He's a Demon, He's a Devil, He's a Doll. Make up your mind, Betty! It's all or nothing out there in the Commonwealth. Not that I would know too much, you might get lucky I've walked around the block occassionally, but I've got what most people would call...brown pants syndrome....I don't go outside of Diamond City unless I wear brown pants...mainly because of the terriffying things that would turn clean white pants...into stained, smelly, brown pants. So, woe is me for not having to deal with the hell going on outside, I've got a pretty good set-up in here and I enjoy it. Mainly the big reason is "OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Running through my mind every time I walk past the wall.

Betty Hutton, everyone.

Make up your mind, either listen to Diamond City Radio, or don't. You're choice. I'd love to hear what else is playing on the air..."

October 25th, 2278
6:03 A.M.

The path east from Starlight Drive-In followed a road north, until Nate looked right and cut off the road, passing through sloping hills down to the east, and straight to Bedford Station. Nate picked large buildings and went straight for them, silently lost in thought and making his way forward, putting one foot in front of the other and thinking about what there was to do in this new world.

Meathead plodded alongside him, panting like the dog he was pretending to be, and faithfully following along.

Meathead didn't speak much, but the nearer they got to the Bedford Station, and Nate instinctively followed the train tracks to the station master hut, he barked.

"<Nate.>"

He shook his head and looked down. "Huh?" Go ahead, he implied.

"<There are people there...ghouls...have you seen ghouls yet, Nate?>"

Nate nodded, he saw them chase Meathead to the Corvega plant, the long-dead humans still shuffling around thanks to the metric ton of radiation exposure coursing through their bodies.

"How many?" Nate asked apologetically.

"<Seven...they're all...resting... but... it's like a fever dream. They're asleep and awake, but they're giving off waves of shock, and...fear...and hunger. Desperation. That's the word. They're desperate.>"

"For what?"

"<I think the part of the brain that could answer already rotted away.>"

Nate carried a hunting rifle on his back, a 10 mm pistol in his holster, and a pipe pistol shoved into his waistband and a snub-nose .44 pistol. Readying his hunting rifle, he made sure it was loaded and ready to fire.

"I haven't fought them before, I want to see just what it takes to kill one of these things," Nate said, Meathead nodded and tread lightly behind him.

\111/

They saw the feral ghouls long before the ghouls even noticed Nate or Meathead. Inching closer, the duo made it forty-five feet from the closest ghoul, it was wandering back and forth between an upright train car, and one knocked over onto its side. Circling around to the north, they climbed up the steps to the station master's hub, and Nate got a good count of where every one of them was. Closing the door, Nate picked up the desk with both hands, and set it down in front of the door, bracing it. Sitting in the chair, he stuck the barrel of his hunting rifle out the window, letting it rest on the frame so he could line up his shot. Pushing a few strands of hair out of his face, he yawned and inhaled.

Bang. The first shot struck the feral ghoul, unaware and Nate flinched as he saw the muscle mass weakened by centuries of erosion splatter and rip the ghoul's head and neck clean off with a single bullet.

Pulling back on the bolt, the spent cartridge flew out and clattered to the floor as the other six ghouls woke up from their stasis. Howling, they looked in all directions, and Nate fired again.

He struck the second ghoul in the chest, sending it spinning backward, and it tripped over its own feet, falling to the ground.

Nate quickly rubbed his eye, pulled back on the bolt, and fired at the third ghoul, hitting him in the arm.

At least, Nate thought it was a 'him', he couldn't tell. The other four ghouls were running at the station tower, frantically dashing up the stairs as Nate fired again and again. Their fists pounded against the door. Nate kicked out the wooden panel of the wall above their heads, and he was looking down at the small group. Unholstering his pistol, he fired twelve times, killing two of them, and wounding the other two. Moving to his .44 revolver, he stuck his arm out through the wood, and fired three times, killing the two remaining ghouls.

Meathead sat on top of the desk, watching as Nate dispatched them with tact and ease. He reloaded his weapons and then moved towards the door. Meathead hopped down off the desk and Nate shoved it out of the way.

