The Nation Chronicles: Book Two
Copyright 2018 Wendell Sweet all rights reserved.
Cover Art © Copyright 2018 Dell Sweet
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This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living person’s places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
ABOUT
ONE
~1~
"So, what do you think?" Frank asked Gary.
Frank, as well as Annie, stood facing the road along with Gary and John.
The group had stopped just ten minutes before, when they had come to the turn off for Route 104 in the tiny town of Mexico, New York. The vines that they had been struggling with seemed to be growing less numerous, and as they had arrived in the small town, had all but disappeared. The vines that were in evidence here were smaller, and seemed to be just approaching from the north, while farther back the vines had been so thick in places that the Jeep vehicles bounced roughly over them no matter how slow they drove.
For nearly ten miles they had been reduced to a crawl as they crept slowly forward down the road, passing over the thick vines that in some places were better than six inches around the middle.
The vines had been brown, and the texture was more wood-like than an actual vine. Here the vines were thinner, and long green runners shot from their twisted brown surface searching over the roadway for purchase.
To the small group of people trying to negotiate the road it had sometimes felt like driving through a jungle. The vines were everywhere, not just on the road. They hung down from the trees, and climbed up and over any structure they came upon, seemingly bent on swallowing all in their path and covering it in green.
Gary was bent over a map which was spread over the hood of one of the Cherokees. The other two Jeeps were parked beside it, tailgates down as the rest of the group sat eating a lunch of cold canned-meat sandwiches they had made. Frank and the others stood talking and studying the map. They sipped at warm sodas and ate, talking between mouthfuls.
"This," Gary said, "leads straight into Rochester." He pointed with one finger down the roadway as he spoke. "Of course..." he said, pausing to swallow, "there's no real way to know what shape it's in, or how much traffic we'll run into."
They had decided farther back not to take either of the turnoffs that could have shortened their trip, because of the traffic they contained. They seemed to have been more popular, and therefor much more heavily traveled.
Both of the turnoffs had been built after the main route, and had been designed to bypass the small towns, offering a more direct route, and both had been blocked with large tractor-trailers, several of which had been involved in accidents.
They had stopped momentarily to gaze at the scene, walking quietly through the twisted and blackened steel shells. They had expected to find bodies, but none of the trucks had any passengers, dead or alive. They seemed to have been driven by no one at all, wrecked, and then abandoned to the vines that were already covering them.
As far as they could see down the road they were now at, there was no traffic at all, however.
In fact the entire small town seemed to be completely deserted. They had met no one as of yet, and had begun to wonder aloud to one another whether or not they were completely alone.
It felt that way. It seemed as though everyone had simply decided to leave at the same time. Perhaps a mass exodus of some sort had occurred.
"It can't be any worse than the alternate routes we've stopped at," Frank said, staring down the empty road.
"No," Gary said, and then continued after taking a deep drink from the warm can of soda he held. "This tastes horrible," he said, making a grimace. "Anyway, I would bet that we're going to hit some of that truck traffic again before we get to Oswego. The last alternate we passed, 104 B, comes back into 104 just before we get there, at..." he paused as one finger traced the route on the map, "...New Haven. Have you been there, John?"
"Wide place in the road is all it is," John replied, looking at the map as well. "Problem I'm concerned about is Oswego. Mighty damn close to the lake."
"True," Gary said, "but I don't think we have too much to worry about. It's a good twenty seven feet above lake level, according to the map. I guess the big worry would be damage from the quake though. Road might be all busted to hell, maybe some buildings down, no way to tell 'till we get there, for sure anyway, but I think we ought to count on a tough time getting through there..."
"...All that truck traffic will be back, and they do a lot of container shipments from the Oswego docks, mostly by train, but a good portion by truck, so that'll add even more traffic. It's also a college town, and even though most of the kids there would've been gone on summer break, they do run classes’ year around."
"There's another problem too," John said. "Although the map doesn't show it, there are two bridges that we have to cross... dead downtown too. I think one's a canal of some sort, and the other spans the Oswego River. You think the quake took them out?" he finished, looking at Gary.
"It's possible I suppose. But, like I said, there's no real way to know till we get there," Gary replied, frowning.
"What about a boat?" Annie asked.
"No good," John replied, "good idea, but the banks are too high. It might be something to keep in mind though. If we have to we can take to the lake and skim around the roads. There are quite a few marinas all along 104, so if we had to go a ways before we could get back in, it would at least get us back somewhere down the line, even if the water's still down."
"You think it is?" Frank asked, looking at Gary.
"Well, it was farther back. A lot depends on whether the locks in the Sea Way held or not..."
