Voodoo - Bala

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

From Valley Forge to the region where Philadelphia's outskirts might be expected to begin was a decent journey. Nothing too long or too arduous, except for a few detours around this or that environmental hazard. There's a cluster of junk in the distance that might be city ruins, or might be deliberately reared walls- hard to say.

There is also a sign. It is yellow. The figure painted is a low-slung, four-legged, blunt-nosed creature of considerable girth. Its lone head is easily half as long as the thing's body, its jaws gaping ridiculously wide. The image only shows four thick fangs as far as teeth go, two to each jaw. Under its stubby-toed feet is lettered a single word: BEWARE.

Voodoo probably has a better chance of recognizing the damn thing than anyone else here.

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Al pales, but nods. Hector has one hand over his shoulder already, reaching for the shotgun. The women merely eye each other and begin scanning ahead to locate the best coverage-to-coverage dash path possible among the wrecked cars.

[boston_bruiser]

"Okay. One at a time. Cover to cover."

Voodoo stills, listening to the snorts and chuffs of the hippos.


Then, with a grunt, he pushes himself off, legs pumping, carbine swinging across his chest as he dashes across a clearing, sliding feetfirst against what must have been a very nice sedan, once.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Josepha follows. Al is right behind, maybe a little too close to be healthy. Kate gestures to Hector to go on ahead of her, crouching and turning her head this way and that to try and catch the direction of the sound before she bolts herself.

The hippo noises fall quiet, which may or may not be a good thing.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo treats that as his cue to prop his carbine up on the hood in the direction of the river.

"Anyone see it?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Nope."

"Nope."

"Nope."

"Holy fuck."

"Al, what- Jesus!"

That last was Hector, who's looking down the highway in the same direction as the horrified Al. Why is Al horrified? Because up ahead, right in front of a battered roadside sign reading WELCOME TO FILLY PHILLY, DAMMIT LENNY YOU HAD ONE JOB in crudely scrawled paint, there's a huge, warty sausage of a beast with more head and jaw than anything living ought to have, lumbering up onto the road like it's the king of the world.

[boston_bruiser]

'Holy fuck' is about right - the thing's a damn monster. The second one lumbering up onto the road after it is a little smaller, perhaps its offspring, but it's still a hulking beast of a thing.

"Listen. Worst comes to worse, we can outrun the damn thing, but don't shoot 'til you gotta. Plan's the same."

With a deep breath:

"Cover me."

And then, he dashes across the road into the ditch on the other side.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It's Josepha doing the covering, mostly. Hector's trying to shake some sense into Al without attracting the notice of the two monstrous quadrupeds; Kate's desperately trying to cover them without being noticed.

When the smaller one lets out a hideous belching noise and opens its mouth so wide one could easily be forgiven thinking that its head had split, Al comes back to himself and makes a mad, frantic scramble for Voodoo's ditch.

[boston_bruiser]

When Al makes it across, Voodoo is none too kind about grabbing him by the shoulder.

"Get your fuckin' head in the game."

With that, he waves the next one across, carbine leveled at the hippos.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Sorry! Sorry-"

Hector, it has been said, is surprisingly spry and quick for a man his age. He still is. He gives Al a faintly pitying look as he slides into cover and gestures to Josepha to come their way.

[boston_bruiser]

"Don't be sorry, just do it."

The bigger of the hippos chuffs and looks their way, and Voodoo holds out a fist.

"Drop 'n crawl, now."

Another chuff, and the creature starts to plod over towards them.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Josepha doesn't waste time with nodding. She just hits the crumbling pavement and starts scrambling forward on her belly. One day she will express great gratitude for the leather she's wearing; it's not much good against bullets, but at a time like this it's an incredible asset.

Not that it makes her any faster than the hippo, but hey, she's trying.

[boston_bruiser]

It'll have to do for now. The beast itself is getting closer by the second. The radiation has enlarged its tusks and toughened its hide - the head is bigger in proportion to the body, as well. It's no rhino, but it's close.

"Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't you fucking do it-"

With a long, low bellow, the hippo puts its head down and charges.

