by Arthur Stone
Chapter 17
Life Nine. Abandoned Station
Whether it was Beetle having significantly embellished the scale of the conflict between his locals and the Devils, or the party was simply lucky this time, no more Devils were encountered. The road was dead. Perhaps there were people traveling it, but they made no haste to show themselves.
The party’s convoy looked strong enough, and that alone could be a mighty deterrent. Cheater had heard a story once of four tanks driving across half a region—no one dared to stop them. Even the guards at impassable checkpoints cleared the barriers and stood aside. In the end, it turned out that the tanks had no teeth. They had no shells or guided rounds for the main guns, and no ammo for the machine guns. Even their smoke screen systems were empty. The guys driving them had been incredibly lucky to run into a section of a cluster that no one had cleared yet: a bumpered, dead-end stretch of railroad track, with a train carrying interesting cargo. They had looted the most valuable cargo, but for some reason they were unable to sell it locally. So they pretended to be a wealthy, powerful party, and crossed half the region like they were a force out of Hell itself.
It worked. No one wants to attack a tank platoon moving so confidently. It seemed like the vehicles were ready to fight and competently crewed.
Now, Cheater’s party convoy was led by a modern tank and no one bothered them. They drove a good sixty miles before the lead vehicle began to slow its speed. March had not been stingy with his “gratitude,” and had persuaded Beetle to escort them a little further than originally offered. The security was worth the money.
The convoy stopped in front of a checkpoint. On one side of the road was a booth made of massive concrete blocks, and on the other, a camouflaged pillbox nudging its way up out of the ground. Barbed wire fences, a warning sign reading “Minefield!” and bulky anti-tank hedgehogs completed the obstacle course, which had to be navigated slowly. The whole installation had an excellent view of the surrounding country. All of the trees had been cleared; sneaking in unnoticed would have been a feat.
The party jumped out of the convoy, taking advantage of March’s permission for them to stretch their legs. March himself met Beetle outside of his tank. Cheater hurried to catch up, so that he could listen in.
“Is this the place?” March was asking.
Beetle pointed at the fortifications along the road. “This is the Last Station. That’s what we call it. Can you guess why?”
“Because it’s the last.”
“See, I knew you were smart. My admiration for you and Cheater is justified. There are no stations further east. Our patrols only occasionally head that way, to see what the ghouls are up to. They wander the country densely, trampling down whole fields. No matter how many of them you kill, they keep coming. Bad country.”
“I don’t see anyone here in the station,” Cheater remarked.
“That’s because no one stays here,” Beetle informed them. “As I said, it’s bad country beyond. We don’t even send scouting parties out there these days. So no one wants to man this post. You saw for yourself how we encountered absolutely no one on the road. What people are left are fleeing. They smell trouble. I know you want to continue on, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Wait two weeks for the horde to pass. That’s what hordes do—migrate. Or better, go up north and negotiate with the trade caravans to take you across. Your group is rich, and for that matter famous—you might even get passage for free.”
That made Nut go tense. “I didn’t sign up for a trip up north.”
“Don’t worry, no one’s going north,” March assuaged him. “Thank you, Beetle—but we are going straight ahead.”
“Psychos,” the tankman grinned. “I’m your biggest fan, as you know, but if you go ahead, I’m afraid the best I can wish you is a quick and painless death.”
* * *
Contrary to Cheater’s expectations, the convoy did not move out immediately after the tank had turned about face and sped back west.
March was in low spirits. They had spent too much time on unforeseen circumstances. The light was waning, and they weren’t yet halfway there. If Beetle was right, there were hordes of ghouls ahead. It was best to encounter them in the light of day, not at night.
So they would wait until morning. Fortunately, this location was both well defended and abandoned.
They settled in the main building, if indeed you could call it a building—it was constructed of stacked heavy concrete blocks, without a drop of mortar. The builders had filled the cracks between blocks with polyurethane foam, but carelessly. Gusts of wind stripped whole pieces of it away. At least the roof was decent. It was made of two layers of steel sheets sandwiching an inner core of foam. Without such precautions, the sun would have baked everything inside.
They spent hours preparing for the night. A signal line was run around the perimeter, and night and thermal vision cameras were placed on the roof. They established sleeping shifts, in such a way that one of the more reliable party members was always awake.
Only then did they eat. All of their supplies were intact. In addition, the previous occupants of the station had left a good amount of food and drink behind. No, it did not seem to be abandoned in a hurry, but many good items had been discarded. Perhaps they had planned to return soon and had not expected squatters.
After all, ghouls weren’t known for being looters, and all the locals were fleeing west.
By the time they were ready, the sun had still not set. They had stopped unnecessarily early. The campaign was just beginning, and these players were tough. Yes, players could be driven to exhaustion, both psychological and physical, but that took some doing. None of them were tired yet, and so dinner flowed into an extended tea party.
