Wasteland Survivor – The story of Crystal - ch1
#2 of Wasteland Survivor
Ok, now you know the story teller and the main character, you get some story, thanks for waiting.
Again, all criticizm will be gladly recieved and let me know if you like.
Oh, and some of the facts are real, locations etc, there is indeed a depot in this town, I don't know whats in it and I don't know its designation.
"I still can't believe you were going to belt me with a brick, what if I had been Jen or Elise?", I asked Crystal between gulps of water.
Then she dropped a bomb on me and another of those internal voices that always seems to let you know that, in hindsight, something noticeable should have been obvious, "Because they are gone, like everyone else. We were up late talking when... ", she sobbed quickly, "they both vanished shortly after I passed out, when I woke, well, this is wha" I cut her off by pulling her into a hug, she had been friends with those two since university.
We both had a bit of a cry together, we didn't know if any of our friends would still be around, or if this was isolated. It was then the lights started to dim a little, and after a short very bright flash popped and turned off completely. "How many do you think are like us, and how many are gone? And just how big an area do you think this covered?" I asked, I didn't expect her to have an answer, but rhetorical questions, particularly of this magnitude, just have to be said out loud, so you can start to think of what the worst might be.
"Well my foxy little pal, how about we go and investigate. And see about getting you something more comfortable to wear.", her reply whilst not an answer, made me feel instantly better, at least one of us was thinking clearly. "Ok, strip and we will see what we have here that will fit."
Well, it wasn't quite a montage, she got me some of the basics, a pair of underwear that would fit me, some shorts that were a better fit, "The t-shirt can stay for now, and your waist is about Jen's size but, babe, your just not all that stacked, any bra we have here you will be floating in." I know I blushed, now if it was at her calling me 'babe' or the unflattering way she referred to my new body I couldn't work out, nor did my still transitioning male ego want to.
"Now get your arse out to my car, we can go into the centre and see if anything is open or if anyone is around." she ordered me, seeming to tick her previous plan off on her fingers, "Hurry up damn-it what are you waiting for?" at that I leapt up and pecked her on the nose with a lighter heart and ran for the door.
I jumped over the door of her chop-top beetle, being very careful of both my new claws, due to her cars immaculate interior, and my tail, as I had discovered previously, sitting on which hurts. She vaulted into the drivers seat in much the same manner, the VWs engine kicked over and started first time, just like always. Being a rev head she maintained her own car and, of course, never let me near any part of it except for rides. Smart of her.
Whilst she worked through the logistics of backing out her drive way, I attacked her stereo with my usual glee, we had similar taste in music so MP3 head unit was packed with, well, everything. I giggled skipping through to the Violent Fems, Gimme the Car, hit random from there and let it blast.
She leered at me when it got to the chorus and we were both in much better mood after that. We had noticed the traffic lights were all out now and still had yet to see another soul. The centre of town, when we reached it, was likewise deserted but between our cars stereo and about half a dozen store alarm systems it was definitely not silent.
"You need some things, and we need to try and attract some attention if anyone is monitoring one of these places remotely, so lets do some judicious looting in... ahh Myers will do, its alarm lights are going but the sirens dead."
Cautiously we, well, actually no, with the laugh that only two people about to break something for no really good reason can make we threw a bin through the plate glass of the front window and were still greeted by silence from the siren but had a new problem, neither of us had shoes.
"You still have those old work boots in the car?" I asked, heading to the front to check, and after her shrug and clicking the bonnet popper on her remote, I started rummaging around for said work-wear. "Found em, gah they don't fit well on these feet, and boy do they smell."
"Give me those, their mine anyway." she playfully snatched them out of my hands and stuck her tongue out, then jammed her larger feet into them while muttering "they never smelt this bad before, must be the new 'old-factory'", and carefully climbed through the window to get to the door and press the emergency release, there was a click but of course, the mains was out here too. Sliding them open wasn't too hard though and in minutes I was being shown through the woman's underwear section for my own needs, for the first time. On a side note, I am so very very glad fur covers blushing so well.
She picked out a few things for me, she got me to try a few on and I have to admit, after she adjusted the straps and told me to jump around a bit, it was definitely more comfortable. "That's ok for when you want to relax, but I know you B, you will be running around and jumping like a maniac. How can someone who gave up caffeine get so much energy?", she stated, expecting the usual reply.
