Part of it just seemed... impossible to imagine.
In the dark, I carefully put in the series of slides and hit the switch, waiting for the fan to warm up. Once it did, I began flipping through the slides, looking at some for seconds, others for minutes.
Everyone seemed happy. Smiling families of two and a half children would be going to drive-ins, the beach, bowling, baseball games. But that toothy expression was alien to me; in the vault... no one really saw an occasion for joy. I mean, sure, Dad would crack a small one whenever he talked about mom, and Butch would always get a smirky kind of sneer whenever he tried to scrap, and Jonas always smile in relief whenever a check-up turned up nothing, but still... the vault wasn't a happy place. The outside world being one of constant good times... sometimes I wondered about those slides.
What if... they weren't telling the whole truth? Everyone couldn't be constantly happy, constantly at peace with each other. There was a war, after all.
I leaned an elbow on the table holding the slide projector, working my creaking jaw. It would always get sore late at night for some reason.
Next slide... Statue of Liberty.
Next slide... Jefferson Memorial.
Next slide... Lincoln Memorial.
Next slide... Grand Canyon.
Next slide... Niagara Falls.
Next slide... Washington Monument.
Next slide... Mount Rushmore. Grand, patriotic, awe-inspiring... and the sky. I just couldn't believe that either. I mean, where the hell was the ceiling? Was it really that far away? Now I knew there was something off about that...
But they wouldn't lie. Why would they?
A boot to the head.
I fell over onto my side, blinking in the dirt a few times.
Another boot, this time to the ribs.
I coughed, grabbed at the M1 Garand in my lap, and slammed the stock against my attacker's leg, sending him to the ground. I clambered on top of him, reaching for my knife-
Oh, right. No more knife.
The second I realized that, I was staring down the muzzle of a Colt M1911. One hell of a wake up call.
Jim grinned up at me, his cracked yellow teeth clicking together weirdly. "Shit reflexes, and do I mean shit reflexes."
I rolled off of him, scratching at the collar. Jim holstered his Colt and stood up, dusting himself off. It was early morning- maybe six or seven or eight o'clock, I had forgotten how to tell time with the sun just right. Even so, everyone in the outpost was awake, either maintaining weapons or on watch or both. I got the feeling that this was usually how things were.
But just in case... "Any news?" I rasped, brushing the dirt out of my beard.
"Nope." For someone expecting a full-blown raid any minute, Jim sure looked calm. He walked off towards the main gate, leaving me alone to my thoughts.
It beat the cage, at least.
Then again, being in a cage kept a neat row of bars between you and the maniacs who chewed on bones for a living. Here, in this outpost- they called it the Trough, fittingly enough- I had to brush shoulders with the type of raider that Jericho had spent day after day ranting about. Cannibal, rapist, murderer, torturer, slaver, thief. Or more commonly, all of the fucking above.
And you don't get used to getting within five feet of a complete sadist without getting a little nervous. It just doesn't work like that. With a collar around your neck, to them you were just meat. Useful meat,
if you could hold a gun and shoot it straight, but vulture pickings all the same.
I sighed, pushed myself into a sitting position, and put the M1 Garand back across my knees. I gripped the rifle tightly, so tightly my knuckles hurt, but it didn't help the growing feeling of dread that had been gnawing at me since Sparky left. Am I going to kill again? I didn't want to. I just- I just wanted to go back to the Vault, crawl into my bed and forget about all this. Part of me was angry for being so weak, but another part was too tired of this shithole wasteland to even care.
"Y'gonna die 'lready, meat?"
A shadow fell over me, and I glanced up to see a relatively new and unfriendly face.
"Y'know 'ow much booze we missed out on?" Hacksaw leaned over, glaring at me eye-to-eye. Her face was caked with dirt and grime and stale sweat, lips cracked, thinning sunburned hair hacked short, dark circles beneath her eyes from guard duty.
Raider uniform if there every was one. "'Ol Wolfgang passed through 'ere with a fuckin' box of hard shit and we had to keep our caps for yer sorry ass."
As the only woman in the outpost, Hacksaw didn't exactly live a great life. Jim would keep the other men from roughing her up too badly, but aside from that, he'd force her to either fight back or take it lying down- a way to make her tougher, apparently. I began to hate Jim more and more. Of the raiders there, Hacksaw probably treated me the worst, but seeing as I was fed enough to stand on my own two feet her bitching at me wasn't much of a problem.
"You have no idea how sorry I am."
Her fingers tightened around the handle of the hacksaw hanging at her hip- how she got the name. She grabbed me by the collar roughly and turned my face up towards hers. "Don't fuck with me. Scratch that: fuck with anyone here and I'll be jugglin' yer balls for fun. Got me?" Angry spit caught me in the eye and I blinked it away.
"Sure," I said blandly. What else do you say to that kind of threat? How many can you keep in the air?
Hacksaw pushed me away, leaving me on my back before she walked away haughtily. Fuck. I had always thought Jericho was arrogant, but he was mild compared to the dick-waving that went on here.
So let's see, let me remember: there was Hacksaw, the main source of my abuse. Then we had Splitfinger, a weird asshole who had a collection of severed middle fingers he hung around his neck on a piece of human sinew. I tried counting the fingers, tried counting them four or five times- but I'd hit twenty, notice a finger a whole lot smaller than the rest, and feel too disgusted to continue. Splitfinger found that hilarious.
"See, this one? With the flat yellow nail?" he'd whisper excitedly, almost forgetting to breath. "He screamed fer'a long, long time. Wanna know why? Didn't cut this one off- pulled it. More... challenge."
