Chapters June 30th - Finally transport
Hell fucking yes! We have an electric car!
Granted, it takes the better part of a day and our batteries to charge up, but we shouldn't need it for much anyways.
I'll be able to easily travel to the outskirts of the city now. Trips won't take forever. Nor do we have to worry about us running out of gas so quickly. We have renewable transport! Two, if we can find the other set of Tesla keys!
It shouldn't take us long, assuming they're nearby where we found the other car.
Yeah. Okay, so, other news. The drone is gone. Either it went inside the store, or it left.
Not sure I like either option, to be honest. Leaving implies someone calling it back. Whereas it going into the store implies someone looking for something.
Well it apparently doesn't respond well to others getting close, so.
That might just be a programmed response, though, to anything it doesn't recognize getting close.
I wish there were a way-
What?
I know what I'm going after tomorrow. Cardboard and a marker. I'll write up several messages and if we see the drone again, I'll leave them out for whoever's running it to see.
...That actually sounds like a feasible plan.
Yeah. Tomorrow we start scavenging again.
May 24th - 40 pills left.
May 24. 24 .
I jave ever issed a da eoe-
Damn I need to get used to these things. Looks like it's back to hunt and peck until I do- DAMMIT I only just noticed that.
Anyways, the day was not the first thing I noticed today. Nor was it even the second. It might have been the third. The first thing I noticed was, as usual, my alarm going off. Both of them.
I'm a heavy sleeper, all right? Heck, it used to be three.
The second thing I noticed was that when I rolled out of bed to answer them, I didn't exactly land on my feet. Or my hands. Not unless I got amputated in the middle of the night and had everything about me replaced when I wasn't looking.
That's a pleasant thought, that maybe my old self is still out there, brainless. I'll just think about that for a minute while I try not to panic.
Back now. That's still a creepy thought. Let's hope it's not right. I tried to crawl over to my desk and somewhat managed to succeed, only to find out the things my hands had been replaced with...didn't exactly want to work with my tablet and phone. I tried not to press too hard, though, because the ends looked sharp and I didn't want to break my wonderfully annoying pieces of technology. I've even jurry-rigged my USB keyboard and mouse to work with my tablet thanks to one little cord, and the right driver software downloaded. Thank the gods for the Internet. Now I can write my journal wherever I go, as long as the power holds out.
Right, getting off track. So yeah, I managed to turn off my alarms and went over to my bathroom, barely managing to grip the sink to get a good look at myself. Had to rear up to look in my mirror, and I have to say, I was not enthused with what I saw.
I was always a fan of Greek mythology back in middle school. So when the word Griffon hit me, I had to agree that that was what I looked like. Maybe not like any Griffon they'd ever wrote about, but the major features were still there. Eagle front half. Lion back half. Wings. Tail. I tried opening my mouth a few times, and the beak I saw in the mirror moved as I felt my own open and close. I raised one of my new forelimbs and tried touching the mirror, to see the same griffon trying to touch me. I nearly lost my grip on the damn sink, but I caught myself and stared at what I saw.
Grey feathers, mostly. Except around my eyes and towards the edges, those were a bit more golden in hue for some reason. And my eyes were now this piercing blue.
All in all, I considered it not bad, if I could only fucking walk without falling over. I pulled myself back over to my room and booted up the good old Youtube, figuring 'How lions walk' would be a good way to go for now. I could worry about flying when I wasn't in danger of faceplanting every ten seconds. After all, if something had wings, the odds were good that they were meant to use them.
Shut up Ostrich, we don't talk about you.
Half an hour later, I was walking around my own room without bumping into anything. I certainly wasn't going to be winning any marathons, but at least it was something. That was about when I noticed that there was something that was missing. Three somethings.
My brother, my mother, and my father. None of them had been around to notice my attempts to walk and fail. Heck, I hadn't heard a peep from any of them, and they usually got up before me. I checked on both their rooms, though the stairs were fun to go up to get to my parent's room.
Nobody was in there. Not a one. I had more questions, of course.
Were they gone? Had they used my missing day to just pack up and leave? Were they like me, transformed? Or maybe they were still human? Would they come back? Could they come back?
Sorry, I just...had to clear my eyes as I thought about it again. Shut up, it was a piece of dust.
Anyways, yeah. That was about when I realized that the normal sounds of cars going by...I wasn't hearing any of it. No sounds from anywhere outside the house. I walked down the steps to get out, yay stairs, and somehow managed to...claw? the door open. I think that's the right word for these things anyways.
There wasn't anybody out there. I walked across the street, to the neighbors I barely knew, and knocked on their door. Called out for them. The only thing I got was some barking, which I assumed was the dog they kept. I walked around to the back of the house and found a door, and found that while we had lived in a very nice neighborhood, my neighbors were perhaps a little too trusting. Thing opened right away, and their border collie just barked at me like a mad thing. I stared at him, unimpressed, until he finally stopped for a moment to catch his breath.
