The entrance light of Vault 256 shone brightly to illuminate the place with a healthy view. Scraps of metal remained scattered over the floor that was left untouched for who knows when. The stink of rotting corpses lingered after since the last horde went away, their prey vanished and nowhere within their sights. The silenced power engine hummed quietly, draining a small portion of fuel every second as it supported the emergency lights to proceed and shine the corridors that dwelled the dead, flickering with inhuman fear. The scene was rather eerie when there weren’t any of the common sounds of growls heard throughout the place, as if the horde was already eradicated before any hunter was here to do their duties.
It was when you could notice the Vault door vibrated a bit, the sound of a kind of item whirring from the outside that attempted to drill in with no sweat and no pressure, for it was a simple task for the rescue team to overcome a titanium door infused with carbon fibers. Honestly, it actually didn’t come with no pressure, but more like extremely high pressures of heat energizing the molecules of the metal until it began glowing with a very tangy cheddar orange, ready to melt on command. The heat was quite the surprising event for one to witness, as it required the heat of 20000 degrees Celsius to make such an impossible demolishing task happen. Even multiple pressurized flamers will find it a challenge.
The door gave way under the influence of heavy fire, turning fast into a molten liquid as the outer force of a horribly hungry flame continued to be pumped to liquefy a dense solid, and at last enough to make a path to let about twenty people enter, each holding a very high-tech rifle. Among the two had a different one as it was slightly bigger, the center part being a glass pipe reinforced and wrapped by steel railing with a tube attached to the back part of the gun to a backpack both of them wearing respectively. The glass pipe part had a radiating red sphere, glowing with a dangerous bloody crimson while strings of strong concentrated red energy flowed in and out of the ball, its size no larger than a fist. It sounded like it was a no big matter of tech, but the duo who had them were responsible for nearly turning a near indestructible wall of defense to molten ash within seconds.
“You know? Next time, we should get more Serpents to come with us. My tank’s halfway out of juice already.” One of the flamethrower wielders said, turning his back to the team to show his thick armored back. There were two red lines shining on the side of it, and roughly a good portion of the light went out but slowly regaining its bright color.
“Stop complaining, rookie. You know that it’ll make the reward drop lower if we have too many people. Besides, after this, you get to purchase a bigger capacity when we get home.” A man said.
“Gee…… I can’t wait, Jake.” The man replied back.
Jake, as mentioned by the trooper stood at the way front of the team, leading them to enter the dark entrance cautiously. The liquid metal hissed as they stepped pass, doing no harm to any of them when all of these men wore powerful armor covering them from head to toe with their boots insulating the heat from their two feet. Jake particularly wished he brought a Wolf down to this trip, and yet every most of them were busy on a major assignment, the rest needing to stay back for defending with the other troops. And to why Jake wanted to do so was because he didn’t like the feeling of walking directly across hot metal that resembled lava from an erupting volcano. His last assignment on securing a road to an active one turned into a tiny apocalypse when it erupted after his team arrived. There were luckily no casualties as the troop were all Serpents and him far from the site, thus he was fortunate to survive without even a scratch on his armor. At least, a Wolf proved useful to freeze things like the puddle of magma-like metal.
He took a look at the team, a total of twenty-one people agreed to participate in this rescue mission. Among the two who used flamethrowers had red armor with several orange linings. Their left shoulder pad had a flame consisted of two sparks, marking their statuses as a Grade 2 Serpent. The others, like Jake himself, wore white armor with grey linings but their pads bore a star instead of fire. Every one of the people only had their star filled with silver by two fifths, presenting a Grade 2 Dragon while Jake had three fifths, making him a Grade 3, and therefore elected as the leader. His current team was composed of two Flamers, two Medics, three Scouts, six Busters, another six Bladers, him and a Tank.
They were all resting now from the ride they took to reach Vault 256; the legs may not be sore but Jake just wanted to stop a Flamer from fussing on his weapon not on full charge for the start of the exploration, while the Scouts went first to check the surroundings. The room was bigger than most of the other Vaults, thus consuming some time. He did a count of his team, ensuring no one was lost and accounted for. And from there, he was puzzled.
