"This is... weird," Charlie said, stepping out onto the broken and cracked road. Weeds and jungle plants had pushed up between the cracks, making lines of vegetation that turned the road into an odd patchwork. Most of the plants were only waist high, and to Charlie and Sarah it looked like the plants hadn't made too many inroad further into the small town.
The two young women moved up to the first car, which sat mournful and abandoned. There were mannequins in the seats, still belted in, that were blackened and headless. Rotting clothing was visible from roughly the waist down. Neither one noted that the mannequin's backs were unburnt. The paint had peeled, leaving just patches of sky blue that were badly sun faded, with the front of the car bleached almost white. Both of them stared at it as they walked by, heading toward the store.
"What's with the mannequins?" Charlie asked, staring at several that were laying in the street, limbless.
"I have no idea," Sarah said softly. "It's... creepy."
Both of them moved up to the building marked "Jeb's General Store", looking in the shattered window. Most of the shelves were tipped over, the windows were shattered, and in places the roof had holes in it.
"Look, cans," Charlie said. She stepped over the edge of the window, being careful to avoid stepping on one of the mannequins. Sarah moved over and went through the door. She hustled over to where some of the cans had been shielded from the weather by the way the shelves had fallen.
Sarah squatted down and picked up one of the cans, then frowned at it. It felt too light in her hand.
Charlie shook one of the cans that the fading paper read "GOLDEN PEACHES" on it. "I think this is empty."
"So's this," Sarah said. She started grabbing other cans, shaking them, and dropping them. "They're all empty."
"What the hell is this?" Charlie asked, slowly turning around. "Look, what is that?"
Sarah turned to look and saw a tracked military vehicle, painted in camoflauge, sitting in the street out the back door of the store.
"The military?" She asked. She headed out the back door, Charlie dodging the fallen shelves to join her. "What are the military doing here?"
The vehicle wasn't like any of them that either women had seen in movies. Low slung, tracked, with a nasty looking turret. They walked around it, staring at it. The side of the vehicle opposite of the way they'd come into town looked bleached, much more faded than the rest of it. On the far side a semi-circle of sandbags were set out, five sandbags high, with rusted barbed wire on top. Mannequins were stacked, sitting up, against the sandbags.
"Some of them have old bandages on them," Sarah said, kneeling down. She tugged at the cloth and it tore with a nearly silent purring sound. A wad of rotted cloth fell from underneath the cloth, unfolding slightly.
"These two have splints on their legs," Charlie said. She looked around. "This is really, really bizarre."
Sarah pointed at one of the houses. A square single story house with a garage, a rusted and faded car sitting in the driveway. The grass of the lawn was waist high, jungle plants scattered through it. "Let's look in there."
The two women walked up the driveway, glancing into the car. Again, the windows were all shattered.
"Hang on," Charlie said.
Sarah watched the other woman move to the front of the car, reaching under the lip of the hood, and feel around for a second.
"Found it," She said. She made a face and there was a clack before the hood popped up. Charlie lifted it up and looked inside. "Huh, the engine is here. How weird," She slammed the hood down and rust mixed with paint flakes puffed up, sending both girls to coughing. They moved away from the ruined car, waving their hands in front of their faces, and to the front door of the house. They stopped and stared at the door once they were able to get a good look at what had looked like odd shadows.
"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.
"That's what I thought," Tommy said after a long moment of silence.
Mike sighed, coming forward. "We found that military guy's camp," He said, trying to change the subject before it broke out in violence.
Tommy sat up. "Really? Is he going to come and help us?"
Richard shook his head. "Doubtful."
"What? Why not? It's his fucking job to help us!" Tommy said, getting to his feet. "Go back and tell him to get his trailer trash ass over here and get to work!"
Mike moved over to where fruit was stacked up and picked up one of the small soft-rind fruits while Richard turned and looked at him.
"Why would he do that?" Richard asked. He shook his head, holding his hand out as if to stop Tommy from talking. "Trust me, he doesn't need us to survive."
"Fuck what he wants. He's a soldier, his job is to protect us," Tommy said, moving up to Richard and getting in his face. "You go back there and tell him to do his fucking job."
Richard stepped back. "I'm telling you, he's not going to help us. He doesn't need us and I doubt he thinks we can help him based on what we saw."
Tommy stood there, glaring. "What the fuck do you mean?"