"Y'done?" I asked him, and he seemed surprised I could talk. Frankly, so was I. No lips and all. I hadn't wanted to try, but apparently I could talk just fine as a Griffon. I held my right claw out for him to sniff, which he did, before whuffing at me and sitting back.
"Your owners home?" I asked the dog, who just sat back and panted at me.
"Don't know why I'm talking with a dog," I said with an eye-roll, and that was when I realized that the eagle part of me had fixed my nearsightedness. Mainly because I had forgotten my glasses, but could still see everything pretty damn well.
The dog barked at me before going back to panting.
"Yeah yeah, I get it, I'm not any better," I said. "C'mon, let's see if we can't find you any kibble."
What, I had a soft spot for dogs. Ever since I looked after my girlfriend's dog, I grew more accustomed to the things. Heck, they typically liked me in general, I never knew why.
I found the pantry, and the kibble, along with a scoop, and gave the black-and-white sheepdog two cups of food. That was about normal, right? I also filled his water dish up with fresh stuff, before realizing what I was doing.
"Here I am. Nobody else around, and I'm looking after my neighbor's dog. I'm some sort of freaky gryphon that can talk and barely walk, and my first priority is a dog."
I gave the guy a quick pet, then got over here again pronto and began scavenging what I could. I had to assume that I was the only one around, because I hadn't seen any other signs of life so far. Meaning either everybody had assumed it was 'Be a jerk to Henry day', or they were in similar straights as I was.
I'd seen the series 'Life after humans' and I couldn't assume everything would last forever. Hell, one of the first things to go would be the power. I was just glad I wasn't near any nuclear power plants. Those things would go with a boom when they went.
I dug up an old cooler from the garage, washed it, and filled it with ice-packs and the meat from the freezer. Then I got the other, bigger cooler, and stuck the perishable stuff from the fridge into it, barely managing to get the milk in.
The pitchers of water, I filled and left in the fridge. Heck, I filled a lot more pitchers, because the water would also eventually go. Until it did, I would survive off the tap. That was my emergency supply for once it did. I had two houses to work with, after all. Ransacking my neighbor's place eventually turned up more pitchers for me to use as a water supply. Now if only I could find my dad's old army stuff, I might have a canteen...
Once I saved the meat from both houses, prepared a water reserve for later, and made sure Skippy (No I don't know his name, that's just what I'm calling him) had water again, I came back home and did another search.
I'd heard about this thing, this...Survivalist's guide. First thing that came up when I did my search was Captain Dave's Survivalist Guide. The others didn't look really relevant, so I pulled the page up, did a copious amount of Control A, Control C, and Control V, before I compiled the whole site into a doc that I beamed to my tablet. Bluetooth is useful sometimes. Now I have a portable guide. But one of the sections stuck with me, at least the title did.
Planning beyond the three-day kit.
I would need to plan, and plan hard to get through this. Fortunately, there were a few stores down the road. Once I trusted myself to move at a decent clip, I could go check them for needed supplies.
Water, I could set up some rain barrels around, maybe look into relocating to near the reservoirs, wherever those were. Power, I could get a generator. Or, hell, the local Air Force Academy has a small field of solar panels by the south entrance. I could always take those. It's not like they'd stop me now.
But food? That's all about to go bad, and soon, if nobody was around to maintain the delicate systems anymore. I would have to visit my local supermarkets, and for more than one reason.
I got a little sack together for all my delicate electronic stuff, and warmed up some leftovers for a late lunch for me, before I made a list of things I would need to do.
I'll need rain barrels from my local hardware store to help with my water supply. That, or to head to one of the reservoirs or lakes that acted like one, which I've already used Google Maps for. Just so I would have options. I'm going to need a generator for power, preferably solar in nature. But if it ends up being gasoline powered, we have more than a few local corner stores that I'm sure wouldn't mind giving a five fingered discount.
Food will be tricky. I'm going to need to hit up my local grocery stores for everything they have that I could stomach before it goes rotten. Heck, there's even a Wal-Mart down the road that I could visit for supplies.
It seems my first goal's clear.
I'm going to need to learn how to drive as a griffon tomorrow, and learn to drive my dad's truck if I'm going to have any good hauling power.
I popped my Risperidone not an hour ago now, and I'm starting to feel a little sleepy, so I'm gonna kick off for the night. Wish me luck, journal. I might need it.
Author's Note
NO I CANNOT STOP MYSELF! SOMEBODY STOP ME FOR ME!
Hey, so, I learned a few things today! Like where the voice-to-text option is on my tablet. That'll make recording these entries a lot easier. Though now I hafta move the first one over. And it doesn't have nearly enough memory to hold everything. Meh, I'll worry about that later.
The other thing I learned today is that it's way easier to do these sorts of things when you aren't paying attention to it. I caught myself actually going down the stairs without a care before I questioned it. Maybe the trick is to not question it? Seems to make about as much sense as waking up as a griffon anyways.
