The Event Series (Book 3): The Archive and Beyond

by Thomas Larson

  Asuna and I sat out by the lake until about 2 in the morning looking at the sky. We talked about where we have been, how things have changed in the world, and what the future might hold. We were kind of upbeat about it. I really believe that given a few weeks we’ll all be back home and getting ready to freeze our asses off come winter time.

  August 10th

  (Matt) The plan was to leave at 10 this morning, but there were a few little last minute details that needed attention. Seems one of the fuel drums in the Major’s truck had a little leak in it and it was not discovered until we were almost ready to leave. We had to change that out and then we were off. We picked up I-90 and took it into Albany. We deviated a little bit to use the Menard Bridge and then were able to get through the city and back on the Interstate pretty easily.

  As we drove, I thought about the camp and the good-byes this morning. I hope that we will all see each other again soon. I will leave it at that.

  Our goal was to make about 300 miles today. That is if the roads are clear. We look for fuel along the way and try to keep topped off as best we could. Fred was able to gather some flight maps that show where there were small regional airports that would accommodate jets. Those seem to be the best chance at JP-8 and in most cases they wouldn’t be that far from the highway.

  We used the CB radios to chat back and forth as we moved out of Albany and entered Schenectady. This was the place where we made a big deviation from the route that Lance had suggested. We decided that taking I-88 and then I-86 toward Erie, PA might be a little better than I-90. We would not have to deal with Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo by going that way.

  It was actually my idea, and although I used those cities as an excuse, I think it had more to do with not having to retrace our steps to go near Rome and Stanwix. There is still a lot of pain held from that place and what happened.

  We planned to drive until about 8 pm or so. That would give us a chance to find a place, safe place, for us to camp or park for the night.

  The route itself was fairly peaceful and clear of blockages. We had to move a couple of cars and a tree. But that was about it.

  We ended up in Bath, New York for the night. There was a little campground just to the north of the town by a lake. In a way it kind of reminded me of Romanica; it had the same sort of layout with the cabins, and the way the grounds looked.

  After dark we wandered out to their little fire pit that seemed to be a camp meeting place. They had little log benches set up in a circle. We heated up some of the food, deer stew that had been packed for us. We would eat that for a couple of days, and then we would be doing canned goods, or hunting/foraging.

  There was not a lot of chatter at the fire; it wasn’t like our usual vespers, although at the end of the night, about 10, I led us in a prayer. We set up a watch schedule, and turned in. I did not draw watch duty tonight.

  (Margo) Well, we were off and as I expected, late, but it wasn’t a big deal. Once on the road I was just following the rest of the trucks. Code and I were the last truck in the group. After about an hour of driving I came to the conclusion that driving is really, kind of boring. I found my mind wandering, thinking about Momma, and where we have been, and the trucks in front of us. I started to laugh.

  “What?” asked Code.

  “Oh, I was just remembering something. As we are driving, all I see is the back of the truck in front of me. It reminded me of a joke my Gramp used to tell us, over, and over, and over.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, well it was about a family of moles walking along in a line and the Daddy Mole, the first in line, says ‘I smell Pancakes and syrup,’ and the Mommy Mole, next in line, says, ‘Yep, I smell pancakes and syrup too,’ and the little Baby Mole, last in line, grumbles, ‘Yep, well maybe, but all I smell is molasses’.”

  He looked at me, and just shook his head.

  I grinned, “It is comfort food, a good memory, of a better time.” Suddenly, I wanted to cry.

  We drove on, had to make a couple stops, Code helped move the roadblock while I sat with the Barrett, my sniper rifle, and just kept watch. I saw some movement a couple of times, and when I zeroed in with the scope, it was just a deer or a rabbit. Nothing to worry about for us, or for them either, today we have food, tomorrow, they may not be so lucky.

