33 Threshold
Chapter 33
A loud blast sounded to the west as Corinne and Arden followed the others towards danielsville road.
It'd been a day since locating Jack's group, now they traveled to the northern half of the loop. It was safer to use the highways and adjacent areas, instead of traveling directly through the down town areas. A few minutes after the explosion, Arden signed to ask what had happened, but was interrupted by another blast. Everyone hit the ground in return, as this blast was much closer to the first. "South." She spoke and signed to the group.
"Origins," Kal cursed. "What in hell is happening?"
"Mythborn?" Alaina slowly peeled herself off of Hunter.
"I doubt it." Raven looked to Jack, as did Nova.
"If it were them, they'd be bombing in the same area. This was on our half of the city the second time."
"Can't be a coinsidence, those don't seem to exist no more." Hunter gave a half hearted chuckle.
"If I had to guess it could be like we did with the box truck. Move a horde." Corinne piped up.
"Seems like a much cruder method then," Jack replied, continuing North.
In their time spent out of costco, the demigod and mortal group hadn't ventured this far northeast. All their trips east took the southern half of the loop, and got off at Lexington road. The snow hadn't helped scouting runs at all either.
"This feels way too empty." Corinne signed to Arden. Kal watched the two intently, as he tended to do when they spoke without words.
"All the doors are painted." Arden gestured to their right. Sure enough, an X or an O was painted on all the doors.
"Could be indicating cleared status?" Corinne thought in sign. "Kal, do other planets not have sign language?"
"Oh, Xav does. The Xavi language itself was constructed for ease of use across many languages, the founders spent the time making a signed version. Terradine and Aethere lack a signed form, they make due with writing."
"Why're you watching us then," Arden chuckled. She wiped a bit of blood from her nose. Using the spike then.
"Well, for some reason my translation power doesn't work on signs. I'd assume because it doesn't involve audio. It's fascinating."
"Translation power?" Arden raised an eyebrow.
"Umbrir are able to communicate with humans in any language. I have no idea why. Same thing with travel. It requires no Adamantium for us. I am speaking to you in my own tongue, that of the Umbrir, but depending on who I speak with, different languages come out."
"Woah," Corinne said, "Can you turn it off or are you stuck like this?"
"It's difficult, but yes. It's made easier with a blessed Adamantium amulet."
"Kal, I don't understand any of this." Arden said, wiping yet more blood onto a clean spot of her sleeve.
"I'll have to get into it after we survive the clash with Mythborn. It's too much for the road." Kal laughed. "So much to teach your people."
They found all the nearby gas stations to be empty. Jack and Raven decided all the buildings with X's would be that way, it went unchallenged. That's how I'd mark buildings to. It only really made sense for a larger group, that way it was easy to know, whereas with a smaller one, knowledge would be more broadly shared.
The late afternoon sun spoiled everyone's moods. They'd been walking for miles, stopping briefly at houses marked with an O. They soon came up to the exit marking Dixie 441 North.
3 convenience stores, 3 O's. Thank the gods. They'd have to stock up on food before finding a place to settle for the night.
Corinne and Arden took the first, a small mom and pop store. Before the fall, the land it sat on would be worth at least a million dollars, but this old store sat, stuck in the 1980s. Jack and Raven went to the studio apartment building, Hunter and Alaina took the gas station with Kal.
Arden broke the door in, and Corinne headed immediately to the left. No dead, but she heard some shuffling, and saw one grab for Arden. Arden managed to spike it, but the body fell on top of her. Corinne dragged the stinking corpse off Arden. Corinne felt a hand on her back, so she swung her knife around, catching the creature in the throat. The body was old and badly decayed, so the knife ripped clean through the neck, severing the head. Corinne shivered, but quickly cleared the other rooms. The store had clearly been occupied shortly after the fall, but dust coated everything, except the floor and windows. One of those survivors was bit, I'd bet.
Empty cans littered the floor, but there was still a decent supply in the cupboards of the kitchen. "Peaches, canned peaches." Corinne grinned, tossing Arden a can. Gods, I missed fruit. The only thing the women left behind was a stash of walnuts. Nasty things.
They met the others in the center of the intersection. The area would have been hell before the fall, but now they had a clear view in all directions.
"Hauls?" Jack asked to the small group in general.
"Canned fruits mostly, and several bags of seed." Corinne said, glancing at the others. Everyone seemed a little brighter now.
"Found a shotgun under the cashier counter." Hunter grinned, racking the slide. "Alaina found several pounds of jerky."
"Clean sheets, clean shirts, a whole section." Raven smiled. "It is pretty secure. I'd propose we spend the night there. We'll know if something goes wrong."
"If I may suggest something?" Arden said, She wasn't bleeding from her nose, so was speaking without hearing. All eyes turned to her. "We need to remove any track of the circles. If Mythborn or someone else used those symbols, we need to change them to an X."
"That's actually a great idea, Arden," Jack nodded. "Let's get to work."
Corinne sat alone atop the roof of the studio apartment building. She had a rifle, some snacks, and a folding lawn chair, so it wasn't entirely miserable. Haven't fallen asleep yet at least. It was only a 2 hour watch, she figured she could handle it. It was rather erie, she'd grown so used to a world of the dead, and forgot how much she loved silence. Pure silence.
