They wandered in the dark for hours, nothing but the sounds of their footsteps echoing in the partly collapsed tunnel. Eventually they finally saw a light up ahead. The roof had collapsed on top of the old subway train. Its windows laid smashes and roof lowered, concrete pieces laid scattered.

‘Ok this is it, cover up completely because up there lies death incarnate.’

They entered the train and saw metal ladder leading up, left there for scavengers to use.

The outside surface was something almost otherworldly. The sky despite being covered in clouds had taken on a dead gray appearance, the ground gray from the ash that laid down on it like snow. Every sign of plant life was was gone, left was just miles of dry rock. Ahead of them stood a stood, or the leftovers of one. Tall houses that stood like rotting carcasses, graves of a bygone era. Beyond it they saw a shadow far off, rising far higher than the tallest buildings. It almost seemed to dwarf the city in scale. The shape of a facility with chimneys, square buildings and power lines. They all instantly knew that’s where they were heading.  Just a few meters in front of them stood their welcome. A slowly rusting sign, paint having gradually peeled off. “Welcome to Salt lake city ”....

This was all like a nightmarish reflection of their world, like stepping into the worst possible scenario. They wandered forward, guns out just in case. This was neutral territory, and scavengers were infamous for killing each other over loot all the time. The city as they entered became ever more gray. Some streetlights still stood, one still somehow flickered with light as if desperately trying to bring light to a darkened graveyard.

The roads were a worn down disaster, parts of the houses that had broken off laid about together with the mix of cars and trucks, rusted to the point where they looked the shadows frozen in time.

Besides some bodies laying about there were no signs of any other scavengers. Jack told them to get inside the mall off to the side as they seemed to exposed on the open roads.

Every shop inside was empty, the escalators looked so weak that even stepping on them felt like a risk. The roof, formally of glass clearly, was gone showing the dark clouds, slowly moving like a giant living organism.

They went from building to building, crossing alleyways and whatever inside corridor that remained somewhat intact.

The silence of Salt lake city was unbearable, their breaths sounded like a roar inside their masks. Every footsteps felt like thunder, and there was the feeling of something being there. Something always watching them, from every direction.

The Geiger counters were always awake, giving a slight static every now and then but would jump up wildly whenever they passed small pile of ash. A constant reminder of the invisible danger all around them, settling into every object, every house, every rock, rubble, even the tiniest ash flake.

A shot roared over the city. Everyone hunkered down and aimed their guns in the direction of the blast. Out of the corner of a building one person ran, dressed in green cameo and a common gas mask. He quickly panicked shot to whatever was behind him and kept running. Then out of the window of the houses something leaped. A large, pale gray humanoid looking creature landed right on him. Its head vaguely shaped like a flower, opening to a fleshy interior. Small tentacles shot out into the neck of the screaming man, held down its four limps. He quickly and gradually moved slower until he laid still underneath it. The creature having killed its target and then grabbed him by the foot and dragged him off somewhere, most likely to feast.

A small trail of blood from the holes in his neck left behind.

‘Shit.....was that a blood stalker? The thing the merchant told us about?’ Kel asked seemingly unnerved.

‘Probably...it does match the description. New plan, we move along the alleyways and smaller streets, making as little noise as possible and staying out of houses unless we need rest. I suspect those things are hiding in the houses to ambush their prey. They don’t have eyes so they has locate prey via sounds or smell.’

A few hours later it was getting even darker, the sun was going down. They set up camp inside a old apartment building.

‘Get some rest, the sun will be up will be up in about seven hours. Rock you can stay awake for over a week so you take watch.’ she handed a pair of night vision binoculars and the humans did their best to get comfortable on the dusty floor. At least inside there was barely any radioactive ash. It was near impossible to get any rest there, the unbearable tension, the feeling of something ready ambush them at any minute was always there. The sense of something hiding in the dark..

The night was pure agony, just waiting for the sun to rise. Even the slighting noises outside shook them out of their attempted “rest”. Even the most gentle gust of wind sent shivers trough their skin.

