A/N: Whew, made it! It was a close thing, I've been really sick the last few days, and I almost didn't have an update ready. Still... it's here, it's done (and I have a chapter of One Hour coming up next I think, then one for LB2 the week after), and I can breathe a bit easier.
Well... for what I can breathe at all, anyway. It's bronchitis or something, after all. Lol
Just as a warning, and THIS IS IMPORTANT , this chapter is dark. Really dark. Darker than anything so far, and- on my personal scale- an 8/10 on the scale of everything I've written so far. It is most certainly the darkest thing I've posted (so far) on FF net. There's mention of rape, murder, and all sorts of bad things. No rape actually happens in-chapter, though it's talked about a lot. Murder (kinda) actually does happen- though in self-defense (ish). Drug use, etc- and Duncan even kind of is the one using it (not on himself).
Like I said, it's dark. However... this is all character-building stuff. He's 14 going on 20 (literally, in a physical sense), and trying to find out who he is in a much harsher world than he's used to still. Bad things are gonna happen to and because of him. (Remember the "Zombies"?) However... there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
So, warning over- Enjoy!
Chap. 4 Big Trouble Before Big Town
Duncan was really getting tired of walking...
But at least, he mused, he was getting used to it. The blisters all over his feet had mostly ruptured, so instead of a sharp, stabbing pain, they were a heavy, dull, throbbing pain. That was an improvement.
Kind of.
Still, the longer he spent in the Wasteland, the more he hated it. Hated the copper-sulfur tang in the air that smelled of lightning, even when the sky was 'clear' (or at least, the uniform yellow-gray it always appeared to be during the day). Hated the dust. There was a lot of that, even though the pre-war area had been covered in green.
But apparently, it was possibly after only a few days to get used to hacking up black phlegm from your lungs too, after you'd been inhaling it all day.
Duncan sighed, and, placing two hands on top of a rough outcropping, heaved himself upward to get a look around. His right hand went up to shade his eyes as he scanned the horizon. There were several small plumes of smoke to the south-southeast, likely from cook fires. Straight east was one of the southern bends of the Potomac, and-
Zzip-crack!
Duncan threw himself to the ground behind himself at once.
Whatever gun that had been, it had been powerful. The bullet had been going far faster, judging by the higher pitch, than his own 10mm could ever have done.
"Damn it," he heard a female voice swear, "fuckin' sights' going out on this thing. Gotta get it fixed soon. Waste o' caps... come out, come out, little Vaultie! I got a present for ya!"
Duncan shuddered. Generosity, no... that was one thing the voice did not promise by tone, if nothing else. Maybe generosity in pain before he died.
"Uh, no thanks! I think I'll just stay right here!"
The woman laughed, as did two others to his right and left.
That's not good...
"The little boy thinks he's funny!" the woman to Duncan's left called, "You girls know how much I like funny boys!"
The one on his right snickered, while the one who'd taken a pot-shot at him cackled. She, at least, had stayed back. The other two, the ones flanking him, were moving swiftly closer and downhill toward the river, in an obvious attempt to trap him between them.
The sad part, Duncan understood, was that it was already too late, they had surrounded him. Still... he had a chance... maybe they weren't really hostile, even if-
Duncan's eyes flickered to his left, downhill the way he'd come, when the first woman stepped from behind the rocks. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.
What the woman was wearing was, frankly- there was no other word for it- indecent. There was nothing at all to the outfit from the woman's hair- in a high pony-tail- down to just above her nipples. Her torso was only covered by a leather corset, which was, despite being filthy and stained with blood, quite a lot more than Duncan had ever seen on a woman outside of some of Lance's stolen girly magazines back in his old life. The fact that she was wearing even less as his eyes continued to rove downward caused an all-to-familiar stirring in his loins. While he was now in an adult body, Duncan had been fourteen when he was put into the stasis-coma in Vault 100, and he just couldn't help himself.
After all, the only thing she had on was an almost diaper-like wrap between her legs, and two studded leather pads on the outside of each thigh. The rest of those muscled legs, toned by a difficult life, were bare...