Inhaling and exhaling, Nate was breathing heavily. Taking long steps over the feral ghoul bodies on the stairs, they walked down and scouted the weigh station, finding litters of ammo and a box of crackers Nate munched on before continuing their path east.

\111/

"<There's nine of them, this time.>" Meathead said, looking down at the feral ghouls in the graveyard.

"<...And there are people to the north, up, over on that overpass there. They're bored, screwing around and uninterested in anything.>" Meathead and Nate were both eyeing the glowing feral ghoul in the middle of the cluster. It was like looking at a human X-ray, the bones were visible through the skin, and the eyes and mouth were pockets of glowing green.

Contempt. Aggression. Nate felt threatened by the glowing ghoul stalking through Wild Wood Cemetery, and Meathead could pick up on Nate's emotions.

"...And that's why we here at Vault Tec...have provided you with the Vault Assisted Tageting System..." Nate mumbled, looking over the hunting rifle in his hands.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He counted off, picking which ones to shoot first before needing to reload.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He made the motion of pulling the bolt back and counting off in his head.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Drop the spent magazine, reload a fresh clip. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Patting his handgun and pistol, his pointer finger went from ghoul to ghoul. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Inhaling, he raised both arms above his head and felt his heart rate rise.

"Okay," Nate said, moving forward. Nate approached a bent cast iron gate, and kicked one leg high over the fence, and then the other. Meathead followed around through a gap in the fence, ten paces farther down.

The circular design of Wild Wood Cemetary was like a giant clock, with Nate and Meathead approaching from the 10' o'clock direction. In the very center was a large Cedar tree, now bent and gnarled from time where the ghouls were looping around in mindless circles. The cemetery was in three tiers, with ramps starting at the 6 o'clock position, and going to the left and right, with a third pass at the 12 o'clock position. Around the second and third tiers of the cemetery were small family tombs, made from white marble and costing upwards of two million dollars to build and house the long-dead relatives into the afterlife.

Nate propped up his rifle on the backside of the gravestone belonging to Matteo Gervias, and aimed down the sights to the Glowing One, and set up the perfect shot with VATS.

He fired three times, all striking the Glowing One's skull. The ghoul's green blood blew out the backside of the skull, and the ghoul faltered but stayed standing.

Nate grit his teeth and swore to himself, ducking down. Eight more ghouls on top of the Glowing One were aware of his presence and turned to him like he was shining a spotlight on him. Sprinting while keeping his body low, the ghouls were scrambling up the steep rocky hill, falling over themselves and crawling over headstones to reach the spot where Nate was, and then one of the nine pairs of eyes spotted Nate and charged after him, redirecting the herd of un-sapient growling humans after him.

Meathead changed from German Shepard to Changeling, casting off his disguise, his crooked horn burned green. Charging up a spell, he took to the air with his blue translucent wings, hovering above the crowd. A bolt of energy flew from his horn, colliding with one of the rotten ghouls. The concussive shot blew the arms off one ghoul, barely hanging on with limited muscle tendons.

The ghoul fell back as Nate ran, firing behind him as the ghouls stretched out their arms, trying to tackle him like rabid dogs.

Circling around the cedar tree, Nate fired the last round in the hunting rifle and switched to his .44 snub nose and 10mm. Vaulting over tombstones, the ghouls lacked the depth perception to avoid most of them or bump into the waist-high cover. Meathead dove, plucking one ghoul off the ground as it thrashed in his forehooves. Flying forty feet up into the sky, he let the ghoul go, letting it plummet into the ground and shatter its leg bones.

The Glowing One snarled, raising its hands up to the sky, its chest grew brighter and brighter until a burst of radioactive dust blew out from its body. The ghouls crippled and laying broken on the ground forced themselves back up, the radiation forcing an accelerated healing to the ghoul's life force-the radioactive blood coursing through each of their veins.

By increasing the amount of radiation within their bodies, but lacking blood pouring out of them, the Glowing One restored some of the other ghouls' life force, much to Nate and Meathead's horror.

Any part of Nate's body that was facing the Glowing One felt cooked and sunburnt. His muscles ached and moving made him wince.

