Good to be back-

Of all the assignments I've been on, I think that was the closest I've come to dying.

I went back to Wynnland, where we lost the other team. I set up camp in the usual spot, then set up a little nest for myself 20 or so yards away. The camp was purely for the benefit of the Spidermen. I wanted to watch and see what they'd do.

They didn't disappoint me. They showed up right after dark, started looking around the camp; two of them. Then the bastards dropped to all fours and started sniffing the ground like bloodhounds.

I tried to get up and sneak off, but I had to move slowly. I didn't want them to hear me.

Once they got my scent they were on me, and roughed me up pretty good. I'm not sure for how long I was unconscious. Long enough.

They're primitive and savage. And they frighten me. They speak some strange pidgin of English and what I think might be French. They have a fairly good grasp of technology, obviously, as they made use of my camera and my communications equipment.

They want guns, for God knows what. And pity on everyone if they ever amass an arsenal.

The only useful thing I learned is that there are several families. One per Mono car, if my guess is right; and that's not good for anybody.

In any case, there are two less to worry about. Again, I find myself in Vanessa's debt. Thanks. I hope I never have to return the favor.

Gotta go rest up.

Extraction

immediate extraction

mono station 3

expedience imperative

before sunset

minimal force required stealth preferred

asleep now time short

now damn it

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Lost Two Men-

As soon as I got back to HQ, they sent me out to Wynnland to check on the two-man recon team they sent out when I left for LA.

I found them; guts ripped out, hanging from the tree which we designated a campsite.

Up till now, we've considered parks, gardens and golf courses to be safe ground, as the gangs and unnaturals have a strong aversion to the overgrown places.

Looks like the Spidermen don't share that aversion. I returned to report, but I've got to head back out there and see what exactly the hell is going on.

Did they follow my back trail? Did these kids make the mistake of sleeping the night away when the Spidermen are clearly nocturnal?

The bodies looked like a warning if I've ever seen one, but the Spidermen hang their meat for consumption.

Reports to follow.

Unexpected Beauty.

Los Angeles, partially under water, partially overrun with terrible things, is surprisingly well off. We fell in with a group of resistance fighters, the descendants of businessmen and gang leaders, who patrol the hills the surround what used to be the city of LA.

They say, once the Doors shut and everything went bad, the governor of California spoke to the citizens of his state with one final television broadcast. Everyone watched as, while most officials were fleeing to their bunkers, this man presented a map of the state, pointing out safe house, weapon caches and temporary infirmaries.

He urged people to stay away from Hospitals, as they were already overrun and useless.

Though around that time, normal news media had ceased to be, it appears that the governor's gamble paid off. Bands of well armed citizens roamed the streets, downing fiends of all sorts left and right, as well as keeping looters in their place.

Our new friends said Northern California didn't fair as well, but gorgeous Southern California, all hills and beaches, is a site to behold. It makes me think that perhaps there is hope for Vegas after all.

But then again, there are unknown quantities in Vegas that makes it difficult for me to make a move. I've always been a man of information; doing what I do so that the men of action can live to be heroes.

I never really want the job of sending men of action out to possibly die at the hands of a bad plan.

Not what I should be thinking about. It's good to sleep in a real bed again. Suppose I should go find out what's been happening while I've been out gallivanting.

Questionably human-

I climbed the Monorail platform during the day yesterday. Every entrance platform, not just the one on Paradise, is blocked with unlikely debris. A Volkswagen, for example, sits upside down, windows crushed, on the second floor of this one.

So, had to climb the exterior, which was fine, until I reached the half-way point and saw the bits of broken glass jutting up from the hand rail. It was stuck there with some sort of bitter-tasting resin. At first I thought it was tree sap, from the smell, but it tasted somehow animal. Turns my stomach to think of it.

I continued the climb, wrapping my palms in handkerchiefs and trying to clear the glass away as best I could with my pocket knife. I usually carry an old Swiss Army knife, for the versatility. It proved nearly useless in this endeavor. Even with the precautions, my hands are full of cuts, and its taken most of the morning for Seline Jericho to take the slivers of glass out of my hands.

Typing this is agonizing.

I've seen a lot, doing what I do. Not much bothers me any more. But what I saw in the Mono, well, it shook me. I've mentioned before that they live in the monorail cars. I don't know how I pictured their living conditions, but it didn't prepare me for the reality.

The first thing I noticed was the flyblown meat hanging from the car's ceiling. Each carcass, skinned and gutted were evenly spaced and were suspended from hooks hanging from the ceiling.

