The whole living room’s walls were covered in a red painted message. It seemed that the owners of the house were worried about their sole daughter eventually coming here to find them, only to be met with an empty house.
Given that phones were now useless, they had no way to contact their daughter, so in order to ensure they would be able to meet with her again, the owners decided to leave a message painted on the walls, telling where they went and how to find them if she ever came back to the house.
The message was not destined for Danny but it was exactly what he was looking for. It was the clue he had been searching for all along. The red words described the reason behind the seemingly desolate state of the village and what had actually happened.
Apparently, the town was fortunate in which the earthquake from half a month ago had caused very few casualties. That, in turn, meant that the undead menace was way more manageable here than in other places.
After a difficult first day of adapting to the challenge of the rising dead and dealing with the threat, the village came out of the hurdle victorious, succeeding in establishing some semblance of order in those chaotic times and persevering through the initial difficulties.
That did not mean that all was well though. After triumphing over the immediate enemy, panic and apprehension settled in. The absence of news from the outside world, and the lack of response from government authorities caused a division in opinions on what to do going forward.
It was then - when the residents of the village were paralyzed with indecision and tempers were unstable - that a small police force arrived in town. The few officers that came to their aid comprising it helped to organize the survivors and ultimately led them to evacuate the village.
Having seen the state of things outside, the newly arrivals judged it to be too risky for the villagers to remain in place with the means they had available to defend themselves.
Even if the residents had managed to vanquish the initial zombie outbreak that appeared inside the small town, they were still under the risk of being overrun by other enemies coming from nearby locations at any time.
The few officers and their limited means of defense would not be enough to ensure the protection of the villagers if they were suddenly attacked by a new wave of the undead. They did not have enough weapons to protect themselves with or the bodies to cover all the needed ground. Clear Water village was not placed on a defensible terrain as well, making the task all the more difficult.
Taking that into account, after a brief discussion with the representatives of the villagers, pointing out their immediate concerns and explaining that they were not safe there, the officers together with the representatives brainstormed a feasible plan to ensure the safety of the population.
They knew that they could not remain there, but where could they go? That was the true question.
They needed to evacuate the town to a more secluded and defensible location. It also could not be a too distant place, given that they had to transport the people and supplies to sustain them there.
By the process of elimination, while considering the pros and cons of all their options at the same time, a nearby location was soon elected as their destination. The message in the walls then detailed the route the villagers had taken and how to get there.
Danny took out the map he had been using to mark any points of interest and very quickly managed to locate the destination that the painted words pointed towards.
As the story revealed, the place indeed was not very far from where he stood, and Danny could easily reach it within the day given that it was still fairly early.
There was a pretty good chance that he would find Lara’s family there.
Considering that Lara’s dad and uncle time of arrival in Clear Water village should have been at some point during the planning and executing of the town’s evacuation, her family members must have been caught in the venture somehow and most likely went along with the rest of the survivors to their final destination.
What happened later was still a mystery however. The story contained in the red paint did not explain to him why Lara’s family never came back, or what ultimately happened to the fleeing residents.
Not that it mattered for Danny anyways.
He had his clue now, so the path ahead of him was fairly clear. Whether it was fortune or tragedy that awaited him at his next stop on his quest, Danny would soon find out. With his next goal established, it was only a matter of time before he learned what happened to Lara’s family.
That was the hope at least.
Danny put away his map after memorizing the path he had to take to reach the spot the villagers had fled to, before getting up again from his kneeling position and strapping his bag on his shoulder once more.
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Danny then turned to the text painted on the wall and mumbled a silent “thank you” while slightly nodding his head in appreciation.
The message was not intended for him and neither was it meant to help Danny in his search, but it did nonetheless. Even if the person responsible for it would never really know about their unintended assistance and would also never receive Danny’s words of gratitude, he still thanked them and sent a positive thought their way, hoping that they, against all odds, could get reunited with their daughter wherever they were.
Danny could probably find the owners of the house among the fleeing survivors if he ever located the former residents of the village, but he would not go around searching for them among all the evacuees just to share a few words of appreciation. Neither would he go out of his way to help them locate their daughter just because he was grateful or for the sake of it.
No, one locating quest was already one too many.
Helping Lara was already showing to be a pain in the ass and Danny looked forward being done with it. Not to get him wrong, Danny was glad to be doing a good deed for someone just because he could, but it was still bothersome anyway.
Besides, Danny thought that the small - but timely - assistance the authors of the message had unintentionally provided did not warrant some kind of payback on his part. Danny was satisfied with just wishing them well.