Nate sprinted away, reloading his hunting rifle and clicking a new clip into place. Turning on his heel, he almost fell over, lining up another VATS three round burst directly into the Glowing One's chest. All the bullets collided and burst through the ghoul's rib cage.

The exposed lungs and beating heart poured out of its chest, falling out and dangling in the open air. Meathead tackled the Glowing One and ripped his heart out with his fangs. Flying up, the organ was torn out of his chest and the Glowing One reached out, staggering, barely registering the conscious feeling of coldness before falling over and bleeding out to death.

Nate fired three more times, killing one ghoul and overwhelmed by the horde. He threw his right elbow into the temple of one ghoul and was chomped on the left arm by another. The swarm bashed at him, and Nate fired off another shot at point blank range into a ghoul's skull. Bitten down on the shoulder by the neck, Nate screamed as Meathead tackled a ghoul into the dirt, sending the living dead back beneath the ground where it belonged.
Reaching back, he dropped the snub nose to the ground, whipping the 10mm around like a brick, smashing it into the face of a ghoul in his face. He grabbed the ghoul biting into his shoulder meat and heaved the body over him, into another ghoul, and they both fell backward. Nate lunged forward, sinking bullets into their skulls and killing them.

Meathead landed and tackled another changeling, green blood dripping from his jaws as he leaned down and bit into the neck of one ghoul as Nate shoved another clip into the 10 mm pistol and firing all the rounds in rapid succession.

"Die...motherfucker...Die..." Nate chanted, bleeding from the shoulder, arm, chest, nose, and hands. His right arm was shaking, and ears were ringing. The last ghouls were dead, and Meathead hacked and coughed, spitting the blood from his mouth.

"Jeeezus," Nate said, head spinning.

Falling to his knees, he wrapped his arms around his head and tried forcing more air into his lungs. He hurt all over, but he was alive. His left leg muscles cramped at the sudden adrenaline rush and Meathead came up to his side. Nate reached down and unzipped the brown leather pouch strapped to his leg, and pulled out a stimpak, then pressed it to his shoulder.

"<Are you all right?>" Nate shook his head, passing by the gravestones, he was looking for one in particular.

"You?"

Meathead nodded.

Moving through the rows, Nate found the one he came here for and collapsed onto the stone bench next to the two flat grave markers on the ground.

"Hi." He said to the grave markers. Exhaling his grief, he laid on the bench with his back to the ground and looked up at the sky.

Holding his Pip-boy up, he looked at the radiation gauge and balked. 300 rads per b/u³.

His chest fell, and he turned his head right to Meathead. "How about you? How are you feeling? I'm cooking over here." Nate closed his eyes and let his arms drop.

"<I'm fabulous, thank's for asking. Changelings formed a resistance to radiation long before we even knew what it was. We're a subterranean species. Gas, radiation, pressure, and - oh you're not listening.>" Meathead said, seeing Nate's dazed expression on his face. He was laying on his back, face to the sky, eyes unfocused, and deep shallow breathing.

Meathead's ears perked up, and he felt the killing intention hiding behind a high powered pipe rifle, with a long barrel, stabilizer stock, and a full magazine of .45 caliber round bullets, aimed right at Nate.

Meathead plucked Nate up in green magic and whipped him behind tombstones, he jerked awake immediately and shouted: "What the fuck?!" As the first long-range barrage began.

\111/

The overpass looking down on Wildwood Cemetery was partially collapsed, it was a two-tiered highway with two windmills built and sustained by the Gunners, the paramilitary mercenary organization and are the largest single unaligned faction in the Commonwealth, acting independently of any government or settlement.

They attached lifts to the highway, and with a fallen section ramping up to the 100-meter long section where they outfitted an automatic turret to gun down anyone coming up the ramp. They boxed themselves in, and from their vantage point could look out in every direction. Their fort built on the first level of the ramp had three shacks, while on the second level only accessible by a second lift was where they cooked, gathered power from the windmills, and watched for any people passing by.

