The Lost and the Dead Book 1: The Uprising

Chapter IX: Anxiety

"Did you... did you kill him, like I asked?" The man demanded the honest answer, so I gave him the truth.

"Jason DeJoles is no longer a problem; I've 'convinced' him to have an early retirement... to his life." I darkly joked, showing him his corpse (or whats left of it) through a picture I've taken back at Redoran's Retreat so I can confirm the contact that the target of said destruction has met his/her end. The man laughed delightedly and patted me on the shoulder.

"You definitely taught him HIS lesson!" he laughed. "Thanks for the help Hunter; that sum bitch killed my family months ago, now, they can finally rest in peace knowing that their deaths have been avenged, thank you." He thanked me, shaking hands with me. I looked back at Alexandria who had a slight smile on her face, waiting to go on the move again.

"It's all in a day's work my friend." I quoted my famous quote I use after every bounty I successfully completed.

"Alright, just give me a minute and I'll give you your payment for the job." he exited himself out from the conversation and vanished behind the door. I took the time to observe his house; a lodge to be more precise, the walls founded by giant oak slabs, the roof littered with torn pieces of roof tile and and foundation created by concrete and stone pebbles. It was a nice house, but what made it special was the surrounding environment: it was a Boreal forest. I haven't seen another place in North America that has a lushed-out environment full of tress likes this place, and that's partly due to the Uprising increase the international temperatures to a degree where trees can't often grow. This spot, however, was cool because of the Great Lakes that make up the entire Eastern Border between Canada and America. It was quite a magnificent sight, but then again, the rest of this desolate place is wastelands or dessert or Fallout; it breaks the mood.

"How much are getting paid for this job?" Alexandria wondered.

"1000 US Dollars." The man spoke before I did. I turned around to face the contact who had a big pile of money in is hand. It was definitely Pre-Uprising, that was for sure just based on the quality which made it worth more, but it has seen it's age (7 years since the Uprising, to be exact) but it mattered not: currency is currency.

"Pleasure doing business with you." I thanked him as I took his money and walked away, but before I could have gotten back onto the highway, he stopped me.

"Wait!" he forced me to halt. I looked back at him and waited for him to give me a reason. "There is um... something I found the other day; something that might interest you, maybe even help you." he explained as he walked out from his house onto the surrounding patch of grass (which is also rare) which led me to his garage. I don't know why, but I suddenly got excited, like a kid trying to fall asleep on the night before Christmas. I somehow managed to keep my cool and followed him to his garage (or so I thought anyway). He pushed a button on the left side of the garage and slowly the door to the garage opened, and my jaw dropped instantly right down to the ground: I can recognize that famous look and appeal of the vehicle inside like it was my mother.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle Standard Issue?" My eyes drooled in awe from the big, bulky figure that was the HMMWV (Or Humvee is what the general public called it). It was big and bulky, but the US Army wanted it to be like that as it acted as a Light Utility Vehicle during the last few American Wars like Afghanistan or Iraq. It still had the famous tan paint job all over, the entire body perfect with no scratches or dinks in the hull. "What are the specs for this Humvee, and where in bloody hell do you find that?" I asked the man.

"I was a sniper on-tour at Afghanistan in the later years of the Taliban fighting, so that's where I got the authority to own or operate a piece of machinery. I had a friend who worked on the ground to fix and repair these monsters of iron and oil, and when this guy rolled into the garage and was later than declared "Broken Beyond Repair", my friend gave it to me as a way to owe me because I won a bet against him at something, that lucky bastard. I never did managed to find a way to fix whatever's pulling back this machine from going into the real world, so it's been collecting dust in this garage for many years, even before the Uprising, does that explain WHERE I got?" He explained. The story seemed legit enough, but one passage from his explanation peeked my curiosity.