The gridlock of cars on the outbound side of the freeway finally ended right before the next exit. Two tractor-trailers seemed to be the origin of the backup; one jackknifed, and the other flipped into the barrier wall. A whole host of cars piled up in a crunch behind them. There was not a whole lot of carnage, aside from the burnt-out cars and stains of blood on the asphalt and car seats. First responders had been here to help. Doors were pried open, and no bodies remained. But nobody had arrived after to clean up the cars. On the other side of the forested median, inbound vehicles still sat in neat, abandoned rows as far as the eye could see.
“I can’t believe people abandoned their cars like this.” Zanie looked back over her shoulder at the traffic. They made their way up the exit ramp, following the big blue highway sign directing them to overnight accommodations.
“I wonder how long they waited before finally giving up the ghost.” Caleb picked up a rock, tossed it in the air, then snapped his fingers. It froze mid-air for a few seconds, then dropped to the ground when he waved his hand. He was getting better at it. In its simplest form, making an object stop in mid-air, the spell succeeded more consistently than it failed. And he had not lodged a rock in his throat or had any other unfortunate backlashes except the one.
“I mean, it took us all day to walk out to this point from the city,” Zanie said, “That means they all walked a whole day from their cars to get into the city. That's crazy.”
“If I was stuck in my car and it was the apocalypse, so I thought traffic might never move again, I would get out and walk too,” Caleb said.
“There is the hotel.” Jeremy pointed as they crested the hill. On the other side of the slope lay a little strip of restaurants, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants. It was surrounded by forest and most likely supported entirely by traffic from the highway. There did not seem to be much of a residential town associated with the businesses. They cut across the grass to get to the hotel.
“What are we going to do about Atticus?” Caleb looked up from his phone as they approached the parking lot, “This hotel doesn’t allow pets.”
Jeremy glanced behind them to see Atticus weaving through the grass in their footsteps. She paused when she noticed him watching, then darted off toward the line of bushes along the exterior of the building. She weaseled her way under one and peered out at them with large, unblinking cat eyes. It reminded Jeremy of the eyes peeking out at him from the park where he and Moira had napped. That felt like a lifetime ago.
“I guess we don’t need to worry about Atticus?” Caleb said.
“I think she'll be fine,” Jeremy shook his head at her, then turned back to head for the door. She'd kept pace with them all day as they walked, sometimes in their line of sight and sometimes off on her own. It was much easier than when he'd walked her on a leash. “There is something weird going on with that cat. But you were right when you said she could fend for herself.”
“You’re going to let her spend the night outside.” Zanie looked toward the bush with wide, worried eyes.
“She’ll throw a fit if I try to sneak her into the room by stuffing her in my duffle or something,” Jeremy said. “She'll be fine. It’s not getting cold yet, and I don’t think she will wander off. She’s proven that she wants to stick with us.”
Zanie shot the bush another worried glance but followed them to the door.
The guy staffing the desk had a huge beer belly that disappeared beneath the counter he sat behind. A bottle of beer rested at his elbow, collecting condensation on the sides and making a ring of water around the base. Jeremy raised his eyebrows at it.
“Hey,” He turned to Zanie before approaching the desk. “Are you okay with one room if they have rooms with two beds?”
His bank account only had so much, and his credit card had its limits. Since he no longer had a job, these things were even more limiting now. But the world had not completely come apart. People still expected to be paid for things. They couldn't sleep in a hotel or get pizza from the place down the street for free. One room would be cheaper than two.
“Fine with me.” She shrugged. Jeremy nodded and went up to the desk to ask for a room. There was one with two beds. He handed over his debit card and ID for the guy to swipe. He entered some information, asked if they had a vehicle, and filled out a keycard. Then he handed it and Jeremy’s cards over.
“Let me print your receipt.” He pushed himself out of the chair and shuffled through the door into the back office. Jeremy opened the keycard folder and looked down at the little room number written in bright red marker. The Wi-Fi password, bestguest!1, was scribbled below it.