Armed with laser rifles, and long range scopes, they carried more heavy arms than a typical raider. Their insignia on every piece of military grade armor, every robot under their command, every defense point and banner was a skull with a stitched mouth, and a large X carved into the middle of the forehead.

The second Gunner fired at Nate with a modified pipe rifle, built to fire .45 rounds, and capable of hitting a target at 400 meters. It's accuracy fell off after 100 meters, but the first Gunner standing next to the second held binoculars to her face and told the shooter how many degrees to adjust her aim and hit the target.

Nate crawled on his belly through the tombstones, keeping his head low, and body lower. "Women Jiang renshou!" Nate shouted to Meathead.

"<What?!>" Meathead shouted back, not understanding what he said.

Nate was shaking, he blew out his nose and kept crawling with his hunting rifle out in front of him, he looked back and saw Meathead taking cover behind a tombstone, and they both saw the wild crazed look in each other's eye. They weren't expecting another fight so quickly.

Every ten seconds, another bullet would race overhead and smash into the ground, the rock, dirt, or a grave site. He knew where the bullets were coming from, and he crawled in a perpendicular line away from the sniper.

Breathing heavily, they both skirted for cover. When they put the cover of the natural steel hill between them and the line of sight of the overpass, Nate pushed himself onto his knees and waved Meathead over. Nate's eyes burned as Meathead came up to him, and the bullets echoed out over the graveyard.

Exhaling, "<You saw the gunner, right? The second story of the overpass. Right side, 30 meters in, 400 meters out.>"

Nate nodded, turning the hunting rifle over in his hand. With a range of 700 meters, accurate shots were difficult after 100 meters, it would take stillness, focus, and a good angle to shoot back at a sniper behind cover. Feasibly, the only part of the body Nate would be able to see was the barrel of the gun or the top of the shooter's head.

"<What do we do?>"

"We wait." The shots rang out for another ten minutes, striking at random spots around the graveyard. Nate would hear the bullet impact and Meathead laid his ears flat, trying to crawl up the steep hill and peer over for a vantage point.

"<He's searching, but they're getting bored again. Their killing intention is dissipating.>" Meathead came back down until he was touching Nate's side.

Laying there patiently, Nate waited for Meathead to make a signal.

"<Okay, I just saw the shooter's rifle pull up. They think you're gone. What's the plan?>"

"Kill them."

Crouch walked to the road, they stayed out of sight from the overpass and crept closer. Going intentionally slow, and picking up speed, Meathead clicked his tongue if he wanted to get Nate's attention. He would drop down to the ground, lay flat, and then listen for Meathead.

They could make out the figures of a few Gunners from a long ways away. Meathead said there were four, two of them were walking around on guard.

Across the street, over embankments and guard rails, they followed a ditch close to the tail end of the highway overpass and were able to sneak all the way to the underside of the fallen overpass without raising alarm.

Nate cupped his ears, listening to a ratcheting noise, something swinging back and forth. "There's a turret." It sounded like a lawnmower engine, pivoting the automatic turret back and forth.

"<I could tip it over. North. There's someone coming.>"

"North?" Nate squatted low. "How many?"

Meathead shook his head, closing his eyes. Mouthing the numbers, he counted upwards. "Arrogance, self-assured victory, they're approaching with an intent to win, determination...>" Meathead opened his eyes. "<Six...seven? They're all clustered together and moving south right towards us.>"

"Does this second group know we're here?"

"No."

Nate heard a metal clang.

His calves pinched together and knees buckled, the metal clang was like one hollow steel pipe swung like a baseball bat against a big cast iron bell, making the noise ring out. Fear rolled off Nate's shoulders as they both heard the whistling through the air.

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. Nate thought.

<What!? What is it?>" Meathead's ears picked up Nate's fear. On the whistling noise that grew louder and louder, and Meathead didn't have a chance to hear it before at Corvega when his ears were ringing from the gunfire.

Nate grabbed his dog and hugged Meathead to his chest and fell to the ground. The whistling increased and then the left-hand support structure of the highway was obliterated in a white light and roaring explosion as a group of raiders surrounding a central raider wearing power armor and carrying at Fat Man launched mini-nukes at the Gunner base on the overpass.

