Voodoo - Cram It

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The North American continent is big. Not stupidly big- it's not Asia or anything- but it's still pretty damned big, especially when you're a) walking and b) periodically set upon by mutated things that want to eat you. It is probably best not to speak of the ruins of Cincinnati, or of what lurked in the landscape of thorns where Hoosier National Forest once stood, or of the stretch of road punctuated solely by massive granite sculptures of Popeye chararacters, who watched over the endless empty miles with blank gray eyes, forever.

Unfortunately that leaves the ruins of East St. Louis to talk about, and that wasn't even nice before the war.

At least a binocular sweep of the place from a nice safe distance indicates there's lights in what's left of some of the buildings, and shapes that look more human than otherwise.

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

"Oh yeah? Well, we ain't 'most people'."

His free hand comes to rest on his hip.

"You got a problem with us, then say so."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's not a problem," says the boy, "but it's- holy shit."

Guess who's just seen Fawkes.

[boston_bruiser]

They're used to this by now - Voodoo barely glances over his shoulder to confirm Fawkes is indeed there, with the steer.

"That's Fawkes. He's harmless."

He returns his attention to the boy.

"You were saying?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The boy stares a while longer, then shakes himself off. "Wow," he says. "They don't look like that at all back home. What happened to him?"

(He forgot to do the deeper voice thing. He's a good half an octave higher pitched now.)

[boston_bruiser]

"What do you think? FEV happened."

Gesturing to the factory behind him:

"Who're you standing guard for?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The boy gives Voodoo a blank look- 'FEV' clearly means about as much to him as 'IRS'- but glances over his shoulder at the gesture. "My family," he says. "What's left of it. Dad says we don't go any farther east until Mom's recovered."

[boston_bruiser]

With a glance to the others:

"She sick, or just tired? We've got medical supplies."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Sick, I think," says the boy. "Maybe poisoned. I don't know which. Dad doesn't either. She drank the water about thirty miles back."

[boston_bruiser]

"Radiation exposure, probably," Voodoo says, making to move toward the factory. "Fawkes, get the RadAway off Leo and let's take a look."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Understood," rumbles Fawkes, and he moseys over to the Brahmin.

"What were you doing coming from thirty miles away, anyway?" says Josepha curiously to the boy.

"We were coming from a lot further than thirty miles," says the boy. "Dad says you can't put too much distance between yourself and Caesar."

[boston_bruiser]

The interior of the factory is mostly taken up by centuries-old machinery, and debris covers the floor. There is a barrel here and there, but nothing to indicate they hold anything of interest. BOVINE BLOOD BATH takes up a couple of windows, and R.I.P another. Whatever metal is visible has long since rusted. Along one side, the ceiling is caved in.

"Runnin' from the Legion, huh? Where'd they chase you from?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Two-Sun," says the boy soberly, stepping over a crudely rigged tripwire and indicating to the others that they should do the same. "We came from south of there, though. People said it was safer up north because Caesar killed anybody who tried to rob travelers in his territory. Dad saved up a whole bunch of money to pay the taxes, because people said there were a lot of those, too."

"So what happened?" asks Josepha.

"One of the Legion guys told us that we had to have twice as much money for the taxes. Then he said we didn't have to give him that much if we gave him my sister instead."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo glances over his shoulder at the boy as he steps over a tripwire, glass cracking underneath his boot.

"So that's when you got out of Dodge."

Right? Please say that's when you got out of Dodge.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"No, Marian stabbed the Legion guy first. Then we started running," says the boy. "My name's Peter, by the way."

[boston_bruiser]

"Voodoo."

Then, pointing to each of the group members in turn:

"Josepha, Hector, Kate, Al. You know Fawkes. Leo's our steer."

He stops, looking around the factory.

"Where're your folks holed up? I don't see 'em."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Up there," says Peter, and points to an enormous bucket-like thing that crashed onto its side and rusted in place long ago. "Safer. It's hard for people trying to find more Cram to get up the ladders."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo looks up at the indicated bucket-like thing.

