Heroine for Hire

FALLOUT 3 – Heroine for Hire
By The Great Shaggy

WARNING: Contains the following offensive material - Anguish/Torment, Anal, Death, Hand Job/Fingering, Language, Non-Consensual force or rape, Oral Sex, and Violence.

Readers Discretion is Advised.

Chapter Characters:

Female
Anastasia – Former Vault 101 Dweller; also known as Anya
Jessica – Former Vault Dweller and slave; also known as Jessi
Kelsey – Mercenary
Rebecca Yearling –Order of the Scrolls Scribe, Brotherhood of Steel
Athena – NYC Resident

Male
Charon - Ghoul
Jeffery Stepien – Paladin, Brotherhood of Steel
Clinton Hoss – Paladin, Brotherhood of Steel
Lee Brimmicombe-Wood – Village Elder of Milltown
Jonathan Gawne - Ghoul


Chapter Five: The City of the Damned

And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him – Revelation 6:8

The landscape was a constant blur of browns, greens, and blue colors beneath the Brotherhood’s VB-02 Vertical Take Off and Landing multipurpose tiltwing aircraft, or commonly referred to by both the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steels as Vertibird. Originally designed and built in conjunction by Bell/Lockhead Aerospace Corporation and West Tec as part of the US Military Advanced Future Weapons Program beginning on 2070, the Vertibird was to be the key to ease the burden on the military’s supply line crisis. Designed as a tiltrotor aircraft, with one three-bladed proprotor, turboprop engine, and transmission nacelle mounted on each wingtip, it was classified as a powered lift aircraft by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. For takeoff and landing, it typically operates as a helicopter with the nacelles vertical. Once airborne, the nacelles rotates forward ninety degrees in as little as twelve seconds for horizontal flight, converting the VB-02 to a more higher-speed turboprop airplane. Short take-off and landing capability is achieved by having the nacelles tilted forward up to forty-five degrees. For compact storage and transport, the VB-02’s wing rotates to align, front-to-back, with the fuselage. The proprotors can also be folded in a sequence taking ninety seconds.

The VB-02 is equipped with a glass cockpit, which incorporates four Multi-Function Displays and one shared Central Display Unit, allowing the pilots to display a variety of images including: digimaps centered or decentered on current position, FLIR imagery, primary flight instruments, navigation, and system status. The flight director panel of the Cockpit Management System allows for fully-coupled functions which will take the aircraft from forward flight into a fifty-foot hover with no pilot interaction other than programming the system. The VB-02 was also designed as a fly-by-wire aircraft with triple-redundant flight control systems. With the nacelles pointing straight up in conversion mode at ninety degrees the flight computers command the aircraft to fly like a helicopter, with cyclic forces being applied to a conventional swashplate at the rotor hub. With the nacelles in airplane mode the flaperons, rudder, and elevator fly the aircraft like an airplane. This is a gradual transition which occurs over the entire ninety-six degree range of the nacelles. The lower the nacelles, the greater effect of the airplane-mode control surfaces.

The hull was made up of a composite metal that was light but gave the fuselage a heavily armored defensive durability and was outfitted with a variety of offensive weapons and defensive countermeasures, the most common being a L30 Gatling Laser and missile racks. The aircraft was powered by an internal fission reactor, supplying its thirty-two feet Advanced Composite Rotors with sixty-five hundred kilowatts each that propelled the craft to speeds up to three hundred and seventy miles per hours.

The Vertibird was still in prototype phase when the Great War struck in 2077, preventing it from entering full military service scheduled for 2085. However, the trial aircraft that were already produced and in the field were seized by Enclave members and loyalists and either transferred to their bases or secured in shelters. The Enclave began mass-producing the design in secret, and now the Vertibird is the general-purpose delivery vehicle of the Enclave's military forces. Capable of surgical insertions and extractions and close air support alike, the Vertibird is synonymous with the Enclave in general, and a good representation of its power as a whole. However many of these aircraft were captured by the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel after its victory over the Enclave of 2278 and pressed into their service.

Inside the fuselage of the racing Vertibird was the seven-member team that Anya had chosen for the search and rescue mission to the ruins of New York City; sealed tightly in their gray power armor suits were the Paladins Jeffery Stepien and Clinton Hoss, seated next to them wearing a set of matte black and red combat armor was the Order of the Scrolls Scribe Rebecca Yearling, across the aisle from them sat a silent Kelsey, Jessi, and Anya’s Ghoul Companion Charon who was checking over his new EP-8 Plasma Rifle. Deciding that she needed another solid shooter, Anya had approached Charon and asked if he wanted to tag along. She thought she would have to persuade the Ghoul to come with her and was bewildered when he agreed as soon as she asked without having to intestate him.

The plan that was agreed upon by Anya and Elder Lyons was that the team would be dropped off approximately seven kilometers from the outskirts of an inhabitant settlement that had been early discovered in an aerial reconnoiter three days prior. The team was to meet with the local leader of the settlement and attempt to gain any information about the ruins of the city, which lay fifteen miles to the northeast, before proceeding on foot to the city of New York. Once inside the ruins, they were to make all due haste to the position of the Lyons’ Pride Outpost and establish contact with them before reporting back to the Citadel so as to reassess the situation for sending in Vertibirds to extract the Pride and her team. It sounded so easy, but Kelsey’s warnings and the report of the missing Repair Team's Vertibird had made Anya a little bit on edge.

She didn’t like going into any scenario as blind as she was with this. All the information she had so far was what she learned from what Lyons and Rothchild had told her or from listening to the recorded radio transmissions from the New York Outpost back to the Citadel. Most of the reports were filled with information on the reconnaissance of the ruins within a ten mile radius around the outpost that was established in some tower called the Chrysler Building. However on the last two reports it was mention they had retrieved new data indicating the location of the New York Technical Institute of Technology but had to reconfirm on a patrol since a the information was sketchy at best. There was no follow up question as to what she met by the information being sketchy at best which left Anya wondering what she meant by that remark.

“Could’ve been from some ghouls,” Charon remarked when she was discussing the audio tapes with her team.

Yearling had agreed by saying, “He might be right. Before the bombs dropped the City of New York had an urban density of thirty-six thousand square miles hosting a population of roughly thirty million. We know that in DC when people couldn’t make it into the Vaults they took shelter in the labyrinth of transit and sewer tunnels that ran underneath the city. A majority of them died but some survived to be mutated into ghouls.”

“Who knows, maybe somewhere in those ruins is a city full of ghouls that would make Underworld pale in comparison,” added Charon. “I’ve heard there is a city like that out west on the other coast, nothing but ghouls and no smooth skins.”

“Even if there were a City of Ghouls, that doesn’t explain the cease in transmissions and the missing Vertibird,” Kelsey said.

Jessi nodded. “Do you think they stumbled upon an Enclave base or a contingent from the Commonwealth?”

“It’s possible, I wouldn’t rule it out,” Hoss remarked. “But there had been no reports of any Enclave encounters since they left the Capital Wasteland and I don’t see them setting up shop amongst the ruins of an old city just for the hell of it. But this Commonwealth could’ve been there and the Pride could've stumbled upon them.”

“Or it’s something that we don’t yet know about,” finished Stepien.

