Days of Future Past - Part 1: Past Tense

by John Van Stry

  "There's another good place to stay here," Jack said, taking out his map and pointing to a spot marked on it. It was a few miles past another lake.

  "That looks to be a fair distance," I said looking over the route; we'd be leaving seventy-nine to take seventy-six. I'd been up past that lake several times, as I recalled, it had an earthen damn and was part of the area flood control or something. I'd gone water skiing there several times during my stay at Camp Pendleton.

  "Well, they say the road is fairly level for most of the route, though we start to go downwards after we pass that lake. So I'm thinking we should be able to make it."

  I nodded and looked over the rest of the route. After tomorrow we'd be into territory that I definitely should remember, if this really was my world a few hundred years into the future.

  "Well, I'm going to bed," I said and headed for the tent I was sharing with Sarah and Heather. We had the next watch, and I wanted to get as much sleep as possible before then. Thankfully both of the girls felt the same way.

  Nothing bothered us that night, it was far too cold out for anything to be out I guess. All I know is that I was freezing my butt off the entire time that the three of us were on watch, and was very happy to go back to our tent and get in back in the large sleeping bag we usually shared. With three people in it, it was actually rather comfy.

  That morning we got a slow start, the road near the lake had a lot of ice on it, and it made it slow going for the first couple of miles, but after the sun came up, we started to make good time. Jack had Glenn, Terry, and Keri ride up ahead of us as scouts a couple hundred yards. Keri would use her magic to try and detect any ambushes, traps, or lurking animals, while Glenn and Terry would be there to protect her.

  This put me and Geoff at the back, behind the wagons, as we got to play rear guard today.

  "You know, I've been wanting to thank you for saving Glenn's ass there back when we got attacked by the wolf riders," Geoff said to me as he scanned the road to the side and behind us.

  "I take it you two are friends?" This was really the first opportunity I'd had to talk with Geoff, usually he was with Glenn, Terry, or Dean, while we were riding, and often with Keri when we were not.

  Geoff nodded, "I met him in Mexical years ago, we both grew up there. We started working as caravan guards on the run from Yuma to Havsue and back. That was where we met Dean and Terry."

  "I'm sorry about Dean," I told him, checking behind us as well. As the rear guard we both had our rifles in our hands and kept a wary eye out. "I wish there was something I could have done."

  Geoff shook his head and gave a little half-shrug, "Nothing you could have done about it. We'll all miss him, but he shoulda got under cover like the rest of us."

  "How's Terry doing? She really seems pretty broken up over it."

  "Yeah, she and Dean go back from before Glenn or I met him."

  "Was she his girlfriend?" I asked, wondering if I'd dodged a problem there by not getting involved with her.

  Geoff laughed, "Terry is everybody's girlfriend, if you know what I mean!"

  I blinked and turned to look at him, "How so?"

  "Terry likes men, a lot, and on these trips, if you're not already spoken for, she'll be more than happy to take your mind off things," Geoff said and then looking my way, he gave me a wink.

  I got the picture. "So, You, Glenn, and Dean?" I asked.

  "And Tim," Geoff nodded, "but not me anymore. Keri would have my balls in a sling if I cheated on her."

  I laughed at that, "I haven't seen you two in the same tent, so I didn't know."

  "Well, unlike some people," and he smirked at me, "Keri doesn't care much for an audience, and these tents don't give a lot of privacy. But last night it got so cold that she let me 'warm her up', if you know what I mean."

  I chuckled and nodded my head.

  "So, what's Mexical like?" I asked, changing the subject.

  "It's a little like Havsue, though the population is more hispanic and a lot of folks speak Spanish as well as English. They don't have as much tech as Havsue does either, the fusion plant they had got destroyed when the Colorado river changed its course about two hundred years ago."

  "That must have sucked, what did they do?"

  "Went back to oil fired electrical plants. There are some wells in the area that produce enough oil to feed them. It's not enough to have broadcast power like they do back in Havsue, but it's enough to run the factories, the food processing plants, and the defense grid."

  "Defense grid?"

  Geoff nodded, "Every town has one. For the smaller towns it's just a wall, bigger towns may have a salvaged gun emplacement or two powered by a generator when they get attacked. Larger towns have bigger guns, maybe even a laser or two. It keeps the dragons away."

  "They really are a problem, aren't they?" I asked.

  Geoff nodded and spit on the ground from up on his horse, "Let me tell you, Paul. There are two kinds of dragons, the ones that will kill and eat you, and the ones who will take all of your money and food, and then kill and eat you."

  I was a bit surprised by that, and said as much.

  "I thought there were good dragons as well as bad ones?"

  Geoff gave a snort at that, "The good ones are the ones who expect you to pay them with either food or money for their protecting you from the bad ones. And if you can't pay? Down the gullet you go!

  "Oh, they'll tell the others that you left town, or that they ran you out of town, but there are two things you can count on with a dragon: One they're always greedy; and Two, they're always hungry."

  "Huh, I'll remember that," I told him, being reminded of my own decision to take up dragon hunting once Coyote no longer needed my help.