“Guys, where’s Johnny?”
Johnny was the Tank of this team. With Jake already adding the Scouts in, the grand total was twenty. He had to count one more time to confirm his arithmetic was all right. He’s was right for countless times, he’s missing again.
“Oh, Johnny? He’s still outside getting his gear ready.” Somebody in the group said. Jake face palmed his helmet, muttering over how slow the toughest unit was with him.
“Can someone check on him? Just in case……”
He hadn’t finished his sentence before a mini mountain of steel came barging in, frightening those near the melted door. His armor was of far more mass than himself, about twice as much if one would see. As a result, his height was half a man taller, but if he took off the suit, he’d be a half a head shorter than the rest. Compared to the others, he had a portable cannon to do some wicked damage, disintegrating most bodies if he were to fire at them.
“Sorry, captain! Got busy in preparing my gear again!” Johnny spoke to Jake, whose face covered by a light blue tinted glass had a grim expression others were unable to look at. All of their helmets had a layer of enhanced fiber glass that protected from things which aimed for the head and was dyed in the process as a minor decoration, besides from keeping other people from looking at their faces like it was their business. Jake by the way had his arms crossed and his right foot tapping in a systematic rhythm, showing how displeased he was. Though he forgave the Tank, as he was the sole Grade 1 Dragon in this team.
“For the last time, get yourself ready early before we go on an expedition. You don’t want to let the Master Overseer down, right?” Jake said to him. Johnny responded with a salute, his cannon slamming the ground with enough force for a small earthquake to be conjured.
“Sir, yes, sir!” He said.
Jake just sighed, taking off his helmet to breathe proper air, choking a bit from the stench that was still around the place. He brushed his hair, shaking his head off from tension and put his helmet back, clicking it in place. For all of the missions, each one was more dangerous than the last, and from Francis; probably the last survivor in Vault 256 who managed to get pass this bunch of trouble would be worth getting the attention of the Master Overseer himself, guaranteed an honor for life. The Scouts themselves had done inspecting and came to report to their captain, who had brought bad news.
“Sir, you might want to take a look at this.” One of the Scouts mentioned, pointing with his finger at a spot where the light didn’t shine at. Together with the trio, Jake went bravely to see the possible monsters they’ll be facing. From what Francis had told him, he was in a dire situation of a Vault full of Clickers, zombies that relied on sound to search for prey. Ever since the last radio call, he was informed of the presence of a Stalker Witch, and as the mutant was still inexperienced in actual combat, the man was successful at slaying it. But that doesn’t concerned Jake a lot, he was more worried of the first mutant that appeared days ago, stated through the radio by Francis. For one sign, Clickers however, tend to evade from dangers such as a hostile group that seemed threatening from looks…… or a really large predator.
He was hoping it was not true, yet after since Francis said the most important details of this mutant, he alerted the team on a potential Grade-A Beast. And the hints left behind by the suspect said so. At one corner of the entrance room was a massive hole that somewhat exploded from beneath. Shining his headlight down, he could clearly see the layers of several floors downwards in a similar way, confirming Jake’s theory.
“Team, Code Red! Mole Tank on the loose, and our survivor is in danger!” He shouted out, instantly causing the armed people to ready their weapons and standing in a firm formation. They got a survivor chased by this mad monster, together with Francis not present to meet them, he may have met his doom and now running away from it. They could take the beast down in mere seconds, but Jake prayed he held on until he and his reinforcements arrived.
“Let’s move, people!”
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Vault 256. A once peaceful bunker that kept a hundred and fifty lives up and well, had fallen into ruins that no one would recognize any time soon. Laughter was once heard emitting behind the door and several floors below the very ground, what was left of the laugh were only silent mourns and wails of the souls trapped from within. The place would crumble. The place would perish. No one will remember it and it’ll be a forgotten haven that those who lived inside had died with it altogether. There, lies the living legacy of the final survivor who get to breach pass the undead horde to live and tell everyone the story.