The last remark had effectively killed the conversation and now the only noise that could be heard in the hull was the muffled, chopping sound of the Vertibird’s twin rotor wash. That place had nothing to offer the living but death. Kelsey’s comment kept ringing in her head, causing Anya to wish that she’d pried Lyons to spare a few more troops as the co-pilot glanced over his shoulder.

“Three minutes out,” he announced.

Giving him a nod, Anya took a deep breath as she and the rest of her team started to gather their packs and weapons together. The aircraft pitched to the left as the whine of the rotors increased in decibels as the hydraulic pumps inverted the massive blades and engines mounts to slow the speeding aircraft as the nose pitched up. There was a slight thump as the wheels made contact with the ground and then the hatch broke open, spilling in a cloud of whirling debris into the hull. Exiting the Veribird, the seven-member teamed moved away from the aircraft as the lumbering mechanical beast lurched back into the air and was nothing more than a speck on the horizon within minutes.

Gathering their bearing by looking at the sun overhead, Anya motion with her hand and the team fell in behind her as she started to walk off towards the northeast. The terrain that they traveled through was vastly different than that of the Capital Wasteland; instead of being barren and desolate, trees and bushes had repopulated the landscape although grass was limited to small blotches here and there. To those who grew up in the barren, almost desert landscape around Washington DC, to walk amongst the small woods that covered the remnants of pre-war civilization seem almost alien to them.

Stopping periodically to recheck their bearings, the team finally came to the edge of a clearing about an hour and half into their journey. From there they laid their eyes upon on a pre-war town surrounded by a three meter tall wall made up of various components from metal fencing and sheet metal to piled up fission cars to concrete bricks. The clearing that they were facing appeared to be plowed and had crops growing in the soil fascinated Yearling. Women and a few men dressed in various forms of crudely sown clothing tolled in the fields or tended to the herd of Brahmin that was kept in check by a few dogs. However it was what lay behind the town that made their mouths dropped; the entire horizon was nothing more than one solid set of urban ruins that stretched as far they could see.

“I thought this town was suppose to be fifteen miles from the city?” inquired Hoss.

“It is,” replied Kelsey. “Those city ruins are Newark and Jersey City. New York lay beyond those.”

Lowering her binoculars, Jessi turned to Anya. “I don’t see anyone armed out there.”

“The town is probably nothing more than a bunch of dirt toilers,” remarked Stepien.

But Anya wasn’t buying it. Unarmed farmers and herders working away in a wide open clearing with no visible cover, granted this wasn’t the Capital Wasteland but still it was a wasteland even with the grown vegetation and that itself was a threat that people took seriously enough to be armed. No, something else was afoot here.

She looked at Charon, who was studying the ground of the clearing. When the ghoul was intrigued by something chances were there was a reason for it. “Mined?” she asked.

Charon nodded as he pointed to extremely small, hardly noticeable blemishes on the surface of the clearing beginning just a few feet out from the clearing. “Yep, looks to be a mixture of a high density field. Probably has a little bit of everything to keep the unwanted ruffians out.”

Which made tactical sense; by using a high density minefield you could cover your flanks from attack, as well as your gardens and herds from plundering wildlife or un-residents, while concentrating your main defensives towards the main approaches. Whoever was running the show in that town wasn’t a dummy.

“Don’t think they’ll take too kindly to us if we try to clear a path through their defenses,” replied Anya. “Guess we’ll have to do it the easy way.”

“Which is?” asked Yearling.

Anya smiled. “By going up the road.”
********


As she thought it would be, the main road was covered by a tower that flanked either side of the main gateway that lead into the town. From that vantage point the defenders had clear fields of interlocking fire for a hundred and eighty degrees. Walking up the road there were signs on either side instructing those approaching the Town of Milltown to keep to the road and have all weapons slung or holstered. As they approached they had to walk in a zig-zag between crudely, yet effective barricades that Hoss commented had to be choke points that funneled group of attackers into pre-arranged kill spots. The inhabitants definitely had their defensives wired tight which only caused to disturb Anya even further.

Every town in the Capital Wasteland had some sort of defensives build into them to keep out the occasional Raider, Super Mutant, or mutated insect attack with only the biggest being able to stop an all out Raider or Slaver Attack Party. Yet this town, which didn’t look to be any bigger than three times the size of Big Town, had a defensive posture that could rival Megaton and even Rivet City. Which made Anya wonder if Raiders or Slavers weren't the only problem affecting the town which made her think of possibly Super Mutants or maybe it was something else unforeseen that Stepien had hinted on?

The three individuals in the tower directly ahead of them followed their progress with the barrels of heavy weapons until they were near the gate when what appeared to be automatic gun turrets built at the base of each tower started to track them.

Peering over the ledge of the tower, a man with a grizzly facial complication called out, “You don’t look like you’re from around here. Who are you and what do you want?”

Anya took a stepped forward and said, “We’re from the Brotherhood of Steel of the Capital Wasteland of Washington DC. We request an audience with your town leader.”

There was a moment of silence when the man replied back, “So you are, huh? Are you those bloody people in those crazy flying thingumajigies that have everyone so spooked?”

“Yes, we are.”

The guard muttered something underneath his breath and disappeared back over the railing.

“Well that could’ve gone better,” Yearling said as Anya turned back around with a perplexed look on her face. “So now what?”

“I suppose we wait,” she replied.

The wait wasn’t as long as Anya expected to be. Within a few minutes the large metal gate groaned as one of the doors yawned slightly open to allow an elder man outside. His face was as wrinkled as a prune with red bloats dotting his temples and forehead. The grayish mane that graced the top of his skull had receded to nearly the top of his head and flowed down his back, being pulled tightly into a pony tail at the back. His greenish eyes shined brightly seeming to betray his age. He wore an assortment of hand sewn leather over pre-war clothing with a flowing trench coat that had seen better days.

He studied the group with only his eyes dancing between them. Finally he spoke, his voice filled with the authority of a man who commands respect and loyalty to those around him. “I am Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, the village elder of Milltown and leader of its peoples. And who might you all be?”

“My name is Anastasia, and these are my companions,” Anya replied, waving her hand behind her. “We come from the wasteland outside Washington DC on a mission to New York City from the Brotherhood of Steel. We are-”

But before she could finish, Lee held up his hand, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “My dear child, you only look to be less than twenty years of age. And the one behind you, the pink hair one, appears to be even younger. Why are you so willing to throw your young lives away on a fool’s quest into that pit of darkness that lies beyond the horizon?”

Just like what Kelsey was warning us about, she thought to herself as she continued her explanation. “Our business inside those ruins is our own. However since we are new in the area we are hoping if we gain information from you about the surrounding area and maybe even the ruins themselves, it could help us accomplish our mission in a more expedient manner.”

“Child, I’ve lived a very long time and have seen much in my old age, but no information I can give to you will help you in those ruins if you choose to travel to your death there.”

Anya was about to speak again when Yearling stepped beside her and asked, “Elder Wood, if I might so and ask, but why are you afraid of those ruins?”

The old man seemed to hesitant, deeming if he should choose to answer the question. Finally he replied, “That is a long story that shouldn’t be told out here. Come, we’ll be much safer inside the protected walls of Milltown so you can hear my tale and deem if you should choose to continue your journey afterwards.”

