The zombies gnarled in fury, trying to smell the scent of their prey with clogged noses, each making a funny noise of a pig grunting. They looked around with their degrading eyes, nothing was alive here, and the dark wasn’t helping much to see in the absence of light. The highly sensitive ears weren’t picking on any signs of abnormalities other than the dripping of water at the water purification plant outside, which became a resting place for them, with some drowning in stale water, kicking for decent splashes of waters at the rest lurking below. Besides the water, there was an iron steam engine that was inert for the time being. Nuclear winters had struck around this place roughly a decade ago, and it was cold enough to send Deathclaws into hibernation while the Dwellers wore three layers of Vault suits to keep warm, together with a heating engine to raise temperature. The hottest record was never listed in any of the Vaults, but there was a terrible record of the coldest reaching fifty below zero, and Vault-Tec had to insulate them from the outside in order to reduce a major freeze from spreading frostbite to the Dwellers, not prevent. Thus, a special ventilation system was born, where it could generate power for itself to run by using the elements and was designed to generate a hot wind to blow inside whenever the nuclear winters arrived. It’s convenient for one Vault to enjoy, tucked in warmly in their safe bunkers. The only exception was that Vault-Tec didn’t have sufficient time to apply this upgrade to all of the Vaults. Luckily, Vault 256 had this special tech trait to ward off the cold, greatly keeping the cold off their wriggling toes. So if to see when will the next nuclear winter arrive was somewhere a decade away, based on the last weather report before the Second Apocalypse.
The dead continued to sniff with futile effort, glancing and limping in the dark for the human. Surprisingly, the dead brain could process a bit of information regarding this place, as this was a dead end, the entrance hindered by more zombies. Where was that human? Nobody knows once they left, keeping the room unharmed and intact. They would love to migrate their hangout zone to here, but the foul smell of a kind of plant perhaps was really irritating even to a clogged nose. The horde was also planning to move to a further floor up or down as this smell was spreading, slowly but sure. It’s about to reach their third favorite spot and the smell itself was pinching their senses badly. That new mutant which evolved from a normal zombie even disliked coming to this floor. The undead here was rather happy and sad for it’s now an enemy to them. Unless maybe one day, they could try and chat a bit to work together? The mutant becoming their leader, while the rest follow him till the end of death. Well, next death.
As the last zombie went out of the room, it tripped onto something, where it got up in a stand up position, hunching down to see a tiny wire that was the guilty one. The other zombies well ignored the next few sounds when a few can fell from one of the shelves, a plug pulled out by accident and turning out the lights as a result, and a locker’s unlocked door falling down with a thump. The locker, laying horizontal on the ground had its door slamming hard, its content not spilling out, but instead stuck fast inside like superglue.
Francis breathed hard in the locker, his heart like a crazy minigun pounding from the inside. It was hot, his sweat making it sticky and uncomfortable when he wasted more body fluids to be recovered later on. He rolled out like a bag of potatoes, getting up to put the plug back to its place. That plug was the main power plug to supply electricity to his zombie hideout. In the instant, the lights regained their light of yellowish white, the fan began to hum as its breeze swung to the left and right similar to a tortoise. With the temperature beginning to cool down to a less warm condition, Francis brushed his suit and sleeves to beat the dust off him. He hadn’t use that locker after since the last chase, as a final resort to hide from the horde. It’s quite full of filth when the Vault’s cleanest ventilations failed to draw the dust out to the wasteland; it’s stubborn for once, stubborn in par with the dry weeds living outside, sticking to most surface and refusing to let go like a baby rejecting to let go of his parents.
Taking a look around his hideout, he remembered earlier of two things. One was the plant life taking roots in his hideout.
Lemongrass, capable of secreting a good smell and pushing pests out of the way. Who knew zombies were considered as a pest? He had found the plant…… or rather the plant found him when he was resting after finishing two cans of food finished with a Fancy Lads Snack Cake. It’s a bit vexing when Francis first think of it as a weed, until he got a whiff of its fragrant scent. It was around where this fast growing plant had no zombies around it, so he assumed that it’s their weakness, but turned out to be a despised item, nothing more, nothing less. So he allowed it to grow around the place, with the functional fan blowing the delightful scent throughout the Vault while keeping the place cool. The progress was sluggish, only close to coming to the next room, though it’s better than none. The horde there will soon get off this floor to somewhere less smelling for them to settle.
