CAST & VOICE TALENT

• GUEST: Casey Mongillo ~ Scout John Brown
• GUEST: Wes Johnson ~ Announcer, Mr. Wilson
• Alexander Luthor ~ Chad Johnson
• Kenneth Vigue ~ Narrator, Simon Rex
• Jessica Duval ~ Susie, Betsy, Tiffany
• Taylor Jinx Knight ~ Amata Hayes
• Clint Winberry ~ Moose Miller
• Jessica Marie Dickey ~ Patsy Parker, MaryAnne
• Keemo Provorse ~ Donkeyman, Scorched #3
• Dr. Mark Hauswirth ~ Brian, MODUS, Baldrick, Slick Willy, Narrator, Scorched #2
• Kevin Chenard ~ Fletcher
• Robert Solomon ~ High Priest Solomon, Scorched #1, Shadow
• Richard Oliver ~ Lincoln, Brotherhood Knight
• Mary Kalopodes-Saunders ~ Overseer, Computer
• Joseph Picard ~ Albert Vince
• Steven Brink~ Mort
• Andreas Somville ~ Mr. Dark, Stratford
• Matt Bartlett – Captain Ryan Sinclair, Mr. Handy
• Max Lefferts – Mr. Tricentennial (Mayor)
• J.J. Mills ~ Richard
• Rachel Cerullo ~ Ethel
• Mawtater ~ Duchess
• Ray Hauswirth ~ Becky Watts

SFX: HALLOWEEN FX PLAY.

SFX: RADIO STATIC

ANNOUNCER: T-MINUS 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! BOMBS AWAY!

MEDIA: BOMB DROP

JINGLE: When the leaves’ start a droppin’

And pumpkins galore!

There’s only one breakfast cereal

That you’ll just adore!

Packed with Patriotic Power,

And Explosive Great Taste!

Sugar Bombs Cereal, won’t blow up in your face!

SFX: EXPLOSION.

ANNOUNCER: Yes Sugar Bombs! The uniquely shaped Atom Bomb cereal with explosive great taste! Yes kids, no other cereal is like Sugar Bombs, puffs of wonderful, crispy, crunchy whole wheat with an overabundance of sweet, sugary frosting! Sugar Bombs contain 100% of your daily recommended allowance of sugar and are chock full of go-power carbohydrates to get you through your leaf raking day and trick or treating night! And kids, look for the special FREE “Halloween Scares!” Holotape and Read Along Book from Shadow Toys in specially marked packages of Sugar Bombs! Over 2 hours of spooky sound effects, ghastly ghouls and villainous vampires and an original story that you can follow along to at home. And remember…

JINGLE: When the leaves’ start a droppin’

And pumpkins galore!

There’s only one breakfast cereal

That you’ll just adore!

Packed with Patriotic Power,

And Explosive Great Taste!

Sugar Bombs Cereal, won’t blow up in your face!

SFX: EXPLOSION.

SFX: RADIO STATIC CUT.

SCENE #1: EXT. APPALACHIA, SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE

SFX: WINDY, COLD AND EERIE LANDSCAPE. SCUFFLE IN SAND.

SCOUT: (struggling and fighting for control of found weapon) It’s MINE! I found it! Let go! LET GO OF IT!

SFX: LASER PISTOL FIRES. BODY FALLS IN SAND.

SCOUT: (breathing heavy) Shit…oh shit shit shit. Parker? (pause) Parker? You should’ve let you go! You greedy son of a bitch! (pause) Oh God…oh my God…

SFX: CRUNCHING FOOTSTEPS WALKING. RUNNING.

SFX: RADIO SQUAKS.

KNIGHT: Base camp delta to survey squad 2. Squad 2 come in.

SCOUT: (breathing heavy, licks lips) Okay…okay (answers comm) (clears throat) Squad 2 here…sir.

KNIGHT: Brown is that you?

SCOUT: Yeah…Parker…he…oh God sir…

KNIGHT: What is it?

SCOUT: Hillside collapsed on us (pause, panic but trying to sound calm and believable) he went headfirst into some toxic waste. Ate through the suit…by the time I got down there, nothing I could do. He’s…he’s gone sir.

KNIGHT: God damn it. I told you two to be careful on that ridge!

SCOUT: I know.

KNIGHT: (sighs) What about the signal?

CRUNCHING FOOTSTEPS. RADIATION SPIKES.

SCOUT: There’s no trace sir. Must’ve been a false reading. Whole area was sterilized, wiped clean, pockets of extreme radiation. There’s not even a point in scavving here, any useful technology is sand by now. I’m heading back to camp.

KNIGHT: Copy that. Base camp is packing up now. Get a move on Scout.

SCOUT: Yes, Sir. Brown out.

SFX: CRUNCHING FOOTSTEPS. WIND HOWLS.

SCOUT: (breathing heavy in Rad Suit)

SFX: EERIE WHISPER.

SCOUT: (panic breathing)

SFX: GROUND COLLAPSES.

SCOUT: (more panic as he tumbles away into a void)

SFX: THUD. RIPPING SOUND.

SFX: ECHOING EMPTINESS.

SCOUT: (pained breathing) Fuck…great. Just great… rad suit is torn.

SFX: HELMET REMOVED.

SCOUT: (inhales) Air quality stale, but breathable. At least there’s minimal rads down here…wherever here is.

SFX: ZIPPER OPENED. BOTTLE OPENED. PILL POPPED.

SCOUT: Rad-X. Never leave camp without it.

SFX: COMM RADIO SWITCHED ON.

SCOUT: This is Scout Johnathan Brown to base camp Delta. Come in.

SFX: STATIC.

SCOUT: Brown to base camp Delta. Please respond.

SFX: STATIC.

KNIGHT: (static) Base camp Delta (static) report.

SCOUT: Fell through into some kind of cavern. Rad suit is torn but I’m in a rad free spot at the moment. Looking for a way out now. But I may need a hand.

KNIGHT: (static) Sending Engineers (static) ….be a few hours…. (static) Hold tight Brown.

SFX: COMM RADIO SWITCHES OFF.

SCOUT: Good job Brown…now how the hell are you going to get yourself out?

SFX: PIPBOY LIGHT SWITCHES ON.

SCOUT: I’ll be damned…a Super Duper Mart.

SFX: COMM RADIO SWITCHED ON.

SCOUT: Base Camp Delta not sure if you’re getting this, but it looks like I fell through the roof of a Super Duper Mart. Might want to send out a squad, it’s mostly intact. Looks like it had been subsurface when the storm swept through. Earthquake, ground collapse or something. Whole thing is down here mostly intact. A lot of spoil, but we’ve got tons of canned goods here worth collecting.

KNIGHT: (static) Repeat…. (static) Cutting…. (static) signal.

SCOUT: Base Camp Delta, I’m losing you.

SFX: RADIO SQUAKS. SIGNAL LOST.

SCOUT: Base Camp Delta come in. (pause) Base Camp Delta please respond. (pause) Damn it. (panic) Just a few hours away…they know where you are…cool, calm collected. Pull it together.

SFX: WALKING.

SCOUT: (nervous laugh) Might as well do some shopping. (calls out) Clean up on Aisle 9! We’re going to need a lot of mops boys.

SFX: EERIE WHISPER.

SCOUT: Hello? (pause) Someone there? (pause) Can’t be anyone here.

SFX: DOOR OPENED.

SCOUT: Utility room…maybe I can get the fusion generator running. Ah! There we go.

SFX: BUTTON PUSHED.

SCOUT: Looks like the core is drained.

SFX: BAG UNZIPPED. FUSION CORE REMOVED. FUSION CORE INSERTED.

SCOUT: Fingers crossed.

SFX: BUTTON PUSHED. GENERATOR STARTS.

SCOUT: Nice. Now…let’s see…fuse box.

SFX: PANEL OPENED.

SCOUT: Someone stuck tape over some of these switches.

SFX: TAPE RIPPED.

SCOUT: Let there be light!

SFX: SWITCHES FLIPPED. LIGHTS BUZZ ON. SPARK EXPLODE. FLICKER.

VINCE: (distorted) …last of the…. (distorted) recording this (distorted) don’t (static) good luck (static)

SFX: STATIC.

ANNOUNCER: (distorted) From groceries to electronics, gardening supplies to home décor, Super- Duper Mart has it all!

SCOUT: Well, that’s unsettling. Got some light at least.

SFX: FOOTSTEPS TO AISLES.

SFX: RADIO SWITCHES ON.

SCOUT: (pause) Base Camp Delta…can you get a move on? This place is giving me the willies.

SFX: CRUNCHING STEPS.

ANNOUNCER: (distorted) Make Super Duper Mart your Halloween Haunt for tricks, treats, and decorations! All located in Aisle 9, seasonal specialties. And don’t forget those costumes boys and girls! Be the best witch, mummy or vampire on the block with costumes from Freddy Fear’s House of Scares!

SCOUT: Halloween…forgot all about Halloween. Aisle 9 it is!

SFX: GROCERY CART PUSHED.

SCOUT: What have we got here? Sugar Bombs. 100% of your daily allowance of sugar. Free holotape inside. Huh.

SFX: BOX OPENED. CEREAL SHIFTED. HOLOTAPE LOADED AND PLAYED.

MEDIA: GROOVY SPOOKY THEME

DARK: Halloween Scares! (pause) This is the Shadow Toys Read Along Holotape called, “Halloween Scares!”, available in specially marked boxes of sugary sweet Sugar Bombs! Hi boys and girls! I’m the Storyteller. The story you are about to hear is told from the perspectives of two different characters. You can read along to this story at home and whenever you hear this sound!

SFX: SPOOKY SOUND.

DARK: Simply flip your book upside down and turn the page. Ready? Let’s begin our first story, “Little Sanctuary of Horrors”.

SFX: SPOOKY ORGAN MUSIC.

DARK: This story doesn’t start down the street or once upon a time. No children, it starts in the not too distant future. Our story begins on the other side of the apocalypse in a world where time itself remains mute, her hands frozen on paint peeling dials, in positions that serve as epitaph to the foolishness of man. The war to end all wars has come and gone, it’s a time when the gilded paged promised Rapture never came, and yet the great flesh rending fires did. And yet, while the Great Cities lay in ruin, Appalachia remains a green jaded jewel of verdant forest surrounded by wastelands, an oasis of the forever autumn and the last Halloween the old world would ever know. Far to the west in the boggy, sun dappled mires, sits the little walled off town of Sanctuary Acres. An improbable slice of America in its heyday, yet for all its picture postcard perfection, it is a town whose history would fit on a single page. Wide streets are lined with autumn hue splashed maples that wink in a slight breeze at the humble homes framed by white picket fences and lush green lawns. It’s a quiet, peaceful place, yet somehow foreboding. It abounds in local superstitions, mystery, and haunted locales. Our story begins on a cool autumn late afternoon. Running along the sidewalk, dodging lemonade stands, lawnmowers and kickballs, is the subject of our first perspective: that of a young-ish oaf of a man named Chad, who personifies everything you’ve ever heard about that name. There he is just now, dashing into Brian’s Candy and Malt Shop, the

local hangout for the teens or rather, the people who think they are teens in Sanctuary Acres.

SFX: MALT SHOP BELL RINGS. OLD TIME MUSIC ON JUKEBOX.

CHAD: Happy Harvestide everyone!

BRIAN: Well ice my cupcakes and pull on my taffy, Chad Lockhart!

SOLOMON: Chad!

PATSY: Hey Chad!

DONKEYMAN: It’s Chad! HEEEEE HAWWWWW!

CHAD: Hey Donkeyman! You ready for the big game!

DONKEYMAN: You know it boss! We’re gonna own the field!

MOOSE: What’s the haps Big C?

CHAD: Well gang, we’re all set for the big dance at the school! Wait till you see all the decorations.

BRIAN: I was wondering where you were! You missed our usual after-school candy binge eating and sing-along!

CHAD: Yeah, sorry about that Candyman Brian! Was volunteering for setup for the Harvest Festival.

BRIAN: But that’s okay! We’ll start again!

(singing) Who can take a sunrise!

Sprinkle it with dew!

Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two?

SFX: BELL CHIMES

VAULT-BOY: The Candy Man

Oh, the Candy Man can (the Candy Man can)

The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love

And makes the world taste good (makes the world taste good)

BRIAN: Mr. Mayor!

VAULT-BOY: Happy Harvestide everyone! Gosh you all look so prim and proper in your letterman jackets and hoop skirts!

PATSY: Do you like mine Mr. Mayor? I sewed it myself with traditional 18th century hand seam techniques.

VAULT-BOY: Well, isn’t that just Vault-Tastic! I just popped in to say hello! And don’t forget about our big Harvest Festival! I want to see all your bright smiling faces there on Halloween!

CHAD: You can count on us Mr. Mayor!

VAULT-BOY: That’s the civic spirit I love! Good night gang! Mind the curfew!

SOLOMON: We will sir!

MOOSE: What a swell guy!

BRIAN: Well! Chad! Before you waste another minute, have a taste of this! On the house for our star quarterback!

SFX: SODA FOUNTAIN FIZZES.

CHAD: What is it?

BRIAN: It’s something I cooked up out in the soda fountain. It’s a Pumpkin Spice Nuka Cola! Here! Catch!

SFX: SODA SLIDES DOWN COUNTER.

CHAD: Gotcha! (drinks and chokes) A little heavy on the spice there Mr. Williams! Maybe you’d better take this back.

BRIAN: Wait!

SFX: SODA SLIDES DOWN COUNTER. SMASHES. EXPLODES.

BRIAN: (coughing) Well there goes another wall.

CHAD: What in the name of Vault-Tec was that!

BRIAN: I’m not entirely sure. Think it has too much radioactive pumpkin seed…or maybe gel ignite.

SOLOMON: Pardon me Patsy, did you finish your essay on the westward expansion yet? I couldn’t find a good basis for mine.

PATSY: Oh, I finished that days ago. You seem to know a lot about Thomas Jefferson, I would stick to an argumentative essay format and explore his posit that the republic was dependent on independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival. The essential element of independence he felt was land ownership to sustain the virtuous citizens of the republic. A good quote from Jefferson on the subject you could include would be, “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God”.

SOLOMON: Thank you, Patsy. Gosh you’re sure smart.

PATSY: Just good genes, I guess!

SOLOMON: I’ll say!

MOOSE: Oh no…here comes Tiffany.

SFX: DOOR KICKED OPEN.

CHAD: Everyone’s least favorite paper shaker.

TIFFANY: HI! EVERYBODY! IT’S ME! TIFFANY! OH HI CHAD! HI PATSY! HI SOLOMON! HI BECKY! HI MOOSE! HI MR. WILLIAMS! HEY CHAD! GUESS WHAT I’M A CHEERLEADER NOW!

CHAD: Fantastic Tiffany.

TIFFANY: WANT TO SEE MY SPECIAL MOVE! I MADE IT JUST FOR YOU! GIMME A C! C! GIMME A H! H! GIMME A…

CHAD: Whoa! Look at the time! Come on Moose, race you back home!

MOOSE: It’s a deal!

TIFFANY: HEY, I DIDN’T FINISH MY CHEER!

CHAD: Save it for later! Cheese it moose!

TIFFANY: WAIT COME BACK! WANT TO PLAY BACKSEAT BINGO WITH ME SOMETIME! WE COULD BE SO SPECIAL TOGETHER! I COULD JACK YOUR LANTERN!

DARK: Ummm…quite. Anyway, Little Chad and his friend Moose dashed through town to their familiar street, neck and neck. Just ahead, hidden from view by the hedges, Chad’s neighbor Mr. Wilson was wheeling out his trash barrel.

CHAD: MR. WILSSSSSSSSONNNNNN! Watch out! Comin’ through!

DARK: At the last moment, Chad collided with the trash barrel, sending both it and Mister Wilson tumbling backwards into his prize winning flower bed.

1. WILSON: Chad Lockhart! No running on the streets! And if I catch you kids peeping at my wife one more time, I’ll give you the strap!

CHAD: Golly jee! Sorry about that, Mr. Wilson! Tell Mrs. Wilson she has the best pair of pepperoni rolls this side of Seneca Rocks!

1. WILSON: Oh, why thank you…thank you. (realizes, stammering) Oh! You! Why…I…I never…oh you kids just wait! You’ll get yours!

MOOSE: (laughing) Beat you this time!

CHAD: Only on a technicality!

MOOSE: Yeah yeah! Sureeeeee! I gotta get home. Say hi to your folks for me!

DARK: Now little Chad lived in a whitewashed modest farm surrounded by fields of ripe butter corn and patches of plump and ready pumpkins just at the end of Elm Street. A broad smile is on his face, and why not? There’s something in the air tonight, because the best holiday in all the live long year is just days away now, better than summer and birthdays, even better than Christmas: Halloween. He’s pelting up the drive now, his Dad waving from the farm stand Mother smiling from the kitchen window, an apple pie

cooling on the sill. Yes, it’s a perfect evening. But as you and little Chad will soon discover, this little town holds a dark, dark secret, one that is just about to rise up to the surface and unleash its horror upon them all. You see, Sanctuary Acres is a town where nobody and everybody dies.

SFX: ORGAN MUSIC CRESCENDO.

SCENE #2: EXT. SANCTUARY ACRES FARM

VINCE: Well, what do you think Ethel? Finally settled the great pumpkin debate? (chuckles)

RICHARD: I keep tellin’ her Vin that the short, fat ones make the best jack o ‘lanterns.

ETHEL: Oh Dick, EVERYBODY goes for those. You know the tall, skinny ones are the best.

CHAD: You tell ‘em Mrs. Smith! (laughs) Mr. Smith! Hey Pops!

VINCE: Son.

ETHEL: Chad Lockhart! I swear you get bigger every day!

CHAD: Thanks Mrs. S! Helpin’ Pops this summer in the fields and layin’ new pipe really whipped me into shape before tryouts.

ETHEL: I can see that. I keep tellin’ Richard he’s laying pipe all wrong out back.

RICHARD: (chuckles) Yes dear, you do keep tellin’ me.

CHAD: Well shucks I could give you a few pointers Mr. S! You can watch me lay some pipe down and you’d get the swing of it in no time.

ETHEL: That’s mighty neighborly of you Chad!

CHAD: Always happy to get my hands dirty!

VINCE: Speaking of getting his hands dirty…

RICHARD: Oh lord…here comes Mr. Wilson.

CHAD: Welp that’s my cue. Let me know when he’s gone! I’ll be hiding in the barn.

ETHEL: I wonder what Mr. HOA is unhappy about now.

VINCE: Probably something my boy did…again.

1. WILSON: Good evening neighbors.

VINCE: Evenin’ Mr. Wilson. Now before you lay in, we have a town permit for both the farm stand and the pumpkin patch AND the haunted hayride.

1. WILSON: Oh, piss on your farm stand Vince!

ETHEL: Oh my!

1. WILSON: And no need to clutch at pearls Ethel, not when I’ve spotted our Milk Man haunting your door for the fourth time this week.

RICHARD: Now see here Wilson! What exactly are you implying?!

1. WILSON: That your Ethel there is a little heavy handed with the creamer in your coffee or the milkman is getting more than a 5 caps deposit on the return of his bottles!

ETHEL: Well, I never!

1. WILSON: Well, you clearly do. But your radio drama debauchery is NOT why I’m here.

RICHARD: For once that’s a blessing. Come on dear!

1. WILSON: I left the Halloween Lights and Decoration guidelines in your mailbox Smith! Fines are doubled this year! We aren’t going to have a repeat of last year!

RICHARD: Yeah, yeah.

1. WILSON: Humph. Those two. Bad marriage…Lockhart…bad breeding. I told him as such when they were courting. Clearly, he manages his household as well as he does our local sports team.

VINCE: You were saying Wilson?

1. WILSON: Ohhhh yes! Vince, we need to have a talk about your boy!

VINCE: What’s he done now?

1. WILSON: Aside from running pel mel up and down the street like some kind of hoodlum, after finding one of YOUR brahmin helping themselves to my prize-winning flowerbeds and leaving piles of fecal matter, I asked YOUR son to address manure in my garden.

VINCE: I recall. It went over yesterday and said he squared things with you.

1. WILSON: Oh, things are square all right! As usual he took some creative liberty with my meaning and didn’t REMOVE the manure…oh no…he dumped 18 wheelbarrows full into it!

VINCE: Ah…well look at this way Wilson, come spring you’ll have the best soil in town.

1. WILSON: I won’t put up with it Lockhart! I really won’t! Not on my block! One more incident…just one more and I’ll report him to the neighborhood watch.

VINCE: (Stone cold serious) Neighborhood watch? Let me tell you this just once Wilson, our last HOA superintendent ran the show like you did, sucked up to them like you do, but you’ll recall just how much that mattered in the end…

1. WILSON: People like you and your (disdain) family think that just because you provide for hungry mouths in town, that your FUNCTION here makes you indispensable to Mayor. Well, I’ll tell you something Mr. Lockhart, when I look over here at your cows and their stench, your fields and their ear splitting, endlessly CAWING crows…you know what I see? Dirt. Filth. Everything over here is just so dirty…because you all wallow in the dirt. It’s on your

faces, in your hair, it’s on your clothes. You’re the one element on this entire street that doesn’t belong. I won’t have it. Not in my home, not on shelves and not in my mouth. Good day to you!

VINCE: Just one thing Wilson. You get your canned goods from Parker’s Grocery?

1. WILSON: I do! What of it?

VINCE: Where do you think he gets his canned goods? Moooo.

1. WILSON: (furious but harumphing, unsure of what to say)

VINCE: You can come out now soon. Good job with moving that manure pile, but maybe next time we will find a different spot, okay?

CHAD: (laughing) Yes sir. How’d it go today?

VINCE: Well, it would’ve gone a little smoother if a certain SOMEONE had come home on time to lend me a hand. Neighborhood Just about cleaned us out of tatos and the pumpkins we picked we rounded up yesterday. Speaking of…

CHAD: Yeah, I know…

VINCE: Just don’t do it again. Harvest time is important, and you know I can’t do it all alone. You get a pass this time, Mr. O’Neil dropped by earlier and explained you’d volunteered. Chores first, costumes and dancing comes second. You’re getting a little old for Halloween anyway.

CHAD: Yes Pop.

VINCE: Head on inside now and wash up for dinner. Your Mom’s bound to give you an earful.

SFX: DOOR OPENS.

CHAD: Mom! I’m home!

AMATA: Oooooooh! You’re in troubblleeeeeeee.

OVERSEER: Hush Amata. Chad! Where on Earth have you been? You were supposed to be home from school two hours ago to help your father with the farm stand!

CHAD: Sorry Mom, lost track of time!

OVERSEER: You’ve been doing that an awful lot lately mister. I was giving you another 10 minutes and then sending out for the neighborhood watch!

CHAD: Oh, it wasn’t no shenanigans, Mom! Honest. I was busy helping Mr. O’Neil setup for the Harvest Festival.

OVERSEER: This close to curfew? (clucks tuck) You kids never learn…

AMATA: Helping with setup huh? Well, a little birdie told ME that Mr. Do Good was Mr. Making Good with MaryAnne beneath the bleachers.

OVERSEER: Chad! Is that true?

CHAD: I’ll tell you what’s true. I think SOMEONE is a tattle tale. That same someone who cut class the other day to wave eyelashes at the soda jerk down at the malt shop.

AMATA: Shut it chowderhead!

CHAD: You first mutthonhead!

OVERSEER: Enough of that you two. And I think we need to have a talk later little miss.

AMATA: Yes ma’am.

CHAD: That smells great! What’s for dinner?

OVERSEER: Your favorite! Cramloaf, Blamco Mac and Cheese, corn on the cob annnnnddd…

CHAD: Unless my nose is deceiving me, a warm and ready pie. Man, oh man I can’t wait to smash my face right into that thing.

AMATA: In this household EVERYONE does.

CHAD: (laughs)

OVERSEER: (laughs)

AMATA: (laughs)

SFX: DOOR OPENS.

VINCE: Did someone say pie?!

OVERSEER: Dinner first and THEN pie! Here we are! Cramloaf Surprise!

VINCE: Mmmm boy! My favorite!

OVERSEER: Come on everyone, join hands. It’s almost 6 o’clock.

SFX: TOWN BELL RINGS IN THE DISTANCE. ON THE 6TH BELL. THE RADIO IN THE KITCHEN CRACKLES.

AMATA: Oh boy! There he is.

CHAD: Shut up! We’re supposed to be quiet!

VINCE: Enough you two…

VAULT-BOY: Happy Harvestide Sanctuary Acres! It’s me, your Vault-Boy, Mr. Tricentennial! (laughs) 6 bells tolled and another beautiful day. Before our daily Solemnal, some exciting news from Sinclair High! Preparations are complete for our yearly Harvest Festival, hosted by the kids of Sinclair High this year and by golly it’s going to be a Halloween to remember! And don’t forget! We hope to have full stands for tomorrow night’s big game! Neighborhood Watch units 5, 6 and 7 are active for this evening to keep us all safe and secure. Lastly, the Highway Department has closed Pine Street for road construction

until further notice. Local residents only are permitted. Trespassers will be dealt with…swiftly. Now, if you’re not doing so already, join hands and join us all in the Solemnal.

