Days of Future Past - Part 1: Past Tense

by John Van Stry

  Coyote nodded, "They were one of the forward scout groups, who got lost in the storm. They don't want to attack Riggs until he's gotten whatever it is he's looking for. They figure that whatever it is, they'll just kill him and take it after he's found it."

  "Well I hope he's brought a lot of men, and that they're well armed."

  "They're not armed well enough, which is why Riggs has to go to the armory."

  "What?" I asked surprised, "can't they just buy weapons from Havsue and the other cities?"

  "You haven't seen what's in the armory yet," Coyote chuckled. "Just wait until you do."

  "Huh," I said and thought about that. The armory had a lot of standard infantry weapons when I had been there, AR's, an assortment of different sniping rifles that the marines liked to use, machine guns, both heavy and light, even some recoilless rifles.

  And anti-tank weapons and MANPADs. I'd forgotten about those! I could just imagine what some of those might do to a dragon!

  "Exactly, now add a hundred years of development."

  "A hundred years?" I asked surprised.

  I didn't get an answer, and looking around I noticed he was gone. So I thought about that, a hundred years and I'm sure they would have made some massive improvements to all of our weapons. It would be very interesting to see what level things had gotten to. Maybe that was why Sarah was so willing to take the risk of this expedition? The rifles we had really weren't all that much different than the ones you could buy back home.

  So a hundred years from when I was there to the date when the war came? I'd already heard the bit about the earth being covered in a nuclear winter for a hundred years. Then there were the wars that took what, another hundred after that? I wasn't sure if I was remembering that correctly, I'd have to ask, but if it was two hundred years after the winter ended and the gods came back, that would mean I had left my world four hundred years in the past.

  I looked around at everything, the sun was starting to come up and as the sun's rays started to illuminate the LA basin, all I could see was one big wasteland.

  Yeah, we'd really done a lot with the place in the last four hundred years.

  - 20 -

  It was still early when we hit the remains of the first town. It wasn't terribly big maybe twenty square blocks, but we were entering the edges of suburbia now, and both Heather and Sarah had warned me that there were a lot of things that liked to hide in the ruins.

  "Wow, look at that!" Heather said as we came to the edge of town.

  "What am I looking at?" I asked.

  "A lot of the town is still standing!" She said, rather excitedly.

  I looked a little harder, I could see ruined and collapsed buildings everywhere, but a few blocks further in, there were quite a few brick buildings that appeared to still be intact.

  "That's not all that many buildings," I said.

  "Well, it's more than any of us expected," she smiled.

  "Guns out, everyone!" Jack ordered. "Who knows what's in here."

  We all drew our rifles and checked our pistols, and I checked my cartridge belt.

  "Just what do you guys scavenge, anyways?" I asked, curious. "After all, it looks like you can make everything you need back at Havsue."

  "Raw materials, or high tech weapons," Heather said. "There's always a need for any radioactive materials, gold, silver, copper, those kinds of things."

  "Where do you find radioactive materials?" I asked, rather curious.

  "Mostly in the older style x-ray machines in hospitals and clinics. The rest, well we look for old banks and drill out the safety deposit boxes, or old jewelry stores."

  "As for weapons," Sarah said, joining in, "there are a lot of old military bases, not like the one you are leading us too. Some of the more high tech weapons, like the lasers we use to drive off dragons, we don't have the ability to produce. So we scavenge those kinds of things from where we can find it."

  "Yeah, we can manufacture small stuff easily enough," Heather agreed. "But anything really large? And complex? Easier to scavenge it and repair it if necessary. We just don't have the equipment to build it."

  "And those storage places where people would store their things? Those can be rather worthwhile as well," Sarah continued. "We don't usually find many raw materials or high tech devices there, however we often find some rather nice antique furniture, or old musical instruments, things like that can sometimes sell as well."

  "Don't forget good alcohol!" Keri added from behind us. "Good booze always sells, most of what they make in Havsue isn't all that great, and wines are especially worthwhile."

