Poison Paradise - Damned of the 2/19th

Ghost Town & Fisticuffs

"What's that?" Sarah asked, pointing at the faded paint on the door that they'd missed until they'd gotten closer.

It was a large X. On the top was "0330 06 JUN 83", on the bottom was "5DBR", on the right was "F/S", and on the left was "NBC-T2".

"What is this?" Charlie said, staring at it.

"I don't know, but that was like 15 years ago," Sarah said, pointing at the date.

"Door's nailed shut," Charlie said, looking at it. "Why would they nail the door shut?"

"I have no idea," Sarah said. She looked around, noting there was a good dozen houses on each side of the street that ended in jungle. She looked the other way, past the stores and the Post Office, and saw that the street again ended in jungle.

"This place feels weird," Sarah said. "Think we should go back?"

Charlie looked around, chewing on her lower lip, then nodded. "Yeah. I don't like the way this place feels."

Both women retraced their steps carefully, looking around. Sarah stopped for a moment, staring at the small mountain.

"What?" Charlie asked, looking at the five hundred foot rise.

"Just... it looks odd. I noticed it when Don and I walked around the island, but from here, it looks even weirder," Sarah said. She pointed at where the jungle was missing, almost a straight line, on the side the faced the ocean. The ocean side was mostly bare cracked rocks, with tufts of vegetation sticking out of the cracks. Birds wheeled around the face, obviously heading out to the ocean to feed before returning.

"You're right," Charlie said. "Hurricane, maybe?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah. Maybe."

"Maybe it was a movie set?" Charlie suggested as they reentered the jungle.

"Maybe," Sarah said, glancing back.

The town was still and silent, its secrets kept close.

scanning. no threats detected. scanning. no resources available.
SCORCHED EARTH PROTOCOL 100%
ENGAGE SERE
WARNING! NEURAL VOLTAGE SPIKE DETECTED!
WARNING! PERSONALITY OVERLAY OFFLINE!
WARNING! NEURAL DAMAGE DETECTED
ant.exe has stopped responding
ant.exe 0.75% recovered
scanning. moving.

Richard and Mike stepped into the clearing, looking around. Tommy was sitting in the opening to one hut, Bree and Lori were arguing by the second, and Renee was sitting in front of the door to the other one.

"...get to just come up after we did all the work and claim one of the huts for yourself," Lori was saying. "You guys didn't help, you don't get first claim on a hut."

"Pfft, whatever," Renee said, looking away. "I'm not sleeping out in the open any more. It was your jobs to make the huts, if you didn't make enough, then you don't get one."

Tommy just gave a sneering grin and put his hands behind him, leaning back slightly.

"THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" Lori yelled.

"Hey, what's going on?" Richard asked.

"They came up from the beach and decided they get the huts," Lori said.

"NO!" The baby smacked Lori's shoulder then laughed.

"If you want huts, you guys need to make them," Richard said, pointing at the stacks of bamboo poles, leaves, and shoelaces.

"I like this one," Tommy said, crossing his legs in front of him. "What are you going to do about it?"

Richard stared at the teenager, feeling like walking over and smacking his grin off his face.