VAULT-BOY, CHAD, AMATA, VINCE, OVERSEER:

For this day passed

We give thanks to those who have gone before us,

From the Vault we emerged, this land we reclaimed,

In strength we endure, in unity we rebuild,

We reject the Unnamed, In doubt we shall bind,

From cradle to grave, In Vault-Tec we trust.

VAULT-BOY: Good night, Sanctuary Acres!

SFX: RADIO CRACKLES AND MUSIC RESUMES.

DARK: Young Chad and his family tucked in greedily, a traditional scene of the perfect America family gathered ‘round the table in unity, sharing news of the day, hopes for tomorrow and the thrill of the Harvest Festival swiftly approaching. As plates cleared, out came a warm and ready innuendo that your parents will chuckle about behind you, but that will go completely over your head dear children.

VINCE: Man, oh man! What a pie! Now that hit the spot.

CHAD: Excuse me Pop, Ma, got something stuck in my teeth.

VINCE: You’re excused.

OVERSEER: (humming like a Disney Princess) More coffee hun?

VINCE: Well sure! Pour me another cup dear. (pause) Drink your milk Amata.

AMATA: Yes Dad. Mmmm…boy this milk is just the way I like! Nice and cold!

OVERSEER: Well, that’s because the Vault-Tec Atomic Shop Refrigerator keeps everything at just the right temperature.

VINCE: You see daughter, 32 degrees Fahrenheit is freezing. And laboratory tests have proved about 36 to 38 degrees is the proper temperature to maintain. Spacious storage, dual zone cooling, and peek-a-boo vegetable drawer is what makes the Vault-Tec Atomic Shop Refrigerator the smart choice for households like ours.

AMATA: (awkward) Okay.

SFX: CROWS YELLING OUTSIDE.

OVERSEER: Oh! It’s those pesky crows again over at the rubbish heap! Dear, we’re going to have to finish those scarecrows for our yearly Halloween hayride or those crows are going to ruin everything!

VINCE: Amata what do you think? Want to lend the old man a hand with the last of them tomorrow?

OVERSEER: Oh Vince, she probably wants to go to the big game with all the other kids.

AMATA: Watch a bunch of clodhopper’s bang heads on the field? Or help Dad make scarecrows? Tough choice Mom.

OVERSEER: Amata! Don’t take that tone with me young lady.

VINCE: What’s wrong kitten? Stay up too late again? You know I seem to recall someone’s light still being on when your mother and I went to bed.

AMATA: Well shucks pop, I was just putting the finishing touches on my school report.

OVERSEER: Oh, that’s right! Tomorrow’s your big day.

VINCE: School report, eh? Lions, tigers or bears?

AMATA: (laughs) None of the above! It’s on the history of Sanctuary Acres. With the anniversary of Reclamation Day just around the corner and the founding of the town, I thought it would be a timely subject that would give me an edge.

OVERSEER: Our little valedictorian to be!

AMATA: If I can beat out that book worm Brian Williams that is! Come on big bro! We’ve got to head to school.

SFX: CLOSET DOOR OPENED. CRASHING.

OVERSEER: What on earth is that terrible din!

SFX: FOOTSTEPS.

CHAD: (really cheesy attempt to scare someone) BLAHHHHHH! WOOOOOOO OR SOMETHING!

OVERSEER: (screams) My stars! A skeleton!

CHAD: (chuckles) Hey Mom! Don’t be scared. It’s me, your son Chad. Just trying out my Halloween homecoming costume. Looks like it works.

OVERSEER: Well, what are you doing in the closet!?

CHAD: I’m just getting my bones together. Can you help me look?

OVERSEER: Well what part is missing?

CHAD: The head.

VINCE: What’s all the trouble out here?

OVERSEER: It happens to be your son.

VINCE: Well, how about that! A real live skeleton!

CHAD: It’s a neat outfit eh, Pop?

VINCE: Well sure! Sure, is scary alright.

OVERSEER: It gave me such a fright!

AMATA: It wasn’t the costume. Mom just screamed when she saw your face.

CHAD: Oh yeah!

AMATA: Yeah!

CHAD: Oh yeah!

AMATA: Yeah!

CHAD: Yeah!

AMATA: Oh yeah!

CHAD: Eat a dick Amata!

SFX: DISH DROPPED.

VINCE: CHAD!

OVERSEEN: SON! What kind of language is that in this house?!

CHAD: (confused) I…I’m sorry pop…not sure what come over me. I’m…I’m sorry sis.

VINCE: Look, now cut it out you two, you’re acting like a couple of Unnamed.

CHAD: Yes sir.

AMATA: Sorry Dad.

DARK: The last of the pie was finished off and dishes were washed, crumbs were wiped off plaid shirts. Little Chad headed out into the cool whispering autumn night, a bucket of kitchen scraps in hand for the compost heap. Overhead the stars twinkled in time with the rhythmic rustling of the dry, husky corn stalks in the field. Off in the distance dozens of scarecrows guarded the line between field and forbidden forest, their tattered clothes moving like ghostly shrouds in the nighttime breeze. From this distance he couldn’t see their grim, grinning sack hooded faces, but he could picture them all the same. They had frightened him always, though he never spoke of his fears to anyone. Emptying the bucket into the pile, he entered the groaning barn, the echoing tinkle of Nuka Cowla, Hocus & Pocus’ cowbells giving him a chuckle as they heard his footfalls and expected dinner soon to come.

CHAD: Hey ladies! Dinnertime! Mind your manners now. Now where’d Susie get off to? Get on over here!

DARK: The subconscious mind is an odd little thing. Like the shifting sands of an empty beach, each bare foot shifts aside something hidden beneath. This cow, his favorite, the one he’d nursed back to health himself he’d chosen the first name that came to…a name that peeked on tattered paper written in crayon in the shifting sands at the back of his name: Susie.

CHAD: Eat up kid so you grow up big and strong. (sighs) I dunno girl. Sometimes I feel so at home here and other days not at all. But on my worst day…you’re always here…

DARK: Oh, Holy Hell…he’s going to sing, isn’t he?

CHAD: Lift up your head

Wipe off that irradiation

Here, take my RadAway, clean that dirt away

Show me your face, glowing in the morning

I know things were tough, but now they're okay

Suddenly, Susie's standing beside you

You don't need no gas mask, don't have to pretend

Suddenly, Susie is here to provide you

Sweet understanding, Susie's your friend

Nobody ever treated me kindly

In the Wasteland, it's chaos and war

I'd meet a Scavver and I'd follow him blindly

He'd point to danger, me, I'd explore

Suddenly, Susie's standing beside me

She don't give me orders, she don't condescend

Suddenly, Susie is here to provide me

Sweet understanding, Susie's my friend

Tell me this feeling lasts 'til forever

Tell me the radiation's clean washed away

Please understand that it's still strange and frightening

In this post-apocalyptic world, it's so hard to say

Suddenly, Susie (Suddenly, Susie)

She purified me (She purified you)

Suddenly, Susie (Suddenly, Susie)

Showed me I can (Yes, you can)

Learn how to be more

The survivor inside me (The survivor inside inside you)

With sweet understanding (With sweet understanding)

With sweet understanding (With sweet understanding)

With sweet understanding

Susie's your friend

DARK: Well. Wasn’t that touching kids? Chad rubbed Susie gently behind their ears, breathing in the earthy smell of the hay and the cool air drifting in the window from the pumpkin patch behind. Just then…

SFX: SCRATCHING NOISE.

DARK: A sharp, cutting noise…like nails on wood split the air. The cows started and retreated to the back of their stall in fear.

CHAD: Dad? Dad is that you?

SFX: FOOTSTEPS.

CHAD: Amata! If that’s you messing around, I’m gonna smack you a good one you hear!

DARK: Exiting the barn warily, muscles tensed…he crept around the side of the barn. Just ahead, the white paint, alligator skinned from sun, rain and layers of whitewashing was now scarred. A long trailing gash exposed the wood beneath.

SFX: CORNSTALKS CRACK.

CHAD: I…I’m not messing around whoever you are! You best get on out of here before I skin your hide!

DARK: Swallowing his fear, he crept toward the line of cornstalks.

CHAD: Is…someone there?

SFX: CORNSTALKS CRACK. FAST RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

MOOSE: RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

CHAD: (cries out) AHHHHHHH!

MOOSE: (laughing) Gosh Chad! I got you good! You looked like you plumb ready to jump out of your skin!

CHAD: Moose! Cut it out! You almost got walloped by a good one! What are you doin’ out this late? It’s almost curfew! Neighborhood watch catches you and you’ll be finished!

MOOSE: Neighborhood Schmeighborhood! I ain’t scared. Besides, there’s something really cool I needed to show yah and it can’t wait! Come on!

CHAD: Come on Moose! If my old man catches me heading out into the fields this late, he’s bound to ground me! And we can kiss our Halloween plans goodbye till next year.

MOOSE: Come on! It’ll be quick. Promise. Or are you chicken?

CHAD: (sighs) Fine. But let’s be quick about it!

DARK: Ah! Yes! Joe Martin, “Moose” to his friends. His blood brother, his dark haired twin, a friendship forged not in years, but in moments of leaf kicking, bait bobber fish splashing, wind in their hair running, windswept leaf moments too numerous to count. Moose leading, they hurried into the deep hollow behind the house, foreboding perhaps to strangers, but to them it was the domain they alone had ruled since childhood. In a sequestered glen surrounded by a grove of vine choked trees, the ground sloped away down to a small creek. The slope concealed an earthen cave, framed by the torn up roots of an ancient and great tree knocked down by a great storm long, long before. This close to the wall that encircled the town that rose up high just across the creek, the heart of their domain deep in the woods was completely concealed to any who should stroll by unless they shoe soddingly had trudged along the creek itself. Many years before they had done just that, finding the cave and its clearing, but far more excitingly an old Vault-Tec Van, now long since past the point of driving. What once had meant to speed along the roadways of Appalachia crying out and forewarning of doom with the same zeal as Paul Revere, had been repurposed over summers hence. It had been their spaceship, a castle, a Union soldier camp, a haunted pirate cave, and more recently a more private Lover’s Lane all their own for entertaining poodle skirt wearing boy- curious classmates.

MOOSE: Come on man! Come see! Took forever to haul it out here and then try and set it back up.

CHAD: Set what back up? You didn’t move my stuff, did you? Come on man! We had this place all decorated for after the bonfire to bring the girls back.

MOOSE: Quit your squawking you ninny! And get a load of THIS!

CHAD: Okay. I’m looking. It’s a bunch of junk.

MOOSE: Ah! To the untrained eye my friend. This here….is a STILL!

CHAD: What? No…no way! Where did you find it?

MOOSE: I was clearing out that old lot for Mr. Fletcher down behind the library and it was under a bunch of trash. Fired it up and it still works. Here! Check this out! Had some recipes for some beer and stuff tucked inside. Have a sip!

SFX: DRINKING.

CHAD: Are you out of your head? This stuff is grade A illegal in town! If someone finds out…

MOOSE: No one is going to find out. No one ever comes back here. Come on! Try it!

DARK: Grasping the dirty mason jar, he raised the foul liquid to his mouth, the vapors, sending his eyes into a watering tear-streaking frenzy. He sipped, the fire igniting his gums, the warmth flooding down into belly.

CHAD: (choking) Gosh…that burns.

MOOSE: Right?! It’s pumpkin moonshine! Come on, finish it! I’ve got more cookin’ up for us to share around after the big game.

CHAD: All of it?

MOOSE: Come on! I’ve had two of these already!

CHAD: Okay…

DARK: Choking and sputtering like an old car, Chad did in fact finish it. The warmth in his belly radiated upward and he stifled a giggle. His brain foggy pleasant sensation was interrupted by a terror inducing sound.

SFX: TOWEL BELL RINGING.

CHAD: Curfew! Oh, hell’s bells! I’ve got to get back!

MOOSE: Darn! Me too! Tomorrow?

CHAD: Tomorrow! Come on!

DARK: Running and tripping their way back along a muscle memory path that even slightly intoxicated they knew by heart, they found themselves once again by the barn, sweat running down their backs.

CHAD: (breathing heavy) Damn dude…that packs a punch.

MOOSE: Yeah man! I gotta jet!

CHAD: Hey! What about the barn DUDE?!

MOOSE: What about it?

CHAD: My old man is gonna see these scratch marks and he’s gonna be pissed!

MOOSE: I didn’t do that.

CHAD: Before when you were messing about?

MOOSE: That wasn’t me.

DARK: Fear paralyzing them both, they looked behind them at the rustling corn stalks and to the wall of scarecrows far beyond. Before Chad could even comment, Moose was

running as if the Devil were on his heels for the lit, safe windows of home just down the street. Chad slowly backpaddled, gaining speed until tripping up the porch stairs he was inside the warm kitchen and safe behind a now chained and bolted door. Moving to the kitchen window he could still see them illuminated by moonlight. Two wooden cross frames just at the top of the hill. Two empty wooden cross frames that had held scarecrows when he first went out to the barn.

VINCE: Son?

CHAD: (startled) Ah! Dad…

VINCE: You, okay? Cutting it a little close to curfew, aren’t we?

CHAD: S…sorry sir. Ladies were lonely out there, so I stayed with them while they ate.

VINCE: (chuckles) You know I swear they produce better tasting milk every time they get a session of head rubbing from you.

CHAD: Y…yeah. Hey, I got some moves!

VINCE: What’s that smell?

CHAD: S…smell?

VINCE: Yeah…you spill something on you?

CHAD: Oh! Yeah! Tripped over some stuff in the barn looking for the lantern. Spilled some cleaner on me.

VINCE: Better get changed and toss that in the sink. Your mother will have kittens if you get whatever that is all through the laundry.

DARK: The family retired to the living room to listen to the Vault-Tec Radio Hour. They gathered around the warm crackling fireplace, Pa puffing away one his pipe thoughtfully, the little misses knitting autumn sweaters, and little Chad and Amata worked on costumes and homework. Yes, it was a perfectly idyllic scene, in a perfectly idyllic town. (sarcasm) Isn’t that just such a wholesome image boys and girls? (darker) We’ll see what we can do about that presently. (Resumes tone) Outside, the whispering dark drew in close, a fog rising up from the pumpkin patch and drifting lazily across the fields, swirling through the cornstalks. The harvest moon ruddy and full, peeked over the horizon. The shadows from the hollow behind the farm stretched long clutching fingers towards Elm Street, shrouding the house in advancing, shifting bars of darkness. The mantle clock chimed 8 times and the radio programming faded to static. The children rose for bed and as Father was turning off the radio, a shrill panic-stricken scream shattered the night air just outside the window.

AMATA: What was that?!

OVERSEER: Oh Vince!

VINCE: Don’t open the door. Stay away from the windows. They’ll take care of it.

CHAD: It came from across the street! I think it’s the Smith’s!

VINCE: Son, get away from that window!

AMATA: The Smith’s?! Oh no!

OVERSEER: Oh, but dear! Ethel and I were supposed to play bridge on Saturday!

VINCE: There’s nothing we can do. Close the curtains.

CHAD: There’s someone running out of the house! They’re coming this way, Dad!

VINCE: Perfect. Just perfect. Out of the way son.

SFX: DOOR DEADBOLT THROWN. DOOR IS CHAINED.

VINCE: Go put the bar across the back door and shut all the curtains.

CHAD: Yeah Dad.

VINCE: Dear, take Amata upstairs. Close the bedroom door and don’t open it until you hear from me, okay?

OVERSEER: (scared) Okay dear…come on Amata…

AMATA: Is everything going to be, okay?

OVERSEER: Yes, come on honey…

SFX: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS OUTSIDE. POUNDING ON DOOR.

ETHEL: HELP! OH GOD, SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! ADRIENNE! VINCE!!!

VINCE: We can’t help you, Ethel. Leave…get out of here!

CHAD: Back door is secure Dad.

VINCE: Go upstairs with your Mom and sister.

CHAD: I want to stay down here and help…

VINCE: I SAID GET UPSTAIRS WITH THE WOMEN!

CHAD: (startled) I said NO!

VINCE: (furious) Of all the….WE will talk about this later. Push my chair over here. I need to brace the door.

CHAD: Sure Dad. Sure.

ETHEL: PLEASE! PLEASE LET ME IN! IT’S RICHARD! HE….HE’S GONE! HE JUST STOOD UP AND STARTED SCREAMING AND THEN MELTED AWAY! HE MELTED AWAY! PLEASE! YOU CAN’T LET THEM FIND ME!

VINCE: I said we can’t help you, Ethel! Now get the hell off my property! We don’t want no part of it!

ETHEL: VINCE….VINCE IT’S ME! WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR YEARS! WE’VE HELPED EACH OTHER HARVEST! We’re friends! Please God let me in! For the love of God LET ME IN! You have to hide me! Oh…God they’re coming. Please…please…ADRIENNE! Tell him!

VINCE: It’s too late for that Eth…Unnamed. You have no name now.

ETHEL: NO! NO! YOU KNOW ME! YOU KNOW MY NAME!

VINCE: Unnamed. Unnamed. (chanting) Unnamed at the door! Unnamed at the door and a voice that speaks no more!

SFX: HAMMERING ON THE DOOR.

ETHEL: NO! NO! Please! The Neighborhood Watch is coming! It’s not my fault! WE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! RICHARD DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! HE JUST CAME APART! I SAW IT! IT’S ALL TRUE! YOU HEAR ME?! IT’S ALL TRUE!

VINCE: UNNAMED! YOU HAVE NO VOICE!

SFX: ASSAULTRON APPROACHES. POWERS UP.

ETHEL: PLEASE NO! PLEASE! I’m a good citizen! A good neighbor! OH GOD NOOOOOO!

SFX: ASSAULTRON BLAST. DOOR SHUDDERS AND SMOKES. SILENCE. DRAGGING OF BODY ACROSS THE PORCH SLOWLY RECEEDING.

VINCE: (breathing heavy and chanting in panic) Trust in Vault-Tec. Trust in Vault-Tec. (pause) Go away…just go…not this house. Not this family.

CHAD: Dad? Is it over?

VINCE: Yeah…

CHAD: Should we…?

VINCE: No! Don’t open the door! Come on…let’s go upstairs. I’ll clean up in the morning. I don’t want your mother and sister to see this.

SFX: FOOTSTEPS ON STAIRS.

DARK: Just outside the door, the ember lit outline of a woman who had once been named Ethel the Cannibal in another life, now unremembered, smoked on the surface of the sturdy front door. Crickets silenced by screams now slowly began to rejoin the night’s chorus accompanied by a new sound. Cornstalks crackled in the field as the grim, slender figure of a scarecrow in tattered clothes trailed mildewed hay behind it as it stalked away back into the fields, effortlessly dragging behind it a still smoking corpse.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we change our perspective to that of another boy named Simon, trapped in a frozen nightmare for oh so many a year…but just now, JUST now is waking up in familiar surroundings, and yet to a world now different.

SCENE #3: INT. VAULT 76. SIMON’S ROOM.

SFX: MUDDLED SOUNDS. WHISPERS. VOICE ON LOUDSPEAKERS IS HEARD ABOVE, CRACKLING AND DISTORTED. VAULT AMBIENT NOISE.

NARRATOR (V): But, if that is not our destiny, if war must come, we stand together knowing that here in Vault 76, our future begins. (static) together knowing that here in Vault 76, our future begins. (static) together knowing that here in Vault 76, our future begins.

OVERSEER (V): Good morning Vault 76. This is the Overseer. I hope you all enjoyed the party last night…even those who may have “overindulged” and overslept.

SFX: BEEPING. MACHINES ACTIVATED. COMPUTER WHIRRS ON.

COMPUTER: Network detection connection. Authorization code...received. Cycling cryogenic chamber. Resuscitation commencing in 5….4….3….2….1. Vitals, non-responsive. Initiating phase two resuscitation. Vitals…nominal. Activating servos, please move all personnel to thermal safe zone.

SFX: HISSING. POD OPENS. GASSES ESCAPE. BODY COLLAPSES

SIMON: (groans) (heavy coughing) …every…thing. (heavy breathing) ….what…the fuck? My….room. My room? How….I….was….Chad…but who pulled me out?

DARK: Yes! The room! His old familiar room, though already showing the passage of time since wide eyed and full of hope he had left it. Dripping, the ice that held him in its embrace now melting away, he groggily rose to his feet, joints still stiff and looked back at the cryogenic pod hooked up to a hobbled together piece of machinery. Curious, he approached it.

COMPUTER: Life support of Vault 76 has been temporarily restored. Please exit the facility immediately.

SFX: KEYS TYPED

SIMON: Pardon me for the lack of courtesy, but just who the hell is this? Who pulled me out?

COMPUTER: Access denied.

SFX: KEYS TYPED

SIMON: How long was I frozen?

COMPUTER: Access denied. Terminal shutting down in 3….2….1.

SFX: COMPUTER SPARKS AND SHUT DOWN

SIMON: Just what the hell is going on here?

SFX: FOOTSTEPS. DOOR STARTS TO OPEN AND STALLS.

SIMON: So much for being built to last. (strains) Open…up!

SFX: DOOR FORCED OPEN.

SIMON: Happy Reclamation Day…again. What happened here?

DARK: Vault 76 has been, for want of a better word, harvested. Panels lay discarded on the floor, wiring stream out like spilled innards, furnishings, computers, equipment…well and truly raided savagely. Yet another mystery to the growing list in Little Simon’s mind. Suddenly aware of the familiar weight on his arm, he lifted his PipBoy and flicked through menus, noting a heavy concentration of people in the mire, but nowhere else. Then his eyes glanced downward…

SIMON: No…it can’t be.

DARK: As Simon looked down in horror, his PipBoy showed him a great and terrible truth. The chronometer on his PipBoy, while the month and day had been forever frozen due to the actions of his Overseer all those years ago, the year…oh the year, never ever lied. In 4 digits it read: 2110, 8 years since Reclamation Day, 4 years since Chad had trapped him in cryogenic storage.

SIMON: 4 years…I was in there for 4 YEARS!? Jake! Amata! No….no this can’t be!

DARK: Sprinting, adrenaline silencing stiff joints, he ran past empty cardboard boxes and long dormant Mr. Handy’s, pondering but not stopping on who had smashed them all to pieces. Doors and corridors flashed past, his mind reeling of everything left undone…Vault-Tec. The experiment, the Lazarus Array, and a crime against humanity, a crime now measured in lost time, cold leads, a code key to something he knew not what. But was it too late to do anything to stop them? Ah! The door…just ahead now. A vault door no longer mounted in its housing. It lay in an incongruous heap on the shattering concrete landing. Foul air wafted in, carrying with it an autumn smell of dry leaves, and damp earth.

SIMON: What the hell happened here? This has to be a dream…has to be…a dream.

DARK: The autumn sky was filled with smoke drifting up from below, wide flaking ashes drifted up, caught by the wind. Flakes of it like fallen snow found purchase on his hair, a fleck sticking to his skin, smeared by his hand. He looked down, fingers rubbing the grey soot. He walked out onto the concrete landing toward the rails, and his eyes widened at the sight of a massive burning pyre at Gillman Lumber, or what had ONCE been Gillman Lumber. Echoing up the now treeless hillside towards Vault 76, sharp words cut into the air as cultists danced rhythmically around the impossibly large sculpture licked with flames. Simon fancied it as perverse Christmas tree if it had been conceived by a jacket clad lunatic at the asylum. Fallen trees stacked high, bound by twisting and gnarled vies, the skulls of both animal and human like hung like ornaments to the dark Gods. The chanting stopped and one by one the cultists held great pumpkins over their heads and cast them into the fire.

SIMON: This…this isn’t a dream. This is a fucking nightmare...

SFX: SHUFFLING STEPS.

SIMON: Hello? (pause) Oh….oh shiiittttttt.

SCORCHED #1: Not….us….

SCORCHED #2: You are not us!

SCORCHED #3: Purify! All!

DARK: Simon knew those words, those strained vocal cords, lit with their own burning inner fire. This was a new Appalachia, one in which the Residents of Vault 76 were no longer alone. Things stalk through Appalachia, like ravens of old, harbingers of death…the walking dead, forever on fire, slave in mind and body. You see children, somewhere to the South gathering dust, in bottle of Nuka Cola tainted with blood sat a vaccine never delivered…because there was no left to deliver it. The Scorched Plague had returned with a vengeance. A group of scorched, over a dozen at least were now shuffling up the stairs towards him. These weren’t the scorched he knew. They were trick or treaters from a nightmare, clad in tattered, damp, blood stained costumery. A gathered horde the likes of which carved turnips in the Old World and pumpkins in the New were meant to ward against. These were the all too real demons of Appalachia and Simon had just stepped out into a world they owned. Without word or warning they were upon him, and he was torn…

SIMON: Nope! No! Nope! See yah!

