“Is there anything back there?” Locke called.
“Empty,” Mariko answered in a quiet voice. The car shifted slightly as she climbed into the trunk. She stood in the back, with the trunk open, and said “Go.”
So Boothe moved the shifter into gear and pressed down on the accelerator, slowly rolling through the corridor. They drove for what must have been about a mile, before the tunnel opened into a large room, separated by wide square rock pillars arranged in a very precise grid pattern.
In the glow of the car’s headlights, mutants and gecks moved between the pillars. Boothe slowed the car to a stop at the entrance to the room.
“How do we want to handle this?” Boothe asked.
“The way I see it, we can play it safe or make it quick,” Braddock said. “Safe way - we hold back and try to funnel all the enemies into the corridor.”
“Boring,” Locke said.
“Quick way, and probably more fun - Boothe drives through the room, keeping us mobile while we shoot and slash everything in sight.”
“I like plan B,” Locke said. “Let’s do plan B.”
“I agree,” Scarlett said with a smile.
“Yes,” Mariko added.
“Really guys?” Boothe asked. “What’s the point in risking everything just to get the job done quicker? We’re not in a hurry. Should just play it safe.”
“Boothe, buddy,” Locke said. “You got to chill out and have some fun man.”
“I am having fun,” Boothe said. “I just don’t want to die.”
“We’re all going to die eventually. The point is enjoying your life as much as you can before you kick it.”
Boothe shook his head. He sounded like Paul.
“Well that’s three votes,” Braddock said. “So it doesn’t really matter what you and I think. You up for this, Boothe?”
“Sure,” Boothe said, not sure at all. “Let’s do it.”
He took a deep breath and then stepped down on the gas.
5
The next five minutes passed in a blood-splattered blur. Boothe focused on controlling the car - keeping it moving between the grid-like array of wide rock pillars. Mutants swarmed in every direction, coming at them with guns and picks and axes. Victor had told them that there could be noncombatants, but none of these creatures stood aside. Every one of the mutants and gecks - women, and even children all attacked viciously. They shot, swung, and leaped at the car as Boothe weaved between cover.
The rest of the group hung out of the windows. Locke’s job was to keep the mutants from climbing on the car. Any time one would get too close, he swung his katana, laughing while he sliced through enemy limbs.
Scarlett leaned out of the driver’s side back window, right behind Boothe. Over and over, her shotgun blasted, splattering yellow mutant blood over the glittering rock salt walls. From the passenger seat, Braddock’s arms snaked and weaved through the air, rapidly emptying his revolvers into enemies, then pulling back to reload again. Mariko stood in the trunk, somehow holding on through all the bumps and turns. She fired her rifle in a steady rhythm, each shot shattering an enemy’s skull somewhere.
Boothe could not pay attention to all of these things, he was so fully focused on driving. Soon the floor of the place was filled with mutant corpses. The tires bumped and slid over the bodies, making driving even more difficult.
Driving (70%) - SUCCESS!
Boothe was still able to keep control of the car, crunching over the bones of their enemies. He had no idea how much time had passed, but eventually the gunfire slowed, movement from the mutants stopped, and Braddock reached over and put a metal hand onto Boothe’s shoulder.
“I think we’re clear. You can slow us down.”
Boothe let up on the accelerator, and gradually slowed the car to a stop, rolling into the center corridor of the room.
“That was insane!” Locke said. “Holy crap, how many of those assholes did we kill? I completely lost track.”
“Good job team,” Braddock said. “Is anybody injured?”
“Me,” Mariko said softly, from the trunk.
Boothe slid the shifter into park and everybody stepped out. Locke was already rushing to the back to check on Mariko. The rest of them soon joined him. Mariko sat in the trunk, holding her arm, which had a huge gash just below the shoulder. Her broken bone was visible under the meat of her bicep, her arm barely held together by a few tendons.
Braddock opened a compartment in his barrel-like chest and pulled out a medkit. He lifted Mariko’s arm, causing her to hiss in pain, then wrapped bandages around the wound. Miraculously, her flesh seemed to sew back together and reform. She moved her arm around, stretching and flexing.