"...I don't imagine they could possibly have all been down. I'm not positive, but I think it drops somewhere around twenty two feet from the Atlantic to Ontario, and the levels of all the lakes are different too. Most people don't know that, 'less you live up here of course. I'd bet though that they held, at least so far, or at least the ones that were closed. If not I think the lake level might have already started to rise again. Unless... Well, could be like I said before. There could be a whole new river cutting through the middle of the country. If so I wouldn't want to bet on anything." Gary drew a short breath and then continued.
"I got side tracked with that damn fault line right after I read the article about it. You know, one of those things that sort of grabs your attention. Hell, until I read it I wasn't even aware we had any fault lines up here. You hear earthquake, you think California, not northern New York."
"But I thought you said you read about it in school?" Annie said.
"None taken, hell, I used to write some of those articles, and I didn't even believe them myself half the time."
Gary chuckled. "Well, as it turned out I wasn't the only one. I had to wait better than a week to get the book I wanted. It was worth the wait though. The book was written by a fellow name of Jack Frederick. Guess he was living somewhere up here at the time. I haven’t ever heard of him though. He told all about the fault line, and the locks. Got into a lot of boring shit, and used a lot of fancy words, but the gist of the whole thing was that he felt the thing was getting ready to go at any time. Course he wrote it back in the fifties, and I suppose when nothing happened right away people just forgot it. Till the article in the paper anyway..."
"...He thought it was more likely to go before the big one ever hit California, and I guess writing that book was his way to call attention to it. I'm running at the mouth here, but bear with me and I'll try to get to the point. See, he thought the whole damn continent would crack right down the middle, with a hard enough quake. The newspaper article was aimed at that side of it too. He also thought that it would eventually drift apart, course that goes back to the theory that the continents are not finished moving yet. But he thought it would move pretty quickly initially, leaving a huge gap more than three or four miles wide and running from north to south. If that's true then it'll probably be even worse through the middle states, as the land's all low to begin with."
"So," Gary continued, after a brief pause, "you'd have one hell of a big river, and then almost an inland sea in the middle of the country. In effect it would pretty much cut the country in half, I guess. Course, who knows? Science ain't based entirely on fact like most people think it is. It's just a bunch of theories, and whoever gets the most people to believe their particular theory comes out on top, I guess. Thing is a lot of people forget it's just theory and start to believe everything they say."
"This guy though, he did a lot of research on it, and I think the reason no one wanted to believe him is 'cause it's a scary thing to think about. So, I guess that's it. It still boils down to the same thing. Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know till we get there, and we ain't going to get there if I keep running my mouth, are we?" Gary smiled, as he finished.
"You do talk up a storm," Frank agreed, "but at least to me it’s interesting stuff. I spent a long time as a reporter, and I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Hell, like I said, half the time I don't even believe what I myself write, let alone anyone else," he laughed as he finished.
"Seriously though," Frank continued, the smile leaving his face. "I still don't know what the hell was going on in those caves back in Watertown, not entirely anyway, and it bugs the hell out of me. I'm convinced that they were up to something no good, bad enough to kill for anyway."
Frank had talked as they had traveled along the road, and filled them in on what he had known. Including some of the details he had initially left out when he had met them back in Watertown, he still did not feel that he should talk to anyone but Gary about the specifics of what he knew though.
They had all known that something had been going on. The Army had kept Gary's gravel pit running day and night, and he had sent so many truck loads to the base that he had lost count. "The thing was," he had said, "we off-loaded right into their trucks, and off they went right back into the city with it. It was pretty clear they didn't want us there, and when they ordered concrete mix they sent their own trucks out to get it." Gary had been forced to invest in a new computer system just to keep track of things, and had been hiring as much extra help as he could get just to keep up.
They all agreed that something was going on, but they had no idea what, and Frank could not bring himself to tell them what he had learned, no matter how he reasoned it. "It makes no difference anymore," Gary had said, "the whole downtown section of Watertown's a good thirty feet below the lake level, and in a couple of weeks whatever they were up to won't matter. That lake will probably keep filling, and that complex they built, can't be far below, probably no more than eighty feet, or so, it'll flood"
It still ate at Frank though, and he wasn't completely sure they had heard the end of it. The tunnel floor had seemed to slope down a hell-of-a-lot more than eighty feet. At least what he had seen of it did. He had also seen air-lock doors before, and the ones at the beginning of the tunnel had definitely looked the same.
"Here," John said, walking back from the rear of the Jeep. He held a warm six pack in his hand. "Stole this for us, to wash down the taste of that orange soda."
"Aren't you afraid we'll get pulled over for drinking and driving?" Frank said, smiling as he opened one of the cans.