Not that everyone drank tea—some filled their mugs with stronger beverages. And not only March. Even the most disciplined of them acquiesced to a can or two. Such tiny amounts of alcohol had essentially no effect on players’ accelerated metabolisms. Even the consumption of light drugs was not taboo here. Not that the consumption of hard drugs was, either. In a world where players regularly lost their lives, a healthy lifestyle was not particularly respected. The players began to casually discuss the events of the day, which descended into merciless criticism of Goblin and Nut’s open cowardice. Somehow, the two accused managed to divert the discussion to new topics. Thanks to their efforts, the party shifted to telling life stories.
The first to speak was Nut, of course.
His tale was a mix of worn-out and dubious anecdotes, of course. “Me and the guys once cleaned out this nest of coppers. You know, a police station. It wasn’t on the map, so we thought we had a gem. Well, it turned out it was only a one-time thing. Didn’t come in on the next respawn.”
“That’s pretty common,” Fatso nodded. “So what did you find there? Four crates of confiscated heroin?”
“Just cause it’s my story doesn’t mean there’s heroin. So the armory was empty. Every last bullet had been taken. We concluded the coppers themselves had done it, as they turned mad and fled. Probably rampaged. But there was also an evidence locker. There, we found guns and ammo. Not too much good, mostly crap. Some good grass in there, too. Each of us rolled up a joint. We just wanted to check out what the stuff was—it didn’t look normal. It was dried and in some kind of oil and shit. So we sat and smoked—and then, we couldn’t get up. It felt like our legs were gone. Can you imagine? Then, we heard the door in the hallway creak open, and...”
“And you started smoking faster so that you could die from the high,” Fatso interrupted. “But what we’re missing from the story is where the girl comes in. There’s always a girl in your stories.”
“A girl? What the hell are you talking about? No, everything was fine. No one died. It was just a dog pushing open the door. Small, shaggy, and covered in fleas. We had no idea how she had escaped getting eaten. But that grass started taking us places, man. Every sound, every pant of that dog, every tick of the battery clock on the
wall, pulsed through our bodies. So this one kid got majorly fucked up over that door creaking.”
“And he became a girl?” Fatso pushed.
“No. He stayed a guy. In fact, then, the high hit him so hard that he relaxed. Man, that grass was the shit. So when I was back in the stable, I was working this girl. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Greedy bitch. I left her there. You should have seen her titties, man, if you put three guys in a room they still would not have enough hands to cup the things.”
“Oh, so you were seeing a cow,” Fatso chuckled.
“Will you cut it out?” Nut protested. “No, she was a decent girl. Fine, to hell with you, I can tell that story didn’t take. How about this one, I know you’ll like it. So me and the boys are sitting around drinking some wood alcohol...”
“Just cut right to the tits, no need for the stuff in between,” Fatso interrupted.
“No, I want to hear about the wood alcohol,” Clown perked up.
“Wood alcohol? What about the women, Clown? You ever seen a naked woman before?” Fatso grunted.
“I’ve seen more women than Nut has stories,” Clown grinned.
“No way,” Nut shot him down. “The whole time we were in Rainbow, you didn’t visit the girls once. You were just working on your precious trucks.”
“Who said we were talking about Rainbow? No, this was far, far away. In the extreme south. The southern regions of the Continent. One day, this jolly bugger down there decided to throw a parade. Not just any parade—a boob parade. Seriously, that’s what he called it. Now, the whole region knew who this man was. People got excited, and some even came across from neighboring regions. I went to see, too. After all, I had seen everything in this world—except a boob parade.”
“How many were there?” the Janitor asked.
“I didn’t count. Maybe a thousand or two. That’s counting heads, not hooters. So, multiply that by two. Oh, plus one of the girls had three.”
“You’re so full of crap,” Nut shook his head.
“Fine, I’m exaggerating a bit. But it’s a true story. I remember that stable very well. One night some guys jumped me in an alley and knocked me out, pumped my veins full of some kind of crap, and sold me to the cultists.”
“As a sacrifice?” March asked.
“No. I’m handsome and all, but not really the sacrificial type. They were recruiting. Some of the recruits were bribed to join, while others were shanghaied. So these cultists brought me up to their big statue. It’s this idol with a golden head, rays of holiness radiating out of it in all directions. At night, the rays all light up with some kind of disco ball effect. The whole thing looks like a scarecrow for angels. The cultists told me that the System gave it to them. They were a cheery bunch. All smiles. So they pushed their usual proselytism on me, saying that my life before then had not been my own, that I had been dead in my soul, blind and deaf, all that. Now, they promised, I would live as a true human, in a place of love and joy. I laughed like a madman. They slowly realized that my laughter was not out of joy. So they asked why I was laughing. I pointed at the statue and insisted that the System had not given it to anyone. The System has no sense of humor. It does not joke. And this was clearly a joke. They asked me to clarify ‘the joke.’ I told them that the statue was no god—it was Lenin!”