“Thank you, Elder,” said Yearling. Padding Anya’s shoulder, she whispered, “Sometimes it pays to be courtesy and respectful to your elders.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” muttered Anya as she followed the rest of her companions through the opening in the gate.

Milltown had apparently been build around the slightly damaged ruins of a pre-war town with the buildings that lined either side of the circular street having been repaired various times. There were no hulks of derelict old fission cars lining the streets, which were free of debris and garbage, and the street lamps apparently looked to be functioning. However the atmosphere that they felt the deeper they went into the town was a mixture of surprise and fear; mothers would gather playing children and move them inside, dogs would growl or bark at them, and men would just stare at them as the women drew closer to them.

Charon was the first to exclaim on the residents’ unease perception of them. “You’d find more cheer in Underworld then here.”

Hoss couldn’t argue with the ghoul as he tried to nod his head to a group of residents only for them to take a few steps backwards to further distance themselves from the strange new arrivals. “They sure don’t like outsiders.”

“Well what do you expect when they see a band of seven heavily armed strangers probably wearing clothes they’ve never before seen is walking down the middle of their secured town?” asked Yearling.

The conversion ended as they approached a two story building that lay directly in the center of the town and looked totally out of place amongst the others. While the buildings they’d seen as they traveled through the town was a mixture of brick and wood, this one was elegantly build with mason pillars leading up to a porch with a iron banister that crossed the entire second story face of the building. Upon entering the dwelling, the interior seemed to be decorated and furnished from items scavenged from the ruins of a high-class hotel.

Lee must’ve seen their expressions as they gaze at the various elegant décor that filled the rooms. “Most of the furniture and décor came from hotels in the ruins during the earliest scavenging trips when Milltown was first established. This house has served as the office and home of the village elder for nearly a century now.”

“This house seems a bit out place judging from the others that we’ve seen already,” Yearling stated as they followed the old man into his office.

The Village Elder of Milltown smiled as he sat in a plush chair behind his equally elegant desk that seemed to be of pre-war manufactured. “My dear, you have a wonderful sense of insight. This house was originally built to cover over the entrance to a Vault.”

“There’s a Vault underneath this town?” exclaimed Anya.

“Is that so hard to believe, my young child?” he asked with a smile, which faded as quickly as it appeared. “Milltown was founded by the lucky few who managed to reach the Vault in time before the door sealed shut. For eighty years they remained hidden and locked underground living out their lives to the day the door was finally opened. None of the original members of the Vault were alive when they stepped out into the hellish landscape that greeted them. They weren’t ready for the horrors of what the new world had in store for them and it showed. Within months nearly half of them were either dead, disappeared, or enslaved. The rest of them probably would’ve succumbed to the same fate hadn’t been for the arrival of that man.”

They followed his pointing gesture to a portrait of a middle age man that hung over the mantle by a group of pictures.

“Tucker Lee Lewis, a former Vault Dweller himself turned wanderer after being exiled for a misunderstanding. He was the one who got my ancestors organized, who helped them build this town and use the Vault’s GECK to revitalize the soil and water for vegetation grow and farming. He helped them survive in those crucial first few years.”

“Was he the first village elder?” asked Jessi.

“No, he left after only being here for five years and disappeared back into the wastes never to be seen or heard from again,” Lee finished. “Village Elders are selected by their age, not by popularity. When an Elder dies his successor is usually the second oldest resident of Milltown. I myself haven’t held this position for more than five years since the passing of Mary, a good woman she was.”

“Is this Vault still operational?” Anya asked.

Less nodded his head. “Indeed it is, however we only use it for a shelter now.”

“What do you mean by ‘shelter’?” inquired Yearling.

Moving uncomfortable in his seat, Lee took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Forgive my nervous appearance, I really don’t like to discuss what I’m about to tell you. You see, Milltown wasn’t the only settlement around the ruins of the cities to the northeast. There were many, in fact, about twenty years ago, dotted all over the landscape. I remember there was even talk about forming a centralize government to unite all the towns, then came the Year of Serenity.”

When he didn’t go on, Anya leaned forward in her chair and asked, “What happened?”

“I was in my early fifties when the trade caravan from an outlaying town to the north that was the closes to the city ruins failed to show up. The town elders didn’t pay it much attention at first, but when it happened again the following week some people went to investigate. When they came back they said the town was still there undisturbed, but all the residents had vanished without trace. The disappearances of the people were blamed on a slaving party that had come from the mountains to the north, but when the residents of another town disappeared a few months later people started to become worry.”

“The first few towns where the residents disappeared, were they all the closes to the ruins of New York City?” asked Anya.

“Yes. At first when the first few towns were being built everyone stayed on this side of the river, scavenging from the ruins of Newark and Jersey City but as the population of the area grew and more settlements sprung up they started to venture into New York City. They stayed close to the river side neighborhoods at first and then slowly pushed inward over a time period of ten years.”

“Did any of these scavenging parties fail to return?” asked Hoss.

“About three or four parties a year would vanish but the ruins were so dangerous and vast that when a party failed to return we had no way of knowing where they had gone to send out a search party. The last year before the Year of Serenity was the worse with a dozen parties failing to return.”

Stepien glanced over at Anya and said, “Sounds like someone was taking an interest in those groups. Have any parties ever came back saying they found established settlements inside the ruins?”

“Besides encounters with small roaming bands of ghouls then no. After the last team disappeared no more scavenging teams were allowed to travel into New York City, that’s when the residents of the towns started to disappear a few months later. Panic and near paranoia caused many other settlements to pack up and leave. Those that choose to stay soon disappeared as well. There was talk of reentering the Vault and sealing it, but the Elder instead ordered the construction of better defensives, insisting that we weren’t going to lose everything our ancestors had succeeded in rebuilding so far. I think he did it mostly to calm the people, he couldn’t have foreseen what was coming.”

“Which was?” inquired Yearling.

“The Reavers!”

He said it with so much abhorrence and affright that it startled Anya. “Who are these Reavers?” she asked.

Lee shrugged his shoulders. “Who are or what they are we don’t know. What we do know is that they come only in the night and carry off their victims either kicking or screaming into the night or slung dead over their shoulders. Their first few attacks in those early days nearly overwhelmed our defensives and we lost many good people. What you see of our defensives now is a culmination of our decade’s worth of struggle to keep the Reavers out of the town. Seldom do they try now, but they still do.”

“Have you’ve ever seen a Reaver?”

That question from Yearling finally made the old man breakout in a laugh. “My dear young child, the only people to have seen one face to face is those that they carry off into the night. When they attack the town they stay to the shadows, that is why we use those gigantic searchlights to illuminate the area at night to dispel them from attacking.”

“So that’s why the edge of the tree line is mined,” growled Charon to no one unparticular.

“And the reason why you don’t want us to go into New York,” added Anya. “Is there anyone from the scavenging parties still around that is willing to talk to us about the ruins?”

Lee sighed upon hearing her question and shook his head sadly. “Even after my story and the history that surrounds those ruins you still want to go in?”

Anya nodded her head. “I respect you for trying to persuade us not to go, but I have a friend who is missing in there, a very good friend of mine that I won’t abandon no matter what is standing in front of me.”

