Chapter four
Running again. It felt like I had done nothing but run in the past twenty four hours. Actually scratch that, I have done nothing but run since getting kicked out of the vault. Whither it was from rival scavengers who wanted my gear or a raider who wanted my gear. There was not much of difference of between the two a lot of the times besides clothing and the fact that raiders were usually tweaked out of there head on chem. We had to get to megaton that was only way to stop the raiders. Say what you want to about raiders they are determined, they will follow their prey to ends of the waste if they have to and many will fight to the bitter end despite certain death. But they wouldn't try to fight their way through megaton, hopped up on enough psycho they might try it but they were not usually that stupid luckily.
I glanced a look behind me and to my terror saw the raiders a half a dozen at least closing the distance armed with pistols, shotguns, and other less effective but still brutal weapons such as bats and sharp piece of metal. The sight made me push myself to run faster but my muscles ached and I was drenched in sweat. What is wrong with me? I am faster than this aren't I? I felt like I was running in three feet of water and my rifle felt like it weighed as much as a mini gun. I noticed Madison slowly pulling ahead of me as I started to slow down with every passing second. She passed around a larger hill surrounded by rocks and disappeared out of sight. Well at least she would probably get away while these raiders killed me I thought glumly. Seconds later though she came running back around the corner looking if possible even more terrified than before.
What came up behind her made me understand her new found level of fear. A black bear or what used to probably be a black bear, locals often referred to them as Yao guai. It had a similar appearance of a bear except radiation made even larger and more horrific looking. Much of its fur had fallen off of it exposing its skin and mass of muscles under it the tuffs of fur that remained looked greasy and stuck together almost looking like spikes. It had laws as long and sharp as any dagger and teeth just as sharp both equally capable of ripping its prey to shreds in seconds or it could simply pull a person in half if it so chose to. The sheer size of this thing was astounding easily weighing 700 pounds and probably stood at least seven and a half feet tall on its hind legs. Despite its size though it could run at incredible speeds and the lead Madison had was quickly evaporating.
A fully grown Yao Guai in front of them and a band of raiders closing in behind them, certain and horrible death. I stopped in my tracks losing all hope, we were truly fucked I thought. I tried to aim my rifle at the mutated bear anyway, not going to die without trying but the rifle was to heavy and the bear moving too fast for me to keep it in my sights. Death seemed certain might just be easier and quicker to shoot myself I felt like I was stuck in a rock and a hard place. The rocks I thought suddenly maybe there was some cover or a cave in the hills hidden by one. I noticed a hole big enough to fit a person maybe there was a cave maybe not I started to run for it no other option really besides death.
"Madison!" I shouted as loud as I could waving my left arm to get her attention. She looked and I pointed at the hole in the rocks, she did not say anything back just changed direction and ran for the opening. She would get there before the Yao guai but I'm not sure I would, it would be damn close. She reached it and quickly crawled through disappearing completely from sight. Thank god it was big enough to fit people at least. I willed my legs to move faster and they complied this time. The hole became bigger and bigger but the bear was getting closer and closer. I was a couple feet away from the hole and dove for it the bear roared in rage and it was close enough to smell, a rancid horrible smell that would haunt my dreams for years. I made it about half way through the hole when Madison grabbed me by my jacket and pulled with a force I did not think her arms had and yanked me rest of the way through.
The mutated bear was seconds behind me and smashed into the rock shaking the giant boulder. "Oh god It's not going to hold" Madison said It smashed into again and again but it held in place. A massive clawed hand reached in through the opening and grabbed me by the leg and pulled me down. I came crashing down onto the ground hard. Madison rushed forward and grabbed me as I tried to hold onto the boulder but the bear was going to win. I looked her in the eyes and saw a determination I did not feel she took out her knife and stabbed down with all her force into the paw trying to drag me into an early and painful grave. The bear gave out yelp of pain and let go. Together Madison and I backed up as far as we could which did not feel far enough. The Cave, if you could call it a cave, was dark and barely large enough to stand in and the two of us filled up most of the space.
Gun shots rang out as the raiders finally caught up and started to fire at the mutated beast. "Maybe they will kill each other" Madison said sounding hopeful.
"Yeah maybe there were a lot of raiders, if they have enough bullets even that monster won't kill them all. If they don't have enough bullets even better." I said in between breaths.
"Right they all die and it is to hurt and will die of its wounds." Madison said.
"Or at least not want to bother with us as a snack." I said in a weak voice, still breathing heavily and still sweating profusely. It should not feel this hot, we were in the shad and it was still relatively early in the day but it still felt like a hundred degrees.
