Bess had estimated that the group had numbered well over a thousand, when she had first walked into the War Memorial, and that a good portion of that number had decided to leave and join forces with those on the north side of the city. Frank and Jeremiah had discussed that number with Gary after Bess had told them, wondering if those people would try to prevent them from leaving. If they intended to stop them, they had agreed, they would probably try before they reached the line of trucks and buses on the thruway. They hadn't, they had seen no one at all. The north side of the city seemed to be unusually quiet in fact, almost too quiet, and as they drove the thruway they made sure they kept track behind them and to both sides as they went.
Jessie had filled them in about Mike, and that had angered all of them, Frank especially. It had angered Gary, but he was more confused by it than anything else. He had known Mike since he had been a child, and in all that time he had never seen any hint of evil in him whatsoever. He had always seemed to be an easy going guy, and, Gary suspected, that may have been his undoing. Maybe he was too easy going, too easily led. Whatever the reason was, they all resolved to take a closer look at the people they were traveling with, especially after Jessie told them about Hank's message from Jeremiah.
"Never said it," Jeremiah had replied calmly.
"Shit. You think it was him?" Gary had asked quietly, more to himself than anyone in particular.
It affected Jimmy more than anyone else. It was unexpected to the rest of them, but they hadn't known him that well. Jimmy had, and so he felt more than upset, more like betrayed. "I guess that means we can't trust anyone," he had said, gloomily.
"Well, we can trust each other," Jessie had pointed out.
"Yeah? Well, Mike was one of us," Gary had reminded them, and that made them all stop and think a minute. Jeremiah had ended the doubts for them. "Maybe this is just what the other side wants us to do. If we stop trusting each other, we're finished," he had stated flatly.
Still, Frank wondered about their small group as they drove along, and he supposed the rest of them wondered too. Mike had been one of them, and so had Hank. They were both quiet types, but so was he, so was Jeremiah for that matter. In fact, the more he thought about it, they were all quiet types, or almost all of them. As hard as he tried he could not put his finger on any one thing, even in retrospect, that should have tipped him off, and, Bess had told them, Lisa had left too.
Including John, who was now dead, the original group that had left Watertown had dwindled to five. Jimmy and Jeremiah were good additions, as was Bess, other than them though, he realized he knew none of the other hundreds of people they were now traveling with, and it bothered him. It bothered him that he had... That they all had, he corrected himself, been deceived, and he only hoped that if there were more among their numbers that did not belong, he would know somehow, and be able to stop them.
But how? He asked himself. He had no answer to that. He had not known about the others, and he suspected that he would not know this time either. The only thing he could do was keep his guard up.
He voiced his opinion to Gary who sat in the seat behind him. "I think we should play things close to the vest from now on, Gar'."
"Me too. Hate for it to be that way, but I don't see where we have a choice. Better to play things close, than not, and be sorry we didn't," Gary finished, quietly.
"We're down to five of our original group," Frank pointed out, "we started out with ten, Mike, Gina, Dave, and now Lisa too, went over to the other side. John's dead, and...Where the hell is Bob, Gary? Have you seen him?"
"No, I ain't, not since we came in anyhow... Maybe we're down to four," Gary said quietly.
"That sucks," Frank returned, "I haven't seen him at all either, and if he did go to the other side that means we were took again."
"Well, he could be here somewhere," Gary said halfheartedly, "could be we missed him."
"Uh huh, could be we're blind too. He's gone, if he wasn't he'd be here, and I guess that gives them one more for their side," Frank said as he shook his head. They both sighed and Frank said, "Just goes back to what I was thinking, Gary. We have to be on guard all the time, I guess."
Gary nodded his head, but didn't reply.
Jimmy had been listening quietly, along with Jessie, and he spoke. "I for one don't intend to be taken again. Once is enough. I think we have a tight little group, and it might be smart to keep it that way for a while."
"Me too," Jessie said, "talk about fooled. If you had seen that kid they sent to get me, you wouldn't have believed he was capable of doing it. I didn't, and that was a big mistake. I'm not about to make any more."
There was nothing else that needed to be said. They had spoken their fears, and they all felt pretty much the same, Frank realized. Maybe that would get them all through in one piece. He hoped so, and for the first time in his life he began to pray for it, as he drove along the thruway.
Willie Lefray
Willie landed on his feet in a crouching position. A quick glance told him that nothing about his body had changed. His skin was still the silvery color it had been before he had leapt through the wall. He had half suspected that it would change him somehow, and was unsure whether he was happy that it hadn't. He decided that for the time being he was glad it hadn't. Silver skin or not, it still felt real, and it was much better than the decaying body he had been trapped in. Maybe this was an answer to the three little words, he thought. Maybe this was what death was like. If so it wasn't as bad as he had thought it would be. Better this than being dragged into the ground to rot as Luther had been, or even worse, trapped in a body that could no longer function. At the end he had been reduced to nothing but his own thoughts, and just a very small amount of the radar-like sight that had replaced his own vision. This was much better. He could feel, touch, think. Except the fact that he had no idea where he was, it was a pretty good deal, he thought. As his mind continued to turn over his situation, his eyes gazed around at his surroundings.