But now, he’s in the climax of his own story, encountering the worst being he could have not faced. He had not known of the mutant’s origins. All he knew was he saw it as a predator, and it saw him as food to eat on. He had been running for all of his life, the distance coverage further than his bullets travelling all in one. He ran and ran, the finishing line of his life never even close by an inch. He could take the shortcut now shown to him, shining like the heavens, begging him to come and put all of this away.
Francis was cornered five minutes later by the giant beast he had been hiding from, finally showing its deadly monstrous form under a visible light. He clearly remembered the large hole back at the entrance was definitely not there when he powered the engine, confirming it was all related to the sounds of faint drilling, when the guilty one had one of its arms as a metal drill, still creating an unpleasant whirring sound. The tooth of this beast too, jagged out but among its unique features were two teeth that acted like tusks and its eyes hollow. The more eye-catching feature may be the rabbit teeth stuck in the mouth, or to be precise, Mole Rat teeth.
‘So that’s how it got the digging ability……’ Francis had thought, putting a partial conclusion into his panicking mind.
He was also curious of the sudden silence that came after he fought the long-armed woman; all of a sudden, the undead at the radio room door disappeared without a trace, not planning an assassination nor pretending to leave, just…… gone. That served to only make the problem harder. And now he was at the corner of his hideout spot, the beast wreaking havoc wherever it went, expanding the corridor size with a brutal, rough way while making more holes over walls, floors and ceilings.
He shivered with fear, the road to leave this crazy world was wide open for him, the light radiating with madness and the voices convincing him to enter. But did he take the chance for that?
No. He took the other.
He fought back an unbeatable opponent, his head driven by his will and the principle he had followed since he became a Wasteland explorer of the Vault. To date, he still followed it like a god.
To never cower away from your problems.
He had wasted three clips over releasing his fumes on the other beast, leaving him with about another three more to launch at a monster that doesn’t understand the meaning of pain. He did a continuous quadruple blast that caused a knockback and nothing more. With the breathing space he earned back, Francis dodged to the right when a drill shaped fist came ramming at him, reloading the double barrel with his fastest speed and fired another set of shrapnel that bounced off the monster’s skin. The muscles pulsated just under the surface of toughened flesh, and not a cut was made. It was later he got clawed, being thrown far to the other side of the room. Francis didn’t get an open wound and instead had bruises from parts he can’t see. He felt a rib cracking, but still got the strength to pull himself together, gripping the trigger and aimed for the head with a classic ‘BANG!’, causing a second knockback and he shifted his aim to hit the knees, letting it fall to the ground face first. Before the monster got the chance to recover, he fired the M-12’s fourth shot, the nozzle touching the cranial. Within the flash, his left hand held the last four bullets, his lucky number depending on it, stuffed rapidly and did the last four shell counts.
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‘BANG!’
Three……
‘BANG!’
Two……
‘BANG!’
One……
‘BOOM!’
Zero…… the last shell…… finished, the man putting his double barrel down a few seconds later to see the results as soon as the monster stopped budging, the lights going out. It ended quick, but he doesn’t want to suffer another second; it’s best if these situations finish faster before another arrived. Surely, the fight was shorter compared to the woman mutant, while when the man inspected the corpse lump and found its head…… still intact in the dark. The lights flickered back on for a short while, telling him it was too late to avoid a tackle from the monster.