  "Yeah, but carrying bottles back is pretty hard to do without breaking them," Heather added, "so grab a few for yourself if you ever see any, and if you're lucky, they'll survive the trip and you'll make a few bucks."

  I nodded and Heather just suddenly raised her gun up and fired off two shots in quick succession, once again I thanked the built-in silencers for saving my ears.

  "Bullrats!" Heather called and I looked over at what she had shot. There were two large rats twitching in the ground, about the size of a large dog. I heard a couple of other shots from around the group and as I scanned the area around us, I saw the twitching bodies. We were entering the town proper now, so I decided to keep my gun up to my shoulder and as I looked around.

  "Anything else I should worry about?" I asked.

  "If it's alive, and it isn't a human with his hands in the air, shoot it," Heather said.

  "What, no elves?" Dianne teased from behind us.

  "Like an elf would be caught dead in a human city," Heather snickered and Dianne laughed.

  Several more times shots rang out as we continued down the street, I saw something large duck behind a wall and I put four shots into where I thought it was. A loud screech and another bullrat flopped out from behind the wall.

  "Good shot," Heather said.

  "I'm surprised at how aggressive these things are," I said to her, looking back down our path, I could see the ones we had killed were being savaged by their fellow bullrats.

  "Yeah, if there are bullrats, odds are there isn't anything else nearby. They're pretty nasty. Thankfully they fight with each other as much as they fight with everything else."

  We turned north about ten more blocks down the road, then three blocks later we crossed over an old but short highway bridge, and that was it, we were out of the town. There were still some buildings to either side of the road, but most of them looked like old ruined homes or farms. Very little of those were more than just a couple of walls left standing, if that, though every so often we'd see an adobe home that was still standing.

  "Well that wasn't too bad," I said. "Hopefully the next place won't be much worse."

  "Is the next one bigger or smaller?" Jack asked.

  "Bigger, lots bigger."

  "Can we go around it?"

  "To the north, sure. To the south, maybe, that would put us in San Marcos."

  "Just how well do you know the area?" Jack asked and I noticed Sarah gave him a cautioning look.

  "I know what it was like before the war, or big slam, or whatever the hell you guys call it. Years before the war. But now? I suspect there were changes made between the time I know of and when the end came, and then of course whatever natural disasters followed." I shrugged, "So just how well I know the area will have to be seen."

  Jack was about to ask another question, but Sarah, who was riding next to him since we'd left the last town reached over and put her hand on his arm, and he shut up. I was starting to realize that Sarah was taking it on faith, and that she knew Jack wouldn't.

  The next hour passed quietly, we were skirting one of the hills that led down into Escondido when I heard a lion roar.

  "What the hell was that?" Lisa said from her wagon.

  "Lion," I said.

  "Mountain lions don't sound like that!" Heather said taking her gun out and looking around.

  "African lions do, and they're a lot bigger than mou
ntain lions."

  "How much bigger?"

  "Five hundred pounds?" I said trying to remember, "They're big, they're really big, but the males don't really hunt. Just the females do."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  I was trying to think of how the hell African lions had ended up here, when suddenly Heather opened fire.

  "Lion!" She yelled and I pulled my rifle out and started shooting.

  "Call them back!" I yelled to Jack motioning towards Terry, Keri and Glenn who were riding up ahead, "Call them back!"

  I flipped the selector to three round burst and I started to just hose down the long grass all around where the lioness that was charging us had come from as the others all started to concentrate fire on it.

  "Stop wasting shots!" Heather said.

  "They hunt in packs!" I yelled and turning in my saddle I started to look for the next one, and sure enough, there were suddenly two springing out of the brush and charging from the other side.

  I got six rounds into one, and that seemed to slow it down, but the bolt locked open and I was out of ammo. I dropped the rifle and pulled my forty-five and started shooting the other one, the louder report of that pistol standing out over the more muted sounds of the rifles. My horse saw the lionesses coming at it and panicked spinning around and throwing me out of the saddle. I hit the ground hard, rolling as everyone starting shooting all around us.