I took care of Skippy this morning, and then I also learned that most of my driving instructions still apply, barely, to this new body. It was hella uncomfortable leaning forward to try and shift the thing into reverse, and being small enough that I could barely see over the wheel. But I couldn't exactly lean back, because the moment I did, my new wings reminded me they were there. Like sitting on my feet, only so much worse. And leaning forward made the rear-view mirrors useless.
Hah, like there's a reason to use them now. I could only hope.
It was also weird driving around barefoot. Of course, when I started thinking about that , I became hella conscious that I was going around without anything on. Quickly ducked inside and threw on a pair of boxers, but now my tail is uncomfortable. Meh, I'll live.
I drove past the neighborhood, stunned at how quiet it was around me. That didn't stop me from honking the horn a few times, but I didn't get any answers. It was just weird going past the elementary school without hearing anything. Managed to drive down to King Super's, raided their meat section for things I thought I could cook. Thought about getting some vegetables, but wasn't in the mood. Did grab some not-so-fresh bread though. I am a total starchoholic. I used to eat so much bread back in the day.
My 'shopping' completed, I drove back home, taking note all along the way of how there was no activity anywhere along either my drive there or back. I barely put that thing above twenty miles an hour, I was so afraid of going faster when I couldn't see all the mirrors.
Huh, if I make a habit of driving, I'm going to need to stockpile fuel at some point. I don't want to know how that can go bad, but I can only assume it will. I'll add it to my list of things to check when I eventually hit up Wal-Mart. Fuel cans.
Noticed a bit of lag on the internet today, while I was looking up how eagles and other birds of prey fly. I don't know if I can , but it'd be better to wring the dang thing clean of information while I still could. I also decided to move all my things over to my neighbor's place, it'd make looking after Skippy a lot easier.
I get the feeling he appreciates it.
I broke into another home today, raided them for their meat that they weren't there to eat. Took a few pitchers, some non-perishable foodstuff. I'm starting to stockpile that now. If the power goes and I can't keep all this food cold, then it'd be better to have stuff that won't rot. I'll make another trip over to the King Super's soon, get some more things like that, before I hit up my local Wal-Mart for essential things to have in an apocalypse.
They have everything I could want at a time like this, I really regret not going over there soon-
Oh. Hiya Skippy. I'm just writing out my journal. Are you ok?
...Apparently not, the mutt's just jumped up onto the bed with me and is now laying next to me. Guess he really misses his owners. I know the feeling, guy. I miss my family too. I wish I knew what had happened.
Heh, he just woofed. Funny. Anyway, I popped my pill before I started, so I'm feeling tired right about now. Gonna nod off for now, Skippy. You wake me up if anybody shows up, okay?
Trucks! I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but there are a load of trucks just down the road! Or should be, if all the people are gone. At least, if any drivers stopped at the truck stop before all the people just...vanished. Only problem is, I don't know how to drive stick. I'll look that up right now...
...Wow, that's complicated. That is...well, once again, thank the gods for select-all, copy, and paste. Still, at least I'll have some options available to me once I manage to get down there. Heck, if I come across a truck with no cargo in it, I have mobility right there. I should probably also look up how to operate a radio before the Internet craps out on me entirely.
Today was pretty boring, more of the same gathering resources business. Only this time, I managed to get down to my local Wal-Mart with a list in my head. First thing's first, I looked for camping gear. I can't rely on the gas working on my stove forever, and I'm not about to eat any of this meat raw. Picked up some Sterno, also known as fire-in-a-can. Also picked up a few more coolers before heading over to the hardware section and looking at generators. Gas-powered will have to do for now, and I made sure that my coolers had a special feature. Namely, the ability to be plugged in to generate cold around their contents. Now I don't have to worry about my food spoiling! At least, as long as I keep the generator fed once the power craps out. And I'm surprised that it hasn't yet.
Picked up a load of empty plastic jugs, the big sort, for storing water in. I've been doing that all evening, using the tap in my home to fill them up before screwing them shut again and rolling them back across the street to my neighbor's garage. It's where I'm storing all this survivalist stuff, until I get a bit more mobility than my dad's pickup truck. At the rate I am accruing stuff, I am going to need that truck soon.
The other sort of empty container I picked up was half-a-dozen fuel cans, which I filled up at the local gas station, along with the truck. Never hurts to have a backup supply, even if it's not nearly enough for the sort of vehicle I will one day be driving, fates permitting.
Rounded out my day with another bit of burglary, this time, my last neighbor. Saved a bit of meat from potentially going bad in their fridge, found a few canned and dry goods I could munch on if I got desperate. No pets, which is weird, I thought they had some. But at least their home didn't have any stairs I would have to deal with.
Wha- hey! Down boy! Down!
Skippy just wanted to say hi before he went to bed with me. I swear that mutt's getting more attached to me the more I feed him. Guess I should add kibble to my list of things I'll need, I can't see him letting me leave without him.