Then Duncan noticed the two severed hands swinging from the belt holding up that cloth wrap, and remembered the situation.
Unfortunately, that was a mere moment before something wooden impacted the side of his head, and his world went dark.
(O)(O)(O)
Pain.
Quite a lot of it, mostly on his wrists and across his stomach.
The smell of cooking meat; some kind he couldn't identify by the stench, but not something he thought he'd ever want to eat.
Eyes were nearly useless. One he felt was swollen shut, and rightly so, because the last thing he could remember seeing was ancient, cracked cedar- likely from a baseball bat- crashing into his head just above his right eye. The other was covered by something dark, gray, and foul-smelling.
His feet were on the ground, but only barely. The rest of him was hanging by the wrists, which was probably why they hurt so much.
It was his ears, though, that brought Duncan the most information about his current predicament. The light crackle of a fire.
Wind in the rocks and grass, whistling through the structure he was attached to.
An occasional clink of metal-on-metal as it shook in heavier gusts.
Two cruel laughs from female voices.
And the sharp hiss of leather moving through the air at high velocity just before a streak of red-hot pain flashed across his stomach again.
He grunted.
"Like that, don't you, ya little cocksucker?"
The further voices chuckled, but the speaker, the one right in front of him, didn't seem at all amused at her own joke. "I know you're awake, you little shit. Tell me how much you like it!"
The leather crashed against him again, but this time on his swollen right cheek.
Duncan Maddox was not what he would consider 'soft'. He'd been more than a bit of a delinquent in his teenage years, back in the old world, and had simply pushed through the pain he felt in the new. This, though? This was something else entirely, and he couldn't hold back the whimper.
"Yeah," the closer woman cooed, "that's it, tell me how much it turns you on when I hurt you. If you're a good boy, I might even let you enjoy it before I cut her balls off and eat them."
"Don't be like that, Lenny," one of the further women called, and for a moment, Duncan felt a small glimmer of hope re-kindle in his chest.
"Yeah," the other said, "if you cut 'em off too soon, we can't save 'im for later!"
The closer one snorted, "Kid's not gonna last long anyway. You see how soft his skin is? He'll only last a couple days at most anyway."
Duncan fell back against the structure- he thought it might have been a chain-link fence- in despair as the two further women stood up and moved closer.
Once they reached him, the bandage was yanked from his head, and he saw all three of his captors for the first time.
Immediately in front of him was the woman wearing the corset and not much else who'd distracted him just long enough for one of her companions to bean him with a bat. She was grinning evilly, flicking the leather strap- too short to be a full whip- against her thighs, even between her legs, as she watched him.
The one on his left was holding the wrap that had been around his head, and she stared into his eyes while licking the trace of blood on it. He knew as she did so that the blood was his.
She, though, was wearing if anything even less than the sadist in the middle. Her own torso was covered only by two straps that wrapped around her ribs on the bottom and neck on top, and what looked like wire-mesh filters of some kind for... well, something. They covered her breasts, but only barely, and he could see the shadow of her nipples and dark areolae through the mesh. At least the lower half was more covered, he thought, by the shorts- or cut-off pants- but the accessories of the outfit left a lot to be desired. Like the leather-wearing sadist holding the whip, this one seemed to like pain, if the metal plates covered in spikes were any indication.
The last, on his right, was a year or two younger than the others, but just as hard-looking. She, though, was more heavily clothed. The woman's breasts were fully covered, by by a t-shirt of ancient age, which had been ripped so that only her breasts were covered, the material of which was held together by a poor sewing job and a strap that went around her neck and torso, much like the mesh cups of the other raider.
Duncan's rather embarrassed- and frightened- analysis of the three women's clothing was cut off when the girl on his right, the more-clothed one, jammed her hand between his legs and squeezed.
Hard.
Not hard enough to hurt, but certainly enough to make him cringe and whimper again.
