FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

New York City was Ground Zero for many nuclear weapons as well as some more experimental designs. The city is a toxic, irradiated hellhole which freezes over with the first snow every winter. Only the most powerful all wheel drive vehicles or tenacious furs can hope to safely traverse it in one piece. No one ventures into or out of it's limits, or so the stories say.

The truck had been quiet for the duration of the time since we left Will's house. For over an hour and nearly 90 miles miles, not a single word. It was so quiet that you could almost hear everyone's heart beating. Even the straight piped engine seemed like it was quiet. The fear was so thick you could cut it with a knife and I felt like my chest would just explode open at any second with how high my heart rate was. Nero and Mya were the quietest of us all, Mya trying to hide under Nero who wasn't much bigger than she was. Nero didn't seem worried at all, but maybe that's just cause he was blind. Outside the truck looked like hell on Earth. The trees were bent in unnatural ways, the burned skeletons of houses, cars and nuclear shadows littered the landscape like common garbage and the grey sky had a hellish green tint to it. The snow on the ground was more a layer of thin ice with the now underneath it, reminding me of the dead city from Metro. I'd seen about a hundred Rabids since we past a blood smeared sign about twenty minutes ago that had read "Warning. New York City Limits a 20 Minute Drive Away. EXTREME RABID ACTIVITY, BEWARE THE FOG" The thing was though, while the animals that had spread the idea that NYC was Rabid turf hadn't been lying, I hadn't seen a single Rabid that didn't look like he or she wasn't freezing, starving and dehydrated all at the same time. They looked at the truck with lust in their eyes and drool coming from their lips. They knew it held prey and you'd be surprised what starvation can drive a normal animal to do, to say nothing of Rabids. The conditions, dare I say it, these poor animals were living in was appalling, even though we'd all tear one another's heads of their shoulders with whatever sharp object was near by in an instant.

"I fucking hate Rabids....", Eirren sighed, "but this..."

"When animals say NYC is a hell hole they aren't screwing around", Nat commented, "these conditions are atrocious."

"Even I can't help but feel a little sorry for them", I said slowing the truck down for a turn, a little Rabid boy was standing on the curb watching us. Completely nude, cut, bleeding, scared and dirty, he was also super emaciated, looking like he hadn't eaten in months. His eyes were full of pain and hunger as he watched the truck, knowing full well it was full of prey.

"Almost makes you not want to claw their guts out", Zack sighed, "hey Arien?"

"Yeah?"

"Who do you think actually won the war?", he questioned.

"Nobody."

Zack sighed, "yeah...fair point I guess."

"Umm", Nat said, "please tell me I'm not the only one who saw the "Beware of Fog", written in blood across the bottom of the sign?"

"No", I sighed, "we all saw it, kinda hard to miss."

"I will make you go all the way around if that means what I think it means", Nat growled, "I will NOT relive the events of detonation all over again."

The quiet returned. For another 10 or 20 minutes we traveled along the barren skeleton of Interstate 87 before we encountered a military road block. It was the standard road block as far as set up was concerned, but this one was different, here, we saw a familiar sign. Everything past the barricade was bleached a familiar indescribable color, a color that only Nero would never know

"No...no, no. no. There were TWO!? Why did there have to be two!?! Wasn't one of those fucking bombs enough!??", Nat whimpered making the sign of the cross, "Jesus my lord please do not make us endure another."

I pulled the truck to a stop at the barricade, my heart rate beginning to increase as I stared at landscape in front of me. As far as I could see, it was like looking into an old black and white movie, but, the scenery outside wasn't black and white. It was a new color, something I had seen before, but that hadn't lessened in gravity. It wasn't black, white or even grey. It was really, truly colorless. Everything past the barricade had been bleached that familiar, soulless and indescribable color. There was no color in the buildings, in the plants, the cars or even the fire hydrants, nothing had been spared. It was like a car commercial, where the producer turned everything black and white, but made his company's product an eye catching candy apple red or super bright orange. Second time around and I still didn't have words for it. It was still difficult to imagine the amount of power packed into those bombs, power that enabled them to wash the color from asphalt or stone. We'd seen the same scene little over a week prior, but it was still the stuff of nightmares.

The truck fell into a state of quietness yet again as I put it in park and killed the engine, everyone stepping out. Zack and Mya in awe of what they were seeing, but having no idea of what they were in for before the day was out. I took my Geiger from my kit and scanned the area. Barely any radiation, just barely back ground, but I knew how bad it could get. I didn't see any Corium glowing under the ash, but then again, I hadn't last time either.

