Missing Vampire: Reward Available (Hypernaturals 6)

Alps

Near dawn (how I measure time: Sundown, time to go. Sun up: time to stop) I came across a road, mostly East/West. After last nights never-ending challenge of rough terrain and trying to make distance, I am exhausted. Following a road tonight seems like it would be nice.

I made a tree-bed and fell asleep immediately. I have a lot of distance and terrain between my tired ass and the infested Siren Hall, and I like that. Distance equals comfort equals deep sleep.

I woke at dusk, having slept like a rock. If I had dreams about Jessica, Helen, Diana, or Morgan, I do not remember them. That is a shame: I like dreaming about them. Out here, it is my only connection to them.

The countryside last night had been a total bitch and took its energy toll. I refueled out of the rucksack and gave some thought to another break-in soon. Like the days out here on the road, I am starting to wonder how many of those there have been. I have records, so I can look. I can see how many other peoples lives the HPA affected beyond mine with this.

Fueled, I made serious kilometers alongside the road I am on. I dived for cover whenever I saw a car or truck and tried to be sure it is behind something that will hide my IR signature, like a nice big rock.

I heard a motor I know well, and looking around found no rock handy nearby. My heart raced in rising fear. There is a stand of trees set back from the road, and I used full Vampire speed with a topping of terror to go deep into it. Well back into the woods, I made no attempt to keep the van in sight. The opposite: If I can't see it in any visual bandwidth, it can't see me either. I relied solely on my ears to track the distinctive motor. When I could not hear it anymore I carefully came out of cover.

It is gone. Out of sight, and out of sound.

As I looked around and listened I realized that is the first van I have seen today. Much fewer of them out this way. I hope that trend continues.

It turned out it did. I went speeding along for two more days. Few vans. Easy cover. That is my preferred mode of travel. It is fast, it is easy to guide my path to France at night, and I know where my bed is going to be.

Somewhere along the way I appear to have crossed into Serbia. I am guessing, but the language on the signs changed yet again. Given that I cross most roads I am not running along the side of by carefully and surreptitiously speeding across it and heading out through the woods, I am not sure when that happened.

This latest signage change made me understand in a very real way that borders only have meaning to politicians. The grass is the same green: Nothing happens overtly to let me know I am in one particular place or another.

I decided I'd do one more day of NorthWest travel, and then change to due West. My goal is to graze the tip-top of the Adriatic so that when I cross into France I am more or less on the correct Latitude. I also want to stay south of the Alps to the degree that I can, because if I thought the ground was hard before, it would be no contest compared to trying to go over the top of the Alps.

I restocked in the usual way. Kept an inventory of all the items, although what the hell they are is again a guess, based on pictures on the packages. I have eaten some really weird food on this flight from the HPA. Some downright awful things that I ate anyway. At least I avoided most kinds of fish. Bleah. I hate that if it had been my only option, I would have eaten that. One stew thing tasted like fish was an ingredient, IE it tasted like it had rotted. Or maybe it was past its sell-by date. Not like I could tell. It was fuel, and if it tasted like that, I ran harder to get it burned up faster.

I restocked on toilet paper and acquired a new map. As soon as I have a landmark, I will know where I am again. Better than 'the sun is over that way'.