Addiction

  Exhaustion

  Farrah went through her bag in search of an energy drink. The church bell hadn’t rung again, so she knew it wasn’t six yet. The sky had been steadily growing brighter, and the fog began falling closer to the ground, but not yet rolling away back into the fields.

  The past few hours had been much quieter. As a pile of mutated and fully dead corpses accumulated between the trio and the facility, their scents faded into the background.

  Farrah pulled up her minimap. A strip of orange dots loitered between 7 and 10 kilometres west of their position. They walked among and over the grey dots that represented their fallen siblings. That was going to be an environmental hazard, with all the mutations that were gathered up there, for a long while. She’d already added the strip of zombies to her notes, planning to inform Collectors of it in the next settlement over, wherever and whenever that was going to be.

  Goals

  ·  Find the OBELISK

  The screen appeared before her, unchanged and unaware of yesterday’s ordeal. Farrah studied it with the same non-negligible amount of thought she’d spent studying it during the night, after she’d laid down her pistol and only scanned the area every few minutes to make sure none of the creatures were getting smart or lucky enough to continue beyond the wall, into the town.

  She had her theories, and she was waiting for the church bell to wake up the other two and dismiss her from her post. A quick glance down the clock on the side of the bell tower told her that it’d be another 2 hours.

  Farrah sighed, got up, stretched, and scanned the area one final time. Four news dots had emerged between the wall and the OBELISK facility, but none had yet crossed the threshold. So, Farrah finally deemed it safe enough to rejoin her companions.

  She popped open that same trap door, and let herself fall the short distance to the stool. Then, she headed downstairs, flashlight in hand. Its round shape felt awkward between her fingers, and some tendons in her hand ached from having held a pistol for that long and with a grip perhaps a tad too tight.

  The bat had returned under the stairs and angrily flopped at Farrah’s head before being smacked away with the flashlight. It flew back down, perhaps insulting the woman in a frequency only it could hear.

  This time, Farrah didn’t head straight to the nave, and then outside. She shone her flashlight around the small landing, avoiding the disgruntled bat, before heading past the stairway, and down a windy corridor. From its shape, she could tell it circled around the apse, leading her past dozens of psalms and leaflets of long-past regional pastoral events that were pinned along the walls. Some journal excerpts and a selected few pictures warranted simple frames, that didn’t fully fit the round shape of the hallway. The hallway ended with an ajar wooden door.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  This place had once been an office, perhaps a decade or two before the Fall. But cases of floppy discs, unsorted plastic bins of leaflets and handouts, and a nativity barn in which a family of mice had replaced everyone but baby Jesus, made it hard to even call it a storage space. Yet, the right-hand side of the room had been cleared out to make space for a small diesel generator. It was just under two meters in length, and over a meter in width, and the layer of dust on it was not as thick as on the shelving around it.

  Farrah approached it and ran a finger along its side. She didn’t like that it was running and that two 5-litre diesel barrel-like containers stood by its side, both full. The sniper nest was being regularly visited by a person of faith. They must have had some crafting skills to reassemble the generator inside here. Some level of electrical knowledge as well, to wield it to the existing dead electrical grid.

  Farrah knelt, following the cables that ran into a partially dismantled part of the wall, before dispreading into a metal tube. She tried to think back to the collectors she knew who had the needed skills and spirituality for this setup. Matthew was one of three snipers she knew, but none of them would have bothered bringing a generator over, even if they could. She pulled out her notes on other Collectors, skimming through them. There wasn’t anyone who specialised in the kind of technical utility related to reassembling an engine.

  With a discontent humm, Farrah shook her head, failing to link any of those people to this place. She got up, picking up one of the diesel containers. She left it by the door, under the judgemental gaze of the nativity mice, before fishing out a sheet of paper from the mess and writing a quick note. She explained that she took it, and who she was, in case some trade in return would be required. She didn’t bother putting down an address, as, much like most Collectors, she went all over the UDR.

  Then, she marked the church on her minimap, turning its outline green; an investigation for after the OBELISK quest, or perhaps for someone else.

  She walked through that narrow hallway, diesel container in hand, and a half-smile on the corner of her mouth. She crossed at the wooden cross above the altar and glanced at the single candle stub under that painting of Maria.

  She crossed twice more, first for all her family who were with God, and last, because it was tradition to cross an odd number of times.

  The mice had made themselves scarce among the overturned wooden benches, and the light that came through the stained glass gave the whole church an air of sadness, just a touch too pronounced in its slowly shifting reds, blues, and yellows to pass off as melancholic.

  The air outside smelled of things to do and places to be.

  “Good morning crew,” Farrah’s voice carried through the empty streets and into the house Dan had picked. “How’s it rolling at Brookstone Fork?”

  A groan came in reply.

  “Hey,” Vega joined Farrah outside through a doorless entryway. “How was the watch?”

  Farrah scanned the area and clicked her tongue when she spotted yet another yellow dot approaching the corpse strip.

  “I got a level of exhaustion, and my Power is down to 177, but I’ll hold out until tomorrow.”

  Vega nodded.

  “I can take, umm, whatever comes our way. Speaking of, which way will we, umm, be going?”