Mkay, it's getting late and I'm getting sleepy. I'm just gonna nod off now.
You'd think a military base would put more effort into hiding their armory. And while I did end up driving around aimlessly for the better part of the day, when I did find it, it was a big ol' sign pointing me to all the guns and ammo I could want.
Well, I tell a lie. If I had wanted that, then I could have visited Wal-Mart's hunting section. I was after stuff to defend myself with, from a distance. I didn't know when I would ever meet another person, but I couldn't assume they'd be friendly.
Same deal as the truck stop. Pull up to the checkpoint for the armory, search the pile of clothes for the keys, and try every one out on the door to the guns. Got it right on the third try, which was two more than I was willing to do with these claws of mine.
And boy oh boy, did I have options . I always was an indecisive kid. So I took a little bit of everything I thought I might need. That eventually boiled down to a shotgun, in case of close-range emergencies, a handgun, for not-emergency short-range situations, and an assault rifle, for middle-length threats barreling down on me. Took as much ammo as I felt comfortable with, loaded them into the truck, and drove back to my neighbor's home.
Internet finally gave up the ghost today, which is a crying shame. Before, it at least tried to be useful. Now I was on my own. On my own with a big old truck and more space than I could hope to fill. I dumped the guns and ammo in one of the bedrooms before closing the door and telling Skippy to stay out of it. Dumb mutt actually woofed and nodded once I said that.
Made another trip down to the grocery store and Wal-mart for kibble for him, because if I could avoid having him starve to death, I would. Picked up a few more jugs of water and managed to fill them up as well, before I started loading things into the trailer truck. Wasn't that an experience. My setup is roughly this:
All the way in the back is the kibble for Skippy, along with the non-perishable food for myself. In front of that are all my water jugs, triple-checked to be sure they're sealed tight. Don't need any water getting loose and making me look like a fool. In front of that is my gas-powered generator, along with the gas for it in cans nearby. I'll keep the coolers of meat and dairy plugged into it, and I'll start it up when I start tomorrow. And right in arm's reach of the open door are the guns, with the ammo just beyond them.
Didn't do any raiding of my neighbors tonight, though I did put out a message on the truck's radio before I knocked off.
"If you can hear this, you're not alone. My name is Henry. Henry, and I used to be human. I'm some sort of...griffon now, though. If you've been changed like me, or if you haven't, either way. I have supplies. I have a little knowledge. I am willing to help anyone who is out there to hear me. Please...please don't let this message be in vain. Tomorrow I travel up the highway to Denver. I will be monitoring this frequency tomorrow, with updates for the major exits as I pass by them."
Yeah, you got the right idea, Skippy. We should knock off early.
...I just hope somebody heard me.
I thought I was ready to move out the other day, when I realized I had some...unfinished business back at home. I booted up the computers back at home and left them the same message, even sticking a written copy in my mom's laptop, just in case they come back from...whatever happened. I mean, it hadn't happened yet, but who knows, right? Here, I even saved a copy of it, I'll just put it over here...
To my family,
I'm sorry, but I couldn't stay and wait for you to return. I saved what I could and left, going north to Denver. Hopefully by the time you get this, I'll still be there. If not, I'll leave another message there for you to find at the Museum of Science.
There are...so many things I want to tell you. If our neighbors come back at the same time you do, yeah, it was me. I broke into their homes for supplies. I also stole a truck, not yours dad, a bigger one, and took their dog with me. Couldn't just leave him to starve, even if I did have to steal kibble for him. Heck, I stole a lot of things to be ready for this. I might even steal some more if time permits, or I manage to find other people. I've got my eye on solar panels, for instance.
Just...know that whatever I end up doing, and whatever I end up looking like, I'll always care about you guys. But I can't stay here. There's no more Internet, soon there won't be any more power or water. I need to find a reservoir if I'm going to set up a more permanent camp. I'm going to need generators until I get the solar panels set up. And...I hope if you guys do end up finding me, I'll have built something that clearly says 'Henry was/is here.'
Take care.
...Yeah, with that bit of business done, and a few manly tears shed, I transferred my meat and dairy to the back of my trailer truck, started up the generator to keep them at the least chilled, and took Skippy to our new mobile home.
Heh, maybe I should see about getting something smaller. Maybe when I get to Denver. As it stands, with my freakish body and not a lot of ways to drive the truck that weren't 'hunched over the wheel', I took it nice and slow, even though all the traffic was gone. I'd never driven something so large before, and I wanted to make sure I didn't jostle anything in the back too much. They were my supplies too, after all.
I monitored the frequency on the radio at noon, and I think I heard something, but I'm not sure. Once I did, I gently pulled to a stop and tried listening to the radio, but got nothing. I sent out another broadcast, though. Just to be safe.