"What the hell happened here?", Zack asked quietly, "what even is...here?"

"Medusa happened", Nat said, "evidently, Burlington wasn't the only site of detonation."

"I may be missing something, but how do you know the same bomb that caused this is a Medusa?"

"Medusa was so powerful it's flash alone could bleach the color out of the surrounding area and even kill animals", Nat said, "and as the Ground Zero Ghost, I believe I am qualified to speak on the subject."

"I wish we had a way to contact Khen", I growled to myself, "I really want to put my chips on the idea that those pills he gave us will keep us safe from the radiation I know is waiting for us up this road."

"I don't see why they wouldn't", Nat said, "it protects against radiation emitted by Corium, and for all intents and purposes, I'm a stick of living Corium."

"Do we have a chain in the truck?", I asked.

"No, but I have some tow straps I picked up back in Albany", Zack said, "should hold."

"Kay", I mused looking at the barricade, "here's how we're gonna do this. Eirren, fly up, see if you can get a rough idea of where the fog will start and end, let me know if you feel radiation or not. That fact alone will determine our next course of action. While you do that, we'll get this barricade out of the way."

Eirren shot up into the sky, leaving the bulk of her gear behind.

"What was the point of that?", Zack asked, fishing the tow straps from his bag.

"Fog has some attribute to it that makes it feel like there's a sky scraper sitting on your shoulders", Nat said, "it might have something to do with the irradiation and how it effects your muscles, or it could be that the Fog is primarily Corium ash that just floats in the air. The latter explains a lot, but for some reason I feel like the first is more probable."

"Fog?", Zack asked.

"Medusa bombs kick up huge clouds of wildly radioactive ash that doesn't settle overtime, at least to the best of my knowledge. It just kind of lingers and bombards anything that dares to come close to it with radiation."

"Speaking of radiation", I asked, "Zack, you're a diesel mechanic right?"

"Yeah", Zack said, "most of my life."

"What could the radiation do to the truck?", I asked.

"Well...", Zack pondered, "if it's electromagnetic, as long as the engine is running when it starts we should be okay, though I can't say the same for any other systems. A bunch of it would depend on what kind and how strong the radiation actually is."

"Bridge we'll cross when we get there", I said picking up one of the longer tow straps. I climbed the barricade like a ladder and secured the strap to the top bar. Back down on the ground, Zack secured a second strap to the end of the one connected to the barricade as I turned the Ford around. He secured the strap, and by extension the barricade, to the Ford's tow hitch and gave me a thumbs up. I put the Excursion in 1st gear and slowly began to depress the gas. Here, we had a real showcase of what torque was really capable of as the Ford effortlessly toppled the twenty thousand pound barricade we had attached to it as well as pulling out the two next to it, which had been bolted into the ground via inch think bolts and nuts and a concrete slab trapped in the ground as though it was a semi trailer pulling a child's wagon. The barricades fell to the ground with loud crashes and the sounds of breaking stone. It wasn't really possible to keep the wide grin off my lips while putting the Ford back in park., I'd only ever dreamed of such power in a vehicle, but never expected to handle it.

"That was bad fuckin' ass", Nat commented when I rejoined them, "like, that was Abrams Main Battle tank horsepower right there."

"Easily 4,000 pounds of torque", Zack said, "no way it was less. Happen to get a look at the amount of boost during the pull?"

I nodded, "140 PSI."

Zack whistled, "bruh, pushing 140 pounds of boost for a 20 foot pull is brutal. The amount of fuel flowing through the injection pump, or even the common rail. Just the thought of what that engine must do at max RPM."

"I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to find out at some point down the road", I shrugged, "now all we can do is keep an eye out for Rabids and wait for Eirren."

And that's what we did, for the next two and a half hours. Nero and Mya stayed under the back seat asleep for most of it, probably the most comfortable sleep they'd had in a while, with a warm truck and three armed guards watching over them. During the two hours we were waiting for Eirren, I went back several times and kinda poked and prodded at the bleached area, mostly trying to see if I could locate anythin' of value, and sort of kinda did in the back of an old house. I noticed it stood out from the other's in the area when I approached it. Still bleached, burnt and colorless like all the other houses in the area, but this one was inhabited. I could tell from the way the windows had been boarded up,the boards tightly packed against each other with no hammer marks on them, suggesting a nail gun. The space between each board had been sealed up along with the outsides with caulking. The door wasn't a normal door, but looked more like a solid steel place with a door knob affixed. The siding of the house seemed to be well taken care of and there wasn't a build up of snow in the driveway or in the gutter's, looking like it had all been freshly shoveled and clean.