  The lioness that was charging me, turned to go after my horse, but suddenly it just fell over dead. I could see three more turn and run off then, as I got back to my feet and drew my revolver, looking around to see what was else was going on.

  At that point, all the shooting stopped and looking up the road I could see that Keri and Glenn, who had been scouting ahead, were riding back very quickly. I didn't see any sign of Terry, at first, and then I noticed she was draped over Glenn's horse in front of his saddle, and was covered in blood.

  "Everybody, sound off!" Jack called.

  "Terry's hurt bad!" Keri yelled. "Dianne! We need you!"

  I listened as the others called out their name, as Dianne and Jack both dismounted and ran over to Glenn's horse, helping to lower Terry to the ground.

  "What happened?" Dianne asked Glenn as Tim came running over with one of our first aid kits.

  "One of the lions got her horse, and another tried to get her," Glenn said. "We got the one that attacked her, and managed to drive the other one off, but her horse is dead."

  I limped over to my own horse then, it tried to shy away from me, but Sarah was on her horse on the other side and stopped it from moving away. I grabbed its reins then I popped it one on the nose when it balked.

  "You okay, Paul?" Sarah asked looking down at me as I turned to watch Tim and Jack worked on Terry, as Dianne went after the worst of her wounds. I'd never really had the opportunity to watch Dianne work as a healer, I knew she used some sort of magic, but seeing it was still something of a surprise.

  "I'm sore as hell," I said after trying to get back up in the saddle and failing.

  "Go find out how Terry is, I'll survive," I said and decided instead to look for my dropped pistol and rifle.

  "Anybody hurt, other than Terry and Paul?" Sarah called, looking around.

  I gathered up my forty-five, reloaded it, and then found my rifle and did the same. Then I walked over to the carcass of one of the dead lionesses, it was huge, easily twice my size.

  "We should skin those," Heather said looking at the bodies, "probably could get a lot of money for them."

  Sarah looked around. "Think they will come back?" she asked, looking at me.

  "What, do I look like an expert on lions?"

  "You know more about them than we do."

  "Well, we can't move until they get Terry fixed up either enough to ride or put in the back of one of the wagons. So you might as well do it. I'm gonna climb up on one of the wagons and see if I can't get back on my horse from there and keep an eye out. But they're supposed to be pretty smart and we just killed a bunch of them, so hopefully this group won't come back anytime soon."

  "So where the hell did they come from?" Heather asked, hopping down from her horse and pulling out a big knife.

  "There used to be a zoo around here, a big one. I guess they got out and survived."

  I hobbled over to Tim's cart and carefully climbed up onto it, still holding the reins to my horse, then just decided to tie it off and stand guard with my rifle.

  Ten minutes later they lifted Terry's unconscious body up and put her in the back of Tim's wagon, Dianne climbing up with her.

  "How bad is it?" I asked, looking back at her.

  Dianne sighed, "She's going to be laid up for a few days. Multiple broken bones, four deep slashes and a bite wound to her leg."

  "She'll recover though, right?" I asked concerned.

  Dianne nodded, "Yes, but she lost a lot of blood and almost bled to death before we could stop it." She looked up from Terry at me. "Why aren't you on your horse?"

  "I got thrown and I'm still a bit sore," I said.

  "Well, once I get Terry comfortable and I'm sure she's stable, I'll take a look at it."

  "I'll survive," I said.

  Tim helped me get back onto my horse after that, and Heather and Geoff threw the hides of the two they'd managed to skin into the back of Lisa's wagon. Then we got moving again. Terry's horse was gone, one of the lionesses had snuck back and dragged its body off, but her saddle was there, the attack had broken one of the girth straps. Her rifle was also on the ground and we recovered that as well.