“Lenin? Who’s that?” Gangrene asked.
“A historical figure. Communist dictator,” Clown replied condescendingly. “His real name was Ulyanov. A hundred years ago, he was the chief communist in Russia, a huge country back on Earth. One of the most important people of his time. Maybe the most important. Monuments of him were erected in every corner of the Soviet Union. I doubt anyone else has had so many statues of him. Thousands and thousands of them. I bet Buddha is jealous. So these statues are common in the south, where clusters often come in from Russia. They’re more common than the museum tanks we all know and love.”
“So these morons were worshipping a communist statue?” Fatso chuckled.
“Yeah. They had altered his head a bit, hung a Roman toga over him, and added the ‘rays of holiness.’ I guess that was enough for some fools. But not for me. I remember what I see, and I had seen Lenin statues. No matter how you alter him and dress him up, I’ll still recognize him. I laughed that they were praying to an idol, when the person depicted disdained religion. He burned priests in barrels of tar, for crying out loud.”
“No he didn’t,” Fatso objected. “That’s just a fairy tale.”
“How do you know? You don’t even remember your life from before.”
“But I remember that,” Fatso insisted.
“There’s no way. Lenin died long before you were born. The KGB didn’t even exist yet. So you didn’t see him, didn’t meet him, didn’t hear him. How the hell do you know anything about what really happened then? Maybe he made those priests into meatballs. Who are you to say he didn’t?”
Fatso tapped his head. “I have memory the same as you. And more brains. So quit your games.”
“Fine, whatever,” Clown agreed, “but I’m sure you agree that the man and his movement were opposed to religion.”
“Of course,” Fatso admitted. “They disapproved of it. But they didn’t burn priests in barrels of oil. It was a hard time, of course—but not that hard.”
“So what did the cult do?” Goblin asked.
“The fanatics wouldn’t starve me to death,” Clown sighed. “They were offended that I blew the whistle on their Lenin, but they still gave me food. No good religion will let a man die of hunger, you know. But they gave me no water. Dying of thirst is something I very much do not recommend. Better to die of hunger, even though that takes longer. Not much longer, since we players require a lot of food. It’s a bearable death, by comparison. Dying of thirst is like being tormented in the fires of hell. I remember getting so sick that...”
“Forget it,” March said.
“I will as long as you tell a story,” Clown grinned. “Everyone wants to hear something from you.”
“My story is plain and boring. Once, when I was just as naive and dumb as most of you, I decided to cross the border. Just like we are crossing it now. I was with a small party, with two trucks and two pickups. It seemed like the perfect convoy. Not big enough to attract too much attention, but strong enough to beat back any hindrances along the way. I wasn’t one of the leaders—just the operator of one of the machinegun nests. Before we made it halfway, we all died. The priest was unable to help. He was a good priest who worked quickly, raising many of us along the way. This time, though, he failed to raise us in time. That’s it. That’s the story.”
“You’re right,” Clown remarked, “not a very good story. We want details.”
“I want a colder beer. But no, we can’t all get what we want.”
“Come on, give it a try. Who killed you? How? Why? And where was this?”
“In Paradise.”
“Paradise?” Clown nearly leaped to his feet. “Up north, you mean? You’ve been there?”
“I’ve been nearly everywhere...”
“So why did you leave the north? People down here dream of making it up there. They say that’s the only coastal area where noobs don’t spawn. Even veterans who are changing regions don’t end up there. But they say it’s quiet. No major conflicts. Named ‘Paradise’ appropriately. Why didn’t you settle in there?”
“The cold is enough to make you howl in pain. Even beer freezes as it slips down your throat.”
“So why did you tell us this story at all?” Fatso asked.
March took a leisurely sip of his beer. “Because that party talked a lot, too. We do not need talk. We need action. Back then, we blabbed about everything, late into the night. No, we must sleep. I don’t care if you don’t want to. We need it. Who knows what will happen tomorrow, or the day after? Perhaps, after tonight, we won’t get a moment’s sleep until the very end. So go on, get your sleep reserves built up, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
* * *
Cheater woke up to a heartbreaking scream. Someone was shouting frantically, and very close to his ear. It was Nut, overcome by absolute terror. He had only heard that scream before from someone who had lost everything, and had just realized it.
Cheater leaped up, instinctively drawing his pistol and then trying to figure out what was actually going on.
Nut was what was going on. The sapper was lying on his sleeping bag and screaming, staring up at the ceiling with a deranged look on his face. Everyone else had woken up by now, of course, and was staring wearily at the source of the noise.
Unable to take it any longer, the Janitor moved closer to the scream generator and slapped it lightly in the face. “Lightly” from his perspective. For Nut, it was like getting hit with a shovel. His head slammed to the side so hard that it nearly detached from his body. The scream died down, and the glimmer of consciousness came into his eyes.