"To anyone that can hear this, I think I heard one of you not too long ago. I didn't hear much, but it wasn't static, that much I know. I'm currently past...the exits to Monument, on I-25. Just past the 161 exit. If you can hear me, please, respond. I don't think you want to be alone in this world...and I share that feeling."
There was silence for a minute longer, and my only response was static for ten minutes. I sighed before starting the truck up again, cruising down the highway at a slow clip on my way to the northern city I'd visited only a few times.
It's still surprisingly easy to drive my truck, despite my hunched-over stance I have to use. I had to work to reach the pedals sometimes, and I couldn't give it all the gas I wanted to, but still. Cruising down the road at a steady clip was more than I thought I might have been able to do. Dusk fell a lot sooner than I thought it would, and I found that while I could see a little better in the dark thanks to my new eyes, I didn't really want to drive at night. Never was one for driving in poor conditions, even with all the traffic gone.
Once I found the sign for my next exit, Larkspur, I pulled off the road and opened up the back, fetching Skippy's dishes from where they'd slid and filling them up with some kibble and water. After I made sure the mutt was properly fed and watered, I took one of the Sterno cans and lit it with one of the lighters I'd snagged from the camping section of my Wal-mart. With that flame going, I now had something to cook my meat with, and checked to see how the generator in back was faring.
It hadn't used up too much gas keeping my coolers cold, and it was easy enough to refill it. I'd pulled up close to a gas station anyways, so I could spare the time to make sure it was still going strong. A quick refill from one of the cans, and a quick refill of the can, and now I could use my fire-in-a-can to cook with, now that there were no other pressing concerns. Good thing I snagged a mini grill while I was at it, really more of a wire mesh to put over the Sterno. I gently used my claw to move the can when I thought a particular bit had been cooked enough, and after a few passes over the fire, I had a steak. That I tore into with my beak.
Yeah, it was weird the first time. But it just felt...right. Somehow. I mean, hell, with these claws, I've basically got the best knives around, as long as I remember to clean them between meals. And it wasn't that much different than tearing into a chicken drumstick. Only now, I was doing it with all my meals. The dang thing even feels stronger than my teeth used to be, so I'm just gonna roll with it.
Still hope that this whole...thing, is reversible. Whatever it is.
After that and some bread to tide me over, I made sure Skippy did his business outside the truck before closing the back up and pulling us both back into the cab of the thing. Cab, that's what it's called. That was bothering me. I've taken my pill already as well, and I feel tired now. So I'm just gonna nod off, see if anyone's in Denver tomorrow.
Managed to make it up past Castle Rock by noon today, and I heard that weird static again. I could have sworn I heard a voice this time, but I got nothing when I pulled over and sent out my own little message in response. Hopefully whoever it is on the other end can hear me, even if I can't hear them properly.
I debated pulling over at 188, Castle Pines, but I figured I could go a little bit longer. It hadn't gotten too dark yet. Four miles later, when the exit for Ridgegate Parkway pulled up, I was ecstatic as all get out to be able to pull off the road. Yeah, I could see a little better at night, but it wasn't anything I wanted to rely on.
Just another day traveling up the road, taking care of the dog and myself. There was nearly a bit of excitement when I went to open the back, though. A pack of coyotes showed up and growled at me, like they thought I was dinner. Skippy growled back at them, and I debated whether I could pull open the back quick enough to get my shotgun and scare them off. One snapped his jaws at me before barking loudly, and what I did next was instinctive. With instincts I didn't know I had .
The wings on my sides unfurled, and I reared up on my hind legs, before screeching at the pack of coyotes. They seemed cowed for the moment, so I took the chance to quickly pull the rear of the trailer open and pulled out my shotgun, firing it once into the air to send the pack scattering. From now on, I'm keeping that thing with me.
I watched over Skippy's meal with a wary eye to the night around me, wanting to make sure that none of the coyotes got brave enough to cause either of us harm. Once his dinner was done, I cooked my own while thinking about that response I'd just had.
Does this new body come with new instincts? That might explain why I keep thinking about eating the meat raw. Would I eventually get used to it? I hope not, I still want my old body back. Still, if I eventually learn how to use these wings to fly, that might be worthwhile...
Bah, what am I thinking. Nothing is worth this whole...isolation. Loss of everyone and everything around me. Even my body.
I ate my meal and reloaded the shotgun with a little difficulty. Though I'd managed to fire the thing blindly with my claws, the intricate motions to discharge a shot shell and reload it weren't something I excelled in anymore. It took me a minute of fumbling before I got the darn things to cooperate. I eventually shut the trailer and pulled myself into the cab with Skippy, and I feel just about ready to nod off...wait, is that...noise on my radio?
"Hello? Hello? Is this the guy that's coming up north to Denver?"
"Hello? Who is this?"
"This is Grace, I'm in Denver right now. Holed up in one of the department stores, as a matter of fact. Who and where are you?"
"I'm Henry, I'm just north of Castle Rock. I should be in Denver tomorrow, at my driving speed."
