DAY - 60
It’s just now hitting me that Beth and I have left behind so much. We just took off on a whim and never even thought to look back. We probably could have gotten ourselves even more supplies to bring with us - more food would have been smarter, probably. Instead, we found ourselves eating pre-packaged peanut butter crackers at a middle of nowhere gas station.
The sun took a while to really bear down on our location this morning as the gas station is just off this mountainside highway facing due west. It was getting warm again - back to T-shirts and pants for both of us. Beth was fiddling with the gas pumps trying to get them to come on without us having to venture into the station itself, but I pretty much knew better. The station looked pretty ransacked with its shelving strewn all about the place. I went ahead inside. I knew I’d have to go in eventually, so I went in ready with my sword in both hands. I searched the entire building - nothing - no ghouls. I wasted no time in looking for a breaker box. I turned on the electricity - it worked. The continuance of electricity in certain places is starting to really peak my curiosity. Someone, somewhere near is keeping things running, or there is some electrical source I haven’t heard about that keeps running itself - maybe hydroelectric. I would think that Nuclear power would have caused a meltdown in a plant somewhere by now. That’s another problem to think about - places where not to venture.
After getting the pumps turned on and finding a nice, thick road map, I began to figure out where we are going along this highway. Much to my pride’s dislike we were quite far south of Denver, Colorado. All this time I thought we were north of Denver. As it turns out we are actually close to Aspen, Colorado - the famous getaway, ski resort and haven for yuppies and wealthy socialites. Now, there’s some ghouls I could take great interest in disposing of. Still, Beth and I will have to take this highway 285 through a couple of Podunk towns and make our way up highway 24 and then finally due west on interstate 82.
It’s dark now, and though we are pretty much in the middle of nowhere again, I just don’t feel secure having only this SUV for shelter. Whichever of us driving nears a town come sunrise, we’ll wake the other so as to make another supply run in that town. Finding another gas station with its pumps working and hopefully having gas cans inside will be key. I also would like to find a grocery store. There is still quite a bit of snow and ice in the areas we have been going through.
Lucky for us, this vehicle has decent tires because I’ve fishtailed it a couple of times. Beth didn’t appreciate those instances that much. She keeps looking at me like I’m an idiot driver and seems to have trouble sleeping for long periods of time. I guess she has a good argument because I don’t like being back on the road. I miss the mountaintop lookout building. We should have stayed, probably, but the prospect of similar places in Aspen have me intrigued, too. I just need to slow down my driving - right, Beth? She punched me in the arm.
DAY - 61
Welcome to Buena Vista, Colorado - indeed. Sawatch Vistas Bed & Breakfast pretty much stands out on its own. It’s a lonely looking building next to a big, red farmhouse of sorts amidst the rolling plane that is a huge valley surrounded by many snowy peaks. At first glance this morning, I knew this was the place to try and hold up for a bit. It made me think of the Alamo in Texas, as it was so isolated from the rest of the city, which really looked to build up further down the road. Problem was that we didn’t expect to be shot at when we drove in front of the place. I had no sooner parked the SUV in front of the place, stepped out and I got grazed across my right shoulder from a bullet. Beth jumped out of the vehicle to assist me, and then three people came out of the front door to the place, each with a gun in hand.
Ellen and Fred are both 57 years old. They didn’t own the Bed & Breakfast, but they pretty much own it now. Their plight over the past few months sounds eerily similar to what I dealt with back in Bennett. They have electricity still, and the place is still quite stocked with food in 5 different deep freezers. The third person also shacked up here is a teenage kid named Cody - he’s 15 years old. He’s the one that shot me - with an old Winchester rifle no less. I told him that according to the hell this world has become, I won’t be holding a grudge against him. I praised his courage, but then I offered to help him with his aim if he feels like wasting a few rounds. As a result of finding more people, Beth seems to be much more up in spirit. I noticed Cody taking an eye-full of Beth. I won’t mind letting him know she’s mine if it comes to that.
By mid-afternoon, my shoulder felt better. Fred gave me quite a good field dressing on my shoulder with some gauze and medical tape. He explained it was one of the many things he learned in the military. Soon after, he asked what branch of the military I was in. He thought for sure I was military trained to still be alive. It sucked having to let him down when I explained that I’ve just done what only made the most logical sense to survive and that between lots of movies and the Discovery Channel, I was set. Then I spilled the beans about what I did know concerning the military - everything involving the nanotechnology. Fred seemed surprised and not so at the same time. He began telling me many secrets he had experienced when he was stationed in Groom Lake.