For a minute, the Milltown Village Elder didn’t speak. Finally, he let out a long sigh and nodded his head as he opened the top desk drawer and pulled out a bundle of rolled up paper. Leaning over the desk, he offered it to Anya, who took it and couldn’t believe what she was seeing as she flipped through the bundle.

“Are these what I think they are?” she asked.

Lee nodded his head. “You didn’t think I knew much about the scavenging parties from second hand knowledge, did yea? Those are maps of the areas we canvassed and it also shows you which streets are passably and which buildings you’ll have to take to detour around those you can’t. Do you have any idea where you’re friend was last seen at?”

“The outpost was established in the Chrysler Building,” replied Stepien.

When Lee didn’t reply back right away, Yearling added, “It was an Art Deco skyscraper in the city, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue.”

“Unfortunately we never penetrated that deep into the city. Those maps will get as far as the banks of the northern bay. After that you’ll have to find a way across the river.” Standing, he offered his hand to Anya, who stood and took it. “I wish you the best of luck in that City of the Damned.”
********


New York City, also known as The Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps, and Gotham, was the most populous city in the Commonwealths of the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which was among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city in the Pre-War Era, New York exerted a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment even during the height of the Resource Wars. It was also the host of the United Nations headquarters that was an important center for international affairs for over a century before its inevitable collapse at the start of the Resource Wars in July 2052. Located on a large natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, the city consisted of seven boroughs: Westchester, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Nassau, and Staten Island. The city’s 2077 estimated population exceeded thirty million people, and with a land area of four hundred and ninety-five square miles, making New York City the most densely populated major city in the United States before the onslaught of the Great War.

Many neighborhoods and landmarks in the city had become world-famous; the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century's, Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, had been a dominant global financial center after the Second World War and was home to the New York Stock Exchange and the city had been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The City was also the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism in painting, and various forms of music. It was also the home of the Broadway Musical and Acting Ensemble of the Theater of Arts Society.

During the Great War of August 23, 2077, New York City had taken the brunt of the nuclear apocalypse, killing nearly its entire population that hadn’t heeded to the fallout sirens’ warnings. Those that did survive were trapped dozens to hundreds of feet below the surface in the massive transit tunnels that borrowed deeply underneath the city, sometimes in complete and utter darkness. Many of those few survivors would die of asphyxiation, radiation sickness, collapsing tunnels, suicide, and mental anguish. The rest would slowly be transformed into the mutated forms of ghouls over the next few years.

And like Washington DC, the ruins of once great major city were still just like that of any other pre-war city that had suffered in the radioactive explosions of the dropping bombs, and New York City was no exception to the rule. Following a stay overnight on the behest of Lee, Anya and her group set off for the city the following morning, sticking to the old scavenger routes that Lee had provided them with. They made good headway until about halfway through the ruins of Newark when the path had become impassible due to a collapsed building. After a day of exploration they managed to bypass the surface route through an old sewer line that led them all the way to the banks overlooking Staten Island. From there they crossed over on a makeshift river boat pulley system that Yearling remarked on how well it was maintain after not being used for nearly a decade. Of course Charon’s retort of someone else had to be using it was enough to silence the outspoken scribe.

The track through the ruins of the furthest outlaying borough of the city proved to be even more difficult than that in Newark. Many building structures had finally collapsed, filling the roads with debris that sometimes stretched as high as a three story building and it only got worse the further they traveled to the point where they had to double back twice when they couldn’t get around or underneath a blocked road. After four days of picking their way through the rubble of the ruins, Anya’s group finally made it to the shoreline overlooking the ruined skyline of Brooklyn that lay across the bay.

“Now there is an eye opener for yea,” exclaimed Jessi as she gazed at the destroyed city.

Yearling stood, her eyes unblinking as she gazed in both directions at the ruined skyline that stretched as far as the human eye could see. “Not even Washington could compare to such scope of human travesty as this.”

But Anya’s thoughts were not on the ruin skyline, but on the wind. Charon standing next to her took a few sniffles and let out a few muttered growls as he turned and stared back into the ruins they’d just came from. Anya turned as well, her eyes scanning the buildings as she adjusted her stance to concede with the direction that the wind was blowing from. Sure enough she could smell it even stronger than before.

“Is that barbecue I smell?” Stepien suddenly asked.

It wasn’t scorched flesh, that had a stench that could linger in one’s cerebral cortex for years, no this was meat that smelt with a bitter ting of charcoal at the back of one’s throat, smoky fat, spices, juices that made a stomach that was surviving on dehydrated rations yearn for a taste.

“Smells like dog,” comment Kelsey. “A little overdone but still editable.”

“Ghouls?” inquired Hoss, his eyes moving unblinking as he scanned the buildings.

Charon sniffed the air again and muttered silently. “No, we wouldn’t be that careless. This is something else?”

“Could be those Reavers the old man was telling us about. Setting a trap for us to fall into,” noted Stepien.

“Well their going to have to do better than that,” Anya said. “Come on let’s see if we can find a way across. Hoss, Stepien, make sure our backdoor is closed.”

Nodding their heads, the two Brotherhood of Steel Paladins went to work as one slung off his heavy back while the other started to collect up nearby dirt and debris. Within minutes three SmI-44 Bounding Mines had been emplaced and concealed to discourage anyone following the group once they’d departed. Unable to find a way to cross the bay, they made bivouac up on the third floor of a nearby building that gave a commanding view of the ruins in all directions and set up defensive measures before bedding down with a two up rotating roster. The following morning as they were preparing to leave, Anya was pulling on her back when she heard Hoss let out a surprise exclamation from downstairs.

Hurrying down the stairs with the others, she saw Hoss bending over a small pile of rubble just outside the doorway. “What is it?” she asked.

Standing up, Hoss tossed a cylindrical shape object that had a rod jetting out from its top with three smaller tongs to her. “Saw this when I came out to retrieve the last mine. Recognize it?”

Anya nodded as she looked at the destructive device in her hands. “Yeah, it’s a standard SmI-44 Bounding Mine. What about it?”

“That was one of the three mines that me and Stepien left behind down at the waterfront yesterday,” he said. “I know because I mark all mine that I deploy with a notch to the body, call it an omen if you like.”

Sure enough, as Anya rotated the body there was an engraved notch on the side. Then she remembered the smell of the roasting dog yesterday. “Someone is toying with us.”

“Or following us,” added Kelsey. “They only question left now are who?”
********


With a surface route to transverse the bay nearly impossible, it took the group two days of trekking through the darken labyrinth tunnels of the transit system to finally reach the other side of the bay and emerge into the ruins of the Brooklyn borough. It also seemed that during their travels underground that their shadowy followers had been shaken off their trail or else when they descent into the murky depths of the transit system they hadn’t followed. Either way Anya still hadn’t allowed them to relax their guard, even after they emerged from the depths and started to pick their way through the ruins of the northwestern borough.