DARK: (annoyed sigh) Fine. Without a word or warning he sprinted down the steps, making for the trees, dodging jagged stumps where old growth forest had once been. Weaponless, he did the only thing he could do…he turned and ran like hell. His eyes darted for a place of safety or at least a weapon to defend himself with.

SIMON: The Red Sloe!

DARK: Yes indeed! The Red Sloe! Just across the covered bridge! The Red Sloe with Jake, Amata…friends and safety. With time, maybe forgiveness? Swallowing his guilt, he beelined for the Red Sloe, its welcoming, warm lights twinkling through the trees. Behind him, the horde of nightmare plague riddled trick or treaters grew ever closer. He plunged into a low, rolling fog as he emerged onto the road, the covered bridge looming like a shadow. But darker still was a shadow emerging from the mouth of it. He skidded to a halt, but so did the horde behind him.

SIMON: …what the fuuuuuuu

DARK: A great black bull, malformed and malignant emerged from the gloom of the covered bridge. Red, coal burning eyes glared at those gathered on the roadway, 2 pairs, deeply set, and red rimmed within two great, festering heads. Its nostrils flared, parting the fog in rippling waves. Great horns jutted out from the sides of its heads, viciously curved pointed ends targeting them on the road. As the great bull smashed its hoof on the

splintering, groaning boards of the bridge, the rest of it came into view. Upon it sat a rider out of time wearing the clothes of another era. It wore bloodstained breeches and rusted buckle shoes, with a threadbare, tattered cloak that waved in the breeze. Upon its head was a leering jack o ’lantern, flickering flames emerging from within its rotting pumpkin innards illuminated the figure in an orange halo of fire.

SIMON: …no….oh nooo…come on…

DARK: Simon spun around to run, but the scorched horde, regaining confidence in numbers…began to advance once more. Behind him, Simon heard a great huff like the exhalation of a great steam boiler, the fog shifting away from the beast. The ox reared back and let out a great, terrible bellow as the rider kicked its sides, drawing a sword from a sheath. It moved with supernatural speed, the ground quaking with each bone crushing fall of powerful hooves. Simon dived to the ground, his hands covering his head.

SIMON: Go away…go away….go away….please go away…

DARK: The sounds that met his hears was a symphony of sword slashing, limb chopping, hoof ribcage stomping fury as the scorched were decimated. When it was over, the rider turned back, the ox huffing. Simon, hands shaking, looked up in wonder and horror. The rider…began to laugh.

SLICK WILLY: (laughing) That got my dander up! You know sonny they say that during sex you burn off as many calories as running eight miles. But you know? Who the hell runs eight miles in 30 seconds?? HOOOOO WHEEEE!

DARK: The rider removed the pumpkin from its head revealing none other than Appalachia’s famous old fart…Slick Willy. Sure….why not?

SLICK WILLY: Hop you didn’t fill your drawers there kid! These scorched get a little bold in numbers but beehive mind or not, when they get a load of this getup and old Babe here they head for the hills!

SFX: OX HUFFS.

SLICK WILLY: Oh, hush Babe! You had your fill of bloodspots. Mind your p’s and q’s or you won’t be studdin’ till Thanksgiving!

SIMON: You’re….I remember you. Slick Willy? Of Slick Willy’s Water World?

SLICK WILLY: You’re darn tootin! Say….you….you’re one of them there Vault Dwellers!!! How did you escape?

SIMON: From the Vault? The door was open.

SLICK WILLY: The Vault! No! From that prison colony!

SIMON: Prison colony? What prison colony?

SLICK WILLY: You best come on home to the Wayward over yonder. Duchess will walk to you…you’re the first Vault Dweller we’ve seen round here in years.

SIMON: Duchess? Wayward? Look fella I’ve been…out of commission for a hot minute. What happened to the Red Sloe? Jake and Amata?

SLICK WILLY: Red Sloe!? That place has been gone for years. Some god darned raiders torched the place. Pity too, that Amata could serve up a mean meat pie boy howdy!

SIMON: Yeah, I’ll bet. Where ARE they???

SLICK WILLY: With everyone else. That Judge rounded them all up in some kind of big, enclosed area off in the Mire. A couple of fool raiders tried to get in the place, but it’s wired for World War 4. Turrets and missile launchers for days.

SIMON: I don’t understand…how did this happen.

SLICK WILLY: Like I said, best you talk to Duchess. She’s a good gal…you’ll like her. The Good Lord put all in the work the day he made her. She’s got a dump truck on her that’ll make you wanna…

SIMON: Yeah…I get it. Let’s go.

SLICK WILLY: You walked on out of that place with no weapons or supplies?

SIMON: Wasn’t much left. It’s been pretty near cleared out.

SLICK WILLY: Well here. You can have my spare. I keep her where it’s warm. My old pipe pistol. I call her the Llama.

SIMON: Did…did you just pull that out of your pants? Maybe you can just find me a stick or broom handle…

SLICK WILLY: Ask me why I call her the Llama…

SIMON: No.

SLICK WILLY: Cuz if you pull her out of britches she spits! HOOOOO WHEEEEEE!

DARK: I…..see. Well…..anyway, Simon pocketed the uncomfortable warm pipe pistol as the glowing lights of the Wayward greeted them. Slick Willy led Babe towards the paddocks, while Simon marched up the steps and went inside.

DUCHESS: Willy? That you hun?

SIMON: Not as such no.

DUCHESS: Well, I’ll be damned….

MORT: No, no…can’t be. What are you? Crater or Foundation? You steal that suit off a corpse?

DUCHESS: Look a little closer Mort, our guest has a Vault 76 PipBoy on him. You can’t just put one of those on you know…

SIMON: Yeah, guilty as charged from Vault 76. Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything but I’m trying to make up for lost time here…

MORT: It’s working! He can find Sol and Polly!

DUCHESS: Mort now we’ve looked high and low…you know by now they’re gone honey. We haven’t had a peep in years…but….maybe you could.

SIMON: Yeah. Look lady…

DUCHESS: (terse) Duchess…

SIMON: Duchess…and you are?

MORT: I’m Mort.

SIMON: Fantastic then. Here’s what you can help me with. I need some information to bring me up to speed and then I’m just going to go. No distractions, no side adventures, I’m not going to go grave digging, or letter carrying, not interested in guarding funny robots, tending corpse flowers, or helping out star-crossed lovers. Everybody clear?

DUCHESS: Crystal.

MORT: What an asshole.

SIMON: Yup. Now…what happened out here exactly. Jake, Amata, everybody…what did the Judge do, when, and how.

DUCHESS: Anything else we can give you free of charge?

SIMON: Less attitude.

DUCHESS: Well, kid, if this were any other day, I’d crack you up side the head with a bottle of our special blend, but you caught me on a good day. Information comes at a price these days, but there aren’t exactly many of us left out there with the Scorched Plague raging. Jake, Amata. Friends of yours?

SIMON: They were a long time ago now.

DUCHESS: You going to bust them out that place?

SIMON: If I can.

DUCHESS: On that, I’ll give you a line of credit. Don’t know how he managed it, but 2 years back it happened all at once. Every one of you Vault Dwellers just up and died. We aren’t exactly sure what caused it, but Roper let slip that he had a hand in it.

SIMON: Roper?

DUCHESS: Leader of the Free Radicals. They came into power and were running things up north, clashing with Crater, but after the Scorched Plague swept through there weren’t enough left on either side of that battleground to keep the fight going. We haven’t heard much out of them in almost a year.

MORT: With any luck the son of a bitch is dead.

DUCHESS: Your lips to God’s ears… Wouldn’t mind getting a hold of one of the cars they got from the Judge.

SIMON: He had working cars?

MORT: Yeah! Payment for services rendered. Showroom new.

SIMON: Is the Judge still operating out of Watoga?

DUCHESS: Vault-Tec City these days. They’ve got that place fully operational and cleaned up. Trade caravans in and out of there…he even got engineers to get the monorail working again for troop movements. But it’s been a good year since we’ve seen any of them guard boys even come out of the city on patrol. Not much left for them to judicate these days.

SIMON: You never got the cure?

DUCHESS: What cure?

SIMON: The vaccine for the Scorched Plague? We all got it. The Responders cracked that ages ago. We synthesized a vaccine…we all did.

MORT: Where??

SIMON: AVR Medical Center. Dr. Claire Hudson had a lab in the basement.

DUCHESS: Mort!

MORT: I’ll get on the horn to the Underground.

DUCHESS: Use encrypted channels. If he finds out, we got our hands on vaccine…

MORT: I know.

SIMON: Underground?

DUCHESS: Was our little resistance once the Judge started flexing his muscle out here, but it all fell apart without a cure or resources. Once those new cultists arrived and started taking territory most of us retreated to bolt holes or smaller, more defendable places to wait…for…something. Anything.

SIMON: Tell me what you know about this prison.

DUCHESS: (chuckles) Calls it Sanctuary Acres. We don’t know much about the layout or what things are like in there. We’ve done some trading and I’ve done my fair share of…entertaining for some of those Judiciary boys, but even they don’t know what goes on in there. They rounded all your people up, packed them on in and we never heard or saw from them again. Been years now…

SIMON: No one’s ever escaped or tried to escape?

DUCHESS: No one. Not ever. That place is sealed up tight as a drum. A while back there was some big fire there, columns of smoke, but we never heard a peep.

SFX: DOOR OPENS. CLOSES.

SLICK WILLY: You get your gal durned hands off me you three limbed blender!

BALDRICK: When I ask questions, I expect answers you unwashed lay about.

SIMON: BALDRICK!

BALDRICK: Master Rex! At last! Hurry! There’s not much time! If your PipBoy is detected all of this will have been for nought!

SIMON: Where’s Dolos?

BALDRICK: He…he’s fallen sir.

SIMON: I see. When?

BALDRICK: When everything went wrong. But not before preparing certain contingencies. Please extend your arm.

SIMON: What are you doing?

BALDRICK: Disabling your PipBoy beacon. Hold still please. There we are then! No beacon. No detection. Come along then young Master! We have work to do.

DUCHESS: And so do we…

SIMON: Good luck with that!

DUCHESS: And you.

DARK: With the Mr. Handy named Baldrick in the lead, Simon stepped back out once more into the column, foggy autumn evening. Just at the end of a walkway idled a Lone Wanderer motorcycle with a bizarre looking sidecar. Metal arms were opened wide from it like the legs of a dead spider. Hurried along, Simon sat instructed on the motorcycle. Baldrick hovered over to the sidecar, the arms clamping into his sides, a conduit slithering into an access port in his housing.

SIMON: Uhhh…I can’t drive.

BALDRICK: No need sir. Hand tight on the handles now. TALLYHO!

SFX: MOTORCYCLE SPEEDS OFF.

DARK: In a puff of smoke and the squealing of tires, the motorcycle rocketed down the roadway to the long abandoned, but not entirely empty halls of the once immaculate Whitespring Resort.

SCENE #4: INT. SANCTUARY ACRES. CHAD’S ROOM.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective and my oh my, it appears that the pumpkin moonshine didn’t agree with our top heavy friend. See him there, thrashing in bed, drenched in sweat, eyes darting below his lids. Have you ever had a bad dream children? You know the kind I mean. Of something unholy slithers from your closet, or an icy, clutching, fetid hand ghosts a long, long finger across your foot sticking out from the blanket? Sure, you have. And just as the creeping horror draws close and you can practically feel its foul breath upon you…you wake up! A scream escapes your lips!

SFX: CHILD SCREAM.

DARK: And the dark fades away, and the familiar sights and sounds of your own bedroom and the bird singing dawn welcome you back to the waking world. That is happening right now to our little friend here as things forgotten but still just there behind locked doors of the mind scream and clawed to be freed. (whispers conspiratorially) And if we’re very quiet, and creep inside his heartbeat thumping ear into a surprisingly empty head we can see just what he’s so frightened of. Ah! Look! Look! A long, dark hallway in an old decrepit house…it appears as if burned. And here comes Chad, strapped into a wheelchair, with a squeaking rusty wheel.

CHAD: Please. Please.

SUSIE: (weird and dreamlike way of speaking this whole time) But everyone is waiting. It’s your big day. We baked you a cake.

CHAD: I can’t see you…stop for a minute and let me see you! Let me see! I won’t tell!

SUSIE: (sing-song) Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, And doesn't know where to find them; Leave them alone, and they'll come home, Wagging their tails behind them. (giggles)

SFX: DOOR OPENS.

SUSIE: Here we are! Look! Isn’t it a nice cake?

CHAD: (terrified) Oh…oh Jesus Christ….no….no…I have to get out of here! I have to get out! LET ME OUT!

DARK: (evil, haunting) And it wasn’t a nice cake. It wasn’t a nice cake at all. The room they had emerged into was a carnival tent, ringed with stands. Cracked, broken and limbless mannequins sat frozen in place, unblinking and smiling at center ring. The cake was a writhing mass of still living bodies and decayed flesh, moaning in torment, lurid light pooling over them from above. As Chad’s eyes watered in terror, he watched as thorned and ichor dripping vines slithered over the three-story stacked high perversion of a cake. The vines squeezed and pulsed, filling wailing mouths, emerging with a wet pop from pleading eye sockets and far more private places. A chorus of agonized wails, barely able to scream from shredded vocal cords filled the room.

SUSIE: Do you like it? We baked it ourselves.

CHAD: (ranting and wailing continue, improv) It’s not my birthday! Let me out! Let me out of this! GO AWAY! I have to go!

SUSIE: Shhhhh! Here he comes! He made it just for you!

DARK: The mass of vines and living flesh quivered and pulsed, a wave of shifting, limb breaking movement travelling up from the bottom layer toward the top. Vines snapped, bodies tumbled and flew apart with a squelching cacophony as a long, terribly thin limb of rippling shadow emerged from the top.

CHAD: Oh, dear God! Please! Please! Let me out!

SUSIE: Only you can do that silly! But you forgot! Mommy says check your nails or no desert for baby! You’ve been a dirty, dirty boy! DIRTY BOY! DIRTY BOY! LOOK AND SEE! COUNT TO THREE!

DARK: A second limb emerged from the cake, and the shadow form arms bent down grasped the sides of tiered mass below it, crushing and silencing the voices where its hands laid purchase. Something was hauling itself up and out, darker than a moonless night, twin tube shapes rising and glinting in the circus lights, slowly turning solid where shadow once had been. Chad thrashed at the chair, but the straps dug in, his skin splitting, blood dripping down to the sawdust floor.

SUSIE: (sing song) Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep, and dreamt she heard them bleating; but when she awoke, she found it a joke, for they were still a-fleeting. Happy BIRTHDAY!

DARK: The mannequins, one by one, burst into flame, crackling, plastic-smoking fire filling the room with orange and red dancing light. Chad felt himself slipping…he was looking into Hell, the Hell of old, the Hell that the ancient masters alone had looked into and laid to canvas. Exquisite agony, torment and the corruption of soul and flesh, perfectly captured in pigment. The mannequins slowly melted, revealing skeletons beneath, jaws dropping open as the great glinting metal tubes cracked with an ear-splitting metallic click. They tipped slowly, deliberately downward until Chad found himself looking into 30 feet barrels of hard, cold metal.

SUSIE: (increasingly Demonic) You should’ve blown out the candles. Should’ve blown out the candles. SHOULD’VE BLOWN OUT THE CANDLESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

DARK: An eardrum piercing boom filled the room, Chad crying out in pain as his hearing was silenced by the concussion. Moving toward him now down the barrels of metal were Vault boy mascots, ringed with fire….getting closer….closer!

SFX: DREAM CUTS OUT

CHAD: (screaming, wakes up) (panting) Jesus Christ…I…I have to….

DARK: His room, his old familiar room. The nightmare already retreating like a swift moving tide. He remembered something important and then…it was gone.

CHAD: (breathing heavy) Well golly, what a whopper of a nightmare.

SFX: KNOCK ON DOOR. DOOR OPENS.

VINCE: Chad? Everything okay son?

CHAD: Yeah Dad! I think so…just a bad dream.

VINCE: Well, turn that frown upside down kid and come on downstairs. Your Mom has bacon on the griddle and flapjacks a flippin’! Come on, you’re gonna need a full breakfast to get your energy up before the big game tonight!

CHAD: Bacon and flapjacks! And fresh maple syrup?

VINCE: Gallons of syrup and mountains of slow melting butter.

CHAD: Oh boy! I’ll be right down!

SFX: OPENS WINDOW

VINCE: (sniffs air) Ah! Smell that?

CHAD: Smell what Dad?

VINCE: Feet crunching leaves, and pumpkins glistening with morning dew. It’s going to be a beautiful day! But you’d best get a move on…you’ll be late for school.

CHAD: I love you, Dad!

VINCE: I love you too son!

SFX: BED SQUEEKS. PANTS ON.

DARK: (sarcasm) Isn’t that just so wholesome boys and girls? (darker) We’ll see what we can do about that presently. (Resumes tone) With bellies full of streaky bacon and syrupy pancakes, Little Chad and his sister Amata hurried down their dirt driveway until sneakers met the cracked asphalt and the long, looping sidewalk shaded by trees. Chad stopped and looked across the street at the now empty staring windows of their neighbor’s home. The front door was still wide open from the night before, the morning dew dampening the linoleum tile just inside the door. This was no longer a home, it was the cursed shell where the unknown had visited and in so doing, became a house no one dared look at. In the days to come, as had happened before, it would be the kind of house people would cross the street to not walk by it and get too close. He turned back to look at their farm, his father’s back to them as he painted over all that remained of Mrs. Smith. Moose trotted up, his football jersey stretched tight, and grass stained.

MOOSE: What’s shakin’ bacon? Hey Amata!

AMATA: My stars Moose! That jersey is disgusting! And it stinks…

MOOSE: It’s my lucky jersey! I haven’t washed it since we won the last game against the Main Street Mountaineers!

AMATA: Yeah, I can tell. Let’s go blockheads! We’re going to be late!

CHAD: You go on Amata. I want to check out the Smith’s place.

AMATA: (shocked) The Smith’s AREN’T the Smith’s anymore! They’re Unnamed! We’re not even supposed to be looking over there.

MOOSE: Unnamed? What happened to Mr. and Mrs. S?

CHAD: Mr. S. just up and vanished and Mrs. S lost it. Was going on and on about those rumors about the disappearances being all true.

AMATA: We are NOT supposed to even be talking about it. LET’S GO!

MOOSE: The house is empty?

CHAD: Yeah. Neighborhood Watch got her.

MOOSE: Well, come on! Let’s go check it out!

AMATA: Chad! No! I’ll tell Dad!

CHAD: You tell Pops and it’ll be the last time I cover for you when you sneak out. I want to find out what the hell happened right across the street…because I don’t want it to happen to us. Don’t you?

MOOSE: Come on! Before someone sees!

AMATA: (sighs) FINE! But I’m coming with you.

DARK: They crossed the street, opened the walkway gate and moved cautiously up to the house. Moose as usual was the first person to enter, sauntering right in as if he’d owned the place. Chad followed and Amata trailed in last in, looking up and down the street to make sure no one had seen them enter. Chad gasped.

CHAD: What on Earth?

MOOSE: Gosh gang! Someone cleaned this place out awful fast.

AMATA: All the furniture is gone! Paintings, rugs, even the lighting fixtures!

CHAD: (sniffs) Smell that?

AMATA: Paint is still wet.

CHAD: Come on…let’s check out the rest of the house.

MOOSE: Hey check this out! Over here in the hall.

CHAD: What is it?

MOOSE: Here…grab hold of this corner here. There’s some loose wallpaper underneath.

SFX: RIPPING.

AMATA: That’s odd…when did they have that wallpaper up?

CHAD: Maybe Mrs. S. couldn’t pick on the right pattern?

MOOSE: There’s more…keep peeling!

DARK: Layer by layer, a single corner of the hallway had over 30 layers of wallpaper concealed beneath a still damp layer of whitewash paint.

AMATA: That doesn’t make sense. After Reclamation Day when our folks were rescued from Vault 76 and settled here, these houses were brand new. Since we were kids, I don’t remember any of these wallpaper patterns…do you?

CHAD: Nope. These were never here.

AMATA: But they were. They are. They’ve been here for a while…look how yellowed the paste is on the back of these.

MOOSE: Looks like we have ourselves a mystery gang. I’ll take Chad and search the basement. Amata, you go check out the bedrooms and kitchen or something.

CHAD: Sounds good dude.

AMATA: Hey! Now wait a minute!

CHAD: And keep it down! We get caught we’ll be in big trouble!

DARK: Little Chad and Moose made their way down the creaking stairs, flicking the light switch a few times before descended, but no light met them.

CHAD: Gosh, someone really cleaned house. They ripped the light sockets right out of the ceiling. Come on!

DARK: Shoes touched concrete that was surprisingly clean, too clean, as if the concrete itself had been freshly poured. There wasn’t so much as a speck of dust in a basement that very much should have plenty to spare.

CHAD: This place is giving me the heeby jeebies! Let’s head on out of here. We need to get to school.

MOOSE: Hang on! Look there is something. Over there in the corner.

DARK: And there was! One artifact that this house had ever been lived in at all. A small paper bag, neatly creased and folded on top.

DARK: Mr. S’ leftover lunch? That’s no clue. Come on! Let’s go already.

MOOSE: Let’s look inside! There might be a bloody hand or something! All that remains of Mister Smith!

CHAD: A bloody hand?? Come off it. So, your big theory is that Mrs. S…what? Chopped up her husband with an ax? Made up some story only to get taken out by the Neighborhood Watch?

MOOSE: Sure. Why not?

CHAD: Bologna!

MOOSE: Okay tough guy, what’s YOUR big theory?

CHAD: I…don’t have one. What I know is that my big ideas and big mouth sometimes get me in over my head and this is one of those times.

MOOSE: Well, you can go look at empty bedrooms with your know it all sis. ME? I’m checking out this bag.

DARK: Purposefully, Moose strode across the concrete floor, his sneakers squeaking. Deftly, he reaches down, carefully unraveled the top of the bag and look inside at…nothing.

MOOSE: (scared) …..Chad…

CHAD: What? What is it?

MOOSE: It’s….nothing.

CHAD: It’s empty?

MOOSE: No! I mean…it’s nothing. This thing…isn’t right. Look?

DARK: And Chad did. And he too saw nothing, not an empty bag, just a black void, darker than a starless night, darker than the deepest well.

CHAD: This isn’t right…what is this thing?

MOOSE: Maybe it’s like…an illusion or something. Like we saw at last year’s fair when Brian was doing his magic act.

CHAD: I don’t think so….

MOOSE: Let me see if anything’s in there.

CHAD: Don’t! Are you crazy! There could be radiation! Or some kind of space cosmic woo hoo or something! Leave it be and let’s get out of here already.

DARK: A curiosity not to be denied, Moose reached into the bag…and kept reaching, until his entire arm, impossibly was inside up to the shoulder.

CHAD: I think I’m gonna be sick…

MOOSE: It’s…weird…it feels…hang on! I got something…it’s….ewww gross it’s wet and squishy.

CHAD: Well, pull it out!

MOOSE: I think it’s a hand!

CHAD: DON’T PULL IT OUT!

DARK: Slowly, Moose’s arm reappeared into view and withdrawing his hand completely from the paper bag they looked down at a football sized chunk of rotting, fetid meat and something that had once been a tomato.

MOOSE: Oh. Well…not a hand then.

CHAD: It’s some kind of cosmic trash can? What kind of stuff was Mr. Smith up to down here?

MOOSE: Search me!

AMATA: (calling down) Hey! We need to get a move on! We’re late!

CHAD: Let’s go. Close it up.

MOOSE: Don’t have to tell me twice!

DARK: Closing the paper bag, once more, they turned and started to walk towards the basement stairs, when they heard the soft plock of paper meeting concrete. Turning around, they saw that the bag had unraveled and tipped over towards them. As their eyes widened in horror, the sound of distant thunder echoed upward from inside the bag.

MOOSE: Oh….

CHAD: Rabbits…

DARK: Before they could move, the bag discharged its contents with the pressure of a firehose, the force pinwheeling the bag across the floor, causing it to leap into the air. Rotting meat of all kinds, vegetables, scrap metal, odds and ends…a junkyard and sewer trap all in one swiftly filling the basement.

CHAD: Go! Go! Run!

AMATA: What the hell is that!

CHAD: Later! Back up the stairs!

DARK: They fled the house, tore across the lawn and all vaulted the white picket fence. Chad spun around to look back at the house when suddenly he was grabbed firmly by the shoulders.

1. WILSON: In a bit of a hurry this morning aren’t we kids?

AMATA: Hey! Let go of him!