  The rest of the day was boring, I tried turning on the AM/FM radio, to see if there was a station that was up and running, doubted it but figured I would try. That did not last long though; we kept hitting the automatic loop recordings from some of the local stations telling us that we could find sanctuary in Rome, at Fort Stanwix. That killed the idea of playing with the radio, and sucked the life out of some of us for the day.

  We rolled through Binghamton, and then on through Elmira, and Corning until we finally ended up at a little campground at a town called Bath. It worked, and we ate around the little campfire that was in the middle of the cabins.

  I drew the first watch for tonight. I am tired; the driving was more draining that I ever expected. But I only have to hang on until 2 AM, and then Fred is going to relieve me. It is quiet, and I am able to get some writing done. Not much into thinking though, just trying to stay awake.

  (Tom) Damn, late start, I wanted to get moving, want to get there and back again. But we moved along pretty well, we averaged in the 40 Mph range, which seemed reasonable, we could have gone faster, but the faster, the more diesel fuel we would use. So that is good.

  Matt suggested a route different than what Lance had given us. It kind of made sense, I guess, and when I asked Winston about it, he seemed to agree that the route would be a little shorter overall.

  Matt and I took turns leading the way. We kept the Major and Margo near the back. Those two trucks were important to keep safe because of the medical aspect and I used the excuse of Margo being the sniper/protector, but really, it was because it was Margo.

  We saw nothing living, or dead as far as humans went. We had no contact with the Hunters. But then, even if we did run into hunters they should just ignore us, we were in theory, virus free. It will be an interesting test when it finally happens.

  We covered a nice chunk of road today despite the late start. We reached a little place near a town called Bath. I’m tired. Asuna snoozed during much of the afternoon part of the drive. I listened to a couple of mind-numbing New Age CDs while I drove. I remembered some of my long drive vacations out west, Arizona, Route 66 and Montana, some with Anne, some alone. It was long ago.

  (Lance) They are away, we were able to talk to them for a while, couple of hours, but now they are on their own. The camp is emptier; there are only six of us here. I am wondering now if we might have been better to have just split into three groups and the six of us went with the travelers. But then we need to still get the camp and food supply ready for winter and there is the baby and the horses.

  It is going to be a long month. It might be a good time for Del and me to do some exploring also.

  August 11th

  (Tom) We were awake pretty early this morning and ready to roll by 7 o’clock. A check of the fuel situation showed we were good for another hundred or so mile which meant we should be keeping an eye out for airports or truck stops. When I asked Fred to look into that, he told me that there was a Hornell Municipal Airport up the road about 50 miles. Perfect, that was our goal.

  The road was pretty clear of broken down cars, which was good. We got to Hornell at about 8:30. There was a good supply of kerosene and we were able to top off. This should get us to the end of the day’s stopping point.

  Once we were on the road again we passed through another Hinsdale, this one in New York. I wonder how many there are, Hinsdales that is.

  As we rode along, I thought about what we might face if we tried to rejoin I-90 at Erie Pa and then followed it down to the Cleveland area. I was thinking that it might be better to take a different, less populated route into the city. We talked about it on the CB for a bit and decided that we could take a cross
-route through the Allegheny Mountains and that would bring us to I-80. The thought was that it would lead us through less developed areas. We figured that I-90 would go through some areas that, it was very likely, could still have population, or had been badly damaged by the government when they bombed the area.

  We had to stop a couple of times on Route 519 between I-90 and I-80 to clear a few trees, and at one point had to carefully navigate over a washed out part of the road where a creek had taken out the low bridge that crossed it. It took us about 45 minutes to get the 6 trucks across, it was very treacherous.

  At about 2 PM we connected with the Pennsylvania Turnpike and followed it into Ohio. The area was not too bad; it was pretty unpopulated at first, until we got closer and closer to Youngstown. As we hit the suburbs, we began to see where civilization had taken a downturn. There was an increase in cars abandoned and burned out on the other side of the highway. Every few miles we would run into places where the traffic had tried to break out of the traffic jams and had moved to our side of the highway. It took some effort to move or get around them.