Three spider-people(?) rested in the car, two on benches and the third, leaning against the opposite window, in some mock-cruciform position. I didn't take him in at first, just thought he was part of the scenery. But when my mind registered he was a person and not decoration, I actually screamed and nearly lost my balance.

I decided then that I was done, and began the long climb down, but not before taking a picture.

For now, I'm done with the spider-men. I don't feel comfortable that they can be reasoned with. I'll think on the problem while I'm gone to LA.

Until then, Cheers.

Silk and Hooks

I've been staking out the Monorail hub on paradise and Desert in for three days. The Spider Men are most active at night, so I've rearranged my sleeping habits to. I'm typing this before heading off to sleep.

I'm camped in Wynnland, the overgrown remains of a golf course. It's beautiful, thick with trees and painted with flowers. The animals here don't seem to be hostile, in fact, I've awoke just just before sunset yesterday staring into the strange rectangular eyes of a giant goat-thing. I say "thing" because it was much too tall and wide to be a standard goat.

I'm getting off topic.

The Spider Men are keen, agile and efficient. I've seen them, time after time now, twirl off the high tracks of the Mono to snag one kind of animal or another with wicked looking hooks. It's almost beautiful, watching them. They connect themselves to the tacks by long silk cords wrapped around their body, causing them to twist and spin as they hurtle towards the earth. I assume this slows their fall, preventing them from breaking their own necks when they stop descent.

They are all highly decorated. Their culture has a strong belief system centered around either tattoos or war paint, as their bodies come alive with strange designs and symbols.

The last thing I've noticed- they continually hunt animals roaming the street, but I've never seen a cooking fire. From this I gather they either have working electricity (not impossible) or they skin and eat the poor critters raw.

I need to get up there and do some snooping. If they really are nocturnal, it won't be a problem.

If.

Future Plans-

Requisitioned the use of a vehicle and set my leave date for a week from today. I want to set up some surveillance on the strange inhabitants of the monorail, who I'd almost forgotten.

They're a strangely ominous folk, secretive and scarce, but they completely dominate the monorail. If we could somehow convince them to let us use the system, or at least the tracks as a byway, we might be able to gather some intel on the hell this is The Strip.

Just thinking of the strange beasts and bizarre depravities there makes my skin crawl.

I've tried to think of other means of obtaining information from that particular area, and can't think of much. A deep cover operation might work but I'm not willing to accept the risk. I personally wouldn't be happy in anything short of a tank.

Sometimes I wonder if The Strip is really as bad as the stories make it out to be. Each casino usually has two public entrances and a service entrance. That, combined with unusual layouts and bizarre architecture make for some very defensible places.

They've also got kitchens, sleeping quarters and medical stations.

Aside from fortifying the already impressive structures, why not leak rumors of monsters and supergangs?

I'll think on it. And some of our questions might get answered if things go well next week. We'll see.

Home again

I've decided to leave well enough alone as far as the Coals go. We ran into a nasty pocket of drug zombies while snooping around the airport. We barricaded ourselves in an old laundromat and radioed for help. Within the hour, before our own saviors arrived, an old Cadillac screached into the parking lot.

Three men, all black jumped out. One pulled a pistol, in excellent shape I might add, and started firing into the crowd, drawing their attention. The other two stood in front of him and dispatched the shambling menaces as they approached with baseball bats.

It was impressive teamwork, better even than I had with my men. They waited with us until our pickup arrived, not saying much, but not being hostile. As we left, they told us this was their territory. They didn't tell us not to come back, but it clearly wasn't an invitation for a sleepover.

I thanked them again and gave them a couple ways to get in touch with us. My official statement is this: They aren't a threat.

If people want to stick to themselves and be left alone in a world like this, who can blame them. The offer of friendship is there however, and I hope they take us up on it.

On my way back, I stopped by the Silver Saddle, and had a beer with Sterling Grey. The Plastics and the Aryan Warboys are still manning their defenses in the disputed area around Fremont. He says they've decreased their numbers on each side, which only means they are plotting to attack on other fronts. Good.

With those two situations winding down, I turn my eye to the West. I think it's time to look up some friends in California, see some green, maybe take a dip in the ocean.

I think a two-man recon team would be perfect to scout out the territory along the Interstate, map out a few locations in the hills.

I'll put in a formal request.

No rest for the wicked

So far:

• We've seen no reason to believe the Coals' territory is anywhere near what they've led our people to believe.
• The Coals, though not friendly or sympathetic, do not seem hostile. They guard their territory jealously, but do not look like they're aiming to expand.
• There are two airplanes at the North Las Vegas Airport that could be in working conditions.
• There are two working fuel pumps.
  

