The quest finally ended when we uprooted the last of the overly aggressive plants and the 'Seeds of Plenty' seemed to be a small pile of seeds before each of us. Saul got something that looked like a mix between acorns and black olives which he confidently declared to be water lily seeds. Rumi got what I recognized as rice seeds while Shaniqua got some round yellow seeds that I believe might belong to some form of cactus.
I got potatoes, if potatoes were stark white with red veins that made them look disturbingly like eyeballs. We all gave those things the side eye and started second guessing our other seeds, perhaps they might not be what they seemed either. Sadly, thanks to our current food situation we could hardly turn our nose up at them and loaded them all into one of the bags.
Saul wanted to bring along some of the roots and maybe seeds of the giant flytrap plants we had just finished defeating. He claimed that they tasted great and with how rapidly they regenerated they'd be a good food source now while all our seeds were growing. Shaniqua tried one of the fallen plants and compared the roots to beets and the plant itself to rhubarb, Rumi said that they just tasted of grass to her. I reminded the former hippie that said plants were highly aggressive and carnivorous, he brushed off the concern. Being far to worn out to keep fighting the aardvark on the issue I allowed it as long as he was willing to take responsibility for any injuries that occurred.
Sadly almost everything else in the place was too big to really take with us without a trailer to carry it all in. Pots, fertilizer, tarp, and greenhouse struts were just too bulky, even with Rumi's wide back and might we just couldn't carry enough stuff to reasonably be worth taking it. We needed more trailers to bring stuff back to the stadium, but there sadly wasn't any conveniently nearby on the rich side of town.
"Maybe someone will have a boat trailer they can loan us?" Rumi offered as we walked away from the shop.
"Perhaps, but I doubt they'd be any more willing to spare it than we would our own trailer." I grimaced, longing for a hand to massage my temple. Do snakes even have temples? Uhg, I just want this day to be over so I can sleep this headache off!
"Should we check those apartments there for anyone?" Shaniqua asked, pointing to a large block of middling apartments just before the bridge that separated the Veranda from the rest of the city.
"You could if you like." I snorted, "Doubt anyone's there. With the Veranda right there I bet they invited themselves over to have a walled community, the lake, and big houses."
Shaniqua seemed to mentally flip flop for a moment before giving a small sigh and following. Rumi gave me a bit of a glare, but I was finding myself a bit too involved with my migraine to care much at the moment.
The bridge across the river that fed the artificial lake the Veranda was named after was still an absolutely impressive beast despite the supposed decades that had passed since the Event. Six lanes of good solid concrete separated by a dirt filled median that even after decades still supported a fair amount of healthy looking Texas scrub plants, mostly yuccas at this point. The streetlights styled off gas lamps still stood, though I doubted they still worked. Only the sparse patches of clover and trees showed the old giant likely wasn't as solid as it had once been.
"I'm not risking it," I grunted, "I know my luck. You can go ahead and cross, I'll just jump the river."
"Is that really for the best?" Saul asked.
"I'm not having a bridge collapse on me again," I growled slithering to the steep tree covered hill heading to the maybe thirty foot wide river. "We don't exactly have the facilities to put me back together again this side of the Event yet."
"Again?" I heard Rumi question.
I was already skidding down the hill towards the lip of earth. A lot of illegal fishing had taken here place back in the day. I'd planned to stop there to aim my jump, but my mass and the loose rocky dirt worked against me as I kept right on going down to the next slope and towards the river without stopping.
No. I groaned tiredly in my head. I'd had enough of river issues yesterday, thank you very much. So I simply fired off a Leap, shooting clear over the muddy waters, past the bridge and accidentally crushed one of the Veranda's welcome signs and ruined the tasteful rock garden around it as I landed on it. Oops.
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I looked down twisted metal letters tangled around my body but couldn't manage much more than a tired sigh as I waved the others across the bridge. Hopefully the locals wouldn't be too upset.
