Voodoo - In the Weeds

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

From Salamank to the vicinity of the Long Eighty is about a ninety-mile trip. It's rough territory, but for the first day or so's travels it could've been worse. Yeah, the land out here suffered in the aftermath of the War, but this was never primary or even secondary target territory, so most of what's gone wrong here is the result of black rains and fallout on the wind rather than direct hits and immediate contamination. There's more trouble from the mutated wildlife in the region than anything else, too. The Senecas, it appears, do what they can to keep the local raiders down. Maybe they haven't got the numbers they would've liked, but for the area relatively close to Salamank, they do about as well as anyone could hope.

But that's the first day's travel, and unless Voodoo has caffeine pills or something in that pack of his, it's gonna be at least a two-day trip. And things start getting uglier the closer he gets to the remains of the old highway.

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo avoids caffeine on principle when he's out in the field. Too much makes you paranoid, and that's the last thing you need to be with a rifle in your hands.

He crouches in the middle of a field of armpit-high weeds, listening carefully. Nothing on the wind yet. If someone had seen him, they would have already shot at him by now. He's good to go.

He keeps on moving in a southernly direction, taking care to roll his feet and part the vegetation slowly and steadily as he passes through.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Nothing on the wind yet, no, but if he casts a glance somewhat to the south and east, there's more of a smudgy haze cresting one of the area's low, rolling hills than empty territory might suggest. Industry would be denser, or fouler, or rise higher; this resembles the kind of thing one sees in the air over villages without much access to clean fuels or efficient stoves.

[boston_bruiser]

All true; industry would probably make noise, too, but it's not a certainty.

He gets a little more elevation before going prone and bringing out the binoculars, tracing the smokestack down to its origin.



"-fuckin' knew it."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There was a time when this area was a paradisical destination known for its great fishing and well-manicured golf courses. People built vacation homes by the score here. The prevailing winds in this part of Pennsylvania generally come out of the south and west, though, and while this place was never a primary target Pittsburgh sure as hell was- and it's due south and west.

The fishing bites back these days, in more ways than one, but the vacation homes remain. And when you are the kind of people who see nothing wrong with ambushing travelers for robbery or the slave trade and whose idea of bringing home the bacon has nothing to do with actual pig, well, you're not gonna let anything stop you from moving on into whichever ones're still standing. You'll just burn your trash, if you remember to get rid of it at all, and you'll cook whatever- or in a few cases, whoever- you managed to kill over a similar fire, because fuck the hell out of trying to make the damn ovens work, you know?

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo looks over the surrounding area, taking in the terrain. Nobody visible from here. He'll have to move closer.

It's slow going, low-crawling through the weeds, but sometimes it's just got to be done.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Now, here's the thing. Everybody with an ounce of sense in the Wasteland posts sentries somewhere. That includes some of the raider types, for all that they tend to spend more of their time and money as high as the remains of their livers will allow. They might not live by civilized rules, but they absolutely fucking hate having their stuff get stolen out from under them. There's not a whole lot of sentries visible in the area up ahead.

There is, however, the longest-running alternative form of guardian humanity has ever engaged. Which is to say that as Voodoo gets closer he's gonna realize that an awful lot of these houses, fences, enclosures, and so on are attended by one or more skinny-looking but very much alert guard dogs.

[boston_bruiser]

-fucking hell. It had to be dogs, didn't it? It just had to be dogs.

Ever so slowly, Voodoo unslings his carbine and moves into a crouch, pressing the weapon's stock to his shoulder and looking down the sights. The dog's ears perk up-

thwock.

-and it crumples to the ground, a hole in its skull.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The second one drops just as quickly, just as easily. And with the silencer doing its best to suppress the worst of the weapon's firing sound, one might be excused for thinking that could continue.

But the thing about dogs is that they have a great sense of smell, and no suppressor on the market can suppress the whiff on the wind from Voodoo's direction. He has, after all, been in a post-atomic, post-deodorant, showers-ha-ha-you're-a-very-funny-man world for several days now.

So the dogs still alive start barking their fool heads off, as dogs are wont to do.

[boston_bruiser]

Fuck. Fuck. Is he downwind of them?

He spits on his finger, holding it up to the air. A breeze wafts past the digit, towards the dogs.

He's downwind of them. Shit.

This used to be a golf course, back in the day. There's an equipment shed nearby that still has most of its walls intact - the wind can't carry his scent if it can't get to him.

Moving a little quicker now, he takes cover inside, peering out at the dogs as he taps his finger on the carbine's receiver.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Okay, one of them- no, two- decided to get up and investigate the smell. They're headed towards where they last picked up on it, but they don't exactly look like they have a whole lot of bloodhound in them, let's put it like that.

On the other hand one particularly skinny mongrel took off at a gallop in the opposite direction, still barking at the top of its lungs, headed for some of those houses with fires going in the yard.

[boston_bruiser]

Oh, Christ but this is going south fast. Quickly, he draws a bead on the one heading off towards the houses, but it disappears behind a fence before he can fire.

