Published at 17th of September 2024 7:20 am

Chapter 158: The Washington Trail

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Joshua Cochran was not a cop. Not anymore. Now he was just a guy trying to get his family to safety.

When the citizens of Chicago had woken up six months ago, they’d woken up to a different world. Chicago had gone from a city smack dab in the middle of fertile farmland and perched on the edge of the greatest lake in the world…

To a living nightmare.

Huge metal robots appeared surrounding the city, standing there like statues on the farms, with nightmarish monsters weaving in between them to raid the land’s bounty

Two story elks, insects the size of men, flying bearded snakes, things that looked human but weren’t…

In his heart of hearts, Josh knew it had something to do with those seven strangely dressed folk who’d killed his partner and spoke of things that made his heart flutter with existential dread.

I’m not a robot. You’re a robot. Or an alien, at least. who wears spandex for protection!?

Josh had gotten his family the hell out of Chicago as soon as he’d realized what was going to happen.

At first there was confusion and panic, some light looting, and the captain instructed all of them working double shifts to keep the peace, but Josh saw the writing on the wall. There was no more food coming into Chicago, and the farms were being torn up at an alarming rate by monstrous fauna.

People were going to starve.

Josh weighed his chances of surviving the unknown monsters surrounding the city against having his baby girl wind up in a stewpot when people began resorting to desperate measures to feed themselves.

He thought back to all his youth spent hunting with his dad before he moved to the big city, his years in the scouts…and made his choice. Big animals were still just that: Animals. His years as a cop told him people would always be more dangerous. More unpredictable.

So before people felt the first hunger pangs, he grabbed his dad’s wedding gift, a.444 Marlin and a couple boxes of ammo, and got the hell out of Chicago.

Dad’s farm was to the east and that had been their goal.

Josh’s first hint that something was terribly wrong was when the road suddenly changed from well-maintained asphalt to an ancient road that looked like it hadn’t been driven in half a century, cracked apart to near uselessness the instant it was out of sight of city limits.

He’d driven around massive trees sprouting out of the road, that looked like they’d been there long enough to collect Social Security. Mary kept Ginger quiet, hoping the monsterous creatures that haunted the misty forests outside their windshields would stay uninterested.

After a day and night of that, their reserve fuel ran dry, and none of the rotting carcasses of cars on the side of the road had anything they could siphon.

So they continued on foot.

Josh knew the route to his dad’s farm by heart, even if the road was busted all to hell.

What on earth happened? He couldn’t help but wonder if they’d experienced some kind of time bubble, like one of those Frank Herbert novels he’d grown up on. But if dad was outside of it…

Their hopes dropped when they arrived at the farmstead, a dilapidated, rotting mess with a fifty-year-old majestic oak jutting out through his dad’s front porch.

When’s the last time I talked to Dad? Why can’t I remember?

Josh shot and butchered a deer for Mary and Ginger, sitting outside the moss-covered ruins of his father’s farm as he cooked it, just…thinking.

“There’s gotta be other people out there. Chicago can’t be the only place that’s still standing. Maybe there’s a city out there that survived…whatever this is.” Josh muttered to himself.

“Why not just go back to Chicago, sweetheart? This is…” She hesitated to say ‘crazy.’, which Josh appreciated.

“There’s gonna be a brief, intense spike in danger in the big city when food runs out,” Josh explained. “In a year or so, it’ll be safe enough to go back. Things will have settled by then…probably.”

“What about the government? The national guard?” She asked.

Wordlessly, he pointed at the dilapidated road with massive oak trees sprouting out of it. the meaning was clear: no road = no government.

Mary frowned uncertainly, but nodded.

“So where do we go?” she asked.

The threw him for a loop.

They could stay here, but it wasn’t that far from Chigaco, only a couple hundred miles down a major highway. Looters would eventually make it out this far, looking for whatever they could.

“Mary…I wanna preface this by saying that I’m entirely in control of my faculties, and you’ve seen all the same things I have, so please don’t think I’m crazy for saying this, but…I think Chicago was some kind of time bubble experiment on humans by alien robots who’ve conquered the Earth.” Josh said, his voice shaky.

“…Oh dear,” Mary said, clutching their baby tighter.

