ORIGINAL TITLE: Frosty
DESCRIPTION: Nameless male Lone Wanderer mercilessly kills the Family in Meresti; 1625 words.
The air around him was cold, much colder than he expected. It seeped into his bones and he could feel the frost growing along his muscles, locking them into position. The rifle in his hand, the aching of his leg muscles as he jockeyed himself along the train's outer wall. He felt ice-cold before he had even started.
Well, that was good. He was where he needed to be; the junction of the Metro where he could see his quarry idly walking back and forth in a guard post. These fucks thought they could frighten and kill innocent people, running around like they were goddamn vampires or something. Drinking blood, thinking stupid thoughts, pretending. It was ridiculous, but more, it was a very good reason to kill someone, and that was what he wanted to do today.
A finger creaked along the trigger, and the scope lined up a perfect shot. He didn't take it right away; he watched the man digging in a nostril, and picking snot that was promptly wiped onto the sandbags. It was amusing, the things people did when they thought they were alone. He picked out the individual fibers in the headband the man wore, counting slowly to one hundred. He fired.
The shot was too clean, but there wasn't much he could do about that; the guard fuck had to be gone for him to sneak into the Metro station and take down the rest of The Family. He moved forward. No one else was out here, so he took his time looking around the tunnel for more ammo and other goods.
He unlocked the door to the Metro station and crept along the tunnels inside, feeling the frost cracking inside his bones. He was cool, so cool, and the damp air of the train tunnels fed the ice that grew along his spine. He crouched along a bend and looked up into the mezzanine.
There he was. Big boss fuck, Vance. So hot, with that stupid flaming sword of his, like he was the angel Michael or something. Vance smoked a cigarette and watched over the people on the lower floor, a flock of sheep following him, drinking the blood of innocents and thinking they were so damn safe in their little "chapel" home.
Not for very much longer.
Quickly, he adjusted his position and let loose a volley of shots, taking down the sheeple as they milled about the benches, then ducked back down the tunnel curve about fifty yards and crouched alongside the trains. Not many could be left but he didn't want to get shot himself; it was repugnant to him to be shot at when all he wanted to do was shoot others.
Screaming came from around the bend. He smiled. Vampire fucks. Let them scream. It made his head feel like he'd done ten hits of jet all at once, rushing blood to his veins, a cool breeze in his head. He saw clearly, like everything in his sight was crisply defined by the cold air that swirled around him. He was cool.
His finger twitched on the trigger as a scraping noise in the tunnel moved closer to him. A crony of Vance, maybe. The barrel lifted up and the poor bitch got it right in the chest, knocking her backwards in a bloody mess of dark ichor and bone shards. He moved out of cover and loosed another round into her face, destroying what might have been pretty once. Before she became a bloodsucking bitch.
Euphoria, the feeling rose up his arms and tingled along his collarbone. It settled into his heart and he reloaded in a haze of lights and frost. Yes, this was a good thing; he could feel the heartbeat so strongly in his chest, like it was going to fly right out of him and explode.
The sniper rifle was good for the beginning, but now his muscles demanded brutality, something to splatter the lamia's blood across the Metro. He grabbed up a sledgehammer. Good weight, it would do. There wasn't much left of her head once he smashed her into the floor a few times.
Ahead of him, the vampire boss fuck was watching him, warily. He grinned through a film of blood and brains, held up the sledge and nodded. "You're next," he said, and charged.
Vance met him in the middle, with that flaming sword up against his hammer. It wouldn't help him―the hammer was mightier than Michael. He knocked the boss fuck backward and brought the sledge down onto his stomach, repeatedly. It was hilarious! He jerked up and down with each slam and twitched like a fucking ant, bugging out on the floor. Massive spinal damage did that, sometimes.
He grinned and took a break, stole one of Vance's cigarettes and sat down on the boss fuck's legs while he spasmed against the floor. No one else was coming down from the Metro station, but that didn't mean they were all dead. Other than the two who'd come after him, the guard fuck and the three people he knew he'd killed around the benches, there were at least two more.
It felt like a post-fuck smoke, it was so good. He enjoyed it, and put the butt out on Vance's contorted face. Burnt flesh wafted up to his nostrils and he laughed. How funny! Vampire fucks burned just like people did, with that nasty acrid meat smell.
Standing, he took out the sniper rifle and aimed it into the Metro, creeping closer. Someone huddled behind a desk; no challenge. He put a .308 through the idiot, and the desk, too. Splintered wood snapped and the body fell in a heap underneath. One more, at least. The scope showed him the station without barrier, but no movement came to sight.
Beside his head, a bullet ricocheted off the tunnel wall and he moved into cover behind a bench, working out the trajectory. High, and to the right. Not ideal. He dashed to the stairs, dodging a few more bullets. Some piddly little peashooter, likely. They bounced off the floor around him and did little damage. He took the stairs three at a time and swung out onto the mezzanine with a slide, bringing the rifle up and sighting in the boy's head.
Ian, oh Ian, he thought. Lucy would not be happy, but he couldn't afford to leave any witnesses, not when he was wholeheartedly murdering an entire community. The boy tried to shoot at him again, and got a half-decent shot in, but the rifle was much more powerful. The blood the boy spilled was nothing compared to the sight of the exploding brain matter that filled up his scope.
With the feeling of a successful day coursing through his veins, he smoked another cigarette and looked down over the mezzanine. Rifle in one hand, burning smoke in the other. Another grin, the frost creeping up his back, the cool air drifting lazily around him. A blood-smeared envelope fell to the ground, and he placed it with loving care into the hand of the boy, wrapping dead fingers around it.
"Mission complete," he said, to no one in particular.
―‡―‡―‡―
Megaton still stank like Brahmin shit. He smelled like blood and the guts that had splattered out onto his clothes were starting to take on that heated stink of bloated bodies in the sun. He didn't bother to wash before striding into Moriarty's saloon.
They reeled from him, of course. Nova and Gob and that Irish fuck all knew what he had done, immediately. He didn't care. Lucy was there, and she was all that mattered in this moment.
"They're dead," he told her. "All of them."
Of course she cried. Girls tended to do that, didn't they? He'd never met a girl that hadn't, at one point or another, cried because of him. Usually because he'd killed someone or because he'd hurt the girl himself, but he didn't like to do that. Unless they were vampire fucks like Vance's little houri.
This one, Lucy, cringed at his appearance, but he told her that he had gotten a measure of revenge for her. It was a shame that he couldn't save Ian, but he lied about it fluently. Ian died with her message in his hand because of that vampire boss fuck. He put his rifle against his shoulder and held out a hand to Lucy, to shake hers.
And she cried more, until he started to get annoyed and twitchy. The euphoric feeling was dissipating, and he could smell himself now, feel the ice melting. He grimaced, withdrew his hand. Let her cry. She wouldn't understand; he couldn't afford to explain it to her. He'd killed, he'd gotten shot too; all for her stupid little letter to a brother who'd gone off the deep end and thought he could survive on flesh and fire.
"Whatever," he said, and turned to leave. He needed to clean out his rifle. The blood would ruin it, if the frost hadn't. It wasn't even worth the money, or the thrill of the kills, to be here in this terrible fucking moment.
He went home. The robot was still dead in the corner. He'd had a pang of regret when he destroyed it, but only because it would clean the house for him. It was scrap metal, now, and he shrugged.
After he'd scrubbed out his rifle and himself to an extent that he felt pleased with, the flesh raw and metal scratched by his efforts, he rested. It wouldn't be a long time before he ached for the thrill again, felt the heat of the wasteland crawling after his cool exterior. Before he needed the kill.