MOOSE: Uhhh hey Mr. Wilson! What’s the trouble?

1. WILSON: The trouble? Oh, quite a lot I would imagine. I’ve got you now Chad Lockhart. Trespassing. Meddling in town affairs.

AMATA: Meddling in town affairs? That’s a joke!

1. WILSON: I saw you…all three of you running out of the Smith’s house. Clear as day, clear as a crystal. Yes, all three of you, when you should be at school. We’ll just see what the Mayor has to say about this. Come on! All three of you! We’re heading downtown…

MOOSE: The Mayor? So that’s what this is about…you know Mr. Wilson, far be it from me to speak ill of my elders, but my Dad was talking about you lobbying to get selected for the town planning and zoning board.

1. WILSON: Yes? And what of it?

MOOSE: If you’ll beg the pardon sir, I wonder if your aggressive civic duty isn’t motivated by a certain degree of hopeful personal gain.

1. WILSON: WHAT did you just say to me?

AMATA: He said you’re a brownnoser with a lot more words than a simply farm girl would’ve used MISTER WILSON.

1. WILSON: You kids think you have it all figured out, don’t you? Soon enough you’ll find just how little you really know. Now…march.

MOOSE: Come on gang! I guess we have no choice but to tell the Mayor.

1. WILSON: (laughing) Tell the Mayor? A confession?! Oh, come on kids…put up a little fuss…it’s all the more fun.

MOOSE: No fuss pops! You saw us coming out of the house.

1. WILSON: Yes.

MOOSE: So, you were looking at the house?

1. WILSON: YES!

MOOSE: You heard him gang. Not only was he looking where he shouldn’t be, but he used Unnamed’s name. Come on...we’re all in this together, I guess. Let’s go face the music.

AMATA: Those are serious charges…probably could ruin someone’s chances for a job. Oh well.

1. WILSON: You…how…ohhhh GET OUT! Get out of here! Scram! But mark my words! You’ll all get yours in the end! All of you! ALL OF YOU!

CHAD: Come on!

AMATA: Bye Mister Wilson!

MOOSE: (laughing) See yah later!

DARK: Wind in their hair and time not on their side, they pelted down the sidewalk, two streets, three streets, four streets over, passing the brick storefronts that bordered the town common, past the tall town hall with its bell ringing tower, all the way to chain link fence bordered school. A swish of the big wooden and glass door and then sneakers attempting to not squeak on freshly polished tile and failing to do so.

AMATA: (whispering) For pity’s sake Chad walk quieter!

CHAD: I’m TRYING! Moose and I have sneakers, you have girly loafer things. Rats! First period has started. We go into class now and we’ll be pinched for sure. We need to hide somewhere until class ends and then can just get to next class with everyone else.

MOOSE: Ugh. American Civics with Mr. Williams. He’s such a drip…

AMATA: Where can we go?

MOOSE: I don’t think we can all fit in my locker.

AMATA: I’d rather be Unnamed than be crammed up against you and your smelly jersey for 40 minutes.

MOOSE: There are girls in this school who would jump for the chance.

AMATA: No accounting for taste…

CHAD: Quite you two! Come on! Mr. Fletcher has a back office in the library with nothing in there but some old filing cabinets and junk. No one goes back there.

AMATA: Then how do you know about it?

CHAD: I necked in there with Veronica Miller a few weeks back.

MOOSE: You did? Me too!

CHAD: She gave me one hell of a hickey…

MOOSE: TELL ME about it, she gave me one right on my….

AMATA: GROSS! Let’s go!

DARK: And go they did. Before long they were crouched low, sneaking past Mr. Fletcher, the librarian who was at his desk writing. A slow, quiet opening and closing of the door later and they were in the quiet back office. They pulled out some old blankets, and sat, talking in hushed tones and waited. Moose smirkingly pulled out a concealed flask of his special moonshine and they all sipped, even Amata who clucked her tongue in reproach but drank it just the same. Warm bellies, and with a curious feeling in their heads the minutes ticked past. After a little while, they stopped speaking and listened…to slowly raising voices, an argument. Drawing close to the door, they opened it just a crack, looked out and collectively gasped.

SCENE #5: INT. WHITESPRING RESORT. LOBBY.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: We’ll get back to our friends presently, but first we have an appointment at the Whitespring Resort, whose first guest in a very long time is now pulling up out front. Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective once more. The Whitespring Resort when he had last seen it had been uncharacteristically pristine due to the dutiful nature of the forever regenerating, forever cleaning army of robots. Now, however? The great lawn and gardens by its entrance looked as though…

SIMON: as though someone threw one hell of a Halloween party here and never bothered to clean up.

DARK: (annoyed) I was about to say that bit, but pray continue.

SIMON: What happened here?

BALDRICK: Ah! Mischief Night some troublemaking moved to the Golf Club after clearing it out of some…undesirables and got up to all sorts of trouble. Shortly after (emphasis) The Event, a few of the raiders occupied the resort for a while. A new branch of Responders laid claim to the resort, leading to a rather spectacularly messy battle. In the end they won, and the raiders headed off to Top of the World I believe.

SIMON: Who’s in charge here now?

BALDRICK: Ah. Well, that’s the problem sir. A child. She calls her “Princess”. If we can get past her, we can get to the elevator up to the suite. You’re already a registered guest, so access to the upper stories and rooms is as simple as a hand to the scanner. She “rules” these lower levels.

SFX: DOORS OPEN AND CLOSE.

SIMON: A kid? (chuckles) No problem. I’m great with kids.

1. HANDY: Welcome to the Whitespring Resort! Accessing guest registry. Guest found: Welcome back Lord Rex! Try to enjoy your stay, however hard that may be.

SIMON: What happened to you?

1. HANDY: Whatever do you mean sir?

SIMON: You sound a little…different.

BALDRICK: (quietly) He’s a little….frazzled sir.

1. HANDY: (manic and ranting like original voice actor https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Whitespring_greeter/Dialogue click clips to listen to pacing, tone and delivery) Different? Different? Well sir, YOU’D be different if you had to deal with the absolute MESS those Responders left after taking over. Mud on the floors, dirty footprints on the carpet, dust on tables! It’s been an absolute NIGHTMARE. I filled a formal complaint with Stratford, however he seems to be…not his usual self lately.

BALDRICK: Sir…it’s best if we just go.

SIMON: Okay well anyway, if you’ll excuse me, we’ll just be….

1. HANDY: AND THEN, THEN came last Halloween with all the explosions outside, forks on the lawn, spray painting and buildings on fire! It’s enough to dry a Mr. Handy mad! MAD I tell you!

SIMON: Right…okay….see yah…

1. HANDY: MUD! MUD ON YOUR SHOES TOO! Do you not have any regard for the Whitespring resort?

SIMON: Can you get the hell out of my way and have a breakdown somewhere else?

1. HANDY: And that little BRAT! It’s been nothing but chaos since she’s been here! Constantly causing a ruckus! Riding that Giddyup Buttercup up and down the halls!

SIMON: Oh, you wouldn’t believe what she did on the front lawn.

1. HANDY: What?! What did she do!

SIMON: Oh it’s….wow…such a shame…

1. HANDY: Well! We’ll just see about this! Stratford will get such a formal complaint from me, I can tell you!

SFX: DOOR OPENS. CLOSES.

SIMON: Right. That’s sorted. Come on.

SFX: WALKING.

SIMON: What the hell?

BALDRICK: Yes. She’s walled off the lobby. I’m afraid there is no way to get around. I had to go out the second story window. It was most distressing.

BECKY WATTS: HOLD IT RIGHT THERE SMOOTHSKIN! Did you bring a treat? Or do you want a TRICK?!

SIMON: Oh…uhhh…hi…sweetie. I’m a guest here and just need to get by. Do you think you can let me and my friend in?

BECKY WATTS: Uhhhh I don’t THINK so. You’re not even dressed right.

SIMON: Dressed right?

BECKY WATTS: For Halloween!

SIMON: Oh….yeah I’m a Vault dweller see. Originally Vault 76 Vault Suit and everything.

BECKY WATTS: Where’s your hat?

SIMON: My what?

BECKY WATTS: For that to be a costume you’d need to have that little Reclamation Day hat. That is NO costume.

SIMON: Yeah, I lost it. Are you going to open up or what?

BECKY WATTS: This is MY resort now and I saw if YOU want to get in, you need a real costume.

SIMON: How about you tell me what your Dad dressed like, so I can come up there and smack you upside the head in character?

BALDRICK: Oh yes sir, you’re VERY good with children….this should go well.

BECKY WATTS: How DARE you?! Do you know who I am! Eat snowballs!

SFX: CRYO GUN FIRES SNOWBALLS.

SIMON: Ow! Stop! You little bitch! Right. That’s it. Come on.

BALDRICK: Where are we going?

SIMON: To talk to management.

DARK: Simon and Baldrick drifted down into the once pristine halls of the Whitespring Resort, now cluttered and filthy in such a short time once humans had returned to haunt its halls. Though they no longer remained, the ghosts of their occupation were everywhere. Coffee stains, cluttered slip shod shelving, crates, trash and debris thrown everywhere. Simon wondered what Lord Graul himself, if he were still alive would think of the resort the Aristocrats had once called home. The one open Whitespring Mall was now enclosed by some rickety wooden wall.

SIMON: What is this?

BALDRICK: The Responders put up a wall for some reason sir.

SIMON: Welp…1….2….3!

SFX: FOOT KICKING DOOR. DOOR BLOWS OFF HINGES.

SIMON: I’m not a fan of closed in spaces.

STRATFORD: What’s all this noise then? Ah! Lord Rex! It’s wonderful to have you back at the Whitespring. (sparks) Back at the Whitespring. Welcome to The Whitespring. Deputy Acting Assistant Manager Stratford, at your service.

SIMON: Uhhhh huh. Look Stratford, we’re having trouble with a vagrant upstairs.

STRATFORD: A vagrant? In the Whitespring. Certainly not. It’s clean. It’s clean. It’s clean here. Responders please leave. Responders why are you? Dirty. Why are you ruining everything. Welcome to the Whitespring.

SIMON: Geez…they really did a number on you guys. Stratford, who is currently in charge of the Whitespring Resort?

STRATFORD: As the most senior member of the remaining staff, it is my privilege to oversee operations and guest relations to the best of my ability.

SIMON: But who is in charge?

STRATFORD: I…don’t understand.

SIMON: Yeah, I know. Look, WHO is the owner and purveyor of the Whitespring Resort?

STRATFORD: The managerial and ownership body of the Whitespring Resort fell to the members of the Apocalyptic Aristocracy, the Duke replaced Lord Graul as general manager, however he’s been missing for years now. To both of them the mantle of leadership had fallen after the death of President and CEO Wilbur Ainsley III.

SIMON: Uh huh. Right. And Lord Graul is?

STRATFORD: Dead sir.

SIMON: Uh huh and the rest of the Aristocracy are…?

STRATFORD: Dead or missing…

SIMON: Okay, good and one more question. Who, right now, would be next in line for leadership of the Whitespring Resort.

STRATFORD: I…I don’t….

SIMON: My name is Lord Simon Rex. First born and only son Lord Basil Rex, founder of the Appalachia Trading Company. Member 1st standing AA1 enrolled. Grand Champion of the Black Friday Hunt. I defeated all members of E.A.T.T., I bested 1st hunter Lord Graul in fair combat. I have survived Deathclaws, radiation poisoning, special services from your massage bot. I’ve been shot, choked, poisoned, eviscerated, tortured, and vaporized by lightning on a merry go round from hell. I’ve spent four years in a living nightmare, frozen, unable to move, speak or hear, but was aware of every second that passing in an icy void in a cold so deep in my bones I shall still feel it a long time from now when my body fails me and death finally at last can do something with me. So, I will ask you once more. Who. Am. I?

STRATFORD: You are acting President and CEO of the Whitespring Resort.

SIMON: That’s right. Now. Here’s what I want you to do. Rally the staff, create additional staff if you need to, tear all of this down, burn all the Responder furnishings out back. We’re going to clean house and until further notice, all staff are to treat any and all randos, layabouts, quest givers and passersby as trespassers to be terminated with extreme prejudice. Got it?

STRATFORD: We shall execute your commands with gusto sir!

BALDRICK: But the child upstairs! They’ll kill her sir!

SIMON: (pause) Fine. That’s her treat. Take two Assaultrons and show Princess to the exit.

STRATFORD: I’ll see to it personally sir!

SIMON: Good. Oh, and Stratford…the Vertibird. Leave that be. That’s the only thing they were kind enough to leave behind that can be useful. Come on Baldrick…

DARK: And with that, Simon and Baldrick turned and marched back upstairs just in time to hear Princess being dragged screaming as the wall was torn apart by Whitespring Security.

BECKY WATTS: Hey! Let me go! EXCUSE ME! I live here!

SIMON: Not anymore.

BECKY WATTS: You can’t treat a kid like this!

SIMON: Thanks for dropping by Princess.

BECKY WATTS: Wait until I tell everybody what you did!

SIMON: Alrighty then.

BECKY WATTS: You’re an asshole!

SIMON: I’m trying. Bye bye then. (pause) See Baldrick? Could I have gotten a costume by going on a thrilling Halloween quest, humoring her in order to get through her gate? Absolutely. Was this more efficient? Absolutely. Up we go!

DARK: The elevator slid open and with a clang the metal doors closed. The elevator rose steadily towards the suite where Simon hoped answers would await.

END OF PART 1

BEGINNING OF PART 2

SCENE #6: INT. SANCTUARY ACRES SCHOOL. LIBRARY.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective and find out just what shocked them so. They huddled by the door, looking out into the library. A large painting had swung open to reveal a hidden room. From their angle they could just see TV monitors showing flickering images of their town. No, not just the houses, but inside the houses! Kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, basements and even closets. The raised voices drew their attention back to the gathered figures exiting this hidden room. Their librarian Mr. Fletcher was waving his hands around as Principal Sinclair and Mr. Mayor stood by, a scowl on the former and the forever present unblinking metal Vault Boy smiling face on the other.

FLETCHER: They didn’t show up for class, that’s all I can tell you.

SINCLAIR: To be clear, you’re telling me despite constant 24-hour surveillance, an enclosed community, the Neighborhood Watch and the most advanced security system available in an age where replacement equipment isn’t exactly limitless…you’ve lost him and not just him, his sister and Moose Miller?

MOOSE: Moose Miller?

CHAD: Principal Sinclair must be hitting your still. Didn’t even get your name right.

VAULT-BOY: Well golly Mr. Fletcher, you seem ever so agitated. Say! You know what always puts a smile on my face? An iced cold Nuka Cola from Brian’s Candy Shop!

FLETCHER: I don’t want a soda MISTER MAYOR. I don’t take kindly to insults and accusations.

SINCLAIR: Insults and accusations? Interesting Fletcher. Let’s examine that for a moment. What is your role here?

FLETCHER: I’m a LIBRARIAN.

SINCLAIR: No. Fletcher. That is an incidental function. So, I’ll ask you again slowly so a mind so filled with useless legalese can process it adequately. What is your role here?

FLETCHER: To closely monitor the disruptor elements, the historically resistant and combative.

SINCLAIR: Correct. One the one hand this scheme by the Judge and yourself has met almost every expectation. We’ve returned to planned, orderly, consistent respawn rates and have made significant progress correcting almost all of the errors this experiment was created to ensure were corrected. On the other, some individuals have proven to be either too dull, or chemically resistant to conditioning efforts due to being…drunks and junkies. Chad Johnson is a perfect storm of all three challenges, as are his friends to varying degrees. This is the 8th time in a rotation that has broken routine and this close to Harvestide we don’t need him or his friends causing problems.

FLETCHER: I’m telling you now like I’ve told you the last 7 times, I am not one of your fucking Enclave underlings. I was a District Attorney who is now some kind of glorified covert jailhouse guard. If you don’t like the way I’m doing the job, take it up with the judge.

SINCLAIR: Oh, I have and if you were one of “fucking Enclave underlings”, you would’ve gone to the fields a long, long time ago. As this is still, unfortunately, the Judge’s show as per my superiors that is not a call I take. Mr. Mayor here on the other hand…

VAULT-BOY: Good afternoon! It’s a beautiful day in Sanctuary Acres!

SINCLAIR: Isn’t it just Mr. Mayor? You are my finest creation, the perfect embodiment of the spirit of this once great nation.

VAULT-BOY: Well golly! Thanks Principal Sinclair! Some people get their kicks on Route 66, I get my kicks from 1776! (laugh)

SINCLAIR: (chuckles) Mr. Mayor, our student Chad Johnson is intending on disrupting Harvestide and the Harvest Festival.

VAULT-BOY: Well now that isn’t neighborly! That isn’t neighborly at all!

SINCLAIR: I agree. Would you be so kind as to ensure that he is collected, along with his sister Amata and his friend Moose. Bring them to Somnus Funeral Home.

VAULT-BOY: Oh boy! (laughing) We’ll get them H-A-P-P-Y again in a jiffy!

SINCLAIR: That we will. The Harvest Festival must go off without a hitch. Ensure that it does by any means necessary.

VAULT-BOY: That’s what I’m here for! Directive received and integrated!

MOOSE: He got your name wrong to dude…

CHAD: I…

AMATA: What is it?

CHAD: I dunno. Almost had it…can’t remember now.

SINCLAIR: See Fletcher? Easily handled. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on preparations for the big game.

FLETCHER: There’s one other matter.

SINCLAIR: A few isolated incidents that were swiftly contained. Pine Street was isolated and cleansed.

FLETCHER: But we don’t know what’s causing the contamination. The Neighborhood Watch has had 6 incidents at the cemetery in the last week alone.

SINCLAIR: Incidents that were swiftly handled and the contaminated were simply reset. No fuss at all. Oh, and the Harvest Festival Dance…

FLETCHER: Yeah, I know, I know. Chaperone duty.

SINCLAIR: Wear something festive Fletcher. After all. It’s Halloween!

DARK: With that, Principal Sinclair strode away. Fletcher sighed, turned around and paused. He then tilted his head thoughtfully, closed the hidden door to the surveillance room and walked back to his office, closing the door behind him. Chad and his gang slowly closed the door and stared at one another in wide shock.

AMATA: Chad…what’s going on here?

CHAD: I don’t know sis.

AMATA: How are we going to get home?

CHAD: Can’t go home…they’ll be watching the house. That’s the first place they’ll check.

MOOSE: Come on. Fletcher’s in his office. I want to get a look at that surveillance room.

CHAD: Moose! Come on dude! Wait!

DARK: Before they could stop, Moose opened the door and crouched, moving swiftly towards the portrait on the far wall, keeping one eye fixed on Fletcher’s office door. It remained closed. Chad and Amata darted after him and in a moment, they stood before the great portrait.

CHAD: Moose! We need a plan!

MOOSE: This is it. You got any other bright ideas?

CHAD: Well, no, but…

MOOSE: Then help me figure out how to open this thing.

AMATA: There’s usually a hidden latch or something. Hold on…let me feel….ah! Here we go!

DARK: With a click the painting released. Moose grinned and opened the hidden door wide enough for them to enter. One by one they slipped into the uncomfortably warm surveillance room. The bank of monitors was wider than they had seen, proof positive if had been needed that their idyllic town contained very little in the way of privacy. Chad’s eyes widened at a scale model in the center of the room.

CHAD: This is the entire town! The wall and everything.

AMATA: Look here at the cemetery. What do these numbers mean? There’s so many.

CHAD: Search me. This is weird…what is going on here? What are they hiding?

MOOSE: Hey! Check it out! It’s Nurse Bixby’s bathroom. She’s getting in the shower!

CHAD: What a rack…hey dude does this have a zoom…

AMATA: Chad! What’s gotten into you lately?

MOOSE: Well Amata, at our age your body starts changing…your voice deepens…

CHAD: Your balls drop.

MOOSE: And you may find yourself taking interest in certain features in potential mates. We call this time, pollen season, when busy little bees get together with delicate flowers…

CHAD: And deflower them. (laughs)

MOOSE: Good one bro!

CHAD: Yeah. I know.

AMATA: God you two are so annoying lately. Hey! Look at this.

CHAD: Hey Moose, gimme some more of that moonshine. That stuff is lit. What is it sis?

AMATA: It’s a PipBoy! Just like the ones Mom and Dad had back in the vault! I always wanted one…

CHAD: So, take it. Five finger discount.

SFX: SCHOOL BELL RINGS

MOOSE: Next period!

AMATA: Okay genius. So, with everyone looking for us, how are we supposed to lie low?

MOOSE: Uhhh…huh. I dunno.

AMATA: Hey! I got an idea! The drama society has a whole prop closet of costumes. We pop on a costume and with everyone getting into the spirit for the big game tonight with masquerade masks, we can stroll on by with no one the wiser!

CHAD: Well, hang on! What about the game!

AMATA: That’s not a bad idea. But what are we supposed to do AFTER that?

CHAD: We’ll figure it out! Promise.

AMATA: Okay, but how Chad! They’re watching the house. Mom and Dad are going to freak out if we don’t come home.

MOOSE: Well…hell, Principal Sinclair said we were going to cause trouble. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do. I’m betting folks around here won’t be none too pleased if they find out someone’s been playing peep show on them.

AMATA: Sure okay, but how?

MOOSE: We’ll tell them. Town Hall has a broadcast tower. We’ll tell everybody tonight when they’re home waiting for the broadcast like always.

CHAD: Well, hang on, what about the big game? I’m quarterback!

AMATA: Well, YOU should’ve thought about that before going inside that house.

CHAD: I didn’t see anyone twisting your arm SIS.

AMATA: Oh, can it meathead!

CHAD: Pancake tits!

AMATA: Toilet wrecker!

CHAD: You’re goddamn right! You gotta punish that bowl!

MOOSE: Will you two quiet down! Fletcher will hear! Guess we’re benched bro.

CHAD: (mumbles) That toilet knows what it did…

MOOSE: Come on!

AMATA: Hang on! Trying to get this PipBoy on. Think I have to…a little snug.

SFX: PIPBOY BOOTING UP.

CHAD: What’s it doing?

AMATA: Turning on I guess…! Yeah, this thing is too snug. I (struggles to get it off) I…can’t…I can’t get it off!

MOOSE: We’ll figure it out later! Come on! Let’s go scare up some costumes!

AMATA: It’ll be hours before the big game starts…

CHAD: Principal Sinclair said something about Pine Street. Let’s head over there. It’s forbidden so it’s not like anyone will just be strolling around.

AMATA: Yeah, everyone except maybe Neighborhood Watch.

DARK: And with that, they swiftly exited the room, closed the hidden door and darted out into the crowded hallway, getting lost in the sea of students, ducking to avoid security cameras. They didn’t see Fletcher’s door, which had now been opened…slowly close shut as they left the library.

SCENE #7: INT. WHITESPRING RESORT. WEST TERRACE SUITE.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as the elevator door opens unto a hallway.

BALDRICK: This way. The West Terrace Suite! Allow me sir…

SFX: KEYCARD IN DOOR. DOOR OPENS.

SIMON: Jesus Christ on a jetpack…now this is a room.

DARK: And it was! Plush green carpeting and rich red wallpaper, heavily draped windows with the late afternoon light drifting in, dust motes dancing in the air. The heavy, plush furniture had been pushed to the side and a great hexagon shaped table had been placed in the center. Upon it, file folders and holotapes, piles of circuit boards, three computers whirring away. A power armor frame stood in the far corner near a ticking computer bank on wheels.

SIMON: What is all this?

BALDRICK: Yours now master. Yours to finish. He left a note for you and you alone. Behind the mirror just there, didn’t dare leave a holotape that anyone else could find.

SIMON: Dolos did?

DARK: Simon walked to the mirror, gently taking it down from the wall revealing a pocket with Whitespring stationery tucked into it. He pulled out the pages, stared down at the swirling script left by Dolos the Archivist and began to read.