“Thank you,” she said.
Braddock nodded. “We’re just lucky the arm didn’t get severed completely. Medkits work wonders, but can’t regrow limbs.”
“Where to now?” Locke asked.
Boothe pointed off into the dark. “I think I saw another path in that direction.”
“Let’s check it out then,” Braddock said, and the group climbed back into the car, taking their former positions once again.
Boothe drove through the sprawling room. He swerved around the corpses where he could, and crunched over them when he couldn’t. The others in the car were focused on looking out for more enemies. Boothe’s drone, Marty, sat in the driver’s side door, his tiny robotic arms locked onto the window frame, scanning for targets. There was nothing alive left in here.
They passed an area that seemed to be used as a kind of living quarters. Boothe slowed a bit so that they could get a closer look. Structures made from wood and cloth built between the rock pillars served as houses, and a large communal area had been established between them, with a gaping pit in the middle.
“Oh God,” Locke groaned.
Corpses, or pieces of corpses, were piled into the pit, nearly to the brim. Likely the folk that the cannibals had kidnapped and not gotten around to eating yet. Other pieces lay scattered around, flesh chewed from their bones.
“Does anybody want to stop and make a thorough search of the area?” Braddock asked the group.
“No!” Locke yelled, holding back gags.
“No.” Mariko agreed.
“I’m good,” Scarlett said.
“Let’s just move on,” Boothe said. Braddock nodded his assent and Boothe continued driving, a bit more quickly now, into a path that led out of the room. Much like the corridor leading away from the elevator, this path was wide and had a rail going down the middle. Crates of salt were piled up against the walls, and they passed an overturned cart that had spilt more salt onto the ground. The walls glittered and sparkled, the salt inside ready to be mined.
After a couple minutes of driving, the corridor began to change. Instead of the straight-cut walls and ceilings, this path was all uneven rock. The rails ended, the ground became bumpy, and the corridor narrowed. The miners from before had not cut this path, but seemed to have simply stumbled upon a naturally forming cave system.
The car bumped up and down, slamming hard into the uneven ground.
Driving (70%) - FAILURE!
The bottom of the car scraped along the rock floor, a horribly loud noise that made the hairs on Boothe’s neck stand on end. The engine whined and then died. Boothe pressed the ignition button a few times, but the car would not start again.
“I think we’re walking from here, guys,” he said. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Braddock said. “You drove quite well.”
Together, they exited the car and walked down the rough corridor deeper into the caverns. The car’s headlights lit their path for a while, but eventually, they left that glow and had to venture further in the dark.
“Does anybody have a flashlight or something?” Scarlett asked.
“Braddock?” Locke asked. “Anything hidden away in that body somewhere?”
“Not that I know of,” Braddock said. “We should have grabbed that geck’
s helmet back at the elevator. Damn.”
Suddenly, a light came on and the place was completely illuminated. A beam shone from Marty’s front, just in the center of the drone’s camera eyes.
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Scarlett said.
“Me either,” Boothe replied. “He has been doing things on his own now, without any input from me.”
“And you said he has no personality,” Scarlett nudged him playfully on the shoulder.
“Alright, let’s go then,” Locke said. “I’m ready to get out of this place. For some reason, caves filled with cannibals tend to creep me out.”
After nearly ten minutes of walking, they heard a deep growl coming from further ahead.
“Is everybody loaded up?” Braddock asked.
Scarlett and Boothe said yes simultaneously. Mariko nodded.
“Yeah boss, I’m loaded,” Locke said, holding his katana in both hands.
The corridor widened into a large chamber. The ceiling here rose above them at least thirty feet. At first Boothe thought that the place was filled with snow, but then he realized that all the white was actually salt. The walls, ceiling, and much of the ground were covered in bright white powder, making it look like a winter painting. Huge stalagmites of clear crystals jutted up from the ground, glittering like diamonds in Marty’s light.
“You should not have come here.”
