“Okay, I’ll do my best to keep my weight off this ankle. Thanks again for all your hard work and for helping me. I’ll see you in a week.”
“All right then, wish us luck at finding some game.”
Bo and Thomas placed their bags on their shoulders, slung their rifles over their right shoulders, and hiked out of the campsite. Paulette sighed as she watched them leave. It would be a long, boring week. She was thinking how glad she was that she had brought a few books along. One was more of a survivalist book, which it wouldn’t hurt her to study. She had been intending to read the other one and hadn’t gotten to it yet. It was written by Tom Abrahams and was titled “Home.” It was about a man named Marcus Battle who had survived a virus but had lost his family, and he was just trying to survive in his new world. Both the books seemed to be subjects she needed then, and she’d certainly have plenty of time for reading during the next few days.
Chapter 28
Present, Day 6
Greg got into the office early so he could get started again on the search for something, anything, that might be the solution to why the time pod couldn’t return. He headed to the project room, entering the code, as usual, sat down at his computer, and began where he had left off the day before. He had been working for about an hour when Susan arrived.
“Hey, I see you got an early start.”
“Yeah, I want to figure this out as soon as possible. I know it’s only been six days, but I miss her terribly.”
“I guess we should get moving and try to find a solution to how to bring her back.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
Susan sat down next to Greg, plugged her USB drive in and began where she had left off. They both worked for hours combing through thousands of lines of code and looking over documents. Their eyes were crossing, but they kept at it. At one point, Susan perked up. She thought she had found something and wanted Greg to look at it. “Hey, I think I found something, what do you think?”
Greg leaned over to look at her monitor. “It’s possible that could be the problem. Not sure though. All these math symbols are giving me a headache. Why don’t you tag that code so we can come back to it later and inspect it?”
Susan tagged the code and kept on searching. This whole search thing was eating up a lot of their time. They still had a company to keep operating. They feared at some point that they might have to just give up. They discussed maybe even hiring a few experts familiar with time travel. Neither wanted to do that just yet, though. It would violate Paulette’s mandate that no one else was to know about the existence of time travel yet. She was afraid of the implications and consequences it could have on the world if it got into the wrong hands. Susan wondered, though, if she could put a few probes out into the scientific community just to see what came back. If she kept it as just an interest and not that she needed a solution to a real problem, she might get the answer she was looking for.
When Susan and Greg finally came up for air, they realized it was already nighttime and that they had been working non-stop for over ten hours. “I think we should give this a break for a while,” Susan suggested.
“Yeah, I think you might be right. I’ve looked at about ninety percent of my files and cannot seem to fine anything that might help.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ve looked at close to eighty percent of mine and haven’t found anything useful yet. I don’t know if we’ll ever find a solution. What if she ends up being stuck there forever?”
“I don’t want to think about that right now. Heck, it’s only been a week.”
“True, but we can’t keep this up every day. We’ve got a company to run.”
“You’re right. Maybe we can hire someone to run the bionics portion of the company, get a new R&D manager, and maybe even hire a few specialists for the time-travel project.”
“That might work for the company. I think Richard can move into my position, and we can hire a new technician for the lab. As far as hiring people for the time project, I’m not sure. We’d really have to be careful. No one can ever talk about the project. At this point, all they’d know is that it doesn’t work correctly; but if we ever find a solution, we risk them talking.”
“You’re right. We’d have to vet these people even more than for a top-secret clearance and make sure that nothing left the company.”
“You think we should go ahead with our plans? Do you think Paulette will be mad when she finds out?”
“Who knows and who cares at this point? She can’t get mad if we never get her back.”
“True. Okay, let’s do this. It will take time before we can get everything up and running with new people.”
“It will, but I think it’s best.”
Greg and Susan put the USB drives in a secure location and then exited the project room. They went their separate ways for the evening. Greg was finally able to go back to his apartment. Neither of them knew how long it would take to get a resolution to the problem, leaving Paulette to wait and, hopefully, survive in her future world, wherever that was.