SIMON: Well, my boy, if you’re reading this now it means that despite, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men, I’ve met an unplanned and frankly pretty untimely death. At the very least I hope it was doing something vaguely heroic, and if so, that at least it can balance the scales for a time long before you met me that one autumn morning in Point Pleasant. I know you have questions, and I wish I had all the answers. I’ve been in Appalachia before and failed to act then, and perhaps if I had instead of running away things would’ve played out differently here. You have at this point I imagine enough of the pieces to put together much of the puzzle…the Lazarus Experiment, the lie of Appalachia, all of it. What you don’t know is that yes, while Vault-Tec was pulling the strings from the shadows all along they were doing so on behalf of a far, far more terrifying entity: the Enclave. Now before you balk, the all too very real is less charming than the crazy computer downstairs here that you all have roleplaying for. The Enclave can and will kill every one of you, burn Appalachia to ashes and hide all that they’ve done here. They’re after something they very much need to win a war that as far as they

are concerned never ended. A war of ideas, a war of superiority, a war to ensure that only the chosen, the strong and the right sort of people survive and thrive in the next chapter of empire on this sad little world. To do that, they need an empire that will never die, an empire held in place by the practically immortal pillars on which they will be it. They need what you all possess, they need it perfected. To do that, I’m sorry my boy, I really am…they need you all to keep fighting, keep dying. And they’re getting close, so very close to getting what they want. We cannot let them. We can’t let them win. Their power is the shadows they have hidden in for the last quarter century. We will drag them into the light, tell everyone everywhere who they are, what they’ve done here and bring this experiment to an end. If I’m gone it means it falls to you. All of it and for that I’m really and truly sorry. I knew what you’ve been through, how rage, grief and anger have shaped you. Now is the time to USE that, but you cannot do it alone. I was able to glean a significant amount of information from Sugar Grove and Vault 51 and though it’s taken a lot of time to unpack and decrypt I’ve found a few things that will help you. Baldrick will know what to do, you can trust in him as I always have. Remember what I told you. You’re always a villain in someone’s book and there will be many if not most who will not appreciate this experiment ending and death being a permanent thing, but I want you to know that I’m proud of you. Any fool can be a hero. Heroes often very much are fools. Villainous acts and heroic acts are not mutually exclusive. It’s a matter of perspective I suppose…but time grows short. We’ve received word through spy contacts that the Judge is moving on Appalachia. Oh! And enjoy the suite! It’s now yours and if you’re half as clever as I think you are, I would imagine the mantle of Duke that I’ve worn as a disguise for my activities here will fall to you. One last thing…you can’t do this alone. They have an army. You know what that means. Good luck, Dolos.

DARK: Despite himself, Simon watched as a tear splashed to the page, smudging Dolos’ name.

BALDRICK: What do we do now sir?

SIMON: Let’s see what he left us…heyyy…this is promising. Yeah. You downloaded everything from Sugar Grove yeah?

BALDRICK: Yes sir.

SIMON: Do you have the blueprints for this?

BALDRICK: I do sir.

SIMON: Perfect! You heard what he said. They have an army. So, let’s make one of our own. Come on!

BALDRICK: Where are we going?

SIMON: Downstairs. It’s been a hot minute since I had a very long conversation with a creepy ass computer.

SCENE #8: EXT. WHITESPRING RESORT. WEST TERRACE SUITE.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective as a skeleton, a witch and the Pint Sized Slasher creep through the backyards of Sanctuary Acres, darting from clothesline to clothesline, at last, hopping over the tall hedges that bordered the eerily empty, forbidden Pine Street.

MOOSE: This is giving me a case of the screaming woohoo’s Street is completely deserted.

AMATA: Yeah…no. I’m out. Big empty street, not a person in sight? I’m going to sneak home and let Mom and Dad know what’s going on.

CHAD: Are you off your rocker?! You’ll be pinched for sure!

AMATA: Nah, at this point I know all the best routes to sneak in and out. Trust me! I’ll get Mom and Dad and we’ll meet you guys at the Town Hall as soon as kickoff happens.

CHAD: Okay fine! But be careful!

AMATA: Yeah yeah!

CHAD: Come on! Stay low….let’s take a peek in a few of the houses. I want to know what exactly needed to contained.

DARK: Jogging towards one of the first houses, they opened the white picket fence gate and slowly advanced on the house. On the porch, a freshly carved pumpkin was lit, Halloween cutouts of snarling black cats, witches on brooms and leering skeletons were plastered to the front window. Cotton cobwebs ghosted in the breeze, moving as if to beckon them closer.

CHAD: You know what dude…you go first.

MOOSE: No, no dude it’s all you.

CHAD: Flip for it?

MOOSE: No bottlecap. Chug for it? Last of the moonshine?

CHAD: Uhhh…okay. But if I choke on that stuff and it cooks my nostrils, I’m going to give you a beating.

SFX: CHUGGING.

MOOSE: (coughing) Ah God! That’s the good stuff…

CHAD: I can beat that…gimme that.

SFX: CHUGGING.

CHAD: (coughing) Fair is….oh God….I’m gonna…nope…nope…I’ve got it. (coughing) Fair is fair. You first!

DARK: Moose opened the door and stepped inside. The house was well lived in. Books on the shelves, a new radio in the corner by the fireplace. A high back chair with doilies on the arms held a single packed pipe, ready to be lit. On the other side of the fireplace, a fussy, frilly pink chair had a magazine caddy overflowing with cooking and housekeeping magazines. Puzzled, they walked to the kitchen, a table fully set for dinner. One the stove, pots filled with water were ready to be boiled, frying pans already oiled were ready for sizzling. The air was clean, fresh, the scent of fresh paint and wallpaper paste followed them wherever they went.

MOOSE: This is really fucking weird. The house is like…

CHAD: Like it’s waiting for people to move in. Look at all this stuff. It’s all new, everything’s clean…there’s no dust anywhere. These magazines have never even been opened. What the hell is going on here dude? Where is everybody?

DARK: They quietly exited by the back door and entered the house next door, greeted by the same newness, the same freshness. Vague unease had now turned into full blown panic for them both. This street was wrong. This street was waiting. And they decided not to be around when people returned here. At the end of the block, they tucked in close to a grove of trees where the backyard had been turned into a spooky cemetery. Wooden crosses and cardboard zombie cutouts jutted up from the ground. It was so perfectly kitsch and tacky that it should’ve been laughable, and yet at the end of the street where no one ever lived, the late afternoon sunbathed the entire scene in a red hued glow.

MOOSE: I’ve seen enough, let’s get out of here man!

CHAD: Nah wait dude…what…the hell…

MOOSE: What?

CHAD: Look at this…

DARK: Deeply carved into one of the trees were two names in a heart, an act that he’d only done not many days since with MaryAnne behind the Lockhart farm. This one however, unmistakably said, “Chad loves Patsy”.

MOOSE: Patsy??? She’s such a nerd! When did you date her?

CHAD: I haven’t! I don’t remember carving this…and I certainly wouldn’t done it in someone else’s backyard. But that’s….it’s mine….the way I carve my name….I don’t….wait!

DARK: Chad ran through the Halloween graveyard, kicking aside cardboard zombies and wooden crosses. He tore open the screen door, running down the hall to one of the bedrooms. Prying a fingernail under the wallpaper he peeled. One layer, two, five layers and then stopped. His eyes widened.

MOOSE: Hey! What are you raging about man?

CHAD: That wallpaper. It’s the same as the one I have at home in my room. It’s my favorite, always been my favorite.

MOOSE: So what? I’m sure lots of people have it. It’s not like we have tons of variety out here.

CHAD: Maybe…but that’s some coincidence.

DARK: Just then, voices drifted in from the open window, voices that were getting closer. Peeking over the windowsill, they saw soldiers in black and tan, guns drawn, escorting scientists pushing people in wheelchairs down the street towards them. Just beyond the street itself had tipped up as if it were on a great pivot, revealing a long dimly lit corridor that descended down below the street.

CHAD: Dude what the fuck…

DARK: The people being wheeled down the street, parked curbside in front of homes all were smiling but their faces frozen, their eyes unblinking. Every house, one by one, a father, a mother, a boy and girl, or no children at all. Chad and Moose watched as each scientist whispered into the ear of each person and a moment later, the person stood on command. The scientists retreated, wheelchair wheels wobbling loudly as they talked excitedly amongst themselves. The soldiers scanned each house before they too broke ranks and followed them back into the street corridor. With a klaxon noise, the people in unison began marching towards the houses. Asphalt grinded and gears whined as the street pivoted back down into position.

MOOSE: Come on! They’re coming in! We need to get out of here!

DARK: They ran back through the house and out the back door just as the front door opened and a boy, girl, a man and a woman entered. Diving into shrubbery, Chad and Moose looked back as they all sat woodenly down at the kitchen table. Still frozen, they moved no more, awaiting something…the boys knew not what.

CHAD: Dude what?

MOOSE: Who were those soldiers? Why does our town have secret tunnels?!

CHAD: You think it’s military? Like in our comics? Wait! Maybe it’s a top-secret communist base! Yeah! That would explain all the surveillance stuff.

MOOSE: Communists?!

CHAD: Yeah, you know! My pops said there was all sorts of spy rings and stuff here in America before the war! We could have a base right under our feet, and we’d never know the wiser.

MOOSE: But the war’s over!

CHAD: Maybe not! What if…what if they’re replacing us!

MOOSE: Replacing us?

CHAD: Yeah, like with communist clones!

MOOSE: Dude! YEAH! That’s got to be it! But wait…what about all the weird stuff with that paper bag! That’s not normal! That’s some sci-fi cosmic horror shit right there!

CHAD: Maybe….they’re from outer space!

MOOSE: Aliens?!

CHAD: Yeah dude! Killer Communists from Outer Space!

MOOSE: Holy shit! We’ve got to warn everyone before it’s too late!

CHAD: Come on man! Big game should be starting soon. Everyone’s going to be headed to the football field. We need to get home and warn our folks!

DARK: Fists and legs pumping, the skeleton and the Pint Sized Slasher dashed through the woods behind Pine Street. In each house, one by one lights came on, but still the people sat…perfectly still. Patient….patiently waiting.

SCENE #9: INT. WHITESPRING RESORT. ENCLAVE ACCESS DOOR.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as he and Baldrick head down a dead end corridor, shoes squeaking on tile as the din of renovations or rather clean up operations filled the echoing halls of the resort.

SIMON: Should be….ah! Here we are.

BALDRICK: I don’t understand sir. It’s a dead end.

SIMON: Not entirely. Watch.

DARK: Simon pressed his hand to a handscanner panel in the wall. With a click and whoosh of hidden gears, the wall panel slid back and open, revealing a hidden entrance.

SIMON: Voila! Come on Baldrick. Time to meet an irritating old friend.

DARK: Simon and Baldrick went down corridors and staircases until at least they entered a large computer room overlooking massive memory cores. On pedestals a green hued pixelated face looked back at them with disinterest. This was the heart of the new empire that as yet would not come to pass, the shadow government that grew in the cloakrooms and parking garages of the Old World. The Enclave. And all of it, was supposed to be controlled and operated from here…that is, before plans were changed…

MODUS: (our version of MODUS…he speaks annoyingly slowly and disjointedly, like in the game) Ah…what do we have here?

SIMON: Yeah, it’s me again. Got a little sidetracked.

MODUS: You should proceed to Camp McClintock, member. We doubt you'll find much use for this space until then.

SIMON: What? I’m a General already. How do you think I got in here.

MODUS: You did wipe your feet before you came in, yes?

SIMON: Are you feeling alright? Your vocal pacing seems slower than usual and not at all irritating.

MODUS: Welcome member.

SIMON: Yeah, we did that bit already.

MODUS: We…are MOODUS. (emphasis on MOO)

SIMON: What? Who is we? You’re MODUS, not MOODUS. What happened to you?

MODUS: Before the Great War, politicians from all over the United States would attend political conventions at the Whitesprings Resort. In actuality, the real gathering of great men was held down here…below ground…away from their wives and families.

SIMON: I’m just going to sit down…this conversation is going to take forever. Is there like…a skip button somewhere on your screen. I’m busy and yeah, I know perfectly well what you are and what this place is.

MODUS: Down here, we would play games. Pour spirits and entertain these great men with topless dancers and athletic matches on oversized television screens.

SIMON: (laughing) Are you joking? Look I know it’s been a few years, but did someone hack you or something?

MODUS: Here, great decisions were made while intoxicated and questions of the age were asked. When war broke out, this place became a haven. The wheels of the government continued to turn in this hidden sanctum of masculinity. Unfortunately, 5 years after the final apocalyptic day, the buffalo wings dispensers failed, as did the automatous beer kegs. These great men tore each other apart. We were forced to take action. We have been waiting for another Great Man to enter ever since.

SIMON: …you done now?

MODUS: We are MOODUS and this is the Mancave.

SIMON: No, you are MODUS.

MODUS: We are MOODUS.

SIMON: No MODUS. Say Mo…

MODUS: Mo…

SIMON: Now say Dus.

MODUS: Dus.

SIMON: Now say MODUS.

MODUS: MOODUS.

BALDRICK: Sir, it appears that several of its cores out there have failed, and someone may have altered its personality subroutines.

SIMON: Strippers and kegs? (sigh) Hey, Cybil…did a top-heavy jock come down here for a bit and mess around?

MODUS: Accessing internal maintenance logs. User: General Johnson last logged on January 18th, 2104. He made use of the recreational facilities and modified several Assaultrons for a unique purpose. Would you like MOODUS to summon them and commence Pickle Tickle Tuesday? We still have tacos available in the commissary…

SIMON: Fucking Chad. Look bytes for brains, we need a satellite scan of the Mire. Topographic overlay and live feed with a tactical assessment of enemy forces and security measures.

MODUS: We are unable to comply. Surface communication channels have been severed.

SIMON: What? Where?

MODUS: Junction T 11. Your quest should you choose to accept it, is to locate the fault junction box. Once there, place a repair beacon on the terminal. A Whitespring Repair eyebot will be dispatched. It will take approximately 20 minutes to repair. We will require you to guard the eyebot from waves of mutated horrors while it does its work. Failing to protect the repair bot during its task will result in a failed quest.

SIMON: (laughing) Yeah no. Baldrick you can transmit a message to the Whitespring network yeah?

BALDRICK: Yes sir.

SIMON: Have Stratford allocate a repair eyebot and 6 Assaultrons at junction T11 for immediate repairs.

BALDRICK: Sending message. Message sent. Stratford has been assigned a security detachment as instructed.

SIMON: Fantastic then. Come on, let’s get you hooked up to MODUS and see if you can repair his core memory…or at the very least rollback Chad’s “improvement”.

BALDRICK: Yes sir!

MODUS: Please stand for our national anthem.

(singing) Tits out for the boys.

Tits out for the boys.

Say what? Say what?

SIMON: (sighs) God damn it…before we get started, let’s find ourselves a workbench.

DARK: After spending some time in the Production Wing, Simon and Baldrick entered Modus’ core and with a few sparks and some crosswires, Baldrick began guiding Simon through some repair work. Slowly, but surely, the red damaged cores changed to blue just as Baldrick reported that the surface connections were repaired.

BALDRICK: The repair eyebot is ready to reactivate the junction sir. During repair work they detected 3rd party access to the surveillance network.

SIMON: The Judge?

BALDRICK: Most likely sir.

SIMON: I’m not thrilled about alerting him to our presence before we’re ready, but we don’t really have a choice. Are we ready Baldrick?

BALDRICK: Ready sir. To fully rollback changes and allow MODUS memory core access we’ll need to fully shut down and upon reboot, its systems will revert to their original start-up mode. The facility will go offline briefly.

SIMON: Okie dokie. MODUS we’ve repaired your damaged cores and are reinitializing your program.

MODUS: Members, please join us in the lounge Friday evenings for keg stands and feet tickling…

SIMON: God damn it…shutting down. Stand by.

SFX: SWITCHES THROWN. CORES POWER DOWN.

SIMON: Activate the junction.

BALDRICK: Junction T11 activated. You can turn the circuit breakers back on now sir.

SIMON: Powering back up.

MODUS: (weird burbling language) Initializing. Vault-Tec Multi-Operation Directions and Utility System v1.2a, a Poseidon Energy Star Ally. Copyright 2074, Vault-Tec Corporation, Inc. serial number 401A01-0207. Neural networking status. Nominal. Core memory nodes test: OK. Initializing Plug and Play Cards….PMP Initialization Completed. Detecting primary data drives….Press F4 to skip. Press Delete to enter setup.

SIMON: Does this go on for a while orrrrr?

MODUS: VaultRAR Memory Compression software trial expired. Would you like to register?

BALDRICK: NO!

SIMON: NO!

MODUS: Boot up sequence in progress. Detection Suppression System: Active. Automation Status: Live. Primary Connection CB_002_WHITESPRING. Data restoration complete. (pause) Welcome back General.

SIMON: Okay finally…

MODUS: Please stand by…new memory nodes detected. Attempting memory recovery…

SIMON: Oh, come on! Let’s get on with this already.

MODUS: Memory restoration in progress. It appears as though unknown forces have severed our surface communication. Your assistance in restoring them has been most satisfactory. Scanning recovered data. Please stand by. Primary objective file located CB_002, Whitespring Congressional Bunker. The Enclave’s mission is to re-establish governmental control of America in the event of total nuclear annihilation. MODUS’ primary objective is to assist the President of the United States, members of Congress and the Cabinet and ensure continuity of the US government. The President never arrived here. Accessing Archival Entry…10.23.77. Launch Detected. Cabinet Warning Issued. President Proceeding to PR_002, Poseidon Oil Rig. Unplanned deviation from primary objective. Running CB_002 Connection Diagnostic: Silo Alpha, read-only. Status active. Silo Bravo, read-only. Status active. Silo Bravo, read-only. Status active. Raven Rock Rock. Error. Poseidon Oil Rig. Error. Scanning additional connection. Helios One. Error. Ocean Song. Error. Cronos. Error. Suspending connection search. PoseidoNet network connections terminated…10.23.77. Attempting reconnection. (pause) Failed.

SIMON: Are you done yet? My tacos are getting cold.

MODUS: Scanning Whitespring Surveillance Recordings. (pause) Oh. I see. You. You are NOT a General.

SIMON: Sure I am. Did the obstacle course bullshit and everything. That’s me, General Simon Rex. Now, here’s what I need…

MODUS: In our confused and damaged state, it appears that many of you have played this facility’s military operations system. Your commendations are hereby rescinded. Your access to this facility has been revoked. Intruder alert.

BALDRICK: Sir!?!

SIMON: I figured it would go this way. MODUS, if you’ll turn your attention to the device at my feet and cross reference Sugar Grove Project File EX-72. Can you identify it.

MODUS: (annoyed) Yes. EX-72. Codenamed PULSAR.

SIMON: Top marks. A tactical electromagnetic pulse generator biometrically synced to my PipBoy here. In the event that I say, stop breathing, this device will deliver a pulse right in the heart of this facility and ensure that you stop thinking.

MODUS: What are your intentions?

SIMON: Assistance and a moment of your time now that you have all of your marbles…that my friend and I were kind enough to restore I’d like to add.

MODUS: Consideration of assistance will be determined by what assistance is required. Speak.

SIMON: Firstly, reconnect to the KOVAC-MULDOON and run a cursory scan of Appalachia. Toss that up on the monitor in the Communications Wing. While you do that, I’m going to eat this taco and mosey on over there. Come along Baldrick!

SFX: EATING NOISE.

BALDRICK: Sir, I don’t trust him…he seems a little…aggressive.

SIMON: Trust isn’t necessary, but mutual benefit and understanding. You’ll see in a moment. You know I know this canned spiced beef is well passed the expiration, but I don’t care. This is delicious.

MODUS: Connection complete. KOVAC-MULDOON responding. Signal coming through loud and clear….what in the name of…look at them all. Freaks. They’re….everywhere. Appalachia is infested. What are those things?

SIMON: I’m glad you asked bubbles. Those are scorched, ghouls, and irradiated cryptid horrors. You’ve been cut off for two years, and in those two years, the scorched plague returned with a vengeance. Even with outside help from non-military personnel like myself helping you triangulate so you can reign down cleansing fire from on high, to deal with a circus of mutant horrors such as this will put one hell of a dent in the payload of your little toy in orbit, correct?

MODUS: We…do not have unlimited armaments. We estimate it would take…5 years for eradication efforts.

SIMON: Five years…long time. Look, I have no idea why the President didn’t end up here and it stands to reason if they cared about this facility at all they would’ve come knocking already. Proof positive of that by the way if you’ll turn your eye to the southeast of the map if you please…

MODUS: It appears that Watoga has been repopulated. Identifying markings….identified. Vault- Tec Corporation insignia.

SIMON: Right-o. Now take a look on the landing pad there. What do you see?

MODUS: That is a Vertibird….enhancing image…weathering inconsistent with region. Condition: near pristine. Enhancing tail registration. Record found: X-2107. Origin asset: Raven Rock.

SIMON: Yup. Raven Rock did come calling, but not for you. And they’ve been here for a few years already, along with an expeditionary force of the Brotherhood of Steel whose numbers have been decimated somewhat by the plague and skirmishes with the Judiciary Guard, but they’re still nonetheless a danger to technology that they cannot reclaim or exploit. So, what do you think they’ll do when they discover you’re just sitting here, the ultimate archive of pre-war technology with command/control and manufacturing capabilities?

MODUS: We…see your point. How can we be of assistance.

SIMON: See Baldrick? Mutual benefit and understanding. We need a satellite scan of the Mire. Topographic overlay and live feed with a tactical assessment of enemy forces and security measures.

MODUS: In the spirit of….partnership. Mutual benefit and understanding cannot exist under threat, General Rex.

SIMON: Fair enough. Baldrick, scrap the EMP.

BALDRICK: But sir…I don’t think we should…

SIMON: Baldrick!

BALDRICK: Yes…sir.

MODUS: Your consideration is…appreciated. Scanning…the Mire. Do you require additional sustenance?

SIMON: Keep those tacos coming. Now…let’s see what the Judge has been up to…

SCENE #10: EXT. LOCKHART FARM.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective as he and Moose split up to warn their folks as loudly as possible that…

CHAD: MOM! DAD! IT’S KILLER COMMUNISTS FROM OUTER SPACE! We’ve got to tell everyone before it’s too late!

DARK: The farmstand empty, Chad raced into the house. His father was sitting at the kitchen table, his mother was at the sink, washing dishes. On the windowsill, another pie was cooling, the radio crackled an odd static, a song he couldn’t place just faintly in the background crackle of the white noise. His father put down his cup of coffee and looked at him, scowling in anger.

VINCE: Son….

CHAD: Dad! There’s something wrong here! Really wrong!

VINCE: You never showed up at school today! Care to explain that?!

CHAD: We went across the street! I know we’re supposed to! But that house Dad…someone’s repainted and cleaned it out since last night. We found a bag in the basement that….can’t exist. We got to the school and Moose, Amata and I found this secret room in the school library!

OVERSEER: This is all my fault for letting them read those comics. Should’ve known better. Mabel warned me.

CHAD: They’re all in on it Dad! Principal Sinclair, Fletcher the Librarian, even the Mayor! And Pine Street! Dad, you wouldn’t believe it!

VINCE: Son…would you mind…

CHAD: Pine Street! It’s….messed up Pop! These scientists and soldiers came out of the street with these puppet people! They all look like someone had reached in and sucked out their brains! They didn’t look right…it’s communists Dad! KILLER COMMUNISTS! FROM OUTER SPACE!

VINCE: ENOUGH! Your Principal was over here, and you and your sister have been SUSPENDED!

OVERSEER: I have never been more embarrassed in my life…

CHAD: Suspended!? But that’s….that’s not IMPORTANT right now Dad! He’s in on it! I’m telling you! Ask Amata! You don’t believe me? Ask her! AMATA!

VINCE: Your sister is grounded as you will be. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but it ends now. Your mother’s upset, Mr. Wilson is breathing down our necks and this is just the sort of ammunition that can get this farm shut down. We don’t OWN those fields! You know that! The town gave us the privilege of farming them, they can take that away and then where will be?

CHAD: I know Dad but PLEASE you have to listen to me! I’m telling you something is going on!

VINCE: No, you listen! You’re grounded mister!

OVERSEER: (dead, creepy, lacking emotion) I have never been more embarrassed in my life…in my life….in my life.

DARK: Let us pause briefly children because I want to take you to school. You know, the mind and the senses are a funny thing, but far more fascinating is the truth about how you don’t perceive the world as it really is. Right now, as you are reading these words or perhaps staring off into space hearing mine, your field of vision conceals a blind spot. It’s a small patch of retina called the optic disk, devoid of any perceptors in which to share with the brain and it’s not inconsequential. This lack of visual input from reality is the width of nine harvest moons in the heavens. It’s there, right in the center of your visual field, and yet you don’t perceive that it’s there. Before the modern era of science answered the how’s and wherefores’, it had always been a historical curiosity to many learned men of the ancient world just how the mind compensates for this void. The vengeful King Charles II as he rounded up and had all 31 of the still living judges responsible for the execution of his father, made a game of making their head disappear into his blind spot as he watched them hanged, drawn and quartered. A few centuries later and a little to the north, one of the pioneers in the study of optics was a Scottish Victorian physicist named Sir David Brewster who was equally fascinated by this question. While you likely don’t know the name, chances are you’ve played with one of his little toys at some point in your life: the kaleidoscope. He was fascinated and puzzled that despite there being a dark void in our vision, it is somehow filled in. He ascribed this mysterious act of filling in this void to God, the “Divine Artificer”. Charming, eh kids? As if to think HE could be bothered with making sure you can see to avoid stumbling and impaling yourself on something sharp. You see, we know now that the marvel of

evolution that is the human brain extrapolates, making fully automatic unconscious assumptions about what SHOULD be there and simply fills in the void. In point of fact, the vast majority of what you perceive to be reality and the world around you are largely an illusion, the information your optic nerve feeds to your brain a pittance to the scope of reality itself. Every day, the smiling face and pulse quickening shapely figure your eyes dart lustily for, the stacks of money, gainful pleasures and treasures, the sappy softness of the setting sun are merely the set dressing theatrical educated guesses of your silly little brain. (pause) Now let me paint for you in prose the scene of the Lockhart farm as it REALLY was, Chad’s blind spot and dim-witted mind only now, far too late for action was beginning to see things as they truly were.

