Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1)

by R. R. Roberts

  She started to add rifle to the “Wish I Had It” list, then stopped. Wouldn’t a rifle shot tell just about everyone around where she was? So, no rifle.

  But wait. She had to be smart about this. She couldn’t imagine hunting humans but what if they hunted her? So yes, she needed a rifle. Not for food, but for protection. All she had to do was stay alive until someone came, someone sane, who was immune and was reorganizing what was left of the world. Just stay alive.

  She added rifle to her “Wish I Had It” list then sat back and closed her eyes. Any kind of gun would do.

  God, was it only this morning that she’d stood with a mug of tea out on her deck with her jacket slung over her pajamas, and witnessed her meadow come to life? Fog had drifted up from the river and ghosted through the dense stand of old-growth pine that shielded the homestead meadow from curious river-boaters. A pair of nesting bald eagles called to one another as they swooped and rose in graceful, ever rising circles around one another, a leisurely, gorgeous air dance she’d grown to love. She saw the fog was still creeping across the meadow, reaching toward her freshly planted garden before it petered out. Her attention was diverted when three pairs of Canada geese landed noisily in the meadow. What a celebration they had. “We're here! We’re here!” they seemed to say. This isolated forest was teaming with life. Samantha had predicted she would be bored to tears in a month, yet here she was, four months in, completely enthralled.

  Sometimes, if she was very quiet and lucky, she’d catch a glimpse of a moose bearing a splendid rack, or a slender, hesitant deer, maybe an regal elk materialize from the misty forest to feed on new spring grass in her meadow, only to fade just as gracefully back into the mystery of Peace Country. It was everything she dreamed of, everything she wanted.

  Yet, here she was, 16 hours later, in the center of Rushton, hiding in a tiny room on the third floor of a trashed and abandoned building, hoping not to be eaten by a pair of squabbling teenaged cannibals.

  That sounded like it should be funny. What would be the punch line? Not without ketchup! Only if you’re doing the cooking! Pass the fava beans, and chianti, Baby!

  How do I put these two pictures together in the same day? She opened her eyes wearily. I don’t.

  She looked back at her list. Her biggest asset–there was that word again–on Drop Out Acres was the fact no one knew where she was and she needed to keep it that way. She needed to hunt quietly. She needed a bow and arrows.

  “Oh, my God.” She was on her feet with excitement. She knew where she could get a crossbow; where she could get all sorts of old fashioned things. The museum and visitors center. She’d interviewed Michael Jenks last year about the new gold rush display, and he’d ended up showing her boxes full of homesteader’s equipment no one wanted to see anymore. They had a basement full of it.

  She’d go there first thing, and search. He’d shown her hand-operated grain and corn grinders, apple peelers, hide scrapers, bean pots. He had old homestead books and memoirs no one wanted to read that described how to dress down a moose and tan the hide, smoke fish, make cheese, churn butter, snare a rabbit, can vegetables, build an ice hut. It was a gold mine. God willing, it was her goldmine. The crops were in the fields now. She could venture out of Drop Out Acres and harvest some by hand in late summer, couldn’t she?

  Her mind was on fire. She needed a sickle. Where would she find a sickle?

  Could she coax a cow or two into her barn? Better, could she find one still producing milk? She had what cows loved best already - a lovely field of alfalfa. Grow it and they would come, right? How could they resist her?

  Could she sneak down to the museum now, spend the night studying those precious old homesteader books and learn what it was she needed most before she left Rushton for good? She lowered her shield. Denny and Tuck were arguing over a card game. She absolutely could.

  6

  0N THE TOWN

  It was easy slipping away from the news office to find Bill’s place. She knew exactly what Tuck and Denny were thinking, and would know the moment they decided to come out, as long as she kept checking in. In the meantime, she scanned each house for thoughts as evidence of people inside as she jogged through neighborhoods.

