Fallout 4: AR

61. Bug Bites

"Nice job," MacCready coughed, taking aim again. But his magazine was empty, and with an explosive grunt that wasn't quite a curse, he crouched low to reload. I swung the bloodbug corpse wildly, almost grinning at the stupidity of it all. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid, I thought. The moment was short-lived as the legs snapped off at the next swing, leaving me with useless stumps. All right, it's stupid!

"Gotta get away from here," I wheezed, pulling on MacCready's jacket. "Gotta find a bat or something..." Another bloodbug swarmed in, and I barely swatted it out of the air with the stumps held in my hands.

"Go!" He snarled, popping another round into a bloatfly, but taking a raking blow from a diving stingwing. "See if you can find the brahmin," pop pop, "should be something," he ducked a glob of bloatfly projectile, "you can use."

Trailing my own personal stingwing, I staggered down the road, trying to locate a weapon, a bat, even a garden tool, anything I could use to swat the horrid insects out of the air. The increase in buzzing gave me a split-second's warning before the wasp-like bug swooped in for an attack. I stumbled, rolling hard on my shoulder and coming up against a soft, putrid mass. The stingwing hovered briefly over my head, and I kicked up with one leg to try and shoo it away. "Ge'off!" I yelled. It flew up out of reach.

With that one second's reprieve, I twisted around to push off the smelly obstacle. It was the brahmin, dead and decaying, its belly torn open and viscera missing. Pushing down my revulsion, I grabbed at a protruding wooden handle of some kind, one of several sticking out from the half-empty packs still tied to its back. The handle was stuck, and I pulled harder, twisting it free just as the stingwing returned to zip around me. I swung wildly, eyes squinted, shrieking in anger and fright, adrenaline making up for the lack of guidance from my Pip-Boy. A sickening crunch translated up to my arms and I stopped to reopen my eyes. The stingwing had hovered just a second too long, and the garden spade I had pulled from the dead brahmin had done its job.

MacCready was still back at the provisioner's body, barely holding his own against the remaining swarm. I took two running steps towards him when the dirt beside the track exploded, throwing me to the ground. Disoriented, blinking grit out of my eyes, I looked up to see my worst nightmare come to life rising out of the earth. I shrieked in sheer panic and mindless fright as the enormous scorpion skittered towards me.

The giant bugs were bad enough. They had disgusted and frightened me, touching a primal fear deep in the core of my brain. But it was as nothing to the absolute mind-twisting horror that froze my entire body at the sight of the car-sized scorpion. I was seriously arachnophobic, loathing spiders and scorpions far beyond normal bounds. I nearly passed out from sheer terror at the sight of its multiple eyes, the giant flexing claws, the venomous tail lifting high over my head. My chest tightened, and I had to focus on just breathing in and out, forcing air past my constricted throat, still trying to scream, but only managing a weak gasping whine of pure fear. My hands clutched the spade, a tiny futile weapon in the face of madness and death bearing down on me.

Crack!

The giant monstrosity paused for only a moment, turning slightly to face this new threat approaching like a juggernaut before its claws swept towards me. Just as the pincers closed on my leg, I was painfully wrenched free by a flying tackle from MacCready. Simultaneously, a grenade explosion rocked the ground underneath the scorpion's feet. We tumbled together across the broken cross ties in a bruising tangle, his arms coming up to cage me protectively as we skidded to a halt. My partner was sprawled on top of me, holding my head against his chest. As soon as we stopped sliding, he rolled up on one knee, his sniper seeming to teleport into his hands to fire at the scorpion, taking out one of its legs, then another.

The beast reeled to one side and I scrambled to a terrified crouch, bracing myself on hands and knees, whimpering in panic. MacCready fired several more times, but the monster was still moving by the time his magazine was empty. He roughly grabbed my jacket, dragging us backwards. "C'mon Boss!" his voice was harsh, but almost pleading. "Move it!" As soon as I managed to stagger to shaky feet, he reloaded with lightning speed. I wailed in frozen terror as the scorpion suddenly lurched forward, its tail rising to strike.

