Zombies and Loathing: Part 11 – Negative Creep
Fuck this. Fuck this! Fuck all of this! fuck this clandestine, mums the word, “stay quiet to stay safe” bullshit. 7 months of silence and what do I have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. I promised change and delivered nothing. Conroy is stronger than ever, New Bunker is even more rotten if that’s even possible. At best I have only burst open the festering pustules of the city and showered their formally somewhat contained disease into the streets. I have been so ineffectual that Conroy likely thinks I have either died or abandoned my mission.
Well guess what Vincent? I’m fucking still here. No matter what has happened or how good you probably feel right now, I’m still right fucking here. Right fucking here with a bullet of Truth ready to be shot right into your brains to make sure that absolutely no part of you can come back as a god-forsaken zombie, since I wouldn’t even trust you to be a mindless, shambling undead piece of shit. The world will be better off with what you’ve done exposed and laid bare, I can only hope that you’ll meet justice at the hands of one of your ass-licking brown nosed lackeys when even they see who you really are.
So reader, I will not hide from my mistakes. You deserve the Truth. Even if that means sharing my disappointing failures and catastrophic missteps. I owe it to you. I owe you accountability. 7 months I promised you I would pick apart the house of cards that Conroy has built for himself. 7 months ago I set my sights on the first man I was going to take down: Sid Pruitt.
Pruitt was Conroy’s self-styled Sheriff, a wannabe Chief of Police who used the underbelly (aka: nearly all) of New Bunker as his own private playground of extortion, black mail and general depravity. Considering how many people Conroy shelters from the day to day scum of his city, I thought Pruitt was a good place to start. With the help of my shady accomplice it would be a simple thing to get face-to-face with Pruitt, apply some pressure and hopefully get some information to make my next move. Sound in theory, muddled and misguided in practice. It was here where my troubles began.
Tracking him down was the easy part. Sid Pruitt was an easy man to find, he had to be. Everyone had to know where he was to pay the man his ludicrous “protection” fees. Of course, he had no idea who I was. Well, he knows who I am. But, just like the rest of this city he has no way of knowing what I look like. I figure I’ll kill three birds with one stone. A man like Pruitt can get me some pre-Collapse stims to make the next few months easier and if I’ll goes we’ll he won’t be a problem anymore and I’ll have some information about my next target.
I find out where his favorite watering hole is and make my way down there in the early afternoon, the place’ll be quiet, should be easier. When I get there I make some small talk to the bar-tender as I wait for the Sheriff of New Bunker to arrive. Turns out he’s not too supportive of our man Pruitt. It seems that Sid doesn’t believe in the old adage of not shitting where you live, he extorts protection money even from his favorite bar. Pruitt’s greed will be his downfall, just like everyone else.
I swear I can smell him before I can see him. Everything about him is greasy and sticky. His jet black hair and pasty white face are equally oily. He’s skinnier than I expect, sporting a black leather jacket with some discarded sheriff’s badge from the old world. He doesn’t even come close to looking like a shadow of a man who would “serve and protect” and if it wasn’t for the badge he’d be easily mistaken for a low-grade thug. I barely make eye-contact as I wait for him to down a few drinks before I approach. When he’s sufficiently marinated I saddle up next to him at the bar.
“You’re Sid Pruitt right?”
“Officer Sid Pruitt shithead, now fuck off.”
I decided to play up the idea that I’m a junky, I’ll keep talking until he cuts me off and hopefully shows his hand, “Word is you can get clean stims, the clean stuff. Legit performance enhancing pre-Collapse, shit can keep you up for hours with no side-effects, all the while performing at full mental capaci-”
“I enforce the law motherfucker and nowadays we’ve decided those stims are illegal,” he laughs and snorts into his drink, “the good shit means you’re making good decisions, and we don’t like good decisions in this city. If your brain is firing on all cylinders you might not make bad decisions at the casinos. Find some of the legal stuff junky, it’ll fuck you right up and make you feel like the world isn’t a hell-hole outside. Then head to a casino.”
He snorts again and finishes his drink, gesturing for another. He’s not leaving, this is good. I press the issue.
“Yeah, but it stands to reason, you’re the law right? Whatever you confiscate goes somewhere. If I deal with you, I don’t have to worry about getting busted by you, right? I pay you, you leave me alone, right?”
He looks at me with contempt, it’s insane to think that deep inside that sweaty, greasy head of his he somehow he thinks he’s above anybody.
“Pssh, you’re not wrong junky, but I doubt from the looks of you that you could afford it.”
I grin and push a pill bottle full of water-purification tablets across the bar towards him. Even with a somewhat drinkable water supply, there’s nothing more valuable than clean water. These pills are supposed to even make radiated water potable, wouldn’t test it mind you.
Pruitt looks at the pill bottle and then back to me.
“Tell you what junky, you and me will take a trip to The Banker. He’ll be able to tell me if those are real and if they are, he’ll be the one to get you your stims from the ‘Bank’. If they’re not, well, we’ll be a lot closer to the pits and it’ll be a lot easier to throw your junky ass down there to die. Misleading an officer of the law is a punishable offense after all. ”
The “pits”. Where the slaves of New Bunker toil. If this goes wrong even I wouldn’t be able to get out of there. No turning back now though. An audience with The Banker would be worth the risk anyhow. Pruitt slams back his latest drink.
“Let’s go junky, ain’t no time like the present.”
I follow him out and two of his “officers” get in step behind me, sneering. Time to meet The Banker.