  It was eerily silent, with many of the houses now burnt out shells, while others bore big, sloppily painted black ‘X’s on their front doors. On Bill’s street, where the houses had begun to look the same, she slowed and read the addresses. A dark duplex with wide white shutters and matching empty flower boxes was fronted by two doors, one that declared there were five dead inside, the other reporting only three. Door after door told its story of loss and warning. She felt sick inside at the hundreds of numbered dead.

  She stopped, recognizing Bill’s place, set back further than the more modern houses that crowded around his larger lot and older home. His neighborhood was being gentrified all around him, but Bill had refused to move, staying in the tidy little place he and his wife had built together many years ago. When Suzanne had died in the new year, she’d left Bill on his own, without children to soften her loss. But then, Bill had been a father figure to all the employees at the news office, mentoring many on their way to bigger and more urban publications. He’d been especially kind to her when she’d first started her internship, recognizing she was escaping something, but never pushing for her to explain. She was so grateful that he of all people was still here, alive.

  She hurried down the long driveway, then followed the walkway up to the front door. Tapping softly so not to call unwanted attention, she called out his name, “Bill? Bill, it’s me, Wren. Can you hear me?”

  There was no response, but she knew he was there, inside, with two other minds, young minds. They were all asleep, Bill’s brain drifting along a beach somewhere, holding hands with a pretty young woman, a little girl dreamed of playing with a friend on a swing set, swinging higher and higher, her stomach deliciously left behind with each swing, while her brother tossed and turned over not studying for a math test in the morning. If it were only true his biggest problem was a math test in the morning.

  Excited to have found them, she knocked louder. Bill’s beach dream winked out, replaced by gun, gun, gun!

  She jolted back. He wouldn’t shoot through the door, would he? No, he was carefully approaching the door, gun cocked, his heart knocking inside his chest.

  “It’s me, Wren. I came into town tonight. I-I didn’t know what was happening here. I came to warn you.”

  “There isn’t a tale you could tell me that would convince me to open my door to you.”

  Wren stepped closer, leaning her forehead against the frame of the door, suddenly and completely drained of energy. Bill was alive, just on the other side of this door. He was alive, and he was immune, no threat to her. “Do you know about my father? About my friend, Samantha Gregson?”

  She saw Bill change lanes in his brain. This woman outside my door might be little Wren from the paper. She’d disappeared so completely only months ago, without explanation. Could she have missed the disaster and be here, healthy and safe? His hope of it being true, of seeing another person was instantly tempered with the warning she may be a carrier, a threat to Rhea and Wyatt. Yeah, the virus was supposed to have evolved, but to what he had no way of knowing. He wasn’t about to gamble on it tonight. She saw he was prepared to protect the children to the death.

  “Bill. How long does it take for symptoms to manifest in a person?”

  “What?”

  “If I were to become infected, how long before I’d know. For sure know?”

  He picked up on what she was getting at. “In a matter of hours.” He’d moved close to the door, his voice mere inches away. “You’d have a cough almost at once. Flu-like symptoms, achy all over, chills, within four to six hours. It moves fast.”

  “How long does the virus stay virulent on objects?’

  “Forty-eight to seventy-two hours.” He was shot through with hope, she could see. He wanted to open the door, wel
come her in, but couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t blame him. It was what she would do in his place.

  “Okay, I can wait that out. I’ve been here about three hours. I have things to do. I want to check out my dad’s place, my friend Samantha’s –.

  “No. Don’t. I can save you that visit.” His voice was regretful, kind. “I knew Samantha. She wasn’t so lucky, she went early.”

  “Oh.” Despite suspecting her friend was probably dead already, knowing it to be so hurt nonetheless. “Okay. I-I won’t go–.” Her throat closed, denying her the ability to speak.

