Chapter 47: Keeping the Dog Fed

Chapter 47: Keeping the Dog Fed

I had no idea where we were going. I kept looking at the map on the Pip Boy, but every time I thought a turn would lead us to where God's map marker was supposed to be, God would either keep on heading straight, or turn in a completely unexpected direction. Just when I thought I was getting used to navigating this damn place...

It was also getting really hard to breathe, now. I'm just glad we hadn't run into any of the Ghost People... yet. I could still hear them - their rasping, Doppler-effect breathing was echoing off every flat surface, so I had no idea how many there were, or if any of them were close or not. I'd been feeling a terrible knot forming in the pit of my stomach for quite a while now, and it was only getting worse. I thought it was just nerves, but... I was getting really dizzy, as well. This was not nerves.

"God, hang on. Stop for a second," I said, leaning against a nearby wall, and clutching my head. Thankfully, the super mutant turned, and came to a halt a few feet away from me.

"What's the problem, human? We need to keep moving."

"I... I just... give me a minute to catch my breath. I think the Cloud is really getting to me, or something..."

"You probably just need to eat." God said. "I know that I can already feel Dog's teeth gnawing on my..." God grunted, and growled... but regained his composure and continued. "If I'mhungry, I'm sure a human like you probably needs to eat something."

"What?" I looked up at the Nightkin, I'm sure confusion was readily evident on my face. "Why would I need to eat? I mean, I haven't been here all that long..." As soon as I said that, I realized that... yeah, it did kind of feel like hunger, now that I was focusing on it... but that didn't make sense. Did it?

"How long do you think you've been here?" God asked, narrowing his one good eye, staring at me.

"I dunno... an hour and a half, two hours, maybe?" God was silent for a very long time. That wasn't a good sign.

"It's been close to twelve hours since we left the Police Station." God stated simply.

WHAT.

How could I have been so stupid?

It didn't take all that long to find one of the vending machines. They were scattered all over the place, and the fact that they glowed bright blue made them stand out immensely among the stark red-brown bleakness of the rest of our surroundings.

As I approached this solitary vending machine on the far end of an empty courtyard, I thought back to all the others I'd been using. Ever since Elijah told me what they were, I'd been stopping at every one of these that I could find, picking up more ammo, more stimpacks... I hadn't thought to get any food, though.

Twelve hours... how the fuck could I not realize twelve hours had passed?

I shook it off, and started scrolling through the list of available items. Most of what was available was just junk food - pre-war snack items that would probably kill me faster than the Cloud. Blamco Mac and Cheese, Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, Instamash, Potato Chips, Sugar Bombs... after scrolling through damn near everything, I found an option for a can of Pork and Bean chili, and selected that.

Even though I'd already used these things about half a dozen times already today, I still wasn't quite used to seeing it work. I'd press a button that was hanging in midair (and that wasn't really a button) and then after a few seconds I'd see streams of light emerge from the center of the dish and start projecting blue holographic cubes on the platform in the center. The squares pulled themselves together, like iron filings to a magnet, and I watched as they got smaller and smaller until finally the light died and in its place was a solid can of beans, with a fork sitting next to it.

I don't know why this felt weird. Elijah told me these were common before the war. Still... it was almost like making something out of nothing. It just felt a little too... science fiction.

I popped the pull-tab on the side of the can, and pulled away the top to reveal a tin of chili that was steaming hot. That was odd. The side of the can was completely cool to the touch, but the insides were already cooked? I grabbed the fork, dug into it, and started to eat. Less than a minute later, the can was completely empty. I'm not sure if it was just that I was so hungry, or if it was the fact that the machine itself created the food out of thin air, but it was the most delicious tin of beans I'd ever had. It tasted weird, but... it was a good kind of weird. It's difficult to describe.

I looked behind me. God was standing at the far end of the courtyard, patiently waiting for me, with his arms crossed over his chest. I was a bit surprised, if I'm honest - the way he'd been talking, I half expected him to wander off, leave me for dead as soon as he found out I hadn't been smart enough to eat for 12 hours. But no. He was just waiting. Watching. I turned back to the vending machine, and put in a few more of the Sierra Madre chips. A moment later, I had a second can of chili.

