It took three kicks for the door to suddenly break apart, shattering into rotted wood. Mike stumbled forward, getting his sleeve caught up on a chunk of the door still attached to the hinges. He cursed, pulling himself away, and looked inside.
"Weird. Mannequins in the front room," Mike said. He shrugged. "Let's check it out."
Sarah glanced at Renee, who shrugged, and together they walked up to the house. On the plywood was another one of those X's with the scrawled letters and numbers on it.
"What do you think that means?" Sarah asked Renee, pointing at the plywood that covered a large window.
"Date, time. Probably who cleared it, when they cleared it, and what they found," Renee said. "Makes sense, that way they don't waste time clearing the same houses over and over," she stepped over a fallen tree branch. "Bet if we had a map of the town and colored the houses and buildings in by date and time with who cleared it we'd have a nice little grid that spread out from one point."
"We found a big tank," Sarah said, pointing back toward the center of town.
Renee frowned. "They left behind a tank?" Before Sarah could answer she nodded. "Makes sense. Was probably difficult to get here, so why take it with them when they would just have to bring it back. Probably cheaper too."
Sarah stepped through the door, stopping and staring once she got inside.
Wood paneling on the walls, big windows with the glass missing and plywood covering them, carperting, with a couch, loveseat, recliner set, a large console TV with antenna on top of the TV. Sarah noticed that the console was the size of a dresser while the TV screen was maybe fifteen inches across, with dial controls. The pictures on the wall looked like mass produced art to Sarah, and she noticed that a few had fallen down.
There were two mannequins, both of them at the base of the wall, dressed in 1950's style clothing that was scorched and rotting. Someone had spraypainted several numbers and letters on the wall above the two mannequins.
"Looks like Leave it to Beaver, doesn't it?" Kevin snickered, walking into the kitchen. "Fridge, stove, no dishwasher. Lots of linoleum and formica."
Renee chewed on her lip, looking around.
"What?" Sarah asked.
"I've seen this before..." she mused. "PBS? History channel? Somewhere..."
Emily went down the hallway. "There's bedrooms! It's a three bedroom house!" Sarah heard a door open. "Oh my God, toilets!"
"Probably no water," Kevin said.
The sound of a toilet flushing put a lie to that.
"Probably an artesain tap," Sarah said, looking around. "We know there's enough water pressure below the surface to push enough water up for the waterfall we saw on the side of the mountain. If I was putting this town here, I'd use the natural artesian pressure in order to supply water to the town."
Renee grinned at her. "Civil engineering?"
Sarah nodded. "Yeah."
"No toilet paper, but I'm first," Emily said.
Sarah shook her head, looking at Renee. "Don't."
"Why not?" Renee asked.
"Give them a few flushes. The sewer system might not be intact or might be flooded with seawater. Might flush fine the first few times as an air pocket gets equalized, but a later flush might shoot seawater everywhere," Sarah said.
Renee nodded. "Let's check the bedrooms," She suggested.
Kevin was backing out of one of the rooms, shaking his head. "Don't go in there."
"What? Why?" Renee asked, noticing Kevin's face was pale.
"Kid's room," was all he said. "Crib, marking on the wall."
"Oh," Sarah said. The memory of the little boy suddenly welled up in her mind and she had to almost physically push it away. She turned away as Emily left the bathroom, smiling.
"That was nice," she said. "God, I'd forgotten how nice toilets are."
"Me next," Mike said, disappearing into the bathroom.
Emily opened another door, looking in. "Oh, God, look at that bed."
Sarah moved up, standing into the doorway as Emily walked into the room. There was a dresser on the right, a walk in closet to the left, two end-tables, and a big queen sized bed. It was covered with an old dusty-looking comforter with pillows hidden by the top of it.
"Oh, this looks nice," Emily said, walking around to the side of it. She looked at Sarah. "No more sleeping on the ground."
She spread her arms out and fell backwards onto the bed.
Dust puffed up, mold spores heavy tasting as Sarah coughed from the debris in the air. Emily sunk into the bed, laughing. Rust puffed out from under the bed as the rusted springs took the shock of Emily slamming into the bed.
"A real bed," She laughed as Sarah walked around the side. "A real bed that I can sleep in and..."
It took a second for Sarah to realize what she was seeing as Emily's eyes opened wide in shock.
The house, and the contents, had been abandoned for years, susceptible to rot and mold the entire time. Emily's impact on the quilt had ripped the rotted cloth, torn the blankets below, the sheets, and the mattress cover. For a second Sarah had been able to see the stuffing of the mattress.