\111/

Boomer despised the Gunners, he saw it fit to walk south from Outpost Zimonja, with a few of the best men in his crew to show these mercenaries who was running the show around here in this part of the Commonwealth.

These assholes, as he put it, were digging in with their windmills, fortifying their position, and making themselves harder and harder to assault every day. His limited supply of Mini-Nukes wouldn't last forever, but he knew to strike hard, fast, and scare the living daylights out of any wannabe merc in his territory.

Boomer sent four raiders to charge up the collapsed overpass ramping up to the road.

His men were aware of the turret, and pleasantly surprised when the darn thing fell over backward and aimed upwards. This cleared the right-hand side of the highway, giving the men ample cover with concrete barriers protecting them from being shot at from a crossfire from a guard stand on the left-hand side.

Boomer aimed at the second tier of the highway, launching a second Mini-nuke, and blowing three cars off the top, while destroying their northern facing windmill. The chaos was a beautiful sight to his men, inspiring them to run up the ramp and assault the Gunners in full force with better numbers.

Two men were killed trying to make it up the ramp, and Boomer launched a third mini-nuke at the overpass, looking for flying body parts or people running for their lives. The two men who stayed with Boomer were on the semi-equal ground with the first level of the overpass and were scanning the rail for anyone trying to poke their head up and shoot down at them. They fired suppressing rounds, splitting the attention of the Gunners to the north, and to the men charging up the ramp.
One raider killed both gunners on the first level of the overpass, but not before a third raider was killed.

The four raiders left, including Boomer went up the ramp, dragged their bodies out to the front of their blockades, and cut their heads off, one by one, and kicked their bodies down the concrete path, leaving long bloody smears.

They left the Gunner's heads on display, and Boomer carved the letter 'B' in the forehead of the first skull, then 'O' in the second, 'O', and 'M'.

BOOM.

Leaving the grizzly sight on display, they didn't take their weapons or even stay long afterward. Nate and Meathead were huddled underneath the ramp, keeping absolutely quiet until they were gone.

After Meathead gave Nate the all-clear, they both ran up to the Gunners camp, picking over a small collection of weapons, and taking the scope from the Gunner's sniper rifle, finding some much-needed ammo, a laser pistol which Nate then handed the pipe pistol to Meathead. The dog took the weapon, and it disappeared before both their eyes, but as Meathead put it, it was in between space.

After finding another three stimpaks on the Gunner's bodies, but no Radaway, they looked north and saw the small band of raiders were still visible.

"Let's get after them." Nate said, "We need that launcher."

\111/

October 25th
7:13 A.M.

Following an East by north East direction, they passed under the interstate leading north and South, coming to a ridge where they heard the echoing concussive bang of Mini-Nukes exploding.

The light generated from one of the mushrooming explosion was enough to make the rest of the noonday around them seem dark. Nate dropped low to the ground, covering his ears and waiting for any more to be fired off.

"<They don't know we're here yet.>"

Nate nodded, moving along the ridge even more north, checking around the edge of a moss-covered boulder for a count of how many raiders.

Peeking one eye around the bend, Outpost Zimonja came into view. It was an antenna station for radios, a small brick shed with a maintenance shed next to it with a few additions to make it into a camp. From their vantage point, he saw a little spigot for water, and the remains of solar panels attached to the antenna, providing electricity for a string of lights running between the two buildings. A rusted chain-link fence surrounded the outpost, making it a decent camp. There were seven raiders, and one of them was balancing a Fat Man mini-nuke launcher between his legs. Wearing power armor that seemed cobbled together, he was sitting in a steel chair that could support the weight of both him, the suit, and the Fat Man.

Nate cleared his throat and crouched down.

"A Fat Man. They have a Fat Man."

It was the Mark 30 Fat Man, a catapult launcher using Hydraulic pistons capable of a range of 1000 meters. They were two-handed artillery cannons. They could launch nearly 2000 meters with a decent enough height advantage, and maybe if the wind was blowing about 100 miles per hour.

All these distinct features were considered when launching a mini-nuke across the 1700 meter wide channel separating False Pass from the encamped Chinese forces on the other side.

