Chapter 2
A night with strangers
We spent another thirty minutes just talking and snacking with our new friends. They were a friendly enough bunch, but I could tell the three of them hadn’t had an easy time of it isolated out here, but they were doing what they could to survive and survive they were. They eventually warmed up enough to us to invite us back to their camp to stay the night if we wanted, and we agreed. It was nice to sleep under the stars, but there was something about the security of sleeping behind a wall that made falling asleep much easier.
We waited till Dick finished his sandwich and Harriet and Janet finished their lemonade, then we started packing up to head to their camp. Before we left, I decided it was best to give them some supplies. We would probably only stay the night, so getting this out of the way now was better.
“Hey, Tarry,” I called to the man, returning to the group after taking a pee break.
“What’s up, Travis?” Tarry answered, looking at me to see what I was calling him for. The next thing he knew, a small bag was flying towards his chest.
“Wow, hey man, watch it. I can’t move that fast, shit.” Tarry said, but he still caught the bag before it smacked into his chest.
“Sorry, man. My bad, but that’s a gift for y’all to keep,” I told Tarry, a smile still on my face from Tarry’s quick catch.
“Wait? What? Are you for real?” Tarry said, transfixed by the little bag he held in his hand. We had shown Tarry and his group a bag of holding when we had taken out lunch for them, and at the time, Tarry, Dick, and even Harriet were odd and amazed at the little coin purse-looking thing, and when I had tucked it back into my armor, they had all basically drooled with envy. So when I threw Tarry one of the small pouches we had prepped for refugees full of water, food, and other essentials like tampons, I don’t think Tarry could believe it.
“We can really have this?” he said, shocked at the gift. I laughed a little, then told him, yes, it was all there, even the bag. Tarry made his way over to me and stuck his hand out to shake. He thanked me again, and then we finished packing up and went on our way. It only took us about an hour to get to their camp, and when they said camp, I thought maybe they had a few tents or homemade shelters, but it was much more than that. They had turned part of a small town into a walled and fortified compound. They had occupied a gas station, a diner, and a few RVs and surrounded everything with a five-foot-tall barricade.
When we approached the barricade, a voice rang out from somewhere behind the wall.
“Stop there. Hey, Tarry, these guys with you?” It sounded like the voice of a young woman. Then, sure enough, the next moment, a young woman with blond hair poked her head over the wall, followed by the barrel of a shotgun.
“Hey, take it easy, Jenny. They’re with us. Open the gate, come on,” Tarry told the young woman, Jenny, I guess. Jenny looked at Janet and me warily for a moment longer before she nodded at Tarry and then disappeared behind the wall again. The next thing that happened was a section of the barracks opened, and we walked inside. Once inside, Tarry introduced us to the members of their small community. About fifteen people were living in the compound, and they seemed well... Surviving might have been the best word. They weren’t living in luxury, but they weren’t starving either.
There was a mixed group in the village. About half the group was older, maybe forty, like Terry. I think the oldest lady was eighty. The other half was younger. They were all in their early to mid-twenties. It turned out they had been friends traveling down to Santa Barbara for a concert when the world ended. They had been staying at the only hotel in town. They had been outside smoking a joint and drinking some whisky when the integration hit and had watched the hotel collapse, killing every person inside. They had joined up with the other survivors in the town and had been trying to stay alive out here with them ever since.
Everyone who survived the integration we met seemed to have a crazy survival story nowadays. It was really too bad. I would have loved just for once to hear that. Yeah, we made it out fine. Yeah, the whole family, even the dog, and we figured all this leveling stuff out really fast, and we’ve just been out here killin’ it. That would have been great, but it was always, yeah, I lost half my family this, or I’m the only one left. It was just getting depressing.
Questions began to pop up once everyone learned we had made our way up from the San Francisco Bay area. What was happening? How bad was it? Did we meet any aliens yet? Had the government stepped up to help? Was there even still a centralized government left? The questions came at us one after another until, almost an hour later, Tarry broke up the questioners, and dinner started to get underway. That night, Janet and I dug into some of our more valuable resources to make it a night to remember.
I pulled out two fully cooked and ready-to-go wild boar hams, and Janet pulled out one of our precious 20 barrels of treehouse booze. I was a little surprised that she had, but I couldn’t blame her. The look on the compound residents’ faces once they tasted the drink made it all worth it. The night became a celebration of life, and we all had a good old time. Janet and I even made a new friend, Evelin, and the three of us made the night warm and long.
When morning came, it was time to go. As bittersweet as it was. We hadn’t felt so much warmth and comfort since Treehouse, but the time had come, and leave we must. We made our goodbyes to Tarry and a few others who were awake. Most were still out from the night’s festivities. We ended up giving Tarry another small Bag of holding with some additional supplies, and then we left with very little fanfare.
We didn’t say much for the first few hours on the road. I knew we were thinking the same thing. Had we helped enough? Could we have done more? Would we ever see them again? These were all questions we had no answers to, but the questions were there all the same. We reached the Oregon-California border that day somewhere in the late afternoon. The day had been slightly melancholy after our departure and subsequent thoughts, but it had also been mostly uneventful. Only a few creatures attacked us, but every encounter helped distract me from my worries and was more fun than a nuisance. It really helped break up the monotony of our travels.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
We only got a few miles past the border marker when the I-5 disappeared. I don’t mean that it was collapsed or destroyed. No, it was gone. It looked like a giant took a massive pair of scissors, cut the Interstate in half, and then took it with them. It was just gone, and in its place were rolling hills and valleys that led to mountains in the distance. It was really quite beautiful. We took a second to just stand at the edge of the freeway and take in the beauty of it all.
