Catch Me Dead

I Need a Hero

"I'm not saying I loved the girl. I'm just saying she was a person I really, really liked. As a friend. Not a girlfriend."
Alexander trudged along the beaten, weathered road that was half a mile from his shack. He knew the area, and knew his way to Diamond City and back, as he had to run back and forward and back and forward as a courier in his younger years. Moxie was at his side, her dirtied white coat almost merging with the grey concrete underfoot.
"But she was kind of a crush of mine, being one hundred percent honest. Her green eyes gave me butterflies in my stomach... perfect face. Freckles, green eyes, and she looked like she had fire in her hair. One of those freckled redhead girls, you know? But Amelia was really nice, moral of the story. Which made it so much worse when I had to shoot her."
Moxie let out a small wince, her narrow tail giving a small wag, snout tilted to the graying sky.
They had been walking for maybe two or three hours now, moving along slowly. They had seen nothing but wasteland, a Red Rocket gas station in the distance, and a few forks in the road. The road would eventually lead into town the actual Commonwealth main city, in which Diamond City was just a small portion of.
"...You ever think it's called the Green Jewel of the Commonwealth because the front gate is dumpster green? Unless it was blue. Or... yellow? Can't remember. It's really quiet, too quiet. But I would prefer it quiet with me talking, then loud with gunshots and rabid dog monsters. Or Deathclaws. Those things are nasty. What are they anyway, dinosaurs? Lizards? Really thick-skulled cat things?" He paused. "Nah, I know what they are. Disgusting and terrifying."
Deathclaws were always a phobia of his. He had seen men in Power Armor get torn clean in half by the wretched beasts. Wires, metal, blood and organs flew all over the place. Some blood got on his own gun. Being the wimp he was, at the time, he ran screaming as the beast attacked the other soldiers.
   It was later revealed there was not a single survivor of the incident despite the four or five that fled, even though seventeen people of different expertise were sent to kill it. He would have died that day.
"I can see the skyscrapers now. That Mass Fusion building is still standing. Incredible. That thing was built, what, in 2043? 2044?"
   Moxie's ears pricked up, and she let out a little whine as she stared leftward. "What is it?" Alexander asked, pausing and squatting down next to his companion. "You hear something?"
   Moxie whimpered in response, and simply trotted off into the long dead trees that dotted the edges of the roads.
   "Where're you going? Wait," he mumbled, standing back up and following the wolfhound, curious.
   Drawing his 10mm pistol from the holster around his right thigh, he clutched the gun to his chest as he heard the growls. He saw what looked like a blue smudge on the landscape.
   As they approached, he let out a small gasp. There was a pack of radiated mongrels, one being dead with a massive bloody hole in it's skull. Snarling, the two remaining ones were attacking what looked like a short man with a cobalt-blue, dirtied jacket. He had some sort of ski mask, with a bandana over his nose and mouth. The stranger's hair was down to his jaw, but very messy and gristly.
One of the hideous dogs was tearing at the hood of the jacket, whilst the other was circling around the victim, nipping at his legs and waist, tearing at the flesh and cloth.
"You filthy- Get off! Get off!" The man shouted. Apparently the man was a boy, which would explain why he was so skinny and small.
"I'm coming to help!" Alexander shouted, Moxie charging in and launching herself at the mongrel tearing the hoodie's fabric. "Hold on!" "Grab my bat!" The boy shouted back, kicking the rogue dog away from his legs as he sat up, punching the one Moxie was on. "What?" "My bat! Grab my bat!" He gestured frantically to a long wooden baseball bat resting against a tree, with three spikes at least eight inches long each poking out of the end.
"On it." Alexander dropped his duffel bag and pistol, charging over and skidding to a halt as he gripped the handle of the apparently hand-made weapon. He lifted it up, huffing, as the thing was rather heavy. He didn't imagine how a skinny twig like the boy could wield it, much less swing it.
Alexander slammed the bat into the jaw of the circling mutt, the railway pike jutting up into and through it's skull, crimson fluids oozing from the wound. Disgusting.
He pulled away, the canine immediately dropping dead on a withered patch of grass, blood splattering onto Alexander's boots. He then gave a wild swing to the mongrel Moxie had firm in place by the thigh, at an angle where the pikes didn't penetrate it's head. But it's lower jaw seemed to violently fracture or shatter. Regardless, the mutated canid backed up, whimpering, and darted off into the woods.
   "Are you alright?" Alexander asked, turning his sunburnt head towards the staggering kid, who stood up and brushed themselves off. "I'm fine. I pro'lly didn't need your help, y'know." "Sure, sure."
   "Hero."
   "What?"
   "My name. Winter Hazikaci, but please call me Hero. Dad called me Hero."
   The child - 'Hero' - would simply snatch their baseball bat back from Alexander's grip, slinging it safely over their shoulder. "Do you got any stimpaks? Fucking dogs tore my leg."
   Moxie sat down, idly scratching at her chin with her hind paw, whining. "No, no stimpaks. Sorry," Alexander responded. "But I've got a broken radio I'm taking to Diamond City to get fixed. You're welcome to join, Hero. I could use a little companion with me that's actually sentient."
"Diamond City? That hellhole? I'd rather stay here and die, then step foot in the wretched place. And 'little companion' my ass."
"I'd ask, but then I'd be out here for much longer then I need to. Well, it's your choice. Follow me to the City and stay outside, or remain here and risk getting mauled by zombie dogs again. Whatever choice you make, make it now, because I'm already on my way away."