Entry 03: We found some people who were glad to see us

Date: Unknown +4 days

Reporting: Sgt. Clayton Mossberg, Lord of Garbage

Location: Hard to say (literally; have you ever tried speaking Polish? Plus, we really got around during this report)

After extricating ourselves from the catacombs along with the fancy painting and about one army crate of loot, we reviewed our travel options. Jablonski had pretty well sold us on the notion that if we got the Black Madonna into the hands of the Margrave of Silesia (abbreviated MoS from here on out because we in the army love acronyms), he would be suuuper grateful. Like, maybe even "ship our happy asses across Europe and book passage on a ship to get us back state-side" levels of gratitude. One movie trope keeps popping up in my head, no matter how much I try to swat it down, though. You see it all the time, especially in zombie flicks: the Last Place On Earth Untouched By The Disaster. The promise of some golden paradise is what the LPOEUBTD is. All too often, it turns out to be wistful fantasy, revealed when the character--who has been lured by a postcard showing a Norman Rockwell-esque panoramic view of the LPOEUBTD, drops it from the foreground to reveal the smoking hell-scape that said paradise has actually become. This feels like one of those situations to me. But hey, what the hell else are we gonna do with the painting? It doesn't really tie the room together, you know? It just takes up a bunch of space in the back of the rig, and will probably only bring us trouble the longer we have it. Not to mention the fact that the longer we have it, the greater the likelihood that Spence's dog is gonna pee on it. At the very least, if we gift this thing to the MoS, he probably will be grateful, but I won't hold my breath on promises of intercontinental travel until I'm standing on American soil again.

Where was I? Oh yeah, travel plans. The MoS had his digs somewhere in the south. My map is really smudgy right there--I think someone spilled gravy or bled on it--so I can't read the name of the town. Plus, it's in Polish anyway, so, fuck me. To get there, we would have to backtrack a bit to get to a nice, fatty road heading due south. This was good for a couple reasons. First, the dudes who left us this journal supposedly dumped a cache of gear somewhere outside Klobuck. Gear is good. Secondly, we would have to backtrack through Czestochowa, and that would give me one last chance to cross paths with Alexander, the asshole with the shotgun.

Now, did I hate Alexander? No, not really. Hate's a pretty strong emotion, and it requires a certain level of maintenance to do it right. Hatred is an active pursuit, and I'm generally not interested in putting in effort toward that end. At least, not for long. Alexander kind of made me want to go the extra mile, though, at least for an afternoon. He might have even been a really nice guy, under normal circumstances. But see, he let something get the better of himself the other day, and he rode up on us on his stupid horse and tried to scrape me off the back of the rig with his boom-stick. The first shotgun I've seen in months. He did tag me; I'll give him that. But then he ran away like a little bitch, and that's just unsportsmanlike behavior. I wanted to find him and--by hook or crook--relieve him of that weapon that he no longer deserved. I suggested to the Major that these ruins might be a good place to scavenge, which would give me time to hunt. Spence combed through the wreckage of buildings looking for anything useful, while I looked for my quarry. Totally not hating the guy, but still wanting to kind of shoot him until he was sleepy and take his shit.

For a while, I quietly whistled the theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as I poked around. Nothing. I started looking for signs of his horse. Nada. I tried to climb some rubble to get a better view. Zilch. And I had to get off the rubble before I fell because some of it was pretty sketchy. After building up a vivid murder fantasy that became increasingly lurid as the hours ticked by, I had to come to grips with the fact that Alexander wasn't going to step into the street ahead of me, there would be no moment where we locked eyes, narrowed our squints at each other and had this thing out in a blizzard of hot lead. Nope. The bastard had taken a powder with his fucking shotgun. Probably rode his horse off in the sunset with a flourish and a hearty "Yippee-kai-go-fuck-yourself, Mossberg!"

