Twilight continues to empty her already near empty stomach onto the cracked stone road, why did the Wasteland have to constantly throw things at her that made her sick to her stomach. After a while she stopped and tried to spit the taste out of her mouth, Anne handing her a bottle. “Thanks…”
“Don’t mention it Princess, seeing a ghoul isn’t the prettiest thing there is.” The woman stated sympathetically.
“How long has that thing even been dead?” The pony asks.
Boone pokes the half decomposed body with the tip of one of his head combat boots. “I’d say around a day or so, sometimes their bodies just get so old and rotten that they just drop dead, things like their heart or brain getting eaten away by bugs and the like.” He said.
“A day?” Twilight asks shocked, taking a gulp of the water before spitting it back out to try and wash the flavor out of her mouth before taking a sip and drinking it this time, she was rather thirsty. “It looks so old and skinny, it’s like there’s no muscle on it…”
“That’s because there isn’t.” Anne said with a sigh. “Ghouls don’t eat much besides meat, and after two hundred or so years there isn’t much you can actually get and thus your body starts eating away at your muscles and make you look like a walking skeleton.”
“We should probably get moving now.” Boone states, putting his rifle back onto his back and crossing his arms as he waits for the two friends to do what they were doing.
Anne patted the pony on the shoulder before standing back up. “Yeah, Boone’s right, we should probably get going now.” Anne agrees.
Twilight sighs and floats the half empty bottle back to Anne and the woman puts it back into her bag before starting to walk up the road again.
“So Boone...” Anne says.
“What is it?” He answers gruffly.
“Tell us about yourself, we’d like to know about our new companion on our journey.”
“If you want, it’s not really my thing, what do you want to know?”
Anne started small, just to get him to open up with them. “What outfit did you serve in the military with?” She asks.
“First NCR Recon, it’s a sniper battalion, sees a lot of action. They moved us around a lot, I was stationed up in Camp Golf for a while. Last I heard they’re at Camp McCarran.”
“How did you join them?” Twilight asks as she walks alongside the much taller humans.
“They pick you out if you do well on the firing range, pays a little better so I said okay.”
“I take it that that’s a First Recon beret?” Anne asks.
“Yeah, you can tell by the patch. Bear skull with crossed rifles behind it, slogan underneath.”
“What’s the slogan?” The pony asks.
“‘The last thing you never see.’ Pretty accurate, and so were we.”
“What’s Camp McCarran?” The purple alicorn asks.
“Was an airport before the war, command liked it because it was already fortified and it let them keep an eye on the Strip. They’ve got an old monorail that still runs between them, used mostly for supplies and deployment. But if you get leave you’re allowed to gamble. Was General Oliver’s post but I heard he’s been up at the Dam a lot lately. Guessing Colonel Hsu is running it.”
“The Dam?”
“The big one, the one the NCR is trying to hold onto, that the Legion is pushing for, the whole war depends on it.”
“What was Camp Golf like?”
“It was on the front line for a while, only resort in New Vegas no one wanted to get sent to. Doesn’t have that kind of importance anymore though. They pulled most of the troops out of there after we took the Hoover Dam.”
Anne wanted to ask something that many might have found insensitive but she wanted to know. “Were you at Bitter Springs with the First Recon?”
His brow furrowed, a slight look of distaste came onto his grim face. “I was in a lot of places with First Recon, I don’t really remember.” He says dismissively.
“You must have been at Bitter Springs, what happened there?” Anne asked.
“That part of my life is over now, so is this discussion.”
“What aren’t you telling us about what happened to your wife?” Anne asked forcefully, surprising both Boone and Twilight with the question.
He voice became cold, hardened. “You got no right asking that.” He stated.
Anne sighs softly. “You’re right, that was out of line.” The woman said softly.
Boone sighs as well. “It’s just something I’m not ready to discus, with you or anybody.”
The awkward silence could have been cut with a knife it was so thick, Twilight looking between the two human sadly, knowing that any chance of pleasant conversation probably just was thrown out a window.
Before the group could walk much further a ghastly screech sounded out, the voice sounding like it hadn’t had its vocal cords wet for years and unused altogether for many more. Both Anne and Boone take out their weapons, Anne with That Gun and Boone with his hunting rifle. Twilight followed soon after and pulled out her 9mm pistol and looked around in confusion.
Soon they could all hear the sound of bare flesh impacting against the cracked road and up ahead, once it passed to crest of the hill they were going up, came running a ghoul, this time it wasn’t green and glowing but a sickly yellow color. Its bones clearly visible against its near muscle-less form and only a pair of extremely worn and torn pants covering it. Its head had no hare and the skin around its mouth was all but gone, leaving its
Without saying a word Boone lifted up his rifle and quickly pulled the trigger, a loud crack escaping the gun and in the same instance the ghoul’s head was reduced to a bleeding stump, not that bloody due to most of the blood having already been lost over the years.