  Farrah hummed, and pulled out one of the off-brand cigarettes Dan had gotten her before replying:

  “Back up north, to Samborough. We’ll need to locate the main OBELISK facility, but if that one is anything to go by, we’ll need to resupply first. Maybe recruit other Collectors.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Vega glanced down, then back, inside the house, where the rustling noise of Dan getting up could be heard. Farrah took a drag of her cigarette, waiting for the woman to continue. “I don’t think more people should be made aware of OBELISK and the mensphere. Even with just Daniel on board, things could spiral out of control if she were to share with others the intricacies of that facility.”

  Farrah frowned and took another drag.

  “Are you doing alright?” She asked, forcing her tone to come off as concerned.

  “What do you mean?” Vega tilted her head.

  “I can’t believe you saw ‘Highway 196’,” Dan finally joined them on the pavement.

  He looked like he’d spent the night rolling in the grass and moss, after somehow getting out of his sleeping bag, which judging by the dirty yellow plastic popping out from under the zipper of his backpack, he’d indeed been doing.

  “It’s a classic. Ben Strewy played in it,” Farrah replied. She didn’t add that there were only two of his impressive 26 films that she hadn’t seen because the connotations of that would have been too depressing.

  Dan was not awake enough to think of that. He rambled on about some of the other late 90’s movies, and how the action cinema saw its downfall at the turn of the century with the change of the aspect ratios of filming tape.

  Farrah finished her cigarette, before taking a box of oats from Vega, and quietly munching on it while they headed North. Sometime in the early stages of the monologue, she got Dan to put the diesel into his backpack, through an inventory management skill that likely utilised that newly discovered higher dimension. Farrah was just a tad too tired to ask about the technical details of that now.

  “Did you hear the rest of the conversation as well?” Vega asked, as soon as Dan took a long enough pause for her to get the words in.

  “What, about the plan you girls don’t have?” He asked.

  “About you going on to trade the intel about OBELISK first chance you get,” Farrah said, without much conviction. Dan really didn’t seem like the type. “Right?” She glanced at Vega, before handing her the oats.

  “Yes,” The woman replied. “You never told us what you were looking for in there, and, umm, there was a lot of sensitive information you could have seen.”

  “Yeah, I read all about how to unlock all the quests, and max out your skills,” Dan replied. “You need to hold ‘A’ and ‘B’ while twisting the left joystick up, then press down.”

  “‘A’ and ‘B’ being your nipples and the joystick your cock,” Farrah chortled without much enthusiasm.

  “Are you alright, Farrah?” Vega asked.

  “Yeah, what was that?” Dan looked at her with a mixture of confusion and disgust.

  Farrah shrugged.

  They past the last of the abandoned buildings, and a worn-down blue sign.

  “All that to say that you didn’t find anything worth trading,” Farrah spoke.

  “Yeah,” Dan nodded, taking the pack of Oats. He shook it, looked inside it with suspicion, but didn’t verbally complain as he put small fistfuls of the flakes in his mouth. “I will admit that I got somewhat distracted by the higher dimension. Couldn’t sleep because of it either, could you imagine a non-Euclidian space-”

  “Before we go on that tangent,” Farrah interrupted him, “Where to?” She nodded at Vega.

  “Me?” The woman pointed at herself. Now that the sun had risen higher, almost high enough for the church bells to greet it, it was obvious how she too looked worse for wear. She was wearing the white raincoat over her tactical suit, and the disparity in the state of the two could not be more obvious. Shiny reflective plastic on the outside, worn and seemingly sun-weathered plastic on the inside. She lacked those dark circles under her eyes that Dan and Farrah shared, but her eyes had that glimmer to them, of a person who needed to cry for an hour before passing out under a thick blanket for eight.

  Farrah’s glance travelled between Dan and Vega, before returning to the sign.

  “None of them are the central facility, are they?” She asked the man, her eyes still on the lichen-covered white letters.

  “No, remember the map? There were 4 that were larger than the rest.” He paused, thinking. He shook the empty box of oats to give himself a few more seconds to think. “But you’re right, there is no reason any of them would be in a different state from that bunker.”

  “She never said that,” Vega turned towards him, hand on her hip.

  “That was what was implied?” Dan raised an eyebrow.

  “It was,” Farrah agreed. “Let’s go to Hadderstone End,” She decided.

  “Why?” Dan asked.

  “Does it have a gathering place for your Collector friends?”

  Farrah shrugged.

  “It’s a well-defended keep by the sea. We have about a month before the next horde, and it’s as good a place as any to spend it.”

  “We have 6 weeks at the least. Two months if we’re being realistic,” Dan argued.

  Farrah had already taken a few steps ahead, but she paused, turning around to face the man.

  “It’s a random pick. We need to go somewhere, and we’re all too tired and winded up to decide on that now.”

  “Sir,” Vega agreed.

  Dan shrugged, having nothing better to suggest at the moment either.

  Some of the yellow dots, the more advanced mutations, were starting to slowly dissipate from their self-defined cordon.

  “Urgh…” Farrah muttered. “Can both of you spare the Power for a short run?”

  “Can you?” Dan asked, sounding genuinely concerned for once.

  “Not really, but I can’t spare it for any shooting either.”

  Vega only nodded in reply, ready to go.

  “Wait,” Dan hastily pulled out his glasses. “I got some MP back already, I can take over with the shooting.”

  “I think she’ll, umm, do alright,” Vega spoke, noticing how Farrah’s hand instinctivly twitched toward her Steyr.

  Dan unholstered his crossbow nonetheless.

  “Alons-y.”