Rolling his eyes, Cole snorted, "Yeah. Trust me. These people? They're happier with guys like me hiding in the bushes."
He went back to eating his sandwich meat. It was unreal how fine they could cut it. Cole had spent the majority of his life killing whatever still existed in terms of wildlife for a region and spitroasting it. Ovens were few and far between. People who lived in compounds had systems rigged. They were smart about things like that. Compounds though? They were not smart. The virus spread faster among larger populations. Mutated faster, too. Cole didn't need to have graduated from school to know he would have better luck out as a Scav than in as a Civ. Ramse couldn't have managed Civ life any better than him either.
They weren't the kind of men who were fit for civilization---or whatever was left of it.
Cole was strangely comforted the guy wasn't a local. They made him more uncomfortable than other Scavs and other Scavs were likely to kill him in his sleep. It was pretty bad when a guy would rather be surrounded by would-be murderers than locals in a town. Cole figured he was okay with his thinking on it. This town wasn't like anyplace he'd been before. Test City was it's own kind of Hell. There was something wrong with everything in it except the food. He could eat in the place all day every day without complaining. None of the food had done anything freaky to him except help to put back some pounds on his frail frame he desperately needed.
"At least you aren't a local. Fuckin' hate them. Weird, freaky fucks, you know?"
It occurred to him the guy might not have been around long enough to be able to tell the difference between a local and a transplant. There was a big damn difference if a guy was looking for it. Even if he wasn't? He should be able to tell unless he had brain damage. There was almost no expression except mild amusement on the faces of the locals. They had reacted with fear to the monster invasion, recoiled from the rotting corpses in the roads, even ran when they were threatened. Most of them hadn't been fast enough on the uptake to get away though which made him think they still had some kind of brainwashing going on.
Or they weren't people at all.
Cole could admit he'd thought they might not be real people at all without feeling crazy for thinking it. The place was a freak show.