Arefu

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The sun had only barely cleared the eastern horizon when Ellen caught sight of the broken overpass. The crumbling ruins of the highway arched about halfway over the river; a cluster of metal structures huddled together at the highest part. Lucy West had said you couldn't miss it if you followed the remains of the Potomac, and it looked like she was right. Ellen adjusted the slant of the Gauss rifle across her back and started for the ramp.

She'd made it most of the way up when she started encountering gaps and cracks in the road-bed. Patched-over gaps, to be sure- planks and sheet metal had been used to bridge the worst of them- but they were disquieting nonetheless. She prodded the planks in front of her with one foot before crossing, and tried not to think about how long they might have been in place-

Something flickered at the edge of her vision in a long soaring arc. Reflexively, Ellen threw herself to the ground. There was a WHOOMPH as the shockwave passed over her; when she raised her head, it was raining gravel and dust. What the hell?

"Hang on, you're not one of them!" called a man's thin, reedy voice from further along on the overpass. "I nearly blasted you in two! Get over here before somebody spots you!"

The speaker waved to her from behind an improvised barricade of all kinds of Wasteland junk. Ellen approached warily, one hand on her laser pistol. He looked old, leathery face worn and lined and freckled; his cap and leather jacket weren't much younger, nor were they any less worn. Across his back he wore a hunting rifle, but she had only noted the weapon's presence when the man demanded, "Now what the hell are you doin' all the way out here?"

She shook herself inwardly and answered, "Is this Arefu? I have a letter for the West family."

The man huffed. "That's great, but I got bigger problems than being the town post office right now. The shit's about to hit the fan in this cesspool, and I don't think I can stop them."

Them.... Ellen winced. "Raiders?" she asked. "Or slavers?" Please not mutants. Big Town was bad enough. Please not mutants.

"No way. If they were, you'd be staring at a burned out ghost town." He waved one hand at the shacks behind him, each with its own little barricade. "This is the Family, all over again."

"I'm... sorry. I don't know any 'the Family'," Ellen said carefully. It wasn't entirely true, but she was pretty sure that the antagonists of old holovids weren't going to be wandering around out here enforcing sinister mob-like codes of silence. "Who are you, please?"

"Sorry. Evan King. I'm more or less in charge around here. Welcome to Arefu, such as it is."

"Thank you," Ellen said. "My name's Ellen Park. I'm from Megaton, more or less." And then, because the man looked far too worn down and strung out for his own good, she opted to let him vent. "What do you mean, 'the Family'?"

King huffed again. "They're a gang with some kind of headquarters around here, far as I know," he said. "Personally, I think they're just a bunch of punks. I mean, at first they'd do typical gang bullshit, you know, break stuff and make lots of noise, but they always kept their distance before! But this last time they went too far! They killed all our Brahmin! I mean, that's our lifeblood out here, you know!"

Ellen bit her lip and glanced at the town buildings. There didn't seem to be anywhere up on the overpass with room to hold giant cattle, but- oh. Oh, there, down by the riverside, there was an old ramshackle building of some kind and bloody stains on the sickly yellow grass, they must've kept their cattle down there.

"Look, you can call me crazy if you want," King went on, "but there's something wrong about those creeps... any other gang would've overrun us a long time ago. They've got the guns, they've got the muscle- it's like they're playing with us! Why don't they get us over with?"

There was real strain in King's words. Ellen glanced back at him; she could've sworn there was a twitch building under both eyes. "Sir?" she asked. "When did you last sleep?"

"I don't even remember," King admitted. "We're in a really bad way out here, and I don't dare take my eyes off the approach for a minute. The Family could come back any time. If I thought I could get away with it I'd be taking Jet, but... look, could you do me a favor? Ken Ewers was on guard duty last night, but his wife tried to wander off, and that's when the Family attacked. I've been out here ever since. I haven't even been able to look into what they might've done in the houses here. Go knock on the doors in town and make sure everyone's okay?"

There hadn't been anybody anywhere in sight when Ellen approached the overpass, but the man had just hucked a grenade at her on pure suspicion. It was probably best to humor him. She nodded and made her way over to the first house, rapping at the door lightly. "Hello?"

