"...Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, any of your time, or any of your space."- Johnny Cash
Minutes become hours, then vice versa, when you are seriously walking with no human companions. Jubal follows on her heels for a brief time then flaps up to her backpack to settle on top. She doesn't know why, but the air is curiously dry and she finds herself drinking more than she feels she ought, meanwhile behind her the horizon is morbidly grey and obscure.
The winds are oppressively dry and steady at her back. It's good to speed her progress but she can't shake the feeling of wrongness that it conveys. She pieces her way across toppled and blasted trees and sundered asphalt. At one point she passes a sight that nearly made her choke.
A field that had once been thriving with cattle. All that remained of the home was a foundation and a few splintered sections of lower wall, the rest was scattered amidst the toppled trees. It occurred to her that so much of the forest being bowled over was giving the winds more and more license, but this contemplation wouldn't be pursued as she spies a few of the live stock literally impaled on tree branches further away. Others were scatted in strange angles. The fence had been uprooted thrown into the treeline as well, the barbed wire twisted and tangled.
She exhales heavily as she takes in this scene. It had to be the doing of whatever it was in the sky playing hell with the weather. If she'd taken shelter in the earth during those weeks of hellish storms, so could anyone else have. She held out hope that she'd meet someone else. She'd thought the screaming of the wind and the howling of the thunder would never end, but what she'd been through in only the first day or two since coming out was almost enough to make her want to go back down.
She lingers there for several minutes, then carries on goaded by the stiff dry wind. At one point it threatened to carry her hat away and she had to hold it down on her head, but this just hastened her progress to what proved a shell of what once had been a town.
The town of Larken had nearly been annihilated. The older homes were splinters and foundations, where many of the newer homes were just foundations. The jail was missing its roof but still stood for the most part so she considered seeing if life was still there. If not, she might salvage something. After the better part of a day spent walking and frightened, she at least wanted to sit in some place semi secure.
Entering the building, she's greeted with two men in paramilitary gear. One has a big pump action shotgun, the other an M-16 and the first thing she notices is the Mississippi flag on their vests and a Bonnie Blue on the wall. These were militia men.
"Halt, hands up." states the man with the shotgun in a crisp and firm manner.
"Anything you say." replies Phoenix, complying promptly.
"Where'd you come from?" Asks the man with the rifle.
"Down the highway. Road out the storms in a shelter, but it got smashed by the quakes," She answers. She could tell by their demeanor and build that these were at least semi professional types.
Both of the men wore black t-shirts, camo pants, and tactical vests. She guessed those T-Shirts likely were the shirts of the Mississippi Citizens' Militia. Until the declarations of emergency before the disasters, they had been a mom and pop political action group with conservative and libertarian leanings. When it started becoming clear that NASA and the government at large were lying about the scale of things to come and the nature of the response efforts, they merged with the actual State Militia and became a force unto themselves with separatist ideals.
It had been leaked in the weeks leading up to the formal declarations of disaster that the response would be the forced relocation of rural communities into urban for consolidation of resource distribution and emergency services. In many states, this didn't sit well at all resulted in popular uprisings against what was seen as a military coup rather than real emergency. At the minimum, many didn't believe that such a resolution would end after the passing of the real emergency and just be an excuse for the establishment of tyranny.
The two men lower their weapons and nod to her, in response she lowers her hands as Jubal perks up and peers at the two from atop her backpack."You the only two here?" She inquires with an upnod of appreciation to their trust.
The man with the shotgun is big, a black man with a full beard and arms that might be as thick as her legs and a camo bandana on his head. He answers,"Just us so far. We took over here about a week ago, most of the inmates didn't make it but a couple of'em that did were real appreciative. We got an inertia generator runnin' the radio and there's another group who had similar ideas up north."
The other fellow looked to be of indian ethnicity and was a lean sort. He could have been raised on a farm with his wirey muscle and skin nearly as dark as his partner. He seemed to perceive what her next question would be as he speaks up,"There's some real strange business going on at the military bases. Just before it went off air, Keesler said something about a ship coming up out of the gulf as big as an aircraft carrier. The tide had been coming in strong too, if you're going that way you may not be able to go far before you find a new coast."