“Ah!” A sudden shout came from Francis; the beast tactically laid low to fake its death and make a great opening, with its prey taking the bait. Roger got slammed into a wall, acting as a human sledgehammer that now broke most of his rib bones, immobilizing him almost immediately for a short period of time. He managed to get up, his energy draining fast from the pain he suffered and get to only do a ground roll until he felt his body going numb, the double barrel doing a ‘Click!’ when he tried firing it, remembering that it was empty, and he had no shells left to feed it. He was seeing double, the effects of both hunger and inner injuries worsening it, as he was about to black out. His adrenaline was exhausted from short battles, the katana he had brought for a potential close combat was expended beforehand, sticking out at the back of the beast, which was picked off and broken afterwards. For Francis, who thought to himself, if he died here, he better needed an explanation on what happened to his friend’s most precious blade, or he’d be dying a second time in the afterlife. His eyes had no strength to move, only looking up, the eyelids getting heavier after every second. What he saw was the beast ready to doing its finishing move on him. From what he could tell, this thing, was killing for sport. With him on a half lying position face up, he just embraced the fate that he won’t be escaping the home he used to live in. With the lights out, he could only see a large black figure about to land a heavy drill strike onto his body, creating a bloody pit out of him and his damaged organs. He coughed up some blood, the fluid filling his pierced lungs and yet his heart continued to pump the leftover few liters to his body, maintaining its weakened life. Time seemed to slow down, for the moment had arrived to greet him.
What was left for Francis to do was not embracing it anymore. If he were to not get over this problem, he’d at least do one last favor to humanity by removing one monster from the surface of earth.
That was where he eyed at the stack of gasoline tanks at one side of the room. This type of petrol was incompatible with the power engine upstairs, and served little purpose other than doing a quick fire starter for the Vault’s indoor barbeques and empowering flamers, when they don’t have any. But what the worldwide would indefinitely knew about gasoline was that it catches fire at an alarming rate and explodes if a barrel was set on fire. Considering there were seven to eight of these things, it could par with a belt of grenades easily. And with just a bit of luck, Francis caught something else with his eye as a way to start a small spark of fire.
Under his workbench, a small cylindrical piece of metal with one third of it painted red revealed itself to be a lost shotgun ammo, the hope to defeat the thing was lit up brighter than the spark soon to be ignited.
Although his ribs were broken and may further cast a critical wound, Francis just gritted his teeth to do a side roll, swiftly getting away from the monster’s sluggish attack to pick himself up and went for the shell. His footsteps were majorly halted close to a stop, his body wanting more oxygen but was unable to provide a sufficient supply. As a result, his legs took the toll when he fell flat face first, proceeding to complete his plan when he first started it. The monster, surprised of his prey’s disappearance amidst in the dark found his headlight bobbing across the room, feeling raged and the man felt the bloodlust of the beast coming near to end him.
“Just…… a little…… more……” He sputtered, but felt his feet being gripped, then he was shocked to see him being dragged away from his workbench and to roughly two feet from the gasoline. The monster roared in his face, spewing plenty of awful not-tasty spit. Now out of energy, he was capable of gripping the shotgun’s handle in his right hand pointing at the barrels…… empty with no shell to fire.
There was the sound of an item chucked into a weapon, as Francis’ other hand held his fire starter; the last ammo for his M-12. His face was with glee, satisfied that he made it this far, pulling the trigger hard to set the room in hell flames.
“So long…… sucker.” He muttered, a smile stuck on his tanned face.
Another bang was heard, the shrapnel flying pass to the canisters, each possessing a powerful flame to burn their targets to the core. And yet, Francis had to say that this monster, was smart to see through his plan. There, in between the bullet bits and gasoline was a large iron drill bouncing the shots off with no effort.
“What a…… clever one.” He complained, closing his eyes to meet his doom……
But things kept stopping him from watching the expected. He didn’t felt the pain of an impaling drill, just the wounds he had for now. He heard something and was sort of confused for the time being.
Where’s the rescue team?
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“Open fire!”
A command busted its way to the room where a pile of gasoline tanks, a workbench, an electronic power bar, a fallen locker, some lemongrass and several miscellaneous knick-knacks were placed. After that shout a series of short white beams flew into Francis’ hideout and struck directly over to the Mole Tank, who turned around and roared back with fury until another white beam, this time larger than the rest earlier hit the center chest, knocking the beast backward followed by a second round of smaller beams, each dealing the thick muscles with a lot of pain than what Francis had taken. By the time the firing ceased, the Mole tank was truly a double dead monster. Both its front and back were severely having portions disintegrated and fried. Even the drill couldn’t survive without a few dents, or merely a few pieces missing. The smoke hissed from the one corpse laying on the ground, twitching a little before one last beam came hitting it like a meteor. Francis just watched in awe, admitting that was the really quick finish and became a bit of an overkill on the beast.
