"I know I promised ya the whole vegas experience but gonna have to wait. When we come back to tell the boss about the deal we'll party, but gotta make the deal first." Max says.
"Sounds good to me." I say.
We walk the desert for an hour or two, the afternoon sun beating down on us hard. It isn't humid like the east coast thankfully, so I don't sweat as much, but my skin feels as if it's cooking. Max however walks along as if it's any other day. Only makes sense. He's acclimated to this weather.
The horizon has a brown hue to it that goes up a couple hundred feet it looks like. No doubt it's the dust and sand being kicked up in the air from the wind. I'd hate to experience a sand storm. Most likely will at some point while we're here.
We walk along ruins past an old Sunset Sarsaparilla plant. I always heard about this drink. It was a west coast thing like White Castle or In and Out. Never got to try those places. I heard they were good though from my girlfriends who had done some traveling in our college years.
We keep traveling along for another ten minutes or so, Max whistling a tune. It sounds like an old western song. Familiar, like something my grandfather would listen to when I was younger, but I can't quite put my finger on the name.
"What's that song called?" I ask him.
"The one I'm whistling?" He asks.
"Yea." I say.
"Heartache by the number." He says.
"That's it!" I say snapping my finger and looking at him, "I've been trying to figure out what that song was this whole time." I explain.
He smirks, "yea, it's a favorite of mine. Actually, my best friend and I met to this song."
"Really? How?" I ask.
He looks down at his feet as we walk and smiles, "well, her name is Rose of Sharon Cassidy." He says and looks to me.
"A little overkill huh?" I ask.
He chuckles, "yea, her dad was something else I suppose. She never knew much about him though. He up and left her and her ma when she was young."
I shake my head in disgust, "how? How could you just leave your child?"
He shrugs, "don't know. I couldn't do it. Suppose he's lookin for somethin' out there. At least, I think that's what Cass told herself sometimes. She always acted like it didn't bother her, but I know it did." He says, "anyhow, I'm at the Mojave outpost, a hub for merchants traveling west to east and east to west. I stopped here to rest shortly after my...accident." He explains.
I stay quiet and listen.
"I head to the bar to grab a drink. My head was pounding and I wanted the pain to go away. Whiskey works well for that. So I head into the bar and sit next to her. She's got a bottle sat in front of her, I suppose she told the bartender to leave it. I turn to ask her a question, not sure what it was now, but anyways she just holds her hand up to my face shutting me down instantly." He says smiling.
I chuckle, "well obviously not for long."
"Nope. I was determined. I mean I admit, she was a pretty girl and I can be a suave guy when I wanna be. So I bought her a drink. When the bartender brought it to her, the hand that was resting on her cheek slammed on the counter. She turns to me and the first thing she says to me is 'what do you want shithead?'
We both laugh.
"Sounds like someone I'd be friends with." I say.
He nods, "yea. We talked for a bit and she told me her story and why she was there. Came down on bad luck. Her caravan had been destroyed. She was stuck in that bar bound by her contract. A few weeks later, I helped her lift the contract and get revenge on the men who destroyed her caravans and the rest is history." He says.
"She was your girl huh?" I say bumping his shoulder.
"Yea," he says bumping me back, "she was. After the second battle for Hoover Dam, we stayed together for a while. A couple of my friends left in search of something better or for a new purpose, but she stayed for a while. Helped me with pushing the Legion back and trim them down, cleaning up the mess they left behind. After a while, one thing led to another and we were inseparable." He says.
"So where is she now?" I ask.
"She's at our home, in Goodsprings. It's a town not far from here, we could actually pass by it on the way if we wanted. I got a lot of people there that are like my family. They had my back when I had nothing, so I trust them to watch after her and our kid while I'm gone." He says.
"You have a child?" I ask.
"Yea. He's somethin' else. Got his momma's fire that's for sure." He says with a chuckle.
"What's his name?" I ask.
"Wyatt." He says.
"How old?" I ask.
"Four. He's really smart for a four year old though. He knows all his ABC's and can even write a few and can count up to fifty." He says smiling and looking ahead.
"Wow. Sounds like a smart kid. How come you never said anything about him before?" I ask him confused.
"Honestly, I didn't fully trust you at first. I didn't want to jeopardize their safety. But once I did, we just didn't have a good time to talk about it." He says truthfully.
I nod, "well I'm glad you told me. It's good to have someone to trust out here."
"So what about you?" He asks me.
"What about me?" I say plainly.
"Any kids?" He asks.