  “It’s been hard, Wren.” Bill’s words were meant to comfort, and they did. Through his mind’s eye she saw glimpses of ambulances and sirens sounding around the clock, then stopping altogether, people no longer in the streets but in their homes, hiding. And dying. Until they didn’t hide anymore and burst out in some sort of madness in the end, frightening in their illness, their last stand filled with rage and inhuman strength. She saw him shake away the images, replacing them deliberately with that of Rhea, a tiny blonde girl in pigtails, two front teeth missing, and Wyatt, a sandy-hair boy of around nine or ten, with a too-serious expression on his young, freckled face.

  “Bill, I want to go searching for a few things. What I mostly want to tell you is there are two guys here in town. They live in the old Ice Cream Palace, and I overheard them saying they’re coming for you tomorrow night.”

  Bill’s thoughts veered from the children to mentally tallying all his security features, each in their turn, checking and double checking. She could see he was confident he could withstand their attempt. She wasn’t so sure.

  “I have a place, Bill, about two hours ride south from here. It’s a cabin on a thousand acres I bought in the new year. It’s remote and hard to find. I think we’ll be safe there. I’m heading back before night fall tomorrow night, and you and the kids–.

  Bill’s thoughts turned to alarm. “Kids? What kids?”

  “I’m sorry Bill. I know about Rhea and Wyatt. I can’t explain now, but I will, I promise, if you let me. I’ll be gone ‘til dawn. By the time I get back you should make your decision: Come with me to the forest, or tough it out here in town. I won’t try to influence you.”

  Poor Bill’s brain was firing on all pistons. Hope, fear, practicality, wishful thinking, regrets, the whole shebang.

  Wren stroked the door. “I’ll be back, I promise, if I’m healthy. If I have the symptoms, I won’t come back. Deal?”

  Bill was silent for a moment, now worried for her. A deeply lined and angry face appeared in his thoughts, along with the name Curtis. Then he said, “Deal.”

  She loped away, careful to make her footfalls as soft as she could make them, heading down 98th street, through the Avenues until she was level with the museum on 93rd Avenue before turning toward 100 Street, making her way closer, out of sight of the Ice Cream Palace. Denny and Tuck were asleep again. She reached the Museum in under an hour. Keeping her sensors ranging wide, she felt rather than heard others, as if they too were only dreaming. But they weren’t her concern. First came supplies, then Bill, Rhea, and Wyatt were her concern.

  The museum was not locked, and looked to have been mildly ransacked. Not much of value in a museum when everyone was dying or fleeing, she guessed. The door to the basement was locked, and she knew where Michael Jenks kept the key. Downstairs, she found nothing out of place and did a little happy dance at her success. Grabbing a wooden box from the corner, she piled the homesteaders’ journals inside–no time to read them tonight–followed by various hand-cranked tools, some iron pots, pans, and utensils until it was full. She struggled upstairs with the box, dragged it along the ground to the Beast. She couldn’t help the noise. It was noise or no tools.

  Once she was at the Beast, she remembered all her father’s tablets. Geez, they took up half the space. Shoving them aside, she emptied the wood box of tools, and filled it with the tablets. These she hurried back downstairs with, and dumped into the corner. Now she gathered larger items. The cross-cut saw from her “Wish I Had It” list, two in fact. The crossbow was nowhere in sight. A small bow and arrow set was here. It would have to do. There were snowshoes. She grabbed those. There was a treadle sewing machine with extra needles, but with all the other stuff, there was no room. She’d have to leave it. She looked down at her jeans and sweater. Her clothes may have to last her a very long time. Oh – an old ice auger! She could get water from the river all winter with this if her well and pump gave out! It weighed a ton, but she got it into the Beast. She took the ice fishing gear too. No more tuna for her. She looked longingly at drying racks, but thought she could fashion something similar from branches at Dropout. Again, she’d have to catch something, or shoot something first. She grabbed a roll of netting and weights, then left the rest. She had no room, and she wanted to check out the Outdoors Store and her father’s house before daylight reappeared.