Then the insects came swarming out, their nest disturbed. Sarah could see centipedes, and other insects she couldn't identify, swarming out of the torn bedding. Panicked, scrambling, climbing onto Emily who squirmed, then lifted up her arm.
Emily began shrieking as she saw the centipedes on her arm, the smaller insects scrambling to get away from the centipedes.
"CHRIST!" Sarah lunged forward, grabbing Emily's hand, and yanking her up off the bed.
"What?" Kevin asked, bursting into the room. He saw Sarah smacking at the insects covering Emily and lunged forward to help.
Renee leaned against the wall, watching, as Emily shrieked and began scrabbling at the waist of her pants, getting them undone and shoving them down.
Sarah could see insects squirming in her underwear.
Emily screamed again, pushing her underwear down, batting at her crotch.
It took a couple of minutes, Kevin pulling Emily out of the bedroom and the hallway, through the frontroom, and outside, batting the insects off her naked body, out of her hair. Everyone else came along, helping or watching.
Finally the insects were gone. Emily stood there in the sunlight, shivering, naked, moving away from the patch of overgrown grass that was full of bugs.
Alone in the room, Renee knelt down and looked carefully at the bugs, reaching out once in a while to push at one or two with a pointed fingernail. She ignored the screams and sobbing outside, standing up and looking around.
One window faced the ocean, the glass missing out of the frame. The bugs were squirming in it, it was scattered on the floor, but there were shards of glass embedded in the wall.
She turned and looked at the door. The frame was cracked, the door obviously pushed out into the hallway by a great force.
"Not. Good," the young woman said softly.
scanning scanning no threats moving moving moving cover scanning scanning no threats moving moving moving cover scanning scanning
bload mission.bin
mission.bin is corrupt
runrecovery.dll
mission.bin 22% corrupt
repair time 112 minutes +/- 10
priority: high
literacy.dll is offline
ant.exe is not responding
PERSONALITY OVERLAY IN TRAUMA MODE
priority override!
cover cover cover no cover moving moving moving moving
Emily was dressed again, shivering as the group moved down the street, toward the center of town. She kept figeting with her hair, fluffing her shirt, or smacking at her legs.
"This place has been abandoned since 1983," Sarah said, shaking her head. "Over a decade. They might not be coming back for a while."
"Army on the ground, Navy offshore," Kevin mused. "Wonder if the Air Force and Marines were involved too."
"That seems pretty big," Mike shrugged. "No Russia, no more stuff like that. No reason for it."
Kevin shrugged. "Eighty-three? Damn, the rhetoric was pretty strong back then. They were probably doing a lot of training that Clinton wouldn't allow now since we're finally trying to balance the budget after the excessive spending of the Cold war."
"This shit was probably all secret as fuck," Mike grumbled. "Who knows what the hell they were doing."
Renee bit her lip, then shook her head. "I don't know. Something. Just... something."
"What?" Mike barely stopped from rolling his eyes.
"You hit on it. Secrecy. An island, in the middle of the South Pacific, off the shipping lanes, off the flight lanes," She shook her head. "Whatever this was, this was important, and now it's abandoned."
The little group stopped to look in a window of a store. Appliances, all them sun faded, rusted, knocked back from the shattered window. Renee kept walking, thinking, and suddenly stopped, ducking down next to the brick corner.
"Everyone, don't move," Renee said softly, holding her hand out.
That soldier was in the street, the door of the car pulled open. He had on pants, boots, and a brown t-shirt soaked with sweat. He had a cloth tied across his nose and mouth, something stuffed inside the mask. Next to him was a bag with chunks of metal sticking out of it. As she watched, he pulled a handful of broken glass out of the door and dumped it in the bag, then reached back into the door. He was a big, bulky guy, his shoulder muscles thick enough that it made him look like he didn't have a neck. Tshirt stretched tightly over large muscles that covered his torso.
"What? Why not?" Mike said, his voice loud and carrying.
The soldier was in the middle of flexing a piece of metal he'd pulled from inside the door, watching the dust shower down from it, peering closely at it. As soon as Mike spoke, the soldier looked up, shoving the metal into the bag without looking. Renee could tell when he saw her, his eyes widened and he physically recoiled away from her.
"Can you stop ordering everyone around?" Emily said loudly.
The soldier grabbed the strap to the bag and pulled it over his head. He grabbed a spear with glinting metal on one end, quickly turning and jogging away, making good time. Renee noticed that he ran with a limp, dragging one leg slightly.
But Renee had got a look at the soldier's face.
Renee stood up and turned around. "Nicely done. Now he's gone."
"Who?" Mike asked. "And why do you keep ordering us around?"
"That soldier was right over there. Right across the street, kneeling down next to the car, and you guys had to be loud and he took off," Renee said.