When Uncle Sam dropped two shipping containers of Fat Man's down onto the soldiers in False Pass, they took them high up onto the mountainsides next to the town. A striking feature about most of the Alaskan Islands are the steep mountains that drop right down into the water, with maybe a ten-foot stretch of beach that would disappear at high-tide. With no place for a boat to tie up to, there were very few safe havens that non-locals would be able to find shelter.

Nate remembered carrying the weapons high up onto the mountainside, and how heavy they used to be. After carrying them for weeks, tripods were brought in to help stabilize the Fat-Mans for artillery use.

Following footpaths that were worn out over time from natives and fishermen wandering the island, with BMXs and ATVs, they set up artillery stations and aimed across the channel. There were bueys placed in the channel to show the changing of the tide, and the current speed. A taller buey with a wind flag showed how much it was blowing at ground level.

A major factor to consider about a trajectory when it came to wind in False Pass was the mountainlike narrow valley, it could bowl you over at two-thirds the speed of a hurricane.

They took the weapons and aimed higher, then pulled the triggers.

They were nearly knocked off their feet the first time, realizing it was supposed to be held by a person in power armor. The recoil was like taking a torque gun and letting it piston against your shoulder. The mini-nukes, each weighing about 1 kilogram, sailed through the air with a long whistling sound.

"WWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooBASH!"
The wind carried the shells even farther across the pass, having them explode, wiping out 15 meter wide swaths of land that were charred black and rendered radioactive for the next five hours.

The Americans had time to avert their eyes before the blinding light damaged their corneas. In the back of their minds, all their mothers were telling them to not look directly at the bright light.

What most American's didn't know about America, is that during World War Two, the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands, and were island hopping their way all the way to the mainland.

They were stopped at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. This island was the next main island after False Pass, about a day's journey west by boat at 10 knots. The five thousand Americans were airdropped resources and supplies or boated in from the mainland to fight the Japanese.

War remained the same, but they were both waiting for the thousands of soldiers to freeze to death or starve when it came to winter. When no planes could fly, or small boats could safely run. The only boats that went out were industrial fishing vessels, the Navy, Coast Guard, and each fishing fleet of ten or more boats was watched by no less than seven Navy vessels.

Even in winter, people needed to eat.

But, getting food in took crazy people, and by God, these people were the craziest.

One captain of an 80-foot boat painted half his boat completely black, so from the shore, you couldn't even tell a boat was going by in the pitch black. You might hear the engines, but no one could see the F/V Aleutian Hunter pull through False Pass in the dead of night. No running lights, going at a trolling speed. Dangerous as hell, especially when you could be picked out by radar from the other side.

But, it didn't stop people from trying, so when the ships slid in, and tied off, with black rope and black rain gear, and all the cigarette smokers were forced to stand on the Island facing side, as to not show the boat's position from the glow of a cigarette or the flare of a lighter.

Yes, a sniper can see the glow of a cigarette, that's why whoever lights up, lights one for his buddy, while a third person stands guard with a rifle to make sure if the first two are shot while smoking, that he sees where the muzzle flash is, and to shoot back.

In this instance of war, the objective was to hold the line and wait for the other side to deplete themselves. If the enemy surrendered, they would be given food, and be treated fairly as prisoners of war. Their rights would be limited, but not completely revoked. They would live, but be seen as an enemy.

It was rooted so deeply in the enemy's mind that they were to under any circumstance, surrender. There was a fear of unknown from the Chinese forces, the fear of being an American Prisoner of War, either voluntarily or under fire, their future's were painted black by their commanders.

Needless to say, on every commercial fishing vessel was a sign that said five things.

Absolutely no Firearms.

What a load of bullshit. Alaska has more guns per gun-owner and owners per capita than Texas.

TEXAS! Shoot!

\111/

Nate blinked the time spent at False Pass away and raised his rifle. Aiming at the raider in power armor, carrying the Fat Man, he shot three times and struck Boomer in the skull three times.