"Hey guys", I called over the radio.

"Yeah Ari?", Nat asked.

"I found a house that looks occupied, I'mma see if the owner's home, maybe they can point us in the right direction to get outta here."

"Stay safe brother, if we hear gun fire we'll come to support you", she told me.

"Noted", I acknowledged hanging up the radio.

I pounded on the door, "hey! Anyone home? Could use pointers on how to safely cross this bomb zone!"

No answer, I tried again, "Hello!?"

I heard the sound of foot steps, two animals, one significantly larger than the other. A pause, and then the heavier animal came back, walking up to the door. I heard the bolt on an AR-15 go forward.

"I hope you know how to use it, because if you point that thing at me you had best be ready to use it friend", I shouted, "I'm not here to loot you, just need to talk!"

I heard a chain come undone and then the lock unlock, "mine stays down if your's does."

I slung my AR over my back and slowly turned the knob, "coming in."

I slowly pushed the door open. The house' occupant was a Rabid opossum, about my age, that had all the markings of typical wasteland abuse. Cuts, burns, lacerations, bullet holes, etcetera. The smell of radiation sickness with the usual opossum stench was heavy in the air, along with another odor that I had recently become familiar with telling me I had interrupted something I probably shouldn't have, reinforced by the fact that he only had a pair of underwear on.

"Didn't mean to interrupt personal time brother", I apologized.

The opossum shook his head, "don't worry about it. What did you need."

"Would you happen to know exactly where the Medusa Device was detonated? My friends and I need to pass through the Fog cloud to get to where we're goin'."

"Oh", the Rabid sighed, "somewhere in NYC, close to times square I think, not sure. Hard to retain memories since I got bitten. Need anything else?"

I shook my head, "nah, thanks, I'll let you get back to it."

"Hey, before you shove off, watch out for the Demons."

"Demons?", I asked.

The Rabid nodded, "they look like dragons, but they don't have scales or wings, at least not the ones I've seen. They run with heads up and hands over their eyes and are next to impossible to kill with anything over than a melee, or a barrel stuffed, and I do mean stuffed, barrel inside the body, blast from a shotgun. I was out on a trip a few days ago and saw one guy hit one with a Ford Excursion at 150 miles an hour a while back and the damn thing still didn't die. Never hauled so much ass in my life"

I nodded, "I've run into them, and the guy as well. I know what to do. Thanks for the heads up."

"Good luck to you man, they're everywhere inside the Fog and it's breedin' season. They're extra violent."

"Thanks for the warning."

The Rabid nodded. I stepped out of the guys house and shut the door tightly behind me, returning to the Ford, Eirren had come back, dirty, sweaty and panting, like she'd been flying rather fast.

"You okay love?", I asked rejoining the group.

"Yeah", Eirren said, "Fog stretches for a good 5 miles south. No way around that I could see."

"You feel any radiation?", I asked.

"Geiger did, everything felt normal to me. The pills work."

I sighed, "well, guess we're going through. Hope to god the truck holds up."

"I wouldn't worry about it brother.", Zack said, "was the owner of that house home?"

I nodded, "yeah, said to watch out for Demons in the fog, those creatures we fought this morning. Said he saw Will hit it with the Excursion while he was out on a trip."

'Dude must have hauled serious ass to cover all those miles so quickly", Zack mused, "didn't will say he met it like, two days ago and a few miles from his house?"

"He did say he never hauled so much ass in his life", I shrugged.

Zack didn't answer. We piled back into the truck and continued our trip towards home, slowly pushing through the ravaged outskirts of New York City. The devastation here was on an entirely different level than what Eirren and I had witnessed in Burlington. Here, no windows were broken, no cars lay in twisted messes after being looted or overturned by a blast, the traffic lights were even still on. Instead? Shadows, thousands of them, totally unsuspecting, seared into everything from walls, mailboxes, cars and even the road. No arms were flaring, no one showed signs of looking at a mushroom cloud. These animals even still seemed engrossed in their phones, eating their breakfast or just walking to work. The shadows were the only things that still had color, while Medusa had suffocated everything else with it's sterilizing glow. Medusa's storm was beginning to become visible from where we were and a light drizzle of radioactive rain was falling on the roof of the truck, producing smoke when it hit the dead leaves of a few of the trees and the paint on the hood.

