Pre-War Relic

6

After a couple of hours, I pull up on the spot I retreated from last night, marked with tire tracks in the mud from my hasty escape. As I get out of the truck with Zeus following me, Zeus starts growling, so I pull out the gun that I found in a house in my hometown, a Deagle, I only know, because my dad always wanted one, and I had ordered one for him for Father's Day before the bombs dropped.

"Show yourself!" I call out to the person that just randomly showed up when I wasn't paying attention to the satellites. When there's no response, Zeus growls again, and I watch as the person from yesterday comes out of some foliage. "Who are you? What do you want?" I ask, raising the gun, and training it on him when he moves his arms, but watch as he pulls off the hood he was wearing. "Who are you?" I ask as I look at the scar on his temple and forehead.

"That doesn't matter, my people banished me." He says, and I squeeze the grip of the gun.

"Why'd you run at me last night." I demand, and he shrugs.

"To see what you'd do." He says, and I sigh.

"I'm all alone in this wasteland with just my dog, what'd you think I was going to do? Shoot you with a gun I didn't have out?" I ask, and he shrugs.

"Figured you'd fight."

"Where'd you come from? You come from the east?" I ask, and he nods. "Go back east then. I don't want any trouble." I say, and he shrugs, he stands still for a moment, until he charges me, but before I could react, Zeus was on him, latching onto his arm, and yanking him to the ground, so I walk up to the man, who is still on the ground, screaming in pain as Zeus continues to clamp down onto his arm. "I told you I don't want any trouble. So, either you leave this place, and go back east, closer to your home, or you just leave me the fuck alone." I say, and he groans, so I tell Zeus to release him.

"I'll leave! I'll leave!" He exclaims, and I nod, taking my rifle, and using the butt of it to knock him out. Once he's unconscious, just so he won't follow me back to the bunker, I get in the truck with Zeus, and head back to the bunker. When we get back to the bunker, Alex comes into the garage as soon as the exterior door shuts, watching as I get out of the truck, with Zeus following me out of the vehicle.

"That was barely even six hours." She says, looking at me, and rushing up to me to check me over. "Are you okay? Is Zeus?" She asks quickly before kneeling in front of Zeus to check on him. "Y/N, he's got blood in his mouth." Alex says, and I nod

"Yeah, he probably saved my life. I'm gonna go rinse his mouth out." I say, calling Zeus after me as I head to the bathroom in my room so I can give him a bath, and rinse his mouth out. Once he's clean, I take him out of the bath tub, and dry him off with his towel. After I've dried him off, I let him leave the bathroom, and follow him out to the living room, where Alex is sitting on the couch, playing with Zeus with his rope, so I sit beside Alex, and turn on the TV to watch some more old media, spending a few hours doing so, until Alex says she's made dinner, and calls me to the kitchen so I can eat.

"That was the last of the deer." Alex says, pointing to the meat on my plate, and I sigh.

"Okay, I guess Zeus and I will start hunting near my hometown." I say, and Alex nods.

-

After a few months, Alex finally convinced me to head east to see what's going on up there, so, I packed up my truck, told Alex to shut down, left my Pip wrapped around her left wrist, and headed east. There wasn't much left of this side of the country, I noticed that as soon as I passed through what used to be Oklahoma, the west half of the country got lucky. It took three days to get to the edge of the heat signatures, and when I did, I managed to get around without any hostility, until I went further toward D.C., when an arrow lodging itself into the hood of my truck stopped me in my tracks, so I told Zeus to get on the floor as the truck was surrounded by people dressed like the guy I confronted a while back. They started yelling at me in a foreign language, so I didn't move a muscle, because I didn't know what they were asking. After a moment, a lady yells something, and everybody yells.