-Chapter 2-
After a very long conversation, several additional hours of walking, and lots of complaining from Claire, the pair finally reached a maintenance closet stationed next to a locked gate to the outside.
"Now," said Jimmy, "If I remembered correctly, we go out this door, and the exit should be right…" Jimmy opened the door. A skeleton sat perched in a mop bucket. Claire jumped.
"It's just a dead guy." Overeager to get outside and away from the dead man in the bucket, Claire opened a door at the end of the closet. After nearly three days underground, the sudden sunlight nearly blinded her. While her eyes adjusted to the ever-welcome light, she saw something she really didn't want to see. She drew out the handgun and fired blindly at the potential assassin, her head thrown in the opposite direction, shielding her from the noise. Jimmy's eyes opened wide, as he took the gun out of her hand.
"What the hell was that?"
"Shoot it!" She gestured to a heap of rotting mole rat lying dead next to the gate.
"It's dead! Why would you waste bullets on something that's already dead? Shit!" Jimmy cried out in frustration.
"I have more ammo. It could've easily been asleep. How was I supposed to know it was dead?"
"These things are stupid! You could've checked."
"By how? Walking up to the damn thing and asking it: 'Hey, buddy, are you asleep or just dead?' Yeah, great idea. If you haven't noticed, I'm not very good at being sneaky."
"Hmph."
"Fine. Ok. Next time there's a mole rat, you can ask it about its life. And…you can shoot it too. Many times. To make sure that it's dead."
Jimmy sighed, and handed her the gun back while slinging a hunting rifle off of his back. A tall tower gleamed in the near distance, barricades surrounding the lower levels, keeping the unwanted out. It had a pre-war aura to it, and certain stability. It had survived a nuclear war. Try and bring it down. It dares you. It went up several levels, so many that Jimmy felt bad for the poor suckers on the top floor who had to use the stairs. He squinted to the balcony. A shot rang out, and Jimmy hit the ground instinctively. The bullet didn't hit them; in fact it hadn't landed even in their general direction. They weren't being shot at. A figure with a rifle was prancing, yes, prancing around the top, shooting every which way.
"There's-"
"Tenpenny," Claire gazed in mock awe. "I haven't seen that building in four days. It has been way too long." Jimmy glanced back at the mole rat.
"Serves him right."
"What?"
"Mole rats are disgusting. Well," he said, pronouncing it more like Whelp, "We should probably get moving. It looks like morning, so can travel until around five-thirtyish."
"We should get moving?"
"Yeah, I'm going to…what's the word…escort you back to Rivet City."
"Oh." Claire looked at her boots in embarrassment. "Well, thanks."
"No problem. As long as we don't get cocky, lay low, and shoot first, we have a chance at surviving."
"A chance?"
"Yeah. Just…how about you don't shoot too much. I have a feeling someone growing up in Rivet City wouldn't have as much hands-on experience as a good ol' Wastelander. Plus, I have a feeling that you're terrible at shooting." Claire scoffed.
"What makes you say that?" Jimmy looked back at the mole rat.
"You wasted six rounds on the rat. You were standing roughly seven, maybe eight, feet away from it. No bullet wounds of any kind. Better yet, let me do the shooting. There are far worse things than dead mole rats in the dark places of the Wasteland. This time, though, there won't be any Enclave bots to save our sorry asses. We're on our own."
"Right. So, do you know the way to Rivet City?" Jimmy sighed, and then laughed.
"Yeah, I know a way. It's pretty long, but it's the least dangerous. If everything goes according the plan, we'll be there in about two weeks."
"Two weeks?" Jimmy nodded, and looked up at the sky.
"Yeah. Two weeks." Claire put her hands in her pockets, and looked at the ground.
"Well, I guess we better be going." Jimmy took his gun off of his back, and started to walk. It would be a long way, and the chances of the two of them both surviving to Rivet City were not very bright.
One would never think it, but the Wasteland was hot. Not like, 'Oh, I think I'm going to refresh myself with a refreshing Nuka Cola while riding on a Giddyup Buttercup' hot, but more of an 'Oh god, if I don't find water I shall surely die.' Being the good ole Wastelander Jimmy was, he toughed through it and didn't complain.
"It's hot." Claire remarked.
"I would have never guessed."