"What? He was right there?" Mike asked.
"What was he doing?" Kevin asked.
"Why didn't you ask him to help us?" Emily said.
"Where is he now?" Richard hurried over to Renee.
Everyone rushed up to Renee, babbling out questions, pulling on her sleeves, pointing this way and that. Everyone except Charlie and Sarah, who hung back, both of them looking around.
"GET OFF ME!" Renee yanked her arms away, pushing between Richard and Emily, stepping out into the middle of the street. She looked at them. "I don't fucking know! I only got a quick look at him before you scared him off."
"What was he doing?" Sarah asked, moving up and looking down the way Renee had pointed. It was only a block to the jungle. Not far at all.
"Messing with the car door," Renee said. She shook her head. "No, I don't know why. He was pulling out handfuls of broken glass and strips of metal."
Sarah nodded, hurrying over to the car that Renee pointed out, Charlie following her.
"What would he want with that? It's a piece of shit," Emily said, looking at it.
It was an older car, from the 1950's, the windshield and back window solid milky white, the side windows shattered, the body rusted where the paint peeled away. The bucket seats were split and stuffing was sticking out of the rents in the leather.
"How should I know? Because you guys started yelling, he took off running," Renee said.
"We should go after him," Richard said, taking a step toward the jungle.
"No," Renee said, grabbing his arm.
Richard yanked his arm free. "I'm getting really tired of you acting like you know what's best," He started.
Renee nodded. "All right. I hear you. But you didn't see what I saw."
Charlie looked up from where she was kneeling down, peering into the door. "He was pulling parts out?"
"Yeah," Renee answered, turning away from Richard.
"Makes sense," Charlie said. "Cars this old, everything is steel. The glass wasn't safety glass, which means it's probably just normal glass. Looks like he pulled out easy to remove parts that weren't too rusted. Hell, he even grabbed the radio out even though it's probably an old AM tuner and not much use."
"But why?" Emily asked.
Renee shook her head. "Because, unlike us, he has his shit together despite his injuries."
"Injuries?" Sarah asked.
Renee moved over, brushing the rust off the hood and sitting down. She crossed her legs primly, lacing her hands together and holding her knee. She smiled, looking at everyone.
"I saw his face. The side of his head. He's hurt, injured. Even with his injuries, he's moving out of the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age," Renee said. "He's scavenging steel, probably has a smelter now that will work with softer steel. He's scavenging glass, which I think means he has a glass kiln."
Kevin walked up, stopping in front of Renee. "What would his injury have to do with anything?"
"He's got a damaged leg, but it isn't slowing him down. It's his face and the side of his head I think are the problem. I think I was right," Renee said smugly.
"About that he sees us as aliens?" Mike scoffed.
"No. He can't recognize we're human like him," Renee said, shaking her head.
"If this is so rare, how do you know about it?" Mike challenged her, putting his fists on his hips.
Sarah looked pedals under the dashboard. Wires were hanging down, obviously cut away sections missing, with bits of corroded rubber on the floorboards. She looked up. "He tore out wires too."
"Copper," Renee said.
"Radio, glass, metal, stuffing," Charlie said. She moved over to another car, looking in. "Radio's missing from this one too."
"What makes you think you're right, Miss Shampoo Queen?" Mike challenged again, pulling Renee from her thoughts.
"My father is a world renown neurosurgeon. Last year he took a case of someone with those symptoms from what appeared to be a minor head injury. Our soldier has an injury, a severe one, in the exact same place," Renee smiled.
She looked around. "But, that's neither here nor there," she said.
Sarah nodded, looking up from the car. "This wasn't the first time he was here."
"Radio parts. He could be trying to build a radio," Kevin said.
Richard shook his head. "He couldn't build one strong enough to reach anyone else. He might be trying to make a receiver to listen to radio chatter."
"We can't stay here, not in this place," Emily said, looking around. "This sucks, I wanted to sleep in a bed."
Charlie looked up from where she'd opened the door to the back of an old 1950's sedan. "Who says you can't?" she smiled.
"What? What do you mean?" Emily half-shrieked. "You saw all those bugs!"
Charlie held up a wad of stiff white stuffing from inside the back seat. "Because we have bed stuffing right here."
Emily frowned for a second, then smiled.
She looked around the abandoned town. "We can scavenge the place," she suggested.
Kevin and Mike nodded, but Richard looked at Renee, seeing her worried look.
"What?" Mike asked.
"Nothing," Renee said, looking around. She sighed. "If we're going to do some scavenging, we might as well get started."
Sarah nodded, looking around.
I just wanted to go to Hawaii.