And now, for the second part was about him running, running and running too much over four floors to shake off his so called ‘fan horde’. His legs were now wobbling, feeling a muscle cramp coming to his quadriceps for pumping energy more than it could take. He wished he had a tranquilizer right now, for the feeling was not mere pins and needles, but the taste of loads of creepy crawlies going up and down his lower body. His body tingled with fear. He’s a man who hated Radroaches, hated Bloatflies, and most of all, hated insects.
He wished he could scream, but for the sake of not getting the horde back here, he choked on his gargling vocal cords, struggling over the pain under him when his nerves below returned to normal, pumping fresh blood inside to get the oxygen into his cells.
He breathed again, looking at the jerry can he was able to fetch from that purification plant amongst the groans of dead. He mistaken the location to be at the second warehouse and scouted for two hours until he found it. He had to hurry, as he watched one of the walls that had a set of bare circuits and a LED meter consisted of seven yellow bars at the top and three red ones connected below, its colorful wiring going up and up out of the ceiling until the power engine at the Vault entrance. The yellows bars of light were dim, only the red lights shimmered with a pulsating blood red. He shuddered watching the first red light going out, power was getting low and will be fully used up in a few more minutes.
No longer hesitating, Francis quickly picked up the can of fuel, making the least of noises and went to grab some rope, preparing to reload the engine power supply. He clicked on his headlight, but the more frustrating thing came when it didn’t turn on as usual, which meant one last thing to annoy the man was here to piss him off.
“Fuck.”
His headlight had the case of a dead battery.
----------------------------------------
Francis Roger was rendered blind under the surroundings that no light shined upon. With his headlight down and left to be a decoration strapped on his head, he squinted his eyes often to see whatever was five feet in front of him. The things he saw? Barely. He managed to pull the three pounds of a heavy jerry can up to the top floor…… or so he thought. The levels of this Vault were so complicated although just a simple twelve floors, the dark had confused his senses until he pulled it to the second floor and nearly dropping the thing down to the shaft when he put it close to the edge. Once he found that he was on the wrong floor, he grumbled with anger, dragging that hunk of liquid to the opened shaft to be pulled for one more time. He estimated that the power will be out anytime soon, but he’s already tired from all the parkour, his stomach begging for more food and his throat dry in a damp zone. He stopped for a moment to drink water while in the middle of lifting the fuel to the Vault entrance, emptying the whole bottle in record speed. He then put the bottle to his bag’s pocket, doing his responsibility to keep his Vault clean even during tight times. Though, it also came with a reason when sound was transmitted to attract hordes, they gotten smarter to track the source of where it was thrown, and Francis was taking another sip near a shaft when he did that, in a panic threw half a bottle of his water supply to get away. He was not willing to repeat history; he’d learned the subject well and knew the consequences if it really came back haunting humanity, like the World War. That’s not something people wanted to test the countries’ patience for a third time to trash the planet when it’s trashed enough, if they could actually make more nukes under these places.
Francis had been listening to a unique whirring sound that was heard bouncing across walls, the sounds of drilling maybe. He missed the excavating adventures he had taken with his comrades. Travelling into mines deep into the dark and faced many monsters, including the Radscorpions which ruled in some of them. They were considered a minor legend, for these creatures tend to hog around inhabited zones recently, burrowing pass the grounds of many Vaults beneath and fortunately hard to be found. There used to be a contest of hunting down some beastly leaders with a handsome reward of a mountain of Caps and a few crates of fresh Nuka-Cola for the victory celebration. It’s only held for a short-lived two weeks when a huge discovery of a Radscorpion Lord living in the Wasteland, making holes as big as the tunnel dug out under Vault 256, and that was minimal effort to be recorded. There was later a massive leader in every species of hostile threats discovered around the Wasteland. The Radroach King and Deathclaw Commander were the two extra mutant leaders that ruled with sheer terror. Excluding the three monsters mentioned earlier, the other well-known leaders were of none of that particular monstrous proportions, one of them was actually smaller in fact, being the Bloating Wasp, which was as small as a peanut, commanding over insects larger several folds over. Some other beings like the Feral Lieutenant was already hunted and annihilated during some contest session running. There was also a Raider General, but was heard that he got lost in the Borders where to date, nobody had an exact location of him when he brought a good number of people to explore. It was a heroic feat for him to take the risk, but ending up dying proved nothing. Therefore, the second Raider General emerged and was killed several days later by the Second Apocalypse. Another leader dead, and another feat failed to be accomplished.