"Sounds like he's about ready, girls," she hissed, "What say we start to plaaaayy?"
His fear of dying in agony was replaced by something new, something he never thought he'd experience in his life.
Plenty of fourteen-year-old boys dream of sex.
Almost all of them, probably.
Duncan, if he'd been asked, would likely have said all, not 'almost all'.
And two (or three!) girls at once? Come on, what 'normal' guy wouldn't want that in some way?
But this was far beyond such boyhood fantasies, and not in a good way.
It's not like he was going to be a willing participant in an orgy or anything.
No...
He was going to be tortured (more), raped, and then likely killed.
It also didn't help that most of the women- the older two- were at least ten years older than he.
And not that good-looking.
Or... clean.
In fact, one of them- the one with the whip- had more gaps than teeth.
Still, he was (mentally) a fourteen-year-old boy, and when a woman grabs your 'equipment' at that age...
You react.
"Ooh," the younger woman cooed now, "he is ready to play! And look, girls, he's packin' heat, too!"
Duncan actually cried out in pain when the speaker and the spiked-plate woman on his left yanked his Vault-suit apart by the simple method of grabbing the flayed edges on his stomach and pulling, hard.
Of course, there he was...
Visible erection, three women staring at him with obvious lust, and... other... feelings.
In a way, it was probably inevitable that as soon as the younger girl grabbed his penis in her dirty hand, he fired.
Not his 9mm, of course, but his six-incher.
Despite the terror and horror of what he was about to experience, the sight of the white cream splattering into the eyes of the whip-carrying woman was something almost exciting for Duncan.
Less so for the women.
"You little shit!" the even-dirtier-than-before woman screamed, "I'm gonna kill you for popping in my eyes!"
"Bitch!" the spike-wearer growled, snatching the leather strap from the other woman, who was now backing off and wiping furiously at her already-streaming eyes, "I'm gonna make you hurt for that one! I'm the only one that gets to come on Jezzie's face!"
Duncan, though, had just seen a chance, and couldn't let that image- intriguing as it was- take over. Not just yet.
Taking advantage of the younger woman's distraction while she watched the first scream, Duncan twisted his back furiously to the right, bringing his left foot over and up as quickly as he could manage with his hands tied.
His boot crashed into her chin so hard, he thought she must have been killed instantly. Certainly, she crumpled to the ground without uttering so much as a sound of surprise.
With his knee and leg still high in the air, he jerked the other way, ignoring the screaming protests of his wrists again, but this time bringing the leg down on the wrist holding the leather strap.
The woman cried out and fell to her knees, clutching her broken arm, just in time for Duncan's other knee to follow his left, crashing up into her face.
The spike-wearing woman fell backwards, slumping against the chain-link fence, and didn't move again.
Distantly, Duncan noted that her face was actually concave.
First sure human kill. Does that make me a murderer?
Two seconds, less, had passed since the spiked-woman had yanked the leather strap from the sadist's grip, and she was still struggling to clear her puffy eyes of his jizz.
That, though, was only a small boon, because Duncan was still in a precarious position.
Soon, she would be clean enough to see again.
See her dead or unconscious friends (or whatever they were), and worse, see Duncan still tied up...
And remember what said young man had just seen.
His gear, including his guns, about fifteen feet away in a loose pile, doubtless what the now-dead or unconscious women had been discussing when he'd woken up.
There was no way he could reach them, but she could... and she could kill him with a single bullet, when he had no chance of getting free in time.
And now she was free, and going for-
Him?
Why would she come after me?
The rage in the woman's red eyes might have been it, but all Duncan could really say for sure was that this woman was both certifiably insane, and stupid.
Duncan, despite his previous performance, was no great martial artist.
But he was still a boy who'd grown up fighting with other boys, and knew how to use his body, even if it was weaker than he was used to.
Just as the woman got within striking range- his, not hers- his hands twisted to grab whatever was holding his wrists to take his weight, and he brought both legs up, thrusting out to smash his feet into her chest.