Assuming there were any locals left, in the quiet of an abandoned world I cocked my head and listened to the near utter silence that deafened the world. The cries of cicadas, the rustle of trees in the rare puff of warm air masquerading itself as a breeze, and the faint splash of water from the artificial lake. No rumble of distant vehicles, no roar of passing planes, no tromp of thousands of legs or hammer of construction, even that quiet buzzing hum of electricity in the air was near absent. It would be so easy to simply assume that we were the last people on Earth despite the evidence we'd already seen.
The world was oddly quiet without the song of civilization filling the air.
My scaly body rattled like a truck of steel slinkies tumbling down a gravel pit as Rumi's heavy hoofsteps pinged on my tremorsense and reminded me that I wasn't alone here.
"You okay?" She inquired quietly.
"Just got lost in the quiet," I answered honestly, "Wondering if there's actually anyone up here with how quiet it is. You'd think we'd hear something from here. People talking, modifying their homes, planting food, something." I shook my head, "They're probably just deeper in, the Veranda does cover several miles."
The other three were all silent as we continued our march past the entrance gate for River Legend Park, the city park's gate sat open and inviting. Vast swaths of dead wood mixed thickly with living trees seeming to form a nigh solid wall of nature that looked thick enough to stop even one of my charges dead. Where the road had once been there was now a thick dirt trail with a solid arch of branches over it forming a tunnel that seemed to have a near fey like quality. Even the air seemed to beckon us in as well, cool air, heavy with the scent of loamy soil drifting out in a continuous relaxing sigh. Unbidden my mind whispered how delightful it would be to curl up in the shade of those trees and read a good book.
I turned away, simply making a mental note that the park looked to be an excellent place for firewood and lumber. I could maybe relax in there come autumn when I'd hopefully have confirmed my family to be safe and healthy and some semblance of civilization had been restored to the world.
Instead, I headed to the break in the brick wall that separated the gated community from us plebeians. I immediately noticed that the barred iron gate was missing. Not fallen over or knocked down. No, the several hundred pounds of iron looked to have been deliberately removed, fairly recently based on the pits in the earth where they had once been rooted. Which drew my attention to another anomaly, there wasn't a single car parked anywhere in view on the street. In fact, I couldn't spot any large pieces of metal on the street, even the streetlights were gone.
"Whelp," some of my country drawl leaking out as felt my nerves building, "sumthin's fucky. If y'all wanna sit this one out, I won't blame ya. Sadly this be close enough to the stadium I reckon ah best investigate."
"I'm coming with you," Rumi snorted with a glare. The woman seemed to be looking at the damage with offense.
"I, suppose I'll come too?" Shaniqua said with far less conviction.
Saul just whimpered and pressed close to the much larger bunny.
We'd barely moved more than twenty feet past the gate before Shaniqua's ears shot up. "I hear something!"
"What is it?" I asked, feeling my entire body tensing.
"I don't know!" she whined quietly, "I'm hearing a lot of metal and other stranger noises I can't place. I think I might be hearing voices, but it's hard to say with all the other noise."
"You smell anything, Saul?" I demanded.
The aardvark huffed at the air a bit, "Metal, wood, bugs, fish, lizards, water, oil, a few things I'm not sure of and, uhm, I'm pretty sure I'm smelling a lot of blood."
"Right," I nodded, "Figure if we can get to the end of the street there'll be able to raise myself over the houses enough to see the entire lake area. Hopefully that'll let me see what's goin' on here."
We moved forwards as quietly as we could, which sadly was not near as quietly as we'd like. Even with both myself and Rumi moving to advance along the lawns, everytime we hit driveways her hooves clopped loudly and my scales rattled and jingled. Even Shaniqua's hops and Saul's steps produced noise that seemed nigh deafening in the tense silence. While we advanced I flicked my tongue out to sniff the air and grimaced. I was definitely catching the distant scent of blood in the air.
Finally we reached the corner of the pretentiously named 'Monarch Street' and all gathered near the corner. Raising my head slowly, letting my eyes creep past the fence line, and eventually the top of the two story homes I cast my gaze about. From here I could clearly see the entire lake, the modest sized island in the middle of the lake, the three parks scattered through the Veranda, and the many small boat docks that dotted the shore. This let me easily spot...