CHAPTER 5: A SUPER, SUPER MUTANT
I arose to the smell of, what I thought was, bacon cooking. Opening my eyes and clearing the sleep from them, it took me a couple of seconds to remember where on earth I was. The stairs of Moira's shop were almost my downfall in my half-asleep state. The red haired woman and the large, scary, leather armoured man were eating big steaks at a table on the ground floor of the building. My mouth was watering from the delicious smell of the meat as I pulled out my huge, jangling bag of caps to pay Moira with so she could give me some of the fantastic seeming food. Moira heard the bag of caps jangle and looked up from the small, gas cooker. The guard's right hand neared his gun in a sort of 'just in case' fashion.
"Oh, hey. Good morning, Callum. Your friend not up yet?" she asked, a little too loud and chirpy for the morning.
"Nah, she always wakes up late. Been like that for as long as I can remember." My stomach growled at me in annoyance, "How much for some steak? Just name your price, I'm starving."
"Oh no, no! Put that money away, Mister. Derek here just brought back a full molerat for breakfast. There's plenty to go around. Enough for nearly half the town. There's a big dish of it over there, already cooked. So take as much as you like for the two New Wanderers."
"Okay, thanks." I stepped forward and picked up a couple of red plates from a neat stack on the table and swiped a few thick steaks from the large mound on the serving dish. I wasted no time in sinking my teeth into the one on the top of my plate before nodding to Moira and scurrying back up the stairs to wake Brogan and give her some food too. I stopped mid-way and peaked my head round the corner of the corridor of the back room, "Not you too? You heard that guy on the radio?"
"Yeah, it's all Three Dog talks about now! Just like before..." She trailed off with a nostalgic look on her face. That was all the distraction I needed before hightailing it back up the stairs.
I gingerly shook my friend and when she didn't wake, stuck the meat under her nose until she caught the scent which made her come round instantly.
"Breakfast!" I shouted when she opened her eyes and started tearing into the cooked Molerat meat, to which she did the same once she'd gotten over the initial shock of waking up in an unfamiliar place.
"What is this? It's pretty good!" She exclaimed as she took another couple of bites.
"Molerat." I grinned when she comically dropped the steak onto the plate and her face turned slightly green.
"Does it taste nice? Yes it does. Can beggers be choosers? No they cannot. So get your food on!"
I noticed as I was halfway through my third and final steak that my stomach hurt slightly. Asking Moira about it later on, she assured us that it was just trace amounts of radiation tingling our stomachs and that it would go away in about an hour. Apparently it would happen for a couple of weeks until our Vault Dweller stomachs got used to the radiation. Slight radiation? That sounds safe!
After breakfast, we bought six more bottles of 'purified' water and a backpack each to carry equipment in. We then went in search of somewhere we could buy food that we could eat later on, which took us to a small, dingy diner called 'The Brass Lantern', where we bought some weird radiation cleansing food that the woman in charge named 'Punga Fruit'. The woman introduced herself as Jenny Stahl and she told us that it grew in abundance in an area the Capital Wasteland had good trade relationships with. I didn't really take much what she said into consideration, mind you, due to the simple, but silly, reason that she wore a yellow jumpsuit! We also bought some instant noodles and Blamco mac 'n' cheese. As we left the place with my backpack half-filled, I remembered what Lucas Simms said about getting a gun, so we backtracked to Moira's and asked her for help on what kind of guns that she would recommend for us to buy.
"Well, most people that go into the Wastes have a primary weapon that they use and a pistol for backup. Sometimes a knife, as well." she told us. I decided on buying an Assault Rifle that was fully automatic and had 'little recoil' apparently and a large box of 5.56mm ammo for it; along with a high damage Sawed-off Shotgun for a side-arm with a case of shotgun shells and a sharp combat knife. Brogs said that she didn't want a gun because she knew she wouldn't use it anyway, but I gave her the 10mm pistol I'd found in the vault and a stockpile of ammo for it, just in case. Moira spent the next two hours making back straps for my Assault Rifle and a holster for our respective sidearms (mine being on the left to account for my left-handedness). She also showed us how to shoot, reload and maintain our weapons correctly. She then crafted and applied various armour plates and sturdy, bullet-deflecting shields onto our vault jumpsuits. I handed over a large amount of caps to Moira, and gave her my solemn thanks for everything she had done to help us before heading out.