At the end of the second week of their trek through the ruins, as expedition neared the northern most portion of the Brooklyn that overlooked the heart of the government, entertainment, and financial sector of the city they came across the wreckage of the missing repair team’s Vertibird. It had apparently came crashing down through the side of a seven story red brick building and ended up lodge between the third and fourth floors. Ascending the interior of the building was difficult with the added damage to the building’s structural integrity from the crash, but not impossible. The fuselage of rotary craft had come to a rest on its side with its stabilizing wings and engine mountings being sheared away from the impact. From the angle that the remains had come to rest they could clearly see a jagged hole ripped into the bottom underside of the fuselage.

Being the two smallest of the seven, Jessi and Yearling climbed into the fuselage through the gaping wound as the rest surveyed the wreckage from the outside. Standing by the edge, Anya glanced out the hole in the wall to the skyline and noticed that the upper sides of two adjutant buildings were showing recent signs of damage. Judging from the ark she assumed that it could’ve only been caused from the down Vertibird as it crashed and quickly concluded that whatever had brought down the aircraft had to originate from the ruins of this borough.

“Nothing is left inside,’ Jessi announced as she poked her head through the hole in the fuselage. “Whoever hit it stripped the fuck out of it. Rebecca says even the fission reactor is gone.”

“No bodies?” asked Kelsey which Jessi shook her head negatively.

“We also found this,” Yearling’s voice said from inside as a piece of metal dropped through the hole.

Picking it up, Hoss studied it for a moment before commenting, “Appears to be tail guide section of an old anti-aircraft missile. These weapons were nearly rendered obsolete with the introduction of laser ray defensive systems on aircraft about midway through the Resource Wars.”

“Well that sure didn’t help these poor bastards,” muttered Kelsey. “Perhaps we should move on. I don’t like the looks of this.”

“I agree,” Anya said as she banged her hand on the fuselage. “Wrap it up in there. Nothing else we can do here.”

Once again on street level, they started north again towards the waterfront, but as they moved Anya had the sensation they were being watched. She could tell that Charon felt it too for the ghoul had a tighter hold on his plasma rifle and his gaze was locked on the ruins around them. Even Kelsey and Jessi were getting a bit fidgety and the Paladins had distance themselves a bit further apart, only Yearling was oblivious to the sensation. Combat instincts which she has none of, Anya thought to herself as she glanced up to see the sun dipping lower into the sky. Shouldn’t have stopped to check on the Vertibird, should’ve just made a note and kept pressing onward.

“I don’t like the looks of this place,” muttered Charon.

Following slightly behind him, Jessi slowly nodded her head and whispered, “Can’t argue with you on that one.”

The sensation only grew the further they walked and the lower the sun got to the horizon. Once or twice Anya thought she caught a glimpse of shadowy figures moving through the darken interiors of the buildings on either side of them. They only come at night, the warning Lee had given them about the Reavers were echoing in her mind as Kelsey’s head suddenly jerked to the right, her rifle coming up slightly.

“You see that?” she asked.

Anya nodded. “Yep, wish I didn’t.”

“We’ll be easy pickings out in the opening like this if they are them,” commented Hoss. “We need to find a fortify position to-”

His words suddenly cut off as he was spun violently around before crashing to the ground. The loud crack from the rifle was just echoing as Anya pitched herself to the ground, rolling right towards a pile of debris as the small chunks of asphalt and concert dug into her arms and legs. Coming up, she saw Charon firing into a darken square opening on a building facing just off to her right as her gaze went to Hoss who was slowly raising to his feet, a newly deep indentation showing where the high powered round had hit him squarely in the chest piece of his power armor.

He was about up when he was hit by a hail storm of fire that seemed to come from every building at once. The power armor was strong enough to sustain the user from serious injuries associated with multiple hits from projectile and energy weapons but the volley that was being laid down on Hoss soon overwhelmed its structural integrity as his body jerked from the various penetrations in the armor’s shell. Unable to do anything for her companion, she yelled out for everyone to move as she returned fire at the muzzle flashes coming from the various darken interiors. Kelsey grabbed a hold of Yearling’s vest collar and hauled her to her feet, forcing the frozen scribe to run as Anya and Charon laid down covering fire for the survivors to get out of the street.

“Into the building, quickly,” Anya shouted. “Head for the upper most floor and set up a defensive posture.”

Stepien took the lead, pausing long enough to toss in two grenades to make sure the way was clear for the group before proceeding inside followed by Jessi and Charon with Kelsey half dragging a stunned Yearling behind her and then Anya bringing up the rear. She paused for a moment, setting two mines by the entranceway, before hurrying across the rubble strewn interior. Taking two stairs at a time, she had just reached the first landing when two detonations behind her threw her violently into the wall, causing her to pitch her head hard against the brick facing. Starlights exploded in her vision as the wooden boards beneath her groaned in protest. Shaking her head to clear her whirling vision, Anya started up the next flight of stairs when the rotted panels beneath groaned once more and then buckled beneath her weight, plunging her down into a world of darkness below.
********


The first thing that Anya heard as she returned to conscious was the sound of trickling water and the coldness of the damp air on her exposed skin. Allowing her eye lids to flicker open, she was greeted by more darkness and the dank smell of execrations, rotting flesh, mold, and mildew. Groaning, she started to sit up when her whole body jerked suddenly. Confused she tried to move her arms but felt a cold metal pressure against her wrists. She then tried her legs but with the same results on her ankles. Then it dawn to her that she was devoted of her combat armor and boots. Through the small amount of light that was filtering through the top of the rocky walls and the small slit in the nearby door she could make out that she was restraint in some kind of chair that was inclined at a forty-degree angle.

A small shiver ran down the back of her spine as she closed her eyes to try and remember what had happened to her. She remembered the ambush in the street and Hoss being cut down in a volley of fire. Then she screamed at everyone to get inside the building and head for the upper most floors. She was taking the stairs two at time when the mines she had set behind her exploded which propelled her into the brick wall in front of her. Her head started to ache at the memory but after that she couldn’t remember anything else. Had she blacked out and was now a prisoner of the Reavers? What about her friends and companions, what had happened to them?

The questions were still swirling in her head when the door suddenly opened, spilling a spotlight of illumination into the darkness that stung her eyes. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the silhouette of a figure standing in the door frame whom appeared to be easily six foot. The figure reached inside and the room was suddenly bathe in dim illumination from a few light panels above. It was then that Anya could make out the individual standing in the door; he had sickly yellowish, pale skin that seemed to hung off his almost skeleton form with his green eyes sunken into the depressions on his skull. He had no nose and his greenish colored hair was mostly blotches on his sculpt. Skin was missing in parts that exposed layers of reddish muscle or bleach white bone. In all aspects he looked like a normal ghoul.

“Ah, I see that you’re finally awake,” he said in a raspy voice that was common with ghouls.

Anya couldn’t but feel a bit nervous as she watched him step into the room. “Are you a Reaver?” she asked, dreading the answer to come.

The ghoul let out a raspy chuckle as he ran his finger over her pants leg that unnerved the girl some more. “I guess when you say ‘Reaver’ you’re referring to those cannibalistic heathens that dwell in the labyrinth tunnels underneath The Big Apple? If it’ll calm you then no, I’m not a Reaver. Those damn jackals will eat anything, ghoul or smoothskin it doesn’t matter as long as it fills their stomachs.”

“If you’re not one of them then why are you holding me?” demanded Anya.

