Notes from the Future: Beyond the Gorge, Part I

[The following is comprised of journal entries made in the days following the quake.]

June 23

10:00 pm

I don't know where we are.

We can still hear Mt. Diablo erupting. The resemblance to Mt. Doom when we turned the car around was shocking. I always thought that Reno, Nevada was Mordor. Now Reno seems like heaven.

June 23

10:01 pm

We are being as quiet as we can. We know they can hear us. We think they may not know we came this way. 

 

I think I was asleep. I keep falling asleep, then I dream I'm driving.

The pain is dull. Morphine makes everything woooonderfullllllll. Except there's this part of me, this cold sharp clear part of me, that is supremely aware and awake. Been this way as long as I can remember.

A lot must have changed since that lady with her dead family came this way. The Bollinger overpass was on fire, melting and crumbling in the middle where the supports are. I think we only just got across it in time. Earthquake or just the burning river, I don't know, but it crumbled behind us.

June 23

10:09 pm

 

I need to STAY AWAKE!

If they find us, I've told Veronica to take him and run, there's no way I could make it in my condition. I don't want a Grizzly Man ending for her. I made her promise. I'm still not sure she'll go.

We thought we were safe, leaving those people behind us. It seemed like an official roadblock, but their uniforms were fake, or costumes. One guy was wearing the uniform of a Confederate General. Why couldn't anyone see that? Part of me worries that we were the ones who were wrong, that we ran down an actual member of the armed forces. But I saw that guy with the blood on his face and dripping from his scraggly beard at the passenger door of the Cherokee and it looked like he'd eaten a part of that woman who was screaming. He was chewing on something that looked raw.

Then the lady with the baby running, and the "soldiers" chasing her. I hope she got away somehow.

Paranoia or am I as clear as I think I am? Is doubt an effective litmus test? 

I am so tired.

V is resting. I am keeping watch. I don't know how they followed us. The Greens. All of them, even the "soldiers" and the Eating Man. They all had green glowsticks around their necks.  

Max just farted. He needs a walk. We can't risk it.

Bollinger was blocked at Talavera. I think their first roadblock was there. Streets were silent, empty. We took Talavera because there was no other way -- San Ramon Valley Road was blocked as well.  Got turned around. Ended up at Salamander or something, then Mesa Vista (Verde?), then Norris, which is what we needed, but it was blocked so we went back and we hit Bollinger on the other side of the roadblock and then Norris.

Only thing is, just as we turned left onto Norris, Veronica saw, in the rear view mirror, a tiny green light bobbing way back down Bollinger.

Someone's following us.