“Clear!” Another command boomed into the room, this time a small team barged in, all in white armor with a rifle Francis had never seen in his life. The systems, the wiring, so perfect that it was obvious for that it was the team sent to bail him out of the Vault. Some held blades that shimmered with the same white energy as the beams, buzzing in silence as the others scouted around, looking for any hazards with two in red armor guarding the entrance. None of them paid attention to the wounded man other than three people, among two with some kind of smaller version of these rifles, now tucked into the sides of their backpacks, and to his surprise, stuck fast like glue when there were no pockets. He felt his eyes got blinded after a blue light shined down from his head to his body, realizing the two were scanning for his injuries for first aid.
Yes, he was in dire need of that now. He could feel his body giving into fatigue as one scanned him while the other feeding him a sweet jelly snack, in a flash recovering his consciousness and the energy to move around, but he was told to sit still until his conditions were stable. The larger wounds miraculously healed on its own without any issue or from any medical assistance, assuming it was all the work of the miracle treat he had consumed. It was delicious anyway, and Francis got a second helping of it. Sadly, the portions were small and enough for two mouthfuls of it, as the jelly was stored in a kind of mini discus with a place to put the mouth in while the center was a soft squishy zone to press and squeeze the jelly out.
One word. Yummy. Francis felt he was back in his childhood when his mother made some warm jelly in the younger days of his. The flavor was a fruity mix and it was a classic for his taste buds to feel. He was rather famished after rationing his food and water to a high level. But today, he could let it all out and enjoy as much as he wanted.
“Well, well…… what a greedy survivor you are. Don’t worry, take as much as you want. We still got a good supply for where that jelly came from.” The man behind the two doctors said, his helmet covering his entire head to not show his face. It was then the man; maybe the captain of the team took off his helmet to meet him in a literal face to face. He got closer, sticking out a right hand, his left holding the helmet between in his armpits.
“Let’s make a proper introduction, shall we? The name’s Jake. Nice to see you, Francis.”
The man, now energized, returned the handshake, “Nice to see you too, Jake. What took your team so long?”
Both of them chuckled for a bit, easing the tension while they let the medics do their work, the blue lights kept on scanning Francis’ body up and down. Roger himself had never even seen such advanced tech up till today. There were plans by Vault-Tec to raise this dream to reality, but as the funding to start it was never enough followed with a massive amount of resources needed to be supplied into, the project was given up. So far the plan for immortality was successful, everyone having their age flow stopped after reaching the stage of an adult. That was no other than the feeling of being grateful to Vault-Tec to make their living in the Vault better. No more wrinkles and grey hairs coming to make one’s life miserable.
Francis could see the two red ones remained at the door, occasionally releasing a blast of fire or two to whatever that got close to here. When just now, a zombie managed to get through but was quickly sliced into shreds by the ones who had energy swords. One of them was bitten, but it seemed the zombie was making useless efforts to chew at a tough suit of armor, something else Francis had never quite seen. He heard of power armor, yet had not watched this kind of model in any of the Vaults, not even Vault-Tec said about it.
“Quite a lot of Zs out there.” Jake spoke to himself, his arms were crossed and face looking at the door. Francis just silently let him and his team do his work. Most of his heavy wounds were already treated with the help of the special jelly, leaving just one last major wound on his right arm and the minor wounds that were healing naturally. His bones and joints also attached themselves back inside his skeletal system, feeling more comfortable as the pain lightened.
The lights were out and were not turning back on, only the men’s headlights kept the area bright, so Francis bet the main cable at the Vault entrance got pulled off and disconnected the power to this and the lower floors. He told Jake about it and sent three of those blade wielders and gunners to put it back. He relaxed while the treatment continued, and the captain himself came back to check on it.
This dream had ended with a happy ending for him.
“Finished? How’s the results?”
“He’s looking good, sir.”