The Ghoul actually smiled as he backed away from her restraint chair. “Because I wanted you, that’s why. I must say that I thought for sure the roasting dog meat was going to net one of you on Staten Island for sure.”

Anya eyes widen in shock at his sudden confession. “So that was you, huh? Why were you trying to trap us?”

“Not all of you, I just wanted one of the girls. When you didn’t take the bait and left me those nice surprises, I was a little miffed at first but thought it as sporting of yea. I continue to try to separate one of you but you wouldn’t give me the opportunity. Imagine my surprise when I found you down here unconscious. Just consider yourself lucky that I found you before they or a cricketer decided to turn you into a juicy meal.”

“Excuse me while I don’t thank you for saving me while I recline on this wonderful chair of yours,” retorted Anya. “So if you’re not a Reaver, then who are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a ghoul, a very old one at that if-”

“Yes, I figured that out already. Who are you?”

The ghoul’s eyes narrowed slightly at the interruption. “I’ve forgotten how bitchy women can be. The name that I once went by was Jonathan Gawne, I was a financial advisor for Welch and Norton Brokerage Firm in Manhattan.”

“You’re a pre-war ghoul?”

“Is that so hard to believe? I was good at my job and reap its benefits with a luxury lifestyle full of penthouse suites, expansive cars of all makes and models, fine dining at ritzy restaurants, and beautiful women that threw themselves at me.” He smiled again at the last comment. “I had a woman for everyday of the week back then.”

“If you had everything then why didn’t you get youself into a Vault?”

His smile faded again. “I did buy my way into one of those Vaults, you think I wasn’t going to take the precaution of saving my own ass. Heck I even made sure to get in five of my best girls for the years ahead. When I heard the sirens going off I thought it was just another one of those damn false alarms again. I was in the lower levels of the parking garage getting into my fission car when they hit. That car saved my life when the roof collapsed. When the concrete hit the additional weight and the shifting of the ground caused the ground beneath the car to give way, dropping me into a transit tunnel that ran underneath the garage. Talk about luck.”

“Which by surviving in the transit system lead to long time exposure which lead to ghoulification.”

“You’re pretty smart. Yes, I became this vile thing that see before you. I lived with others like me for those long years before the first Vaults opened. Imagine our surprise when we were met with disgust, loathing, and open hostility by those leaving the Vaults. We didn’t ask to become what we became, heck we thought we were lucky enough to survive. But you damn Smoothskins thought otherwise, thinking we were nothing more than mindless zombies or pathetic mutated creatures.”

As he finished he started back towards Anya as she said, “So what do you want with me? I wasn’t those people. I’m even a friend with a ghoul.”

“Yes, that is why you’re still alive,” he said as he again ran a hand over her leg towards her waist. “Normally I killed any smoothskin that I came across in the ruins, but when I saw your group with that ghoul amongst you, and how you treated him as your equal, I was amazed and a bit jealous. It was then I decided that if you were so tolerate of ghouls then I had to have one of you for my own.”

Anya didn’t like what he was saying and her uneasiness was amplified by his caressing hand. She was about to reply back when he suddenly grabbed either side on her shirt and ripped the material away, exposing her bare chest and midsection. She let out a scream and tried to squirm away from his outstretch hands as they moved to her pants but it was too no avail as he tore them free, leaving her completely naked and restraint in front of him. She let out a cry as the palm of his rotten, rough hands glided over her tits, squeezing them in his hands.

“So smooth,” he said. “It’s been so long that I have forgotten what a real woman's tits like these felt like.”

Bending over, he hungrily wrapped the loose folds of tissue that were his lips over her perk melons, savoring their taste on his tongue. Anya couldn’t believe what was happening to her as she struggled in her bonds as the ghoul defiled her young body. With his mouth covering her left nipple, sucking intently upon it, he allowed his hand to move down Anya’s body and press his hand against her pussy, moving his index finger up and down her shivering cunt. Anya gasped violently from the sudden intrusion, her pussy responding to the stimuli by becoming wet as the ghoul moved his mouth to her right tit, licking the stiff nipple, then fastening his teeth upon it while his rotten tissue covered her warm breast orb, sucking loudly.

He then lowered his index finger against the helpless smoothskin’s asshole, tickling the tiny opening before shoving his digit into her warm rectum. Anya squealed, closing her eyes, biting her lower lip hard as the ghoul wriggled his finger deep into her ass, the rough flesh of his decaying hand chaffing the clenched edges of her hole. After the ghoul’s finger slithered in and out of Anya’s anus several dozen times, the woman’s sphincter relaxed as her pussy drooled honey onto the ground between her trembling legs. The Pre-War Ghoul ran his long tongue up Anya’s skin back from the breast to her shoulders. He pressed his dangling lips to the base of her neck, nibbling on the sweet, smooth flesh, his teeth lightly scratching her tan white skin. Anya wept violently, her mouth slack, her buttocks quivering while her rapist fingered her asshole. The woman grunted abruptly, her hips jerking as she orgasm, hot nectar gushing from her cunt to coat the rotten yellowish flesh of his hand.

Bringing his hand up to his mouth, he licked her hot cum from his digits. “Hmm, still taste just like how I remembered it.”

Standing up, he manipulated the chair so as to spread her slim legs and arms apart as the chair tilted her crotch up for easier penetration. With tears streaming down her face, Anya watched the rapist ghoul remove his own clothing and was shocked at seeing the appendage that stood erect between his legs. It was like the rest of his flesh, a sickly yellowish and green color spot with red that showed the cartilage underneath the rotten flesh. As he approached her she was horrified to see small pieces of flesh falling away from the erect rod.

She squirmed violently and screamed even louder as he bent down to lick her smooth flesh on her legs. He rubbed his rotting lips up both of her warm thighs, licking her tiny cunt when it came within reach. Anya shrieked loudly, trying to break the cold metal bonds that held her place as the ghoul devoured her pussy. Wrapping his arms around Anya’s waist, he buried his mouth inside her quivering cunt, sucking loudly on her fuck hole. Her whole body shivered, tears running down her tan flesh of her face as sensual fire exploded between her legs.

The Pre-War ghoul pulled away from Anya’s pussy, her honey flowing down his greenish chin. “If it’s any consolation to you, I would’ve preferred the pink hair one than you. Younger ones always had tighter bodies, but yours will do just fine.”

He straightened, hands resting on Anya’s rounded hips while he rubbed his erect cock up and down the young girl’s slit. He paused for a second and then thrust his member violently into Anya’s vagina, impaling her over and over in quick succession as blood ran freely from her abused hole. Anya cried even louder, pleading for the ghoul to cease, her tits quivering from the impacts. The rapist raised Anya’s right leg, the adjusting cord of the restraint complying with his wishes, and placed it against his left shoulder. He licked the warm, silky, young flesh, and then gnawed on it like he would a piece of fowl. Again and again he entered Anya’s bleeding cunt, her vagina clasping his cock, sucking it deep into her stomach. The ghoul thrusts became harder, his crotch crashing against hers with the force that it left pieces of his flesh on her hairless mound. Anya closed her eyes, mouth slack as she wept quietly to herself. The ghoul rammed his rotting cock into Anya one last time, and then released a torrent of hot cum into her womb.