Better to avoid meeting them in person in order to prevent some goodness in his heart or any kind of sympathetic feelings to move him enough to make him go out of his way again.
After clapping his hands quietly to clear them of any dirt and dust, Danny left the house the same way he got in.
There was not anything left to do in the village that wound justify Danny staying there any longer. His stock on essentials like food and water was still topped of, so there was no need to go scavenging for supplies. The only thing he was still missing was a ranged weapon to replace his crossbows and their dwindling bolts reserve.
However, Danny doubted he would be able to find anything of the sort here.
If the village had indeed been evacuated in an organized fashion, Danny doubted they would have left behind any weapons they could use to defend themselves with.
If the whole reason behind abandoning their homes had been to ensure the safety of the locals and to better protect themselves, why would the officers of the police force and the fleeing villagers leave behind something like firearms that would help them do just that? It would not make any sense to leave them behind, so Danny did not harbor any hope to find something along those lines somewhere in the village.
True, there was always the chance that something was forgotten or left behind, but Danny would not bet on that. He felt that his time and effort was better spent doing other things, like locating Lara’s family or getting more crystals for example.
He could spend some time clearing the village of the undead and gathering the crystals that remained there, but Danny did not need to remain in the village to fight the undead. If there was one thing that there was no shortage of during the apocalypse, it was zombies.
Danny could always come back here if he wanted to as well, so he felt it was best to keep moving while fighting along the way.
Getting out of Clear Water village did not pose to be any problem, just like entering it. Danny only had to pay attention to his surroundings and not let his guard down to make sure he was not ambushed or suddenly jumped at any given corner.
By keeping close to the walls, climbing houses and jumping from rooftop to rooftop whenever needed, Danny quickly navigated the uncomplicated streets of Clear Water village, making sure to dispatch any lone zombies whenever a good opportunity presented itself.
Soon he was out of the ghost town. He did not think he would be returning to this abandoned place in the foreseeable future.
Checking his wristwatch and looking at the sun’s position, Danny felt confident in reaching the location mentioned in the message while there was still light.
He still did not know why the villagers, or better yet, the ones making the decisions had elected that specific place to flee towards. The message in the walls was not that detailed.
Whether the owners of the house that left behind the red painted message were not privy to that information, or simply did not think to write it down, Danny could not be sure. Either way, he was not anxious as he knew he would learn the reason behind it soon enough whenever he got there.
After making sure there was plenty of time left in the day, Danny got back to running again.
‘Thank god for my increased stamina. This would be hell otherwise.’ Danny thought silently while his feet rhythmically tapped on the road.
Even if he already had good endurance initially, tiring exercises were still unpleasant, no matter if you were out of shape or if you were fit. However, the soul gems mostly eliminated this discomfort with their granting of absurd levels of endurance to Danny.
Exercising was never this easy.
Soon he was back to the highway that he had just left hours ago. Danny looked around and seeing nothing new, took off towards the direction he had not traversed yet - away from Lara’s ranch.
According to what he discovered, Danny knew that he would have to follow the freeway length for a little bit before taking another exit to reach his next goal.
The paced tip-taps of his feet touching the ground and the steady sound of his breathe, in and out, made it easy to get lost in his own thoughts considering that he only had them and the occasional zombie blocking his way to keep himself company. However, Danny remembered and policed himself to keep attention on his surroundings as he smashed the head of another zombie in before quickly retrieving its crystal.
He also looked around the road as he travelled to see if he could spot any signs of the convoy of villagers passage, but he did not manage to discover anything in the end.
That was not bad news actually, in fact, it was good news, since the absence of abandoned cars, wreckages, dead bodies lying around or indications of struggle probably meant that the fleeing populace did not encounter any trouble they could not handle during their escape.
After running along the highway for a while and dispatching all the undead he came across, Danny left the main road and entered a more secluded one. According to the message, his destination lied some twenty kilometers in, going that way.
The path after leaving the main highway was even easier to cross. That was not referring to the quality of the road itself, but to the fact that there were barely any undead to be seen along the way. Danny hardly had to use his hammer during this final stretch.
Some time after leaving the main road, Danny only had crossed paths with a single zombie, which he promptly made short work of. It seemed that the locals had made the correct decision in coming here, at least when considering its remoteness anyway.
A few minutes later and into the route, Danny finally laid his eyes on his goal. He knew immediately that he had reached his destination and had found what he was looking for.