When it was finally time to move they were barely any better off than yesterday.

They kept pushing west, towards the giant facility and looking in every direction.

Mid day they stopped for lunch, one protein bar each and they ate inside the office of a old dinner, the radiation levels was lower inside.

Then they came across a set of train tracks. The area was rather open, the only cover was abandonment train cars. Corpses had been pinned onto a cargo car, the bodies seemingly having been rotting there for months, maybe a year. A text written in white chalk said “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” A warning for every traveler coming trough.

To their right they could see the station within a short distance. The chimneys and roofs of the facility seemingly growing more giant as they got closer.

As they crossed over in a quicker pace a shot rang in the distance and the cling of a bullet bouncing off metal sounded near them. They threw themselves behind the cars and looked around panically.

It was suddenly silent, they managed to get cover from whatever sniper was after them now.

‘Guess we should have brought Juan.’ Kel commented as he was always the best shot.

Jack grabbed a nearby rock and slowly lifted it pass the edge. Another shot rang and the rock broke off into several pieces. Looking at how the they scattered as well as the markings on the stone itself she now had figured it came from the train station.

‘Can’t we just send Rock to deal with this fucker? He eats bullets all the time!’

‘Sniper bullets are worse. They pierce armor and bury in deep so if our attacker lands a head shot even Rock won’t be able to get back up.’

She took out a smoke grenade, pulled the pin and threw it over the car. The smoke almost enveloped the car, blocking the snipers sight.

‘What if he uses heat vision? Then the smoke is useless.’

Jack tried holding out another stone but no shot came. The attacker couldn’t see trough the smoke.

She crawled under the cat and closed her normal eye, looking trough the scope of her modified rifle trough her cybernetic one.

She saw him, the shadowy outline of a person on the station roof, aiming right their way. She breathed in and held it, aiming carefully, using the tracks for support. She only had one shot at this, with one push on the trigger two shots fired.

The sniper fell backwards, gun falling to its side as if dropped. She hit dead center!

‘Lets go!’ they sprinted over the open field past the tracks, the panic of any more shots coming screamed for them to just get away out of there!

As they reached the other side more shot echoed over the field. They saw more coming out of the station and firing their way.

Jack was the first to climb up on the platform on the other side, she kneeled down and returned fire, hitting one in the shoulder and another near the hip. The rest scattered quickly and took cover, realizing their range.

They left the station with bullets flying past them, disappearing between the apartments and kept running.

As the shots died off and they thought they had gotten away the sounds of engines ripping and rubble being pushed aside came from another corner. A armored truck punched its way trough the rust covered vehicles, forcing the party to jump to the side just in the nick of time. It stopped once it passed them and the back door burst open, tons of mercs fired away. Rock jumped into action, absorbing those bullets as he took out his custom made flamethrower. A wave of fire washed over them, consuming the entire back and inside of the vehicle. The truck sped away, its passengers falling off and rolling and twitching on the ground in panic as the flames ate its way trough their clothes and skin. The buildings around them had no doors or visible sign of entry. Instead Jack gently tossed a grenade at a sewer lock, blowing it clean off.

‘Everyone get inside!’ Rock was the last one in, jumping straight down instead of climbing and they all ran from the opening, down the sewer tunnels.

Once the light of the surface was no longer visible could they breath out, Caleb dropping himself onto the ground as the adrenaline died down.

‘Shit....is it just me or did they seem...tougher?’ Caleb asked as he was catching his breath.

‘Of course they were. Only the toughest or craziest bastards in the wasteland come here, rolling up in fucking armored trucks and sniper rifles.’

A explosion echoed loudly trough the tunnel, a grenade...they were still following them.

They got up and moved further inside, turning west whenever possible.

The radiation was much lower inside than out there but visibility was awful. And it was near endless labyrinth, every single tunnel looked the same. Old, abandoned, ice cold and it was a wonder how the roof still stayed intact. Some areas were more moist and wet, puddles of water on the floor, highly radioactive ones. It must have come in from the rain that seeped down there trough the sewer bars.