Francis dumped the stinky fuel into the engine’s tank, making a low chugging sound as the liquid flowed at a steady rate, his eyes looking at the door heading inwards, ensuring no dead wandered in here to do some damage. The last thing he wanted was a nosy zombie coming to spill precious fuel, wasting days’ worth of power. He was done pouring the stuff into the tank, his left hand pinching his nose while looking for the cap under the conditions of low light. He had to restart the engine first to restore the electricity and keep it pumping through the emergency lights. Francis eyed at a locker at the corner of the entrance. The major problem was restarting the engine caused more noise to temporary attract the horde, where they’ll linger for hours at most and then went off to hang out at their favorite spots. So he did some warm up after cooling down his muscles to get them prepared, as his hand reached for the pin connected to the igniter. He then gave a quick powerful tug at it, releasing a ‘Vroom!’ from the inert motor. It was an old model made before the Apocalypse, so it was known to need some good pulls to activate the rusty gears. Though our Dweller had to finish it fast. Rigging the motor for one time was about to get the attention from even the deepest levels of the Vault. Without exhausting more time, he did more pulls, each stronger than the last, fearing the troop of death gaining on in this race against him. And when he came to the sixth pull, the engine let out one last deafening ‘Vroom!’ and chugged for a while before silencing down to vibrate normally to send power to the fluorescent lamps, feeding it with the source of non-living life. This was what Francis liked about the particular engine; it generates power without causing too much noise and was even minimize it to convert to more power, and the unfortunate part was the motor will consume slightly more fuel to do so, to the fact why the tank was three times larger than the tiny motor pose a reason. Sounded like wasting more resources only to mute some annoying buzz that travels to every corridor, but the maker was thoughtful of the future how zombies tend to destroy anything that makes noise. Not that the design was on purpose, just coincidence, sheer coincidence.
The man was really tired of giving this engine a 200% on biceps power to getting it running. He’s just so tired on the upper part of his body, his body took the lifeless top to where the locker was to hide himself from a dreadful group of flesh-eaters, only to meet face to face with the locker wide open. Not that kind of wide open, more like exploded into an iron blossom. The metal box was probably turned into that new beast’s chew toy to train his already sharpened teeth, to where Francis guessed its jaws were itchy to bite whatever that it could sink into, this locker was no exception.
But that only meant his only place to hide was……
Francis could only turn his head to the bare door, the pores on his skin preemptively opening to let sweat pour and his brain beginning to receive a load of adrenaline to run in this dead end……
But where?
----------------------------------------
More growls and groans were heard from the entrance, the zombies looking to the left and right for their missing target, and to no prevail, was not in sight. They even smartly checked the locker zone and flooded the place with rotten flesh. Yet, he was like he just disappeared from the surface of earth, even when the place was illuminated clearly to give the undead an edge. Though, if you got the cell nerves to tilt your head and look up, there was an obvious figure in blue that was squeezing himself into a general air vent, his legs wriggling in empty space. Luck was on the Dweller’s side when this was not one of the lower level ventilation systems to keep dust out. This one was to circulate air and keep it fresh with oxygen, gaining two reasons for being this big. One was to let a large volume of this gas to be supplied to the whole Vault while the other to make the cleaning process easier as the major air vent tends to have nosy visitors once in a while that clogs the airway like a blood vessel. There was a special Dweller who was assigned to this extra task and check the vent weekly. Mr. Handy was not sent up there in order to prevent soot from gathering and dirtying the place when oxygen arrived to the lower rooms, which also caused the oxygen to be used vigorously under a small flame to cast a devastating explosion. The consequences? Everyone was nearly suffocating at the lower floors and the Vault took a risk to open its door for a fortnight until repairs were done and double-checked. The only catch was the vent size was enough to fit an average Dweller on the first floor before shrinking to the size of a child. Fortunately, the broadcasting centre was a few rooms away from the entrance, connected to this lifesaver and paired with a vent door.