“I think maybe…we should head further East to see if we can find any surviving human cities. If we can find one that’s not starving…then we’ll be safe.”

His wife gave him a thin smile, and he stared into her beautiful eyes as a memory played in his head on loop.

Yep, it’s an android. A really good one. Maybe good enough to make babies, actually.

Josh shoved the thought aside.

They packed up and started walking the next morning, stopping whenever Mary got tired to rest and feed the baby.

The days blended together into an endless trudge to the east, occasionally broken up by horrific discoveries and life-or-death struggles.

From the top of a dilapidated, rusting out radio tower, Josh scanned the way ahead with his dad’s old binoculars. The rubber pieces were rotting away, but the lenses worked well enough to allow him to see, albeit not comfortably.

At first the terrain ahead had looked blessedly devoid of life…until he spotted a single ant lifting up a car to rummage around underneath it.

Nope.

One ant meant millions of ants, and they weren’t picky about their meals.

They backtracked and gave the area a wide berth, swinging much further south than he’d originally planned.

Every town that they passed by drove their hope lower, as all of them were abandoned for decades, almost entirely reclaimed by nature.

The bullets were beginning to run out, and Josh was contemplating saving the last three for his family when they saw the first signs of civilization: A farm with oddly robotic carts that drove themselves under plants, which obligingly deposited their fruits in baskets that whisked them away

It wasn’t human technology, that was for sure. It was robot alien technology.

Maybe we should go back to Chicago and take our chances…if we can even get that far…Josh thought, his heart sinking.

“What are ya’ll doing!?” A booming voice interrupted as a ruddy-cheeked farmer in overalls approached, holding a shotgun trained on them.

Josh’s heart leapt into his throat and he stepped in front of Mary and Ginger, his arms raised.

“Just walking! We’re headed for, um, the city!”

“Seems a bit extreme to be walking around like idiots this far outside Washington. What kind of man puts his family in that much danger for a walk?”

“That remains to be seen,” Josh said, his voice breaking.

The farmer’s eyes narrowed. “Kinda suspicious. Recite your family all the way through your grandparents, touch your nose and explain to me why I’m pointing a gun at you. Gotta be sure you don’t have brain worms.”

“That’s a thing!?” Josh exclaimed.

The gun raised to the man’s shoulder, putting a time limit on their conversation.

“My parents are john and Carol Cochran,” Josh said as he touched his nose, “Grandparent are Harold and Melissa Cochran, Thomas and Sara Frederick.”

“And you’re pointing a gun at me and administering this test because brain worms may cause damage to the motor cortex, memory center and prefrontal cortex, and you don’t want to get attacked by surprise.” Josh guessed, wincing as he did.

“Good!” The farmer broke out into a beaming grin as he lowered the shotgun. “My name’s Patrick, what’s yours?”

“Josh, Mary and the little one’s Ginger.” He said.

“Well, Josh, Mary and Ginger, I suggest you go back to the city as soon as you can. The turrets keep the local megafauna population low, but nothing’s perfect, and that lever action won’t do much against a mega-badger.”

Josh glanced at the track the robotic carts full of fruit were following into the distance, merging with other farms to travel to the south.

“Of course, This has been the worst family picnic we’ve ever been on.”

“Try the mall instead.” the farmer said, slinging the shotgun over his shoulder. “You folks look pretty ragged, you need a ride back to town?”

“Yeah,” Josh said with a nod. “Our car broke down…a long time ago.” Thank god Mary had insisted they carry a brick of soap with them, or else the farmer would’ve been even more suspicious.

“Well, come on then,” Patrick said, motioning for them to follow.

The four of them hopped in a beat-up old truck and Patrick fired up the rustbucket and turned out onto the dirt road…leading the opposite direction his carts were heading.

Mary was leaning back against the seat, her eyes closed in relief, but Josh was too on edge to let it pass.

“Hey, Patrick, isn’t your produce heading towards the city going the other direction?” Josh asked.

“Oh, sure, it’s going to a distribution center to get packed up before getting shipped over there.” Patrick said with a warm grin.

Josh stared at him a moment longer, unable to completely relax.

Something squirmed under the skin around the farmer’s eye.

Patrick snarled and reached for the glove compartment, and Josh reached out, grabbing his hand before he could reach whatever weapon was concealed.