They had no idea how long they spent lost down there, looking for another staircase or any exit.

Eventually they found a metal door, old graffiti smeared all over it. On the other side was huge room, partly looking like a storage facility but with waterways running trough the middle.

Old barrels and rotten remains of wooden boxes, a old truck that was used to lift heavy cargo was still parked.

There was a lift built into the wall but no power to operate it.

‘Think we can still climb somehow?’ Kel asked.

‘Doubtful, but the old power station is still active right? Maybe we can still get power here somehow.’ Caleb wondered as he began looking around.

‘Oh common the old cables or whatever probably broke before we were even born!’

Then a short spark and the lights suddenly switched on, showing the room in its entirety. Caleb standing by a breaker with a slightly smug face that could be felt trough the mask.

‘Shut up...’

The moment was interrupted when the growl of something echoed in the room. A mini wall of stacked barrels was pushed aside and a gray skinned mutant walking on four limps that looked almost like arms showed itself. Its body massive and bloated, its head having a flat, hardened surface on the top made of some kind of scale. Its mouth about the size and shape of a human which looked small on its large form, about the size of a car.

Its eyes milk white with no pupils and almost popping out of its skull. It stood there first, not moving and just staring at them with its empty expression, showing no sign of intelligence, emotion or barely even life.

A tense silence hung over them, one side just waiting for the other to make a move until suddenly started to walk towards them. They raised their guns, ready to fire. When Kel backed into a metal shelf did the sound alarm it. It gave off a strange and aggressive grunting noise and began charging at her,the sound of its limps crashing onto the concrete floor alone revealed its heavy weight and strength.

Kel ran to the side and Rock tackled the beast, slamming his fist into the side of its head.

The creatures yelped but threw its limps wildly at him, launching at him like a wild beast.

Kel fired her shotgun at its back, the bullets doing little at its scaled back.

But she had experience fighting mutants and aimed for the lighter areas where there was skin instead of scales.

As rock held its arms in the air Kel fired in its apparent kneecaps where the limps bent. Some kind of blue ish blood splattered as the limp bent painfully. The mutant shrieking in pain.

Rock threw it aside, the creature landing on its back. Caleb and Kel unloaded their ammo into the creatures almost transparent stomach, splatter of blood burst out of it and the mutant shrieked, kicked and twisted in wild panic until it stopped moving, its limps falling onto the floor and its last breath stopped. Its signs of life faded, it was dead.

‘Its fucking official...this place is trying to kill us.’

They took the wide elevator up to some manner of storage facility. The roof far above them, stacks of all sorts of containers formed a entire labyrinth. Barrels forming one wall, large metal containers taking up most of the middle.

Despite its long wait without any maintenance there was still plenty of color on them, white text displaying series of numbers and letters.

‘What do you think they stored here?’

‘Dunno, probably some dolls or something.’

‘With sewer access? Nah that doesn’t seem right.’ The party stopped, realizing Caleb had a good point. There was much they didn’t understand about the old world but why would a storage house need direct access to the sewers? Even today customers weren’t to eager to buy anything that had been stored anywhere near toilet waste.

They tried opening one of the containers, the Geiger counter sounded off the second the doors were pulled open.

Inside was stacks of black cylindrical tubes, with a ring going along the top. Whatever these things were, they were highly radioactive.

The next container held the same things, and the one next to it.

‘Caleb, any idea what these things are?’

‘Nope. Based on that clicking its seems pretty obvious that these things contains radioactive material, possibly uranium. But if the counter is going nuts now then I could be wrong and they were supposed to be exposed to radiation, or these cylinders are faulty and is leaking their contents.’

They quickly saw the entire storage was all related to radiation in some way. The barrels contained used up waste, wooden boxes many different tools and parts that Caleb worked out belonged to classic power generators.

‘This place belongs to the old plant, there’s no other explanation.’

That probably means we’re close. Lets head to see if we can figure out our location.’ Jack briefly stopped and checked the small communication device on her wrist.