Chapter 29
Future, Week 3
Paulette was getting antsy. It had been a little over a week since Bo and Thomas had left for their hunting trip. She had been pretty bored most of the time because of having to let her ankle heal. She read and re-read and studied the survival guide she had brought. She thought it would at least help her survive better in the new post-apocalyptic world she had found herself in. She read her novel “Home”, and it impressed her how Marcus Battle had endured and overcome so many struggles. She wished she had brought the other books in the series with her so she could see how everything turned out for him. She spent a lot of her free time thinking of what he would do in her situation. It was all fantasy. She didn’t understand what this world really looked like or what troubles where hiding around every corner — much like Marcus. He hadn’t known about the cartel that was running all of Texas; and when he found out, he was in a constant battle with them. She didn’t want to end up fighting with anyone. She just wanted to get back home. She had time to think about how things went while she was growing up. I sure regret not getting to know Greg better, who knows maybe we’d have ended up being a couple, and now I may never know. Even going out on a date would have been nice. I can’t believe what an idiot I am, I should have took more time to test everything and make sure it wouldn’t fail. Her time in the camp was basically a time to reflect on all the things she did wrong and what she should have done instead. Her genius had cost her life as she had known it, and now it seemed she’d live the rest of her life in a foreign land with people she hardly knew.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sudden drop in temperature. Looking around she noticed dark clouds in the distance, meaning a storm was on the way. She stood up and hobbled over to her shelter, sat down, then crawled inside. Pulling her backpack over beside her, she retrieved her emergency blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
The wind picked up and the rain began to fall in small splashes outside. All she could do was sit there and watch hoping the storm wouldn’t get too bad; however, the winds and rain only intensified
The wind howled and whipped at her shelter shaking it slightly and the rain came down harder and harder till it seemed to pound the dirt in. She had to resort to eating dried deer meat and drinking water while she was stuck in the shelter. It got colder and colder outside, so she crawled into her sleeping bag and covered her head and shoulders with the emergency blanket. She was thankful the wind was blowing the opposite direction from her shelter opening: otherwise, the rain would have been flying around inside. In no time, the water began to form little rivers flowing on the ground outside, as well as, pooling on the tarp above her head. Her thoughts began to wander as she lay there with nothing to do. Wow this wind and rain are insane. I’ve never seen anything quite like this, other than during a hurricane. I do hope the tarp holds or else I’ll get soaked. So glad Thomas and Bo helped redo my shelter and doubly t
hankful we left a small berm of dirt around it when we put the dirt back in the hole around the branches.
Exhausted from the cold, wind, and rain Paulette fell into a deep sleep for a few hours before being awakened by a large clap of thunder nearby. She looked outside her shelter to see that it was pitch black and the rain was still coming down in sheets. Frustrated she laid her head back down and tried to go back to sleep. She spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and getting very little rest.
The next morning, she woke up and looked outside to see that it was still raining but had let up quite a bit during the night. She continued to stay wrapped up in her emergency blanket and sleeping bag, ate some jerky and waited till about midday when the rain finally stopped. After a few hours had passed, she crawled out of the shelter, stood and stretched her sore muscles, and then went and sat on the stump. Looking at the fire pit, she wondered if she’d be able to get a fire started. She sat there thinking for a few moments when she realized she could pick some smaller branches from her shelter that were dry to start a fire. After that she would be able to use some bigger branches to get the fire really going.
She stood up and hobbled over to her shelter, knelt and crawled in. She gathered numerous small and medium branches from around her shelter, crawled back out, stood and took them to the fire pit, and started a small fire. A smile spread across her face knowing she’d be able to warm up and eat a hot meal for the first time in a day and a half.
The sun was setting on yet another day with no sign of her companions coming back. Paulette despaired that they wouldn’t come back to get her. I guess if they aren’t back in the next few days, I’ll have to head out on my own,” she mumbled to herself. The ankle was still painful but was doing much better. She figured if she only walked short distances and rested a lot, she’d be okay. She was getting ready to head to bed when she heard a noise. She froze in place and listened for the noise again. Then she heard it, just off to the left. She quietly reached for her gun and pointed it in the general direction of the sound. “Who’s out there? Speak up, or I’ll shoot.”
A reply came back instantly. “Hey don’t shoot; it’s Thomas. I brought a few other guys with me to help get you to our place.”
“I’m so glad you guys are back. I was getting worried that something happened to you,” she blurted out.
“Sorry, it took us a while to find an elk, and then we had to hike further than we planned back to our village. It also took time to gather supplies and some people willing to come out this far to retrieve you. Not only that, but we had to hole up for a night in a nearby cave to get out of the nasty storm that blew in.”
“That makes sense. Just glad you guys didn’t get hurt or something. I do have to admit I was getting a bit frustrated that you hadn’t returned yet.” She was still slightly frustrated with Thomas for taking so long to get back, but was relieved at the same time. Her supplies were running low and she would have had to leave soon, had they not shown up when they did.
A few minutes later Thomas and four others stepped into the firelight of the campsite. “Good to see you again. Sorry it took so long to get back. How are you holding up?”
“I’m almost out of supplies, bored, and looking forward to getting out of here.”
Thomas smiled and chuckled. “Well, good to see you’re in such good spirits.”
Paulette threw a punch in gest at his arm and missed.
“Hey now, no hitting. That’s not nice,” he said, still chuckling.
“If I was really going to hit you, I’d make sure you felt it.” She laughed.
“I see you still have spunk. That’s good. We need to set up camp for the night. We can head out after we eat in the morning. How’s your ankle?”
“It’s much better. I think I can walk short distances but not sure about long hikes. It could take us forever to get where we’re going.”
“No problem. We brought a flexible stretcher just in case we needed it.”
“Awesome. We might need it after a day or two of hiking.”
