Post-Conquest

The neighborhood was still relatively intact, which was weird. Must have only recently been abandoned, maybe in the last hundred days or so. The ground window leading to the basement still had cute little Yule decorations pasted to it. At least it did before I kicked it in.

Surveying the basement, I smiled. Well-stocked, not properly looted yet it appeared. Electronics and other useless bits and bobs had been stripped. Most of the more obvious food sources were either missing from the makeshift shelves or strewn across the floor, my footfalls scattering the braver rats. The bravest had to be kicked.

But there, tucked away neatly under the sink was exactly what I was looking for: toilet paper. Sacred since Day ~ 3,257, scarce since Day ~ 4,589. These rolls had been chewed on by vermin, but were still greatly in tact. Thank the Gods. Roll after roll was stuffed into my pack, the more fragile bits dissolving to dust that piled upon the already dusty and probably poop-covered floor.

Another sweep on the basement yielded additional treasures like an unopened bottle of bleach, a half-empty bottle of laundry soap, some baby clothes that would make decent scraps, and stupidly large box of bandages. Based purely on what was taken from the basement, and what wasn’t, in what looked like a hurry, I found myself not in a hurry to explore the rest of the house.

The blood on the open door at the top of the stairs confirmed it. And the smell.

A hundred days had been too high a number. The flies were still buzzing around the gore. It took careful, precise steps to avoid disturbing the prior occupants of the still nice house in the still nice neighborhood. It didn’t make much sense for them to have been this far out from the nearest major city, but, then again, maybe they had the money and influence to afford it.

But influence doesn’t mean much to the Rovers, and money doesn’t mean nothing to the Hordes.

But this, this was a Rover job. Sloppy, incomplete strip of the place. The lack of booze and kitchen knives confirmed it was Rovers, and the largely in-tact corpses. The Hordes don’t leave no corpses. After relieving the place of its toilet paper, paper napkins, paper towels, and other hygiene products, I’d decided I’d had enough of smelling rot and started the slow trek back Home.

Not to mention the days were so fucking short now it was almost Yule.

The trek back Home was always more dangerous than the trek Out. Out, of course, was anywhere that wasn’t Home. And no one could know where Home was if you wanted to live. Not out in the Wastes. The Wastes were generally considered more dangerous than the Cities, according to those lucky enough, and rich enough, to have gotten places in the Cities. The rest of us, we got the Wastes.

Now, with groups like the Rovers and, gods, even the Hordes running around cattywampus around the Wastes, one would think any trek Out would be dangerous. But the best thing about the Rovers and, yes, even the Hordes had a ‘best thing’: they aren’t quiet. You can hear the Rovers coming. The Hordes you hear even sooner. It’s the people like me that made treks Out very dangerous.

Because me, I was quiet. Fast. I knew what I needed when I had to go Out, and I knew where to find it. Sometimes, I’d seen others like me while I was Out, but you avoid them. You do you, and Them do Them.

Of course, I could buy toilet paper and other shit at the nearest City Commissary. Even people in the Wastes were allowed in there. But you needed money to actually get things at the Commissary, and money wasn’t a thing that I had much of. But I had Climbing Boots and Kicking Boots, so I could figure my own shit out in the Wastes.

Plus Cities were just so damn shiny.

The gleam of the City cast glints and gleams of light now that the sun was starting to think about setting. The largest building, and the tallest, was the biggest thorn in my side on my treks Home. The Tower of Victory, the people at the Trading Post called it. Built by the King, the great Conqueror to commemorate his grand victory over...whatever the fuck he defeated. But the Tower was to stay on my left shoulder when I was heading back home, so there it stood, to my left, grand and golden for all to see, the top bifurcating into curved loops that ended in sharp, deadly-looking points.

Keeping lookout for anyone following me on treks Home was harder than it used to be. I had to make more stops, wait longer intervals, loop more double-backs to try and draw out any skulkers. With it so close to sunset, though, I doubted anyone would stay on my tail for long and risk getting Got by the Hordes. The Hordes were most active at night.

So after making my third double-back and spotting no signs of life other than my own boot prints, I started to actually head Home.

Home was a fallout shelter made by some doomsday prepper from before the Conquest. Although I did seal the original entrance and got help digging a new tunnel out so that the only way in is through a little metal disc that’s only really big enough to fit me or something smaller. And it screwed shut, which was a definite plus over some rickety-ass doors.

The Hole that was Home would be well-stocked for a while, now that I had enough TP and backup TP to last me a while. I could actually just go back to Hunting, which would be nice. A lump formed in my throat.

Hunter was what people at the Trading Post called me, since I excelled at Hunting. Not ‘hunting’ as it was pre-conquest. I was just good at tracking and catching people. Though my quarry was one man in particular, whose name didn’t have a bounty set by the Crown; this shit was purely personal.

You kill a girl’s dog, a girl’s gunna kill you.