Johnny Guitar

 So, I’ve never been a fan of the fallout series, and until recently I had never even played one before. But I had run into a $20 steam gift card and saw that Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition was on sale for $20 as well, and I figured I should play it because of the hype for Fallout 4 at the time.

 Of course, when I woke up with some mustachioed bald man staring at me, I was already unnerved. I made a basic character with my knowledge of other games like Oblivion, but I wasn’t sure about anything because the whole world was brand new to me.

 As I stepped out into the blazing heat of the New Californian Desert, the first thing I noticed is that my radio was on and the song Johnny Guitar was playing, but with lots, and I mean lots, of static. If I hadn’t known of the song beforehand, I would have had no idea what it was. But of course, having never played before, I did not know that this was out of the ordinary and I just went to my pimp and turned it off. After talking to Sunny Smiles and getting a quick tutorial on shooting sarsaparilla bottles off of a fence, I ventured on to the game’s namesake city... New Vegas.

 Before long, I realized how slow traveling on foot is in this game and how boring the game will be for the next 20 minutes or so, but not even 5 minutes out of Goodsprings something happened that I knew wasn’t right. My radio turned back on and started playing Johnny Guitar, but with slightly less static. I went into my pipboy to turn it off, but I saw something I didn’t notice the first time. The station had no sound waves like the others did, and the station itself was simply called “For My Johnny, I Love You”

 Curious, thinking it was a special dlc quest that was activated automatically when I started playing, I decided to keep it on as I kept on my way to New Vegas. As I was walking I was paying close attention to the music, keeping a keen ear for any new sounds or voices, but no. It was the same droning song over and over, without any radio host or talk show bits like the other stations.

 After around 10 minutes of walking and killing bandits, the static in the song became noticeably less prominent. The thought hit me: The transmission must be coming from a tower and its coming in clearer because I’m closer to it.

 Having lost interest in finding the guy who shot me in the head, I started walking around the desert, following the transmission. I always skipped the night as to avoid fighting anything in the dark, and something caught my eye, the third or fourth time I brought up the wait screen I saw something behind the UI, a silhouette. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it was definitely a cowboy. The huge hat, the repeater slung to his back, and it almost looked as if he had a guitar by his side.

 I decided to go investigate the supposed cowboy instead of waiting for day time. But the sun was going down very quickly, and the silhouette was fading just as fast and I couldn’t run any faster. As I got within 20 feet of it, it turned its head around and I saw two bright yellow eyes before the screen turned black and It was day. In the place of where I saw the silhouette, there was a manikin like the ones I later saw in New Vegas.

 I was very intrigued at this point, as I am a very big fan of horror games and I had no clue fallout had scary missions like this. At this point, I decided to not wait at night so I can see more of the silhouette, but no dice. I didn’t see it again on my journey.

 After about 30 minutes of walking and following the static in the transmission, I saw a needle sticking out from behind a hill at the very end of my draw distance. I was so excited when my radio became more and more clear as I approached the hill. Although the sun was high in the sky, by the time I got to the top of the hill it was extremely dark even darker than the game normally makes it at night.

 I turned my Pip-Boy light on to see better and continued on my way to the tower. When I got to the tower it was surrounded by manikins and the tower itself was derelict and leaning down (how a tower like this was able to transmit a signal as far as it did is beyond me).

 I surveyed the area looking for a building or entrance to a bunker but there was nothing. After 5 minutes of this my radio turned to complete static and my game started lagging severely and my game crashed to my desktop. I was extremely pissed off because I hadn’t autosaved since I first saw the manikin and I had to done at least 2 hours of playing since then.

 I decided to load it back up and continued my game, expecting to be by the lone manikin but I spawned in a long, white hallway with no lights expect for my own Pip-Boy and my radio was still playing plain static. I went the only way possible: forward.

 As I was walking I began to hear the song again, but it was not coming from my radio. Instead it was coming from much farther down the hall, behind a closed to door that began to load into my draw distance. I quickly turned my radio off to hear the song better and rushed to the door. It said I needed a key but it still opened. But nothing could have prepared me for what was inside.

 My Pip-Boy illuminated a large pool of blood, with drag marks trailing away. I followed the trail until it stopped and what I found at the end was a radio, just as if the radio had been bleeding its way to the spot.

 I walked around the radio to see a small note. I picked it up and checked what it had to say in my Pip-Boy. It turned into an audio transmission and played immediately after I opened the menu. I heard a woman’s voice:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Johnny dear, where are you my darling?”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> Silence

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Oh Johnny! You don’t want to make me mad do you?”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> I heard ruffling and movement and I assumed the woman was carrying a tape recorder in her pocket or attached to her in some way. The ruffling continued until it stopped and was followed by a door being unlocked and opening.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Now Johnny dearest, I know you’re tired but won’t you please get yourself ready? They are expecting us.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> I heard a slight muffled moan followed by a panicked gasp for air.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Oh my Johnny, slow down. You don’t want to hurt yourself now do you? No stop struggling dear, the morphine must be wearing off.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> The moaning became louder and louder, and I could just tell how much pain this man she was calling Johnny must have been in. The woman must have put the recording device down at this point because I heard someone rummaging throw a shelf.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Oh my, it seems as though we are out of your medication. What a shame. Won’t you quiet down dear? You’re making quite a racket.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> A racket he was making indeed, I could hardly hear the woman speak he was screaming so loud. He must have been gagged because his sounds, although loud, were extremely muffled.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Dear, if you won’t be quite, I’m going to have to silence you myself, and you know how much I hate doing that!”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> Her voice became louder, and more stern like a mother disciplining a child. She picked the recorder back up and put it to her mouth and said very calmly:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “I know you’re listening to us, why don’t you come in?”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> It was at that point I closed my pip boy and started looking for the exit. I wasn’t reading for fighting because of how little leveling I had done up to this point.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> “Where do you think you are going!”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> All the lights went off and I turned my pip light back on. I didn’t realize until then that the monologue wasn’t coming from my pip-boy, but from the radio on the ground. This woman was in the building with me, she must have been. I didn’t want to find out anymore about this. I brought up my console commands and no clipped to the exit and left.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> I increased my running speed and went as far away from the radio tower as I could, to my original destination New Vegas. I went to check my radio list and the station was gone. I was relived and swore to myself to never go back again. There was something about the atmosphere in that room that was more frightening than anything I had experienced in the past and I had no desire to relive it.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> I decided to keep playing from this point but that was quickly changed as I approached New Vegas. There was absolutely no one in sight, and I knew this was supposed to be the biggest city in the game. I entered the strip and my heart almost stopped at what I saw.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> A woman was facing away from with a blood stained dress and blood from her finger tips all the way up her elbows. But that wasn’t what frightened me. What really sent me off the edge was that she was singing. Singing the song that by this time sent chills down my spine.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> I’m not an idiot and I knew this wasn’t right. I closed my game and uninstalled it completely, deleting every file that had to do with the game. I don’t know how this happened but I bought the game again for my Xbox 360 and played the game through normally so I know that something about that game on my PC was fucked up.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> Written By: Vayxes