"Hey," I walked up to him, and handed him the spare can of beans. "You said earlier you were hungry, too. Maybe this'll help. I mean, I know it's not much, but I'm running low on those poker chips that power the vending machines." God didn't say anything at first; he just stood there, looking at me through his one good eye.

"It's... not that kind of hunger. A can of beans smaller than my fist won't do anything to quiet it. But... I... appreciate the thought."

"So, here we are," God said. We were approaching a small gate, lit up by an overhead light and the green glow of a terminal mounted on the wall just to the right of the gate. Inside the metal gate was a small alcove, with a series of five large, rusted levers. A diagram was mounted on the wall to the left of the levers, and above the diagram was some graffiti: "WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?" except half of the letters were backwards, like the graffiti I'd seen before.

"A row of switches, all lined up. How... familiar." God growled as I scanned the area for Ghost People.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" I decided to ask as the two of us walked towards the switches. Slowly, the super mutant nodded.

"Yes... the old man, he's... this isn't the first time he's gotten into the Madre. That's how I know the Gala will draw him out. However... the last time, I... wasn't myself." I nodded, trying to piece everything together from what God was telling me and all the hints Dean had been dropping. I didn't have all the pieces yet, but I was going to need to get them all if I was going to find a way out of here.

"I understand," I looked at the diagram on the wall. "So, you know how to operate the levers then?"

"I do," God paused. At first, I thought he was looking at the diagram on the wall, but - wait, were his eyes closed?

"If you know how to operate the switches, I'm going to need you to -" God cut me off.

"I know. But it won't matter if Dog escapes."

"What do you mean? I thought it was Elijah's voice that brings out Dog. How could he escape?" I asked. God just scoffed, and growled at me.

"The old man's voice isn't the only thing that brings Dog out of his cage," God turned to me, and I saw that both of his massive ham-sized fists were clenched and... trembling? "Hunger is what brings out Dog. Hunger for meat. For flesh. I can - nngh!" God shut his one good eye, and grimaced - more than usual for a super mutant - and staggered backwards, as if pushed by some unseen force. "I can already feel Dog's teeth tearing at my ribs, hungry to get out."

"Okay, so... we just need to feed Dog. How hard could that be?"

I mentally kicked myself as soon as the words left my mouth. That's one of the many, many myriad phrases that always precede disaster! I'm certain that, right before the first of the bombs fell 200 years ago, someone must have said "How hard could it be?" or "What could possibly go wrong?" or perhaps even "Watch this!"

"Right, so the beans from before didn't work. What kind of food should I bring back?" I asked, quickly trying to cover up my slip of the tongue.

"Dog has torn apart a number of the Ghost People before," God said, with obvious effort. "While he doesn't prefer them to... other flesh, it'll do for the time being. Find some of the Ghost People, kill them, take some of the remains inside them, and then bring it back here. The beast must be fed if you want him to stay in the cage." Wonderful. So now I had to purposefully seek out the fucking zombies.

"All right... I guess I'm going hunting then." Fuck. "I'll see what I can find."

The Ghost Person didn't waste any time. It reared back with the bear trap, ready and close enough to easily hit me in the chest - or take my arm off. I didn't waste time either. In one swift motion, I raised the end of the rifle as quickly as I could, and moved out of the way of the incoming bear trap. The end of the barrel smacked the Ghost Person under the chin with a resounding "THWACK!" and that was just enough to throw it off balance. It ended up hopping off to the side, the blunt end of the spear catching several times on the uneven cobbled road below it. Any other circumstances, I'm sure that would've been quite comical. Frankly, I was just glad I had some time (even if it was only a few seconds) to breathe.

My right arm, thankfully, was starting to tingle, and I could feel it again. I tried flexing my hand - my fingers could curl up into a fist and open again, which was good enough. I switched the rifle from my left to my right hand, pumped the spent cell out of the gun, and buried the end of it against the side of the hobbling Ghost Person's head.

Part of me wanted to say something witty or clever - some kind of snappy one liner right before killing it. But I didn't. I just stayed quiet, pulled the trigger, and watched as well over half of the Ghost Person's head just disappeared into a molten mess - reduced to nothing by a hologram gun that fired cubes.

I looked around. The ringing in my ears was still so bad, I couldn't tell if there were any more of the Ghost People around. I pumped the holorifle again, and kept scanning the rooftops.