"You can drive? You'll have to show me how you managed."
"I wouldn't call it driving exactly. More like hunched-over praying that my foot doesn't slip."
"So you're something with feet, even after this whole...craziness?"
"Yeah, but I can show you tomorrow. I'm headed to the Museum of Science myself. Know it?"
"Sure do, but why are you going there?"
"Central location to a few of the city's lakes and reservoirs, or central enough. Plus...I promised someone important I would be there. And while it's pretty close to the zoo, I feel confident I can deal with any strays."
"More like right next to the thing. How do you intend to deal with things like lions or bears?"
"I have a shotgun, your argument is invalid."
"And you can fire that thing? Color me curious as to what you turned into."
"Hey, you'll see me tomorrow. I'm gonna pull up on the front lawn and make my camp in there."
"All right, I can swing by at around noon. You got any plans while you're in Denver?"
"Yeah, survive for as long as possible. Might even stay for good, if we can get something going between the two of us."
"Heh, really gonna make this town your base, huh?"
"More like nest."
...
"To those of you that can hear me. I've found another survivor. I'm going to be in Denver tomorrow, and we're going to team up and make something worth staying for. I hope. Please don't let this broadcast have been in vain. Please let me have found somebody else. Anybody else."
I have now realized that there is one important thing that it sucks to not have the luxury to have in post-apocalyptic Earth. Coffee. I'd neglected to pack any and had been a major drinker of the stuff back when I could. I mean, I had been cutting back for a while, but now that I'm in Denver, it'd be nice to have coffee when I wanted it, y'know?
Oh yeah, that's right. I ended up in Denver today! And I managed to pull up to the front of the museum of science, before remembering they had an adjoining parking lot. Granted, I'm parked pretty illegally, but I don't think anyone's around to care. Except Grace.
Grace is the other important thing that happened today! I finally met her! And let's just say...I don't think either of us were expecting each other. We probably weren't expecting something like ourselves, but I had no idea we were so...different.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw her after climbing out of the truck was the word pony , but it wasn't like any pony I'd ever seen before. Instead of just being a smaller version of a horse for a small child to ride around, she was...
Well, she was blue for a start. Sky blur fur, ocean blue mane and tail. She couldn't stand more than four feet high from hooves to the top of her head, and I realized I had a good foot of height on her.
Oh, she also had wings , like me, only, y'know, blue. Her eyes were green, and we stared at each other for a minute before she spoke to me.
"What are you, some sort of freaky hybrid?" she asked bluntly.
"Kinda," I said. "Cross a lion and an eagle, and you get a griffon. That's what I am. At least, that's my guess. And you look like a diminutive Pegasus run through a few coat changes."
"Sorta my thinking as well," Grace said with a shrug, or as good a one she could manage. "So you really think this place is your best bet for a more permanent base?"
"It's better than nothing," I countered. "Plus it's a landmark. Set up base in an important area with a radio broadcast, and you'll attract others. There are signs to this place." A thought struck me then, and I tilted my head as I asked my next question. "Come to think of it, where did you get your radio?"
"My parents have a place a few blocks from here," Grace replied. "They were preppers. Not that it did them any good, but once I managed to get there, I had all sorts of supplies and their radio. Started hearing you a few days ago, once I hit up a Radio-Shack for a big-ass antenna and attached it to the thing, but you could only hear me when your equipment got in range, I guess."
"Does it have a scanner?" I questioned, using one of the few terms I knew that could apply to such a radio. "Cause then you could pick up on signals other than guessing blindly."
"How do you think I found you?" she replied, looking smug. I huffed a bit at that, but that was about when Skippy bounded out of the truck and landed next to me, barking up a storm at this new person. Grace's ears folded back, and I couldn't blame her. Skippy could be loud when he wanted to be.
"Will you quit it?" I asked the mutt, and he whimpered a little before stopping. I swear, sometimes he's smarter than he should be, and sometimes he's as dumb as before. "Let him sniff you," I suggested to Grace. "That shows them you're friendly enough."
The blue pony put a forehoof towards Skippy, and the border collie sniffed not just her hoof, but drew close and started sniffing her face as well. After a minute of that, he barked and came back to me, sitting next to me and wagging his tail.
"Anyways, I'm gonna take a quick check of the place before I unload, see if I can't salvage the in-house restaurant before I set up shop," I informed the blue pegasus. Grace nodded and followed after me as I tried to push one of the doors open. With no success.
"I doubt it," Grace said as I moved to the next one. "All the power cut out in the house two days ago. Water's still going, but I don't know for how long." The second door was also a failure, but I found success at opening the third door. I held it open for the both her and Skippy, and we went inside.
"Well, one upside would be not having to wait in line or fork over twenty bucks to get in," I quipped. "Downsides are...fairly obvious. Let's get that old food set out for the birds-"
"Like yourself?" Grace asked.