"Uhh," I say conflicted on if I should tell him about Shaun, "yea, just one." I say finally. It's only fair. Max hasn't been untrustworthy so far.
"Got a name?" He asks prying a bit more.
"Shaun. His name's Shaun. He's ten years old." I say.
"What's he like?" Max asks.
"Well, I don't really know." I say truthfully.
"What?" Max asks confused.
"He…he was taken from me when he was an infant. It's a really long story." I say.
"Well we got time." Max says shrugging his shoulders.
"Well," I start, but right as I'm about to continue, a gust of wind blows and shoves sand in my eyes, nose, and mouth. I cough and spit wiping my eyes with my sleeve trying to clear them.
I hear Max doing the same and once my eyes are clear, I look around. The wind was picking up a second ago, but now it's getting stronger. I look to our left and see a wall of orange sand headed our way. It's a sand storm.
"What the hell?" I say, "they hit that fast?"
Max coughs a few times and is still wiping his eyes while he tries to look, "yea," he says spitting on the ground, "it really kinda sucks. Feels like rough sandpaper slapping you in the face, but you never see it coming. We should find shelter."
"Yea, good idea." I say.
We spot a posideon gas station to our right and run for it, sand kicking up and just like Max said slapping us in the face. Max grabs the door handle and pulls but the rusted handle breaks off.
"Fuck." He mumbles.
The wind has picked up so much that it's almost hard to see now. I go through my pipboy and generate a cloth and tie it around my nose and mouth. I cover my eyes from the sand whipping around and look for something to pry the door with. Max and I scan the area for a while until we find a shovel. It's curved but it'll work.
Max grabs it quickly and shoves it in the crack. He pushes and pries trying to get the door open but it won't budge. After another few seconds, I jump in beside him and pull on the other side. The door pops open and we both fall to the ground. Max scrambles to his feet and offers me his hand, pulling me up.
"C'mon!" He yells.
We both scramble into the gas station and slam the door shut. Both of us spit and wipe our faces. We shake our clothes and dust clouds swell around us. I swat my hand left and right coughing as I turn to look around. A man, long dead now, is in the corner to the left of the door with dynamite and some other type of explosive i've never seen around him. I pick one up and show it to Max.
"What's this?" I ask.
"You never seen a flash bang before?" He asks.
"No, never." I answer.
He looks confused as he takes it from my hand and looks at the rest of the pile, "wait a second."
He turns to the far end of the building and he looks as if he's seen a ghost. I turn to see what it is, fearing it's a deathclaw somehow, but I only see a hole in the ground. It almost taking up the entire back half of the place, but that's it.
"What?" I ask.
He shakes his head, "we gotta go." He says fearfully.
"What about the storm?" I ask.
He is trying to open the door again, but it must have gotten stuck when we slammed it, or maybe the wind is pushing it closed too.
"Doesn't matter, better than this." He says hurriedly.
"Better than what?" I demand.
Just then, a light on the other end of the room illuminates behind me. Max stops, frozen in fear. I slowly turn and look behind me, and what I find is the strangest thing i've ever seen in my life. A small reptilian four legged creature is sitting there, looking at me. Bioluminescent tips are on the ends of his spikes and his giant bug eyes glow. Worst of all, he's smiling at me with rows of razor sharp teeth.
Then, more sets of eyes pop up from the hole. First one, then two, then almost a dozen. I hear Max jump behind me to the corpse and pull me down with him. He shoves a stick of dynamite in my hands as he grabs a few flashbangs.
"Light it!" He says.
"But the building will come down on top of us!" I say.
"Just do it!" He yells.
I light the stick and watch as the fuse sparks. The creatures scramble frenzied by the light it seems. They run and scurry around the room, and bounce off the walls biting and scratching everything, including each other. A few bounce around us and we duck and they narrowly miss. The fuze is halfway burned and Max and I are busy kicking the creatures and ducking away as they scramble. A few try to bite and knaw at my boots, but I kick them away.
One pops out of nowhere and swipes just as I was ducking from one above me and gets my leg. I fall to the ground and cry out in pain dropping the dynamite as it only has a quarter of the fuze left.
"Shit!" Max yells.
He quickly pulls the pin on the flash bang and throws it. The flash bang goes off and I am completely disoriented. I can't see or hear anything for a few seconds. When everything does clear up, the last of the creatures are scurrying down the hole, and the dynamite is sitting near the far wall now. Max must have thrown it.
The dynamite goes off, the building collapses, and everything comes down around us.