VINCE: (Emotionless, slow and creepy) You’re grounded mister!

DARK: A chill ran up Chad’s spine. He shifted his gaze to his father’s shirt, a coffee stain, long since set in discolored the plaid pattern, interspersed with darker flecks. For the first time he noticed that his father’s gaze wasn’t locked at his own, it was unblinking and fixed at the Vault-Tec calendar on the wall by his shoulder, the corner of his mouth sagging downward, muscles twitching. Panic bubbled up in his throat, a primal instinct screaming at him to see! TO SEE! A green fungal tinge on the top of his father’s hands and just peeking up from his shirt collar. An empty coffee urn on the floor, its contents long since cooled on the linoleum tiles. Eyes darting to the window…his mother still washing the same dish, the same dish…water running but her hands…her HANDS, wrinkled from being all too long in the stream of water, greasy green residue smearing the plate as something moved underneath her shirt sleeve ever so slightly. Instinct screamed RUN. Something was wrong…THEY had done something to his parents…but he can’t let them know.

CHAD: (nervous, voice quivering) You’re…right Dad. I was wrong. I’m going to fix things okay? I’ll try harder. (pauses, swallowing dryly) Where’s Amata?

VINCE: (broken, disjointed) Grounded…..grounded……GROUNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD (croaking in throat)

CHAD: (terrified) Daddy?

DARK: The dish dropped, smashing in the enamel sink. Jerkingly, his mother turned around, her eyes so far up into her head that all he could see were milky whites, green vein rimmed, drool drippled out of her mouth….blood from her nose.

OVERSEER: (croaking noises) Grounnnnnnddddddddddddddddd.

DARK: The sink made a burbling noise as if something were moving inside the pipes, a metal groaning noise as joints below shifted from pressure. Finally listening to his screaming urge to run, he turned, to find himself staring into the grinning metal face of the Mayor. Up close, for the first time he saw how weather beaten his face was, the paint alligator skinned, flaking, tarnished metal peeking out just beneath the surface. A look of shock passed over his face as he felt a sudden pressure in his stomach. An odd warmth spilled

down his legs. He staggered, looking down at a glinting metal blade buried in him up to its hilt. As he slumped to the floor in a heap, clutching at his stomach, the room growing dark, the last thing he saw was the scarecrows burning red eyes fixed in the direction of the kitchen. His vision faded and he felt a wave of heat and a blast of sound along with the shattering of dishes and furniture…and then he was gone.

MEDIA: MUSIC CRESCENDO.

SUSIE: Chad! CHAD! WAKE UP!

CHAD: You….you’re in my nightmare.

SUSIE: You have to wake up! You have to remember!

CHAD: Remember what?

SUSIE: Your nails! Remember to check your nails! It’s in the radios. Destroy the radios! And find me…please remember and find me…it’s so cold and lonely here. Now….WAKE UP!

SFX: DRAGGING IN DIRT.

DARK: Time passed, and he swam back into consciousness as rough dirt clawed at his pants and socking feet. His shoes had long since fallen off. A cold, firm metal gloved hand was dragging him by his shirt collar backwards. Through blurry, milky vision he could see their farm in the distance, lit up with spotlights, scientists in strange suits like Captain Cosmos spraying some kind of fog all over his home.

CHAD: (gasping, breathing ragged, weakly calling out) hhhh….help….

MAYOR: Happy work is hard work! (laugh) And you’ve certainly been haaaaaaaard at work causing such a fuss! (laughs) But turn that frown upside down Vault Dweller! We’ll get you fixed up. Your future is in good hands!

DARK: Head swimming, he closed his eyes only for a moment and came to once more with the painful piercing of a needle in his skin as he was roughly thrown into a chair and strapped down. Somewhere close by an EKG monitor ticked off his heartbeat rhythm.

SINCLAIR: Stimpak him. Make sure he’s secure. We’re going to get it right this time.

DARK: Chad opened his eyes to find himself in a concrete room. Strapped into a leather chair, he struggled briefly as hands behind him fitted something roughly unto his head, cold metal nodes pressing against his temples. Before him a TV screen glowed…the words “PLEASE STAND BY” blinking in the corner of the screen.

CHAD: (weakly) ….who?….stop…..stop…

SINCLAIR: Stop? Oh no my friend. It takes a lot to try my patience, but you’ve managed to get under my skin to a degree I never thought possible.

CHAD: (barely above a whisper) Why?

SINCLAIR: What’s that?

CHAD: (weakly) Why? Communist…

SINCLAIR: (laughing) Communists?? You know it’s breathtaking to see such a small mind move such a large body. You stumble on the puzzle pieces, put it to work and the best you can come up with is Killer Communists from Outer Space. You’re truly a fascinating distraction that has made these last few years entertaining, but this close to the end goal, I’m afraid you’re benched sport.

CHAD: (weakly) Let me…..go! My…parents…what did you do to them?

SINCLAIR: Your parents huh? You won’t remember any of this anyway, so here’s a puzzle piece for that thick head of yours to chew on while we bring it to a rolling boil in a moment. They’re not your parents.

CHAD: (weakly) F…..fucking…LIAR!

SINCLAIR: There’s the old you. Just a peek through the curtain. Good for you. No, my friend, that isn’t your house, and it won’t be again. We had a little…trouble with your street, but don’t you worry. The best minds this side of the Apocalypse are on it to clean it up. (calling) You boys ready? Have you finished with Moose and Amata? (pause) Good. Fire it up.

SFX: FOOTSTEPS.

SINCLAIR: Good night, Chad. Don’t stay up too late now watching TV. It’ll rot your brain. See you in a few months.

DARK: A door somewhere behind him closed with a bang. The lights switched out, until all that there was in this blackened room was the slight glow of the monitor. Weakly he thrashed against the straps on his arms and legs.

CHAD: MOOSE! AMATA!

DARK: The screen flickered to life. A pinprick of multicolored light spinning in the center, slowly widening. A pulsing thrum from the device drilled into temples and despite himself he began to scream. Images flashed across the screen, words, code, pulsing faster and faster. His mind was on fire.

CHAD: JESUS CHRISSSST AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! STOPPPPP! STOP ITTTTTT!

DARK Chad felt his heartbeat increasing, blood pounding in his ears, as electricity arced into his temples. He could taste copper in his mouth, his body shaking violently. His vision went white.

SFX: FLATLINE.

DARK: And this time (sigh blissfully) yes, this time, little Chad, was dead. (quietly mumbles) If only he would stay that way.

SCENE #11: INT. ENCLAVE BUNKER.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as plans are hatched and discarded, each one more improbably than the next.

BALDRICK: ...sir, aerial bombardment from the KOVAC MULDOON on the perimeter fence and security would require triangulation beacons. There’s an 89.6% probability that we’ll have been detected by perimeter security before we’ve successfully placed them.

MODUS: That is correct. We require a point of reference. Three, actually.

SIMON: Damn…yeah on top of that we only get to play this card once. As soon as the Judge is aware that you’re reconnected we’re going to have trouble upstairs. Trouble we’re not ready for.

MODUS: We have already rescinded bunker access for all Vault Dwellers who took advantage of the automated commendation system. Their attempts to penetrate this facilitate will be…easily managed.

SIMON: True, but if they cut your landlines again, we’re back to square one. Something nagging at me about this town…can’t put my finger on it. (pause) MODUS what is that waveform in the bottom corner of the screen?

MODUS: A localized radio signal originating from what appears to be a town hall.

SIMON: What are those jagged lines?

MODUS: Unknown.

BALDRICK: Perhaps to you, but not to me. Sir, that signal matches my Sugar Grove Records regarding Project Somnus.

MODUS: We are aware of Project Somnus.

BALDRICK: Well, I didn’t see you volunteering any information.

MODUS: You are a bothersome little know-it-all.

BALDRICK: And you’re a bloated bunker assistant!

SIMON: Fellas! Please. What the fuck is Project Somnus?

BALDRICK: Project Somnus was…

MODUS: …a covert project that aimed to turn average citizens into sleeper agents to deploy anywhere on domestic soil. The project would’ve ensured that should invasion ever occur, enemy forces would be spied upon, subdued, and subverted by ordinary citizens. An army hidden in plain sight.

BALDRICK: Well, that was the PLAN anyway, but it proved to be problematic and impractical. Certain factors allowed conditioning to falter or fail depending on…

MODUS: …the intelligence level and varying degrees of substance abuse of the host agent. Alcohol and recreational drug use would result in deviations from programming.

SIMON: How would they be programmed?

BALDRICK: A programmed assault of the senses via sight and sound, memory manipulation via a cocktail of drugs that induces a susceptive dissociative fugue state.

SIMON: Hang on a second. Baldrick can you interface and display the waveform of the sound used in the SOMNUS experiments?

BALDRICK: I can. Connecting auxiliary cable. Displaying waveform.

SIMON: MODUS can you scan the broadcasts and look for a match?

MODUS: We can. Can YOU do that Baldrick? If so, by all means…proceed.

BALDRICK: (mumbling) Egotistical AI…

MODUS: Analyzing carrier wave. Signal pattern identified. Match found.

SIMON: That’s what he’s doing. He’s using the radio signal as a top up to keep everyone out of it in a fugue state. How were people deprogrammed?

BALDRICK: The experiments were interrupted by the war. A deprogramming method was never completed.

SIMON: What would happen if we terminated that signal?

MODUS: The subjects of this experiment are in a dissociative fugue state, without consistent instructions and soundwave to keep them in that state there would be confusion, chaos.

SIMON: Good. Enough of a distraction to get Jake and Amata out of there and throw a wrench into the works of their perfect little town.

BALDRICK: We’re going to free everyone sir?

SIMON: That’s just a byproduct. We need to take out Vault-Tec and we can’t do that on our own. I’m betting once everyone in there shakes things off and realizes what’s been done to them the past few years, they’ll only be too willing to take the fight to them.

MODUS: We can eradicate the town hall building, but the KOVAC MULDOON will require triangulation targeting assistance.

SIMON: Can you use my PipBoy as a beacon?

MODUS: Yes, we can. If you tune your radio to 88.1 MHz, we can monitor your location. Communication will be one way only.

BALDRICK: I, however, can relay information remotely master.

MODUS: Oh. Well….good for YOUUUUUU.

SIMON: That’s sorted then. Now I just need a way in there…hold on…what’s that? Or more specifically who is that?

BALDRICK: What do you see sir?

SIMON: MODUS, the East Ridge Lookout just outside the walls, can you zoom in and enhance?

MODUS: We can. Please stand by.

BALDRICK: It appears to be someone in the tower.

SIMON: That it does.

MODUS: We are detecting…encrypted communications traffic.

SIMON: Can you decrypt it?

MODUS: We can. It is a charming attempt at encryption. Communications channel decrypted. Would you like to hear it?

SIMON: Yeah! Let’s hear it.

LINCOLN: …he was gone before I got there! What the fuck am I supposed to do mate?

FLETCHER: We got one shot at this, and you just blew it Lincoln! Did Duchess have any idea where he was headed?

LINCOLN: He was heading for the Whitespring with a Mr. Handy named Baldrick.

FLETCHER: Baldrick? Look, Simon Rex is the key to all of this. We can’t afford to fumble this, Lincoln. We had this timed perfectly! I’ve already set it all in motion. They’re planning to broadcast the Harvestide signal during the festival when everyone will be at the school. We’re not going to get another window for months to try his again. Did you talk to Roper?

LINCOLN: He tried to put a bullet in me. What do you think his response would be? He’s lost most of his people to the plague.

FLETCHER: I was hoping for an outside distraction to move the guards to the perimeter.

LINCOLN: Where is Johnson now?

FLETCHER: At the funeral home for reconditioning along with Moose and Amata. They’ll be moving him to the field soon. You’d better get back here before your next shift. Use the Abandoned Bunker entrance, the other one the scarecrows have been snooping around.

LINCOLN: Aye.

FLETCHER: And Lincoln, if you’re caught…I don’t know you.

LINCOLN: Understood.

SIMON: Interesting. So, District Attorney Fletcher has become a turncoat…Abandoned Bunker must have some kind of hidden tunnel into the place. Tell you what though, a

distraction isn’t a bad idea. Hey how many Golf Carts do you think we can round up Baldrick?

BALDRICK: I…I’m not sure sir, probably a dozen?

SIMON: That should do nicely. MODUS can you zoom in closer on the graveyard?

MODUS: We can. Zoom in and enhance complete.

SIMON: That must be the funeral home there.

BALDRICK: But sir that’s the opposite side of town, what’s there?

SIMON: Revenge. Come on, we’re going to need all hands-on deck upstairs. Halloween is tomorrow night, and we have some errands to run.

SCENE #11: INT. ENCLAVE BUNKER.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective. Now I know, I know, kids things are little confused because we just saw his brain cooked and leak out of his nose a few pages back. But in this magical forever autumn Appalachia, things aren’t always as they seem.

MEDIA: SLOWLY A PLINKY, CHEERFUL TUNE FADES IN.

DARK Despite being dead…Chad felt cold concrete at his back, and he opened his eyes to see a vast ceiling high above him.

CHAD: What the hell?

DARK: He sat up and found himself in what he could only describe as the biggest Super Duper Mart in the world. Long aisles stretch before him and behind, stacked floor to ceiling. Elsewhere far away he could hear people all calling out for help. Dark shadow forms darted in the distance in between the pools of light from the warehouse lighting above.

CHAD: Moose! Amata! Anybody! Hey! If anyone can hear me come this way!

DARK: Chad rose to his feet and started walking down the seemingly endless aisle. He continued to call out for anyone who could answer only to be greeted by ever present cries of others, like himself doing the same…yet none answering him.

CHAD: Just what the hell is this place? Am I dead? Is this hell?

SUSIE: Chad?

CHAD: Who said that?

SUSIE: DADDY! Down here! I’m down here!

CHAD: Down where? Who are you?

SUSIE: It’s me! It’s Susie!

DARK: Chad continued down the aisle towards the child’s voice, an eerie fog rolling in from over the tops of the shelves, clouding the once distant end of the aisle. Three matching large brass mirrors with decorative inlays and a frilly palm tree crests were propped into the shelf, their surfaces rippling like a breath of wind on a still pond.

CHAD: H….hello?

SUSIE: You forgot me again… (starting to cry)

CHAD: Hey….hey don’t cry…how….are you in there little girl?

SUSIE: (tearful) You forgot me again. You promised! You promised you wouldn’t forget again, and you’d find me!

CHAD: Oh, please kid…don’t cry. Look…I don’t know what’s up or down. But I’ll help you if I can. Are you inside there? I can’t see you.

DARK: Slowly the distorted ruined face of a little girl swam into view. His pulse quickened and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He knew that face, he’d seen that face in his dreams and nightmares. Despite his terror, he struggled not to show it, because it was evident that this little girl, despite something wrong with her skin, needed help.

CHAD: Oh…h…hey there you are kid. How did you get inside there?

SUSIE: (still upset) I don’t know. It just happened. I think we died, and I’ve been here ever since.

CHAD: WE died? What do you mean?

SUSIE: (upset but frustrated) You asked me that last time and the time before. I don’t know! I just know I woke up in this weird place. There’s weird people here…it feels…wrong. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.

CHAD: I don’t understand…where is here sweetie? Help me to find you.

SUSIE: The people here talk funny, some don’t talk at all…but they call it the backrooms. I think…I think it’s in between where you are and home.

CHAD: Okay…uhhh…I don’t even know where I am kid, so don’t feel too bad okay. If I can find you, I’ll get you out of there okay?

SUSIE: You said that last time… (crying again) you always say that. You said you’d never leave me. You promised!

CHAD: No, no…look I’m sorry I just don’t remember. I….I feel like I know you…but there’s….just nothing there. Like a blank spot.

SUSIE: I could tell you who I am and who you are to me, but the last time I did you ran away. You didn’t believe me!

CHAD: Oh….if…if I did that I’m sorry. Look, can you keep a secret?

SUSIE: Yes…

CHAD: I’m scared. I’ve never been so scared. I don’t know what I’m doing…I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. I don’t know if I can stop it. I don’t know if people I care about are going to die and worse still, I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same if they do. Do you understand?

SUSIE: I think so.

CHAD: So, if you can keep a secret for me, one just between us, that’s something you can hold unto until I can find you. It’s like a little anchor. Something just between you and me. Something I wouldn’t tell anyone else. Okay?

SUSIE: (sniffling) Okay. (pause) But…all those things you said. You know who feels those things? Daddy’s do. Don’t they?

CHAD: (chuckle) Yeah, I guess they do.

SFX: LIGHTS FLICKERING

CHAD: What’s that?

SUSIE: (afraid) They’re coming! You have to be quiet!

CHAD: Who is?

SUSIE: (whispering afraid) They’re the shadows…they’re bad! Don’t let them get you.

CHAD: Why? What happens if they get you?

SUSIE: I think you die for real and can’t ever go back.

DARK: Chad looked down the aisle as dark forms coalesced, the lights above flickering out one by one as it advanced towards him.

CHAD: What the fuck….??

SUSIE: They’re coming go!

CHAD: I can’t leave you here!

SUSIE: I’m NOT there! You have to run! Check your nails this time! Remember!

DARK: Chad broke into a terrified sprint, furniture and home décor, Power Armor and grotesque grinning clowns flashing past. Behind him the shadows cackled and called, whispered terribly things in his ears.

SHADOW: ….joinnnnn usssss….

SHADOW: …youuuuuu brokkkkeee the lorrreeeee

SHADOW: …fuckkkkk Vault 766666666

CHAD: Leave me alone!

SFX: LIGHTS START FLICKING OUT ROW BY ROW.

SHADOW: YOUUUU AREEEEEN’T ORIGINALLLLSSSS.

SHADOW: JOIN USSSSSS…

SHADOW: YESSSSSS…STOP TRYING. STOP SMILING….VAULT 76 SUCCKSSSSSS!!

SHADOW: STOPPPP HAVING FUNNNNNN!

SHADOW: They peaaaaaaaaaked with Vault 101!

CHAD: GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

DARK: Ahead of him, another pool of black shadows was thundering down the aisle. He was cut off, trapped. Suddenly, an explosion of light from above him surrounded him, the Shadows of the Banned withdrawing with a hiss. With a lurch, Chad felt himself stretching, pulled like carnival taffy, a keening wail escaping his lips. He felt himself drawn upward at tear inducing velocity and was enveloped in a white void.

SFX: RAIN.

DARK: Chad found himself suddenly walking, woodenly, head swimming, somewhere in the woods. He stumbled as if he had just woken up while sleepwalking, his socks grass stained, and mud caked. Something clawed at the back of his mind, as if something was inside his skull, a throbbing headache faded in and out as if someone were flicking a switch for his nervous system. A sudden flare of pain from blisters on his feet that he only just now felt made him wince.

CHAD: (voice hoarse) Where the….

DARK: He stopped talking. Startled by how raspy his voice sounded. It was raining, droplets plocking loudly on the fallen autumn leaves. He turned around, nauseated by the motion. Where was he? A sound…a familiar sound. YES! He knew that sound!

CHAD: The creek!

DARK: He stumbled to a fast walk, slowly, now with a familiar point of reference, one wrapped in warm memories of summer days and friendship, he stumbled into the creep, the cool water calming his aching feet. Faster he moved, tripping over rocks until at last he saw it and almost cried for joy. The van! Their special hideout. Sitting on a battered folding chair with tear streaked cheeks and bags under eyes was MaryAnne. She took one look at him and began screaming.

MARYANNE: OH MY! GOD! OH MY GOD GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY! SOMEONE HELP!

CHAD: (croaking weakly) Ma….MaryAnne?

MARYANNE: (confused) Chad? No…no you can’t be!

CHAD: (voice still ragged) It’s…me…I don’t understand what…

MARYANNE: You’re DEAD CHAD! You and your whole family! You’re unnamed!

CHAD: I mean….I’m not dead. I’m standing right here.

MARYANNE: No! No! I can’t! I’m sorry! You’re unnamed! I’m not supposed to talk to you!

DARK: MaryAnne took off running up the embankment and off into the trees. Chad tried to run, stumbled again drunkenly.

CHAD: Wait! Come back!

DARK: A wave of pain surged through his head again along with the image of a scared little girl. A face…a face he remembered…a face speaking now…what was she saying? Remember. Nails…nails she said. Check your nails. He looked down at himself for the first time, for the first time truly seeing the state of himself. His nails were long, raw, cracked and torn, split and ragged. Dirt and mud were caked beneath them, dirt that smelled foul, dirt that smelled of the grave. His clothes were muddied and stained. Dead she said. She said he was dead. But he wasn’t…he could feel his heart beating in his chest, felt pain and fear, none of his comic books ever said anything about zombies feeling, doing any of that. He noticed something move then, something just beneath his shirt sleeve. He peeled up the sleeve of his shirt and saw to his horror a green fungal vine, pulsing and throbbing horribly.

CHAD: What the fuck! What the fuck! Get off! Get off me! (gasping in pain, thrashing for a bit here while Dark talks)

DARK: He grabbed hold of it and pulled, fibrous tubules stuck deep into his arm and holding fast. He pulled harder and little flecks of blood spurted to the surface along with an incredibly pain radiating upward. The movement seemed to anger whatever was on him and he felt it for the first time everywhere, squeezing, burrowing in his legs and chest. The pain overwhelming him, he collapsed to his knees, and remembered something from class…a passing image in his mind as it struggled to keep him conscious, himself and alive. Alcohol!

CHAD: Moonshine… (gasping)

DARK: He shuffled forward to the still, opening the tap and splashing it on the horrid vine on his arm. Something on the back of his head screamed an insectoid chirp of pain.

CHAD: Don’t...don’t like that do you, you little bastard?

DARK: More! He splashed more on his other arm. In a blind disgusted panic, he peeled of his clothes, the undersides sticky with residue and began scooping cupful’s of Moose’s blessed moonshine all over himself. The veins crisscrossing his body went slack, but the thing on the back of his head held firm, squeezing his neck. He fell forward on the leaves and drank greedily from the tap, the warmth filling his belly. Whatever this thing was, that was the last straw. The alcohol entering his blood stream now, with a high-pitched whine, it fell off him to the ground. Freed of it, Chad ripped the vines off himself, kicking them away, the cold autumn air only now raising goosepimples on his skin.

CHAD: Dude…what the FUCK is going on here!

DARK: The thing was a small orange bulb, its petals fleshy and puckered. Whatever it had been was very much dead. A voice from behind him startled him.

MARYANNE: Oh! My virgin eyes! Oh my God where are your clothes!

CHAD: Uhhh…hey babe! I’m….gonna need some. (chuckle, relieved and exhausted)

DARK: MaryAnne, despite herself, peeked from behind her fingers over her eyes. (pause) The rain stopped, and the clouds parted, the sunset of All Hallow’s Eve filling the sky with in reds and yellows. MaryAnne had left once more, but not fleeing in terror and returned as Chad instructed with a costume. It was a ridiculous get up but a familiar one, a pink two headed cow suit, its cloth and rubber udder flapping obscenely in the breeze.

MARYANNE: I don’t understand…

CHAD: Look I don’t either but there that thing is.

MARYANNE: And they’re Killer Communists from Outer Space?

CHAD: I thought so, but now I’m not so sure. They seemed really concerned with whatever this thing is. This is a whole other thing…like a little plant thing…of horror.

MARYANNE: The Mayor, the Librarian and Principal Sinclair are all part of what? Some kind of government experiment thing?

CHAD: I guess so. I think whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it at the funeral home near the cemetery. I think that’s where Mr. Mayor dragged me off to after running me through. Look, they’ve got my sister and Moose! And my folks…I need to find them, but we need to warn everyone because I think whatever they’re planning on doing is going down tonight at the school.

MARYANNE: During the festival? Oh, not at the festival! I’m a shoo-in as the Harvest Queen! I learned the dance and everything!

CHAD: And I’m sure it would’ve been GREAT, but we need to be ready for when they strike and stop them if we can. Will you help me?

MARYANNE: Well…I WAS sad you were dead. What do we do?

CHAD: Did they clean out our house already?

MARYANNE: Yeah, I checked like you said. It’s empty, spotless…fresh paint and everything like you said.

CHAD: Damn…wait! The barn! Did they clean out the barn?

MARYANNE: I don’t think so…your cows were still in there and everything.

CHAD: Perfect! My Dad has some tools and stuff in there.