  "So, what brings you all the way out here?" Geoff asked, glancing over at me.

  "I know where to find a bunch of weapons that no one else has raided yet."

  "I heard you financed the expedition with your poker winnings, is that true?"

  "Yeah, that's true. Why? Does it matter?"

  Geoff shrugged, "I'd figure a professional gambler would be more likely to want to stay back at the casino with soft beds and hot food, than to come out here."

  "Well, a man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do," I said with a shrug.

  "Yeah, and with Sarah and Heather, I'm sure doing it is just such a chore!" he said with a laugh.

  I laughed as well and just shook my head at that; there really wasn't much I could say.

  We devolved into small talk after that mostly; apparently Geoff knew a thing or two about food, or rather, finding good food. I learned quite a bit about some of the better eating establishments in both Havsue and Mexical, as well as Yuma.

  I think it was the first 'normal' conversation I'd had since coming here.

  While Geoff and I rode rear guard we passed through several small towns before we stopped for lunch, or at least places that had been small towns. Only one of them had a building left standing, and that was an old abandoned firehouse. Still, I was rather surprised that no one was living up here, and I said as much as we stopped for lunch.

  "Not enough people," Dianne said, which caught my attention right away, Dianne didn't talk much.

  "What do you mean?"

  "There aren't all that many people in the world for them to want to come here and settle an area so far away from everyone else," she said.

  "I'd think people would be flocking to a place like this," I said looking around. "It's wide open and we haven't seen anything dangerous or bad. You could have everything you wanted."

  "Where would they buy their tools?" Dianne asked.

  "They could bring them with them."

  "What if they break? And their seed stock? Where would they get that? Clothing, doctors, other supplies."

  "Okay, I get the point," I said with a shake of my head, "It's too far away from everyone else."

  "It's too far away from civilization," Dianne corrected me.

  I almost told her that LA
was just an hour's drive from here, but she was right, there was no civilization here, not anymore.

  "Also, there are the dragons," Sarah reminded me. "If you set up a large farm or even a small town, this being the mountains, you would have to deal with them. If they are evil, well, without something like the defenses Havsue has, you'd find yourself either dead, or living in thrall to one. Not a very appealing situation for anyone."

  "Let's get going," Jack called. "We still have a good deal of ground to cover today."

  Everyone grumbled a little, but we all mounted back up and got going, according to the map, the turnoff to route seventy-six was only a mile or so ahead, and once we passed the lake, it was downhill all the way.

  Sure enough, the turnoff came, there was even a rusted old sign still up that you could read some of the information on. We turned down it, and I took a good look around, there was a rather large field on the northeast side of the road, and I could see a herd of deer or something grazing off a thousand yards or so.

  "Anyone feel like some venison?" I heard Heather joke from up front.

  "Maybe on the way back, Dear," Sarah replied.

  As we continued to ride on, I started to wonder where the lake was. I remembered it being a pretty big lake, I'd come up here and water skied on it twice during the summer I was here. Something I could do better than the Marines I was working with at least.

  "Keep an eye on things," I said to Geoff and I rode around the group and past the others.

  "Where are you going?" Jack called.

  "Something's not right, wait there!" I said and slowed my horse as I came up to Glenn, Terry, and Keri who were just staring at me. "Come with me," I said and then kicked it back up to a gallop, watching the road and what was around it as they joined me.

  There hadn't been much of a town up here back then, and it didn't look like that ever changed before everything went away. However I notice that where there had been a couple mile long lake, there was now a very much-reduced one, and a lot of dry cracked and frozen dirt.

  I saw the fork for the road that led to the earthen dam and I turned onto that, with the other three bringing up the rear. I went a hundred feet and then I reined my horse back to a walk.

  "Well shit," I said swearing. I could see it from here, the dam was gone, or rather a good hunk of it was gone, and it didn't look like the damage was all that old.

  "What?" Keri asked riding up next to me.

  "Yeah, what are we supposed to be looking at?" Terry asked.

  "See that hole in the middle of that dam?"

  "Yeah? So what?"

  "That's not supposed to be there," I said.

  "So the dam failed, what does that matter?" Terry asked, but I could hear Keri swear.

  "The river runs alongside the road, if the dam failed, odds are the road is gone."

  I looked at the destruction down stream of the dam, it looked pretty significant.

  "Glenn, ride back and tell them the dam is gone, and it looks like the road may be gone as well. We'll go check it out and be back in a little while."

  "Sure, Paul," he said and turning his horse he galloped back towards the others, who were about a mile back.

  "Come on, let's see how bad this is," I said and riding back towards the road I led the other two further along it.

  "You seen to know this area pretty well," Keri said.

  "Not all that well, but a big ass dam is kind of hard to forget," I said and looked ahead as we rode north along the road. We came to an intersection that I remembered, it was a bridge over the river, and I could see from here that the bridge was gone. A hundred feet later we came to the new gorge that the river had cut when the dam had let go; the road was completely gone. Standing up in the stirrups, it was gone as far as I could see.

  "Guess we're not going that way," Terry said.

  "No, I guess not. Let's go back to the others."