Alaina had rotated out just 4 minutes before, and Hunter had the shift before her. Theyt'd used the fresh sheets on some unused mattresses still in their plastic coverings with the big mattressfirm logo on them. An odd developement to Corinne was the fact Raven hadn't made her own bed. Rather she slept next to Jack on his mattress. They were both fully clothed, but it was odd. Charlie died so recently... The tug of narcolepsy pulled on Corinne hard, before she could stop it. NO. YOU STAY AWAKE. STOP IT.
When she woke once more she checked her watch. 3:35. An hour and a half? Fuck. Within moments she saw why she'd awoken. A rumble could be felt first, but Corinne watched, low to the edge of the building, as 2 heavy duty dually trucks rolled down the street. They paused and one of them used a huge spotlight, and shined it to the far side of the road. The mom and pop store. Then back across to the gas station. Then finally to the apartments.
After a few intense moments, they moved on. At the next intersection she heard the trucks shut off, and figured they must be raiding. Removing the O's sure worked.
She let those who were awake downstairs know, then headed back up to finish off her shift.
Arden took the 4th watch, from 4am until 6am, to the protest of Kal.
I swear these offworlders think I'm an invalid. She sighed, narrowing her eyes. Arden saw movement in the distance, then felt a rumbling. And that would be the return trip.
Just as Corinne described an hour or so before. 2 large dual rear wheel trucks. They didn't stop at the intersection, rather continued on. Not speeding, but deliberate. "Oh crap," She said aloud, jumping to her feet. She ran down the stairs that led to the roof, then woke Kal.
"I have to leave."
"Origins, what do you need?" Kal wiped sleep from his eyes.
"Those trucks just passed us again, headed home." Arden wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I'm going after them."
"How do you expect to do that?" The offworlder asked, eyebrows, raised.
"Great question."
She raced outside, scanning the streets, There An electric scooter. It was a solar powered model, one of the new line Arden had seen before the world ended. She would have preferred a motorcycle, but the scooter would have to do.
After a minute or so messing with the hardware, she was off. So that puts me like 3 minutes behind. The trucks weren't driving too fast when she'd seen them, but the noise itself would be a dead giveaway. Much to her displeasure, she'd be bleeding the entire time. the wind threatened to take her hair off, so she slowed and stopped at an apparel store. It was heavily burned out. An X marked the ground, in white spray paint or chalk.
Bodies laid on the ground, some still moving. She hopped over those, and found a rack of hats in the corner. Arden grabbed one that she could admit looked cool, just licked by flame, and continued on her way. Well that's better. After another mile driving in a straight direction, she could hear the engines of the large pickups. Tallassee? Arden hadn't been over this way in quite some time.
She pulled to the sidewalk as she caught sight of the trucks. They took a left, through an exit, onto Tallassee Road. Once they dissapeared, and after freeing a couple souls, Arden made her way to that intersection. Dust and litter stirred, but she continued to follow the path the trucks left.
"Gods above and below," She breathed, marveling. Hundreds of men and women swarmed outside of a warehouse. The place looked like a former Dixie gaurd station, now, it held tens of vehicles, and maybe a thousand people. Rather than wait to be spotted, she ran the scooter full throttle back to the studio apartments.
Corinne bolted awake when she heard the others rush out the door. The hell?
She followed, and walked out into the early Georgian morning. Arden stepped off her scooter, covered in blood, and out of breath.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Kal asked, shocking Alaina with his language. He was not one to use the swears of earth.
"Crashed into a corpse." Arden said nonchallantly.
Silence befell the group, interrupted by Corinne bursting into laughter. Hunter chuckled but the rest just stared at her. "Well damn the rest of you, that's hilarious."
"Anyway, what happened?" Kal asked, ignoring Corinne.
"Found Mythborn. They're just off 129, or Commerce road I guess. They have maybe a thousand or so people."
"We need to get near them then," Raven said, barely holding a grin.
"Let's use an abandoned building onlooking them. They clearly mark the cleared ones at least." Jack said, glancing at everyone, "First, we need to finish sleeping. Kal, mind watching?"
"Sure." He said flatly.
They only slept another couple hours. It was 9am, the sun was risen. They didn't dally in loading the truck, Corinne tossed the last bag in the back, and sat with Arden in the truck bed. "Reminds me of old times." Corinne signed, remembering the old house raids from before the winter started.
"We weren't really trusted back then either." Arden laughed.
The trip from their intersection to Mythborn was a short one, less than 20 minutes. They took their time to avoid detection, or unwanted attention from the dead. Corinne got a glimpse of the camp as they pulled into a parking lot. The building ahead had a large X on the front doors, but that didn't matter to Corinne. "Jack, they're on the move." She said through the small glass window in the back of the truck.
"Shit," Jack said, slamming in reverse to get a look. "Dammit were we spotted?"
"Couldn't be sure. We certainly aren't silent here." Corinne said, grabbing a rifle from the bed, and setting her sights on the camp. "They have like 8 trucks, moving toward the front, in line not scattered."
"Fuck. We need to hide this truck and get the high ground."
8 trucks seemed like alot for just the 7 of them. After they'd ditched the truck, Corinne watched as the trucks turned out of the camp, heading towards the loop, not the survivors.
"Shit," Raven exclaimed, "They heard those explosions too. They're headed for home."
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