Madison must have noticed the weakness in my voice because she looked up and asked "Are you okay, you do not look so good, you look pretty pale." She raised a hand and touched my forehead. "You're burning up take your jacket off and drink some water at least." The bear roared off in the distance and the gun shots stopped.
"Sounds like the bear won, score one for nature" I said taking off my jacket, it was a simple duster with lots of pockets, some of which I had sewed on to add more room for things. My under shirt was completely drenched in sweat and clung to my body. In the back off my mind during the running and panic I think I knew what was wrong I just did not want to admit it. I looked at the bandage on my hand and noticed some blood dripping down it.
"You don't think it's infected do you" She asked as we both looked at it. I undid the bandage and even just doing that I winced as my hand stung. It was not a pretty sight. It had swollen and stretched the stitches I had put in and a mixture of blood and puss seeped from the wound. In addition to this a fairly unpleasant smell come from the wound.
"Damn that was quick maybe that guy pissed or shit on his knife or something." I went to open the pack that I had dropped but my fingers fumbled with the zippers.
Madison jumped forward and said "Here let me handle it, what are you looking for?"
"I should have fresh bandage in there somewhere or at least a rag or something. And grab the water from the side pocket. Drink some for your self first then hand it to me. I doubt it is contagious but no point in taking chances" After all if she got sick I would have to waste resources on trying to cure two people and if she died I would have no answers of what the hell is going on in that vault.
She did as I asked pulling out a bandage and handing it to me, and as I replaced the foul bandage with the new one she took a swig of water from the canteen. She handed me the canteen and pointed to my hand and said "Do you think it is tetanus after all you were stabbed with a metal blade and out here what are the odds it was not covered in rust."
"You know funnily enough when I was fighting for life and yours I did not try and decide if the knife had rust on it or not" I said sneering at her "But no I do not think it is Tetanus if it was I think I would have some muscle spasms by now." I said quickly trying to gloss over my previous statement that made me look like an asshole. "And if it is you might as well put a bullet in my head."
"Can you move, I do not think it is wise to stick around here. The raiders might have friends or someone might come by to investigate all the noise." Madison said.
"I think so just give me a couple of seconds to catch my breath," I told her. I handed her the rifle. "And if you mind holding that it would help, besides I can't hit shit now anyway. The straps go around your body helps support it while you shoot." Despite the short reprieve from death and running I was not getting any better. In fact things seemed to be getting fuzzier. My legs started to get weak and I felt dizzy, off balance. I reached a hand out to steady myself as Madison also placed a hand on my shoulder to help steady me.
"Hey hey stay with me Clay I cannot drag you back by myself." But her words fell on deaf ears as all light started to fade. I fell forward onto Madison as I passed out and my last sight was of her chest as I fell onto her. Not a bad last sight before my death I thought dully as all the light faded and everything went dark.
When I awoke I was looking a familiar ceiling and a laying on a familiar bed. Sure enough when I sat up I was in my little shack. How the hell did I get all the way back here? I stood up and wobbled a little bit on my legs. I felt a little better than before but still had a fever. I walked into the main room of my house and noticed the lack of Madison. "Where did you run off too?" I asked out loud to myself. I did not have to wait long because right after I said it she walked through the door. She had a bottle of clear liquid in her hand with the label alcohol on it.
"You know if you keep talking to yourself people are going to think you have lost your mind." She stopped to think for a second then said. "Well I guess everyone out here has already lost their minds, How are you feeling?" Madison asked closing the door.
"A little better I guess, thought I was dead how did you get me back here?" I asked gesturing to my little shack.
"I'll tell you while we take care of that hand." She said waving the bottle of alcohol. "The doctor here says to cut out some of dead flesh and drain it as best as possible then pure some kind disinfected on it and this moonshine from the bar here was the best I could find."
"So this isn't for drinking than" I said taking the bottle of moonshine from her.
"No" she said shaking her head. "But you might want to take a swig because it's going to hurt."
"Good idea" I said and took a sip. The alcohol burned as went down my throat and left a warm feeling in my stomach. "So can you tell me how we got back here?"
"Well after you passed out there was a couple more gunshots. I thought it was more raiders but when I crawled out to see these people were much friendlier. They were a group of traders, said they heard all the gunshots and came to investigate, said there is usually good loot after a gunfight." Madison told me. As she talked I walked over to my wash bowl and undid my bandage and examined my wound. It did not look any better unfortunately and someone had removed my stitches. I began to squeeze around the wound and blood and puss began to flow out and drop into the bowl. Just doing that hurt like hell. "They agreed to help and together we make a stretcher for you which they attached to some weird two headed cow looking thing. The guy in charge said he was heading to megaton anyway or he would not have offered." Madison said as she looked at my hand with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.