“You should have asked Moira for one of her credit cards, dude.” Caleb said, “Our impromptu little road trip is going to end pretty fast when we run out of money.”
“That’s why we need to go find camping equipment.” Jeremy tapped the keycard against the counter. “There is an REI in the mall, right?”
“Yeah, but can’t we just get a tent from Walmart?”
“I was thinking we should get some backpacking stuff too.” Jeremy explained, “In case we can’t find a car. Or keep a car. Both times I’ve been in a car, it’s wrecked pretty immediately.”
“It’s better to walk if we are looking for monsters anyway.” Zanie pointed out, “More chance of running into them.”
“Do we have a destination in mind? Or are we just wandering around?” Caleb wondered, then shook his head and laughed, “That was a dumb question. I know you, Jer, so of course you have a destination. What I should ask is: where are we going?”
It irked Jeremy that he was right. There was a destination in the back of Jeremy’s mind. He was not dead set on getting there, but he had not been able to leave the city without some vague notion of where he was headed next. Caleb and Zanie might both be fine with tagging along for the ride without knowing where they were going, but Jeremy would lose his mind.
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The clerk returned with a piece of paper in his hands. He stapled the little receipt from the credit card machine to it, then handed it to Jeremy. “You’ll get the deposit back when you return the keycard in the morning. There is a continental breakfast, although it's really just coffee at this point. We still have little jam trays but no bread for toast or anything.”
“Okay, thanks.” Jeremy smiled at the man. Then his eyes fell to his overlay. It was dark red, as expected, but it made Jeremy raise his eyebrows and turn to compare it to Zanie and Caleb's arrays. Now that he could see theirs right next to someone else's, he realized that the color had changed slightly from dark red to a brighter scarlet.
"Huh," he muttered to himself, then bid the man a good night. They shuffled back outside. Jeremy folded the receipt and slipped it into his pocket, then checked the room number again and led the way to the steps.
“There was this state park that Moira and I passed on our way into the city," He said as they climbed the steps. “People said that creatures were coming from the park. They were these little tiny goblin-like things. I figured they are pretty easy to kill and practice spells on."
“Sounds good to me," Zanie said. They made their way down the outdoor hallway, past several doors, until they reached the one with their number on it.
Jeremy let them into the room. There were two neatly-made twin beds facing a cabinet that had a mini-fridge built into it and a TV sitting on the top. In one corner was a desk with a chair and a tiny coffee maker on it, and in another was the door to the bathroom. Each bed had a bedside table with a lamp on it.
“Holy crap, it’s freezing in here.” Zanie dropped her bag on one of the beds and made a beeline for the air conditioning unit. “This is set to fifty-eight. Are these people crazy?”
She started messing with the settings. Jeremy and Caleb wandered into the room. They poked around for a few minutes, then began to settle in. Zanie sat on the bed and made an approving noise when it bounced beneath her. Caleb said he was going to check the water pressure and disappeared into the bathroom with a change of clothes. A moment later, they could hear the sound of water hitting the tub and the squeal of the shower.
Jeremy collapsed in the desk chair. A little notebook sat beside the landline phone with a pen across it. He dragged it over and uncapped the pen. Then he wrote ‘dark red –> scarlet: ~ 100 spells (majority lvl. 0 and 1 barrier and projectile earth and water spells). He chewed on his lip and thought about the spells that Caleb had been practicing, which he and Zanie could not cast.
He wrote ‘personal skill’ and then frowned at the words. They were not all that descriptive of what he had seen so far. He and Moira were the only ones who seemed to have a ‘skill.’ Caleb's ability to stop objects in mid-air was not a unique skill since the book had related spells. They had been toward the back. Since the book seemed progressive, with simpler spells in the beginning, he assumed this implied they were difficult and should only be cast by an experienced person. Perhaps Caleb had an affinity for this more difficult magic and could cast it at a lower level.
