This laminated note is ziptied to several wooden barbed wire fence posts along the ridge leading South from San Ramon to the Dublin Grade of 580; it is most often found where more heavily-worn trails lead close to, or under, the fences.
Dear Veronica,
If you have found this note, I have disappeared, you have lost Max and you've left our Honda behind. A bold choice. But you are going the wrong way. I know you think it's the right way, because of what you experienced back at the compound, but I promise you: what waits ahead is actually worse. As far as I can guess, you are planning to walk along this ridge until you reach 580, then walk down to the freeway and walk to Hayward from there. In theory, that is a great plan. But in actual practice, it cannot work.
Here's why: 580 is built along what was a road in a canyon, which before that was a trail in a canyon, which before that was a canyon. Canyons in this area have the potential to be branches of local fault lines. I cannot guarantee that any portion of 580 on the Dublin Grade is able to withstand the current climate of seismic instability.
I know it's hard to face what happened, it's hard to face what you did; I know you prefer to move forward and never talk about the past and how it affects you. But I promise you, that is not the way to survive in life; running away from trauma will only bring it back to haunt you when you least desire it, and this can unravel even the best-constructed defense mechanisms -- often at the worst possible moment. If you plan to survive this ordeal at all -- and I think you must if you're trying to get to Hayward -- you've got to go back to the Compound and learn everything you can.
I'm leaving notes just like this all along this ridge. How I'm doing this is difficult to explain, but why should be pretty obvious: I love you, I want you to stay alive and I am always looking out for you.
Turn around and go back immediately.
Love,
Tad
That's it?! Damn it.
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