"It takes your breath away", Eirren said, "it's horrifying but....at the same time it's amazing. How many times in your life have you seen copper lightning?"

"One time too many", I said trying to keep the RPM's of the Ford low enough to not wake the dead as I rolled through their resting place. I realized when we got deeper into town that the only way to proceed was across was on a rickety looking bridge that while clear, didn't look safe in the least bit. Never mind the fact that the water below us was a familiar black sludge with all of the toxins the device had dumped into it upon detonation.

"Can't one thing go right today?", I sighed aloud, "this bridge doesn't look like it could hold a fly, never mind a two ton pickup."

"Either this or we find a way around the Medusa Device's influence on one tank of gas, pick your poison", Nat shrugged.

"Either way it's likely we end up dead unless we wanna add hundreds of miles to our route", I growled, I was ready to explode, and it was barely noon. With another growl and a bit of a hiss, I put the Ford in first and took my foot off the clutch. The engine hooked onto the transmission and torqued the wheels, starting the truck on a painfully slow creep across the bridge. The old steel cables and supports that still held it above the boiling river below us moaned and shrieked with each inch the Ford traveled, telling us that they were weak and having enough trouble holding up their own weight, never mind two extra tons. The Ford crawled across the bridge, making it safely back to solid ground after five minutes of agonizing crawling.

"Turn up here", Eirren said pointing to a left hand turn.

I slowed the truck down for the turn, finding myself turning on the blinker, stopping at the corner and looking both ways before actually making the turn, when in reality I could have zipped through it as fast as I wanted.

"The hell was all that for?", Zack asked.

"Feels normal", I said, "don't judge me."

He stayed quiet. Our pace slowed to a crawl as I carefully maneuvered around the abandoned cars left silently rusting in the street, shadowy remains still visible in many of them. Nuclear shadows were burned into the road, the cars, and even the outline of a some species of bird was seared into a gas station sign a few hundred yards up the road, from the outline, I guessed he must have been cleaning the sign when the nuke fell. The highway interchange was devoid of any sound except the truck, almost deafeningly quiet. The nuclear ash that enshrouded everything and fell into the cracks and crevasses of old cars plus the disturbing silence that even seemed to exert some muscle over the truck's exhaust note, it was one of the most chilling things I'd ever experienced. It was as if the planet itself had ceased all activity. It was at that time that I noticed the screen in the dash had gone blank, the light monitor had said the headlights had gone out and my phone's screen no longer worked. The weird part was that the analogue gauges in the cluster still worked, but the digital suspension monitor, body acceleration monitor and the fuel air ratio gauge had stopped working. The radio had also stopped, again without my noticing.

"Why did all of the trucks electronics just stop working?", I asked trying to restart the radio one handed while attempting to keep both eyes on the road.

"Dead Zones", Nat explained, "these places in the wastelands where EMPs and Thermal Radiation turned some buildings into powerful magnets. Non-Lethal but if you expose electronics to it for too long they'll fry. Probably a good idea to get out before the truck stalls from lack of fuel because the radiation has likely stopped the fuel pump. Khen used to race through them in his RX-7 because they would play hell with his ECU."

"I've heard of heat demagnetizing things, but never magnetizing them", I thought aloud, "how does that work?"

"I don't know", Nat shrugged, "he never explained it, just said that they kill electronics if you linger for too long."

"Yeah", I said, "sounds like getting out is a good idea then."

I maneuvered the Ford through the wreck of cars as best as I could. I could feel the engine start to choke and gag, I knew this model of Excursion had zero electrical or electronic components in the drive train, so I figured something in the air intake had been clogged up. All the electronics on the dash seemed okay, so it stood to reason that it was something clogging up the air intake.

"Must be something wrong with the intake", I said aloud.

"Stands to reason", Zack said, "I'll let you know when we need to stop so I can clean the filter, but let's go for as long as we can."