"Well?" I said aloud. "Who else wants a go? Any more of you fucks want a piece of me? Cuz now's the time, assholes! I got enough for all've ya!"

Silence.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Punks." I reached down and pulled the spear out of the Ghost Person's neck. Then I went over to the other Ghost Person, and pulled the kitchen knife out of its face... and set to work carving them up.

"Oh, for the love of..." I blurted out about halfway through my grisly task. "And here I thought they smelled bad... on the OUTSIDE!"

Schtlunk.

I tossed the makeshift sack full of... 'meat'... towards the closed metal gate. Well... it wasn't really a sack. It was the jacket from one of the chemical suits the Ghost People wore, shoved full of all the carved-up body parts I could fit in it. The super mutant was inside of the alcove, sitting on the ground like he had been at the Police Station. He was hanging his head, but he perked up when the sack hit the ground.

"There," I said, pointing at the sack, and moving to the terminal. "That should be enough meat." I scrolled through the functions, and the gate unlocked with a click. The meat shifted after the gate moved, and fell to the ground with a wet 'splutch' God very carefully got up, and made his way over to the bag of meat.

"Heh... You're good at fetching, aren't you?" The super mutant growled, digging into the bag of white, foul smelling meat.

"Yeah, well. I was a courier, back in the world. I should be good at 'fetching' things, right?" God chuckled, and kept eating. He cast a glance up at me.

"You look awful, human," I looked down, and... yeah, he kind of had a point. My hands and feet were absolutely covered in the white liquid that I could only assume was the Ghost People's blood... except for my right arm, which was covered in my blood.

"They didn't go down without a fight," I said, shrugging. I wished I hadn't; my right shoulder was still sore. I rubbed my shoulder. "So, is that gonna be enough?"

"Yes..." God tore off a piece of meat, and chewed it for a few seconds. "This should keep him where he belongs. For now."

"Good." I said. "Good. So, are you going to be alright while I get everyone else into position?"

"I'll wait," God stood up to his full height, picking up the bag of meat and tossing it further into the alcove. "Send the signal. I'll be... we'll be ready.

Dean was sitting on the edge of the fountain, still smoking like a chimney when I finally found my way back to the center of town.

"Well, now, if it isn't my ball, chain, and dog collar all rolled into one," Dean said, smoke hanging around his head. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you know where the woman is?" I asked. I kind of felt bad. I kept calling her 'the mute' or 'the mute woman' or whatever... but it's not like I could ask her real name. Dean just shook his head, and pointed with his cigarette.

"Figures that you're not here for me. She's in her little hide away on the far end of the courtyard." He took one last draw of his cigarette, tossed it away... and reached into his coat for another pack.

"Where the fuck do you keep finding smokes?" I asked. "The way you light up, I would've figured this place would've run out decades ago."

"Sinclair's little toy boxes." He said, lighting a new cigarette.

"Wait, what?"

"The little company stores I'm sure you've seen around. Put in a casino chip, get a treat, like you're a dog doing tricks."

"The vending machines? They sell cigarettes?" Dean gave a simple nod, putting away his lighter. I tried to think back - had I seen any options for cigarettes on the vending machine menus? I couldn't remember.

"Machines like those weren't unusual before the Bomb. Maybe to you, they're amazing. But to me?" Dean inhaled deeply, and laughed softly, smoke pouring out of his mouth and the holes where his nose was supposed to be. "To me, they're grifters without the personality."

"Grifters?" I asked. Dean nodded.

"Yes. A grifter. A con-man. A huckster. A hustler. A swindler." I held up my hand to shut Dean up.

"Alright, enough. What are you getting at?" I asked. Dean just smirked.

"Sinclair made sure that if you spent money here, it went one way - although, that's not how he described it."

"And how did he describe it?"

"He called it 'self-sufficient.' Like he was doing the residents a favor," Dean shook his head again. "Right..." Dean blew a smoke ring, and directed a one-finger salute off to the north - towards the casino. "Go and find the mute, already. I'll just stay here, lounging in the lovely autumn sun until you get back."

I honestly couldn't tell if Dean was just being snide, or if he'd gone insane.

Yeah... he was just being snide.

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