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Our sole survivor carefully extracted the bars of metal and put it away with sweat dripping constantly from his forehead. The vent already remained inert and only got the air from the inside of the Vault’s alternative ventilations, resulting it to work in reverse. It got more comfortable for Francis to climb deeper into the one-way system and leap down with a soft thud, as he found a battery for his headlight among the drawers in the radio station, each filled with papers on jokes, recent news and some music discs. Much to his delight, he found two spare ones to be able to use his light for at least another week if he used it often. The term ‘often’ as in turning the headlight on for 24 hours in a row for 3 days. These batteries were used too long and got a bit worn out after years and years of ways to be stuck in portable electronic devices.
So if it were to be asked how many batteries were sacrificed to support the thing on Francis’ head, you could say about half a warehouse of it. Though, Francis himself didn’t cared much, after all, a rescue team was here to save him and he never dared to imagine if they failed to come.
He searched around the place for an item to communicate the team in silence, for the speakers were made to literally broadcast to the entire Vault for a reason of ‘cheering up’ people, if there were any who wanted to listen. These zombies…… Francis predicted they would mutate quick, considering how there was a new species already on the go to hunt in his claimed grounds. He failed to get a clear look of the monster, as it was hidden in the shadows and he couldn’t point light at it. Unlike the former common one, this had a better vision rather than sense of hearing. Unless Francis found night vision goggles himself, he’ll be seeing it when he’s about to fight it, which he does not wish to.
Ten minutes later, he found the headset with its wirings after previously sealing the door. He had silently moved a heavy cabinet to block it, ensuring each push does not make a screech to ruin his plan. He even reinforced the doors with a few door stoppers to further decrease the probability of the undead from barging in. Not that it matters, the zombies don’t even know of a second path that lead to this room. It’s a pity watching the zombies smashing an indestructible barrier of composite materials, but it’s him or them, that’s Francis saying it.
He then plugged the wire in, adjusting the headset he wore to talk. He had put the headlight away to a table for him to grab in a second in case anything happened and for safety measures, his double barrel was loaded and pre-pumped to fire at an intruder to this place. He pressed a few buttons, confirming the circuits were not fried and power was here before he did some complicated twists on the triggers and pressed on some more buttons. Frankly, Francis was glad he kept an eye on his leader manipulating the radio systems, or he won’t get a chance to talk more either.
The system buzzed a bit, some crackling of static went through his ears as the crackle was sent to the Vault, once again alerting the horde. He could hear banging and scratching from behind, though the cabinet didn’t budge an inch while Francis continued to properly shift the system until it proved usable. This was where the Dweller was in a good state of mind and ignored the tension of the world it gave him. He had tried this very many times of doing a barricade and this was one that could last for days before it comes to having signs of breaking. That was how he first created it to block the large horde at the storage level, proving how well the quality of the improvised construction he did.
There was another buzzing until he heard the receiver calling him by name.
“……Francis, are you there?” The voice asked.
“Yes, I’m here, but I need to reply with a low tone. There’s now a horde trying to get in and my barricade should be able to hold them back for a long time.” Francis talked back, feeling relieved of his stress washing off his body. He had chatted with the leader of the rescue team for days and every time he did this, he always heard an engine’s roar. It’s much lighter compared to most other engines, but the leader assured him that they were indeed on their way.
“All right, I need to reconfirm your coordinates, Francis. You say you’re in Vault 265, right?”
“No. it’s Vault 256. The five comes before the six.”
“Oh, is it? Give me a second……”
He felt the connection was cut, but knowing they’ll be redirecting their destination. It had happened twice when the receiver got a blur of the numbers due to all the buzz making it happen. So he can’t blame them for getting a misunderstanding since this Vault also missed the last update to improve the system from Vault-Tec. That one was to remove the static and greatly enhance the radio waves to go faster.