Phoenix peers at the man, if his expression weren't so stoney she'd have wondered if he was on something. She thinks on what he said for a moment before asking,"What about those clouds from the north? There was a huge light earlier..."
Before she could finish the indian answers,"That was Yellowstone."
Phoenix's gaze widens. She'd heard for years that Old Faithful was fueled by a caldera volcano. She'd even heard a couple years ago that the Mount Saint Helens eruption was a vent of that super volcano, but that it had actually erupted now was a sledgehammer to her sensibilities. The number of people that must have died was something she didn't want to dwell on.
The black militia man chimes in,"Yeah, that was probably a lot of those earthquakes we had too. Probably gonna get dark and cold for while. Not sure what we're gonna do, but I bet we're gonna be busy helpin' people get by. Things stay like this for another day or two, we're gonna get to work turnin' this place into a food bank and help people get on over here and start rebuilding. People are right to be scared right now."
She nods at this, leaning back against the wall as she exhales and offers,"Well...if it's aliens, it's a safe bet they aren't worried about whatever we had at Area 51 or Dulce."
The two men chuckled at that, the bigger man replying,"Yeah. I saw a documentary about that volcano, they figured for a hundred miles around it not even damned bacteria would survive the heat, and three hundred miles would be blasted and burned to the ground."
The indian mutters to himself at that, then offers,"They say whenever there's a big quake that a lot of UFOs are seen because its some sort of electrical discharge in the atmosphere. Like ball lightning or plasma discharge or something combined with underground gases freed."
The bigger man scoffs and replies,"And my grandma was chief of your tribe, Squanto. Ain't no swamp gas in the Gulf makin' them sailor boys run they mouths about carriers risin' up out from under the water."
The indian looks at him and levels his gaze as he replies,"Kiss my red ass, I'm just saying."
Phoenix chuckles at their banter, shaking her head as she adjusts the position of her sling around her shoulders. The bigger man asks her,"What kinda rifle is that?"
She replies,"A Winchester model 86. It fires a .45-70 round, this one holds twelve in the tube."
The shotgunner whistles in an impressed manner as the indian comments,"That's a big gun to be lugging down the highway, ain't it?"
Phoenix shrugs and replies,"It's an heirloom. Wasn't gonna leave it behind."
The rifleman nods approval to her reasoning and his partner asks,"So what'd you do before all this?" He gestures broadly as he asks.
She replies easily,"Gunsmithing."
They both nod at her answer, the shotgunner replies,"It's a good trade. They're gonna be needed, y'know how to make bullets too?"
She nods her answer, both of the men are visibly impressed and the shotgunner comments,"You must be pretty smart. You married?"
She exhales before answering,"Was. My husband died a year and a half ago."
They nod sympathetically to her, and the shotgunner offers,"Sorry to hear that. Sure he's in a better place than we are. I'm Dale, this is Jacob."
She nods appreciatively to him for saying so, then offers in return,"Glad to meet you."
The big man gestures inside as he offers,"Welcome to stay for a bit. Bet your feet would thank you after all that walkin'. We could always use someone with your knowhow too."
She shakes her head,"Good of you to offer, but you think you can really wait a day or two to start bringing people together anywhere?"
The indian speaks up at that point,"Really no. Don't even think this spot is very good, sure we got farms, but our water gonna run out eventually. Biggest pond nearby is gone through a crack in the ground."
She replies to that ably,"You should join me going down to the coast. Even if the beach is a lot closer, boats have to be safer than land right now. Besides, I've never seen a UFO before, have either of you?"
Jacob the indian speaks up as he admits,"I once saw a meteor make a right hand turn."
Dale deadpans,"Probably Venus," to which Jacob replies with the bird.
Phoenix just shakes her head with a tired grin.
The rifleman gestures inside again, saying,"You should sleep. Safer here than where you wanna go. Don't worry, we pulled the matts out of the cells and stacked'em so they're pretty comfortable."
About that moment, the earth rumbles again, but nothing more this time. She exhales, deciding this time to take them on their offer. Sleep was calling her like a drug at this point, whatever problems she'd have would be easier if she just took it.
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