“It seems we were right, it is feral ghouls.” Anne said with an annoyed sigh.
“W-what would be worse, crazy ghouls or not crazy ghouls?” Twilight asks worriedly.
“Well, depends on how many there are, if there are lots of feral ghouls then it’s bad, they’re stronger in number’s while non-feral are just like any other person we’ll meet, just smell a lot worse than others.” Anne said, putting away That Gun and pulling off the NCR rifle she had, racking the bolt and flicking off the safety. “Now get ready you guys. There’s going to be quite a lot of them, I can feel it in my bones.”
Boone nodded and reloaded his magazine of his rifle so it was full before continuing to walk up the hill the ghoul came running over. Anne and Twilight followed soon after, Twilight pulling out Lucky.
Not too long later they saw a large road sign next to the road, showing a picture of two cartoon children heads smiling brightly at the sight of a red cartoon robot holding out one of its metal claws and a rocket ship launching off in the starry background. ‘Hold up, Rocketeers!’ It read. ‘Looking for a tour?’ it said just under that above the children’s heads. ‘Blast up Highway 95 to REPCONN HQ in lovely Henderson.’
Soon they could see a small overpass, just there for the sake of being there it seemed from the lack of road going over the small concrete bridge. Barricades were built along the road and made from old sandbags and destroyed cars.
Anne pointed up at the overpass with a hand, her rifle hanging in the other. “I bet that there will be something of use up there, we’ll take a quick look before we con-“
Another ghastly screech sounded out, this time not just one but half a dozen of them. Popping up from behind the sandbags and cars a bunch of ghouls jumped out, throwing out their arms and opening their horrid mouths out wide before they all started running towards the three.
“Light them up.” Anne said bringing her rifle to her shoulder and looking down the sights as Boone did the same and Twilight pointed her gun at the fast approaching ghouls.
Soon the air filled with the sounds of gunfire, Anne’s used shells of her gun getting flung from the chamber each time a shot was fired off.
The closest ghouls were the first to go, blackened blood spraying from their backs and their bodies jerking as they were hit will bullets. Even before they collapsed the next group of ghouls ran past them, arms outstretched and ready to grab the three.
Twilight quickly ran out of ammo due to the small amount of bullets inside her gun and had to reload quite quickly. Boone’s gun had even less ammo before he had to reload, only five shots before he had to reload but more of his shot actually hit and they did more damage to their target. Anne on the other hand had a full twenty bullets before she had to and with barely a dozen she felt safe.
With sickening splats the bodies of the finally dead ghouls fell to the ground, all three of them standing at the ready in case any other ghouls wanted to show themselves to the trio but nothing happened.
Anne and Boone reloaded their weapons, Twilight following suit because they knew what they were doing. “I’ll go first, you two cover my back, I don’t want anything to kill me if I’m grappled.” Anne stated as she started to walk along behind the sandbags at the side of the road.
Slowly the other two followed after, everyone with guns at the ready in case there were any more ghouls wanted to show themselves. Anne quickly jumped over the sand bag wall, aiming the gun around.
“Clear!” Anne called as she put her gun behind her back. “Looked like this was a defensive line once, but whoever ran it left.”
“Last time I came anywhere near here these weren’t here, they’re resent.” Boone said as he approached, looking around. “Used the burnt up cars as barricades, smart.”
“They were playing a game.” Twilight said, drawing the attention of the two humans. “What? They seemed to be halfway through a game of checkers, if you have that here.”
“We have that here, not many play it.” Anne said walking over to the table with the black and white board was on, Sunset Sarsaparilla and Nuka-Cola caps used as the pieces for each side. “It means that whoever was set up here left in a hurry.” Anne said starting to pick up the caps and put them into a pouch on the side of her bag.
“Then it probably means there was an attack.” Boone stated, looking through the stuff for anything useful.
“Let’s get to the upper layer, let’s see if there is anything else.” Anne said, walking further along the road until they reached a ramp up to the upper bridge type thing.
The three gave the area a quick once over before putting their weapons back away when it turned up clear like below. Anne and Boone started to look through the boxes of things that were along some banged metal shelving.
“Guys, there’s another dead ghoul in here, but it’s in some weird robes and has a really fat gun with it.” Twilight said, looking over a dead ghoul but this time instead of being nothing but skin and bone he had flesh on his frame and his eyes weren’t the bulging ones. A large pool of thick blood was in a puddle underneath it.
Anne and Boone quickly went over and took a look at him. “Well holy shit, he’s a non-feral ghoul, but ghouls don’t kill ghouls so something else did it.” Anne stated.
“Look at its chest, it’s been utterly crush, but nothing is here so it would have been done by a blunt weapon on some sorts.” Boone observed.
“What would have the strength to do something like that?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know but I don’t want to find out anytime soon.”