As I moped back to rest of the squad reeking of failure and lack of shotgun, chewing sour grapes and viciously kicking a particular rock down the street, I tried to convince myself that a shotgun would make a terrible primary weapon. The rate of fire is awful, penetration sucks, magazine capacity is generally abysmal, and you know how many shotgun shells we have found since the world went pear-shaped? None. Precisely zero. Now, if this was a video game*, shotgun shells would start pouring out of dead guys' pockets as soon as I picked the thing up, but this is not that kind of world, unfortunately. Such a silly dream, right? Owning a shotgun? Pff. I mean, we could hang the fucking thing in the back of the M1126 right next to the painting, and the only pluses it would have over the latter are:

1. It would kinda look like it belongs there, and

2. If things got really hairy, you could use the shotgun like a bat and stave in somebody's face with it.

At any rate, having a shotgun would probably be the death of me when I tried to use it when I should really be using my M4. Or my pistol. Or a fucking rock, FFS. (BT-dubs, That's Army-speak for "for fuck's sake," to you cake-eating civilians, or people who are Facebook friends with your grandma)

Dear Reader, you know where this is going. I still really wanted a stupid shotgun. It is becoming my mid-life crisis. Some guys get boats, or Maseratis, or mistresses and the clap. In a world of slimmer pickings, I have to set my sights considerably lower.

With my tail tucked firmly 'twixt my legs, I regrouped. Spence was more successful than I, for she managed to find a duffel bag. There wasn't anything in it, unfortunately, but things that we could put other, smaller things in are an under-appreciated commodity. Plus, my still was able to brew a few gallons of fuel while we dicked around, so this venture wasn't a complete loss. Sigh. We left Czestochowa behind and made for Klobuck. Spence must have sensed my disappointment because--in an effort to cheer me up, I think--she offered me the foil wrapper from a granola bar. I was a bit confused at first, then I remembered a few days ago I had asked her to police up leftover wrappers and containers for my side-gig concocting meds. I thanked her, cleaned the sticky crumbs off and tucked it into a pouch. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Clayton Mossberg, Lord of Garbage.

We followed the description in the journal to the carcass of a stripped-down HMMWV, better known as a Humvee. From here, we had walking directions to the cache. As per usual, we left Eddie and Simon in the rig while Mack, Spence and I closed in on foot. We came to the cabin mentioned in the journal, only to find that it was now occupied. Mack had left on his own to reconnoiter, leaving us to figure out how to handle the wood-chopping codger and his dog. Spence and I settled upon a plan that left me to do most of the talking, which she didn't object to. She's not real talkative, so me volunteering to flap my gums was probably just fine with her. I approached real peaceful-like, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. "Oi!" I said by way of affable greeting, and also to announce my presence. I didn't want him to get startled and whip out a pistol to shoot me or, heaven forbid, have a heart attack or something.

The old-timer was understandably cagey. He was just trying to survive out here, and didn't want any trouble. He also really didn't seem to want to have anything to do with us. No offers of trade or medical assistance held any interest for him. I bet he wouldn't have even let us help him chop wood, which is probably for the best. I don't think Spence and I were feeling that ambitious, anyway. We did get his blessing to camp out on the far side of the stream, so we did that until it got comfortably dark and he was probably sleeping. Then we skirted around his place to where the cache was supposed to be. We were not distant nor stealthy enough to prevent rousing that fucking dog of his out of slumber, though, and as we skulked along, the furry terror started barking from within the cabin like you wouldn't believe. We sucked up to some cover and laid low for a bit, while the old man poked his head out, squinting into the darkness. Really, what was he gonna do? Wander out and take us on blind? We were basically hiding out of sheer politeness. We didn't want to hurt him, we just wanted to get around his digs. I should clarify: I didn't want to hurt him. Spence may have had some notion of adding his dog to her growing menagerie of fur-babies, but this probably would have involved acquisition via the route of cold, dead hands. She didn't act on it, though. She, clearly, was a bit more realistic about her fantasies than I was.

