Dusk Till Dawn: A Blood & Steel Short

Act I
----------
Gordon walked across the desert in his broken armor, making the intense heat harder to ignore. It was times like this that he wished he could find and repair a car from before the bombs dropped just to make travelling easier, but he knew there was a 1 in 10,000 chance of actually FINDING one that's in a good enough shape to repair.

He noticed a town on the horizon. It seemed like there was still signs of life in it, so he decided to go and check it out. As he approached, he began to question his mental stability. "What the...? How could this be? A living, thriving town unaffected by the bombs?! Surely, my eyes are decieving me!" He got closer and closer, soon able to see that there were healthy trees with leaves of green and houses with no sign of damage.

He arrived at the town, with the sun instantly in the sky as if the time of day was forcibly changed. There were kids playing in the street and adults having a barbeque in their backyards and partying. "This just doesn't make sense!" thought Gordon to himself, puzzled by the mystery of this town. He walked up to the middle of a street and took a look around. A little girl with black hair then approached him with a kind smile on her face.

"Are you new here, mister?" asked the girl, sounding very sweet and curious. "Uh, yeah... I am new" replied Gordon "What is everyone doing here?" "We're throwing a party in your honor!" answered the little girl, with a big grin on her face. Gordon was shocked and confused, but he followed her to the backyard where everyone else was at. They seemed happy to see Gordon. However, he was not. He sat down at a table and some of the people went inside the house.

Gordon felt a sense of recognition after sitting there for a while. The people came out of the house carrying a birthday cake with candles on it. The candles formed the number 42. "It's all for you, daddy!" exlamated the girl. "Daddy?!" muttered Gordon to himself in confusion. His wife came out of the house with a smile on her face. As his wife approached him, people were cheering and the little girl began to giggle. Gordon took a sigh of relief and smiled back at her, but he regained his senses knowing that all of this wasn't real. He reached for his gun and began to cry. "Daddy?" asked the little girl. Gordon unholstered his gun. "Daddy? Daddy?!" He raised his gun. "Daddy?! NNNOOO!!!"

Gordon pistol whipped the little girl in the forehead, knocking her on her butt and making everything around him dissolve into the air.

Act II
-----------
He awoke lying on the ground in a ruined town with bodies everywhere. The sky was dark red and black, just the way it was in reality. Gordon sat up and saw an adult woman's body laying on elevated rubble in front of him. The body began to shake and twitch as if it was possessed. Soon, the ghostly spirit of a little girl arose from the body and floated up into the air, screaming in frustraition. As she rose, the irradiated bodies of dead around her rose up sideways and began to dreadfully scream as if they were all part of a hellish choir. The little girl then lifted Gordon off the ground into the air. His arms and legs were spread out and his head was held still by her evil power.

"I have a TREAT for you!" said the little girl, in a cheerful ghostly voice. "Let me... go!" declared Gordon. But it was no use. She commanded an irradiate to pick up a sharpend rock and slashed Gordon's right eye from his eyebrow to a little below his bottom eyelid. It cut open his eye and he let out a very loud and bloody scream of anguish. The little girl began to make a sinister giggle as she gathered radioactive energy around her hands and forced it all into Gordon's cut eye. He screamed louder and shook in pain. The irradiates laughed and he was dropped onto the ground as his eye closed up and began to glow yellow. He started swearing under his breath and slamming his fists into the ground in agony.

"MY NAME IS ELENA ANDHēRā AND I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!!!!" declared the little girl as Gordon crawled backward and tried to get up as his suit administered Morphine, helping very little. He tried to run, but a hand burst out of the ground and grabbed a hold of Gordon's foot! It began to tighten it's grip, crushing a few bones. Gordon let out a scream of terror and pain. He took out his gun and began to fire at the hand. The hand was connected to another undead irradiate as it's body rose out of the ground. Gordon's bullets shread through the irradiates wrist and blew it's head apart like a needle popping a baloon. Gordon noticed that the kill harmed the little girl. He yanked the irradiate's hand off his leg and tried to limp away as fast as he could, while gunning at the irradiates chasing after him. He took down several, but there were still too many to handle with his gun.

He limped into a building that was barely supported. It seemed like an auto repair shop. He saw a broken car and a few tanks of gasoline and quickly came up with a plan while hideing. He took the motor out of the car, cutting it free with a portable arc welder, grabbed a match from his backpack and spilt some gasoline on the ground. He opend the garage door and shouted at the irradiates. "Hey you primitive screwheads! COME GET SOME!!!" The irradiates growled and ran towards the building. Elena had a look of determination and bloodlust in her eyes. Gordon lit the match, dropped it in the oil and ran away. The oil became lit and ran into the gasoline tanks. Elena saw what was going on. She tried to motion the irradiates to fall back, but they were too focused on obtaining Gordon. She shouted in anger as the building exploded, with the fire incinerating the irradiates and the rubble crushing what was left of them. Gordon was caught in the blast and was projected into the windshield of a car. He spat out blood and tried to get out of the car to safety. He looked around in preparation for something to jump at him, but there was nobody in sight. The irradiates were dead and Elena seemingly disappeared.

Gordon sat down and patched up his foot to stop most of the bleeding. His suit continued to administer small amounts of Morphine every half an hour to lessen the pain of his eye. He thought of patching it up, but there was nothing he could think of to fix it, so he left it alone for now. Now with his armor in need of repair and his body in pain, he began to doubt he'll ever make it to Vibora Bay alive.