"You're sure you want to go through with this?" Brogs asked, grabbing my shoulder so I swung round to face her. We had just walked through the gates of Megaton and were standing with our backs to the entrance.
"More sure than I've ever been about anything in my whole life. I know it sounds a bit clichéd but, oh well."
"Okay, so which way are we going, then?" She asked, looking at my fully outfitted body. I scanned myself and her up and down, noting that we looked like true Wastelanders minus the large, golden '101' on the back of our blue upper halves.
"We're going to go and see that bastard Raider! I want to... I don't know, I just want to see him one last time, I think." I muttered as a light breeze blew dust in a circle around the two of us. I looked up toward the sun that was in its midday position of being at its highest point in the sky, "We are the New Wanderers." I stated, a sense of pride filling up in my heart.
To be honest I didn't actually think that the gun and the man's body would still be there. I thought that maybe a wife or friend or something would have picked him up and buried him under the dry, dead ground. But sure enough, when we arrived at the edge of the town which I read from a road sign was called 'Springvale', there he was under the rocket in the same mangled and twisted way. I picked up his Hunting Rifle and weighed it in my hands, finding I liked the feel of it. I noticed that its structure represented that of the bolt-action rifles of some World War 2 movie holotapes that I had watched back in the Vault.
"You want my Assault Rifle? This gun looks awesome and I kinda want to keep it." I asked Brogan and she shook her head.
"No, I refuse to shoot people." She said, pouting.
"Who says that there won't be any of those mutant things... Super Mutants."
"Mmm... I suppose. Moira told me what they were – like big yellowey-green things that are 8 feet tall at least. The come in different versions: Grunt, Brute, Master, Overlord and another form that I can't remember. They are practically bulletproof apparently. I don't think anything like that can possibly exist."
"This place seems like a shithole, so I bet you'll be proven wrong."
Two miles and five Mole Rats later, she more or less took my Assault Rifle off of me and hugged it to her chest as if it were made of gold. She seemed to be weighed down with it though because of her small structure and lack of upper-body strength. I suddenly got an idea of how to use our new scavenged junk.
"Here, gimmy that." I took her gun and produced a large bone saw that we found in a destroyed house back in Springvale. I began sawing at the stock until all that remained was a two-foot long sub-machine gun-like barrel and chamber left. Whilst walking for the next half hour, I filed at the serrated and jaggy wooden bits that I had missed with a sand paper whet stone until it was smooth. I handed it back to Brogan who seemed happy with my work as she handled the gun a little easier now. I suppose it'll have to do 'till we find something more suitable. I spun my Hunting Rifle round on its strap so it was now facing the front of me and then took the stone to it and filed the chipped wooden splinters that prodruded out so as to not get more cuts than I had already.
Just as I put it back I heard a soft rustling noise behind us. I was instantly alert and pulled my rifle off of me and looked down the sights in one fluid motion. Brogs clung to my right arm and started to shake a little. I looked at my map and noticed that we were slightly south west of a place called 'Jury Street Metro Station'. I quickly pressed and scrolled to the compass section of my Pip-Boy to see that there were indeed three heat signatures in the middle of it. They were red, signifying an enemy. I looked up, scanning the area intently but seeing nothing until a green glob of sludge came flying at my head from the hill to the left. I dived to the ground wrapping an arm around Brogan and pulling her down with me. I shot in the general direction of the top of the hill and I heard a loud cry from two figures that turned out to be these 'Super Mutants' that we were speaking about a few hours previous.
"Stupid human! You lose! You come to Vegas now!" The larger one bellowed. Vegas? What? Did it mean Las Vegas? Why would it want me to come to Vegas?
"Th-that's the o-other side of the c-c-country though." I was shaking in fear as well now at the sight of and putrid smell of death of these big monsters. They had us surrounded, with weapons not unlike my own trained on us. My hands were in the air, still holding my Hunting Rifle.
"Shut up human! You become one of us now!"
"N-n-no l-leave us alone! G-go away!" I stood up as tall as I could, thinking that maybe they were stupid enough to believe that I must've been brave for a reason.
