| Text | - Don't believe it. Frank showed up today. He was on a sales trip when the blast hit, selling generators to a mining operation in Pennsylvania. Being in those shafts probably saved his life, but the shock wave also knocked out every power line feeding them light and air. Falling debris killed the foreman standing right next to him. He doesn't even know how long he was crawling around those tunnels before he got outside, the poor bastard.
Sounds like the water's boiling. Some hot soup will do him good, even if it's that powdered crap we hauled in here last year.
- Frank's in bad shape, arms and face are all burned up. He's got a lot of blisters that look infected. He went through hell out there. Hardly anybody alive, and those he met almost did him in. He tried getting into a Vault near Burkittsville. They wouldn't open up and he was almost killed in an ambush on his way out of there. He said those folks wore skins of men. Cannibal bastards must just wait for their next meal to come looking for help at the Vault Frank steered clear of them and headed straight here after that. He's been on his feet for weeks.
- Robin wanted to play with the computer for Christmas, so I siphoned some juice from the fusion generator to power this old thing. I know she'd rather be playing outside in the snow, but she's a good kid. Knows that we can't go outside yet. I'll check the fallout levels again tomorrow while she's playing, but I doubt we'll be heading out anytime soon. Damn commies must have hit us hard.
- MARRY CHRISMAS!
Cute kid, huh?
- Finally done. Maggie wanted us to sign up at a Vault-Tec shelter, but I've never trusted those bastards. It took a lot of work, but Frank helped me get all the parts together and hauled out to the acreage to build this shelter. Air filtration, chemical toilets, artesian well, the whole nine yards. Frank's connections got us the generator cheap, too. And we don't have to worry about sharing quarters with whoever got their name on some waiting list when the day comes.
Wish I could say "if" the day comes, but it just seems like a matter of time now. How could it have come to this?
- His hair was falling out within a week of him showing up. I wanted to believe we could save him, but there's no way a few iodine tablets a day was going to reverse the radiation he must have been exposed to out there. He was a good man. He deserves better, but I can't go out there and give him a proper burial. Maggie's going to stay up with Robin and let her play some holotapes loud tonight. That's when I'll take Frank in the back and cremate him. I wish our furnace was big enough to hold him in one piece. God help us. How could it have come to this?
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