Anya let out a high pitch scream as she felt his hot semen filling her stomach, shaking her head violently. “No, please, don’t do this to me. Not inside of me.”

Breathing heavily, he pulled his member, allowing his hot seed to flow freely from her abused cunt. “Always did enjoy a good cream pie. My you were a tight little one, even as tight as a virgin. But I think it’s time for a different venue.”

The rods that were holding Anya started to contract and she found herself being lifted off the small back cushion and into a kneeling position on the floor with her arms secured stretched behind her back. Her eyes widened in surprise horror upon catching sight of the erection in front of her. The ghoul yanked her head back by her short auburn hair, making her grimace before he shoved his cock between her tightly pressed lips. Anya groaned vainly in protest, his slick meat twitching inside her mouth. He grasped his hands on both sides of her head, holding it firmly as he pumped his shaft up and down within her moist throat.

Anya gagged as the head of the ghoul’s prick pushed deeper down her throat. The ghoul let out a sigh of pleasure, enjoying the feeling of her tight throat muscles contracting around his shaft, causing him to push deeper into her, cutting off her airflow. Anya began to struggle, trying to pull her head back off the cock lodged in her throat so she could breathe. Her wounded tongue thrashed around in her mouth, batting against the rotten member and giving her rapist even more pleasure. Gripping his fingers through Anya’s auburn locks, he pulled her head forward while grinding his hips against her face. Anya released a muffled cry of desperation as her face started to grow red from asphyxia.

Another muffled scream emitted from Anya’s stuffed mouth as the raping Pre-War Ghoul increased the fucking in her mouth. She tried kicking her legs but they were still held firmly behind her as her face turned a deep red and her eyes were starting to bulge as drool escaped past her stretched lips and dribbled down her chin, dripping onto the ground in long strands. Her vision was starting to go grey when she started to feel the cock in her mouth start to spurt jizz down her throat, causing Anya to black out. After his load was deposited into the girl, the ghoul pulled his softening member out of her mouth. He released his hold on her hair and let her head fall limply off to the side. With the obstruction no longer in her throat, Anya started to breathe again, although she was still unconscious.

Staring at the unconscious girl, he smiled wickedly as he keyed for the restraints that were holding her to release. Catching the limp girl in his hands, he held her in his arms as he made his way over and sat in a chair. Lifting her unconscious form over his elongated rod, he deeply inhaled the musk of her exposed wet pussy as he positioned himself underneath her dripping cunt, his cock hardening as he breathed against Anya’s neck for a moment, then sniffed appreciatively at her auburn hair. Lowering the unconscious girl, his cock slipped inside the unconscious woman’s pussy as it stretched to swallow his entire length. Small moans escaped the cum coated lips of the unconscious girl as he lifted and lowered the smoothskin girl up and down on his rotten member.

Her breaths came in labored gasps and shudders as he lowered herself again and again on his pole, a few moans escaping her mouth as her body responded in kind to being penetrated deeply. The ghoul began grunting more hoarsely and he closed his eyes as droplets of sweat flew from her bouncing tits and engorged nipples as he bounced her unconscious form on his lap. Grunting violently as he shoved his yellowish green piece deeper inside her stomach, a geyser of his seed rushed inside Anya’s ripe womb. Tugging his cock free from the possessive lips of her womanhood, he continued to unleash his reeking jism over her quivering cunt and across her trembling inner thighs.

Still feeling himself hard, he stood up and turned the unconscious smoothskin around so she faced upwards towards him and holding her arms firmly in his hands. Checking that his member was properly aligned with Anya’s blood and juice-covered lips, he pushed into her again. He thrust deeply into her cunt again and grinned at the thought that even after so many fuckings she still had an insanely tight slippery cunt.

After a few minutes he saw the girl’s eyes slowly fluttered open and then shot wide open upon realizing what was happening to her again. “Stop it, no.”

But he ignored her pleas and squeals; in fact it only made him drive his rod deeper into her thrusting body. Pulling out, he grinned maliciously and slammed the girl’s hips down with his hands, shoving his entire length into Anya’s asshole. Moving one hand to secured the girl’s hands behind her back and support her body, he brought his free fingers to pinch Anya’s nipples tightly, bruising them, and once again silenced the girl’s pleas. Pulling up and down on the nipples, he controlled the girl’s movements, and sighed in content. The tight girl ass worked wonders on his stiff cock, and he pulled her down harder each time.

Anya’s voice had become hoarse from screaming, so she could only sob as the ghoul cruelly violated her body. Finding it useless to try freeing her nipples, she slide her hands down her belly to her crotch, checking if she still bled. The ghoul’s thrusts splashed liquids onto her hand, something warm and sticky. Her fingers reached her pussy, and touched a thick layer of cooling cum and blood. She pressed through it, finding her lower lips still raw and tender from the powerful penetration. She whimpered as even the slightest touch hurt her like all of hell. Seeing where her hand was and assuming that she was trying to make the most of her situation, he took his right hand of her nipple and laid it down on her hip, impaling her on his cock a little bit lighter this time. It gave Anya a chance to protectively cover her nipple with her hand, which was just what the raping ghoul wanted. Not only did she smear the messy fluid over her sweaty melons, she also left herself open to attack. His right hand slid down across the inside of her thigh with lightening speed and cupped her dirty mound. He shoved two fingers into her cunt and began to wriggle them around.

She orgasm instantly, her pussy practically shooting out new juices to water down the mix of sperm and blood around its entrance and on the ghoul’s hand as he neared the edge of orgasm for the third time that night. He felt pressure rising in his member making it just so thick that the snug tunnel of Anya’s ass gripped it with maddening intensity. With a final thrust into her, he slammed his tool into the hot hole, and shot his load. Anya felt the warm spray hit her insides again and cried out again as he shoved his cock deeper into her sphincter to milk his cock for more cum. As he ran out of seed, he pulled out of the girl and released her from his grasp, allowing her to flop weakly sideways onto the ground.

Pleased with her performance, the ghoul hovered above Anya as she quietly wept on the floor. “I guess I picked the right one,” he said with a grin. “Yes, I think you’ll do very nicely for-”

His voice suddenly trailed off as the barrel of a handgun brushed up hard against the side of his temple.

“You know, Jonathan, it’s not the smartest of things to go raping a squealing little girl down here in the tunnels,” a feminine voice said softly. “You’ll be surprised how far the noise can travel down here.”

Hearing the new voice, Anya slowly lifted her head as the darkness hung over her vision to see a green hair woman standing next to her rapist, the barrel of a chrome cylinder revolver pressed up against his head.

“You,” the ghoul growled but didn’t move. “I thought I had killed you once and for all back in Manhattan?”

The green hair woman grinned as she slowly lowered the sidearm from his head while saying, “Yeah, I hate to disappoint you since you tried so hard.”

The noise of the shot was deafening, but not as so much as the shrill that escaped the ghoul as he collapsed to his knees in front of Anya, his hands covering his bleeding crotch area.

“Hope you enjoyed your last fuck, you rapist cannibalistic pig,” she exclaimed as she holstered the weapon. Bending over, she helped Anya to her feet and supported her with her arms. “Come on, let’s get you out her and cleaned up.”

Anya nodded her head meekly to the cringing ghoul. “What about him?”