"Ugh. It's too hot." She rolled her sleeves up to her elbows. "Can we stop?" Jimmy shook his head. "Then can you at least, say something? You said you don't like silences, I don't like them either." Jimmy remained silent. "Well, then I won't talk too." Claire crossed her arms. A few minutes passed, Jimmy scoping out the valley ahead of them, Claire following him, pouting in promised silence. Suddenly, he raised his hand as a warning to be still. He aimed his hunting rifle at something below them. All was silent.
"It is way too hot!" Claire yelled in anger.
Then she heard what he had been aiming at. She froze when she heard the squeal of the mole rat bounding up the hillside. Jimmy cursed, then loaded his gun and aimed. Claire took off running. "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!" She ran about twenty feet behind Jimmy, and watched as the mole rat jumped almost of top of him, before three shots rang out and it fell, dead. After throwing the corpse off of him, Jimmy turned angrily to Claire.
"Could you just shut up while I'm trying to kill things?" She looked at the ground guiltily. "I know damn well that it's hot, alright? There is nothing I can do about it. And," he pointed his gun to the mole rat, "I know there are mole rats. But for the love of GOD, will you please stop making such a big deal out of everything?"
"Sorry." She muttered.
"Alright." Jimmy wiped his forehead with his sleeve, regaining his cool. He slung his gun onto his back, and walked back to the mole rat. Claire sat down on the beaten ground while he took out a knife and started cutting the mole rat apart. She couldn't watch without throwing up, so she simply sat in the opposite direction.
"Is this your job?" She asked after a few moments of silence, with the occasional squish of the dead mole rat.
"What?"
"Are you a hunter?" Jimmy looked up for a moment, then back to the mole rat.
"Yeah, I guess. A scavenger too. Occasional trader. Travelled with the caravans for a few years as protection."
"Is that when you went to Rivet City?" He wrapped the mole rat meat in a small bag, and stuffed it in his backpack.
"Yeah."
"You're interesting." Jimmy shrugged.
"I survive. Let's go." They made their way carefully down the steep hill the rat had easily bounded up, Claire occasionally slipping. They walked across a valley, luckily without any animal intervention. The rest of day one went along fairly smoothly; the other wildlife they crossed left them alone. Except for a herd of two Brahmin, diseased and crazy, that tried to run them through with their brahma horns. When the sun started setting, Jimmy decided to set up camp. He worked on getting a fire going, while Claire busied herself setting up little sleeping mats beside it. Once the campfire was roaring, he took the mole rat meat out of his backpack and stabbed it onto a stick. He gave one to Claire, and they roasted them over the fire.
"Where are you from?" Claire mumbled, with her mouth full of mole rat. Jimmy furrowed his eyebrows, and started drawing circles in the dirt with a charred stick.
"Well, I was born near some Regulator's headquarters. They let my ma stay there for a while, and we stayed there a few months, until it was attacked by some raider-Enclave team. We both survived that, and my ma decided she didn't want us there anymore. She hired one of her Regulator buddies as protection, and we moved to Big Town, where my ma was from. I grew up there, until I was ten, and one night, muties came and dragged Ma and a bunch of other people off. Damn, the guard there nearly had to shoot me to get me to stop screaming and trying to kill them. All I had was a machete. Must have been adrenaline, a ten-year-old kid with a knife going after a super mutant with a minigun." Claire wrapped up the rest of her food and got out a Fancy-Lad's Snack Cake. She broke it in half and offered one to Jimmy, who gladly accepted.
"Did you have a dad?"
"Did I have a dad? Probably. Never knew him though. It was always 'Me and Ma.' I never really thought about why I never had a dad when I was a kid, because usually no one else had either of their parents. I don't like to think Ma was into prostitution, but it's possible."
"Where did you go after Big Town?"
"Traders. I just started walking one day, -Terrible idea, never do it-, and I found this one Caravan. They offered food and stuff if I didn't kill them in their sleep or anything. I stayed with them until I was seventeen. Then I headed to Megaton, the city Ma had always talked about. I got into some terrible things there. Started drinking, one of the Stahl guys hooked me up with drugs, I was just a wreck. When I got into a fight with one of the ex-raiders, that bastard Jericho, Simms finally booted me out. Said it was for 'my own good.' After that, I just started wandering, trying to find work with whoever needs it." Claire lay down on her sleeping mat, yawning.
"You can't make a lot of money doing that, can you?"
"You'd be surprised. Been doing it for five years."
"Night, Jimmy."
"Goodnight."
Sorry for not updating sooner, I was stuck in a wifi-less place for a week, but I wrote a lot! Thanks to my reviewer, UnStellar, and if you have any ideas, feel free to leave a review or pm me! Thanks!