"Is that the mailman?" sang out a woman's voice inside. "Oh, I do hope it's the mail-"

"Um," said Ellen hesitantly. "I've got a letter for-"

"I can't wait to see the new fall catalog!" the woman exuberantly went on. "Just a minute."

That... couldn't be good. Ellen stepped back as the door opened, but all that greeted her on the other side was the smell of a contained space and a vacantly smiling woman. "Well, hello there!" the woman said. "Now what have you got for me?"

"Don't mind her," came a sour, worn male voice. Ellen glanced sidelong and caught sight of a middle-aged man who looked, if anything, even more tired than Evan King. "That's my wife for you. Dumber than a bag of hammers, and that's on a good day."

"Oh," said Ellen again, since she really didn't know how else to respond. "Er- Evan King asked me to check on you?"

"He's such a dear," the woman said cheerfully. "I simply must recommend him for a good citizenship award at the next homeowners' committee meeting."

"We're fine," groused the man. "Brailee and I are just fine. Stuck in here sitting on our asses until King decides we don't have to hide any more, but we're fine in the meantime."

"All right," said Ellen. This must be Ken Ewers. "Er, is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?"

"Not unless you can cure stark raving crazy," said Ken, jerking his chin at his wife, who was humming happily to herself as she tidied up a kitchen whose contents consisted almost entirely of tin cans and an old pressure cooker.

"... sorry?"

"Didn't think so. Go tell King we're fine, and leave us alone."

Ellen edged out of the house, closing the door behind her. That was anything but a good sign, really. The woman she found in the second house was almost as tired and bitter as Ken, but at least Karen Schenzy was sane and taking care of herself. Probably a good thing, given the number of guns she seemed to have stockpiled over the years. It was just the stress of confinement after the attack that wore on her, so far as Ellen could see. With a sigh she slipped out of Karen's house and approached the third, rapping at the door and waiting.

There was no answer. She knocked again.

Still no answer. She tested the door handle; it was unlocked. Bracing herself, Ellen eased the door open.

"Oh no."

There was nothing she could do for the two people who had lived here except close their eyes, lay them straight, and say the final prayers. There'd been a struggle, but whoever had done the deed was long gone. The corpses were both oddly pale, with no real bloodshed to be seen anywhere except around the gaping wounds that were all that remained of their throats. She did her best not to look at those.

When she finally emerged and returned to King's position, the man hadn't moved a muscle. "What did they tell you? Everyone okay?" he demanded.

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Ewers seem to be okay, and Ms. Schenzy seems all right, but... Mr. King, who lives in that last house past yours?"

"That's the Wests' house," King said. "Why?"

"That's what I was afraid of." Ellen fidgeted. "Mr. and Mrs. West are dead, sir."

"The Family must've gotten to them in the attack last night! Sons of bitches!" King slammed his fist into his palm. "Dammit, if we only had more men, we could stand up to them! I'm sick of them terrorizing this town!... wait a minute, how many dead at the West residence?"

"Oh- two," Ellen said. "An older man and woman. Why?"

"That's Dominic and Nancy. They've got a son, Ian. He's around your age. I've caught him talking with that weirdo leader the Family's got down by the river a couple of times. They must've taken him..." King shook his head. "Look, I can't leave, and Ken Ewers has to keep an eye on that wife of his. Any chance I can convince you to go find that kid? He deserves better than all this."

This kind of thing kept happening to her. Ellen spread her hands helplessly. "I don't even know where to look," she said. "I've never been out this way before."

"That's okay. You've got a map on that wrist computer thing of yours, don't you?" said King. "I've got me some old RobCo catalogs and tech manuals, I know how they work. Let me have a minute with the map and I can mark out the places I've run across signs of the Family for you."

Ellen sighed and held out her arm. Not that she especially wanted to go hunting a gang of rampaging killers and kidnappers, but it didn't look like this place could spare anybody else right now. "Okay," she said in resignation. "Hey, question."

"Yeah?" said King as he marked out somewhere called Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema.

"You wouldn't happen to know of any Vaults around here, would you?"

"Can't say that I do, no," King said. "You might try Karen when you get back. She's traveled more than I have..." He added two more spots to the Pip-Boy map. "Thanks, kid. You're all right. You bring that boy back and there's as much of a reward in it as I can manage for you."

Well, it was better than nothing. "Thank you, sir."