I nodded. Thirty minutes of maneuvering through town had us inside of Medusa's Fog for a second time, it was like Burlington all over again, yet something, was different. There was a certain...how do I put it, vibe, that the area was giving off. It was the same feeling that I'd had when I'd seen the shadows in the distance when Will was driving us to his place. The radiation levels were higher than anything I'd ever seen, the Geiger counter on the dash maxed out at 2500 rads a second and the needle was a bit passed that mark and holding steady, only because it couldn't go any further. We six were the only ones that could survive in this kind of radiation at that high levels, that I knew of at least. I thought maybe someone else could have been mutated by the Medusa Device in a similar way that Nat had been, and if so, he/she wouldn't have had much problem in keeping up with the Ford through the fog, since I was taking things rather slow to avoid getting stuck inside the ash that even outside of the Fog littered the ground and made traction miserable, just adding to my uneasiness.

"We're not alone", I said aloud.

"Like anyone could be alive in this", Eirren said.

"Nat was", I stated, "and Ground Zero was far more polluted than this place is."

"Still", Eirren said, "I think it might be your mind playing tricks on you, that or it's some of those creatures that we fought earlier."

"The opossum did say that they were everywhere in the fog now that you mention it", I said, "fingers on the triggers guys. We don't need surprises."

"Hope to god it ain't", Zack said, "that is the last thing we need right now."

"Eirren?", I asked.

"Just keep following this road, it goes all the way around the cloud."

I nodded and did just that. I wanted to get out of this cloud as soon as I could, not just because I found it creepy and unsettling as hell, but because it was making Nat a nervous wreck. How could I tell? Her breathing had gotten shallow and very fast, damn near hyperventilation. She was mumbling as if she was talking to someone and trying to ease their pain in between threats of a violent death to no one in specific and wishes that Benjamin would hurry up and get back. Her finger was way to close to the trigger of her M4 and the eyes on her helmet were flickering between blood red and the now normal blue as well as a shade of yellow that reminded me of the sun. Can one say PTSD?

Eirren nudged me, "maybe pick up the pace? Nat's going fucking insane back there."

"If I try and go faster the truck might stall", I said quietly back, "last thing I want is to have to fix this thing inside the cloud."

Eirren didn't answer me. I continued to follow the barely visible remnants of the road for another mind numbing hour before we finally cleared the Fog, lifting a huge weight off everyone's shoulders. Clearing the Fog not only let Nat relax and breathe easy, but it also met we had made it past NYC, which left me ready to cheer, right up until the Ford started to cough and sputter hard, the RPM needle going nuts in the 0-2000 range unlike anything I'd ever seen a Tach do.

"Shit we're losing it", Zack said, "put it in neutral and goose it, see if you can flush the ash out of the system."

I put the Ford in neutral and tried to get it up to max revs, which I should of seen the failed attempt right from the start. The coughing and breakup got intense at 4k and once it hit five the 7.0 liter V8 took it's last breath and died completely. The Ford slowed to a stop, barely two miles past the cloud, the area was still bleached for as far as the eye could see, this was not a place I wanted to be spending the night.

"Fuck", Zack sighed.

I tried about six times to get the Ford to run again, all ending in failure.

"I guarantee that the fuel/air system is clogged something fierce", Zack sighed, "I'll probably have to take the entire Turbo off to clean the ash out of it."

I sighed, "is that something you can do here?"

Zack nodded, "the panels behind the rear seat have an entire tool set. I should beable to get it apart and cleaned in an hour or so, but let me make sure of the problem before I go pulling shit apart."

I nodded. I popped the hood and Zack walked around to the front of the Ford and began checking the engine. It was like five minutes before he reached around the side of the hood and signaled for me to try it. I put my foot on the clutch and turned the key. The Ford coughed and sounded like it wanted to start, but promptly died. I heard Zack pound on the frame and grunt to himself.

"Never seen an air intake so clogged in my fuckin' life. Fuck this Medusa shit man."

I sat back in the seat and rubbed my forehead. It always had to be something, these things never in the history of history worked out ever, not smoothly at least, and lately it seemed like it was just one problem after another.

"This is why I didn't want a vehicle", I muttered to myself, "damn it I knew this would happen."

"Knew what would happen?", Eirren asked.

"I knew that a truck would be more trouble than it was worth", I said matter of factually, "but, yet again, no one listens when I start talking."

Eirren just kinda looked at me, then decided now of all times was a good time for her trademarked sarcasm, "oh I'm sorry, I knew your lips were moving and words came out, but I tuned out everything you just said."

"This isn't a joke Eirren", I raised my voice, "We are sitting ducks here! We can't just walk away from the Excursion now that we have it, Nat's going crazy in the back seat and god only knows what devil spawn is lurking around in all of these houses."