"Armour Human kill our home! We have new home now! Near Bright Light City! You no come?Now you die! AUGHHHH!" It screamed and brought its Hunting Rifle up closer to its face but I was faster. Time seemed to slow to an almost stop as my left arm snapped down and shot my rifle one-armed. I shot it straight in the eye! The uncontrollable recoil that came with shooting it with one hand caused the barrel to rise upwards and I used the verticle momentum in the gun's motion to twist my grip on it so I was now holding the barrel instead of the stock! It was now essentially a club that I used to hit the smaller (but still huge) one's gun from its hands in the same, lighting quick fashion as before. The now one-eyed Super Mutant started screeching and clutching its eye socket while the other one kicked me in the chest making me fly over a large overturned, red train carriage which Brogan had already hidden behind. The wind had been completely knocked out of me and I had lost my gun. I lay on the floor coughing and spluttering when I heard a large amount of gunfire that came from where the monsters were. Far too many gunshots for just two super mutants to create. Once my chest no longer hurt (as much) I peeked round the corner of the carriage to see a bunch of people with patchy leather and metal armour in extreme armed conflict with the Super Mutants. Raiders, Bastards! For now they were helping us but I doubted that was because they wanted to, more because they were getting shot at. I waited until the gunfire had ceased and the Super Mutants' dying gurgles quieted before easing out of our cover spot and shouting to the Raiders.
"Th-thank you for taking care of them for us. Emm... you want some caps for uh... being helpful?" They instantly turned round and aimed their guns at Brogan and I and we both reached for the sky. They began to laugh sadistically and the man at the back, presumably the leader, stepped forward.
"Oh well, lookey wha' we got 'ere boys... a wee kiddie and a kiddie party favour. We'll soon make an' honest woman out of 'er, ayy boys?" A maniacal laugh spread through the group and the leader plucked my friend from my grasp. I started towards him but he pulled out his 9mm pistol and pressed it against my forehead, pushing me backwards slightly before bringing it down to Brogan's temple. "Nuh, uh, uh. We don't want any little accidents happening now do we?" Brogan began to cry and shake.
"You're a sick fuck you know th..." CRACK! He smashed his free left hand into my jaw which made me stagger backwards, disorientated. Once I had regained myself I began to shout at him again. "I'm gonna kill you! I swear to God I'm gonna..." I stopped, feeling something under my feet.
"Wha's wrong boyo? All your bravery just leave you behind? Think that's what we'll do. Not even kill you, jus' leave you behin' so you 'ave to live with thinkin' what we're gonna do to your girlfriend!" He goaded me, sending a laugh through his gang.
"No... the ground... it... it's shaking." I looked around nervously.
"Haha, boy, tryin' to change the subject ain't goin' to stop us from havin' your girl in every position known to man! Now, so how's about you stop fuckin' stallin' an' get on yer knees, ayy?" The ground began to shake and shudder powerfully in rhythm. As if it were... footsteps?
"OH SHHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTT! BEHEMOTHHHHH!" One of the Raiders screamed. They scattered, running in the general north direction. The leader looked up from me and made a look of real terror before joining the crowd, dropping Brogan at my feet. I turned round and completely froze up. There was the biggest possible Super Mutant charging at the two of us, brandishing a fire hydrant that was welded to massive, thick pole. The 'Behemoth' so to speak, was at least twenty-five feet tall and had makeshift armour made of car doors and shopping trolleys, along with a "necklace" of human skulls. I was still staring at it blundering and crashing towards us, completely petrified and awestruck by the sight before me. Itwas exactly what young children of the Vault had nightmares about. 'The Vault Bogeyman'. A giant that could swallow you whole and then wear your skull around its neck. I was broke out of my trance by my gun being pressed to my chest and being put in my arms.
"Callum, run! Come on! Snap out of it!" Brogan screamed in my ear and slapped my face when I refused to budge. That brought me back; I shook my head and took a step back to look at the advancing mutant's face. It was only about 50 meters away now gaining fast. It was what I saw during the look up that gave me an idea. I scanned the environment for anything to help and found that there were dangling bags of guts and body parts overhead that had flies buzzing around them and mould forming on the outside, signalling that they were obviously overrun with parasites. I glanced to the left, nothing, just dead Super Mutants and a dead, pink half-man looking creature. But to the right I saw the second and hopefully last part of my plan – massive, bloody, metal spikes that looked very sharp and deadly at the tip.