"Har har. For your information, I am not a vulture or a savage." We made quick time over to the restaurant on the bottom floor, and quickly found the refrigerator had failed as predicted. Fortunately, the food had only just started to go bad, so it didn't smell so bad pulling it outside and tossing it into the street, pretty far away from the front door. There was a zoo nearby, after all, and shotgun or no shotgun, I didn't want to draw more attention to myself or this museum.
"Get this place hooked up to some solar panels," I mused as I looked around the empty museum. "And I could definitely use this. For now I'll keep my genny running on keeping my food chilled around here."
"Your food?" Grace said before the realization crossed her mind. "Oh, yeah...lucky."
"What?" I asked with a tilted head. "How am I lucky?"
"You can eat meat, right?" she asked, to which I nodded, causing her to stick her tongue out. "I managed to pull a can of Spam open...just the smell made me nauseous." Then another thought seemed to strike her, and she slowly backed up. "You're...not gonna eat me, are you?"
"Nah, I make it a rule not to eat anything that talks," I said with a dismissive wave, causing her to let out a sigh of relief. "And it sucks for you that you can't eat meat, but hey, at least now we know the distribution of any supplies we find. I mean, I probably could eat green stuff, but you can't eat meat at all, so I'll handle disposing of it rather than let it rot if we find any packaged or tinned stuff."
"How gracious of you," Grace said, and the sarcasm wasn't lost on me. "So what knowledge do you have?"
"Oh, I'll have to show you, but I basically copied the Survivalist's Guide off the net while it was still working, along with locations of our major reservoirs," I said, leading the way out of the museum. "I also have water and some non-perishables, and plenty of food for Skippy here." Skippy let out a bark at that. "And some supplies from our ever-helpful friends at Wal-Mart."
"Oh good," the pegasus said. "Maybe now we might actually stand a chance at surviving in this empty world. I'll get a wagon and get my stuff over here, we can take over the museum together."
An hour or so later, I'd transferred the food and water from the truck into the kitchen of the restaurant, and camped out upstairs in the Fantastical Creatures exhibit the museum had been running before everybody vanished. It just seemed fitting. It'd taken me a few trips to move all my things up the two flights of stairs, yay stairs , but in the end I was situated in the part of the exhibit that talked about, you guess it, griffons.
"Henry?" I heard from out in the main part of the museum. I turned and walked out of the exhibit before looking through the protective transparent shielding that stopped toddlers from walking off of the edge, yet still allowed the museum to display gigantic skeletons for all to see without any hindrance. Down on the first floor was Grace the pegasus, looking around and calling my name.
"Over here!" I called from my observational post. She walked along and looked up...and up...and eventually saw me.
"How in the hell did you get up there?" she asked, and now I could see that she was dragging a little red wagon along behind her.
"Stairs," I replied. "They're hell on this body, but I'm getting better at conquering them!"
"So...what? Should I just set up down here then?" she asked, and I shrugged.
"I mean, if you want to, I don't see why not. We can pick up a second genny for your radio tomorrow, which'll do until we find some solar panels and get this place properly wired up," I said. She nodded and turned to the space exhibit, the clip-clop of her hooves echoing after her.
Once she was set up down there, we both recorded a new message for the radio.
"To those that can hear this, you are not alone. I am Henry." "And I'm Grace." "We too are survivors, and we're camping out in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science." "His idea, really, but I have to admit, it's a good one." "If you can make it to us, then we will welcome you with open arms." "You will, I'll have to welcome them with open hooves." "Please, if there's anybody out there to hear this...please hear us."
Skippy still prefers to sleep with me, though, and I think he's really taken to me by this point. Mutt's barely left my side during all the settling in here. I'm feeling sleepy after recording all of that, so I'm gonna knock off now.
Okay, so we did a lot today, journal. Let's review.
First thing I learned today was how easy it is to get ponies to throw up. Apparently if you just cook a little bacon for breakfast, they lose their lunch. That was not what I intended to have happen with the first day of Grace and me occupying the museum, but it's useful to know. Maybe I'll move my meat-cooking operations off the first floor and concentrate them up in the Fantastical Beasts exhibit. It might help.
After cleaning up after her little episode that colored more than a little of the first floor, I ate my meal in silence while she had her vegetable breakfast. We sat on opposite sides of the restaurant while we did, though. Close enough to see each other, yet our diets kept us apart.
I'm gonna have to do something about that eventually.
After our little morning breakfast, the three of us (Me, Grace, and Skippy) went into the truck to see if we could find a backup generator for Grace's radio. One of these days, I'm going to ask her how she operates or moves that thing with hooves.
"It, uh, seems a little...much, using this truck to just get a generator for my radio," she said as she sat in the passenger seat. Skippy took the very narrow back seat and wasn't exactly chuffed about it.
