The Event Trilogy (Book 1): Life After the Meteor

by Larson, Thomas

  The concerns I had expressed to the Major had filtered to the rest of The Three and they had approached Matt on the issue of the sniper rifle. He cornered me and put it quite simply; “I am the hand of God and live by his word and will. The Zoms are freed of their earthly responsibilities and sins but have just not lain down with the Lambs of God. I will help them find rest.”

  He added; “That does not mean that in times of need I will not raise the hand of the Lord to someone trying to harm the congregation.”

  I was good with that, sort of, but there was almost the sound of Brother Gabriel coming through.

  Oct 28th

  The usual morning run and sword work. The Fly Boys are going to do a run to the south today to see what the radiation situation is like. It may be one of the last runs of the year, their fuel supplies are getting low and with the weather was getting quick to change.

  The afternoon was firearms training. Most of the biker chicks did well with the exception of Taylor; she managed to shoot herself in the foot, literally. The good news was that it was with a 22 caliber hand gun. The bullet just grazed her shoe, but it scared the stuffing out of her and she dropped the gun.

  I jumped all over her screaming at her.

  “I can’t do this,” she sobbed.

  But Asuna did a nice job of ‘good cop’, calming her down and before long Taylor was back up on the firing line with a look of determination and actually improved shooting skills. Heather, Tanya and Chelsea all did fine. Margo, Jan and Delaney joined our group to help us and as a result there was really a lot of personalized training for each of the girls.

  I was fired as an instructor, the lionesses would train their own and I was in the way.

  I hung out for the rest of the afternoon with Frank and Henry. I really do not do that often simply because we all have our little tasks and pet projects which in the case of the three of us do not overlap all that often.

  In the course of it we talked about the changes in the weather. Henry being perhaps the closest to the Earth in many ways seemed to echo my feeling that the weather patterns were changed. Frank also agreed.

  The question is what impact will that have come mid-winter. It could be a very mild winter or it could be a really severe one. I think we are all hoping for the former. Henry said that The Three were very attuned to that issue.

  With the snow and the dropping temperature I have noticed that Cyril has kind of gone into hibernation. Margo and Delaney have been keeping on him to get out at least joining us all at meal time. But he is usually cold.

  Oct 29th

  The morning run was a little slick, but worked out okay. We took it easy at sword practice because the ground was a little icy, but it was good because we did get the chance to get the feel for fighting in that environment. It is hard on the knees though, the turning and slipping adds a little stress and, as a result, requires a slight alteration in the mode of the swing and other movements.

  Asuna, Mark, Michelle and I took a ride out to the area of Pittsfield this afternoon. It had cleared off and was not terrible weather wise. We wanted to get into a Cabalas Store to see what they had. The ammunition and many of the guns had long been removed but that was not our target. We were looking for warm stuff and camping gear. The store had been pretty well picked over but we were able to find a fair amount of long underwear and some hunting suits that would fit the bill for keeping Cyril and for that matter many of us warm.

  As we started back, we found some tire tracks in the snow. It only looked like one set, which meant that there were people around. This could be bad. We decided that it would be best to not go scouting around to follow them because trying to do so could give plenty of warning before we found them and allow for ambush.

  The down side was now we had left our own tire impressions and they would lead right back to the camp. On the way back we switched on the CB radio (using scan mode) to see if there was any radio traffic. There was none.

  We had a pow-wow with The Three about this. We came to the conclusion that it was a threat, but we were not certain what the response should be. For now, extra vigilance was the word of the day. When the snow melted, which would be in a day or so we could go out and do some scouting, but for now it was best to stay close to home and keep our observable profile as small as possible.

  I really do not think that we messed up in this. We have been so secure for some time now with the only threat that has had any impact was the Zoms. I don’t think we were cocky in believing that we were alone or at least out of harm’s way. Who are these people, and what threat do they pose?

  Oct 30th

  I have noticed that we have gotten back into the carrying guns mode. For the last three months or so we had pretty much restricted ourselves to knives and small impact weapons but with the idea of a human threat the game has changed.

  We have had no CB hits on the radio scans. Lance has also set up a system to monitor police and fire frequencies that had been commonly used in the area. There are a number of state wide and mutual aid frequencies and he felt that they were the best chance for us to hear something, if they were being used.

  He had long ago set up a regular AM/FM radio with the scan mode to see if there were any hits on any of the stations. We actually had a few hits. But the hits were from far away and most had been automated signals.

  I remember early in my police career we had AM radios in the police cruisers. Often on the midnight shift or ‘dog watch’ I would sit on a high hill and go one station at a time through the radio band to see where I could get radio stations from. I used to pick up like Louisville, KY, Washington DC, and occasionally somewhere as far away as Chicago or Toronto. But that really depended on the weather.