Francis was glad the nightmare was over, and he could at least rest in a zombie free bunker or whatsoever. To think he’ll die now will be a silly thing to occur anytime soon. Now that his story was coming to the finale, he could begin sketching his draft on how to tell the people in the new bunker about how he survived a Vault full of those dreaded Zs for a whole week of silence and got out free of……
“But sir, he’s infected. The wound on his right arm, it’s not normal. It’s the Z-Virus there.” The words of discouragement crashed into him like a Wasteland sandstorm.
No! No! No! No! No……!
Francis panicked in his head, watching Jake giving the orders to the two medics, nodding a head.
“Do it.”
“No!” Francis yelled with a close to crying expression, his hopes shattered to the bottom of a void when he tried getting up and run away. Unfortunately, four of the people, including a medic held him to prevent him from escaping. The people raised their guns at him while he struggled to loosen their grip.
This was it. This was the ending of the last legacy of Vault 256, none of the survivors able to get themselves out and could only be set free through death, either from infection or torn to random gore bits.
He was going to finish loosening the last two who paused him in his tracks, until Jake voiced out in a hurry.
“Hold still, will you Francis? We’re giving you a cure here!” He shouted, the sound spreading to the corridors and drawn in more Clickers to be burned into naught and black cinders.
“Ah?”
The freaked out survivor just halted in his actions, suddenly confused of the reasoning Jake had given until he felt a sharp zing of pain shot into his arm, turning his head to find a high grade syringe with a particular long needle injected into his veins, the colorless fluids flowing into his body. The difference of this syringe was a great one if compared to a Stimpak, for the design was simple and was like a small fluorescent lamp, the tube where it kept the vaccine fluid intact and a retractable needle for safe keeping. With a closer inspection, both the medics had four of these on their metallic backpacks, with a total of eight minus one taken by him for neutralizing the virus.
The lights got their yellow white glow after a moment, the six of those people as well returned from their little task given while the rest put their guns down, proceeding back to their standard positions and let go of Francis, letting him stood up unharmed. He brushed off more dust from his Vault suit, checking on the wound they said on his right arm. For sure, that was the part they injected the unique serum to him; the large wound already formed a layer of new skin cells to prevent more blood from flowing in. Though, it was true that the forming scar was bigger than the other outer injuries with a slight tad of dried blood sticking to it, but he had a doubt in that somewhere in his mind. He glanced at the gasoline tanks, they probably remained inert after they left. Now, he wished to ask a question to Jake, about the part of curing him.
“Why didn’t you explain it to me just now? I could had sit still if you just say ‘Cure him.’, not the ‘Do it and kill’.” He protested.
“Sorry, Francis. We hadn’t had much of that experience for that. We’re still newbies, learning while we do our assignments.” He replied back in an apologetic tone.
“Your guys nearly killed me!”
“We thought you’re turning into a zombie!”
“……”
“Sorry again. Most Zs often attack and struggle like how you did. But that’s all over, isn’t it?”
“Yeah……”
“So, is it time to go?”
Francis nodded his head, silently answering with a yes. But then, his mind came up with a few things ahead, regarding the souvenirs.
“First, can we go get a weapon of mine? I…… wanted to keep it as a memoir.”
“No problem,” Jake said until he touched a button on the left side of his helmet, then put up a finger, “Just don’t take too long, all right.”
“Sure.” Francis told him and went for the door, suddenly stumbling down as his legs were far exhausted from days and days of running, hiding and boosting. He was supported by two people, one including Jake to allow him to move better, although limping about as all of them got out to go for the armory, for his long abandoned sniper rifle.
And there we have it, the Vault 256’s legacy lived, bringing away his prized possession to haul over his victory of keeping himself alive……
And also adding a page to his story of how he embarrassed himself in front of the rescue team by pissing in his own pants, where other than him, nobody knew.
He felt his tummy rumbling, the jelly wasn’t enough to fill up his afternoon meal. Seeing that it’s about an hour pass noon, he didn’t hesitate to ask the men, “Are you guys having lunch soon?”