Upon reaching the cache, we whipped out the entrenching tools we'd lugged out from the rig and started digging. What we found was...kind of a let-down. Remember when I said that the Humvee had been stripped down? Well, the cache consisted of the spoils of all that stripping. It would have been really useful if we had a Humvee of our own. We could have some spare parts. Hell, Spence could probably get that one we passed by up and running again, but that would have involved hauling hundreds of pounds of parts a couple clicks back, all for what? A second gas tank to feed? We were hard-pressed enough keeping the M1126 moving for part of the day because that bitch sucks gas like a motherfucker. The disappointments kept racking up. It's almost like the apocalypse is a shitty place to live!

On our way back to Eddie and Simon and the safety of the rig, we spotted movement at the Humvee wreck. There were about ten or so soldiers. Americans, by the looks of it. We could have done them a solid and pointed out where all the parts were for that thing and let them take the prize. Hell, they may have even traded us some good shit for them. But in this topsy-turvy post-war world, we had run into helpful, somewhat-noble Russians (who were supposed to be our enemies), hostile Poles (who were supposed to be our friends) and Priests who were super annoying and tended to fuck shit up for everybody (so, no real change, there). Those guys were supposed to be our allies, our countrymen, but what had this world done to them? There was no guarantee they would embrace a "live and let live" sort of ideology, and since they outnumbered us three-to-one, I don't think we were too eager to test them. What if they tried to hold us up, thinking we were easy pickings? What if they wanted to fold us in to their command structure believing their lack of orders superseded our lack of orders? Fuck 'em. They could find their own treasure map. We made it back to the rig and beat feet south. This day had pretty much been a bust.

To the south, we came to the Greater Bytom-Chorzow-Katowice Metropolitan Wasteland. Three formerly decent-sized cities all plugged up against each other, shoulder to shoulder. I guess this area used to do a lot of mining or heavy industry or something. Naturally, all these cities ate nukes early on. The rads were low, and the place was an absolute ghost town. We figured this might be another good place to let Spence run wild and do her thing, sifting pearls out of the rubble, but then we spotted a glint on a hill overlooking the ruins. So as not to alert the watchers that we had spotted them, I casually crawled into the rig, and camped out behind the periscope. The thing had a pretty nice magnification on it, and wasn't as obvious as me waggling my binos at them to tell everyone we'd spotted them. There were a few dudes up there keeping an eye on us, and some caves in the hillside. I didn't see anything like artillery or mortars up there, but they might have been hidden, and I didn't want to cause them to reveal them if they had them. We also didn't know how many other warm bodies might be in those caves. Was it just the three guys, or did they have a huge chunk of survivors holed up there? The Major waved a white flag at them to request a parley.

One thing I have found, in the event of societal collapse, is that it is sometimes difficult for a band of wanderers such as ourselves to ask strangers certain bits of pertinent information without seeming like you're sizing them up. Asking how many people are in one's settlement, you might as well be asking a bank teller where all the cameras are located. So we always have to engage in a bit of awkward verbal dance to not seem like we are a bunch of marauders trying to figure out if we can rape and pillage our way across the countryside, greasing our wheels with the steady stream of blood and tears of our victims. After admitting to them that we were going to engage in some harmless scavenging until we spotted them up on the hill, they told us that the ruins had already been picked over pretty well, but we were free to look for ourselves. Like the old man in the cabin, the only thing these dudes seemed to want from us was our absence. We shared some info with them about some things we had learned (namely, where some American and Russian forces were holed up), and they mentioned that someone in Warsaw was trying to recruit a new army. For what purpose was anyone's guess, but I would imagine it would be a faction to oppose the MoS. I was getting tired of all these fractious, internecine conflicts. I ached to get back to home soil where we would likely face entirely different fractious, internecine conflicts, but they would be in English, and I would understand them better, or be confused in a different direction. Not wanting to press our luck, we just camped out for lunch and maintenance, and then we moved on to the bustling metropolis of gravysmearowiczborkbloodstainzien, where the MoS had set up shop.