The deep voice echoed from somewhere across the cavern. Marty’s beam swept across the room until it found the source.
Enemies Detected: 1
The creature was huge. At least ten feet tall, with an axe nearly that long. Every muscle bulged, every vein visible through its green tinted skin. It stood straight, watching them with wide lidless eyes. It held its huge axe in both hands.
The marker above his head read Mutyrant.
A red, bloodshot eyeball took up nearly half of the thing’s chest, rolling from person to person, studying them.
“If you are here, then you have killed my family,” he said. “They would not have let you pass, otherwise.”
When he had seen the photograph from the dossier that Victor had given him, Boothe expected this creature to be a raging barbarian. The intelligence behind its words was surprising.
“Careful,” Braddock said. “This feels like a trap.”
Marty’s beam was the only source of light, and was focused directly on the Mutyrant. The monster stood as if in a spotlight in the center of a stage, while Boothe and the rest of his group were left in near-total darkness. Boothe flipped on the night-vision feature of his goggles and looked around for any more enemies or traps, but could see nothing hiding in the darkness.
Slowly, the Mutyrant walked forward.
“Spread out,” Braddock said.
“Should we fire?” Scarlett asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why not?” Locke asked.
“Wait until everybody is in position,” Braddock ordered.
Mariko climbed onto one of the salt crystals nearby and crouched down, aiming her rifle at the Mutyrant.
Scarlett moved to the left, and Braddock circled right, stepping carefully to avoid tripping in the darkness.
“You’re going to die, you know,” the Mutyrant said, his mouth spreading into a grin. Each of his teeth were pointed and serrated like a shark’s.
“I’m going in,” Locke said, then he ran forward, his katana held at his side. With hands so quick their movements were nearly imperceptible, he launched two throwing knives at the monster, each of them finding their mark in its muscled shoulders.
“No, Locke!” Braddock yelled. “You’re going to get in the way of our shots.”
Just as he was about to reach the Mutyrant, his blade prepared to slice through the beast, the eyeball in the middle of the monster’s chest suddenly began glowing and a cylinder of red light shot out. It happened in only an instant - the beam appearing, cutting through Locke’s torso then slamming into the wall across the room with an explosion of stone and salt.
Locke looked down at himself in disbelief, a clean six-inch hole cut through his body from belly to back. Then the Mutyrant’s huge face came down, its jaw dislocating to open impossibly wide. Locke’s head disappeared inside the monster’s mouth. Shark teeth clamped closed and the Mutyrant snapped upward, ripping flesh and bone.
Locke’s headless body collapsed, spraying a geyser of blood over the white salt.
6
Mariko screamed in anger. She fired the first shot, her rifle’s bullet ripping through the Mutyrant’s chest, barely missing the giant eyeball embedded there.
The eye closed shut, protecting it with the monster’s armored skin.
“Open fire!” Braddock ordered. He shot both revolvers at the mutant, alternating hands in quick succession.
Scarlett blasted her shotgun, each explosion of pellets chipping away pieces of the Mutyrant’s armored skin.
Boothe aimed at the monster’s head and squeezed the trigger. Two bullets ripped through the Mutyrant’s face. The side of its skull shattered, breaking its jaw. Its skin there now hung in flaps, its mouth agape and lopsided. It turned towards Boothe and growled some unintelligible, yet still terrifying, words. All the intelligence that it had previously shown had been blown away in the hail of gunfire. With a burst of energy, it charged straight towards Boothe, its axe held to its side. If that blade managed to connect, Boothe knew he would be split in half.
He backed up, firing as the Mutyrant ran towards him. Only one of the shots hit, chipping away at the armor on the Mutyrant’s chest. Then Boothe’s heel hit a crack in the rock floor and he found himself stumbling backwards.
Dexterity (65%) - FAILED!
He tripped and fell hard onto his ass, his feet flying up, sending an arc of salt into the air. The ground where he lay shook with every step that the Mutyrant took. Braddock and Mariko still fired shot after shot at the beast, but nothing seemed capable of slowing its charge. Boothe scrambled, trying to get to his feet, but the Mutyrant was almost on him, shifting the axe from its side to behind its head, preparing to bring it down in a great vertical slash that would surely pulverize Boothe into a puddle of bloody meat.