  She drove to the Outdoor Store. It was far from the Ice Cream Palace, on a service road that ran parallel to the Alaska Highway. Once inside she saw it had been gutted. There wasn’t a weapon of any sort left. Well, there were more arrows. They might be useful with the old style bow from the museum, but no crossbow. Drat. All camping gear was long gone. Hurrying up and down the aisles, she was surprised to come upon smoking spices, meat drying spices, and bags of salt. Her eyes grew big at seeing the salt. This was valuable. She found an abandoned cart and filled it with the spices and salt. At the back she found bits of fly fishing gear, and a tangle of netting. Why hadn’t anyone claimed this? She placed it into her cart. She found a roll of thick plastic and added it to her supplies. Roaming farther, she found a pair of steel toed boots, men’s size 12. She tossed them into her cart; you never know. All the clothes racks were festooned with empty hangers. Too bad. She was low on clothes. Not an issue now, but could be a problem and sooner than she would like.

  That was it for the massive outdoors warehouse. She wandered into the Employees Only area. Here she used the washroom, washed up then filled her palms with water and drank and drank, realizing she hadn’t eaten anything since the tuna, most of which was on the highway south of Rushton. She was suddenly starving. In the recycling bin she saw empty water bottles. It was tempting to fill them from the bathroom sink and take them along, but she couldn’t help wondering if they had been handled by an infected person. It had to be more than forty-eight hours since they’d been handled, but still. She left them alone, and went searching through the offices. They had been searched before, it was obvious, but she went through the motions anyway. In the third office, she hit pay dirt. One of the books on the book shelf was not a book, but a box. A box filled with chocolate bars! She ripped into it and scarfed down three bars before she made herself stop and save the rest for later.

  In the shipping and receiving bay she found gold. In the bottom of one of the boxes she found a package of two dozen clean water filtering straws, the kind that could filter impurities from any kind of water, and be safe. She had good clean water at the cabin, but there were many miles between her and the Peace River. She took the straws.

  Going through the staff lockers, she found two ratty sweaters and a plaid goose down vest. She took all three. Behind the returns counter she found a bag with three tinned flints and a dozen arrow heads. Could she do anything with these? Here was another down vest, this one was pink with a split in the side and was too small. She thought instantly of little Rhea and added it to her cart. A needle and thread would fix it up. That seemed to be it, all the useful things she could find, none of which was food, with the exception of the secret stash of a couple dozen candy bars.

  Would it be worth going to the grocery store? She knew already it would be gutted.

  Where would she get food? Surely there was something beyond grass out there. Judging by Denny and Tuck, there were no choices. This she refused to believe. She glanced at her “Wish I Had It” list and saw it for what it was, pure dreaming on her part. She crumpled it up an
d stuffed it into her jean’s pocket.

  She returned to the Beast, shoved her treasures in around the museum finds, strapped down the lid then headed out to the far eastern portion of the town, where her father’s house stood in the hills, once again grateful for the Beast’s gentle purr. She arrived at what she privately called ‘Charlie’s McMansion’ with plenty of night left and was both surprised and not surprised to see it was still completely secure. Her father was anal about it, what with the need to hide all his secret inventions and all—he place was practically a fortress. She went to the hidden key pad and punched in the code, abruptly scared to death about what she was about to find inside her father’s house. The specter of the bodies on the highway had her trembling from head to foot as she stepped inside and locked the door behind her.

  This is where she should take off her shoes. Not going to happen.

  “Hello Virs,” she called, testing the voice recognition of the house system. Virs did not answer.

  She stood still on the landing and listened. The dining room clock ticked away the seconds.

  The furnace kicked in, blowing warm air through vents. Nothing seemed different. Funny how, with the exception of the house service system, all the machinery and automatic systems seemed to be puttering along as normal, ignorant of their human master’s demise….

  She trod lightly up the stairs, the main floor coming in to view in gradations as she rose–beige carpets, beige furnishings, maple cabinets, with stock bird prints dotting the walls. No knickknacks, no magazines, no personal items lay about. Most important–no body. The low background hum of the window-bots, still busy cleaning the windows was the only sound and motion here. She relaxed just a little.