Children Of Fiends - Part 2 A Nation By Another Name: An Of Sudden Origin Novella by Harwood C. Chase

Author:Harwood, C. Chase [Harwood, C. Chase]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Fate & Fortune Press
Published: 2014-05-20T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Tracks

Desolation. I have fought in three wars. Have seen villages left for dead, whole cities in ruin. I thought I understood desolation. We passed through Charlotte without incident. The city had been raised to the ground during Omega. Fires that had started in a thousand different ways had spread unchecked, leaving little untouched. Was it desolate? Sure. It was dead. Truly dead. Despite a decade of harsh weather, human remains were in evidence everywhere. We spent several hours clearing debris off the tracks and stopping at switching posts to manually shift the rails to the direction we wanted to go. Often, that debris was human. Dead cities are always barren, except for Birmingham. Birmingham was perfectly intact. It had been an orderly evacuation for that city. Every piece of rolling stock had left with it. Despite the decade of harsh climate, the place still felt recently abandoned; as though everyone simply stopped what he or she had been doing and left. Toys in the yard, lawnmowers standing still, trash cans full, pallets of crated goods waiting forever to be moved to the next destination, furniture all in its place, all without use. A clock waiting to be wound. Vacant. Desolate.

The only advantage to a decade of winter is food preservation. In Birmingham we were able to scrounge plenty of canned and foil packaged food from a Sam’s Club. There was fresh water to fill the tender and the canteen. We also had a choice: we could either head south toward New Orleans or north to Memphis and from there to Little Rock, Texarkana, Dallas and then the long slog to El Paso and beyond. It was pointed out to us by Captain Dean, that New Orleans was likely to be underwater, as the levies surrounding that city required constant maintenance and electricity to pump the water out. So North it was and more desolation.

Whereas the Southeast had experienced the bulk of the trauma that had been the Exodus, the further west we traveled the more orderly the evacuations had occurred. As far as life: we’ve seen almost nothing but the occasional small bird or rodent. If it was bigger than a rat, it didn’t seem able to survive the long, long winter. We are all surprised at how incident-free this trip has been. However, it hasn’t been without peril. Twice, our Geiger counter has sounded serious alarm bells. It’s hard to say just how much exposure to radiation we have received. The best we could do is stay inside and speed up. Toxic waste in general is a serious concern. I’ve lost count of the number of times the horns have blared on the chemical sensors. We grow weary of having to suit up. Already, we are running low on replacement respiratory filters.

With Fort Worth well behind us, and six days after leaving Richmond, we are passing through the town of Big Spring and, for the first time in a long time we are seeing broad swaths of green. Plant life is definitely returning to the Southwe–

“Colonel,” interrupted Sergeant Green.

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