The pen tapped against the notebook a few times as he thought. He crossed out ‘skill’ but hesitated to write ‘affinity’ since that also could not encompass all the possibilities of what the rune might mean. His and Moira's were, after all, more skill-like. Finally, he scratched out ‘personal’ as well and wrote ‘unique trait’ instead. The pen tapped a few more times. That still did not seem right, so he drew a little arrow between the words and scribbled ‘personality’ above it.
His data points were limited so far, but it seemed like the traits were related to someone’s personality. In Jeremy’s case, he needed to understand what was going on around him to feel as in control of the situation as possible. Turning into a dragon seemed to fit Moira’s rather flamboyant and strong personality as well. And Caleb had always been good with spatial and situational awareness, so it made sense that he might be able to manipulate objects in space.
He doodled the rune that was present in both the spells that stopped things mid-air and the section of spells in the book. It was also one of the runes in Caleb's overlay. Jeremy glanced over at Zanie. He wondered if her unique personality trait might have something to do with technology since she said it was something she intrinsically understood.
“Hey, Zanie, can I see the book?” He asked.
“Sure.” She rolled off the bed and knelt by her bag to pull it out. She brought it over to Jeremy, then settled back against the pillows again and closed her eyes. Caleb came out of the bathroom and picked up the remote in front of the TV. The blue light of the TV screen joined the glow from the bathroom light. A soap opera was playing on the screen. Caleb snorted and started flipping through channels.
Jeremy took the book out of its plastic bag and opened it to the page where the elemental runes were listed. He trailed his finger over them and the other runes below them. Surprisingly, the rune from Caleb’s overlay was among the non-elemental ones. Jeremy had not noticed that before. So, it probably represented an entire type of magic that Caleb had an affinity for. Jeremy drew a little dash beside his doodle of the rune, running his pen over it while he thought.
Once, it was a thick black line, and he was about to tear through the paper into the next page, he wrote ‘telekinesis ?’ next to it. He was not sure if telekinesis could be an entire type of magic all by itself, like fire or water magic. It seemed a little specific.
He looked over the other runes, pausing over one to lean over the book and squint at it. Then he sat back up and squinted at Zanie’s overlay. Sure enough, one of the runes in her overlay matched one of the runes on the list. So, she also had an affinity for a specific type of magic as her unique personality trait. Jeremy copied the rune onto the notepad below Caleb’s rune and wrote ‘technology?’ next to it.
Then he glanced down at his overlay, which he probably should do more often. He realized the unique personality trait rune in his overlay was actually a couple of runes, one of which matched the unknown rune from the barrier spell. He copied down his unique personality trait, and his brows drew down as he considered it.
His trait was an ability to see magic. Or whatever the basic component of magic was, be it a different type of element, dark matter, or something else that is usually incomprehensible. He wrote ‘visualize mana’ next to the runes. The pen tapped against the notepad a few times. The unknown rune in the barrier spell could represent what fueled magic: mana, as Jeremy decided to call it. The barrier was not made of any of the four elements, so maybe it was made up of mana.
The pen tapped against the notebook a few more times. Caleb had settled on a news program covering the effects of the nuclear strike on Chicago in a long documentary-style segment. The reporter interviewed one of the relief workers in the refugee camp. Her voice talked over footage of the camp itself. Long lines of tents were set up in neat grids. People milled about between them, carrying jugs of water and boxes of supplies. On the outskirts stood national guard members, who patrolled the perimeter for any monsters.
The reporter transitioned from speaking to the aid worker about water, food, and hand sanitizer supplies to reporting about the threat of monsters. She began to speak to a National Guard representative. He assured the camera that the perimeter was secure and that the greater concern was ensuring adequate supplies and keeping the peace. People were confused and afraid after being forced out of their homes.
The story returned to the news desk, where the anchors began to discuss relocating the refugees with two congress members who joined in from their offices in DC. A bill addressing this was in the works but slow to progress.
Jeremy closed his eyes and rubbed them with the tips of his fingers. His vision was blurry for a few moments after he reopened them to glance over his notes. He could not figure everything out in one night, so he slipped the notepad and book into the plastic bag. Then he toed off his boots and sat beside Caleb on the bed to watch the rest of the segment.