Survival at Any Cost

Entry 1

I'm a new recruit to a small gang based out of Fairfax,Oklahoma. We were on a small looting trip to a drugstore and I picked up this little journal that was used as a diary for the manager, but I ripped those pages out so whoever picks this up won't have to read about a chick named Stacy for 5 pages straight.

We're in the jurisdiction of the TEF (Texas EF), but their patrols are lazy and normally don't come this far north. We have our base set up in an old school, and its generally secure. I'll keep this journal for interesting events and record keeping for patrols and raids, not everyday life. That shit gets boring.

Entry 2

Alright, I'ts been a couple days since the first entry. I had urges to write, it takes your mind off of the worry, and gives you something to do other than draw dicks in the ash with a piece of old metal fencing.

Just for future guys who don't have to live in these wastes, if the day comes, or for anyone who happens to find this on my corpse and enjoys reading and fashion, I'll describe my clothes and general scouting equipment.

I'm dressed the average rags of a wastelander, i assume it was an old army coat from the camo and destroyed patches. I have pants of the same material that I managed to scavenge from an unlooted department store with my pals a few weeks back. I have my full-face respirator that helps filter the ash and dust out, plus it looks badass. Last but not least, I have my signature. I have a compound bow, manufactured by a company called Hoyt. It looks cool, and gets the job done. I've killed plenty of ashbugs and TEF rangers with it, it's become my best friend. It also seems that the one munition that's never looted is arrows, so I normally have a good supply that I can reuse as well.

Entry 3

Apparently, we found the reason our supplies started to slowly dwindle. A group of 5 guys had found away to break into the general armory and storage areas for the base. Today, they staged a mutiny against the rest of the gang (We consist of 27 including them). They had found the one automatic machine gun we had, and announced that they were taking the supplies they'd slowly drained and were leaving.

Everyone started panicking, because we kept the big guns in the armory, and before they announced, they managed to sneak and them all out, leaving us with pistols, but I still had my bow, as I keep it in my personal footlocker. They were holed in the gym, and were getting ready to leave, so I snuck out of the base and around the back with two other guys. we ambushed them as they left, and we killed four of them, and lost one of us. We got our supplies back (They were riding on being able to run off with a bus that we'd locked up because they assumed it worked. The idiots!) The last one surrendered and so we caged him and plan on letting him starve in the boiler room. We held the funeral for our man who died, and agreed to instate a watch over the armory consisting of the most trusted of us, and I was chosen as the first one to watch. I'll report in tomorrow, there's supposed to be a raid on an enemy gang we've planned for weeks.

Entry 4

Ok, raid I mentioned before? Canceled. We had a bad run in with some ash tusks. Ash tusks are the pre-eruption boars that bred and slowly became used to the ash, and now they burrow and terrorize anything and everything, even the ashbugs are scared of them.

Anyhow, we were gathered in out normal patrol formation, with our team of 15 that we use for scavenging and assaults, and such. Our scouts, when mapping the area for the raid didn't notice the burrowing circles on the way to the target base, that's an old factory. We walked right on top of their burrows.

One guy, Johnny immediately bit the dust. An ash tusk charged out of the shrouded burrow and impaled his crotch and was trampled. four more burst from their burrows and assaulted us. The one thing my bow doesn't work against is the hardened, ash-crystallized hide of a grown ash tusk.

I had to pull out my pistol, and had we had a grueling fight with the bastards. we lost six good men. but, on the bright side, we have plenty of meat, a less likely chance to run short on supplies, and out leader was talking about making spears and coats. Bad news: we're really vulnerable from losing eleven men the last two days. Signing off.

Entry 5

The gang might be buried for good.

The leader made us some makeshift bulletproof coats from the hides. I got one, and four others. Some guys got upset they didn't get anything, and straight up left. That's another three gone. We're down to thirteen men, now. We've managed for four days since then, but the TEF finally started picking up on the patrols, so we can't operate well with the risk of degrading us down too far. My buddy wants to join the TEF, but I'm becoming tired of having stayed n the same place all my life. If we disband, I'm heading east. I hear there's a place that used to be called Missouri, and there's a small area on the outskirts of the outskirts of another government called the Tennessee Expeditionary Forces. What's with all these places called TEF?

Entry 6

I'm done with Oklahoma, never coming back.

So, we disbanded a couple days ago, and so I took my share of our supplies, headed out with my bow, arrows, Colt 1911, and basic supplies. On my way to what used to be Missouri, I had to traverse across an old native american reservation. I saw shit I will never be able to unsee. My pa always told me about these comic books about some superheroes called the X-Men, and one guy in particular was his favorite, wolverine.

I walked into an abandoned house and it reeked of death, but I needed to go in as it was almost night and walking in the wastes at night is like knocking on Satan's door. This house was built on one of the reservations, and it looked like someone wealthy had lived here pre-eruption. Anyways, I decide to investigate the house, and this rotting smell increased when I got near a door, I opened it, and it was a ladder leading up to the attic (door was on second floor). I wak up as quietly as possible, and what I see will haunt me. There was a stack of around 3, 4, maybe 5 corpses. I could tell, as they were dismembered to all hell. Laying among them was a man who looked of native american descent. His eyes were open, but he didn't breathe. He was wearing a leather jacket and pants, and had a large bloodstain on his ash-caked t-shirt. He had been impaled with a spear tipped with a rock, so it was obvious people around here were acting like savages and using prehistoric tools. The reason I mentioned the comic books? This freak had leather gloves that he had cut holes into, and inserted knives into his own skin, and cauterized them so they would stay. Judging by the serrations on the bodies, this guy had used the same knives in his fists to kill them. I went downstairs, and boarded and locked every entrance I could find, including that door to the attic. The shit this wasteland does to people...

Entry 7

It's been three days since last entry.

I thought I was going to die in these wastes. My supplies were starting to dwindle as I crossed the Missouri border, and I traversed for a day straight, no breaks. I slept nearly all day yesterday. I'm walking through some hilly, forested areas, and I'm hearing some rummaging always behind me in the brush. I don't want to investigate, it'll take me off my trail. As of writing this, I have just entered the area of what used to be the Mark Twain National Forest. I'm currently sitting in a cabin, eating some of my little remaining rations, but luckily I found some shotgun shells in a footlocker under the bed. I think I've been hearing talking outside the house. It could be my imagination, I've been paranoid ever since the Indian reservation. I'm gonna start trekking north Until I- [Page goes uncontinued, with the remainder of the sentence going into a scrawled line]