"Gogo, whatever I say just do it. Right? … Okay, run! Now!"
"What?"
"FUCKING RUN!" She sprinted towards the fleeing Raiders which caused the Super Mutant to get agitated and attempt to go for me and me alone. I waited for a second and made a silent prayer not to miss, but my aim was true and perfectly timed: the rope attaching the gore bag to the overhead railway lines was ripped through by the .308 round, sending the mesh sack down onto the mutant's head. The liquid blood and guts dribbled and poured down into its unprotected eyes. It shrieked in pain which deafened me and could probably have been heard back in Megaton. I could almost hear the parasites in the blood munching on the mutant's eyes, forcing it to the ground where it clawed at them, as if trying to force the pain away. With the mutant distracted and temporarily blinded I took the time to sneak behind it and climb the back ladder of a grey train carriage. I then started shooting my sawed-off and rifle at the mutant's head to make it fix its attention on me. It turned round bellowing and blindly ran to me, swinging its fire hydrant pole as I squeezed my eyes shut... waiting for what was hopefully going to happen. The Behemoth stopped short of me and I ripped open my eyes after hearing a choking sound. The plan had worked! In its blinded form it had run straight into the sharp, metal beam protruding from the ground which had pierced directly into the centre of its stomach. The monster attempted to back up and had found itself blocked by what it only would have seen as some kind of unknown force field. 'He' looked down stupidly at the massive gurder of bloody steel stabbed through its mid-section and looked me straight in the face; gurgled something inaudible; spat up blood at me which fell short; slumped forward and impaled itself even further on the spike which now jutted out from his back, then died. The spike cut through a large burlap sack that was tied round the mutant's waist, making it fall to the ground.
"Bee!" I screamed, "Where are you? Come back here we're safe!" I heard some footsteps approaching that were light and soft. I surmised that they must have been a girls', so I busied myself in searching through the behemoth's pack, not turning round as the footsteps approached. Most of the items were garbage, cigarettes, lawn mower blades etc, but two things stood out; a large .44 Magnum 6-shooter revolver and a decent sized box of .44 bullets. I held the magnum in my hands, noticing it had a scope on top of it. I stared lovingly at the new addition to my gun arsenal that had formed in my bag from the dead Super Mutants and Raiders until I felt Brogan's presence. I looked up from my, now occupied, right leg holster to see my friend standing with an incredulous expression on her face.
"How? Just how? The size... you..." She trailed off, not believing how I had survived the incident.
"I killed it." I said bluntly, "I don't know how but I did it. It's over now Bear, let's just leave this damned place behind and keep on with the search. Please?"
"Not so fast!" It was the Raiders again! "Hold on. Did... did you jus' kill that mutie? Naw, you can't have? Fuck me! Holy shit! Fuckin' ice cold killer! That's impossible…let's get outta 'ere!" All of the Raiders took off, obedient of their leader, each shouting their own individual profanities after us, most of which contained statements of varying disbelief.
"Yeah! That's right run! Fucking run for the hills you sadist bastards. The name's Callum Fucking Almodovar! And don't you forget it!" Brogs stared at me open-mouthed, and jumped on me to hug and hold me extremely tight.
"You... got rid of them!" she said gleefully, beginning to cry once more, "How can you save my life twice in two days? I love you Callum, I really do."
"Yeah... I love you too..." I replied, looking away in thought.
"What's wrong?"
"Just thinking about what the other normal mutants said to us... that we were going to become them. Does that mean that these things are actually humans... or were? That would mean I just killed another person?"
"No Callum... to be human you have to be humane just as you can be humane without being a human."
"I guess that makes sense. So, in a sense, it's okay to shoot the bad guys as long as they shoot first?"
"That's kinda what I was getting at, except... you don't have to say it like a twelve-year-old boy!"
"You wouldn't have said it like that though?" I joked, and it took her a while to click that I'd just playfully insulted her. She smiled, being used to my silly sense of humour, "Thanks for making me feel better Gogo." I gave her a kiss, before looking down at my Pip-Boy to check the time and when I saw it was almost seven at night, decided to set off for just a little while before making camp for the night.