He felt to snaps, the woman fell backwards onto the sandy ground, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Taking a moment to look up, he saw that he was bound only by cloth, the same dirty gray that had been around his head. With time, he could probably saw or break it on the fence itself. It would only take an hour, tops, and he-
Uh oh.
The sadist had stood, clutching her breasts with one hand, and glared at him from a safe distance, while she pulled on the bindings to her corset. It fell as she spoke. "Oh... oh you little shit. I am gonna make you hurt... so, so bad for that... you broke my fucking ribs, you little bitch. I'm gonna chew your balls off while you're still alive!"
Only mesmerized for a moment by his first (real) view of a woman's uncovered chest, he jerked his eyes upward to watch her face, watch for signs of when she was going to attack.
It was only then that Duncan noticed her pupils were not the same size.
Oh crap, she's high... this is so not good!
She charged him again, too close for him to get a grip on the straps again.
Still, he had one more chance.
Right foot up, knee to the groin. Just a bit higher than he would on a man.
For a brief moment, her blood-crusted lips brushed against his, and he smelled fetid breath.
Her eyes, which were both light blue and very bloodshot, were an inch from his own.
She whimpered, shook against him for a few seconds, and then fell sideways and back, landing half-atop the dead woman, where she continued to convulse for several seconds, blood and vomit oozing from her mouth.
When she didn't get back up, Duncan finally allowed himself a sigh of relief, though his hands were already jerking wildly back and forth, trying to find the sharpest edges on the fence to cut the bonds with.
It wasn't until ten minutes later that Duncan, now with his pistol in hand again, that he felt safe enough to actually look around.
Large fence, more than twelve feet high and tilted inward around the two forty-five degree angles. White square/triangle shape on the ground. Long rectangle, also in white, atop a low hill away from the fence. At the bend in the river...
Fordham Flash Memorial Ballpark. I used to play here back in grade school. It's where I met Carlos and Diggy.
For several seconds, memories of a past life, an ancient time, filled Duncan's head. Grass, green and blowing in the light breeze.
Mothers gossiping on the bleachers while fathers called out proud words to their sons. Brothers and sisters playing underneath and around the bleachers, too. A faint cry of, "Strike Two!" echoed through the mists of time.
Duncan shook his head, wincing at the pain that caused. "No. That's gone, never gonna happen again. New world. Not old. Find Amber. Safe place. Safe-"
Eyes saw the 'decorations' the three women had left.
A body, heavily mutilated, missing both arms and legs below the elbows and knees, stripped bare of clothing, laying on a mattress. Between the man- it had once been a man, he was sure-'s legs, a great bloody patch with teeth-marks. Hanging from the fence ten feet from where he'd been, another body, this one a woman, wearing clothing similar to the sadist's, except that her breasts were gone, also apparently chewed off.
He wretched, vomited for several minutes as he realized what had caused the fetid breath on the woman, and just how serious she'd been when she'd threatened to chew his balls off while he was still alive.
But she can't do it now. She's dead.
But he didn't know that, did he?
She could just have been catatonic from the drugs. He'd only kicked her in the ribs, and kneed her in the groin.
Somehow, he doubted either blow was lethal. In fact, now that he looked back, it's possible the pain had merely sent her into a fit... or something else, if she truly was the sadist he thought she might be.
His eyes moved toward her. She was no longer laying across the dead woman.
In fact, her face was buried between the corpse's legs, and she appeared to be... snuffling?
"C'mon," he heard her say faintly, voice slurred, "give it to me, Kiba, hurt me!"
He shuddered.
Sure, his suspicions had been confirmed, and the two- or three- women were lovers. If 'love' ever factored into it. But this... this was not anything like his fantasies.
The drugs, the blood, the cannibalism...
Wait.
Raiders. These three are raiders. Is... is this really real? Are there really people that have... that've sunk so low?
Duncan swallowed, and began to inch toward the still-moving woman. She never noticed as he put the pistol barrel to the back of her head and pulled the trigger.
Never noticed as her body jerked once, then again softly, and fell still.