If he takes out either one of the other two, the survivor will start barking its goddamn head off before he can get off another shot, maybe even lunge at him if he's careless. Time for some evasion.

One of the walls has had chunks ripped out of it - for tinder, probably, but who knows? All Voodoo cares about is it makes it easier to get out of that shed and start low-crawling away from those dogs.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It takes the two dogs who headed up towards the weird smell some time to get there. By the time they reach Voodoo's original position, he's a considerable distance away in the undergrowth- such as it is. A decently trained guard dog would probably spend a great deal of time sniffing the area and finding his scent trail, but these two were mostly taught to harass anybody who got too close. There's nobody here, and whatever trail they might or might not have found isn't really worth following.

So if Voodoo is willing to be patient a little while longer, they're going to give up and meander on back to their posts.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo keeps his head close to the ground, one hand on his weapon. He's patient. Oh, he's patient. Got nothing but time - and a powerful urge to kill these strung-out fucks.

Now where the hell did that other dog run off to?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The only place that matters. Where the people are.

There's three of 'em- no, wait, there's six; the three in front have got collars on and big damn knives, but no guns. The three a couple of yards behind them are another story.

[boston_bruiser]

-okay, this is different.

The three in front are slaves, he knows that much - captures from patrols and raids. It's the three in back he really has to worry about.

He moves up back into a crouch, keeping his movements slow and steady as he works his way around to the side.

Treasure Lake, before the War, was a gated community. It invited the kind of people with enough money to be properly paranoid about security to take refuge within its walls.

-only some people, it seems, went the extra mile.

In front of Voodoo now stands a barbed-wire fence. The wire sags in some places, and is bloodstained in others. The metal support poles look like they rusted decades ago. There are some things a working party just can't fix.

Good news for Voodoo, though.

He digs his multitool out of his vest, takes the wire in hand, and starts snipping his way up from the bottom, looking the raiders' way every now and again.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

They don't seem all that concerned about searching the area quickly. Possibly because they're lazy, or possibly because they figure the slaves'll handle things for them if it gets too bad. The slaves don't look happy about being forced to start beating the underbrush for hidden problem visitors, but that's what happens when you've been collared and there are guns at your back, you know?

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo's not complaining. By all means, raiders, keep being lazy.

Eventually, the gap is big enough for him to pass through and continue creeping on up to the bossmen. One of them, cigarette dangling from his mouth, is doing a particularly lazy job - he doesn't even have two hands on his rifle, and his two buddies can barely cover him from where they are.

(They really should watch their spacing.)

Proper takedowns aren't at all like what you see in the movies. Any hero who stands on-level to choke out a baddie is going to get the shit stomped out of his foot, ribs, or nose by any half-conscious shithead. Smart guys yank their target down to the ground, first. Puts and keeps them off-balance.

It's like a magic trick - one moment, the raider is there. Blink, and he's gone.

The underbrush hides the struggle.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It's gonna take the others a while to notice. They've got most of their attention on the slaves up ahead, which is not something that best pleases the guy Voodoo's managed to throttle. As last thoughts go, 'you absolute fucking jackholes can't even' is not really one of the better ones.

Oh well. Sucks to be him.

"Hey," says one of the two who're still standing, "Dixmont? Where'd you fuckin' go?"

[boston_bruiser]

All is quiet.

Then - a long burst of suppressed gunfire.

(We're going to go out on a limb here and say a torso full of five-five-six wasn't the response he was expecting.

Though a chest cavity full of lead hurts like a mother, doesn't it?)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It does. It really kinda does.

"Fuck!" yells the raider who's still standing, and fires his shotgun a couple of times in the general direction of where he thinks the bullets came from. "You three! Find that shitbag and bring me some limbs!"

The look on the slaves' faces is the polar opposite of enthusiasm.

[boston_bruiser]

It's incredible, really, how bad raiders are at shooting. Give them a shotgun and a broad side of a barn and they'll find a way to miss.

Luckily for the slaves, their last bossman is going to be suffering a case of bullet-to-the-head in three- two-

-oh. Would you look at that? The world feels a little brighter already.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

So it does.

There's gonna be some machetes hitting the floor and some hands going up pretty quickly, just for reference. When you can't tell who's got the gun or where they are surrender tends to be the safest way to go.

[boston_bruiser]

And that's Voodoo's cue to emerge from the underbrush, carbine slung across his chest.

"Smart move."

Out comes the multitool again. He switches to the pliers and points to the slave nearest him.

"You. C'mere."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Okay," says the man readily, his hands still in the air as he moves to obey. "Who- who are you, anyway?"

[boston_bruiser]

"Someone who's gonna get you guys outta those collars. Now hush up, I need to concentrate."

It's easy enough to get into the guts of these things if you've got the right tools. Pry a plate off, cut the wires and locking mechanism, and it's just so much junk to toss on the ground.

Voodoo points to the next-closest slave. "You next. C'mon, hustle up, we're exposed out here."