Date: 10.5.2224
Location: Red Rocket Truck Stop, Lafayette Outskirts
The rails carried us through bayous that no longer resemble the ones people remembered. Bayou Queue de Tortue swelled beyond its banks near Duson, its waters poisoned and restless. Indian Bayou cut through Sadou like a scar, its surface black with stagnant water, chemicals, and decay. Every crossing carried the same warning: the wasteland does not forgive careless travelers.
The air itself seemed hostile. Rot clung to everything. The smell of decay, rust, and radiation followed us with every step. Boots wore down faster. Lungs burned harder. But the tracks continued east, and so did we.
When we reached the outskirts of Scott, the world changed.
The silence was replaced by buzzing.
Giant wasps and carrion flies filled the skies so thick they almost blocked out the sun. The sound followed us like a living storm. Every movement drew attention. Every shadow felt like a threat.
Still, we pushed forward.
Forward was the only direction left.
As our coordinates brought us closer to Lafayette, the landscape shifted again. The wilderness gave way to something stranger.
It looked less like a dead city and more like one massive abandoned auto repair yard.
Old vehicles sat where their owners left them. Warehouses stood like rusted monuments. The remains of industry stretched across the horizon.
We crossed over Coulee Mine, the sluggish drainage channel cutting through the western edge of Lafayette. The city itself was barely recognizable.
Not a city anymore. Not truly. Just an industrial graveyard waiting for someone brave enough to reclaim it.
Then we saw it.
A functioning Red Rocket Truck Stop.
Not a ruin.
Not an empty shell.
A living piece of the old world.
The lights were on. The workbenches were maintained. The power armor station still operated. Someone had kept this place alive.
And then we met the impossible.
A family of ghouls.
Their leader introduced himself as Jean Dean, speaking with a softened Cajun French accent that somehow survived centuries of suffering.
I asked him the question anyone would ask:
"How is this place still functioning?"
He smiled slightly.
"You hear that? That's our generator. Been running strong for about eighty years now. When we first arrived, there was no power. Took me years to bring this place back. People appreciate having somewhere safe to stop."
I looked around.
"Who are these people?"
"Scavengers. Traders. Travelers. Anyone moving between here and somewhere else."
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
"Why settle here?"
His expression changed.
He looked toward the horizon.
"We used to live in historic Freetown."
A place that once held generations of families, now reduced to a radioactive memory.
"The radiation never truly left. Those who survived either became ghouls... or they didn't survive at all."
Jean looked back at the station.
"Most people don't stay near Freetown anymore. Too much radiation. Too many ferals. That's probably why we've lasted this long."
He paused.
"But after all these years... who knows what tomorrow brings?"
That was the burden of being a ghoul. Not just surviving the apocalypse, but surviving yourself.
Jean welcomed us inside, though his expression changed when he saw Larry.
"The Swindler."
Apparently, Larry had visited before.
Apparently, he left an impression.
I did not defend him.
The truth does not disappear simply because someone wishes it would.
Inside the station, Jean noticed Pinball.
Still functioning despite everything that had happened.
He studied the machine with curiosity, asking about its movements, programming, and condition.
I explained Pinball's history.
For a Moment, Jean Dean did not look like a ghoul.
He looked like a man remembering the world before everything ended.
Then his attention turned to Clancy.
Jean warned him about the streets beyond Lafayette.
"The ferals out there aren't like me and my family. They're gone. Whatever they were before, they aren't anymore."
Fear.
Suspicion.
Disgust.
To him, ghoul meant mutant.
Mutant meant danger.
Jean saw it clearly. He was not judging Clancy's fear. He was measuring his ability to overcome it.
The apprentice had much to learn.
Not yet.
But someday.
Inside the Red Rocket, the smell of old oil and scorched metal filled the air. It was not comfortable, but it was safe.
In the wasteland, safety is its own form of luxury.
Jean carried a high-powered shotgun and the weight of decades on his shoulders. He admitted the hardest part of being a ghoul was not the radiation.
It was the waiting.
Waiting for the day your mind slips.
Waiting for the day you become the thing you fear.
Waiting to see if you wake up yourself.
Then the sky changed.
The sound came first.
Engines.
Heavy.
Powerful.
Three Vertibirds emerged overhead.
The Brotherhood.
Their insignia flashed across the sky as they descended toward distant ruins, weapons firing into the darkness below.
Larry shouted about super mutants.
Jean corrected him.
"No. That's the Brotherhood."
His voice carried no anger.
Only exhaustion.
"They don't come for you until they've already decided you're gone."
A warning from someone who had survived long enough to understand that not every savior arrives to save you.
Tonight, we rest.
I promised Jean and his family that while I remain in Lafayette, their shelter will stand.
Tomorrow, the railroad continues deeper into the city.
More ruins.
More questions.
More dangers waiting in the dark.
The wasteland does not care who you were before.
It only asks one question: what are you willing to become to survive?
— The Big Chief
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