“Damn, it’s so crazy. It’s almost like humanity never touched this land. It’s kind of majestic, right?” I asked Janet. Janet looked like she was thinking, and then she said,
“I can see what you mean. It’s nice out here with no one around, but I think it would get old fast. I think I’d go a bit crazy if I were out here by myself for more than a few months. You know?” Janet answered me. I thought about what she said but didn’t know if I totally agreed. Something about the peace was nice. Caught up in my thoughts. I must have missed it when Janet had tried to talk to me, but I didn’t miss her fist when it hit me in the shoulder.
“Ow, hey, what the fuck.”
“Come on, space cadet. Let’s get going. It’s starting to get dark, and we still need to find somewhere to camp for the night.”
“Oh fuck yeah, you’re right. My bad, let’s get going.” I agreed, and we headed out once more.
The next morning, we got back on the road early again. We picked our best approximation of North and got back on the road, or well, I guess we couldn’t get back on the road, seeing as there was no road anymore, but you know what I mean. We had only been walking for a few hours before we started to see signs of life. Well, I guess life was misleading. We saw signs of habitation. We first stumbled upon an animal that looked like scavengers had eaten it, but if you looked beyond the teeth marks and roughly torn flesh, you could see clear-cut marks as if someone had killed the creature and harvested what meat they could carry. Then left the rest behind. I showed Janet, and she agreed with my assessment. There was definitely a group of people, or well, maybe it was better to say a group of sentients were nearby. In this new world, the odds of finding a group of humans were probably less likely than that of a group of galactic pioneers.
We kept our eyes open for more signs of habitation and finally found something promising. We were making our way around some boulders when Janet noticed a smear of blood disappearing between two rocks. We followed the blood smear, and it turned out there was a hidden path between the rocks that led down to a valley tucked neatly away. We ended up climbing a tree to better see the settlement if there was one. As we got high enough in the tree to see into the valley below, I began to make out figures moving through the trees. They were definitely galactic pioneers. They were interesting-looking creatures.
They were humanoids with large heads. Their skill was light blue, and they wore little clothing made from rough-cut animal hides. The top of their heads were see-through, and it looked like there were bubbles of colored gas flowing around inside. It looked super trippy, and we watched them for about twenty minutes before inevitably deciding to move on. They hadn’t looked too civilized, and if they were hostile to us, then we’d have to kill them, and one genocide was enough for me, at least for the year. So we quietly made our way out of the tree and got back on our way.
As we continued to make our way north, the landscape became weird. It wasn’t like magic swamp weird, but the landscape began to change. The grass, because there was still grass, had gained a soft blue glow, and the soil beneath became a vibrant, deep red color. The plant life, on the other hand, was doing more than just changing color. Plants were growing that I had never seen or heard of in my life, and they didn’t look earthly, that’s for sure. I saw a tree at one point, and I swear I saw it grab a bird out of mid-air and eat it all in a matter of seconds. I kept my distance from the plants after I saw that as I didn’t so easily forget my encounter with that blackberry bush all that time ago.
We had been moving through the crazy alien landscape for a few days and had encountered a few odd creatures, but nothing too spectacular. We did fight one creature that my identity ability called a Sopidmoth. It was like a rat fucked a moth, and while they were banging, they got hit with a colossal blast of burs banner radiation. The spawn of that coupling was the Sopidmoth. They fucking glowed green, about eight feet tall, and flew with enormous moth wings.
They also traveled in packs, so you know that was fun to deal with. Their main attack was a Mana pulse beam of some kind. I got hit with its beam weapon a few times, and when it hit me, it started to erode my gear and flesh. It felt horrible and hurt like a bitch, but they were easy enough to kill because of the glowing bodies. You could usually see them before they saw you, but even if we got ambushed, the Sopidmoth sucked at fighting.
By noon on the third day of traveling through an alien world, the landscape began to revert back to a more familiar one. By the time the sun set, we could see what looked like the interstate heading off into the distance. We made camp for the night with the Interstate in the background. As the sun set, Janet and I talked for a while. Then we made dinner. When we had eaten, we laid down in the two sleeping bags we always made into one big sleeping bag every night together and just stared at the stars for a while.
“Does it ever make you mad?”
“Huh? What was that?”
“I said, does it ever make you mad?” Janet repeated for me.
“Does what, ever make me mad?”
“Looking at the stars and knowing somewhere out there are the things that own us or, you know, the whole indentured contract thing.”
“Fuck.” I said with a bit of a chuckle. “No. If I’m being frank, yeah, the contract thing is shit, and it fucking pisses me off, but the stars. No, the stars, at least until we can travel amongst them, will just be stars to me. Beautiful, out of reach, but always there. At least that’s what they will be to me.”
“I kinda like that. I mean, Not the whole contract thing. I agree with you there. The Slag can go suck a fat one for the indentured contract but the stars. I liked that.” We fell asleep watching the stars that night.
When morning came, we packed up and headed over to where it looked like the Interstate restarted. Just like the opposite side we had seen, this side looked as if a pair of giant scissors had cut it, and it was a clean cut too. It was like the world had slit and filled in with more land, and as I thought about it, maybe that’s kind of what happened. I wonder if the world is physically larger than it was before. Something to keep in mind for the future. When I can find someone who can explain how all this shit works, that is.
Now that we were back on a proper road, we were moving much faster. The world flew by as Janet and I let loose and ramped up our speed. It was invigorating, racing Janet down the Interstate. The day was warm, and the breeze felt so nice. The wind whipped through my hair as I ran, and it felt like my body was releasing tension I didn’t know I was carrying.
I felt so free and powerful that I couldn’t keep the grin from my face, and Janet looked like she was experiencing something similar. We dropped our speed after only thirty minutes, but we both agreed that running full out like that felt amazing and that we would need to do it more often. It had been a few hours since our run, and we were looking for a place to have lunch when we noticed something off in the distance.