The next morning, we got up and packed up our campsite. Tyler and I doused the fire while Emmett and Bella tried to figure out a way to cross the river. After some wandering, they found a location where the river trickled down to a stream that we could cross without any fear of being devoured by some insane water monster.
We ate what was left over from dinner before leaving our campsite. Alice was limping, but she was still moving. By mid-day, we were halfway to Mount Weather. We also saw proof that the terrain we were crossing had once been a city. There were street signs, abandoned stores and crumbling homes. Bella used a Geiger counter to check the radiation levels and whatever wasn’t too irradiated to touch, we took. Namely, we found handguns, ammunition, hunting knives, pots, pans, utensils, and some other camping gear. We also needed some clothing, but the fabrics had disintegrated from years of exposure to the elements and radiation.
We also found several neighborhoods. In one of the houses along the way to Mount Weather, we found some more backpacks. It made it easier to carry our finds.
In one of the deserted homes, Bella was standing inside a nursery, staring blankly at the crib. The furniture was covered in a fine layer of dust and what could have been a cheery room was covered in a pall, with grey walls and decaying wood. I walked over to her, jumping back when I saw what Bella was staring at. Inside of the crib, there was a skeleton of a child. “Fuck me,” I gasped.
Her lips curled up in a sad grin, but her eyes were trained on the skeleton. “This baby and its family never stood a chance,” she whispered. “The first of the bombs went off in the Ohio River Valley. The radiation coated this neighborhood … this baby … knew nothing but pain.”
“Now, it’s at peace,” I murmured, picking up a tattered blanket and covering the remains. “At least, I hope it is.”
“Could you imagine living during this time?” she asked, shuddering visibly. “Watching everyone you know slowly die from radiation poisoning?”
“There were some bunkers that could withstand the bombs,” I said. “If they were able to survive that initial blast, they could check periodically if the air had become less irradiated.”
“But, we haven’t seen any indication that there are humans on the planet. The biggest living creature we’ve seen was the creepy water snake,” she argued, turning to leave the nursery, and walking through the darkened home.
“I saw some deer and a few moose,” I explained. They had been some fucked up deer and the moose was ginormous. I damn near pissed myself when I saw it strolling through a parking lot of a strip mall.
“If we could get our hands on a moose or a deer? That could feed us for …” Bella murmured. “We’d be able to dry the meat and we’d have protein. Real protein … not plant protein.”
“I take it that you enjoyed the rabbit stew Lauren made?” I asked, grinning crookedly at her.
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