Once I was satisfied I had gotten a decent amount of puss out poured some alcohol on the wound. I inhaled sharply as it felt like my hand was on fire. I pulled out a sharp little knife and a zippo lighter and tried to light it but nothing happened, must be out of fluid. I tossed it on the floor angrily cursing. "They seemed pretty nice." She said and she tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a pack of matches. "Once I got you here one of the guards offered to help me carry you to the Doctors place." I lit a match and held to the knife to kill the germs on it, or at least some of them. "The doctor said he would help take out the stitches and clean the wound a little. He even gave you some kind of shot that he said would help your body fight the infection."
"That was awfully generous of him" I said. I took the knife and started to pick at the infected and dead parts of flesh. The alcohol had felt like a bee sting compared to this.
"He said you owed him big time, and that he would make sure to collect the debt owed." Madison said.
"Yeah that sounds more like the doc I know." I put down the knife and poured a little more of the moonshine on it to help wash away more blood and puss and to sterilize the wound. "How did you get the merchants to agree to help you? I did not notice any of my stuff missing."
"They said if I let them have all the loot they would help." She said but here voice sounded a little weird. I looked at her and sure enough she was looking at the floor with an embarrassed look on her face.
"That's not all is it" I asked.
She shook her head and said "No I uh might have lead them to believe that if they helped id be really grateful and uh do something for them" her face turned a dark shade of red.
I smiled "Aw a very useful trick for women sadly does not usually work so well for men. Bet they were disappointed when you did not give up the goods so to speak" I took out the needle and thread that I had taken from the doctors house half a day ago and began to sew the wound up again and wrap in another fresh bandage. I was exhausted from the standing and working. I put my back to wall and slowly sled down the wall to sit on the floor.
I looked up at Madison and she looked back at me. I could see why the merchants had helped her, she had a pretty face maybe the nose was a little big and a nice body, especially compared to other waste landers. She sighed and also went to sit on the floor. It could not have been more than sixteen hours since we meet but it felt like days. "Maybe I should get a couple chairs for this place really liven it up." I said trying to break the silence. She did not say anything. "Thank you for helping me and not robbing me blind while I was passed out."
"Yeah no problem, figured if you died I was good as dead too without any friends out here to help me." She said and continued to look at the floor.
So that's why she was silent. I had temporally forgotten in all the excitement why we had left megaton in the first place. It could not have been easy for her to see her friends torn to pieces like that and displayed as some sick joke. I could not really blame her for wanting to get their bodies and bury them. She had grown up with them for years, anybody else probably would have tried the same thing, or at least I hope they would have. All humanity was not lost out here yet. "I am sorry about your friends, sorry we could not get to them in time" I told her.
She looked at me for a couple of seconds a single tear slowly rolling down her face and she went back to looking at the floor. The silence stretched on for a couple of seconds before she spoke. "It's my fault they died. It was getting dark and I was cold so I asked them to build a fire. They said it was too much of risk and someone might find us, but I insisted, told them there was no one around. They consisted and we built a nice warm fire ate some hot food and everything was fine and pleasant. Then they found us must have been a dozen of them and my two companions fought and I just ran. They died because of me, they died so that I could live." It seemed to help her when she said this but not much.
"What were there names of those two security guards." I Asked
"Patrick and Darrelle" she said "Both of them had families."
"You did not kill them. It was raiders that carved them up not you. If you died trying to bury them it would have been a waste of their sacrifice." I did not really believe it was a sacrifice just fight or flight. They simply decided to fight instead of run and died. I highly doubted they had made a conscious choice to fight to give her time to flee to relative safety.
"Yeah I know but I need to continue with my mission if I stop now it would still be a waste just not sure what to do next."
"Well you can stay till you figure it out, I am still a fucked up mess so I'm going to sleep for a week." I did not care anymore about getting answers about the vault it was too much trouble. Better to be alive and ignorant than dead. I got shakily to my feet and started to move to my bed room.
Madison voice stopped me "Would you really have shot me?" She asked.
"What? When did I sat I would shot you?" I asked giving her a quizzical look.
"When the raiders spotted us you said that if they caught to us you would shot me yourself." She said
"Oh yes" The answered seemed to shock her, but just a little. "But only so that you would not get raped and tortured and I would have hated to shot you." she a forced smile.
I went and collapsed onto my bed. I was not asleep nearly as long as would have liked before be rudely interrupted by someone holding a sharp peace of steel against my throat.