Apparently, there has always been a lot of weird shit going on there. He said, if things truly originated there, then many worse things were released as well - that this thing may be only the beginning. We both realized at the same time that by being only a thousand or so miles from Groom Lake, it’s a matter of time before we find out. Then I asked Fred about the red house nearby. Cody butted into the conversation quite angrily and suggested I don’t ever step foot near that house.
Fred made the kid shut up and leave. Fred then explained that Cody and his family lived there - that what happened there and how Cody survived was like a miracle happening in hell.
Everyone else is now down for the night. Fred told me they are taking turns at lookout while the others sleep. I gladly volunteered for the first shift. Beth has fallen asleep on the couch next to me. From what I gather, this town has a decent shopping area. Fred said there are plenty of guns and ammunition stores if I can get to them. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to find a way.
DAY - 62
Fred’s an early riser. He said that he relieved Beth of lookout duty around four a.m. this morning. She and the others were still very much asleep as I awoke to go sit at the kitchen table with Fred. I saw that he had been reading my journal. He said that if this world ever gets back to normal, then the journal could end up being the second most important book next to the Bible. He said my choice of curse words wouldn’t be so motivating in the long run, but that he didn’t expect me to be any less truthful about things. I guess for future generations he suggests an edited version - one can only hope that occurs. I began to expla
in my plan for the day - that I really wanted to take a look into town and find some of those guns and ammo stores. Fred agreed that I would be a nice sidekick to have for such a run. He’d been wanting to go get some more ammunition as well. I explained that Beth would definitely tag along. Fred didn’t like that thought until I explained her to him - a sharpshooter and that she isn’t shy about getting things done. So we chatted for the rest of the morning over coffee. I really have missed coffee.
At 10:52 a.m. according to the clock on the kitchen wall, Fred, Beth and I were quite ready to take a ride into town. Ellen and Cody seemed a little bit nervous about our wishes, but they also felt a greater feeling of hope in that we’d accomplish what we were setting out to do. The three of us piled into the SUV and began a slow drive into town. I drove. Beth sat in front with her shotgun in tow. Fred was in the backseat with his gun in his lap - his gun is a semi-automatic - a.45 caliber pistol. Moments later and Fred had us stopping only a few miles into town. He directed us down a few more side streets that he deemed shortcuts and led us to exactly what we had been after. This place was gun heaven, but Beth wasted no time in only getting what she felt was important - plenty of shotgun shells. I swear she grabbed every box of shotgun shells there was and immediately loaded them into the back hatch of the SUV. Fred got boxes full of.45 shells and some Winchester rifle shells for Cody’s gun. Fred then grabbed three shotguns for he, Ellen and Cody - that their other guns were okay, but shotguns get things done a might quicker. As for myself, I first grabbed a couple of diamond sharpener tools for my sword, but then, my eyes stopped dead on gun in a glass case - a Thompson model machine gun. Fred helped me get its accessories and all the rounds we could find for it, and he explained that it wasn’t a replica. This gun had actually been around in the days of Al Capone and was actually shipped to this store from Chicago, Illinois. As we thought we couldn’t be happier, we found a bunch of laser sights for our weapons and grabbed a lot of those little batteries for replacements when the time came. We kept on piling stuff into the SUV well into the afternoon. Only one ghoul showed itself, but Beth blasted it in half and then headless before Fred could blink. Fred laughed like a child. He was surprised and proud of her all at once. We called it a day and then made our way back to the Sawatch Vista without any problems. Ellen and Cody were glad to see us back safe, but joked that we could’ve at least got some ice cream to go with the shotguns.
I’m taking first watch again. It’s just Beth and I on the couch again as everyone else is out. Beth’s acting a little frisky, now, and hey, I got a nice long entry in already, so Hasta La Vista.
DAY - 63
I awoke this morning to see Fred outside in front of the Vista using his laser sight as it was mounted on top of Cody’s Winchester rifle. It was still rather dark out, so the laser was pretty visible. I joined Fred outside, but he shushed me a bit. I was quiet and slow in getting to his side. He was aiming the laser sight at various windows of the red farmhouse. He said there were still some things moving in that house. I watched the laser closely. He was right. Every so often the depth that the laser went into the house through the windows would seem to get blocked by something. Fred started telling me the entire story about Cody’s family. They were a family of six - Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, a little girl and Cody. While going to admire his rifle kill of a jackrabbit, Grandpa encountered the animal still very much alive. It sprang up and bit his hand, and Grandpa shot it until it did die.