He shifted his thoughts back to the radio when the signal came on. The growls outside were as furious as ever, but still showing the durability was no joke. Only one problem went in Francis’ head when he began thinking of the beast. Only it can break such a puny defense in seconds. He just prayed it didn’t stumble upon the radio station.
“All right, Francis, we got good news. Since your Vault is actually No. 256, that’ll mean our trip will be shortened down to a few minutes.”
“Really?”
“It’s not a joke. We are rerouting as we speak. Head to the entrance to meet us there. We’ll arrive shortly.”
“Understood.” Francis replied back, his nerves suddenly forced his hand to do a salute at nobody. And before he turned the radio down, he was asked to give some data on the zombies he encountered with possible mutations occurring.
“So far, only plain old zombies roaming around, their senses of hearing much more sensitive than that of humans. And…… pretty much that’s all.” He said.
“Is that it? No mutants or stuff?” The other side asked, which sent Francis muttering a bit.
“Well…… there is one of these cases in here……”
“What does it look like?”
“No idea. I often see it in the dark, and never had the courage to shine at that direction. The only way I could describe it was that it’s muscular and perhaps tend to chew on things, like metal.”
“No more mutations?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
And in amidst the sounds emitted from the bangs and scratches together with a headset covering his ears, he heard something……Not just something, someone.
With a successful rapid 180 twist, he held the M-12 up high and aimed at the spot he found the foreign sound. And yet, no one was to be seen. He had his headlight switched on and shined at the place to reflect more light, but then the invader was nowhere. He then snatched the light to put it on his head, and he abruptly retracted it back when a claw swiped pass the zone, leaving a trail of air to blow Francis back. That was where the enemy appeared.
An undead woman with sharp teeth that jut out of her mouth came out of the darkness, her arms at a very freakish ratio, being twice as much longer than her legs. She wore some sort of clothing purely made from dead flesh, as to show her achievements of her kills. Arms, legs and skin being patched up and stitched with a horrible way. He could see that the tip of her hands were well-equipped with claws; one that could infect people badly with the virus it carries. And the news that he should had corrected his error to Jake, the leader of the rescue team.
He’s got two mutants instead of one.
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The woman hissed with hunger, looking at the man who was made from fresh meat and blood, perfect for her new outfit design for that of a dress. All she need was to kill him and skin him alive while the corpse was new and inanimate, but the man had a weapon to scare her away, something she saw as an iron stick that makes explosion sounds and hurts if you got close. She felt fortunate to have long arms to slash at him and yet, they had been circling for almost forever, neither side willing to make a move. Even her arms were slightly out of reach. But then, for that dress, she’ll fight for it! She’ll fight till the end of her second life as a mutant! She, will strive!
‘BANG!’
Francis was nearly cleaved in two by the claws that swung hard, leaving a deadly mark on the ground. He managed to dodge the strike and fire back at her head, a tactical way to immobilize or even kill if his shotgun was directly in front of her. He for sure wished that he had his sniper rifle with a good godly clip for making lots of holes on the mutant’s body. His headlight was swiped by her and thrown to a corner, thus left guarded by the mutant who threw it and blinding Francis in the dark. Watching how the floor reacted to the slash of claws proved that he can’t get touched by her or he’s finished and gone for good.
Roger, in a split second did a roll to the side, missing the next hit by a touch. With a feeling of dread, he glanced at his left arm before rolling again to evade another slash, and was glad the claws tore his cloth but not skin. It was a close call, and he’ll be finding more of it later on if he kept fighting. The beast leapt to his direction and he fired a shell with a loud bang, resulting in both man and monster to fly backwards, with one skidding on the ground, blown a few inches away from his original position. The beast got up from the blast and looked at its torso; pellets and shrapnel made several holes enough to bleed, but not enough to pierce and do more pain. It therefore screamed not in pain but in anger, for it badly wanted Francis to be killed.
The bad news for it was the monster wasted a lot of time complaining on its little wound and on the holes her dress had. By the time she tilted her head up, her senses told her the man was out of sight. Where was he? He was on the ground a minute ago, and unlike the zombies, she too relied on eyesight, for her eyes could see in the dark. His headlight was thrown and right behind…… where’s the headlight? And where’s the……
‘BANG!’