Just to be safe, he repeated the act to the mishappen forehead of the one he'd kneed in the face, before moving to the last.
Then he noticed her chest, rising and falling.
Shallow, but there.
She was still alive.
And, looking closer, Duncan realized more.
She was younger than he was. Maybe fifteen, but more likely fourteen- his 'real' age.
Almost cute.
Except that he'd seen her face twisted by lust, hate, and rage.
But still... could he murder her in cold blood?
Could he do the same thing they'd have done to him?
Wouldn't that make him just as bad?
The barrel of the nine-millimeter fell from her face, while Duncan watched her for a long time.
In fact, when Duncan's soul-searching reached it's end, the sun had fallen behind the horizon, and the hot, dry day had turned to a chill, dry night.
With one hand holding the pistol trained on the living woman- girl- he began his search.
It took him a while, one-handed, to finish.
Two surettes of Med-X, the over-the-counter morphine injections found in many first aid kits, a steroid-delivery canister on which the word 'psycho' had been scratched, half-empty, and a single stimpack.
Duncan stuck one of the Med-X needles into the living raider's neck and pushed the trigger.
A few seconds later, her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled at him calmly, placidly. "Hey, John-boy," she murmured, "You gonna make me a woman now? Big Sis Jezzie's been lookin' at you, but I want first dibs. You game?"
Duncan froze for a moment, then nodded, "Sure, bitch. But I wanna have some fun. C'mere, stand up."
She groaned groggily as she did so, "'kay, John-boy. Give it to me now, yeah? I done what you said."
"Not yet," he answered, trying to subtely hide the gun behind his back, since she was probably not a threat just yet. Med-X was pretty potent stuff, he knew, and using it without pain to dull could really mess you up. "I got one more thing you gotta do, babe, then I'll give it to you. Just stand right there..."
"Here?" she had moved back under the guidance of his hands, which were surprisingly gentle, given how much he wanted to hurt her.
What kind of sick fuck does that make me, wanting to torture and maim a fourteen-year-old girl? Fuck, I'm only fourteen myself! Am I a sociopath or something?
She stood calmly while he tied her hands in the same spot his had been in an hour or more before. He, though, had used the leather strap he'd been whipped with. He somehow doubted she'd get free, since she had very little room to wiggle. When he stepped back, the raider woman smiled weakley, and started twisting her hips in a slow bump-and-grind, "John-boy, you kinky dog. C'mere, I need it! Gimme your cock!"
"No."
"W- what? But John-boy-"
"Shut up, bitch," he growled.
"Ooh, talk dirty to me!"
He ignored her continued calls. She'd be left for the wastes. If she were lucky, a Deathclaw or Yao-guai would finish her off fast. If not... well, something would, sometime. Dehydration, maybe.
That was, he knew, a hell of a way to go.
Ignoring the dreams of ages past, Duncan now began searching the area in earnest. Unfortunately, what he'd hoped for, some decent shelter, was not to be found.
Not so much as a piece of tin to lean against the fence for shelter. It appeared these three raider women liked sleeping outdoors.
The fire-pit they'd built out of half a fifty-gallon drum had long since burned down, and the only fuel they'd apparently had was... well, their 'decorations'. No way was he burning people, even long-dead ones.
Murderer, he might be. But he would not stoop to the level of raiders. Never.
He'd kill himself, first.
Kill every last raider in the Wastes...
That, though, sounded like a plan.
Duncan nodded to himself. "I can be that kind of murderer."
There were, though, three things he'd avoided searching. More, if he considered the mutilated corpses, but somehow he doubted the raiders would have missed anything there.
Still... May as well get something for my trouble, right?
For ten minutes, Duncan tried hard to focus on his task, rather than ogling the corpses as he stripped the two women, folding their clothing-armor into his backpack and gathering a small stack of baseball bats from the area, including the one which had, judging by the stain of blood, been used against him not so very long ago.