“All right. Let me get my guys going, then we can have some hot drinks and head to bed. I know the hike exhausted us.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for coming back for me; I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
Thomas turned, “Okay, guys, go ahead and find a place to make camp for the night. We’ll head back out in the morning.”
The guys found spots to lay out their bed roll and put their bags down. Once they all got their stuff situated, they came back and sat down next to the fire. Paulette already had water boiling, so they each got their cups out and put a powder mix in each cup, including hers, and then she poured hot water in the cups. They used a stick to stir the drink and sipped it.
With a surprised look on her face she asked, “So what is this stuff?”
Thomas laughed and said, “It’s kind of like a hot fruit drink. We take several of our fruits we grow, dry them out, eventually pulverize them, and mix in a little sugar cane. Not much sugar, though, since we have a very hard time growing that around here. We do a little trading with a few other groups of people, so that helps to get things into our village we wouldn’t otherwise have. However, we are very cautious who we trade with and how we go about doing the trades. Since the world collapsed, things have not been easy and people turned ugly, so we’ve got to be very careful. Do you like the drink?”
“Actually, I do. Tastes a little strange, yet fantastic at the same time.”
Everyone finished their drinks and then headed to bed. The next day would be a long one.
The entire group awoke moaning and groaning and even complaining about having to get up so early. Thomas went over to Paulette’s shelter to see if she was awake. “Hey, just wondering if you’re awake yet and checking to see how your ankle is doing.”
Rolling over in her sleeping bag, she replied, “Yeah, I’m awake. How could I sleep with all the noise you guys are making? As for my ankle, it’s doing a lot better. I think we can start out with me walking; and if it gets bad, then we can consider the stretcher.”
“Okay, that should work. We’ve got quite a way to hike before we get there.”
“I understand. I think I can make it on my own two feet right now.”
“All right. We’ll get breakfast going, then we all need to break down, pack up, and head out.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be right out.”
Thomas left and headed over to the now blazing fire and sat down. The others in the group had all gotten ready and started breakfast. Paulette crawled out from her shelter, stood up and limped over to the stump by the fire, and sat down. Thomas pulled out some bowls and scooped out the oatmeal-style mash and some jerky and handed it to Paulette and the others. Bo poured several cups of the hot drink and handed them out to each person. Paulette was getting used to the food they ate. It was plain and sometimes tasteless, but it was better than nothing. Paulette dug into the mash, ate a few pieces of jerky, and sipped at her hot cup of cider. She called it cider because it was bitter, yet sweet, and she couldn’t think of a better name for it. She had no idea what her new friends called the concoction and didn’t care to ask them. As it became lighter, she looked around at the group. Thomas had brought all men, and they looked strong for having lived in this new messed-up world. She thought that they must, at least, be well fed. She couldn’t help but wonder how this community of people got along. What were their rules for keeping order? Was there a leader? She’d find out very soon once she got to their village. She finished up her breakfast, gulped the rest of her drink, and then stood up and headed to her shelter to pack.
Paulette decided not to destroy the shelter in case she ever came back that way. She packed up the rest of her supplies, carefully placing things in her bag. She rolled up her sleeping bag and tied it off to the bottom of her bag. Next, she cinched on her water canteen and finished up with the small stuff.
“Hey, is everyone ready to go?” Bo hollered.
“Yeah, we’re all packed and ready to head out,” he heard in response.
Paulette came out of her shelter and confirmed she was ready to go, also, by waving her walking stick in the air.
“If everyone is ready to go, then we should get moving. We’ve got a long hike ahead of us, and, hopefully, we can get there by nightfall. If not, then we’ll camp again and finish up the next morning. It all depends on how well Paulette can walk,” Thomas stated.
Everyone walked out of the camp. Paulette was in the middle of the group, and was doing pretty good, despite her ankle. The walking stick helped to keep her steady, and she barely had a limp. They walked around the base of Squak Mountain, instead of climbing over it, so they could avoid walking inclines as much as possible. They still had to keep their eyes glued to the ground, though, to keep from stumbling over all the downed trees, vines, and other undergrowth. The forest had recovered since the upheaval, so it was like walking through a jungle. One person in the group was out front using a machete to cut back anything in their way, making the path a little easier to navigate. It took all morning to get to the northeastern side of the mountain. Paulette had to remind herself that in her time it would have been the southern side of the mountain. The new world was so crazy.
Around mid-afternoon they stopped and ate a quick lunch before continuing with their hike. By late afternoon, early evening, they had finally made it to a small clearing at the eastern edge of the park. Paulette noticed that there was a gleam off in the near distance. “So, what’s that shiny spot in the distance?” she asked Thomas.
“Oh, that’s water. The ocean and the rivers in this area flooded during the great upheaval, so now we’ve got water dividing Squak Mountain from Tiger Mountain State Forest. Our village is on the other side of Tiger Mountain.”
Beginnings (Book 1): Future Apocalypse Page 17