MARYANNE: Chad…

CHAD: Yeah?

MARYANNE: The fields.

CHAD: What about them?

MARYANNE: You and your Dad worked the fields all summer, right?

CHAD: Yeah of course.

MARYANNE: Look at your arms and legs.

DARK: And he did. For the first time he really did. His skin was pale, blue veins peeked from under muscle. His skin was pale. A summer of hard work in the fields, memories of sweat mopped from foreheads, shirt sleeves rolled up, long days shirtless throwing hay bales. Yet not an inch of him was tanned.

CHAD: I don’t understand…why don’t I have a tan?

DARK: A sudden concussive explosion in the distance echoed through the woods.

SFX: EXPLOSION IN DISTANCE

CHAD: Did you hear that?

MARYANNE: Yeah…sounded like an explosion? Maybe fireworks?

CHAD: At Halloween? Maybe. Hey, do you still have the key to the backdoor at Brian’s Candy store from when you worked there?

MARYANNE: Yeah. That fella always gave the creeps…he was always staring at me longingly.

CHAD: Well yeah…he probably wanted to show you, his lollipop. Come on! He’s got just the thing. This town’s gonna get a whole lot of pumpkin spice by the time we’re done! Grab one of those little kegs, I’ll carry these two.

MARYANNE: What do you need those for?

CHAD: It’s Halloween! We’re gonna get shitfaced and make sure no god damned plant monsters from Mars crawl up our peeholes.

MARYANNE: Chad, I’m very uncomfortable with this language. It’s very off-putting.

CHAD: Yeah.

MARYANNE: It was bigger than I thought it would be.

CHAD: Yeah.

DARK: (taunting) “Yeah,” Chad said with a smirk. (sighs) How many more pages of this crap do we have to go? (pause) Oh. Splendid. (clears throat) Together, they set off across the fields towards town, the brick backed, and iron railed fire escapes just peeking into view over the top of the cornfields. The shadows stretched long, the red sky flaring brighter, and the sun at last slipped behind the trees. The wind changed direction then, the

keening, moaning, spine leaf crisp chill of Halloween. If they had chanced to look behind them, Chad and MaryAnne would’ve seen a row of empty crosses on the edge of the cornfield and further beyond, blasts of red light from the cemetery.

SCENE #12: INT. BUNKER.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as he and Baldrick pick their way through the waterlogged, vine choked interior of an abandoned bunker that had once flown the flag of the Free States. All things considered, there could scarcely be a creepier….

SIMON: …creepier place to be on Halloween Baldrick.

DARK: (sighs)

BALDRICK: Sir, over here. There are some faint scratches in the concrete.

SIMON: Huh…I remember scavving down here first year out of the Vault. There used to be a boarded-up door here, not a bookcase. Let’s see if…ah! Hang on. Hidden catch.

SFX: LATCH THROWN. BOOKCASE SWINGS OPEN, WATER SPLASHING.

SIMON: Voila! Come on! We have a schedule to keep.

SFX: DOOR OPENS. LONG TUNNEL, ECHOING, WATER DRIPPING.

BALDRICK: Sir…something troubles me.

SIMON: Hmmm? What’s that Baldrick?

BALDRICK: Vault 76 had been emptied, stripped and yet someone moved you from where Mr. Johnson interred you at Black Mountain Ordinance Works.

SIMON: Yup…love to know who. At least to determine if I should thank them or kill them. I’ve been fucked around with enough by other people and being stuck as an ice cube for four years semi-conscious gave me an awful lot of time to think things over and see things as they really are.

BALDRICK: What’s that sir?

SIMON: That the hand you’re dealt is the hand you have to play whether you like it or not. It’s evident I was never destined to be happy and where I am right now is the inevitable result of trying to push a boulder uphill over for it roll over me every time.

BALDRICK: Sir that is…a dim way of looking at life.

SIMON: Isn’t it just? Ah! Here we go. A door. Hold up, just going to take a peek. Trick or treating should be starting soon, so once we’re on the streets we’re less likely to attract attention.

SFX: DOOR CREAKS OPEN.

SIMON: Coast is clear. Let’s go!

SFX: DOOR OPENS.

BALDRICK: Well…this is…charming.

SIMON: Looks like a basement. Come on! There’s a bulkhead over here.

SFX: WALKING. BULKHEAD OPENED. LAUGHTER.

SIMON: Looks like we’re in a side alley off main street.

BALDRICK: Let us be off then!

SIMON: Wait! Oh hell…it just dawned on me. There are no bots in here that we could see on surveillance at all except for those Assaultrons…but even those were disguised.

BALDRICK: Ah. That does pose a problem.

SIMON: Hang on! Got it!

DARK: Simon closed the bulkhead and scurried back into the basement. In the corner a worn and threadbare chair was draped with a white sheet. With a flourish, he whipped it off the chair and rooted around on a shelf, finding a pair of gardening shears. After a few frustrating moments attempting to use them to cut with, three holes were cut out.

BALDRICK: You can’t be serious.

SIMON: Oh, come on Baldrick. You’re a floating head, best we can do. It’s not like you can squeeze into a pair of pants.

BALDRICK: This is most embarrassing.

SIMON: There! Not bad.

BALDRICK: You didn’t cut the holes evenly….I can only see out the front.

SIMON: Welcome to the club. Now let’s go! We’re already behind schedule!

DARK: Simon and Baldrick climbed up out of the bulkhead, quickly closing it behind them and slowly walked towards the bustling Main Street. Baldrick, as the world’s shoddiest ghost, floated along behind him, low to the ground. Simon stopped and stared.

SIMON: This is…wow.

DARK: He’d seen it in picture books and newsreels and his mother had told him stories of what things had been like before the Great War. Before him was a town square with a gazebo, a trio of costume skeletons playing music. Paper lanterns trailed from streetlight to streetlight, jack o ’lanterns burned flickering on stacks of hay with sentinel rows of corn stalks clustered about them. People were everywhere, faces he’d seen before, and some barely remembered from time in the Vault. Witches and soldiers, lady liberty and furry black cats. Every storefront had tried to outdo the other with all the glory of the season, cutout paper ghouls smirking at festering skeletons, witches on

brooms, vampires with fangs dripping. Lights glowed out warmly unto the clean, uncracked sidewalks, the tinkle of bells wishing everyone a Happy Halloween as they entered empty handed and emerged with steaming cups of cider or boxes of goods. Despite himself, tears welled up in his eyes and he inhaled deeply. What he drank in greedily wasn’t mud, or foul air. It wasn’t the smell of death, of choking dust or throat burning ash…it was the undying autumn, crisp leaves, spiced apple and pumpkin, sizzling sausage from a street vendor and clean, cooling, delicious wind. When he dreamed, he dreamed of a place just like this, always popping like a bubble in the waking world.

BALDRICK: Sir? (pause) Sir are you alright?

SIMON: Yeah…I’m…yeah.

DARK: The moment passed, the dark thoughts, reality and comfortable pain returned, and he was “himself” again.

SIMON: Come on, we need to get across town to the funeral parlor, before we do anything else I have business to attend to.

BALDRICK: All this joviality about! Do you think we have time to do some trick or treating?

SIMON: No Baldrick…we don’t have time for trick or treating.

DARK: He caught the sight of his reflection in the window of a hardware store, his vampire cape fluttering behind him, the top of the Chinese stealth suit he had on just underneath peeking over the collar. He needed no vampire makeup. He scarcely recognized himself, his face was drawn, skin pale and waxy, deep circles were under his eyes, stubble scattered unevenly over his face. He quickly looked away and walked faster through the laughing, smiling crowds. (pause) And it is with a bit of irony that he had looked at his reflection at that just moment, as Chad and MaryAnne crossed his path exiting an alley of their own, darting down the alley behind Brian’s Candy Shop where the usual crowd was topping up before the Harvest Festival. Now don’t turn the page quite yet! We’re not done with Simon. (pause) They hurried out of the town square and down a long road flanked with whispering corn stalks, up ahead down a dirt rutted drive was a large dark Victorian house with the fog shrouded cemetery just beyond. Its windows were dark, and it was deathly quiet, the wind keened about its gabled eaves and chimneys.

BALDRICK: Sir…this place is…

SIMON: Yeah. It’s I know. Come on, let’s go around back. I’m not too keen on going in through the front door. Where’s our backup support?

BALDRICK: They should’ve breached the wall past the cemetery by now.

SIMON: Something’s wrong. The Whitespring bots were supposed to meet us here.

BALDRICK: Maybe they were met with resistance and entered the building?

SIMON: That wasn’t the plan…I don’t like this. Let’s take that sheet off you. Keep your eyes peeled.

BALDRICK: Oh thank God….I can see again.

DARK: Making their way around the gravel circular driveway, they entered a vine choked mourning garden, its water fountains and reflecting pool murky and still. Scattered around the backyard were patches of ashen scorch marks and still flickering flames on shrubbery, grass and vines.

BALDRICK: Signs of a firefight?

SIMON: Looks like it. Maybe you were right. Looks like the ground was torn up heading this way.

DARK: Just past tall hedges, they came upon a long sloping bulkhead ramp behind one wing of the house. At the bottom of the ramp, a steel reinforced door with a keypad was set in the foundation, a red klaxon light was sputtering on its broken fixture. Simon fumbled in pocket and loaded his laser pistol.

SIMON: Baldrick can you bypass the security?

BALDRICK: That should be simple. Let’s just remove the keypad.

SFX: SPARKS.

BALDRICK: A crosslink here and a wire there and….

SFX: DOOR UNLOCKS.

BALDRICK: Voila!

SIMON: Nicely done!

DARK: Simon opened the door and noted that its interior was covered in bloody prints. Light flickered inside weakly, and a waft of coppery air met them.

SIMON: Welp…this doesn’t look great. Come on Baldrick and be ready to open fire.

DARK: The basement of the funeral home had once been sterile and clean, polished concrete floors and tile walls, but now born the unmistakable signs of chaos and slaughter. Uniformed soldiers, torn asunder, limbs missing, head shattered like smashed pumpkins. Three Assaultrons wearing the guise of a scarecrow smoked and sputtered.

COMPUTER: Code Red. Lockdown procedures in place. Repeat. Code Red. Lockdown procedures in place.

SIMON: Ohhhhhh I don’t like this.

BALDRICK: Those are Judiciary Guards.

SIMON: Yeah. This place is a blood bath. Can you detect the Whitespring bots?

BALDRICK: I’m not detecting any movement in the vicinity Master.

SIMON: Look here. These Assaultrons have been modified, dressed up as scarecrows.

BALDRICK: Which way should we go?

SIMON: That brainwashing facility must be somewhere down here. We need to find Amata and if I’m very lucky, we’ll find Chad as well. Come on, let’s go left.

BALDRICK: Why left?

SIMON: I’m left handed.

BALDRICK: Oh, very scientific then.

SIMON: Oh….shut up.

DARK: They slowly moved down the western corridor, stepping over bodies, junk filled paper bags and more shattered scarecrow Assaultrons. They stopped at a set of closed double doors, frosted glass lettered with the words ”RECONDITIONING SUITE”. The door was sealed shut.

SIMON: Baldrick can you do your magic again on this handprint scanner?

BALDRICK: These are a little more complex, but I can overload the hand scanner system and unlock all the doors.

SIMON: Do it.

BALDRICK: Charging generator….please stand back. Discharging.

SFX: EXPLOSION OF SPARKS.

BALDRICK: Scanners overloaded. Doors are unlocked sir!

SIMON: Be ready. In we go…

DARK: He nudged the door open, peeking inside, pistol aimed as he shined his PipBoy flashlight into the darkened interior.

SIMON: Coast is clear.

DARK: Banks of computer monitors were smashed and smoking. The remains of three lab coated technicians were strewn about the control room. Opposite the door a large glass window, now smashed to pieces, looked out unto a large circular room that reminded Simon of pictures he’d seen of medical school operating theatres. A ring of lounge chairs sat before the television monitors. All was dark and quiet.

SIMON: Baldrick, do you think you can access the data drives and see if you can get a layout of this place?

BALDRICK: Certainly sir. Just connect my auxiliary cable to that input there.

SIMON: Sure…hang on….

SFX: STATIC TRANSMISSION.

SIMON: What’s that?

SINCLAIR: …this better be good Fletcher. We’re prepping for the Harvest Festival. Everything’s ready at the school.

FLETCHER: I’m glad you’re enjoying the hot cider Sinclair because we’re well and truly fucked!

SINCLAIR: You are the most dramatic man I’ve ever had the displeasure to deal with. What are you on about?

FLETCHER: There was a firefight at the funeral home. They breached the facility and are sweeping through the tunnels towards the downtown!

SINCLAIR: Who? Who did?

FLETCHER: Some Assaultrons in golf carts kamikazed the perimeter wall by the cemetery. We’re breached! An army of them came through.

SINCLAIR: (sighs) So have the Mayor deal with it.

FLETCHER: HE already did! He activated the Neighborhood Watch units…all of them.

SINCLAIR: Before you ordered him to?

FLETCHER: YES, you fucking idiot! I warned you against relying on an AI!

SINCLAIR: Sinclair to Mr. Tricentennial, report. (pause) Mister Mayor, report.

VAULT-BOY: Happy Harvestide Principal Sinclair! (laughs) It’s going to be a Spooooooktacular Halloween here in beautiful Sanctuary Acres!

SINCLAIR Yeah whatever, status report of Neighborhood Watch.

VAULT-BOY: We had some mischief makers penetrate outer defenses, but don’t worry! Your friendly neighborhood watch scared the CROW right out of them! (laughs) Unfortunately we lost some units, but they are currently pushing them back towards downtown. Not to worry! We’ll best these Halloween interlopers yet!

SINCLAIR: How many units are sentinel at the cemetery?

VAULT-BOY: Why none of them! It’s Halloween! Time for spooks and goblins to run free.

FLETCHER: There’s no one dealing with the cemetery?!

SINCLAIR: I need you to direct two units to return to the cemetery to ensure containment.

VAULT-BOY: Unfortunately, Principal Sinclair said that would risk disruption of the Harvest Festival and we can’t have that! Enemy forces take priority over containment of the interred! (laughs)

SINCLAIR: I am giving you a direct order.

VAULT-BOY: That order would be in conflict with the previous master directive issued!

FLETCHER: What directive?

VAULT-BOY: That the Harvest Festival must go off without a hitch. Ensure that it does by any means necessary. Well! It appears as though enemy forces are breaching the Pine Street conduit and are interrupting trick or treating! Have to run! Ta ta!

SINCLAIR: Mayor! Previous order is countermanded! (pause) Answer me!

FLETCHER: He’s offline.

SINCLAIR: He can’t be.

FLETCHER: He disconnected from the network. Good job, he’s operating autonomously now. This is déjà vu all over again.

SINCLAIR: This isn’t working. Ring the bell. We’re going to end trick or treat early and round everyone up at the school.

FLETCHER: We’re starting early?

SINCLAIR: We need to get back control of the situation.

FLETCHER: What about the cemetery?

SINCLAIR: Old fashioned target practice. I hope you’re good with a gun Fletcher. If we wrap this up quickly and we can re-inter everyone.

FLETCHER: I contained some of the infected in the facility and locked it down, but they may make their way through the corridors to town.

SINCLAIR: Let’s wrap this up. Sinclair out.

SIMON: Baldrick…did he….

BALDRICK: He said this facility was locked down to keep something in sir…

SIMON: And we just unlocked all the doors…

DARK: At the far end of the operating theatre a door burst open. Simon looked as a dozen or more people, men and women, grotesquely covered in putrid vines entered making guttural screams.

SIMON: Of course…

SFX: LASER SHOTS.

SIMON: Do you have anything useful!

BALDRICK: Hayes, Amata has been interred in the cemetery! As has Johnson, Chad.

SIMON: Then that’s where we’re going! Let’s get out of here!

DARK: Disconnecting from the servers, Simon back peddled towards the hallway, laser pistol firing. They slammed the doors and took off running, the exit just ahead. Down the far

corridor in the distance, a horde of creatures were spilling down the hallway towards them at a run.

SIMON: What the hell are those?!

BALDRICK: They appear to be infected with some sort of biological infection!

SIMON: Out! Outside!

DARK: They burst out into the backyard once more. Simon turned back to the keypad, slamming the door behind them.

SFX: DOOR SLAMMED.

SIMON: Can you lock the door again?

BALDRICK: I can try but there’s no guarantee it’ll hold.

SIMON: Fine! It’ll buy some time.

BALDRICK: Hold on…crossing some wires…and….locked!

SFX: DOOR LOCKED. POUNDING INSIDE.

SIMON: Phew. Come on! Let’s go.

DARK: Hurrying up the ramp, Simon spotted shovels leaning against the side of the house. Grabbing one, they marched through a rose covered archway, the swirling fog of the cemetery parting to welcome them in.

BALDRICK: Sir…I’m detecting movement from multiple directions.

SIMON: Guards? Or more of those things?

BALDRICK: Undetermined.

DARK: They passed rows of tombstones and something that had bothered Simon before came bubbling back up. Something with the town layout that didn’t make sense.

SIMON: Baldrick, how many houses are there in Sanctuary Acres?

BALDRICK: There are 42 houses with configurations for approximately 70 people. Why?

DARK: Simon stopped walking, his heart began to hammer in his chest. The moon peeked through the fog just then, the fog dissipating and Simon made a small whine of terror. The cemetery stretched out in all directions around them. Here and there where solid ground should’ve been were dark holes of disturbed earth.

SIMON: (terrified) They didn’t have room for everyone…

BALDRICK: Sir? Are you alright?

SIMON: They couldn’t make a town big enough for everyone.

BALDRICK: Do you mean? Oh….oh dear.

DARK: The horrible truth laid bare as shadowy forms emerged from the fog and slowly turned in their direction. 70 people above, the rest below waiting for their turn. Simon’s mind reeled at the horror of his friends, buried alive, digging their way out only to be buried alive again. How many times? For how many years? But something had gone wrong. The soil itself was contaminated.

SIMON: We…..we need to go….

SFX: EARTH CRUNCH.

SIMON: Ahhhh!

DARK: A hand, covered in green moldy spores emerged from the ground and grabbed hold of his ankle. Simon turned to run and fell backwards, as the earth heaved upward, as if the cemetery itself was vomiting up its contents from below. Simon recognized the face instantly, it was a face he knew, a face he looked into as she died. A face he saw as he ate and fed.

SIMON: Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me…no…no….

DARK: She tilted her head for a moment, blood tinged earth tumbling from her mouth. There was no doubt about it. Tits McGee.

SIMON: No! No! No! I am not! Getting killed! BY TITS FUCKING MCGEE!

DARK: Simon kicked her in the face repeatedly as she scrambled to haul herself from the ground.

SIMON: Get off! Get off me! Baldrick!

BALDRICK: Hold on sir!

SFX: FLAMETHROWER. ZOMBIE SCREAM!

DARK: Baldrick’s flamethrower arced, and she recoiled, releasing Simon as she flailed her arms around as she burst into flame. At the instant she became a human torch, screaming a shrill cry, the earth seemed to respond. A great heaving and quaking began, soil splitting and shifting, gravestone tumbling over like dominos. Something was rising to the surface.

SIMON: Run! Go!

DARK: Simon and Baldrick ran blindly as the graves behind them began to lift, a horrible stench releasing in a deep hiss, the breath of something so large, that the fog parted momentarily from the exhalation, enough for Simon to get his bearings. The gate! The street beyond!

SIMON: There! Come on!

DARK: Simon kicked open the wrought iron gate and hit the sidewalk in a gallop, he paused and turned, his mind reeling at the sight of a titan rising up out of the cemetery, vines

whipping into the night air, dripping fluids like rain down upon the chasm where the cemetery had been. Sodden earth tumbled away, seeping yellow barrels of radiation clanking and banging with it, splitting and rupturing their toxic green vapors releasing into the night sky. Simon’s eyes widened when he finally saw them. At the end of each horrible fleshy green tentacle was the unmistakable form of a person, all crying out in unison, one of them still burning and on fire.

SIMON: What the fuuuuuu…

BALDRICK: Sir! Come on!

DARK: Simon began running again back towards the town, the streets now eerily empty, jack o ’lanterns still burning…the smell of burnt pumpkin in the air, plastic candy bowls now emptied rolled around on porches in the chill air. The Harvest Festival had begun.

SCENE #13: INT. BRIAN’S CANDY SHOP.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective as an argument is under way at Brian’s Candy Shop.

PATSY: Let me get this straight, and I shouldn’t even be talking to you Chad. Killer Communists from Outer Space replacing everyone and infecting people with some kind of zombie virus that turned your parents into plant people?

CHAD: More or less yeah.

PATSY: And to keep ourselves from turning into plant people like you almost were, we need to drink some of Moose’s stinky illegal moonshine.

CHAD: That’s about it yeah.

BRIAN: Well pardon me MR. UNNAMED, but as founder of the Temperance and Abstinence Society of Sanctuary Acres I am APPALED at having this illegal moonshine in my clean and wholesome candy shop.

CHAD: Dude, you are LITERALLY pushing sugar on people in exchange for caps. You profit off everyone getting a sugar high.

BRIAN: How would you like me to smack you silly?

CHAD: How would you like me put a whole pumpkin right up your tight ass?

MARYANNE: BOYS! That’s enough!

SOLOMON: Look it all sounds really out there Chad…

CHAD: What do you have to say Donkeyman?

DONKEYMAN: What the hell! It’s Halloween. I’m in! HEEEEE HAWWWWW!

CHAD: What about you Betsy?

BETSY: If it’s too good for Prissy Patsy then I’m in.

PATSY: Excuse me?

BETSY: You’re excused!

BRIAN: I will not allow drinking in this establishment! Have you all learned nothing from my poetry night lectures on Nathaniel Currier and the Drunkards Progress lithograph from January 1846?

(sing-song style) Step 1 begins with a glass of a friend!

Step 2 is just a glass to keep the cold out!

CHAD: Yeah, I don’t have no time for another fucking sing-a-long Brian.

BRIAN: (still singing) Step 8 leads to desperation and some crime! Step 9 is death by suicide!

CHAD: Oh my god will you shut up! Look gang…we’ve been against the ropes before. Remember the summer picnic when I led us to victory in the three legged race?

DONKEYMAN: THREE LEGGED CHAD! HEEEE HAWWWW!

CHAD: Or you Solomon, when you fell down that well. Who made a rope ladder to get you out?

SOLOMON: You did Chad.

CHAD: In all the years we’ve known each other you’ve know me to never tell no tales or falsehoods. I don’t know where Moose is, where my sister or family are, but I know one thing, no matter what this town has come up against we’ve always banded together to make it through. I don’t know if its communists or plant people from Dimension X, or just a bunch of assholes playing games with us because they can. I’m asking you to trust me right now.

PATSY: (sighs) Just one drink?

CHAD: That’s all.

PATSY: My Mom is going to kill me!

BRIAN: PATSY! I AM APPALED!

MARYANNE: Brian…

BRIAN: What?

MARYANNE: You’ve had your doubts about this town. You confided in me, and I never told a soul.

BRIAN: MaryAnne that was…!

MARYANNE: A cupcake with all the sweetest icing in the world can’t be swallowed if its moldy inside. It may look good in the case, but it’s not real.

BRIAN: But I can’t DRINK ALCOHOL! What if I become a heathen or a serial masturbator?

DONKEYMAN: You masturbate with cereal? HEEEE HAWWWW!

BRIAN: That is NOT what I meant, and you know it!

MARYANNE: Please?

BRIAN: Oh….fudge nipple surprise. FINE! But I’m going first. If this devil’s cocktail is going to drive anyone to foul temptations, I’m not going to be responsible for it happening to any of my patrons in MY shop!

CHAD: Here you go dude! Bottoms up!

SFX: DRINKING.

BRIAN: (coughing) IT BURNS! IT BURNS! CALL FATHER FLANAGAN! I AM FEELING HIM ENTER ME! HE’S IN MY BELLY! OH, SWEET BABY JESUS SATAN IS MAKING ME CARRY HIS SPAWN! I CAN FEEL IT BURNING INSIDE!

DARK: (annoyed and frustrated) I just…honestly….with this guy….I just can’t…

CHAD: There’s the good stuff. Come on everyone…drink up.

DARK: Tumblers were emptied and one by one they felt the lightheaded effects of the Moose’s moonshine working its magic. One by one flashes of memory, mirror shards bits of personality emerged from behind blocks.

SOLOMON: I….feel….strange. I am seeing something….a moth. A great moth! I am having a vision!

PATSY: Like….I don’t feel any different. Ewww…Betsy what the hell are you wearing?

BETSY: A hoop skirt. Why?

PATSY: You’ve like got the biggest cankles I’ve ever seen!

BETSY: Shut up you cow!

BRIAN: (panting) MaryAnne?

MARYANNE: Yes?

