Voodoo - Salamank

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There used to be forests hereabouts, and farm country to some degree, but that was a long damn time ago. These days whatever grows expends a great deal of effort to do so and looks as unappealing as possible in an attempt to avoid being eaten. As for the farming, well... Voodoo may at some point catch sight of a few creatures in the distance that look familiar. There were critters like that down in Point Lookout. Not a whole lot of vegetable farming to be seen, though, not around here.

Maybe it's that it's October.

Maybe not.

Either way, this is a place where you have to work damned hard to get anything out of the land at all, and not everybody necessarily appreciates that. Some people would rather just take what other people raise up. There's always somebody like that.

It's been a mighty quiet journey south towards Salamank. That wisp of smoke up ahead in the distance has a nasty, heavy, greasy look to it that doesn't exactly promise more quiet.

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

No it does not.

Voodoo settles in on a rocky outcropping a little ways down from the hilltop he's on - no need to silhouette himself here. He drops to one knee, sets his pack down, and digs out his binos. The bombs cleared out a lot of vegetation, which means his view is, for all practical purposes, unobstructed.

He zooms in on the smoke, following it down to its origin.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Well, the grease on the smoke is somebody's pig, by the look of things. Spit-roasting makes that kind of thing easier to see. Doesn't look like the pig's owner is the one who built the fire, though. Not unless folks who piece their leather garb together with torn-off soda can pull tabs instead of proper straps and buckles raise pork, anyway. There's five or six of them around the fire, with varying degrees of armament each; one of them's got what looks like an old gas mask or hazmat hood or something pushed up on her head. Another's sitting next to what was once a construction hard hat before it was decked out in spikes and unhealthy colors. It's hard to tell at this distance, but they don't look like the kind of people who take good care of themselves, in much the same way that the 'after' picture from an anti-methamphetamine campaign doesn't really look like someone who takes care of himself.

Oh, and they've got prisoners- or at least a couple of people are seated on the ground back to back to back and surrounded by torn-up chicken wire held to the ground by cinderblocks, so either they're prisoners or this is the worst live-action roleplay setup ever for people whose characters've been 'killed'.

[boston_bruiser]

Worst. LARP. Ever. It's safe to say Comic Book Guy would agree.

The prisoners look like they've got rope cuffs on. No bomb collars - it's probably a patrol, returning to base with a fresh batch of captures.

How far are these guys, anyway? It's not even a conscious action to flick the rangefinding button on his binoculars.

-jeezus, 900 meters and change.

Voodoo takes the binos off his eyes. At this distance, the raiders are practically specks. He could go around them, sure - but some people just need killing.

No time to move closer and risk them packing up. It's now or never.

He takes his helmet off, setting it down as he picks up Patience, sits down, and scoots a little further back into the outcropping to help him blend in more. He crosses one ankle over the other, bending forward at the waist and resting his elbows on his legs.

No wind here - judging by the smoke, no wind downrange, either. Five rounds in the mag. Fifteen more in the box. Best to make these count.

Hazmat Hood is first.

He places the crosshair on her mouth and takes a deep breath. Slowly, he takes up pressure on the trigger, letting half the breath out, holding the rest-

-and takes up the last pound.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

This far away, there's no sound. There's a fine little explosion, though. Hazmat hoods were never built to stand up to that kind of impact.

The others scatter like ants when the hill is kicked open.

Ants can be fast at times, especially when their lives are in danger. How fast is Voodoo?

[boston_bruiser]

The Marines trained Lee Harvey Oswald, and he got off three rounds in six seconds on a moving target 250 feet away. It's only sensible that SEALs would strive to be better.

It takes only a second for Voodoo to work the bolt and sight in again, another half-second to take up most of the slack in the trigger.

Hard Hat is next.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Hard Hat's head does not explode.

Hard Hat's chest, however, is-

( She said she'd save her heart for me / But now it's there for all to see )

-rather well ventilated.

[boston_bruiser]

( A poignant scene. An eternity's repose. It brings peaceful thoughts, does it not? )

Look on the bright side, Hard Hat. There's...

...okay, there's not really a bright side.

Voodoo's already worked the bolt and sighted back in. Raiders might be dumb as rocks, but to their credit, they know when to take cover when big shooty things are pointed their way.



(It's not weird if Voodoo suddenly finds himself humming a melody he can't quite put a name to, right?

Right?)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

(Eh, it happens.)

They're hiding. They're loading their weapons. Thing is, their weapons are designed for use at a closer range and they're not really sure exactly where those bullets are coming from, so they're gonna have to look.

Voodoo can't hear it, but they're currently having a hissed discussion about whether or not they should all stick up their heads at once and minimize the chance of any individual one of them taking the next shot.

[boston_bruiser]

He's waiting.


And waiting.


And waiting some more.