There was a moment of panic and a mad dash for the Fat Man from two other raiders close by. They picked it up and swung it around to where Nate and Meathead were only moments ago. They fired, but the duo was gone.

Both raiders holding up the Fat Man took a step back as the pads slammed into them sending the projectile up into the rocky outcropping around the station. Boulder-sized chunks of rock and small flakes rolled down the hill, and the echoing blast rang out for miles.

Meathead ran in, tackling a raider to the ground and ripping at his arm. Making him drop the weapon, he tried punching the dog in the face, but Meathead let go and bit down again directly on the man's enclosed fist, then slamming his weight down, he broke the bones and chewed through the hand as the man screamed. He growled and let go, pouncing back them rearing back down onto the man's head to kill him.

Nate fired at raiders trying to take cover, killing three of them while the remaining four saw Nate's muzzle flash, and their group members are gunned down.

Nate moved, Meathead moved, the raiders threw a grenade, listening to the metal shell bounce off the rock and explode at Nate's last known position.

Nate pressed his machete through the backside of a raider and out his chest, and kicked him off his blade, drawing the long knife out of the bleeding man's chest. He fired seven rounds at a raider who was aiming at Meathead. The dog changed directions and bit the next man on the shoulder. He cried out, remained standing as he swung his body weight around, trying to throw Meathead off. Meathead let all his body weight sink into his jaws, into the man's flesh as he tore it off.

Letting go, he was thrown back, and landed on his paws, running up and getting kicked in the side of the skull. Nate fired ten rounds at the second to last raider, ripping holes out of his shoulder, chest, and head.

The last raider fired at Nate, unloading his entire clip. The man and his dog heard the empty casing fall to the ground as he struggled to reload and pull the nail back to slide the next bullet into the barrel. Nate charged the man and slammed his boot into the man's knees, making him buckle with a wheeze.

He tried to swing his pipe-rifle up and shoot Nate, but Nate grabbed the top of it and yanked it free from his grip. Pointing both rifles at him, Nate said, "Stop."

And the raider stopped. Laying his arms out beside him, he slowly pushed himself to an upright sitting position.

"Hands up."

"What's your name?" Nate said, coughing twice and taking deep breaths.

"Crag Lock."

Nate passively blinked and looked Crag Lock in the eye. "Live or die, come after me, and you'll die. Try to shoot me when my back is turned, you'll die. Leave here and stop with the petty bullshit raiding, and you just might live to see tomorrow. What is your choice?"

"Live." He said sternly.

"Meathead, bark if he moves."

"<Yark!>"

Nate went to the workbench, looking around the outpost build up around a radio antenna. There were wooden additions to the brick foundation sticking out of the ground. Sticking out of the bricks was a little water faucet with buckets gathered around it. Aside from a metal shed from the pre-war, and a small garden plot with three plants in it, there was nothing else of interest.

Nate grabbed the Fat Man, hefting it up onto his shoulders, then he spotted three ammo rounds on the workbench below.

Next to the Mini-nukes was a comic book, still in almost good condition. Keeping one eye on Crag Lock, and the other on the frail comic book, Astoundingly Awesome Tales, issue #7, he peeked at it for a moment then placed it in his pack.

"Did your parents name you Crag Lock, or was it a nickname?"

Nate asked, the raider looked up from the ground in front of him, which had been his interest for the last five minutes after watching all his comrades were killed.

"Heuh?"

"Your name. Was that your given name?"

"Yeah. What do you have against my name? You got something against my parents too?"

"Nope. I feel like its an odd sounding name." Nate said, Meathead barked once, and he dropped the Fat Man, immediately pulling up Justice and aiming it at Crag Lock.

"Just fucking shoot me."

"Stop, or I will."

"Fuck you. Fuck every last little inch of your body. Fuck you." Crag Lock said taking one bold decisive step forward. Nate fired, aiming directly at the chest. The bullets ripped into his ribcage and killed him instantly. His body took one step backward, knees caving in as he fell.

His blood poured onto the soil, same as the other six bodies now lying dead around the camp.

Then Nate and Meathead were ten minutes outside of the camp, carrying a loaded Fat-Man with spare mini-nukes.