  It got a little better once we cleared Youngstown, for a while anyway; the east bound lanes were still bad. That had been all the people who had tried to escape Cleveland and the area around it. To think about the people, hundreds of thousands of people who had tried to get away, it kind of left a sick feeling in my stomach.

  “I wonder how they died.” I said out loud.

  Asuna looked at me, and kind of shrugged, “I don’t know, I hope it was quick, and painless, but..”

  “Yeah, best case was they left the cars and got away, but I don’t think so. I am thinking that maybe they were stuck in traffic when the bomb went off. It would probably have been the most humane, if burning to death is humane.”

  “Hey, let’s not think about it, we can’t change it, we, I mean, I don’t mean to be cold, but…well, you know,” Asuna added.

  “Yeah, I know,” and reached over taking her hand.

  We had been fortunate in so many ways, we have never really seen how bad it was until now, and we were always isolated, insulated. We saw some of it, but it was on a much smaller scale that what we had just started to see.

  We rolled on through the wreckage, I would have said carnage, but there were no bodies left, just burned out cars and buildings. I began to wonder what we would find when we reached the Cleveland area, I was thinking that we should maybe try tracking south and avoiding the city altogether.

  (Margo) Another tough day of last in line, I had Code drive this morning, he did okay, but when we got to the washed out bridge I took over. I have a little more driving time and experience than he does. While the others were crossing, I stood and watched, made sure we were not attacked.

  When we hit the Ohio border things began to change, the damage, the fires, the destruction. I had expected that it would be like driving through Albany. A few things blown over, a little damage here and there, but this was different, this was what the world would look like after a nuclear war. And really, that is what had happened. The government had declared war on the undead, the Zoms, and this was the result. Who had won, nobody.

  Code and I just looked as we drove along, quiet, sad.

  (Matt) The fuel stop this morning went okay, we are topped off and looking to get to Cleveland by this evening. Should be workable, we’re only looking at traveling 300 miles or so today. We can do that. In fact, if anything, we should be looking to travel 450 miles or more per day, this is too slow for me.

  I am glad that we decided that we would skip theI-90 leg to Erie and head toward I-80 instead. Once we got across into Ohio it was depressing to see what the world looked like. What it was like. We had been lucky, we had suffered a little, had some bad times, but this was nothing like I could imagine.

  Tanya and I sat quietly as we drove along, wrecks, destroyed buildings, barren wasteland, that was what was there.

  We reached the airport at about 6pm. Parts of the concourse had been spared, and a few of the jets had not exploded or burned. We were able to fill our fuel tanks by draining the precious liquid from those aircraft.

  The meal tonight was quiet. I think we all were shocked at how bad it had been, how terrible the loss of life had been. We all just huddled close by each other in the remains of the ‘C’ concourse waiting for tomorrow when we could get out of here. But we knew, we all knew, there would be more places like this. We were in the heartland, and the heart had been torn out.

  (Lance) The day was quiet, Del and I headed out to the horse farm and did some time on Shinigami and Samurai. We have moved the sheep out there. Taylor and Teckla are going to continue to live out there. That leaves me, Del, Steven, Heather and the baby back at the camp.

  There is not much to do, check the veggies, and think. Del and I do a little hunting, and gathering. That is about it.

  We did a fire pit tonight; it was weird, empty, lonely.

  Del and I still have our pills, the cure, but I am still not convinced that I should take it. I just think there is something wrong with them.

  August 12th

  (Lance) Nothing interesting, quiet, boring, what can I say.

  (Tom) As we sat huddled in the semi-dark last night, it was difficult to see, we had a full moon, and it did give a little light to the interior of the concourse. The Major had drawn guard duty for the first half of the evening. I have the second half.

  It was almost time for me to take over the watch when Lucy woke me up. She put her cold nose to my face, and when my eyes opened she let out one soft quick whimper.

  I whispered, “What is it girl?”