"Don't you yell at me about this", Eirren said, "my job is to read the damn map and get us through in one piece and this is the only way we can get through it, I assure you! What the hell are you doing to help the group through this hell huh? Last I checked, Nat was the one pulling guard duty every night so we all can get sleep."

"Then maybe you didn't pay enough att...."

"ENOUGH!", Nat shouted from the back, "Stop it! The both of you! We are all, on the same fucking team, you feel me!? If we fight here and we ain't fighting the muties we die! Do you understand!?"

Eirren and I silenced ourselves and exchanged glances between each other and Nat, her finger was just a little too close to the trigger and that switch was a little too close to Full, she looked like she'd snap at literally any second.

"I have been through a living hell since these fucking bombs fell on my head, stripped me of my skin and soul and vaporized my puppies in front of me with my being helpless to stop it", Nat said, changing from a yell to a near whisper, "Medusa will not steal another thing from me. Do the both of you understand? If you fight each other in the Bleach, we'll all die. That won't happen, if I have to knock your heads together, got it!?"

"Yeah", Eirren said turning around in her seat, "we got it."

"What about you Arien?", Nat growled.

"Yeah", I sighed, "I got it."

I turned back in my seat. The hood was still open, so I couldn't see what Zack was up to. I grabbed my AR and stepped out of the Ford, finding that Zack was knee deep in work, having the turbo sat atop the crank case cover and working hard to clean all of the ash and soot out of it, and damn was there a lot of it.

"No wonder the truck died", I said, "I'd probably die too if I was having that forced into my heart at 140 PSI."

"No shit?", Zack chuckled, "fortunately the stuff wipes off easy and somehow doesn't stick to oil."

"Strange", I noted, "can't think of much that doesn't stick to oil."

"Me either", Zack said, "happen to have any of that brake parts cleaner you use for your gun left over? I could use a can of the stuff right about now."

"I know I've got a can of the stuff in my ruck", I said walking towards the back of the truck. I reached for the rear door latch and when I had the door half way open, I heard something rush behind me. I spun around, letting the bolt of my Ar fly forward, expecting to be face to face with a Demon or maybe a Rabid with a hell of a spine, but instead, I met nothing.

"What Arien!?", Zack asked rushing back to meet me, "what did you see?"

"Not what I saw...what I heard", I said pointing, "there's something out here...somewhere...will the truck run if you throw it back together?"

"Maybe", Zack said as we began retreating towards the front of the Excursion, "I can't guarantee for how long though."

I opened the driver side door as Zack and I retreated, "Eirren, how far is it out of the Bleach? We're being hunted."

"Hunted by what?", Eirren asked, "Demons? Rabids?"

"Dunno, don't care to find out", I explained as Zack began rushing to put the Excursion back together, "how far is it out of the Bleach?"

"11 miles straight ahead", Eirren said, "this road will take us right on out."

"Zack can you keep the Ford running at full power that long?", I asked glancing around through the windows of old houses in various states of disrepair through my scope, finger less than a millimeter off the trigger, "I have a feeling we'll need every little bit of power we got."

Zack stopped his rush and inspected a few parts before nodding, "yes, definitely."

"Do it", Nat said as she and Eirren stepped out, she sent the bolt of her M4 flying forward as she flipped the selector to full auto, "we'll give cover."

Zack nodded without looking up from his work on the engine. We all clustered around him while he worked, using the Ford as cover and watching each other's ankles and backs. We could hear them, all around us, too light to be Demons in their step, too smart to be Rabids, given what I began to suspect was some form of psychological warfare, something I'd become rather hardened against these past few years.

"It's Psyops", I stated, "they're trying to get us to go investigate so they can pick us off one at a time, we're not dealing with normal mutants."

"They'll have to try hard than that then", Eirren said, "they won't fool us that easily."

"Hurry up Zack", Nat said cracking her neck, "won't be long before they realize they ain't foolin' us and charge."

It was at that point I heard one of the creatures move in an odd way and shushed my friends. Listening closely, I was able to hear them all, hundreds of them, slowing down their movements to the point they were just barely moving at all and eventually stopping, making me lose track. I slowly turned my head to lock eyes with Eirren and Nat. I moved my hand away from the trigger of my AR and communicated to my team that I suspected they hunted by sound.

"They hunt by sound", I mouthed, "any noise will draw them closer."

