Gas Mask Girls Issue #4
Emlynn Jones
Issue #4
It took the better part of three days to travel the fourteen miles back to the mine. The incessant rains slowed them and Jay and Samantha's lack of bushcraft only made things worse. They seemed unsure of how to retrace their steps, arguing over the best paths to take. Twice the group’s path was cut off by landslides and they were forced to double back, wasting precious time. Doze was in a foul mood when they finally reached their destination. Gamble imagined she could hear her teeth grinding even beneath her mask. Surely that was just her imagination.
As the settlement came into view, despite Doze’s anger, she had to admit it was far better than she had expected. Either the settlers had been very busy the past few days, or Jay and Samantha had downplayed the defenses. “This doesn’t look too bad,” she remarked to Gamble as they descended from the hill into the small valley. “Clear lines of approach, those heavy vehicles make nice defensive positions. The raiders will find it tough to approach them without being vulnerable.”
Gamble nodded, deferring to Doze’s knowledge of tactics. Who’d have thought all those hours playing Battlefield would be useful in the apocalypse? Doze had certainly picked up a thing or two in all her hours playing FPS games, not all of them useless either.
Samantha looked down at the fortifications, “They’ve been busy,” she remarked, looking over at Jay.
“They must have used up the last of the gasoline to move all those vehicles. It’s going to be a cold winter.” He stood by Samantha’s side gazing down at the vast improvised barrier.
“Well whatever they did,“ Doze added, shouldering her pack and starting back down the path, “this is looking better than I expected. I thought we were signing up to die with you guys. I think you just might have a fighting chance.”
The others started walking to catch up to Doze’s long, determined strides and in a short while they entered the compound. Plenty of guns were pointed in their general direction, but the guards seemed to recognize Samantha and Jay and allowed them to pass without any questions.
“They really should be more careful,” Doze mentioned quietly to Gamble. “What if we had taken them hostage and were using them to enter their base?”
“Just the two of us?” Gamble asked incredulously.
“We could be scouts for the raiders,” Doze added. “I would send scouts. Someone to be my inside man. Disable the securities. Make a distraction. There’s a hundred ways someone on the inside could hand over this mine to the raiders.”
“Not everyone is as paranoid as you,” Gamble replied.
“Yeah, and most of them are dead.” Doze shook her head, picking up speed.
“Jay!!! Samantha!!” A tall man, with graying hair, but a lean strong build came running out to them. “You came back! We thought…well when we saw you had taken the children…we figured….” He trailed off as he grabbed Jay’s hand in a hearty shake and pulled him into a bear hug. “I’m glad they were wrong.”
“Truth is, they weren’t entirely wrong, Michael. We took them so we’d have options…we weren’t sure we were coming back.”
The man named Michael stared into Jay’s masked eyes for a moment, considering his words. “Well don’t tell the others that. Tell them you took the children cause you were worried for them…or you didn’t want them to be a burden to the rest…I don’t know.”
“You know I don’t like lying,” Jay began.
“Well trust me,” Michael interrupted. “It’s best you do this time. Not everyone is as understanding as me. Some of the group felt betrayed.” Michael stepped back from Jay, considering Gamble and Doze who stood a few yards away watching. “And who are these two?”
“We found them aways east.” Samantha jumped in, leaving Jay to ponder Michael's warning. “They agreed to help us, they just want passage to Sacramento after this is over. We figured they could join our next caravan.”
“Well, “ Michael said, appraising them. “They certainly look capable. Simon found a traveler who was willing to help out as well, and Beth found two. Things are looking much better.”
“So they haven’t returned yet?” Samantha asked, the worry clear in her tone. No need to specify who “they” were. “When we were delayed I thought for sure…well, I worried for you.”
“Nope, “ Michael said, gesturing for the group to join him in the walk back to the settlement. “Raiders,” He said with an exaggerated sigh. “You just can’t count on them to be punctual.”
“Small favors,“ Jay replied.
Gamble and Doze gazed around them as they walked through the narrow makeshift doors of the barricade and into the mine yard. It was a good place. Good as any they had seen in their travels. It was clear why these people had built their home here and did not want to give it up without a fight. It was remote, so the Dancers would be less prevalent. It was easily defensible and the woods would provide some food from hunting. Well, if you were lucky enough to find mutant animals you could manage to kill and were edible. It appeared that rapid evolution included chemicals which made for a very foul-tasting meal, some could even be poisonous. In a way it made sense. Want to avoid being hunted for food? Evolve into a very, very bad food source.
As they entered the actual mine doors, Gamble noticed they had walled off an area with plastic walls, a makeshift entry room. “A decontamination room,” Doze remarked out loud, coming to the same conclusion Gamble had.