  There was one station that was usually easy to get and that was WOWO from Fort Wayne, Indiana. I chuckled about it because back in my late teens when I had a curfew, so I would listen to that station on ‘date night’ so that when I got home late I could say, “well the radio said it was 11:50 when I was driving up the road to the house”, but really it was 12:50 thanks to the time zone difference. It was silly, the folks knew, I knew they knew but it was a little game that had to be played out.

  The snow is mostly gone and the weather is back into the low forties. So there is a little more confidence about not being found by the unknown group, but there is still a little paranoia around the camp.

  Matt’s meeting house had been put on hold after a lot of talking between The Three about the likelihood of our moving come spring. The efforts were seen as being more just a make work project and was abandoned.

  The Huntresses (Delaney, Margo and now Heather) have been out but their efforts are now more aimed at just scouting and looking for human activities in the area of the camp. We are good for food for the moment. They feel that their efforts and skills should be used to watch for unwanted visitors.

  At lunch today Cyril said something that was interesting. His sight is not good but he said; “Early this morning, before dawn I had taken Biter out for a walk, and while I was out there I saw a UFO in the western sky.”

  “Oh? What do you mean a UFO?” Lance asked, I knew what he was thinking.

  “Well, it was not so much a flying saucer as a light that moved quickly through the sky a little above the horizon.”

  It could have been a meteor, or a satellite, we had not heard or seen any aircraft in a long time, other than our own. One would think that if there was still an Air Force or planes up we would have had at least some sightings.

  Oct 31st

  We had a good day today; it was warm, about 50ish which for this time of the year is quite acceptable. It was not a run day and Asuna and I decided that with the weather being what it was we would take a motorcycle ride. As we talked about it at breakfast, Frank, Teckla, Matt, Tanya and several others decided that they would join us. We had the bikes, and the gasoline supplies were available so it was head out on the highway. We were all well-armed, because we are still in the ‘just don�
�t know mode’ for what or who we might run into.

  We headed toward the northeast for a change. Most of our scouting and travel had been in other directions. This trip would bring us back to the north of Peru. We would stop there on our way through just to see how the place was but then it would be toward Sherburne Falls, a cross between an old mill town and a tourist area. It should be a quiet ride, and that was what we were looking for.

  Peru was pretty much the same as it was when we left it. But then Henry and the farm crew have been back into the area during the harvest and had kept an eye on the place.

  We found that the roads going out toward Sherburne were pretty open and we did not run into many abandoned cars or road blockages nor did we find any Zoms wandering on the road. Let me correct that and say we did not find any moving Zoms, there were some who were so decayed that they could not move. We also saw that there were some that had been released and burned. The burned did not look like recent history so we were not so concerned.

  As we rode along and got through Hawley, Massachusetts, we saw that there were barns and billboards that announced that the road ahead had been cleared. But what that meant was unclear. Had the road been cleared of obstacles, or were the undead cleared.

  We also began to notice markers on the side of the road. It was like the ones that you would see when there was a fatal car crash and the loved ones would set up crosses, and flowers and stuffed animals. It was kind of sobering and I thought back to Anne, and Lauren and all the others that we have lost along the way. I miss her, I miss all of them.

  As we reached the outskirts of Shelburne, we came to a barrier. It was stretched across the road and on it was a sign that said “Private, Keep Out”. It was not a new sign, nor was there any indication of living beings in the area. The question was whether to just turn around or should we explore a little. The vote was to explore. Once we got into town I wish we had not. That smell, it was one that you never forget.

  Like Otis or the north side of Lake Danahee or near the Arsenal it had been a last stand point. The remains of the undead were strewn about in heaps and it all led to the Bridge of Flowers. It appears that there were about a half dozen who made that place their final battle. It kind of made sense to a degree, the bridge would have offered some protection on all but two sides. To get to them the dead had only two paths; but the numbers; the sheer numbers of the dead overwhelmed those on the bridge. We could see it, the pile of bodies, and some of the dead that were still able to writhe and move. In the center of the bridge were the remains of those who had battled. It looks like they each saved one bullet for themselves when it came time.

  The site took the fun out of the ride. Matt did a little service for the group on the bridge and we torched it and then we got out of the area. We could have left the bodies to rot but it just did not seem the right thing to do. We realized that the smoke could attract attention so we did not take too much time to allow our being cornered or tracked.

  Dinner was a little quiet when we got back. We all thought about those we have lost, and the souls of humanity in general. It seemed kind of fitting for Halloween/All Souls Eve.