Besides, he thought to himself as he tried to ignore the female bodies beneath him, It's not like I'm into dead girls... or old ones. This one's probably old enough to have been my mother!
But look he did. He couldn't help it.
In that ten minutes, up close and personal as he scavenged all he could, Duncan learned more about the anatomy of women than any girlie-mag had ever taught him.
Then he looked up to the girl on the fence.
She has the most useful clothing. Nothing I'd wear here, and my suit's shredded. At least her shorts might fit me... and she's gonna die anyway.
It didn't escape his notice that his thoughts were far too similar to those expressed by the residents of Arefu the day before, but he had to admit, life in the Wastes was... well, it required a high learning curve. And he was nothing if not a pragmatist.
"All right, bitch," he growled as he stepped up before her, "I'm gonna give it to you now. But first I'm gonna take off your clothes... I wanna see you."
Something in his voice, in the way he was speaking, seemed to pierce through the girl's drug-addled mind.
Maybe it was his own hesitation. He doubted, in the old world, that he'd ever have been the kind of guy to drug a girl to get some. That was... just not something he was interested in. That was probably why he couldn't fake it now.
After all, he'd drugged her so she couldn't fight back if she woke up. He wanted her dead, not to rape her.
No, Duncan, you don't want that... you want someone to love. Right? Someone like Mom and Dad. Someone you'd go to jail to protect.
He nodded to himself, even as her eyes seemed to focus past the morphine. "You ain't John-boy."
Duncan's answering smile was hard, now that he was more sure of his motivations. "No, I'm not. I'm Duncan. What's your name?"
"Duncan? What kinda stupid name is that?"
He stared at her for a moment, "The kind that's already killed you, bitch. If you don't wanna tell me, that's fine, but I figured you'd want the guy killing you to know. No skin off my back, though."
She glared, "Killing me? A soft Vaultie like you? You wouldn't have the balls!"
He, like her, looked down at his shredded suit. He was, in fact, still swinging free. But then her eyes moved to the left, where her sisters- or whatever they were- lay atop each other.
"Killed them with just my legs, tied up, just like I dropped you. No balls, you say? Looks to me like I'm carrying around fucking nukes between my legs."
She stared, wide-eyed, as he started undoing the clasps of her shirt.
"Y- you're g-g-g-onna r-rape me, Mister?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
She was silent for a while, watching in disbelief as he yanked her half-shirt off, then moved down to unbutton her shorts. The denim was very old, faded, and caked with mud, but it still seemed useable enough.
Part of Duncan was horrified that he was stripping the clothing from a tied-up and drugged girl about his age, but the part of him that had kept him alive for the last few days didn't seem to care at all.
That was what worried him the most; that most of him... just didn't care. Didn't care that he could rape this girl. That he was going to leave her to die a slow, probably horrible death.
"What are you doin' then, Mister?"
"Taking your clothes off," he answered, not looking up at her, even though her voice was quivering with fear.
"W-why? You said you ain't gonna-"
"I need 'em, thanks to you and your sisters. I gotta wear something."
She gulped, and he saw the fence shake. She'd probably nodded. "You gonna leave me here, Mister?"
He nodded again.
"Please!" she suddenly cried, "I'll suck your dick! I'll let you fuck me, I'll even be nice-like! Just don't leave me here!"
He ignored her, forcing one foot and then the other up to slip her shorts off. He'd ignored- mostly- the thin patch of copper pubic hair as he'd pulled them downward. Apparently, at least for raiders, underwear was strictly optional in the wastes.
Likely, the soft material just didn't last long.
He struggled out of his Vault-suit's remains, ignoring the pleading girl, and pulled the shorts up. They didn't quite close, and they were really snug in the crotch, but they fit. A belt would help, and he had one thanks to the sadist. Apparently he'd be shirtless, though, until he could find or buy one. None of their tops would even come close to fitting him, and frankly, he'd look ridiculous in a corset.
"Mister!" she cried again, "Don't leave me here! My name's Benny! I don't wanna die!"
He flinched.