Eirren looked like she was about to respond, but then, I heard a sound that will stay with me until the day that I draw my last breath. It was the sound of a voice, but not the voices of my friends, my son, or anyone with me, rather, it was a voice from hell. A voice that seemed to carry the life force of the devil himself upon it. The voice was...it seemed almost super natural, like I was being spoken to from the other side.

"You've come to the wrong neighborhood."

At that point, nearly sixty Rabids of various species and in varying states of neglect and disrepair came out of the old houses. Every one of them was armed, some with simple wooden planks and bats, others with wicked looking homemade maces, some with metal batons and pipe and others had firearms, mostly .22 caliber and 9mm handguns and one guy even had a .30-30 lever action. In the entire group of Rabids, one male stood out. A New York brown rat, he was about 6'3, skinny as a twig and wore a dirty, patched suit and by my guess must have thought it made him intimidating. It didn't. He had an NY compliant AR-15, but for some reason, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was empty. The group comprised of various age groups, most seeming to be my age, but there was a handful of older folks and about 12 or so kids. I felt that knot in the bottom of my stomach, I could only see one way out of this situation for us, and it didn't end well.

"We'll get your weapons from you", he said, "then, we'll need you on your knees."

"Yeah, you see the thing is", I shrugged, pointing the barrel of my Ar straight at his head, "that's not going to happen. You know we can't do that. See the biggest firearm in your group at the moment is an NY compliant AR, that pit in the suit has a M4A1 with a fun switch in her hands. How about you just let us by before your blood and the blood of everyone here runs cold in the street? This isn't going to end well for you if you push it, we will cut loose."

"Those guns you got ain't loaded", the Rat smirked, "oh they never are. We'll be taking them from you."

"We can't do that brother", Zack said closing the hood and picking up his AK, turning to face the group with us, "you know we can't."

"Put the firearms on the ground", the Rat stated, "OR DIE!"

My team and I stood our ground. The Rat approached me and put his hand on my weapon, getting in my face. The smell on his breath was that of shit, rotten food and blood. The look in his eyes was one of desperation, but also of pure insanity.

"You listening to me?"

I nodded, "yeah, you listening to me?"

"Yes", He stated.

"Good. Get your fucking paw off my weapon before I bite it off."

The rat slowly began to grin and started to laugh. So did I. We did this for only a few seconds before I snapped out, my teeth, well taken care of and razor sharp cut through the muscle and bone of his elbow with no issue. His arm fell into the street with a slosh as he fell to the ground with blood curdling screams. Some of the animals in his group backed up as he sat there and screamed.

"What are ya' all just standing around 'fer!?", he cried, "KILL THEM!"

The horde of diseased animals began to creep forward. My friends looked to me and I nodded, no words were spoken, but what needed to happen at this point was obvious. Nat was the first to cut lose, spraying into the crowd of Rabids on full auto, while the rest of us sent down range as fast as we could work our fingers. Of course they tried to turn and run, but, there wasn't anywhere for them to run to. It took a minute for the gravity of what was happening to set in, but the massacre was over, the magazines were already empty and the barrels were hot by that time. I didn't even realize until shortly afterwords that I had reloaded. Between the four of us, we fired 150 rounds of 5.56, it left all 63 animals in the crowd in a pile in the street, the blood staining the snow beneath them crimson red. All of them, the males, females, elderly and even the 12 kids. Our barrage had left them missing body parts, with gaping holes in their emaciated frames and a pile of spent brass at our feet. The wastelands went quiet again. There was only the rustling of slings and the slight crinkle of Nat's skin underneath her suit. My friends and I exchanged glances. No words were spoken, not between us, but the Rat, who was still alive, had watched the entire thing with a look of horror glued to his face unlike anything I'd seen.

"You...you killed them", he stuttered, "you shot them down like Lessers and you don't even care!"

"I warned you", I said raising my rifle again, pointing the barrel at his head, "you should have listened."

Before he could answer me again, I pulled the trigger. Another shot shattered the silence of the wasteland, bringing the total kill count up to 64. I looked out over the pile of bodies and sighed, clutching my AR tightly, wondering if we had been justified.

"Let's get the fuck outta here", I sighed walking back to the truck.

Silence fell over us once again as we climbed back into the Ford. I awakened the engine, put it in first and steered around the bodies as we headed away from the Bleach, leaving the pile of dead Rabids in the street to rot.