‘News?’

‘Some interesting info from Juan and Doc. I’ll brief you on the way.’

*

The cropped hair boy sat quietly on the bench, staring out over the labor camp. Strong light placed to illuminate the places to dig.

It seemed to be going well, although a horribly boring position to be in.

‘Sir.’ he turned to the officer standing there.

‘Yes?’

‘We just got word. Jack’s ship is in the Death Fields.’

‘Now why on earth would she ever go there? She should know I have eyes and ears even there.....tell them to send the Jackals. No survivors.’

‘Yes sir.’

Now finally, things started to get interesting..

*

They approached the city harbor, now seeing the plant far more up close. It was gigantic, dwarfing every other building within miles. Yet it wasn’t as far away as they thought. Looking at the lake it was just a short boat ride across, would take minutes. Yet the lake itself was bigger. Looking at their left they saw it kept going off into the distance.

The plant was itself was made up of a set of huge walls blocking the sight of any townsfolk. Pipes slithered out of the ground and hung just above the water surface. The giant chimneys usually associated with power plants still stood high, still spewing black smoke into the air. There was a set of square buildings, not all of them visible from where they stood. But at least three had been destroyed, their roofs blown off from the inside.

‘Its kinda scary looking isn’t it?’

‘Rock not like that place.’

‘How the fuck do we even get in?’

There was ruined ships around them, cargo ships yet none would ever float again from their completely ruined state.

To their right they saw a land connecting to the power plants island in the distance. Yet the problem was Jack saw lights and movement trough her binoculars, there was more mercs there, most likely setting up camp to prevent others from gaining access.

And from where they stood there was no access via the lake, even if they could find a boat the wall clearly blocked any attempts at sneaking in.

‘So what’s the plan? Do we climb or?’

‘I don’t even wanna try it on a wall that high.’

‘Don’t move!’ they all turned to see a large party of well armed mercs. Gray uniforms, gasmasks and pointing assault rifles right at them.

‘Well well, isn’t this a strange sight? A group of humans traveling with a ogre mutant.’ one of the mercs stepped forward.

‘I ought to thank you strangers, you dealt a pretty serious blow to José’s gang back there. It let us to overpower them and take their loot.

The question however is, just who are you? To be crazy enough to come here of all places.’

‘Same as everyone else, looting.’

‘And you thought to go in there didn’t ya?’ he pointed to the massive plant behind them.

‘Hate to break it to you but you can’t, there’s only one road there and its blocked off completely by the skull takers.’

‘Edgy name.’

‘A well deserved one. They’re not only top trained and heavily armed, but bloodthirsty as hell. Likes to collect the skulls of their enemies as trophies.’

‘Why don’t we team up against them then? Take their loot and split it?’ Jack suggested, trying to negotiate them out of this.

‘Others have tried that but no good. Their camp is fortified to hell and back. Traps, mines, automatic sentry guns, you name it. Not that it would do us much good, they’re still figuring out themselves how to get in.’

‘And you know this how?’

‘There are high roofs good for scouting, saw myself from a distance how they’re trying to get the front gate open. Whatever defenses they had are probably still active.’

‘Well that’s a shame. But my friend here is a hell of a engineer and can probably figure something out.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t take risks. Not here of all places.’

‘Some way we can discuss this?’

Maybe....Lets go back to the hold out.’

They escorted the crew further back into the city, away from the harbor.

 

*

Juan stood inside one of the many decrepit buildings, taking a smoke break. He was constantly on edge, this whole place just felt...wrong. Like they really shouldn’t be there.

As he was about to stuff out his cigarette he looked up to see some similar faces. Trough the old streets, heading towards the plant, was a gant wearing matching jackets and having identical mohawks and facial tattoos. He recognized that gang, the Jackals! If they were here then Javelin must know they’re there already... this was bad. He snuck back to the ship quickly to warn the others and guard the ship. Things were going from bad to worse!

*

They sat down in, what looked like, an old restaurant. The windows all boarded up and the area lit up by fires in metal barrels and construction lamps.