Apparently he'd been wrong. Knowing her name made it a lot harder.
He turned away, shouldering his re-packed backpack, before making sure his weapons were all in their proper places. The baseball bat in the best shape- the one he'd been whacked with- was in hand as well.
"Mister! Don't go! I'll be- I'll be your slave! Your bitch! I'll do whatever you want, just don't leave me here to die!"
Duncan stopped after having taken two steps, sighed, and turned around to walk back to the girl. "Benny, you say?"
She nodded fervently. He could see the tears streaming down her mostly-naked face, dripping on her small, perky breasts, and running down them in rivulets.
He thought her nipples might have been pink, but in the darkness, lit only by the moon and stars, it was too hard to tell. "Let me be real clear. I'm gonna leave you here. I'm not gonna rape you. If you can get out alive, you can live. If something comes to eat you, you're gonna die. If you starve, or die of thirst, you're gonna die. If raiders come, you're gonna get raped and die. Okay?"
She sniffled and nodded again. "But Mister-"
"How many?" he asked, interrupting, "How many men and women have you and your sisters killed and eaten?"
Benny shook her head. "I donno, Mister!"
He sighed, "How many in the last month? That's thirty days."
"I donno! I can't count past ten!"
He sighed again, eyes closed, "How many in the last ten days then?"
She didn't say, but her eyes flicked to both of the 'decoration' bodies, then back to his, still terrified.
He nodded solemnly, "So at least two. Why shouldn't I leave you, then? It's what you deserve, right?"
She nodded, whimpering, still crying.
"So that's what you're gonna get. Have fun, Benny. It's been real nice meeting you."
The lie was probably, in retrospect, not a good idea. It seemed to have given the young woman a chance to realize that, like Duncan, her legs were untied.
She kicked upwards, and her knee crashed into his groin.
With a groan, he fell back.
However, unlike Benny's sisters had done to him, Duncan had tied Benny up well.
That was why, when he was able to stand on unsteady legs again a few minutes later, the raider, who was now raging against her bonds despite the bleeding cuts already in her wrists, was no closer to being free than she had been before she'd kicked him.
In fact, the only difference it had made was how angry her captor was.
"All right," he said, voice trembling with suppressed rage, "I guess you want to do this the even-harder way, right Benny?"
The raider hissed, then screamed, "Come on, you little fuck! Come closer again! Just try and stick your tiny pecker in my cunt, and I'll fucking rip your throat out with my teeth!"
Duncan, though, was not quite that stupid.
Instead, the baseball bat came up over his shoulder, and with a double-handed swing, he brought it sideways into her left knee.
Benny screamed, high and loud, and louder still when he repeated it on the right.
The raider was hanging limply from her arms, sobbing, a few seconds later, when Duncan lifted her chin gently with the end of the bat.
"Law of the Wastes, right Benny? Payback's a bitch. But I got one last bit for you..."
Weakly, she nodded, "Do it quick, Mister, please... I don't wanna hurt no more."
He nodded to himself, sure that her pain- dulled as it was due to the Med-X- was not nearly as much now as it would be in an hour or two when it wore off completely.
Softly, slowly, gently, Duncan's left hand- the one not holding the bat- moved up to cup the girl's breasts, sliding over her nipples and areolae for a few seconds, before hefting their weight once, twice.
Benny whimpered, "You fucking lied."
Duncan shook his head, "No... it's just payback. You grabbed my balls and tried to break him, grabbed my dick... just returning the favor, bitch."
She whimpered again, "I wouldn't mind if you did. 'least then I could die with a good memory."
His hand, an inch from cupping her copper-covered sex, withdrew.
"Nah," he muttered, half to her and half to himself, "Much as I want to know what it's like, I don't want to give you the satisfaction."
Without another word, Duncan turned and walked away, around the ball-stop and further east along the Potomac.
Benny screamed for an hour, at least, and her cries were still faintly audible in the night when they were cut off suddenly.
Duncan smiled grimly, adjusted himself in the too-small shorts, and kept walking.