"Crys, you know as well as I do, I soak up the suns light all morning if I can" I grinned at the usual retort.
"All I need, a hyperactive photosynthesising fox for a girlfriend!", she surprised me by saying, hearing her call me that, the first time she had said anything in regards to our relationship since we changed left me almost in tears, what had I ever done to deserve this girl?
Crystal pulled me back from my ruminations and started throwing jogging tops and sports bras at me, ordering me to try them on and come out wearing at least one or two so she could judge them. I was not crazy, well, not officially, so I did as told, and after showing off for her two things hit me all at once, this was a whole lot more fun than I think clothes shopping with her had ever been before and that this body was stronger than I had originally given it credit for. I got a bit carried away and found a fire-sprinkler pipe, jumped up to it, and did ten chin-ups without too much effort, not bad at all.
That's when things happened very fast, I was grabbed by the scruff of my neck and a cut short .22 rifle barrel was pressed to the side of my head. "No fast moves miss 'big bad', or I show you what the inside of your friends head looks like". Smell, gah, whoever this guy was he stunk worse than, wait, no I have worked retail in department stores, but yeah, he ranked up there for... rankness.
He kicked something metal along the floor, it clanged into the shelf next to Crystal, "Put those on, 'big bad', and do it slow like, I would hate to only bring back the boys one nice little piece of tail for the night." he started sniggering at the horrid pun, I winced a little and he jerked back to business and tightened his grip.
Then I saw something in Crystal's eyes I had never seen there before, it wasn't fear, it wasn't the usual level of 'I am going to do something and no one will stop me' she sometimes got, this was a force of nature. The thug noticed it too and he made his one mistake then, he turned the gun to aim at Crys and, as she took her first step, fired.
I don't know how long the scream lasted, but the ringing in my right ear was drowning it out, everything proceeded in slow-mo, I felt his arm jerk from the gun firing, I saw Crystal's eyes flare even more, then felt something move very quickly back over my shoulder coming strait from her.
Time resumed its normal pace and I know I would have fallen had I not been caught in a fierce hug, and realising the hugger, returned it with every ounce of strength.
I closed my mouth and most of the noise stopped, there was still a slight ringing, but it was fading, "What? How? Who?", were my first questions.
She just murmured, "Shh, its all right, I... I threw his bullet back at him, I got him in the head, he won't hurt you, your safe, Shh", and the wonderful thing was, I could believe it. Then she tensed, "He said 'the boys', so there's probably more of them, we need to leave, that gun was loud.".
We all but ran out to her bug, thankfully the biker hadn't touched it, I grabbed the same bin from before and made sure the big bike beside it was not so lucky, "Feel better?" Crystal asked.
"Much, now can we move, I... I really don't feel safe out in the open like this." the adrenalin was starting to leak from my muscles and the bin I was still holding started to feel its normal weight again, if not a little more. "Hey, there's an army storage depot about 5 blocks from here, we might want to grab some armament in case that bastard actually did have any friends.".
"Do you even know how to use an assault rifle?", she replied, I knew it wasn't an honest question, but more a statement, but I still didn't want to get caught out without something to at least fight back with.
"Maybe, how hard can it be?", don't, just don't, I know now how much work it takes to maintain and operate some of the fine military weapons my country uses, and I know now how stupid I was in that assumption.
A few minutes and a tyre iron liberally applied to sever padlocks later and I was looking at rows and rows of small plastic crates marked 'Steyr AUG F88' and after fiddling with the clasps on one, I opened it to find many 'bits of gun', obviously some assembly required. "Damned son of a motherless go-" I trailed off as I snapped the case back together. This was indeed storage.
Then I heard a noise from outside and being a little cautious, I peeked through the crack in the door, in time to see Crystal standing alone with another two bikers scatters around her, one laying really odd on the ground with his neck at a bad angle and the other threaded onto a steel post. I walked outside and surveyed the mess, "You seem to be getting the hang of, whatever it is you have the hang of now.", stating the obvious is a failing in people, "These guns are... in dire need of assembly, did you find anything in the trucks before you were interrupted?"