The beast felt a powerful tremor going pass her head, as bits of metal flew into her head and a good chunk of dead brain matter went out in the other. Francis appeared from the monster’s side, his headlight attached to his head and the nozzle of his shotgun quietly got close to the monster head to pull the trigger. Although it was a decent critical hit, the monster got up as if it was nothing. He pulled the pumper and got rid of the empty shell to put in another fresh shot. That monster got up to charge at him, her rage to its limits. He was about to shoot but realized it’s too slow to fire and quickly repositioned his gun to act as a shield and avoid direct contact. From the resultant impact, Francis got knocked back but was still on his both feet, gripping his double barrel hard to aim for two more headshots with the distance done by the blunt hit. The long-armed woman proceeded to swing her claws at a ridiculous pace, refusing to let him fire another shell. Francis was forced to back off until he was cornered, the shotgun knocked off his two hands that held it tightly. If the next slash came at him now, he’ll get scratched, and that meant……
No. He was not going to give up and die being one of them. He had the army Swiss knife in his pocket, but insufficient time to grab it out. He needed something good to slice things in two and…… he found the solution.
“Not today, death!” he shouted out as he thrusted energy into his shoe sole that leaned on the wall, instantly boosting him to dash forward where he slid beneath the wide gap between the monster’s legs. The woman watched in surprise, unable to deal the finishing move while turning her head around to meet face to face with a sharp blade cutting off one of its hands. It screeched in pain, using her other hand to minimize the blood loss dripping from a limb dismemberment.
“Thanks, Charlie. Should have known the lessons you gave me will be put to use soon!” Francis talked to a dead corpse laying on the ground, most of his body parts already chewed and in places all across the radio room. He found his friend’s weapon in a good condition, for his katana surely did a decent cut to severe one’s body in a swing, additionally the length allowed him to perform his attacks at a safe measure, the blade longer than the arms of that beastly woman. With him getting the upper hand, the monster panicked and lunged at him, disregarding the pain she’ll have to endure. And yet, with a parry, Francis effortlessly deflected the attack and caused her to catch off balance, opening spaces to let him land clean cleave on many zones, among severing her other arm and a right leg. Without the support of another limb, the woman fell and did a great fit of trying to keep him from killing her, which was stopped after Francis impaled the katana to her torso, pinning the target in place. Then here was the part the man had enough of seeing mutants near and far in twelve hours, as he fumbled at the Swiss knife, pulling out the classic leaf shaped blade…… and began stabbing her head with sheer madness, making a butchered skull from a double dead fashion designer.
Francis panted, his arms tired of the slash and stab, and stab again moment, the adrenaline wore off to show him the effects of overusing his biceps and triceps for a time wasting sport. It was his ears that heard something, the woman’s mutant body still twitching by a small amount, making a squeaky noise and the earphone’s caller trying to reach the receiver. He got up and snatched it, placing it once more on his ringing ears.
“Francis? Oh god, we almost think we lost you there.” Jake called from the radio, chiming in, “We’re here at the entrance of your Vault now. Head over there and we’ll extract you out.”
“That’s good to know. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Nice. I suggest you stay a feet or two away from the door. We’re preparing our gear to hack it down any time soon. By the way, what’s all that commotion?”
“It’s nothing. Just another mutant I just taken care of. Got some really long arms there to swing at me. Thankfully, there’s a katana too to rival against it.”
“Really? Huh, never expect such a weapon to come in handy. All right, Jake out.”
“Roger that.”
The radio died down when its signal was officially cut from both sides. Putting the headsets to the table, he pumped his double barrel, pushing out the shell he wasted on that fight when that monster wrecked his aiming. He looked carefully at the mutant he had fought, reloading his clip at the same time. The head shifted to his side and the eyes were staring into Francis, giving the uneasy feeling of karma to him.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to waste a few clips, right?” He said to himself, pointing the gun at the woman’s head, pulling the trigger so hard that each bullet was louder, faster, stronger and to the monster’s dying dismay, much more painful than ever.
‘BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!’
Reload……
‘BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!’
Again……