Then, from the side, a blur of motion as Scarlett charged in. The Mutyrant didn’t even see her coming. She swung her own axe, tiny in comparison to the Mutyrant’s, directly at the closed eyeball on its chest. The blade bit into the seam where the eye’s lid had shut, separating the armored plate there. The Mutyrant stopped its charge, yelling in anger. The huge eye on its chest opened, a slash across the middle of the pupil spewing viscous black blood.
Mariko fired shot after shot at the Mutyrant’s head, aiming high as to not accidentally hit Scarlett. Braddock moved closer, adding his own bullets to the monster’s face as well. Each hit chipped away at skin and bone turning its head into an unrecognizable mess of bloody pulp.
Boothe got to his feet and circled around trying to get a clean shot. Scarlett stood right next to it, swinging away with her axe. Its face was destroyed, its huge jaw and shark teeth useless. It tried to attack her with its axe, but she was inside of its reach and too fast for him to get a solid hit on. Then its chest eye opened wide. It was a bloody mess, but still glowed in preparation to blast one of its laser beams right through Scarlett. She was too close and swinging like mad. She didn’t see the glow from the eye. Couldn’t know what was about to happen. Boothe could picture it in his head - her with a perfectly circular hole cut through her body. Just like Locke.
He yelled her name, and reached his hand out towards her. Then he pressed the buttons on his glove and shot out the grappling hook. The claw at the end grasped onto her belt and he yanked back as hard as he could.
She flew backwards, off her feet just as the laser sliced through the air where she had stood only milliseconds before. Instead of killing her, the laser hit a crystal across the room, exploding it harmlessly into a cloud of salt.
The grappling hook pulled Scarlett’s body right into Booth
e’s arms. She looked up at him surprised, and smiled.
Then she pulled out her shotgun and the two of them, together, emptied their guns into the Mutyrant’s open eyeball. Braddock and Mariko continued firing from their positions as well, turning the monster’s chest into a black waterfall of blood and viscera.
The Mutyrant screamed in pain, stunned by this sudden onslaught of attacks, each of them breaching its armor and tearing into the vulnerable meat beneath. They didn’t stop firing until its torso was an empty frame of broken bones and bloody strips of flesh.
Finally, its screams stopped, its body went limp, and it collapsed to the ground, sending up a cloud of salt as it landed.
Scarlett turned to Boothe then and cheered “Yes!” Then she dropped her shotgun and threw her arms around him.
“Thanks for saving me back there,” she said.
Boothe wrapped one arm around her, the rifle still held in his other, and put his hand on her back. She was warm, and soft, and felt perfect.
“Hey, you saved me too,” he said. “That’s what partners do.”
She pulled away from him, and smiled. “Right.”
“Good job team,” Braddock said, his enthusiasm somewhat less than Scarlett’s had been.
Mariko walked past them, silently approaching the bloody remains of Locke. His headless corpse laid in a mound of salt, his sword still gripped tightly in his hands. She knelt next to his body and stared at it for a moment. Laying her rifle to the side, she reached up with both hands and unstrapped the helmet from her head. A stream of long black hair spilled out. Her face was beautiful - pale, with Japanese features, large black-lined eyes, full lips and a narrow jaw.
With one hand, she placed her fingertips on her lips, then reached down and lightly touched the tattoo on Locke’s arm. Then, wordlessly, she coiled her hair back into her helmet and covered her face once again. She walked past the rest of the group and ventured further into the cavern.
Braddock nodded his head towards Boothe and Scarlett, then followed Mariko. Boothe noticed then that Scarlett had tears in her eyes. He reached over and took her hand into his. She gladly accepted, and they followed the others to search the cave. In a small alcove in the back, they found a pile of various supplies and equipment that the mutants must have taken from their dead victims.
Apocalypse 2020: A Wasteland LitRPG Page 18