My assessment is, the Coals have spotted our people as spies. Rather than kill them outright, they've chosen to leek misinformation back to us- misinformation that would deter us from attacking if that's what we were after.

Looking at the other tribes lurking in the Valley, I can't blame them. I'm not willing to give up yet though. If there's one thing we can use, it's friends and allies. Even if we did nothing more than set up a communication network to share new developments, we'd be in a far better state than our current one.

We won't be returning to base yet. There's still work to be done.

Coals. News at last.

The recon units we sent to the Coals finally sent word, and it doesn't look good. From the cryptic letter we received, they don't feel as though they've made much headway; they're not fully trusted by the group.

Also, they say the Coals consider their territory to be much larger than we originally thought, stretching from the railroad tracks in the east to Racho in the west and as far north as the airport.

They've heard bragging that there are still working aircraft sitting on the runway, which the Coals secretly keep in excellent shape.

If it's true that our units have been marked, and they're being kept around to leak information back to us, then the intel is suspect, and I doff my hat to the brains behind the plot. But, if it's all true, than they have more land than any other organized faction we've yet come across, and they're certainly the only ones in the valley with air support.

We've elected to send a couple units to scout the perimeter around Rancho and Washington, an area we previously assumed to be overrun and useless. I'll be taking the team out in about three hours and returning when I can.

If it's a trap, I'd rather lead the kids into it myself, rather than watch the net drop from the safety of a command tent.

Your move, Coals.

Drug Zombies

Drug zombies are not the living dead. Probably.

These poor creatures were once human, their minds broken by the "best" the drug world had to offer after the Doors Shut.

It's worth noting that natural drugs, ones that have always been around, and are still around now, fell out of favor well before the hedonistic craze that created these retches.

No, it was the rise in designer drugs, most legal in fact, that turned significant portions of the world into slavering fiends. Now, we're left with thousands upon thousands, who knows, maybe millions, of gratification-bent husks.

They are ageless, two generations have come and gone since everything broke down, and these predators still wander empty streets, looking for fresh prey. They look no older, but they do look as haggard as anyone with no regard for hygiene might after wandering homeless for years upon years.

Most are slow, as their motor functions as the connectors in their brains have all but fried. Most can not speak. They appear to be driven only by the basest animal urges: to eat and reproduce.

Any animal, even a human, will eat its own kind if it gets hungry enough. The Drug Zombies do not. Nor will one zombie mate with another.It is in this way that they are most disturbing. They seek out fresh meat, consuming or multiplying as they see fit. It seems then, that these former humans are not part of one new species but one singular living organism.

Though animals will resort to eating their kin if faced with starvation, I've never seen an animal eat pieces of itself. And though most animals prefer to mate within their species, a horse will mate with a donkey.

Either way, new species or a single sentient collective, like a jellyfish, they're no longer human. They can not be. Because if they are, then we're all hopeless murders of women and children.

But who has time to think like that when they're about to be raped or eaten, sometimes both? In a world like this, one scourge is as good as another. We don't have the luxury to pick and choose. You either fight them all equally, or end up in a bad way.

Cheers.

A place of my own, a working camera

Spent the weekend cleaning out this old plant, and making it serviceable. Right now it's me and two recruits, I didn't think it was dangerous enough to bring any experienced soldiers along. However, I'm questioning the wisdom of my decision.

Some of the guys got together and gave me a camera for a house warming present. I took one of the dogs out for a walk Saturday night and took a couple pictures. Most didn't turn out, as I have no working flash, however, I did get a picture of the Temple.

Keep in mind, there is no working electricity this far north. The entire place seems to glow with its own inner light. I was attempting to hop the fence, to get a closer look and see the source of the strange light, when the dog started going wild. I turned and saw we'd been spotted by a truck. I hadn't heard it approach, or noticed that we were bathed in its ominous highbeams, but there it was. I saw no driver, but it was hard to make anything out, staring into the brights.

It gunned its engines, speeding forward. I dropped the leash, commanding the dog to go, it took off full speed to the left and I jumping into the bushes on the right. I braced myself to be run over, but heard the tires squealing down Bonanza, leaving us in a cloud of dirt.

Shaken and spent, we cut our walk short, heading home.

I haven't ventured across the street to the Temple again, not yet. If there are still inhabitants out here sentient enough to drive, that could be very bad news. But that's not the only thing we've had to worry about. Drug Zombies have been wandering up to our gates with increasing frequency. The dogs are well trained enough to keep quiet when they smell them, but it's only a matter of time before one of these rookies takes a pot shot at one of them and draws a horde. I've warned them, once, but it's a mistake everyone has to make.

Like a right of passage.

All's peaceful now. We'll see how long it lasts.