Understandably, I didn't like having guard duty with him. I don't know what was worse; that he loved telling me the story behind each finger just to watch me twitch and wince, or that he remembered each and everyone one like they were his own. Sure didn't help that he'd chew on one whenever he got nervous or thought he saw something move in the distance. Creepy fuck.
Then there was Cutter, who, next to everyone else, was pretty normal. He didn't say much to me, or look at me, really. He mostly spent his time making Hacksaw's life miserable, slamming her up against a wall or over a table or just down in the dust whenever he felt like it. Took me too long to figure out he was Jim's second in command; funny story. I walk in on him raping Hacksaw, and what do you know, that heroism Jericho warned me about would bubble up and I'd pop that stupid bitch Cutter in the nose. All I got for that was a face full of splinters from Cutter's board full of nails and wad of spit from Hacksaw- so much for a reward. The warm and bitter feeling of hopelessness growing in my stomach got a whole lot worse that day.
Now and again I'd run into the two of them fucking somewhere in the outpost, and I'd just have to turn away. Turn away from Hacksaw's ashamed glare, turn away from Cutter grunting like a rabid dog. Turn away and squeeze my eyes shut and what the fuck is wrong with this place is everyone insane but me.
Maybe. Jim had lost his marbles a long time ago, I knew that. From the way he'd be whistling merrily through the gap in his cracked teeth or egging on fights that would break out or watching Hacksaw stare at nothing as Cutter violated her- and he'd always wear that fucked-in-the-head smirk. Shit. These weren't people, they were animals. No, that's an insult to animals everywhere. Even those two-headed cow things had more sense and decency than these hopeless sacks of shit.
A lot of the time I'd do guard duty alone. It was the only time I could sleep peacefully- then again, sleep's the wrong word. It was more like a trance. Ever since that cage, sleep just seemed... too dangerous. Too vulnerable when you sleep.
I'd run into that kid from before now and again. He was pale, scrawny, almost unable to walk, but he did. He was maybe the only one in the crapsack outpost that didn't treat me like shit. Mainly because they treated him like shit too. Starved him, beat him, you name it. "Make him tough!" Jim would holler, and down went Cutter's board full of nails. Down went Hacksaw's saw. Down went the rest of those sons of bitches who don't deserve names. All of them.
Except Gutmash. Asshole punched me in the stomach as I was walking around the side of a shed one day. As I hunched over, struggling for breath, he stood there proudly and grinned his stupid rotted teeth.
"That's why they call me Gutmash!" he declared, pounding his chest. The sun shone on his balding head like a fuckin' eight-ball. That did it.
It took three raiders to drag me away from Gutmash, and Jim was cheering all the while. I wanted to reduce that fuck to a red smear on the ground. Less than that. I wanted to erase him from everything.
"Gettin' better, hundred," Jim said with that thin smile of his. Hundred. That was my name. How many caps I had costed them. Sons of bitches.
Maybe the cage was better. At least they'd leave me alone. Sure, water and food weren't as scarce, but the people I had to share it all with made it worse than hell.
I don't know how the boy did it. He and the rest of the kids didn't cry or whine or anything, just scamper out of the way whenever a raider came stomping through. God, to think in a few years they'd be the same. That was torture enough.
To keep my mind off of things I'd hang around the armory, running my fingers along the rifles and revolvers. Not exactly an impressive stock- mostly bolt action, weak caliber, bullets were corroded, stiff bolts, bent sights- but it sure beat the usual raider melee bullshit. Now and again I'd try to imagine what my Mosin-Nagant was doing. Probably killing innocent settlers. What a happy thought.
That thought was interrupted when Hacksaw burst into the armory and pinned me against the far wall before I could so much as mumble a "what?" I was about to push her away when I noticed her Smith and Wesson Model 10 pressed against my stomach. Huh, .38 Special was a popular round in the wastes. Funny thing to notice at a time like that.
I didn't say anything. She didn't either. I just stared at her, confused and nearly having a heart attack. That is, until she started tugging at the front of my pants, her nails scraping at my waist.
"Hey!" I snapped at her, automatically driving my left elbow across her face, at the same time swatting her revolver aside with my right hand. She fired, making me jump a good foot in the air, and I tackled her to the ground, wrestling the gun out of her hand with, surprisingly, not much trouble.
"What is your problem? What the fuck is your problem?" I screamed at her. I could barely think. I could only remember that little circle on my stomach where her gun's muzzle had been.
She just headbutted me in the nose, rolled out from under me, scooped up her Model 10 and left the armory as quickly as she came. As I clutched at my bleeding nose, all I could feel was a red, ugly anger coming to a slow boil in my chest.
We are killing you.
Another night, another trance. Raider-in-training boy was keeping me company, not saying a word. He was looking healthier, at least. I'd been splitting my rations with him whenever Jim and the rest of his fuckhead minions weren't around. From what I understood, they didn't feed the kids at all, just expected them to scavenge and fight each other for the scraps. Jim, you sick fuck.
Funny thing. Jim didn't see himself as a raider anymore. He was 'washed up', whatever that meant. I guess that explained his name being so... normal. That was their sort of cult tradition here; the more fucked up you become, the more normal your name. So Cutter suddenly made a lot of sense.
It had been only eight days and I felt like I had been here way too long. The slave camp had felt like a little pause in my misadventures, but this felt like a waste. I was just sitting around, getting the crap kicked out of me by maniacs, waiting to die. Was this why Jericho retired? Was this what he was tired of?
Actually, it wasn't.
I found out later, when Jim's boot to my ribs woke me from another trance. It was midday.
"Time to shine, hundred."
It was going to be a bad day.