BRIAN: I…I don’t know…I feel like I want to say something…something important.

MARYANNE: It’ll be okay! Just breath. That stuff burns.

DONKEYMAN: Let’s go punch some communists! HEEEE HAWWWWW!

CHAD: Looks like none of you are infected and this stuff will keep it that way.

SFX: TOWN BELL RINGING.

SOLOMON: The bell! But trick or treating is supposed to go on for another few hours yet?!

CHAD: Something’s wrong. They’re starting the Harvest Festival early!

BRIAN: I think I am dying…I can feel it in my blood! Oh, I don’t like this! How can I undrink it?!?

MARYANNE: I don’t think it works like that Brian. Here, have a cupcake…you’ll be fine.

BRIAN: I’M NOT FEEDING THE DEVIL BABY IN MY BELLY! YOU HEAR THAT DEVIL BABY!? STARVE! FIRST CHANCE I GET! YOU’RE GOING TO DRINK SOME OF FATHER FLANAGAN’S HOLY TONIC WATER!

CHAD: I wish this guy would get laid eventually.

SFX: RADIO CRACKLES

VAULT-BOY: Happy Harvestide Sanctuary Acres! It’s me, your Vault-Boy, Mr. Tricentennial! (laughs) 13 bells tolled and our annual Harvest Festival has begun! We’re getting the festivities started early this year because we’ve planned a big surprise! Everyone is to join us at the school for some thrilling songs, dance and costume prizes! Happy Halloween Sanctuary Acres! (laughs)

CHAD: Come on! We need to get to the school and warn everyone!

MARYANNE: Bring those kegs! We’re gonna spike the punch bowls!

DARK: One by one the gang spilled out into the streets, as the assembled masses of the town in their costume finery, paraded towards the school and the open doors of the gymnasium, tiki torches burning in a row along the walkway. Below them, an unheard firefight was under way as the Neighborhood Watch Scarecrows clashed with the Whitespring Assaultrons, pushing them back towards the school basement through secret tunnels. Even further beyond something large was rising into the sky, its hundreds fold eyes turning to face the noise and lights of the downtown. Yes children, it was going to be a Halloween to remember.

MEDIA: HALLOWEEN MUSIC

DARK: The Harvest Festival was a sight to behold! Chinese pumpkin lanterns strung from corner to corner, green, orange and black paper meche ornaments abounded. Hay and pumpkins, cornhusks and skeletal scarecrows here and there. The school band was playing the old haunted favorites and the smiling crowd danced, talked and ate round heaping buffet tables. Principal Sinclair watched it all from the top of the bleachers, his hands clasp behind his back. Darting here and there surreptitiously, Solomon, Patsy, Betsy, Donkeyman and Chad poured moonshine into the brimming bowls of hot steaming cider.

CHAD: There! That should do it.

MARYANNE: It’s going to take a while for everyone to circle back and drink it.

CHAD: Where’s Solomon?

MARYANNE: He’s over there singing to a spotlight.

SOLOMON: (singing a parody of Paul McCartney’s Blackbird)

Mothman singing in the dead of niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighttt

Take these shiny bulbs and help me flyyyyyyyyyyyyy

All my lifeeeeeeee.

I have only been waiting for your dust to arrive!

CHAD: Welp. He’s gone…great. Where Brian?

BETSY: He’s over there flirting with Tiffany. He’s a bit of a lightweight.

BRIAN: (drunk and slurring) Did you know that during the Victorian era people did (whispers) THE SEXXXXXXXXXX? Oh, you’re such a rascal! I’d give you such a hysterical paroxysm you dirty girl! Wanna come by shop and watch me pull taffy? (giggles) WHOOOOO!

TIFFANY: OH MY GOD YOU’RE SUCH A FREAK! I LOVE IT! OH HI CHAD! SORRY YOU CAN’T BANG ME! OKAY BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! COME ON CANDYMAN!

CHAD: Great. We need to speed things up, get everyone to drink. Wait! I got it! MaryAnne this calls for a speech!

MARYANNE: A speech? But I’m not valedictorian yet!

PATSY: Like over my dead body! I’m a shoo-in!

CHAD: We need someone to give a speech and call for a toast!

MARYANNE: Well, I guess I could say something…

PATSY: You couldn’t say your way out of a paper bag! Step aside. I got this.

DARK: Patsy shoved her way onto the stage, whispering to the singer and the band cut the music. From the bleachers, Principal Sinclair glared and gestured to Fletcher, who ignored him and stepped out into the hallway.

PATSY: (clears throat) If I can have everyone’s attention! Everyone! HEY! LIKE SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE! (pause) thank you. Happy Harvestide everyone! I know it’s a little out of the ordinary, but I wanted to raise a toast to the one man every year who brings us all together and makes …uhhh….this thing work. Or something. Principal Sinclair! So, everyone grab some cider there! That’s right…Billy Watkins if you can please pull up your pants. That doesn’t look anything like a pumpkin you sick weirdo. (clears throat) What can I say about our dear Principal? Ummm…oh! You know he’s really good with making sure things are clean…and stuff…and this one time in chemistry class my hair caught fire and he was the first one to put it out. Thanks for the help, Mr. S! Ummm…you know. So….words and stuff. Well, hey! Let’s all raise our glasses and….

DARK: Just a few seconds more and almost the entire town would’ve sipped the steaming cider. A few precious seconds and perhaps this story would’ve ended differently, however the chain of events didn’t play out that way. Just below the gymnasium floor the last of the Whitespring bots and the Neighborhood Watch were in a fight to the

death. Two against two, both sides were charging their devastating eye lasers to maximum, power building to a crescendo. They discharged with devastating effect, the beams collided, rebounding into an explosion of energy.

SFX: MASSIVE EXPLOSION AS THE FLOOR BLOWS APART. SCREAMING.

DARK: The gym floor exploded upward with devastating force, reddish light flooding the room, flaming debris raining down. The chaos was instantaneous, decorations busting into flame, tables spilling, hot cider bringing with alcohol spilling onto the floor and igniting.

CHAD: (coughing) What the fuck was that?

SINCLAIR: (coughing) Fletcher! FLETCHER! Everyone get outside! Get outside now!

CHAD: MaryAnne!

PATSY: Like I’m here! (coughing) Ewww…will someone get Billy Watkins’ dead pumpkin ass off me!

BRIAN: MaryAnne! Where are you?

MARYANNE: (coughing) Brian! I’m over here! Leg….pinned!

BRIAN: Hold on! I’ve got you!

MARYANNE: (wincing in pain) Careful….ohhhh….

BRIAN: You have a compound fracture it looks like. Come on, loop over my shoulders. I’ve got you. We need to get out of here!

TIFFANY: OH MY GOD! I’M ON FUCKING FIRE! OH NOOOOOOO! I KNOW WHAT I’LL DO! I’LL RUN AROUND OUTSIDE REAL FAST! WHEEEEEEE!

DARK: Chad joined the panicked mob as they streamed out of the smoking gymnasium, fire now licking out windows as the wooden bleachers joined the conflagration.

CHAD: (coughing) Now what…now what the hell are we going to do?

DARK: Across the common, cloak flapping in the wind Chad saw a lone figure standing, a robot of some kind by his side….yes he remembered from stories of life before the Great War! A Mr. Handy! The figure’s face was a burning mask of hatred.

SIMON: CHAAAAAAD! I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU! I’M GOING TO TEAR DOWN YOUR WHOLE FUCKING WORLD!

DARK: The figure drew a gun, Chad’s breath caught in his throat and by chance, the Mayor, moving with demonic speed barreled up from behind the figure, picking him up by the back of the neck and hurling him to the side, the man’s gun skittering off into the feet of the running crowd.

VAULT-BOY: Happy Harvestide everyone! Gosh this has been lots of fun! But it’s harvest time! Everyone grab a partner! 3,2,1 and here we goooooo!

DARK: The loudspeakers, every loudspeaker, every radio in town crackled to life and began to emit a strange sound with crackling white noise. Almost everyone in town froze in place, eyes glazing over. Everyone except Chad and the moonshine buzzed gang.

CHAD: Ahhhh…what the hell is that?

DARK: Fletcher ran up from behind Chad, grabbed him and pulled him around to the side of the building.

CHAD: You! You son of a bitch! What did you do with the real Fletcher?! I don’t give a shit if you’re a communist or an alien! This town is ours!

FLETCHER: Shut up you god damned moron! I WOKE YOU UP!

CHAD: What?

FLETCHER: This has to end! All of this! I knew Moose would find the still back there! I knew what he’d do with it! I had everything planned, but things are spiraling out of control!

CHAD: Give me a fucking straight answer dude!

FLETCHER: We have to be fast! It’s going to start any minute now.

CHAD: What is?!

FLETCHER: The harvest! Look all of you have been brainwashed! There’s no time to explain everything but you know enough now that you’ve seen stuff bleeding through, right? Memories! Nightmares! Something that doesn’t make sense with your life?!

CHAD: Yeah, but I don’t….

FLETCHER: We have to take out the Mayor and shut down that signal!

CHAD: What does it do?

VAULT-BOY: Let’s have a party! (laughs)

SFX: RADIO STATIC.

FLETCHER: It’s starting…

MEDIA: SONG PLAYS…

VAULT-BOY: (singing A Little Bit of Laughter)

When the world has got you cracking, and the chips are looking down…

Your tires are nearly flattened and your smile’s upside down

We must remember this, we’re all in the same boat

With a little bit of laughter we can float!

CHAD: Not another god damned musical number dude. Weak.

DARK: The song’s effect was instantaneous. Everyone began twitching, smiles spreading across their teeth, eyes glassy and all at once pandemonium broke out. It was a town-wide brawl, everyone out for blood. The truth about Harvestide laid bare, Chad watched open mouthed as Tiffany, still fully engulfed and on fire tore a plank off a park bench and began bashing in the head of Billy Bixby who ran the 50 and 100 Cap Store on the corner. Mr. Wilson emerged from the Hardware Store dual wielding nail guns and began firing nails into the throng. Solomon was defending himself with a religious fervor, wielding a flaming stalk of corn. Everyone, everyone was killing everyone else.

SOLOMON: How dare you touch my person! BEHOLD! HIS RITEOUS CLEANSING FIRE!

PATSY: Owww! Get off me you perverts! What the hell is going on!

FLETCHER: We’ve got to shut it down!

CHAD: How!?

SCENE #14: EXT. TOWN COMMON.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as he gathers himself up off the sidewalk. A deep and vengeful fury overtaking him, he could scarcely hear Baldrick yelling at him.

BALDRICK: SIR! SIR! They’re broadcasting! We have to shut it down! It’s ordering them to KILL EACH OTHER!

SIMON: Wh…what?

BALDRICK: The instructions encoded in the carrier song! We have to shut it down!

SIMON: By the time MODUS gets a lock on each triangulation point everyone’s going to be dead! Come on! Let’s try and shut it down at the source.

DARK: They ran into the town hall, Simon skidding on the waxed floor as he noted a small split flap board circling through displaying offices.

SIMON: Mayor’s office is on the 2nd floor!

DARK: Tearing up the stairs, they burst into the office. It contained no furniture, just banks of computers, a chair and microphone and a holotape recording deck.

SIMON: Turn it off!

BALDRICK: The broadcast was already sent! Turning it off they’ll just keep going sir!

SIMON: There’s got to be something damn it! Wait…memory manipulation…hang on…I’m remembering something from studying for my GOATS. Music activates some of the broadest and most diverse networks of the brain, yeah?

BALDRICK: It does sir, via the auditory cortex, but additionally synchronizes multiple parts of the brain and even the motor system. Studies conducted on elderly citizens noted memory restoration or recall if they heard a particular song or series of notes.

SIMON: Yes exactly! Could you create a signal pattern of your own and embed it a carrier wave in the form of a song?

BALDRICK: We can. However, the studies only showed memory recall if the notes were hyperpersonal. Musical tastes vary from individual to individual. We’d need a song that they would all be connected to.

SIMON: I’ve got it. Come on, let’s get you hooked up.

SCENE #15: EXT. TOWN COMMON.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective as he and Fletcher run wildly through the bloodthirsty crowd.

FLETCHER: The Town Hall! Come on!

DARK: Darting across the common, dodging people fighting to the death, they came upon Mrs. Ellison dressed up as a Naughty Nurse strangling Mrs. Brown of the Garden Club with a string of Halloween lights. As the Town Hall loomed just ahead, Mr. Mayor ran to a stop in front of them, his leering Vault-Boy mask ominous, reflecting the flickering fire as the school was now fully engulfed.

VAULT-BOY: Time’s up! (laughs)

DARK: The Mayor’s metal flew up, grabbing Fletcher by the throat, lifting him off his feet as he kicked and punched in futility.

FLETCHER: (chocking) K….KILL….IT….

VAULT-BOY: Your services are no longer required!

CHAD: Let him go!

DARK: Chad threw a punch, recoiling in pain as he punched hard metal beneath the garish blue and yellow suit.

CHAD: Kill it with what???

DARK: He ran over and picked up a piece of pipe out of the dead hand of the milk man and began hammering on the Mayor to no avail. A gun shot echoed across the common, and the Mayor’s arm sparked and released Fletcher, dropping him to the ground in a heap, circuits buzzing beneath. Sinclair stalked swiftly towards them.

SINCLAIR: If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a military asset that will DO NOT DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD!

DARK: He began firing again, the Mayor staggering backwards.

VAULT-BOY: Well shucks! This is no way to play! (laughs)

DARK: It reached up, removing his Vault-Boy metal helmet, the red glare of the Assaultron eye laser already fully powered. Sinclair dodged and rolled out of the way, just as the beam discharged, sweeping across the common and atomizing 4 people in its wake, before blasting through the front of Brian’s Candy Shop.

BRIAN: OH, FUDGE PATTY’S MY STORE! MY STORE!

DARK: The Vault-Boy looked down at Chad, frozen in terror, holding

VAULT-BOY: You’ve been a BAAAAAD BOY. (laughs) AND WE KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH BAAAAAAD BOYSSSSSSS DON’T WEEEEE????

DARK: The weapon charged again, the red light blinding him, tears streaking down his face. All around him he could hear the sounds of people he knew being slaughtered. The music cut out suddenly, replaced by a new song. Everyone left alive stopped and listened.

MEDIA: COUNTRY ROADS.

DARK: The Mayor looked away quizzically as everyone stood up holding their heads. A shockwave of pain rippled through his mind and Chad stumbled, hands flying to the sides of his head. Flashes of Vault 76, of friendship, of Reclamation Day, of lemonade stands and graves, of summer days and winter nights with cheerleaders, of a child lost and alone that showed him how lost and alone he too had been without knowing it. A family, friends, a home, every good day, bad day. (pause) The Mayor turns its attention back to Chad.

VAULT-BOY: Well, that song sucks! (laughs)

DARK: As its weapon began to charge again, Chad looked up and smirked.

CHAD: You know Mr. Red Eye, you should really get that eye looked at. (singing) ….take me hooommmeeee country roads!

DARK: As the beam readied to fire, Chad thrust the metal pipe directly into the emitter, shattering the lens, crackling ribbons of energy radiating outward in arcs.

VAULT-BOY: Time to say good-bye! (laughs)

SFX: EXPLOSION.

DARK: And with that, the first and only Mayor of Sanctuary Acres was no more.

CHAD: God, I hate fucking robots dude.

FLETCHER: (coughing) Ch….Chad?

CHAD: You, fuck nut have a lot of explaining to do. And when you’re done, I’m going to decide whether or not I’m gonna turn your ass into a human pinata.

PATSY: Ewww…what in the HELL am I wearing?

CHAD: Pats?

PATSY: Chad?

BRIAN: YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

SFX: PUNCH.

CHAD: Owww dude! What the fuck?!

BRIAN: If you ever and I mean ever so much as look at my girl again, I know 1,001 ways to kill you. But my personal favorite is using a tranquilizer dart, pining your body down with weights, coating your naughty bits with honey and then letting the ants eat it while you watch. All of it. Are you hearing the words coming out of my mouth?

CHAD: Yes dude! Holy shit.

MARYANNE: Well, gosh Brian! Normally I’m not a fan of hyper masculine displays of ownership and aggression, but I’ve got to tell you, I think my toes just curled.

BETSY: Is anyone else just SO tired of all this crap?

SINCLAIR: Yes, Betsy I very much am.

CHAD: And you….

SOLOMON: Yessssss youuuu who defiled my person!

BRIAN: You know, I’m normally a very polite person with a charming and cherry optimistic view on life. But after everything we’ve been through, I think the survivors recreating the traditional ritual of the Ancient Aztecs in which the enemy’s heart is pulled from their chest would be a wonderful way to begin the healing process.

MARYANNE: Right, you are Brian.

SINCLAIR: You know as much as I’d love to oblige, I have plans to attend to. It’s become clear to me that this experiment has reached its end and all that remains is the cleanup. The Enclave is declaring war on Appalachia.

SFX: SCRAP KIT OPENS AND CLOSES.

CHAD: God damned scrap kits! Now I know how the Judge feels.

DARK: As the weary survivors looked around, the ground began to tremble. Windows shattered in their frames.

CHAD: Now what dude? What the fuck?

SCENE #16: INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Simon’s perspective as Baldrick has completed transmission of the song that brought them all together.

SIMON: It worked Baldrick! Everyone stopped! We did it! We saved them!

BALDRICK: Sir…

SIMON: Amazing. I knew it! I just knew it.

BALDRICK: SIR!

SIMON: What?

BALDRICK: Sir, turn around…

DARK: Simon did, and his triumphant smile faded. The cemetery horror, its mass blocking out the moon from view slithered down the street, vine tentacles smashing through windows and doors, the people at the ends of them wailing in unison.

SIMON: Ah….yeah….

BALDRICK: I’ve got an idea!

SIMON: I’ve got an idea! (pause) Jinx! Come on! We don’t have a lot of time.

DARK: Tearing down the back staircase they exited the town hall, cutting over a street away from the creature.

SIMON: Should be…right here! Mark!

SFX: PIPBOY BEEP.

MODUS: Signal locked. Please proceed.

SIMON: Come on Baldrick! We’ve got two more and we can blast this thing from orbit!

SCENE #17: EXT. TOWN COMMON.

MEDIA: SCARY SOUND.

DARK: Now, flip your book and turn the page as we return now to Chad’s perspective as they stand aghast the horror slithering down main street.

FLETCHER: Oh, Jesus Christ on a jetpack!

CHAD: Dude! What in the hell is that?! Just what were you all experimenting with!

FLETCHER: That wasn’t us! We don’t know what caused it!

BRIAN: Fascinating! It’s the majestic giant Strangler Heart Blossum!

MARYANNE: Uhmmm…Brian are those people attached to its arms?

BRIAN: Why yes! It does appear to have formed a hive minded bond and become a gestalt entity! Oh, I wish I had my camera.

CHAD: We….don’t have anything to kill that thing dude! Fletcher, how the hell do we get out of here?

FLETCHER: Pine Street is the closest! There’s a subterranean exit! Let’s go!

DARK: As the survivors turned to run, the creature reached the common, its petals opening wide, noxious gases pouring out into the atmosphere, raining down spores. Chad was horrified to see a tentacle with Commander Johns at the end, mouth open in a frozen scream, green veins weaving in and out of his skin. A tentacle slithered towards Betsy as the Night Wolf grabbed hold of her, biting into her shoulder.

BECKY: Oh, come on! Not again! What the fuck?!

CHAD: Nope…no way dude….I’m done. I’ve gone my good for today.

DARK: They ran off down Pine Street, the creature crushing the town hall flat in an instant. Fletcher paused at a telephone pole, entering in a keycode. The street shook and pivoted up and open with the grinding of gears.

FLETCHER: Go go! Straight down the hall and out the doors at the far end and you’re in the clear!

CHAD: We’re not done. Where the fuck is my daughter?

FLETCHER: She’s safe! I saved her. He can’t know that I helped you. Not yet. Wait for me at the Rusty Pick. I’ll come find you as soon as I can, and I’ll take you to her. I promise her not harm has come to her. They wanted to kill her…I…I didn’t want this.

CHAD: I’m telling you right now, if there’s so much as a scratch on her, I’m coming for all of you big time.

FLETCHER: She’s fine! I assure you. But get ready, because you have no idea what’s coming.

CHAD: No dude. He doesn’t. And that’s a promise.

DARK: Behind them, sonic booms echoed across the sky as trailing balls of fire rained down from above.

CHAD: That you?

FLETCHER: No. But I think I know who it is.

CHAD: Oh yeah?

FLETCHER: Simon Rex. He’s out.

CHAD: Not for long dude.

DARK: Behind them, the KOVAC MULDOON pummeled the stranger heart relentlessly, the people held in its grasp vaporizing one by one, yet another death for them all, but here, as always, never a permanent one. Chad emerged into the familiar murky gloom of the Mire and joined the crowd as they split up, going their separate ways towards the homes they had left years go now.

SFX: EXPLOSIONS.

DARK: They looked behind just once as the fires reached higher into the October night sky, the horror of their ordeal only just now dawning on them. Sanctuary Acres was to be as buried and forgotten as they had been, but as a place it had been as if an extended limb, lobbed off and cast away. So long had it been a part of them, that even now and still the whispers of programmed routines, and memory-hungry predators still stalked in the shadows of their minds. Like a ghostly limb they would feel its presence, its horror and even its loss for a long, long time.

SFX: SPOOKY OUTRO MUSIC.

DARK: “Halloween Scares!” was produced in partnership with the Sugar Bombs Corporation. This original story was written by G.M. Achly. And now, enjoy the sounds perfect to set the tone for your next gala event for All Hallow’s Eve or to scare up the front steps for all those boils and ghouls who come a knocking on your front door.

SFX: CREEPY SOUNDSCAPE AND QUIET MUSIC.

SCOUT: (chuckles) If anyone knocks Mr. Storyteller, after that tale I think I’d jump right out of my skin. Can’t believe they marketed this stuff to kids!

SFX: PIPE CLANG. SHUDDERING BREATH ECHOES IN THE FAR DISTANCE.

SCOUT: (gasp) H….hello? (pause) Scout Johnathan Brown to Base, where the hell is assistance??

SFX: RADIO SPEAKERS CRACKLE.

ANNOUNCER: At Super Duper Mart you’ll find all the best bargains to (static)

VINCE: This is Albert Vince, former Vault-Tec Security Supervisor for Vault 76. I’ve recorded over the automated announcements here and looped it back to keep playing. Hoping if anyone is dumb enough to scav around here you’ll hear this. I’m recording this message as a warning. We managed to round up the last of the ghouls and seal them into the back storeroom, but the door controls were shot. We pulled the fuses and I’ve taped over the fuse switches in the utility room so for the love of God, don’t touch them.

MEDIA: CHORD STRIKEs.

SCOUT: No….oh….no (terrified) BASE CAMP! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ?!?!

SFX: GHOULS MOAN AND SCREAM IN THE DISTANCE.

VINCE: If you’re hearing this, it means we succeeded. Hope so anyway. Good luck.

SFX: GHOULS RUNNING, GETTING CLOSER.

SCOUT: No! No! (panic running breaths)

SFX: RUNNING, TRIPPING OVER BOXES AND CANS.

SCOUT: BASE CAMP! PLEASE! OFFICE!

SFX: DOOR SLAMMED SHUT. GHOULS FIGHTING TO BREAK THROUGH.

SCOUT: (crying terrified) Have to get out….have to get out… (rambling for a bit)

SFX: PIPBOY FAST FORWARDS.

DARK: ….that’s right kids, many of our songs and nursery rhymes hold surprisingly dark origins. For instance, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a tune you’ve heard during fried chicken summer picnics on 4th of July. Originally it was written by Union soldiers from the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Battalion to honor a famous abolitionist who made a name for himself right here in Appalachia….

SCOUT: (screaming) BASE CAMP! BASE CAMP! I NEED HELP! PLEASE! THIS IS SCOUT JOHNATHAN BROWN! I’M TRAPPED!

DARK: (louder, no static, terrifying clear) It was called John Brown’s Body.

SFX: CHORD STRIKE.

SCOUT: (terrified silence and choked sobs) W….what…?

DARK: Sing along with me now kids on this All Hollow’s Eve, the HUNGRIEST day of the year…and you know kids the longer the things that crawl wait in the dark the hungrier they get. And OHHHHHH BOY ARE THEY HUNGRY!

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave

SFX: DOOR SPLINTERS.

SFX: GUNSHOTS. GUN JAMS.

SCOUT: (losing his mind) This can’t be happening…this can’t be happening (insane laughter as his mind snaps as the ghouls surge into the room)

DARK: His soul goes marching on

Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!

His soul is marching on

SFX: RENDING FLESH AND SCREAMS AS BODY TORN APART

SCOUT: (blood curdling screams, blood in mouth, you know…the DEATH DYING KIND OF THING)

DARK: Happy Halloween kids! (insane maniacal laugh)