  As we continued on, Sarah and Keri were throwing some kind of spells into the brush on either side of the road to flush out any more lions. Whatever they were doing, it worked, about a mile later several more jumped up and ran away, but nothing else bothered us as we went past the remains of the zoo and entered the outskirts of the next town.

  We stopped and had lunch, a couple of hours later than normal, and looked over the road ahead of us. Dianne came out and had a look at me, and gave me something for the soreness and told me to take it easy. She also told us that Terry would be okay in a few days, but she wouldn't be able to sit a horse for at least a week.

  I checked Jack's map as we ate. The road here was fairly wide and it did eventually go where we wanted to go, but I wasn't sure I wanted to go that way, as we'd have to go through two more towns. We could also skirt around Escondido to the east, but that would put us on smaller roads that I knew nothing about and would probably slow us down.

  What I wanted to do was just cut over to highway fifteen, which was less than a mile from here and take it north a few miles, then get off and cut through the roads I used to take to get back to the front gate at night, after being out and getting pissed with the other guys. The problem was, I had no idea what shape fifteen was in, and while I could make that trip in a car in about twenty minutes, I had no idea how long it would take us now.

  All things considered, I honestly couldn't think of a better way to go. At least we'd avoided trouble taking that route in the past, so I might as well try it again. It would also get us there a lot quicker than going around.

  When we all got mounted up again, I rode up to Jack, as he was getting ready to lead us off. He and Sarah had decided not to send anyone up ahead, that it would be better to concentrate our strength.

  "I'll lead," I said.

  "What?" Jack said looking surprised.

  "I know where I'm going. I know a good route."

  Jack looked at Sarah who shrugged and so he shrugged as well. "Okay, lead on, Paul."

  Nodding I started us down seventy-eight and into the town. I knew if we stayed on this road we'd hit the town center, where all the malls and stores were. The road past there was nice and wide, because they had a lot of traffic. That would give us a nice view of our surroundings and make it harder for us to be ambushed. It also skirted the more developed downtown area.

  I kept up a quick pace; I wanted to get us as far as possible before we h
ad to stop for the night. Nobody complained, and I kept looking right and left constantly, as we moved down the street. When we got to the mall, I felt a bit better, the open ground helped a lot, and the bridge over the creek was still there, so we didn't have to find a way around.

  I noticed that the biggest building to the left looked burned out, but after we crossed the creek, the one on this side just looked old. The walls were still standing, but more than that I couldn't tell.

  I started counting left turns then, same as I always had, the street narrowed for a block, and then opened back up. We were in suburbia now; it was mostly houses, though there was a school up ahead on the right. The cops always liked to hang out in the parking lot in the evenings.

  As we got to it I noticed that some of the school was still standing.

  A few more blocks, a few churches on the left, a fire department on the right.

  The churches were all gone, but the firehouse was still there interestingly enough.

  A left turn then, on to a big open street.

  Down the street, down the street, look for the donut shop right after the Del Taco.

  I shook myself a moment, neither of those two places still existed, but the ruins of the stores followed by the ruins of the inn were clear, and I could see the big bend up ahead. I stopped a moment and looked.

  "Something wrong?" Sarah asked.

  "Do I take central, or do I go down to the freeway?" I said looking back and forth. "Central was always clear, and I don't remember any bridges, but the parkway has lots of them, they may have collapsed."

  "You make it sound like you have been here before," Sarah teased.

  "I have, lots of times," I said and made up my mind, central.

  "This way!" I said and turned down central, with Sarah suddenly kicking her horse to keep up.

  "What did you say?" she said looking at me.

  "Apartment complex," I said and pointed, "A school after that. Then just more houses until we run into the freeway. We'll take the freeway up to the second exit, head west through the hills. There's a couple of big houses along the road, one of them should still be standing, and we'll just hole up there for the night," I said, looking around and remembering what it had all looked like. Had it only been two years ago? I shook my head. It was all just ruins now.