“Yep!” Michael said. “We rigged up a decontamination room and have water pumps to clean off as much of Captain Yellow as we can. It’s not perfect but Melissa and Steven have some old-world experience working in labs so they rigged it up. They say it does a pretty good job. We don’t have any instruments to measure it, but, well, you gotta take these masks off sometime.”
Gamble and Doze submitted to the cleaning. They used manual pumps and hoses to wash each other. It was cold, but this wasn't the first community using low-tech methods to reduce exposure. The whole room was slanted leading to a trough that funneled the water downhill, away from the mine entrance. Gamble watched the runoff, a slight yellow shimmered in the contaminated water.
Once they were as clean as they were going to get, they unzipped the doors and entered into the actual mines. Several barrels sat close by with fires raging in them. The heat they gave off was wonderful. Gamble felt like a drowned rat. The group huddled wet and cold, trying to warm themselves up by the dancing flames.
Michael removed his mask, and his smile was as bright as Gamble had imagined from his voice. His dark skin contrasted nicely against his smile she thought, and he sported a short beard, also flecked with gray. He had a kind face, and his smile made you want to smile too. Gamble could see why he was the apparent leader of this community.
Jay removed his mask, and Gamble was surprised to see his face did not match her mental image of him based on his voice and demeanor. He was clean shaven, a weak chin and bright blue eyes. That was one of the weird parts of this new world. You’d spend days with someone without seeing their face, and get all kinds of impressions of what they should look like, and they rarely looked like what you had imagined. But still, it shocked her every time.
Jay nodded to Michael and then shuffled off with his family. They had somewhere to go to change out of their wet clothes. They were home. It must be nice, Gamble thought.
“You can take off your masks,” Michael said, smiling at the two of them. “Melissa says it’s about as safe as we’re going to get. I mean there’s no such thing as no exposure anymore, but it’s at “acceptable levels”. Whatever that means,” he shrugged.
Both Gamble and Doze shook their heads. “No,” Gamble explained. “We don’t really remove our masks…not unless we have to. We’re comfortable with them on.”
“But even eating?” Michael asked. “I mean I’ve been outside and had to eat beneath a mask. It's no fun at all.”
Now it was Gamble’s turn to shrug. “We’re used to it, it’s what we know now. We just feel safer.”
“Suit yourselves,” Michael replied. “You’re not the first travelers to pass through here that haven’t wanted to take their masks off. I guess it’s an occupational hazard when you travel too much. You get paranoid.”
“Better that than Dancing” Doze glared at Michael. Well, Gamble could tell she was glaring, Michael probably had no idea.
“Fair enough,” Michael raised his hands in a gesture of peace. Maybe he could tell she was irritated, Gamble reflected.
“Jay and Samantha are good people, but they are trusting,” he said. “I’d like to get to know you better, and understand why you’re willing to help out our community.”
“Cause Gamble has a soft heart for every hard luck story she hears,” Doze replied. Yep, she was definitely glaring.
Michael laughed, it was a warm friendly laugh. “Okay, I’m just trying to watch out for my people. Let’s assume that’s the case and you're helping out of the goodness of your heart. What are you offering? I need to understand what you can do when the raiders return. I see you have some nice pistols there. You got ammo? You know how to use those?”
Gambled winced. This was not going to go well if she didn’t stop this conversation's current trajectory. She raised her hand to Doze, a clear “let me sort this out” gesture to her friend.
“She does, she’s very good. You don’t have to worry about her at all. As for me, I’m crap with a gun, but I’m surprisingly good at close combat. I know I don’t look at it. Just trust me.”
Michael nodded as he looked intently at the two of them. “Okay, okay. Yeah, that would be really useful. With you two and the others, we brought in..” Michael trailed off as he looked over Gamble's shoulder seeing someone approaching their fire.
“Oh! Perfect timing! Brandon, come on over here and meet our other heroes!”
Gamble and Doze turned at the same time to greet the newcomer. The approaching man's affable smile turned to sheer panic as he recognized the girls’ masks. There was no introduction needed here. He turned to flee as Doze pistols sprang from their holsters, others close by cried out and dove to the ground, sensing the impending violence that had suddenly sprung up, like an unexpected storm on a clear day.
Gamble reacted quickly, not wanting Doze to fire. Doze was good, but shooting with so many innocents around was never a great idea. Gamble had no time to remove her bat from the sheath on her back, so instead she leaped forward swinging her back leg in a low round kick. She brought down all her weight and momentum on the man’s knee. A sickening crack echoed throughout the chamber and he cried out in pain as he fell to the ground. He wouldn’t be walking on that leg for a long time.
“Hey, “Brandon”,” Gamble growled, her voice dripping venom. She slowly approached the man as he lay moaning on the ground, sliding her bat from her back. “It’s been a while, huh? Miss us?”