(O)(O)(O)
Almost got raped, could have raped a girl.
Didn't. That's important. I didn't, and I won't. I won't be one of... of those people. I'd rather die.
Almost got eaten. Didn't.
Almost died.
Came out with three dead, more weapons, more armor, and some chems. Fuck, my head hurts. I wonder if Med-X is safe for a head injury...
Dawn was breaking over the ruins of Washington, but Duncan didn't care much. His feet hurt, his head ached terribly, his stomach was bleeding still- his shorts and 'equipment' were now wet with blood, despite that most of the wounds were only large welts- and he was really, really getting tired of walking.
Numbly, he hefted the bottle in his left hand. It was, according to the label and color, whiskey. He'd never had any- it smelled foul- but was debating it now. Something to cut the edge of the pain off. However, he knew he had a concussion. In fact, his eyesight was wavering in the right eye, so his injury was actually pretty severe. He was hearing things, too.
It almost sounded like a cat.
Ain't seen any cats. Dogs, yeah, but no cats.
Not really sure why- he would later blame it on the concussion- Duncan began to amble- or stagger- down the slope of the riverbed toward the waterline.
Maybe cats tasted good?
And he was awfully hungry, and he needed to save his food, and...
Holy shit on a stick!
There, trapped between two rocks in the slowly-moving current, was an egg about a foot across.
Well, half an egg. Bobbing almost like a child in a bucket was a baby Deathclaw, stuck in the bottom half of it's own egg. One clawed hand clung desperately to the rocks, the other to it's egg as it swayed.
The current was slow and steady, but the creature was the size of a large kitten, and it was about to slip away.
Fuck. No way. I can't do that. It's... it's just a baby, even if it's mom tried to kill me!
With a heaving sigh, Duncan started to wade into the shallow river.
The creature jerked away as he splashed closer, the water only waist-high when he reached it, but as soon as one hand reached out to grab it, the thing leapt upwards, shredding the already-ripped up arm of his Vault-suit, as it clambered up his arm to perch on his head, whimpering and mewling piteously.
"Ow!" was all Duncan had time (or the energy) to say before he fell backwards, unbalanced already, when one of the thing's feet scratched along his right temple.
With a mighty splash, both he and the baby were covered in irradiated water.
When Duncan regained enough of his damaged senses to stand back up, the Deatchclaw was struggling to stay afloat ten feet downstream.
He groaned, "This is so not worth the work..." before splashing awkwardly after it, for the moment heedless of the radiation in the water.
It took him nearly two minutes to get it, and himself, far enough away from the river's edge to feel safe that neither would drown, or be taking in too many rads, or- Duncan shuddered- meet up with another of the white, shelled, clawed monstrosities.
"All right, boy... or girl, whatever you are," he muttered, trying to prize the thing from his head. He could feel it's claws- the longest ones already an inch long- digging into his scalp painfully. Likely, he was bleeding too. But it... just didn't want to come off!
Finally, nearly an hour's struggle later (during which he found out he was bleeding now, when it started dripping into his eyes), Duncan was able to lure it down with one of his tins of Cram, which the thing dug into with gusto.
In fact, watching the pint-sized terror burrow it's way into the meet was almost cute...
Almost.
If he hadn't known it would grow into a hulking monstrosity three times his size, capable of shredding the undercarriage of a train in a single swipe of it's massive claws.
"Well, boy, girl, whatever you are, enjoy your food. I'm gonna get the hell out of here before you get any bigger."
He was only half-way up the hill when it started mewling for more, but he didn't turn back.
There was no way he was raising a Deathclaw.
And he could see lights!
Big Town was close!
A/N2: Well, there you have it. It's probably the darkest this story will get for a while, but it will be darker when it does. The whole 'almost' thing? It won't be so almost next time, or the time after... because the Fallout world is a cruel place.
Still, good things are happening... even if you don't know about them yet.
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Hate me for writing these events? Let me know! Reviewing is good for your soul. +Karma -Karma!