The woman just shrugged her shoulders as she led her out of the room. “Oh don’t worry, I’m sure the others like him will be along shortly to finish the job. And believe me we don’t want to be around when they get here.”
********


Sitting in front of a cooking fire and dressed in a set of new clothes given to her by the mysterious savour, Anya hungrily devoured the roast dog that hung over the flames as the green hair woman smiled at seeing the girl's ferocious appetite. She had taken her to a high raise tower that overlooked a major metropolitan airfield and helped her clean her body up after the ordeal and even informed her that even although the genetic coding between ghouls and humans had been mutated to the point of being incapable to reproduce at the cellular level there was still an extremely slim probable chance of her becoming pregnant though she doubt since it was so minimal which only made Anya feel a bit more queasy afterwards. Sitting across the fire, Anya studied her rescuer; she was normal height for a human female with flowing green hair and equally matching eyes, her figure was slim and athletic with her skin sporting a slight tanish pigment.

Her outfit consisted of a tightly worn tank top that had been cut to reveal her bare midsection and naval, a light brown leather mini-skirt that ended towards the upper portion of her thighs, and thick leather wrappings that hugged her legs to above the knees and her arms to the elbows. She wore a pistol belt with straps that ran up her side and around her midsection that sported three, heavy frame revolvers and ammo. A pair of goggles was perched on the top of her forehead and on her wrist was a Pip-Boy 3000. As they sat and ate they discussed what it was like to live in either the ruins of New York City or the Capital Wasteland and the constant threats that they faced in both areas.

As the night progressed, Anya finally pointed to the Pip-Boy on her wrist and asked, “So what Vault did you come from?”

Confused, she looked down to see where the girl was pointing and let out a chuckle. “Oh this thing, well you got me. Woke up one day with no recollection of how I ended up here wearing this on my wrist and collar around my neck.”

Just like Jessi, Anya thought to herself at the coincidence. “So you don’t know who you are or where you came from?”

The woman shook her head as she tossed another dried cricketer dung onto the cooking fire. “Not a thing. Heck it was this thing that told me my name was Athena.”

“After the Greek Goddess of Wisdom,” said Anya.

“What?”

Waving her hand, Anya replied, “Never mind, just speaking out loud is all. If you don’t mind me asking, how long can you remember back?”

“Four years,” she answered. “I’ve been living in the ruins for that long as well.”

“So why didn’t you try to get in over in Milltown?”

Athena snorted as she took a bite out of the hind leg she was holding in her hands. “Those bunch of superstitious zealots hold up in that town? No thank, I don’t feel like being coped up in a place with a sign advertising to the Horsemen on where to come and find me.”

“The Horsemen?”

“Yeah those are that wonderful bunch that worship a biblical reference from Revelations that prophesized the end of the world through the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest, War, Famine, and Death whom would be followed by Hades or the Devil depending on which religion you follow.”

“Sounds more like history than a prophecy,” said Anya.

“Yeah well before the bombs dropped it was all just a prophecy. Anyway, the Horsemen dwell under the ruins in the transit systems and worship these prophecies, believing that the Devil himself still walks amongst men in the wastes and have been searching for him. They’ve raided every single settlement, hauling in all their residents to some Temple of Lucifer that there great leader judges to see if they have indeed found the prince of darkness.”

“So these Horsemen are the Reavers that Lee warned us about. Are they human?”

Athena just smiled as she took another bite from her meal. “Unknown.”

“What do you mean unknown?”

“What I mean is that I don’t know if they are in fact human, ghoul, or something entirely something else because if you were smart you avoid them as much as possible.”

“And what happens to all those people they’ve found not to be the human manifestation form of Lucifer?”

The green hair woman gave the auburn hair girl a quick once over and said, “You aren’t buying into that hooky religion mumbo jumbo are you?”

“Just asking about the people is all,” replied Anya.

“Don’t know. Whoever they take down into those tunnels never come back out.”

“So they could be cannibals?”

“Who told you that?”

“That ghoul you saved me from.”

“Jonathan,” she corrected, “is the only cannibal I know of, besides the Feral Ghouls.”

Anya felt her eyes widening at the sudden revelation. “So once he was through screwing my brains out he was going to-”

“Savor every little morsel of your petite little body with his other companions,” Athena finished.

Suddenly the meal she just had didn’t taste any better in her stomach as she raised to her suddenly shaky feet and hustle over to the railing of the tower, letting her once wonderful dinner into the night’s air as Athena chuckled behind her.

“Feel better?” she asked as Anya returned to the fire.

Shaking her head, Anya had to take a few deep breaths. In all her time wandering the Capital Wasteland she’d never come close as she just recently did to being someone else’s delicatessen. Not to mention she’d never been raped before either. The thought of the ghoul’s rotten caress pressed up against her body as he stroke his member inside of her cause her to pull her legs closer to her chest and wrap her arms around them.

Athena seemed to know what she was thinking and gave her a reassuring pad on the legs. “Don’t worry, kiddo, it happens to all of us at some point. It’s just a fact of this world that we women have to live with.”

“Did he ever do those types of ‘things’ to you?” she asked quietly.

For a moment it appeared that she wasn’t going to answer the question. Finally she said, “Jonathan caught me about two years ago by using a stun device in the collar that I was wearing. How he managed to figure that out, I don’t know. Unlike you, after he savoured my body he decided he wanted to keep me as his pet. For a year and half I was his loyal pet servant, satisfying his caravel lust whenever he beckon until one day when he thought my will and spirit was too broken to be resistive, he took that collar I had off my neck. Seeing my one chance, I pounce on him, beating him until he was unconscious and then I fled. I thought if I stayed hidden and out of sight and mind he would forget about me, but he never did.”

“And he tried to kill you?”

She nodded. “About two months ago I was returning back to my hideout in Manhattan and just had stepped inside the doorway when I was hit squarely in the back.” Turning, she lifted up her tank top and Anya saw a scar just off to the right of her spine. “The round pierced by lung but was stopped from exiting my chest cavity by my ribs, which the round broke. I would’ve bled out had it not been for those armoured walking tin cans.”

Anya’s heart skipped a beat. “The Lyons’ Pride?”

Athena gave the girl a quizzed look. “Yeah, how do you know that?”

“I know their leader, Sarah Lyons, she’s a good friend of mine.”

“So you’re the Anya that she was always talking about when I was being nursed back to health in their compound. She spoke very highly of you and your abilities,” she said with a grin.

“Is she okay?”

The question seemed to confuse the green hair woman. “I guess so. Once I was well enough I took my live from them to find the bastard that shot me, that was three weeks ago.”

“The Pride has failed to report in so myself and a team were dispatched after one of the Brotherhood’s Vertibird that was dispatch to investigate was shot down. Other than the communications blackout there is little else we know of. My team and I were on our way to the Chrysler Building when we were ambushed and, well, you know what happened to me. By chance do you know what happened to the rest of my team?”

To Anya’s sadness, Athena shook her head negatively. “I’m sorry. But if you need to get to the Chrysler Building, I’ll take you there.”

Anya looked at the green hair woman with a puzzled expression. “Why?”

“Because she’s my friend as well and after everything she’s done for me it would be foolish of me not to aid one of her friends.”