"Open fire!"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Hector's been waiting for an order like that. Man loves his shotgun. He promptly starts firing off as many rounds as the drum holds and his finger and shoulder will allow, not that it seems to do as much against the creature as he might like. Josepha and Kate aren't quite as gung-ho about it, but they do start firing; Al takes a moment to unfreeze before he whips out his own assault rifle.

A sensible beast would flee that kind of sound. hippos are not sensible. The other one's coming to see what's going on.

[boston_bruiser]

It's not stopping. It's not stopping, and Voodoo could've sworn that last one went into its eyeball, and its kid is about to join in on the fun. This is just perfect.

"Fall back! Back down the road, I'll cover!"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

They do. They don't need to be told twice, not with a monster like that charging their way and blood spewing in every direction. Especially not when it's gaining ground-

The thunderous charge is abruptly cut short by an even more thunderous sound of gunfire, this time coming from down the road in the direction of the city. The smaller of the hippos turns and runs off as the bigger one crashes to a spattering, bloody halt and collapses to the ground.

It will be silent for a few moments before one of the figures in orange-daubed combat armor lifts a hand and whistles.

[boston_bruiser]

And Voodoo climbs out of the ditch, holding his carbine aloft in one hand, the other waving the group back to him as he walks down the road.

"Thanks for the assist. Standin' post?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Standard perimeter patrols," says the woman at the forefront, whose armor looks more like something made by CCM than is generally common. "I'm guessing you don't have hippos in your territory, huh."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo shakes his head, poking the corpse with his foot once or twice to make sure. "That's a negative."

He sticks a thumb to his chest. "Voodoo. That's Kate, Josepha, Al, and Hector. We're heading for D.C., looking to resupply here if we can."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Start chopping," the woman says to the two people who come up behind her. "There's a good week or two's worth of cheez steaks on that thing... Name's Vetter. I don't much care where you're going as long as you haven't come from the Pitt."

[boston_bruiser]

"Christ, no," Voodoo says as her subordinates get to work on the hippo. "Give me half a chance and I'd burn that fuckin' place to the ground."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Good. Any of those penguins show their faces within twenty miles of this city and every ganger worth his blades will put their rivalries aside for a chance to sink their sorry asses," says Vetter. "There's a couple of places you could get supplies from. If you plan on being here more than a day or two you're going to want to head over to Fairmount and present yourselves to the Prince, but if you're strictly in and out it's not that big a deal."

[boston_bruiser]

"Don't plan on stayin' longer than tonight. Way in's down this road?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Vetter nods. "Take the old 76 south to the Girard bridge, then cross the river," she says. "The bridge is guarded so there won't be critter problems, probably. There's a marketplace by the Steps. You should be able to stock up there without too much trouble."

[boston_bruiser]

"Works for me." As he waves the other four on: "Good hunting."

It takes about 15 minutes to get to the gate from where they are - not too bad a time, considering. The gate itself isn't much - it's a sliding rig between two pieces of formerly elevated highway, manned by two guards who, if Voodoo had to guess, are still grumpy from an early-morning shift change. It's surrounded by signs warning that it's under sniper surveillance - fine by him. Getting shot has never been on his to-do list.

"We'll have a look around at the market," he says to the group. "Sound off if you see something you want."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Wouldn't say no to better boots," says Hector. "These things've been rubbing my ankle raw for days now."

"You should've said something, Hector," Kate says. "I might've been able to adjust them."

Hector shrugs. "Wasn't worth the bother. Let's just see what these people have."

The 76, here, is one of those old elevated roads dotted with the wrecks of cars. Someone's gone to the trouble of either pushing the cars off to the side of the road or carving them apart for scrap metal, much like a lot of the old buildings on the other side of the water. Which, by the way, we don't advise looking into. It's moving, and there are things moving in it- big, blobby things that look more like living trashbags than anything especially recognizable- but it's not a particularly pleasant view. It also smells, although in its favor it's at least an organic sort of smell, but that's like saying the NYPD police stables smell better than the Arthur Kill landfill.

Someone has rammed the arm of a mannequin onto the pole that once held a 'no u-turns' sign in the middle of the road; the hand holds a crudely painted sign reading GIRARD BRIDGE, and has an arrow pointing towards the rickety, but still mostly intact, concrete-and-stone span up ahead.