This place had its shit together. Before we could even get jumped by locals, they had set up a 24/7 drive-thru ambush to greet visitors in the form of a checkpoint. You could roll on up and they would riddle you with pertinent questions instead of gunfire. We gave a little teaser of what we had with us and requested an audience with the MoS. We were invited into the town while our request was sent up the line. We browsed the shops. Somebody had a samurai sword up for offer, which would have been cool except that any of us would probably lop off our own leg if we tried to use the thing. One guy had some surgery tools and meds that caught my interest. Since I'm the one who tends to keep the inventory of our loot up do date, I felt justified in making this acquisition at the cost of about 2/3s of our AK-74 ammo and 3 of our AK-74s. Since our standard, NATO-issued weapons hadn't run dry yet, we hadn't switched over to the native armaments, so this wasn't such a big loss. I was also able to find a watering hole with a card came I could buy into. I raked in some winnings, and splurged at the local market, getting us a couple days worth of vittles. Later, a runner caught up to us and told us our presence was requested at the MoS' residence. Now, at the eleventh hour, the Priest piped up with his concerns, and proposed that giving the Black Madonna to the MoS might be a mistake. Well, it was a little late for cold feet. Just to be on the safe side, we made sure to bring the Priest with us, so he couldn't fuck things up further still while unsupervised (like steal the painting from us while the rig was untended).

The MoS' place was fancy, I'll give him that. Only thing is, it was a...fake kind of fancy. Tacky, even. Like, the decor was gaudy treasures, worth a mint in their own right, but one could tell it was still all a bunch of loot, as though presenting a velvet Elvis thinking it was an Old Master, or someone proudly displaying their solid gold toilet with shit-smears in the bowl. It all screamed out "Please be impressed with me because of my cool stuff!" We nodded politely, and ooh-ed and ahh-ed at all the right places when he invited us to lunch at his lavishly prepared table. After living off of granola bars, pork and beans and wilted cabbage for the last few days, we weren't about to turn down his food. There may have been actual spices involved in its creation (and for reference, I do not count the miniature bottle of tabasco from our MREs as a "spice"). With the chalice we had found on the dead guy in the cave used to wedge open the door to the MoS' attention, he was probably the first guy in Poland who was actually glad to see us! I was so used to being given that "piss off" look, I wasn't quite sure how to take it.

The MoS didn't waste any time getting down to the object of his obsession. He asked us if we had been to the ruins of the monastery in Czestochowa, which was kind of a sly way to ask if we had--by any chance--found the Black Madonna without actually saying it. We weren't exactly laying all our cards on the table yet for fear he would just decide to take them; we were playing sly, too. So, before he got far enough in his questions that we might be forced to lie to him, we asked if there was any truth to the rumors floating around about his reward if someone could bring him a treasure like the Black Madonna. He kind of hemmed and hawed a bit, suggesting that if one were to do that, it could easily be rewarded with lands and holdings, that we could live like royalty here in Silesia. And with the potential threat of this army from Warsaw, our assistance could be useful. I pointed out that we were outsiders here, abandoned by our generals, and that the last thing Poland needed was more Americans and Germans in the mix continuing to mess with their autonomy. He relented and said that passage could be obtained outside of Poland. "In that case," we basically said, "we would like to show you something in the back of our rig." This was a pretty transparent way for us to say we got something you really want, and bless his heart, he was eager to see it as a kid is to get into a candy store.

When he locked eyes on the Black Madonna, It was like we'd brought back Moon rocks, the Lindberg Baby and the Stanley Cup all rolled into one. It was legitimacy slapped onto a canvas. In his eyes, this was the key to getting all the Catholics of the region to support his cause, and he was, after all, appropriately grateful. He invited us to another feast in our honor that evening. Two free meals in one day? Yes, please! But then, we would have to high-tail it, 'cuz we didn't want to miss our train...

*Having been a soldier for all of my adult life, I have been deployed all over hell and gone, and wherever I go, a video game console is never far away. It's seemingly what the brass offers soldiers as an alternative to getting piss-drunk all the time and/or fucking all the locals. I can confess that I have played more than my share of video games, and tropes from said medium continually crop up in my thinking and writing, not gonna lie nor apologize. If you've ever wondered what a soldier on deployment does in his off time when he's not sleeping, eating or shitting, the answer is probably either playing video games, reading or masturbating. That about covers it.