It's starting to get to the point where he's tapping out an accompaniment to the melody with his foot.


Finally, one of them pokes their head over the divider they're using as cover. At this range, the bullet'll be in flight for about a second - not that it's mattered for the others, and not that it'll matter for him.

(He's got a little-bitty mohawk going. How cute.)

BANG.

(Not so cute now.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

That'd be the cue for one of the remaining raiders to dash across the space between her cover- a rusty and not very protective 55-gallon drum- and the next available cover.

Turns out the next available cover is the prisoner enclosure area, more specifically the prisoners themselves. Three people back to back to back seem like a better option than a bit of rusty metal.

[boston_bruiser]

Oh, so this one's the honor roll student.

Voodoo's more peeved than anything, because honestly, if you're going to use a human shield, at least make it challenging for him.

Her leg's exposed. The thigh has a lot of bad arteries to puncture.

BANG.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, they say- well, this one's not going to be making any good landings ever again.

(Also the prisoners, who have had a bit more time holding still to judge where the shots are coming from, are doing their best to huddle up together and scootch out of the way as far as they're able.)

[boston_bruiser]

And Voodoo appreciates that. Truly, he does.

No use wasting a bullet on the one he got in the leg - shock and blood loss will do the rest, or he'll do it himself when he gets down there.

He sights in on the divider the last raider is taking cover behind.

"C'mon, pal. Ain't you curious?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

If the truth is told, number five is waiting for his emergency combat chems to kick in, because nothing says 'I can totally defend myself against an unseen opponent' like a stimulant that makes you vibrate at speeds a tuning fork would envy.

He's just gonna scootch his rifle out with a baseball cap over the end in the hopes that it takes the shot for him before he tries to aim.

Chems: not even once.

[boston_bruiser]

Not. Even. Once.

Voodoo's insulted, Nameless Raider #3. If he could get away with it, you'd be taking one to the nuts for that.

Instead, he shakes his head, grunting in disapproval.

"Uh-uh. Gotta show me some skin, first."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Well, damn. What if he- no, no, there's nothing white left to be seen anywhere-

It feels like the Jet's kicked in. Maybe if he puts both his hands up he'll be fast enough to grab his rifle again and fire on whoever it is once he spots them?

[boston_bruiser]

An adequate plan. Not a great one, not by any means, but...adequate.

Well, it would be, if Voodoo was in a prisoner-taking mood.

BANG.

Turns out he's not. Ain't that some shit?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It's a cruel world and Geneva was repudiated more than two hundred years ago anyway. Things happen.

It's quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howls.

[boston_bruiser]

He's still for a few minutes, listening.

Then, with a grunt, he digs into the carton on his vest and reloads. Four kills, one incapacitation. Not bad.

He slings Patience over his shoulder and gets all his gear back on. It's quite a hike down to the highway, but it's not like he doesn't have time.

He nods to the prisoners as comes onto the road, touching the brim of his helmet as he moves toward them. "Afternoon. How you folks doin'?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Just fine, thanks for asking," says a woman with a face like fifty years of sunburn all caught up with her at once. "Since none of us are dead at the moment, anyway."

The younger woman she's tied to is a little too busy staring at the mess that used to be Hazmat Hood to answer.

"Damn it, I think my husband's blanked out- Thomas? Thomas." She jerks her arm away from the third prisoner, who doesn't respond. "He gets these flashes sometimes when things go poorly, I'm afraid."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo grunts as he takes his multitool off his vest. "I can work with that."

The rope cuffing them isn't the thickest or strongest - a few seconds with his pocketknife for each of them and it's a done duck. Voodoo moves over to Thomas, waving a hand in front of his face.

"C'mon, pal, show's over." A few quick snaps with his fingers. "Wakey-wakey."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Thomas shudders and shakes his head, hard, before looking up with a decidedly dazed expression.

"He'll be all right in a bit," comes his wife's voice. "It usually takes him about a minute or so to come out of being all confused."

[boston_bruiser]

Another grunt as Voodoo stands up, surveying the scene. There's a big blood trail leading off into the distance - he definitely got that one raider somewhere important.

"If any of you can shoot worth a shit, I'd suggest grabbing what you like off these guys. They're not gonna need it anymore."

He nods to the younger woman, tapping her on the shoulder.

"That includes you, miss."

He holds his carbine at low ready, walking along the beginning of the blood trail before looking over his shoulder at them.

"You guys see where the one I got in the leg went off to?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Afraid not," says the older woman, but the younger one is scrabbling for the closest gun she can find. Once she's got her hands on a respectable-looking assault rifle, she points a little ways off down the blood trail.

[boston_bruiser]

He grunts and sets off down the trail, measuring every step. It wouldn't do to get wasted by the last one standing, oh no. For a brief moment, he considers calling her out - but what's the point, really?

He's got a feeling this is gonna go down the hard way.