Nevada: High Roller (Fallout New Vegas)

Chapter 6: Watch Your (Courier) Six

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Dry ash crunched beneath the soles of my boots with each slow and steady step I took across the concrete, following up the road and into the town itself. 

The road split into a 'T' shape that laid on its side, leading to a long central road to the left side of the intersection. It passed between houses on either side of the street and came to an end before the massive, three-floored structure that was the Nipton Town Hall.

Straight ahead was the road that led east through the town, up into a small valley that curled along in twists and turns until, a few miles ahead, it'd lead out to a stretch of straight road into the sleepy town of Novac.

               Nothing interesting ever seemed to happen in Novac, so a lot of folks settled up there when they'd gotten tired of wandering, or had come to the end of their careers looking for a more permanent place to live out the rest of their days.

But, before all of that came a heap of tyres pushed across the straight of the road, engulfed in roaring flames and blocking off the easy route. Wasn't much of a gap around the side: I didn't much fancy my chances of trying to squeeze around and finding out just how flammable my duster coat really was.

"God fuckin' dammit..." I thought to myself, peering at the sides of the thing from a distance, just a few meters back from the intersection. "I've gotta go through the main street."

Drawing up level with the edge of the Nipton General Store, which, from a glance, seemed to still be in one piece and almost entirely untouched by the flames, bar from one side of the building being blackened by ash that had swept through with the wind, I pressed my back against the side of the building, feeling the security of the sturdy wood behind me.

               The saloon, over near the back of the town, had been burned to the ground. Shame, really -- the woman who had worked the bar there had been the one to give me my first ever tattoo on my hip when I was sixteen. Nice woman. Made killer drinks, too.

Going through the main street wasn't a prospect I was fond of. I didn't even need to have walked down the main street to see the carnage that Caesar's pseudo-soldiers had left behind.

Crosses lined the sides of the long road leading up to the Nipton Town Hall. Would have been nicer, in some way, to say that they were empty - but that wasn't the truth. 

Strung up and lashed to the towering wooden structures, judging from the 'NCRCF' printed vests and blue hue of their uniform, were Powder Gangers.

If I looked at them close enough, I saw their legs twitch at the knee every so often. Rope had been tied around their ankles, nails driven through their feet in such a manner as if someone had gotten trigger-happy with a nail-gun. Blood soaked the wood of the crosses like new coats of varnish, and flies buzzed around the open, rust-colored, festering wounds.

Sometimes, their palms would open and close in the air like they were reaching out for something. Their arms had been lashed down with the same amount of rope and nails, holding their arms open wide as their bodies were suspended up from the ground.