"Hell no," John said, smiling back. "Course I ain't the one driving, you are. Don't worry though; we'll post bail if you get arrested."
"Ha, Ha," Frank said, as he climbed in behind the wheel of the Cherokee, "you'd probably let me sit there."
Annie had also grabbed one of the warm beers and grimaced at the taste as she climbed in beside him, and said, "So, you going to keep this buggy? I mean this was supposed to be a short test drive, and I don't know how I'm going to explain the scratches to my boss."
Frank reached over and picked up the factory sticker from the floor boards where he had tossed it, after tearing it off the rear window back in Watertown. They had been playing this little game most of the day. After the dreams of the night before, they had all attempted to lighten one another's moods, and it seemed to be working, at least most of the time, except with Bob. Bob had simply withdrawn into himself, and no one seemed to be able to draw him out.
Frank let out a long whistle as he looked at the sticker price at the bottom. "I haven't made up my mind yet, lady, do you suppose your boss would mind if I kept it awhile longer?"
"No, I guess not," she replied, "but you'll have to keep me along with it," she finished, laughing.
"Well, okay," Frank said, playing along. "I guess that kind'a makes the sticker price worth it. What did you say those payments would be?"
They joked back and forth as they drove along the road, and Gary and John joined in from the back seat. It helped to take their minds off their situation a great deal of the time, and Frank was actually growing to like Annie. After she had decked the young kid back in Watertown, he had immediately liked her. Not because she hit the kid, although the kid had deserved it, but because she seemed to have her wits together, and wasn't afraid to do whatever she had to, to protect herself and stay alive. She had seemed pretty shaken over her kids, and he had wondered whether she would be able to get past it and go forward. He missed his kids as well, and knew that she was still worried, just as he was, but she was trying to see past it. That was all any of them could do, Frank thought, just try to get past it to whatever was in front of them.
The whole group had begun to tighten up, he realized. The others had all gravitated towards Gary, himself, John and Annie. They had discussed that. It had made Gary especially nervous. While it was true he was used to taking charge, this was not the same thing as running a business, he had pointed out, and he wasn't so sure he liked it. He accepted it though, as did the others, although it was a reluctant acceptance.
Eventually the subject turned towards the more serious topic of Rochester, and what to expect when they got there.
"I can't tell you everything about it," John said, and then continued. "Most of what I know about it is a couple of years out of date anyway," he said pausing.
"Well, anything you know is more than we know now. For instance, when we get there what's the best way to get into the city? Or should we stay out of it?" Annie asked.
"Well, it's a big city. I think we should go in, but I think we'll probably have to give up the Jeeps, due to too much traffic. The b
est thing to do would be to get off 104 when we get to Fairport."
"Fairport?" Gary asked, looking at the map once more.
"It's a long ways around, sort of, but I think it might be the best way in. I think we have to get down in the city, at least at first anyway, just to see what there is. Like Gary said, who knows? Could be that the police are still there, or at least someone in authority."
"Nice pipe dream," Gary returned.
"You're probably right," John answered, "but I would bet that glow we could see across the lake last night was Rochester, and if it was, that means the power is at least still on. They just gave the okay last year to Rochester Gas and Electric to fire up that new nuclear plant out in Livingston County."
"Where's that," Frank asked.
"Well, Rochester is in Monroe county, Livingston county starts out past Henrietta, which is a small suburb of Rochester. It's maybe fifteen miles or so away from the city itself, I guess. There was a lott'a bitching when they first proposed it, but it ended up being built anyway. Anyway, I'm starting to sound like Gary now I guess. The whole thing's computerized from top to bottom. Oh they have people working there, but they're only there in case something goes wrong, not to run the place. Even if something does go wrong, the computer shuts the whole thing down, not people. They supply electric for the entire city with it, with some to spare. All the excess power that the place produces gets sold to New York City. They built a new plant to handle it downtown, on Broad Street. It's a ways from the lake, so if that was Rochester we saw last night, the plant must still be up and running. That means there may still be some sort of control there, you know, police, or something, at least other people I would guess anyway..."
"...You know, I think I am becoming a Gary clone. I guess I should get back to what I was saying before I started running at the mouth. Fairport looks like the best route in. We can get off at Webster and shoot across 250 straight into Fairport, and from there we have several routes to choose from. There are quite a few loops that surround the city, Can-of-Worms it's called. Most of the traffic would be there. They rebuilt the whole system just a few years back so it would be easier to get around the city. Almost all of the old routes in and out were pretty much secondary after that, you know, really light traffic. But all of those routes in should be pretty well open."
The Nation Chronicles: Book Two (The Nation Chronicles Trilogy 2) Page 1