  "Turn us around," I said riding up to the others. "The road's completely gone."

  "You sure?" Jack asked and I could see the surprise on the faces of the others.

  "Yeah, the earthen dam on the lake here failed and it washed out the road for as far as the eye can see. As the road runs along the river for miles, I think it's safe to say that it's impassable."

  "What about the side roads we've been passing?" Heather asked.

  "Most of those just go up into the hills," I said. "Can I see your map, Jack?"

  He passed it to me as he got the wagons turned around. At least the road was wide enough to make it an easy job.

  "We're going to have to go back to route seventy-eight," I told them, "it's about eight miles back. Looks like we'll be going through the city sooner, Heather, rather than on the way back."

  I handed Jack the map back and we spent the next two and a half hours retracing our earlier path. We rode back into the remains of the small town that had been at the crossroads, only this time we turned west, and started down the long grade into the LA basin. It was almost four according to my watch, so we only had a few hours of daylight left.

  The first six or so miles of the road had nothing on either side of it, but ruins started to show up about eight miles down the road. The sun was starting to go down, but at least with us being on the western side of the mountains, dusk lasted longer, and we were all looking for anything to hole up in, when Terry spotted a building on the right that was still standing, and we went up the short driveway.

  "Huh, adobe," I said as we rode around the house. "Must have been somebody rich too, this place is huge!"

  "Glenn, Geoff, Terry, go check it out!" Jack said.

  The all dismounted, pulled out their rifles and their flashlights and ran inside.

  When a brief firefight suddenly erupted inside the house we all drew our rifles and ran for the wide-open front door.

  "Hold your fire!" Glenn called out then came out of the front door.

  "So," he asked with a cocky grin, "anybody up for fresh bear?"

  We ate rather well that evening, and after taking some time to block up a few of the windows and other openings to make it more secure, we settled in for the night. The house had a fireplace with a working chimney, so we even had a fire and had a much more comfortable evening.

  Due to the previous occupant, there was nothing else living in the building, and also none of the other predators in the area came around to investigate. Though you could hear the yipping of the coyotes off in the distance, until the howling of the wolves shut them all up.

  Jack still set us on a three man watch, though he added a forth watch of him and Lisa in the morning. After two long days of travel, he was letting everyone take a few hours longer to relax. Sarah, Heather, and I got the third watch, and when Jack and Lisa's turn came, I let Sarah and Heather go back to bed for a few more hours while I stayed up.

  I grabbed the ladder that was in the supplies in Tim's wagon and set it up against the side of the house.

  "Where are you going?" Jack asked.

  "Up on the roof to get a better view of the valley."

  "You're not going to see much until the sun rises," he pointed out.

  "I'll see any lights or fires," I reminded him.

  He nodded and acceded the point so I carefully climbed up on the roof, and using my flashlight to avoid any holes I moved over until I had a good vantage point to look out across the valley below.

  Turning off my flashlight, I let my eyes adjust, and after a while I did start to pick out a few little dots of light that were spread out randomly before me in the distance.

  "I wonder what those are," I said to myself.

  "Three of them are hermits that live down there, two more are small groups hoping to find something of value, and six of them are solar powered lights that amazingly are still working after all of these years," Coyote said, causing me to twitch a little in surprise.

  "I'd ask you not to sneak up on me like that, but I doubt you'd listen," I grumbled as my heart slowed back down.

  "Oh, I'd lis
ten. I'd still do it, but I'd listen," Coyote chuckled in the darkness.

  "So, what brings you here today?"

  "I wanted to let you know just how much you owe me for that boat, that wasn't easy you know."

  I gave a short laugh, "I don't owe you anything, I'm here working for you, that was more for your benefit than it was mine. I'd appreciate it more of course if we hadn't lost Dean."

  "Yes, I'm sorry about that. Daneth is a bit of a pig, so when he saw your horses, he just had to go get one I guess. At least he didn't come back for more."

  "Daneth?" I said turning to look at his outline in the dark. "You know him?"

  "I know who he is, I do not know him. I do not associate with evil dragons. Or even good ones for that matter. They have no sense of humor and all wit is rather lost on them."

  "Did you know he was going to be there?"

  "I suspected. But again, I did not know that he was going to attack."

  "What was he doing out there anyway? From what the others said, I thought they kept farther to the north, and into the mountains.

  "Remember how I said someone was making arrangements to slow down Riggs?"

  "They got a dragon?" I said surprised.

  "They got Daneth, which almost qualifies," Coyote said with a sniff. "When he flew off for his little snack however, Riggs and his men slipped away from where they'd been pinned down. By the time Daneth finished making a pig of himself, he couldn't find them, so he gave up and flew off for home."

  "I bet whoever hired him wasn't happy with that," I laughed softly.

  "No, they weren't. However when dealing with dragons you really don't have much recourse if they don't hold up their end of the deal."

  "So, any advice for the rest of the trip?"

  "Keep your eyes open. There is a small army of goblins marching down to confront Riggs. They'll probably catch up with Riggs not long after he gets to the armory, probably the next day."

  "Did they have anything to do with that group that attacked us?"