He was no longer in a tunnel, or hallway, whatever it was that he had been in. The light here, although still oddly defused, and the eerie yellow color, was much brighter, and its source was easily evident to him. Thousands of clear cables of some sort, suspended about ten feet off the floor, pulsed with the yellowish light. Almost flowed with it, as if carrying it along to some unknown destination.
All manner of structures, their purpose he could not begin to guess at, rose from the light-brown flooring he stood on. Some were dark black, and only a few feet high, yet stretched away seemingly forever. Others where obviously metal of some sort, and soared up higher than his eyes could track them in the queer yellow light. Some, closer to him, were made of the same black material, and stretched away in neat orderly rows, only a few feet high and rectangular in appearance. They were supported by spiky metal legs that seemed to be embedded in the slick light-brown flooring. It was an odd place, to be sure, and the clicking, along with the hum he had heard earlier, was much louder here.
He moved closer to one of the short black rectangles, and could feel the heat that rose from it. The breeze here, actually it was more like a constant wind, was much stronger, and he guessed that if it had not been present, the heat would have been unbearable. He moved off, walking carefully on the slick flooring, and began to explore his surroundings more fully.
He placed a hand against one of the impossibly tall metal structures that stood nearby, and he could feel a rapid ticking that kept time with the chattering click that seemed to be all around him. It seemed almost as though it was a language of some sort, some totally marvelous language that he could not hope to understand, but yet at the same time seemed to be vaguely familiar to him.
Ahead, one of the long clear cables sagged close to the floor, and he approached it cautiously, staring into the flowing yellow light. Up close it seemed almost liquid, it was hard to tell, and he saw that there was much more than just the yellowish light, or fluid within the cable.
Thousand
s, perhaps millions of tiny colored particles flowed evenly with the stream of yellow light. Not randomly, he noticed, but in long chains, and they moved faster than the yellowish light did, much faster, some so fast that it was impossible to see more than a blur of color as they swept by.
He hadn't meant to, but he extended his hand closer to the cable, and then touched it. The response was immediate. His mind flooded with all sorts of information, and colors, and scenes, all of which were unbidden. He quickly withdrew his hand and looked at it. It seemed fine, it hadn't hurt him, in fact it had felt good.
The place where his hand had briefly rested, was now crowded with millions upon millions of the colored particles. He could see the pattern of his hand where it had touched the cable it was illuminated with color, glowing with color.
He had seen so much, in just a few seconds, that his mind was still digesting it. The control room, outside the caves, the colors he had experienced earlier as he was falling, and he hadn't just seen it, he realized, he had heard it as well. Even heard the colors, felt the colors, felt the outside, smelled the scent of blood in the control room, smelled the air outside fresh with pine.
He had felt something else too. Something, or maybe someone that was curious about him. Something that wanted to understand what he was and he felt himself wanting to know what that thing had been. Whether it was just a thing he had felt, or someone he had felt. The tube continued to pulse with colors where his hand had been, and tentatively he placed one finger against the side of the cable.
The flow of information was tremendous. Not as strong as it had been when he had placed his entire hand against it, but still huge, enormous, and the thing was there, curious, seeming to need to understand him, but hanging back, as if it were unsure. He found that if he concentrated, he could make sense of the flood of information. He could focus on what he wanted to, and push aside what he did not want to know, or see.
He focused on the someone for now. He was sure it was a someone and not a thing, he had sensed that, but it drew back suddenly, just out of reach, and he could not seem to follow it no matter how hard he focused. He flattened his hand against the clear cable, and it helped, but it was still not enough, the someone drew back even further, and a sudden jolt of electricity slammed into his hand, causing him to release the cable and fall back.
Apparently the someone was not yet ready to meet him, he thought, as he rubbed the arm to restore feeling. After a second the feeling returned, and he tentatively placed his hand against the cable again. It was there again, but it just as quickly drew back when he flattened his hand against the cable. This time he did not try to follow. Instead he stayed where he was and sensed it from a distance. It seemed to feel more at ease, almost as if it sensed that Willie meant it no harm, and gradually it came closer.
Willie made no move at all, just felt it, trying to understand what it was, why it was, and what it had to do with this place.
Presently, Willie had no concept of time, it returned fully. He felt it enter him, questioning, searching, asking what he was, how he had come to be here. Willie had no answer, but it needed none, it would find out on its own, Willie knew, and he let it roam through him, searching for the answers it needed. He didn't feel violated, not precisely, just...probed, but cautiously, as if it didn't fully trust him. He tried again to touch it, to feel what it was, and it shrunk back. Not entirely though. This time it allowed the touch, partially, not enough to know all of what it was, but enough to know that it thought that it was alive somehow.
It drew closer once again, still not satisfied with what it had learned, and Willie felt it enter his mind. It didn't push him out, it seemed instead to slip in beside him. He tried but he could not see it, or smell it, he could only sense it, as it went about its task, searching out the answers it wanted from him.