‘You can remove the masks in here, there’s no radiation.’ they took off their gasmasks as some of the mercs brought beer cans.

‘So lets start with names shall we?’ the leader said. A middle aged male with short buzz cut hair, stub and a scar on his left cheek.

‘I’m Gel, leader of the Diggers. We’re treasure hunters, the very best at it. Although this time we’re in deep it seems.’

‘I’m Jack, captain of the Dreaded Lady. Smuggler, scavenger, mercenary, whatever you need really.’

‘I think I heard of you. You caused quite the stir with that arms smuggler back east didn’t ya?’

‘Long story, do you really care?’

‘Not really.’ he opened a can and took a large sip.

‘So here’s the thing. We both want the same thing here, access to the big plant. But getting in is near impossible.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Besides the skull takers? Its the gate. The only way in is the front gate but its locked and explosives are useless against it. We can’t bring in heavy machinery or any kind of vehicle, especially not flying ones, to get past. The radiation just shuts down all of it., its frankly a miracle that lamps and hand radios are still working. And even then its only over short distances.’

‘Sounds almost impossible then.’

‘Almost, and we’re loosing ammo and life out here. I’m thinking of just taking my crew and leave, find something more profitable.’

‘Well don’t let me stop you then.’

‘Funny. But here’s the thing though. In case you haven’t noticed there are mutants out there. And they good at hiding..like seriously good. They only make rare appearances but when they do, someone is going to die. And it just just so happens that our way back is blocked by a blood stalker.’

‘You mean that blind thing that killed a man back there?’

‘You saw it? Ya they’re blind but have the most amazing sense of smell and probably echo location. And they’re tough, we managed to get quite a few bullets in it but it didn’t work. It wasn’t even slowed down and with a gang this large there’s just no way to sneak past it. A tried sending some of my boys to find other routes but none came back.’

‘So you’re stuck?’

‘Along with you now. So here’s what I’m thinking.

Maybe, just maybe, we can find a way around, like walk in a big circle to avoid its territory. The thing is, this city is not mapped out, we have no idea where another one of things is hiding nor where all the gangs are.

So how about we try this? I won’t kill you, but in return you team up with us and we all walk out of here?’

‘What makes you want us though, if you really that tough?’

‘You ogre friend clearly! Ogres suck up bullets like candy and our chances of getting out are dramatically higher with him.’

‘Sorry, but we aren’t ready to leave yet.’

‘Even though most of the good loot in the city has been taken already?’

‘We’re getting inside that plant.’

‘Well that’s funny! But I just told you there’s no way in!’

‘For you maybe! But beating the odds are our thing.’

‘I like you Jack. You’re tough, a bit cocky, and doesn’t blink an eye even at the horror around you. I like that.... Ok then how about this?

We will hang around here a few days and just watch your progress? We got enough food for weeks since the last raid anyway. When you realize the hopeless situation you come back and prove me right.’

‘Get ready to eat those words Gel.’ the crew put their masks back on and walked out.

Gel merely leaned back in his chair, scratching his chin with a pleased grin on his face.

‘That’s quite a woman alright...’

They walked out and proceeded back.

‘So what’s the Jack?’ Kel somewhat whispered.

‘Anyone remember that tunnel beneath the warehouse? Well I’m thinking those black cylinders has to come from the plant, its the only way it makes sense.’

‘True...’

‘And to do that they needed a quick way to transport them right? What if that place has a secret tunnel leading to inside the plant?’

‘A secret underground passage? Are you sure captain? That feels a little...convenient.’

‘Convenient for them, not to mention effective. Way more effective than going by boats and then trough traffic all the time.’

They returned to the warehouse and went back down the elevator. After searching around a bit they came across what looked a smaller train track. One passenger cart in front by the control one and cargo transport further back.

‘Told you. Ok Caleb get this thing rolling.’

Caleb soon hot wired it and its engines roared to life. Then they began the ride trough the dark tunnel leading further down beneath the lake, towards the giant power plant.