To Gamble's relief, Doze didn’t simply open fire but sprang forward, jamming one of her pistols against the side of the man’s head, bending him back painfully. Her shouts echoed in the large chamber, “Where’s Akuto?!? Where is my sister?!?”
Next Issue
As the settlement came into view, despite Doze’s anger, she had to admit it was far better than she had expected. Either the settlers had been very busy the past few days, or Jay and Samantha had downplayed the defenses. “This doesn’t look too bad,” she remarked to Gamble as they descended from the hill into the small valley. “Clear lines of approach, those heavy vehicles make nice defensive positions. The raiders will find it tough to approach them without being vulnerable.”
Gamble nodded, deferring to Doze’s knowledge of tactics. Who’d have thought all those hours playing Battlefield would be useful in the apocalypse? Doze had certainly picked up a thing or two in all her hours playing FPS games, not all of them useless either.
Samantha looked down at the fortifications, “They’ve been busy,” she remarked, looking over at Jay.
“They must have used up the last of the gasoline to move all those vehicles. It’s going to be a cold winter.” He stood by Samantha’s side gazing down at the vast improvised barrier.
“Well whatever they did,“ Doze added, shouldering her pack and starting back down the path, “this is looking better than I expected. I thought we were signing up to die with you guys. I think you just might have a fighting chance.”
The others started walking to catch up to Doze’s long, determined strides and in a short while they entered the compound. Plenty of guns were pointed in their general direction, but the guards seemed to recognize Samantha and Jay and allowed them to pass without any questions.
“They really should be more careful,” Doze mentioned quietly to Gamble. “What if we had taken them hostage and were using them to enter their base?”
“Just the two of us?” Gamble asked incredulously.
“We could be scouts for the raiders,” Doze added. “I would send scouts. Someone to be my inside man. Disable the securities. Make a distraction. There’s a hundred ways someone on the inside could hand over this mine to the raiders.”
“Not everyone is as paranoid as you,” Gamble replied.
“Yeah, and most of them are dead.” Doze shook her head, picking up speed.
“Jay!!! Samantha!!” A tall man, with graying hair, but a lean strong build came running out to them. “You came back! We thought…well when we saw you had taken the children…we figured….” He trailed off as he grabbed Jay’s hand in a hearty shake and pulled him into a bear hug. “I’m glad they were wrong.”
“Truth is, they weren’t entirely wrong, Michael. We took them so we’d have options…we weren’t sure we were coming back.”
The man named Michael stared into Jay’s masked eyes for a moment, considering his words. “Well don’t tell the others that. Tell them you took the children cause you were worried for them…or you didn’t want them to be a burden to the rest…I don’t know.”
“You know I don’t like lying,” Jay began.
“Well trust me,” Michael interrupted. “It’s best you do this time. Not everyone is as understanding as me. Some of the group felt betrayed.” Michael stepped back from Jay, considering Gamble and Doze who stood a few yards away watching. “And who are these two?”
“We found them aways east.” Samantha jumped in, leaving Jay to ponder Michael's warning. “They agreed to help us, they just want passage to Sacramento after this is over. We figured they could join our next caravan.”
“Well, “ Michael said, appraising them. “They certainly look capable. Simon found a traveler who was willing to help out as well, and Beth found two. Things are looking much better.”
“So they haven’t returned yet?” Samantha asked, the worry clear in her tone. No need to specify who “they” were. “When we were delayed I thought for sure…well, I worried for you.”
“Nope, “ Michael said, gesturing for the group to join him in the walk back to the settlement. “Raiders,” He said with an exaggerated sigh. “You just can’t count on them to be punctual.”
“Small favors,“ Jay replied.
Gamble and Doze gazed around them as they walked through the narrow makeshift doors of the barricade and into the mine yard. It was a good place. Good as any they had seen in their travels. It was clear why these people had built their home here and did not want to give it up without a fight. It was remote, so the Dancers would be less prevalent. It was easily defensible and the woods would provide some food from hunting. Well, if you were lucky enough to find mutant animals you could manage to kill and were edible. It appeared that rapid evolution included chemicals which made for a very foul-tasting meal, some could even be poisonous. In a way it made sense. Want to avoid being hunted for food? Evolve into a very, very bad food source.
As they entered the actual mine doors, Gamble noticed they had walled off an area with plastic walls, a makeshift entry room. “A decontamination room,” Doze remarked out loud, coming to the same conclusion Gamble had.
“Yep!” Michael said. “We rigged up a decontamination room and have water pumps to clean off as much of Captain Yellow as we can. It’s not perfect but Melissa and Steven have some old-world experience working in labs so they rigged it up. They say it does a pretty good job. We don’t have any instruments to measure it, but, well, you gotta take these masks off sometime.”