"-yeah, that'll do it. Okay. Probably best for you to go on ahead and tell them what's up so they don't shoot us."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Pete nods and scrambles up the remains of a nearby ladder that looks like something taken from an outdoor fire escape rather than the original building. As Josepha watches him go she says, "I really hope they've got better up there and they just don't let them down in case of visitors, because I'm not climbing that thing."

"I have the chems, Voodoo," notes Fawkes, in what passes for an inside voice with him.

[boston_bruiser]

"Good. You'll be my number two on this."

He walks over to Leo, digging through the first aid kit and coming out with some gauze and dressings, alcohol wipes, a tourniquet, med tape, and a pair of disposable gloves. Some of it came in a kit with the RadAway - some came from Bar.

"Pete?" he calls out, tucking his Mechanix into his pocket before snapping the disposables on. "We good to go?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I think so," the boy calls down. "Dad says don't make any sudden moves and everything'll be okay."

[boston_bruiser]

"Okay. We're comin' up."

With a motion for the rest of the group to stay where they are, Voodoo clambers up the ladder. The family clustered together at the top is sort of Hispanic and sort of Asian - it's hard to tell. All have the appearance of being chronically underfed, with Dad (or so Voodoo's guessing) looking relatively healthy. Mom looks like absolute shit.

"Evenin', everyone," Voodoo says. "I'm Voodoo, this is my buddy Fawkes. We're here to help."

He nods to the mother. "Your boy says you're sick. Think I got a pretty good idea of what's causing it, but just so we can make sure, why don't you tell me what's been goin' on."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The mother does her best to sit up; the father immediately moves to stop her before the wave of nausea crossing her face gets worse. "Sorry," she says hoarsely. "I-"

"I'll talk, Anne. You lie back down," says the father. He looks at Voodoo, and then at Fawkes. "Now there's something I haven't seen in a few hundred miles," he murmurs. "We've been trying to keep our load light and use up as few of our supplies as possible on the road, and we were starting to run low on safe water. About twenty or thirty miles back we found this patch of wilderness- like there'd been a town once, and then things started growing over it, you know? Before."

The mother rubs at a patch of lumpy, greyish skin on her face. Absently, the father pushes her hand away.

"We figured we'd stop for a little bit and try to get a breather. Anne here went looking for whatever supplies she could scavenge and found an old building. Looked like some kind of hotel or something. It even had a pump, and the water ran pretty clean when we checked it out..."

[boston_bruiser]

"And so you guys loaded up on as much as you can, and then the puking and the fatigue started a few hours later. Am I on the right track?"

It's the skin that draws his attention more than anything else. He remembers, a few months before Bar swapped his world out - the president of Ukraine had a nasty case of dioxin poisoning during the primaries. Poor son of a bitch's skin looked almost just like this.

He lays the back of his hand on her forehead - it's a fever of respectable severity, but it could be a whole lot worse.

"Ordinarily, I'd say it was rads. But that don't account for why her skin's the way it is. How'd the water taste? -make a fist for me, hard as you can." He takes his index and middle fingers and starts searching for a good vein along the length of her arm.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"About the size of it," the father confirmed. "Anne?"

"It looked-" She grimaces. "Looked clean, smelled clean. Tasted- off. Chemical, almost. Like someone put something in it to kill things, make it safe..."

"They used to do that," the father says. "I heard about it once. Whole buildings where they purified water by adding things to it."

[boston_bruiser]

"Mhm. They did."

He tears open a pouch containing an alcohol swab. "I got good news and I got bad news. Good news is you've got some radiation sickness. That, we can make go away. Just gonna put an IV of RadAway in you, let it drip for a while, and that fever'll go away. Nausea, too."

He takes the swab to the crook of one of her elbows, cleaning away the grime and dirt as best he can. "Bad news is you've got dioxin toxicity along with it. That, we can't make go away. It binds to fat molecules in your body, and we ain't got anything to flush it out with. About the only thing I can say for that is that you won't die from it. It'll be some major-league suck, but if it was gonna kill you, it would've by now. Might take months, might take years, but you'll recover."

Satisfied with the results, he removes the catheter from its packaging. "Okay, here we go. -Fawkes, get the bag ready?"