Apparently the old man was pretty stubborn and hated doctors, so he just took to taking aspirins, a cold compress and taking a nap in the upstairs bedroom of his. Cody found his Grandpa later that evening in his bedroom with his little sister. The old man had already turned bad and was making a meal of the little one. Cody barricaded himself in a downstairs closet where they kept the rifle. One by one he basically sat in that closet and listened to his family get attacked and then began to hear more groaning like some of them, maybe all of them had turned ghoul. Cody finally just got enough courage to load the rifle and do whatever he could to get out of the house. Cody supposedly shot them several times and said they went down, but he nailed the front door shut with probably a hundred nails. The thought is that he knew they were still alive, but that the house is serving as their tomb. Fred and Ellen had initially wanted to burn the house down, but Cody couldn’t stomach it. Cody freaked out real bad on them. I’m thinking I should have a talk with this kid very soon, because as I have my Tommy gun about set and ready to rip, I’m not going to live this close to any ghouls. They can either burn, or they can take a headshot - either way, I want them down for the count.
We were having a nice day despite the state of the world. The weather was nice and warm. Not a ghoul was sighted, of course, beyond this morning between Fred and I. We were all outside and tossing around a Frisbee that Ellen found some weeks ago. Then Fred sighted something and gathered everyone back into the Vista. A huge migration of birds was flying into the valley. Ellen seemed annoyed until Fred explained that every bird has to land, and a bird on the ground could be a bird that’s infected. As the flock came closer to the Vista, we could all see that these birds were of every kind and not flying in any formation. They looked chaotic in flight and didn’t even land correctly. I could see a lot of them landing off into the town, but a damned good amount landed out here in the flat plain as well. They began to peck at the ground - I’m guessing for worms. Some of them even landed on the red farmhouse and began pecking all over it. Then we heard birds atop the Vista pecking away.
Everyone armed themselves and braced for the worst. Our fear and paranoia have been the worst so far, though. The birds didn’t peck for too long, but even in the dark they are still sitting outside all over the place. I think they sense us in here.
I’m sure that some of them have seen us through the windows.
We’re all in the living room around the couch tonight, and we’ll take shifts as usual. I’m thinking that this could be one hell of a waiting game, or I’m going to have to come up with my best plan ever.
DAY - 64
Somehow we all fell asleep last night. Despite the fear in us all, we still found our ways to slumber. Fred and I were the first awake and talked at length about getting rid of the birds. It occurred to me to ask Fred if he’d ever seen the ghouls of any kind ever turn on themselves for a meal. He hadn’t, and neither had I for that matter. I’m betting on the nanotech’s process is mostly the reason why. The nanotech are just following procedure, but what is it they do first off? They begin repairing hosts with an attached and useable nervous system. That must mean that they start in the brain - makes sense as the brain is the organ that sends messages throughout the body for repair as usual. But what else occurs there? They instill their primitive, instinctive traits and functions for us there, and they would first repair our five senses - sight, hearin
g, taste, touch and smell. Smell - that’s the one that Fred and I began to focus on.
By the afternoon, everyone had agreed to try our devised plan.
I loaded and readied my Tommy gun, stepped out the front door and started firing into the crowd of birds. They began flying at me, and I ran back inside where Fred was waiting and ready at the door. Fred allowed myself and two of the birds in before he shut the door. Beth, Cody and Ellen were ready with shotguns held like baseball bats and swatted the birds to the floor. They crushed the bird’s heads until they no longer moved. Fred and I went directly into part two of our plan. We drained the bird’s blood all into a plastic bowl. I changed into some cotton jogging pants and a sweatshirt that Fred was willing to part with. Fred got a paintbrush from under his sink and began painting my new clothes with the bird’s blood. It was time to test that sense of smell. Out I stepped with blood-covered clothes, a small thermos Fred filled with paint thinner and a box of matches - no weapons this time due to no pockets or belt loops. I stepped slowly out amongst the birds. They all took turns looking at me, but none of them took to flight towards me. They just kept on about their own business. I smelled like death to them. I was right. I kept on walking. I was making the straightest path that I could to the red farmhouse and trying not to disturb any of the birds by stepping around them as best I could. I felt like Indiana Jones trying not to step on the stones that shot out poisonous darts - not much difference really if I fucked up. Only a few minutes passed when I decided to turn back and look to everyone in the Vista. I could see through the windows that Fred was struggling with Cody. The boy apparently was having a change of heart to the plan. A moment later and I was right at the side of the red farmhouse.
HOLD Page 11