Gamble and Doze submitted to the cleaning. They used manual pumps and hoses to wash each other. It was cold, but this wasn't the first community using low-tech methods to reduce exposure. The whole room was slanted leading to a trough that funneled the water downhill, away from the mine entrance. Gamble watched the runoff, a slight yellow shimmered in the contaminated water.
Once they were as clean as they were going to get, they unzipped the doors and entered into the actual mines. Several barrels sat close by with fires raging in them. The heat they gave off was wonderful. Gamble felt like a drowned rat. The group huddled wet and cold, trying to warm themselves up by the dancing flames.
Michael removed his mask, and his smile was as bright as Gamble had imagined from his voice. His dark skin contrasted nicely against his smile she thought, and he sported a short beard, also flecked with gray. He had a kind face, and his smile made you want to smile too. Gamble could see why he was the apparent leader of this community.
Jay removed his mask, and Gamble was surprised to see his face did not match her mental image of him based on his voice and demeanor. He was clean shaven, a weak chin and bright blue eyes. That was one of the weird parts of this new world. You’d spend days with someone without seeing their face, and get all kinds of impressions of what they should look like, and they rarely looked like what you had imagined. But still, it shocked her every time.
Jay nodded to Michael and then shuffled off with his family. They had somewhere to go to change out of their wet clothes. They were home. It must be nice, Gamble thought.
“You can take off your masks,” Michael said, smiling at the two of them. “Melissa says it’s about as safe as we’re going to get. I mean there’s no such thing as no exposure anymore, but it’s at “acceptable levels”. Whatever that means,” he shrugged.
Both Gamble and Doze shook their heads. “No,” Gamble explained. “We don’t really remove our masks…not unless we have to. We’re comfortable with them on.”
“But even eating?” Michael asked. “I mean I’ve been outside and had to eat beneath a mask. It's no fun at all.”
Now it was Gamble’s turn to shrug. “We’re used to it, it’s what we know now. We just feel safer.”
“Suit yourselves,” Michael replied. “You’re not the first travelers to pass through here that haven’t wanted to take their masks off. I guess it’s an occupational hazard when you travel too much. You get paranoid.”
“Better that than Dancing” Doze glared at Michael. Well, Gamble could tell she was glaring, Michael probably had no idea.
“Fair enough,” Michael raised his hands in a gesture of peace. Maybe he could tell she was irritated, Gamble reflected.
“Jay and Samantha are good people, but they are trusting,” he said. “I’d like to get to know you better, and understand why you’re willing to help out our community.”
“Cause Gamble has a soft heart for every hard luck story she hears,” Doze replied. Yep, she was definitely glaring.
Michael laughed, it was a warm friendly laugh. “Okay, I’m just trying to watch out for my people. Let’s assume that’s the case and you're helping out of the goodness of your heart. What are you offering? I need to understand what you can do when the raiders return. I see you have some nice pistols there. You got ammo? You know how to use those?”
Gambled winced. This was not going to go well if she didn’t stop this conversation's current trajectory. She raised her hand to Doze, a clear “let me sort this out” gesture to her friend.
“She does, she’s very good. You don’t have to worry about her at all. As for me, I’m crap with a gun, but I’m surprisingly good at close combat. I know I don’t look at it. Just trust me.”
Michael nodded as he looked intently at the two of them. “Okay, okay. Yeah, that would be really useful. With you two and the others, we brought in..” Michael trailed off as he looked over Gamble's shoulder seeing someone approaching their fire.
“Oh! Perfect timing! Brandon, come on over here and meet our other heroes!”
Gamble and Doze turned at the same time to greet the newcomer. The approaching man's affable smile turned to sheer panic as he recognized the girls’ masks. There was no introduction needed here. He turned to flee as Doze pistols sprang from their holsters, others close by cried out and dove to the ground, sensing the impending violence that had suddenly sprung up, like an unexpected storm on a clear day.
Gamble reacted quickly, not wanting Doze to fire. Doze was good, but shooting with so many innocents around was never a great idea. Gamble had no time to remove her bat from the sheath on her back, so instead she leaped forward swinging her back leg in a low round kick. She brought down all her weight and momentum on the man’s knee. A sickening crack echoed throughout the chamber and he cried out in pain as he fell to the ground. He wouldn’t be walking on that leg for a long time.
“Hey, “Brandon”,” Gamble growled, her voice dripping venom. She slowly approached the man as he lay moaning on the ground, sliding her bat from her back. “It’s been a while, huh? Miss us?”
To Gamble's relief, Doze didn’t simply open fire but sprang forward, jamming one of her pistols against the side of the man’s head, bending him back painfully. Her shouts echoed in the large chamber, “Where’s Akuto?!? Where is my sister?!?”
Next Issue