"Oh my God! How the fuck do you make fires?"
"Breath, sunshine, breath."
"But I don't understand it, Bee, I've got wood and lots of it. Dried to hell so it should burn well. Got flammable things to start it: paper drenched in whiskey. But I can't think of how to get a spark. Stupid Pip-Boy, why couldn't you just connect to these scrap electronic wires? We could make a spark if it did but nooo... Vault Tech just has to be more advanced." I ranted, going red in the face.
"What about this fission battery?" Brogan asked quietly, holding it in the air.
"Genius! Right, so, I connect these two wires in it... now put them together to make a spa... AUGHH... the fucker shocked me!"
"You should be more careful, then!" She folded her arms with a smug grin.
"Fuck you... ok... yes... YES! Did it... oh yeah... I did it... oh yeahyeahyeahyeah!"
"Stop singing! You want to bring down every Raider in the Capital Wasteland to kill us?" I shook my head, "Then be quiet."
"Yeah…right sorry. And you're calling it the Capital Wasteland now? I thought you'd stick to calling it 'DC' or something. Anyway, you hungry?" She nodded, "Same, I'm starving." I took out some of the leftover molerat meat from Moira's and a couple of Nuka Cola's which made our Geiger counters tick when we devoured them. The fire had good cover from the wind by a tall cliff that hung over us on three sides (kind of like a little indent in the mountain), so the fire was strong and very warming. After I had finished my dinner, I picked up a long stick from the edge of the fire and started poking amongst the embers. I switched to the status section on my Pip-Boy and pressed on 'radiation'. The display read 7 Rads which to me was basically another language. In the vault, when learning about radiation in Physics class we'd always used different units to measure absorbed dose and the like; so I clicked the flashing hyperlink text for more info which then explained (in a shit-lot of detail) how the 'Rad' system works. Basically up to 200 Rads you will be fine; but after that you would start feeling woozy and nauseous until you get to 400 Rads. Then onwards you will actually be physically sick and become really dizzy and tired. Eventually when you hit 800 Rads you can hardly move and you start bleeding internally which comes out of your bodily orifices (including the privates and ass!) Finally at about 1000 Rads you flat-out just die. I read the important parts out to Brogan to let her know the dangers too and laughed when I saw her face after hearing the bleeding part.
We spent the rest of the night hours before sleeping listening to the strange mid-20th century songs that Three Dog played on the radio and attempted to learn the words. Being musically minded, I quickly picked up most of the lyrics and made a few assumptions on the rest so we could sing a few songs quietly to one another. When the sky was completely black, we fell asleep embracing each other in the foetal position for warmth, a think blanket covering both of us. At this point we didn't realise the number one rule in the Wasteland: always, always sleep in shifts!
I stood up, yawning, and looked around confused until my still-sleeping brain remembered where I was. I stumbled clumsily round the corner of the little indent in the cliff we slept under and started to take a piss while my hoarse voice sung a made up song quietly to myself.
"That's some song Callum. That'd better not had been about me... was it?" I absolutely bricked it and spun round to see a jokingly stern Brogan staring at me with her arms folded.
"No of course not, babe," I impishly replied, regretting it, as I could almost hear her going to say 'then who', so I decided to try making a reason (key word... try), "No, well... um... it was about you but... eh... not like that. You know what I mean! I like singing to myself!" I stopped when I realised that I was simply digging a hole. Caught with my pants down... quite literally. "Hm hm... personal space please? Privacy?" She smiled, shaking her head and walked back to the ashy remains of last night's fire. I quickly zipped up my jeans and hurried after her. I pulled my Pip-Boy map up to her face, resting my chin atop her head and showed her that we were half way to Little Lamplight, "Look, I can set markers to make sure we are going in the right direction!" I chirped, fascinated by the facilities of my Pip-Boy that I never had a reason to go on to before. "Yep I'll set one for there... hang on. I can set quest markers and everything. I wish that I'd made a quest before! Anyway, let's gather our stuff and boost away 'coz we can make it by nightfall if we go quickly, I reckon."
We ventured further into the wastes, still nowhere near ready for the other dangers that awaited us.
Phew, that was a long one! Thanks for the new favourites and follows. And a special thanks to the Guest profile for the encouraging review. Till next chapter guys.