Richard pointed at the knife sitting next to the fruit. "You think that's impressive? He's built a damn melting pit, a forge, and is using a good sized rock as an anvil. He's casting arrowheads, he has spearheads, a house with a tiled roof, and that knocking? That knocking is an automatic axe he's using on a log that's powered by the stream."
Tommy stared at him for a moment, licking his lips. "You're lying."
That got on Richard's nerves. He balled his fists, stepping into Tommy, staring down at the smaller teenager. "Say that again. Call me a fucking liar again, you pizza faced little punk."
Tommy sneered. "You're full of shit, and you better step the fuck..."
Richard's fist caught Tommy low on the right, right below his ribs, folding him over and blasting the air from his lungs. Bree, Lori, and Renee screamed, and the baby began laughing and clapping as Richard swung twice more, sending Tommy crashing to the ground.
Before Tommy could even move, Richard kicked him in the face, stepping over him and staring down.
"Call me a liar again, you little shit," He snarled. Tommy flinched back, holding his mouth. "Go ahead, you little punk. Call me liar again. I fucking dare you."
Mike grabbed Richard's arm, pulling him back. He was surprised how fit Richard's arm was under his shirt. "Easy, champ," Mike said. "Let it go."
Richard shuddered, then looked down at Tommy. "We're going to be here a long time, Thomas," he said softly. Tommy flinched back, blood oozing out from under his hand from his mouth and over his fingers from his bleeding nose. Richard ignored it, continuing in the same soft, deadly tone. "You disrespect me again, and I'll beat you like a shit eating dog, you understand me?"
Tommy nodded, kicking his feet to scramble back.
Richard turned and stomped over next to the creek, Lori picking up the baby and moving away from him, staring at him in fear.
Renee watched the entire thing with a smile. Enjoying seeing Tommy get beat to the ground by the older Richard. She'd seen him change his shirt, seen the corded muscle on his body, the barbed wire tattoos on both biceps, and the tribal design "tramp stamp" that he kept covered with his shirts. Even with his shirt on, the size of his biceps and the thickness of his neck reminded Renee of her personal trainer.
Lori moved away, startled by the other man's sudden and shocking violence. It had just been words, she couldn't believe that the calm and composed Richard had attacked a young boy like Tommy over just words.
Mike looked at everyone, hoping that talking about what they'd seen would calm everything down. "We found his camp. He had clothing and blankets hung up, he'd pulled sections of the airplane wreckage to his camp to use it to make tools, he even had a kiln and some stuff I don't know what it does."
Bree frowned. "If he can do all that, why isn't he helping us?"
Mike shook his head, then looked around. "Who do you think would end up making the shelters? Are you willing to let him tell you what to do?" He pointed at the hut Tommy had hidden in. "Do you think Tommy will follow his orders?"
Bree shook her head.
"Then why should he show up just to do all the work why we sit around complaining at him?" Mike asked, shrugging. "I wouldn't volunteer to be treated like a slave."
Renee nodded pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her legs. "OK. When you put it like that, I get it. Do you think you could copy what he did?"
Mike shook his head. "No way. I wouldn't even know where to start," He turned to Richard. "Could you?"
Richard shook his head. "That rigging he did for the water powered stuff I have no idea how he did or where we'd get the cabling he used."
Mike shrugged. "I mean, I guess we can ask him how he built them. Maybe go and be nice?"
Bree shook her head. "I don't want to leave camp."
Mike looked at Renee. "How about you?"
"If Richard goes," She said, standing up. She walked over and picked up the knife from next to the fruit. "And he carries the knife."
Mike shook his head. "Maybe you should have it. We don't want that army guy thinking we're threatening him."
She smiled, tucking it into her back pocket.
"Well, let's go talk to him," she smiled.
moving. scanning. no threats. moving. scanning. no threats. moving. scanning. secondary position spotted. hold position. scanning. scanning. scanning. scanning. no changes detected. scanning. moving.
load survivalbuilding.dll
running
estimated time to completion: 18 hours
TIME/DATE ERROR
Load Estimation
(Unk) June 1983 (15% est)
PRIORITY BUILD ORDER: Timepiece
Long/Lat ERROR
Long (50%) 80% needed
Lat (45%) 80% needed
PRIORITY BUILD ORDER: Sextant System
SERE OVERRIDE!
PRIORITY BUILD ORDER: WEAPONS
survive
Survive
SURVIVE!