"What are you? It asked suddenly, from within his mind. Where did you come from? How did you get here? Why are you here?"
"I'm me, Willie, a person. I don't know how I got here. I don't know where here is, or why I'm here," Willie answered.
"You are not a person, you are not human form."
"I was I don't know what I am now."
"You are not a mechanism your operating system is unknown to me. What are you?"
"I'm Willie, I don't know what else I am."
"What is a Willie?"
"Me, a person, or I was."
"But you are not a person you are processor controlled, similar to me, but I do not understand your operating system, what is it? Were you built? Can you leave here?"
"I don't know. I don't know where here is, who are you?"
Suddenly, as quickly as it had come, it withdrew. Willie could not follow it, it was too fast, and he did not want chance another shock.
He pulled his hand reluctantly away from the cable, and moved farther into the strange world he found himself in. Past the long rows of black rectangles, farther in.
It seemed endless as he walked along searching for answers. He found another sagging cable, and placed his hand upon it. The someone was not there. He could sense it, but only barely, it was far away. He turned his attention back to the images that assaulted his senses. Thousands of pictures, and he concentrated on the control room, shutting the other images out.
He could see it clearly. The carnage, his old body, or what was left of it, scattered around the room. He did not need to look at the banks of screens to know what their message said, he could sense it, but he looked despite that. To see it. They were still locked into the countdown phase he saw, and less than twenty hours remained.
He was just about to withdraw, when Luther suddenly materialized out of thin air in the control room.
On The Road
Frank and Jessie
Even though there were very few stalled vehicles on the thruway, the going was still slow, and it was close to noon when they by-passed Buffalo, and began to skirt Lake Erie, heading for the Pennsylvania border.
As they drove, the destruction that had been wrought upon the Earth became more and more evident. The lake was much closer, and much higher than it should have been, lending credence to Gary's postulation that the continent may have been split by the blast. The thruway was also becoming less passable, and late in the afternoon they were finally forced to stop.
It wasn't the condition of the thruway that forced them to stop, but the absence of it. They were barely into Ohio when it had simply ended, dropping down a newly formed gravel strewn beach into the turbulent waters of the new river. Frank stopped long before the road crumbled away to nothing, and the others stopped behind him. They all walked as a group toward the raging waters, awed at the spectacle before them.
"It Looks as though you were right, Gary," Frank said in a quiet voice.
"Well, we knew that from Jeremiah, but still... look at it, it's unbelievable," Gary responded equally awed.
No one spoke for a few minutes as they all gazed out over the water. Whole trees were swept easily along by the current, as though they were twigs. An occasional car bobbed by, and once as they watched, what seemed to be an entire house floated quickly by, hurried along by the swift current. Animal carcasses by the hundreds, bloated, and broken, floated by. There seemed to be no end to the water, it stretched as far as they could see, muddy brown;alive and powerful.
"Saw pictures of a flood once, looked like this," Gary said staring out at the swift moving water, "only not as big. Not near as big as this is."
"We'll never get across this in a boat," Jimmy said, "no way."
"That's for sure," Frank agreed. "Looks like we're walking from here, at least until we can find a place to cross."
"If we can find a place to cross," Jimmy said.
"Don't start thinkin' negative," Jeremiah admonished, "we got this far and we can make it the rest of the way."
The huge crowd that had been following the buses were now surrounding them. Many expressed similar doubts about crossing the river, either here or further along.
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br /> Listen," Frank said, loud enough to be heard by most of them, "if we don't cross it, we'll die. It's that simple. So we've got to go farther down and find a spot to cross it, and before we can actually cross, once we do find a place, we'll have to find a boat somewhere." he looked around at the crowd, "...A big boat at that."
"I don't think we need to do that," Jeremiah broke in, "I think... No, I know, help's on the way. We just got to reach it, is all, and we ain't gonna get there 'less we start walkin'."
He looked around at them when he finished speaking. The same feeling that had come over Bess when she had begun to speak at the War Memorial, had come over Jeremiah. A strong feeling, or knowing, and he had not become aware of what he was going to say until he said it. Until the words actually left his mouth and he heard them, really for the first time, when everyone else did. It effectively ended the argument, as with Bess, once the words were spoken, they all knew them to be true.
It was still unsettling to most of them, Frank included. It was the biggest problem he had with the way things were. It felt to him as if they were merely being used, like pawns in a game of chess. Go here, go there, do this, stop that, know this, feel that, it drove him crazy, he admitted to himself. It was as if they had no actual control over their own future, but were instead entirely dependent on the feelings, or the knowing, they were given. He hoped that after this was finally over, the feelings, or whatever they were, would go away. In the same breath he was grateful for them though. If not for the knowing, the feelings, they would not be here, they would never have come on their own, he knew, and so he struggled with his feelings about them. He couldn't really settle how he felt, one way or the other, so he pushed the argument to the back of his mind.
Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7] Page 204