slept loudly in his tent, his heart was racing and a sweat was building over his large muscles. He was having a nightmare. His body twitched and he moaned angrily as if he was throwing a punch. This was normal, especially for Dimitri: this nightmare was repetitive.
"Get in the closet." His sister told him.
"Sasha, what is the mat—"
"Delayte to, chto ya govoryu seychas!" She said in a harsh whisper.
Dimitri bent his head down and listened to his sister. He buried himself in weird smelling coats as his sister sat at the table, her hands shaking. Dimitri peeped through cracks in the wood and spotted his front door being bashed in. A man with red hair and a beard with tattoos all over his body ran through the door with a shotgun and aimed it at Sasha. Other men flooded their home as Dimitri gasped. He breathed heavily as the men grabbed Sasha by the hair and threw her down to the floor.
"Are you alone?!" The man asked her.
"Are you alone?!" He screamed at her.
"Please… I… English…" Sasha tried to communicate in their language.
"Answer me!" He shouted in her ear as he slammed his fist into their wooden table next to her and cracked it. She yelped and shut her eyes.
"I… zhivoy… living… here." She communicated in their language.
In any other situation, Dimitri would have corrected her. He learned English quite well in their town, which was something rare for the older adults that immigrated there.
"Search the house." He ordered the men.
Instantly, they tore away at their furniture and threw their food at the ground, splattering cereal and candies all over the place as their turned over the place. The leader walked towards the closet as Dimitri locked eyes with him.
"Take her with us." He told them.
The men bashed her head into the ground and lifted her up as Sasha tried to wriggle free.
"No, no!" Sasha tried to fight.
"Now you understand us, huh?!" The red haired man shouted.
Dimitri covered his mouth and tried to keep still as the leader slapped Sasha's face.
"We're leaving." Was the last thing that was heard from Dimitri that entire day. He left that closet hours later, he was too scared to move.
The dream ended with his eyes opening and him grabbing his gun in anger. He was ready to fight back, but there was nothing to fight, and so these two separate men-Joe and Dimitri-had to find something to suppress their anger, and anger so deep and scraping to their minds that they weren't just mindless brutes any longer, they were men who fought for reason: to keep themselves from going insane, or in their case, losing their final battle.