"I just got the electrics on and was fiddling with a radio when-", she was interrupted by a blast of static from one of the trucks.
"This is Major Davis of the fourth brigade reserves out of Melbourne, we are maintaining a base camp and are trying to re-establish contact with the chain-of-command. Any units hearing this, report in. Over."
It repeated twice more before Crystal grabbed the mic, damn her longer legs, and hit the VOX, "Hello, we are civilians at the Bendigo storage depot, uh" she glanced around to the big sign painted on the side of the gate" ay dee pee three four four. Oh, over!".
The message was starting to repeat again when it stopped dead and a voice came over, "Civvies! Good to hear any voices, verifying your at A D P three four four? Over."
"Affirmative, A D P three four four. Over!" she clicked the mic off and gave a little giggle.
After some back and fourth, they got us to turn on the GPS units in two of the trucks, load particular packing crates on-board each and told us to follow the GPS to the location they had transferred to the unit via wireless. There was still some room so we moved all we could from the VW to one of the trucks, and hooked up a trailer to the other, and between us managed to get the ancient little vehicle onto the carrier and secured.
Then, I cracked up laughing, neither of us had driven a truck, and I had not driven much of anything, fortunately after some further instructions from our very nice sounding radio opperator we managed to get the things rolling.
Lucky the voice had told us to grab 'emarees' and pile them on the front seat, they were situated nearly two days drive away. Now if only he had of said how bad the rations were to eat we could have thought to grab something else as well. We stopped off at a roadside store and while Crystal was looking for something to make the MREs more palateable, I raided the electric rack for a car charge kit for my phone. As we pulled away I managed to tape down the button on the truck to truck intercom, seemed to be a short range radio, and this time just threw the whole play-list up on my phone and set it to random, of course the first song would be ACDC, Highway to hell, talk about a bad vibe, but such a good song.
We were about five clicks from where the GPS was telling us to be when the radio fired up again, "Ok convoy one, we see you on radar, bring those babies in at under 60 clicks please, don't want any of our boys getting trigger happy. Over."
It was then I actually listened to that voice, since the little bastard was always right, I decided to follow it and see what happened and depressed the mic VOX. "Uh, sir?"
"This is truck two of convoy one? Over." Damn, why couldn't I remember to say that?
"Um, yeah I guess. You, uh, we... we don't exactly look like we used to, we um, we were changed in the event thing. Er Over." I remembered this time, bully to me.
"Mam, we understand, we have seen a few odd things, but your both obviously acting very rationally under the circumstances and I have been instructed that we are willing to give sanctuary to anyone who brings in the sort of supplies you are carrying, you were right to warn us though, I will notify the teams. Over"
"Thanks! That's, good to know." I was so relieved I waited almost 30 seconds before timidly pressing the button again and muttering, "Over n Out".
As we rolled the trucks closer to the concrete walled compound I noticed it had some pretty heavy looking weapons peeking out in places, what looked like canons and some people in towers with big machine guns, yet reassuringly they were not aimed at us, more, just behind us. I glanced in the mirror, of course there was nothing or those guns would be more active. I guess I was still a little worried about those bikers, needlessly it seems.
As we rolled past the gates and were directed to a stop, I messed up the stop with the damn twitchy air-brakes and stalled my truck, Crys of course sat idling, looking like she had done this all her life, show off.
My door was opened for me and an arm offered to help me out of the truck, and a smiling, very human face said, "Welcome to the last active town in Australia, population, uh, whatever it was plus two!" The face was attached to a soldier in fatigues, armed of course, but with said weapons slung. I looked around just as someone said, "What the hell, this VW wasn't on our list". He was about to tap it with the but of his rifle when I saw Crystal's eyes light and the weapon stopped just short of the panel and, obvious to those around, unable to be moved at all.
"Private, beating on these nice ladies car is not going to endear us to them, I would suggest apologising and they might let you have your gun back."
Obviously, he had seen something like this in the last few days, and his off handed handling of it made me relax a fair bit immediately.
"Captain Roberts at your service ma'am, could you both follow me please, Sargent Nicols there will make sure your vehicle isn't so much as scratched, won't you sergeant?"
"Of course sir!", the man refereed to as Nicols replied very enthusiastically.