  Nov 1st

  A rainy day, but still got the run in this morning. One of the things that we talked about while out on the run was the weather. It sounds stupid but really, when you are jogging along in the cold rain it would have a tendency to come up. We had some rainy periods, and that warm humid tropic kind of weather back in September but not the windborne downpours that we had experienced in Connecticut over the last few years. Storms like Sandy or going back further to Gloria in which trees were uprooted and the power would be out for days.

  Of course we were further north and a little bit west so we may not necessarily be in the same weather pattern line. And even if we did get that type of storm we were not subject to the same power problems, we had our own. We might lose a couple of trees, and maybe a little flooding but really, it was not a big deal.

  It is times like this that we (the collective WE) would get into discussion about the good old days. It was more discussions of the things we once had or the idea of what was happening globally. Back then we had the media, and the Internet, we could see the weather, hear what was happening in various parts of the country, and see live footage of disasters or pending perils. It was a little different now.

  For example, the scientist has always spoken of the super volcano under Yellowstone Park erupting. If it did, we might get a little earthquake, and then in time the ash would kick in. But we could only speculate on what had happened, how long it would last, and ultimately if it is going to kill us. You could do a ditto for the nuclear power plants. We were pretty certain that there had been meltdowns, and radiation releases but we had only best guess as to which one(s) or whether more would follow.

  At the end of the world we were flying blind. In some ways we’re like the native tribes or early man in our own little corner of the earth with not much to go on outside of what we were able to actually observe. Granted we had some advantages because of the knowledge that we had from our time before The Event. But how much does that help us now. Actually a lot I guess because as a bunch of city slickers we have survived, or at least most of us have.

  Nov 2nd

  There was a hard frost this morning, it was not the first, but it was a good reminder that we have been lucky with the cold so far. I was a little hesitant to get out of bed for an assortment of reasons. But we did and it was a good run this morning. After the run it was a treat for breakfast, oatmeal with maple syrup, well, not the real maple syrup, more the pancake syrup, but yummy just the same. Perhaps come spring time we can do the whole harvesting the maple sap thing.

  I must give Nick and Grace a lot of credit for doing the job that they do in keeping us fed. It is an endless job but really they seem to relish it (sorry about the relish reference, I mustard slipped in my joking, but I am sure it dill catsup to me….)

  Overall it was a quiet day with not much in the way of planned projects or activities. As we get nearer to winter, and with the sun going down earlier and earlier that is becoming much more the case. I think that Asuna and I need to run into town and see what we can find for books and games to give us something do over the winter. And we probably better do it soon because once the snow flies we do not want to be driving around leaving tire tracks back to camp.

  Nov 3rd

  Damn, it was even colder this morning. The snow is not flying, but I feel like winter is knocking on the door. I could really go for a nice hot cup of coffee this morning, but that is pretty much no longer a very frequent event. We do every once and again scavenge some real tea or coffee, but for the most part it is no longer on the “training table”. We do have sassafras tea pretty regularly, and some other native and natural hot beverages from roots, bark or leaves but it is just not the same.

  The run waited until after lunch today, really for no other reason than we just did not get going soon enough.

  One of the things that the Huntresses have taken to is hunting with bows and crossbows. They have done so to keep our noise profile down. We are not certain of who left the tire tracks in the snow up in Pittsfield, or how close their camp was to where we are but we figured that rifle shots could be a marker. Rifle fire also attracts Zoms.

  The advantage is that we are not expending ammunition, a limited commodity that will only become more valuable over time. But it does require more skill in getting close to the target. The long bow is a little better for distance and rapid reloading (or would it be re-notching?). The crossbow was a little more accurate but it lacked the power for longer flights.

  Nick and Frank had the final game of the billiards championship tonight. We have been having an assortment of games competitions over the last couple of months. Most of them are just a kind of extended family game night. But we do also have a dart league and championship, billiards, poker and sometimes get a rollicking game of Bingo going.

  Nov 4th

  Wha
t a cold, crappy raw day, rainy and just not one to be out and about. But then what else does one do. A good day for curling up with a good book but that was not the option for the day. I had drawn one of the watch cards for the day.

  I didn’t explain this earlier but since we had found the tire tracks in the snow up toward Pittsfield we decided that it would be a good idea for us to monitor the cameras that Lance had set up around our camp to see if we detected any movements that might be someone scouting us. In fairness to Ethan and Lance we each took a 12 hour shift in the monitor room.

  There were a few people who were exempted from the task, like Nick and Grace or Cyril. The Huntresses were also excused simply because they were out scouting for people on their own. But the rest of us took our turn in the two week cycle. There were some of us, like me who took a shift every week. I was the Monday day guy. I probably could have argued that Asuna and I should be exempt also because of the scavenging missions, but that would not really be fair.