  She just looked down the concourse to the left. At first, I could see nothing, then in the muted moonlight I saw something, something moving, slowly, quietly, it was man-height, but not human. It was quiet, just making a little hum.

  I shook Asuna, who was lying next to me, she woke and started to ask what was going on but I put my hand over her mouth. I pointed toward the Hunter.

  “Sshhhhh” I whispered, “Wake the others.”

  She quietly woke Margo, and Code and pointed down the concourse to where the thing was.

  “It is a Hunter,” Margo said and then gave a quiet curse.

  I thought to myself, well, we will find out if the medicine that the QUalz made worked very shortly.

  Quickly and quietly, the rest of the team was awakened. Most had been concealed behind chairs and benches so it was pretty simple to get to them. The Major was mortified when we woke him up, but that is a topic for later. No time to talk about it right then.

  Margo sighted in on the Hunter, she could, would easily have a kill shot. But we wanted, needed to know if it sensed us. It was mostly quiet in the concourse except for our whispers and breathing that sounded loud in the empty enclosed area. But it appeared that the sounds, even though soft, did not catch its attention.

  It might be movement that was the trigger, bad choice of words, sorry, the way in which they first tracked their prey. I tested it by tossing a pillow out from around the corner, but still it seemed to not even notice us.

  It rolled closer and closer, it was hunting, but it didn’t notice us, why?

  It finally rolled past and just kept going. It should not have done that, it should have been aware we were there I would have thought. I had to know, I looked at Margo, and nodded, and then I jumped up, and shouted, “Hey!”

  I heard a couple of gasps, and Margo mutter something, I guess it was a swear. But the Hunter ignored the shout, and it just rolled on.

  Moments passed and the thing turned a corner and was gone from sight.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Margo was in my face.

  I kind of shrugged, “We needed to know, and you had my back.” I answered.

  She was pissed, most of the others were shocked and I did get a stern talking to from Asuna about what she also considered a very foolish thing that I had done. But thanks to Lucy and the QUalz, we were all safe.

  Actually, it s
eems more a case that the Hunters track the virus, not living things, and as a result it was not even able to ‘see’ us. Without the virus, we don’t exist to the machine.

  The Major was very upset with himself, he had fallen asleep on guard duty and that it could have had a bad result. He apologized, again, and again. I think the idea that his actions could have had such a bad ending ate at him more than anything else.

  By then the sky was starting to lighten up; soon it was time to get ready to hit the road. We had a little food, cold cereal and water.

  Later as we walked down toward the trucks we saw the Hunter, it had rolled out onto the tarmac. It still seemed unaware that we were there. But suddenly the head went up, and it began to swivel. Margo had it sighted in, but it wasn’t looking at us. Then we saw it, them, there was a scarecrow of a woman stumbling down the runway, with a half dozen Zoms following behind.

  We tried to save her, Margo sighted and took down two of the Zoms, Matt got another, but before we could do anything else the Hunter took down the woman. It then targeted the other Zoms.

  Margo killed the Hunter.

  We gave the woman, she was bedraggled, and her clothing dirty and torn, a decent burial. We couldn’t even guess at her age, she was dirty, and drawn. Her skin was leathery, and there was not much to her. I could only think of a concentration camp prisoner.

  Matt said a few words over the grave. We never even knew her name, to us, she would be Jane Doe.

  It was a messed up day, the mood in the group was not good. We all just kind of worked it through the best we could. I wondered if we should have killed the Hunter when we first saw it, or for that matter after we confirmed it didn’t ‘see’ us, but then at the same time, except where it found a living person, it was still killing Zoms, choices, hard choices.

  (Matt) We met a Hunter last night, and it didn’t seem to see us, or at least it didn’t attack us. I think that the cure has worked. I think that it is something off the plate of our worries. Now it is just Changed and humans.

  This morning was horrible, that hunter found prey, and sadly, one of the killed was a woman, a poor, starving, woman who was hunted and chased by the Changed. We have no idea for how long or where she came from. But it was clear that her life was not as blessed as ours has been.