Then Patrick’s face…bloomed, opening up to reveal hundreds of squirming worms.

****

“Yep, that’s brain worms, alright,” the official-looking man said, nudging Patrick’s battered corpse while the paramedic swabbed their noses for brain-worm goo.

They’d taken the risk of calling the cops from the dead man’s phone. Surely not everyone had brain worms.

“He was taking you back to his colony so he could infect you. We keep telling farmers not to hunt their own food, but they don’t listen, and every once in a while, one of these ‘I like my meat rare’ macho men winds up filled with worms. How did he get you out here in the first place?”

“Saw his number advertised on a pinboard, seemed legitimate,” Josh said, drawing the blanket around himself tighter as he tried to keep his story as non-verifiable as possible.

“Well, that was dumb,” the official said, before the paramedic glared at him.

“I’m starting to see that.” Josh said quietly, staring at his bloody knuckles and wondering whether the struggle for survival would’ve actually been any worse back in Chicago.

Did I fail my family through a lack of judgement?

“You folks have transportation?” The official asked. “We can drop you off wherever you like.”

“Our car’s totalled, so yeah, that would be nice.” Josh said.

“Cool, where at?”

“Just drop us off on Main,” Josh said. “My cousin’ll pick us up from there.”

Every city had a Main Street.

They loaded up into the ambulance and waited with bated breath as the man pulled them out onto the road. Mary held a knife concealed under Ginger, in case it was another trick.

“If it wasn’t such a bad idea,” The paramedic offered as she drove the correct direction. “This would be a great day for a picnic outside the wall.”

The wall?

Josh didn’t have to wonder for much longer as a concrete wall that made skyscrapers envious came into view just over the hill beyond Patrick’s farm.

We were so close to civilization.

The Paramedic drove them through an emergency entrance in the massive wall, while weird machines scanned the truck. Josh held his breath, but the lights passing over the vehicle didn’t set off any alarms, and they just pulled out into the city.

Washington city, Patrick had called it.

The paramedic dropped them off on main street, in a downtown area crowded by massive skyscrapers.

Well, we’ve made it, but we’re still not safe. Food was no longer an issue, as they saw evidence of food everywhere, in trash bins and wrappers floating along alleyways.

No, what we need is a place to sleep and a job. He conferred with Mary and they decided to head southwest, see if they could find some mom-and-pop shop to beg employment off of. It was a slim chance, but Josh wasn’t going to stop until he had a way to provide for his family.

They marched over to the older part of town, where the buildings were smaller and the people friendlier, Josh keeping his head on a swivel for ‘help wanted’ signs.

“Nuh-uh, Paradox is better,” A kid with a pitch-black action figure said, scowling at a little girl bearing her own action figure.

Josh stopped in his tracks, the name tickling his memories.

Hey, Paradox!? You’re gonna wanna see this!

The black armor of the doll looked alarmingly similar to the black armor the ominous black figure the others had called ‘paradox’ when they broke into the museum, a few short weeks before the world ended.

“No, Chemestro is better! He’s super handsome, and he’s got a tragic backstory that makes him more emotionally vulnerable! He’s fixable!” The little girl shrieked, smashing the black-armored doll with her own. Now that Josh looked, that doll looked like one of the spandex-wearing people who’d been there that horrible night.

“That’s dumb! Paradox has neat powers and his armor does all kinds of sweet stuff! He doesn’t need fixing!” The little boy said, wiggling a lever on the back of the doll which opened a little laser-gun on the doll’s wrist and making laser noises.

“Pew, pew pew!”

“Chemestro disintegrates the lasers!” The girl screamed.

“Nuh-uh! You can’t disintegrate lasers!” The boy shrieked now.

“Excuse me,” Josh said, approaching them. “Could you tell me more about Paradox and Chemestro?”

“Just look it up on your phone, geez.” The little boy said dismissively.

“My phone is at home?” Josh said, not sure how the boy expected him to look it up with his phone. Did Paradox have a line he could get by asking the operator?

“Chemestro is the best!” the little girl shouted, standing up to shove the doll under Josh’s nose.

“Nuh-uh!” the boy said, standing up to compete with the little girl.

over the next half-hour, Josh learned both more and less information than he’d wanted.

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