MacCready whirled again and lunged, pushing me to the ground out of the way. A pained scream was torn from his throat, and I saw his whole body writhe in agony as the stinger jabbed home into his shoulder, puncturing through the seam of his coat. A rush of blood, crimson against the black leather, followed the removal of the stinger and my whole world went red in a deafening roar.

-0-

Strong hands pulled at my arms, removing the empty rifle. The pinch of a stimpak in my side, the same side as the scar from the Gunners, brought my mind down from its frantic rage. Pain subsided and I could feel a light slap across my cheeks. I staggered dizzily from sudden exhaustion, falling onto a rough surface covered in sharp shell fragments. I was lifted up and carried, and set down again a moment later onto the hard rocky ground next to the tracks.

"Boss?" A voice. Melodic and pleasant, but rough and worried. "Hey, you in there?" Another gentle cuff across my cheek. The slaps helped ground my consciousness and I slowly focused on the face before me. Glorious crystal blue eyes met mine, a deep soul-touching expression spearing my heart.

"RJ!" I cried, throwing my arms around him and nearly tackling him to the ground. He was warm and alive, and apparently whole, and my relief translated into wracking sobs and incoherent babbling. For just a moment he held me close and reached up to stroke my hair with gentle fingers, twining the long braid around his palm. "Oh RJ, I thought you were..." I managed between tears. Heedless of the blood, the dirt, and the vile ichor staining both of us, I pressed into him.

All too quickly he tensed up and pushed away, holding me at arm's length. His previous worried expression was now masked with irritated arrogance. Looking from me to the decimated corpse of the enormous scorpion and back, he spoke, but his more recent detached tone was back. "Takes more than a couple of bugs to bring me down."

"What..." my throat felt dry and sore, and I coughed at the words. "What happened?" I looked around. We were alone, only scattered piles of supplies littered the tracks. I wanted more than anything to feel his comforting arms around me, but the moment had passed. He had pushed me away and was back to his prickly self. It hurt, as much as the snap of the scorpion's claws on my leg had, and I drew into myself, letting go of MacCready to hug my knees to my chest.

Fishing a purified water out of his pack to hand to me, MacCready pointed behind him. "You rushed that radscorpion head-on, roaring like an angry mama deathclaw. It was pretty beat up already," and he smirked in a smug manner, "so you finished it off pretty quickly."

He sat back on his heels, carefully not looking at me. "Then, you continued to empty your magazine into it. I jabbed a couple of stimpaks into my arm while you were occupied. Once you ran out of rounds, though, you started beating the everliving shi—err, crap out of it with the muzzle of your rifle, still screaming." He ran a hand through his hair, looking uncomfortable. "It was obvious you weren't going to stop. I had to wrest the rifle out of your hands before you bent it."

I stared at him, my mouth dropping open. "Rad...scorpion?" I shuddered. "I... don't remember at all."

He tugged his bandanna back up over his mouth, standing up. "Yeah, I figured." Stalking over to the dead brahmin, he examined the remaining supplies as I dragged myself to my feet. "Ugh, nothing worth taking. Too bad."

"You were going to steal from the Minutemen?" I pinned him with a stern look. "I have no problems with looting raiders or ferals or any of the other hostiles that attack us, but we don't steal from our allies. Got it?" In a more normal tone, I continued, "We'll have to figure out a way to covertly let Garvey know what happened down here so he can send a salvage team."

This time, I actually saw the red flush that crept up his cheeks. "Right, Boss." He rotated his shoulders, shaking out his arms and legs, and paced down the road a few steps. "Guess we took care of what was delaying the provisioners. Where to now?"

"Since we've done our part, let's try to find that Vault." The minute the words left my mouth, I realized I had said something wrong. Even with the bandanna covering his face, I could tell he was frowning. "Look, I know you don't like it..."

"Save it," he snapped, gesturing for me to take point. "Let's go."