"I'm not just getting that today," I said as I fired the truck up and listened to it come to life. "We'll be getting more fuel cans for it as well, but I want to make a start on finding some solar panels to help take the strain off of our dependence on the gennys. Barring some time billions of years in the future, the sun won't run out on us. Gas will."
"Alright mister practical," she said, sticking her tongue out at me. "So you think things through. What's the next stop after that one then?"
"Some sort of farming supplies store, so that we can start growing things like grain and peanuts and the like," I instantly replied. "Beans, anything high-protein. My meat won't last forever, but give me enough high-protein plant food, and I'll be good."
"Okay, I take back my teasing tone," Grace said as she tried to sit like a human would in the passenger seat, but couldn't hold the pose for long and ended up sitting like...well, like Skippy would when he was sitting there.
For some reason, I found the sight damn adorable.
Ten minutes of driving saw us to a local Wal-Mart, and we walked up to the front door. Of course, it hadn't opened when we pulled up, because of the power being off, but a few moments of prying the door open with my talons saw that rectified. Instantly I made a note to be thankful that we hadn't pulled up in front of the grocery side, because I could see the swarms of insects going to work over there. "Let's just get what we came here for and get out as quickly as possible," I told the blue pegasus pony that had accompanied me.
She nodded once, and we made our way over to the camping and survivalist section of the store. More Sterno, yay! And a generator for the radio, along with plenty of extension cords, so that either one could serve as the backup! At the time, I thought about just centralizing the both of them and running extension cords both ways. I thought that it'd be easier, and I turned out to be somewhat right. Grace had the idea that we should raid the grocery section for any non-perishables, and we did that quickly, snagging some grains and canned veggies for her. We picked up a dozen fuel cans and I debated picking up the hunting rifles I saw...before snagging one and a few boxes of ammo. Hey, with the right amount of training to use them, it could serve as a long-range option. I caught the look that Grace gave me as I loaded that up into the cart, and we wheeled our 'purchases' out to the truck to load them.
"Are you sure you need another gun?" she asked.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum, " I said as we loaded the things we'd found into the trailer. At her uncomprehending stare, I said it in English. "If you want peace, prepare for war."
"Surely a better option would be to lay down arms entirely and work together," Grace protested as I grunted and heaved, barely putting the hefty generator on the trailer.
"Yes, but not everyone speaks the words 'we come in peace,'" I said as I started putting the fuel cans in the back. "And as Al Capone once said, you can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone."
"It just feels...wrong to me to need those sorts of things around still," she said, rubbing one foreleg with a hoof.
"Hey, the moment we meet somebody else and they don't prove hostile, I'll holster my arms," I said. "But until then, I reserve the right to bear them. And I'd love to see you reason with some of the predators from the zoo without bullets."
"Yeah, all right, you're a big scary griffon with a gun," she muttered. "What else do we need from here?"
"Here?" I said before pulling myself up into the back with my forelegs and no small amount of pushing with my lion-like back legs. "Here we don't need anything else. Give me a minute to move most of this stuff to the back, then we'll hit up a gas station for us and the generators." I walked around in the truck for a moment, pushing the Sterno, food, and the extension cords to the back, before moving the gun and ammo next. I walked back out and pulled the darn thing shut again once I was on the ground once more, locking it with practiced ease.
"Now we fill up, then we see if our local home improvement stores have solar panels," I said, holding the door open for Grace to climb back into the cab.
After a quick stop for what would normally be overpriced gas for both us and the gas generators alike, I drove to a local Lowes that I'd seen on the way up to the Science Museum, and found that the answer was yes. Yes indeed. Yes they did have solar panels, all in easy reach and in easily moved cardboard boxes. Heck, they even had a starter solar kit with instructions included. I would probably have to make more than a few trips to get enough solar for the entire roof of the museum, but now that I knew where to go, I could do that.
I grabbed a nearby pallet jack, complete with pallet, and carefully started stacking the boxes of panels on it until I felt like I wouldn't be able to pull it easily. Getting it to the front of the store was a nightmare, and I couldn't even get through the front door, with such a wide load. That was fine by me, though. I just pulled the box onto my back, ignored the discomfort in my wings, and slid it into the trailer. Grace managed to find a few more coils of extension cords that she rolled to the front, and once I got the first load of panels in, I realized I would probably need something to hold the panels down with once we got them all arranged. I made a note to come back here for rocks at some point; if they were big enough, then the wind wouldn't be able to blow them away on some of our windier days. Though, lugging all those rocks up to the roof would be annoying...
Ah well, I'll deal with it when the panels are installed. We loaded that trailer up with more solar panels and extension cords, before closing the back and driving off to the museum. Unloaded, moved the gennies and fuel cans into the middle of the first floor, and laid out a few cords to both the radio and the kitchen, where we ended up putting the food we'd taken. Put the panels in the back of the first floor, made a general pile of them. It wasn't hard with Grace on the front end and me on the back, we balanced a box of panels between us real easy. Made transporting them quick. On the ride back for the rest of the panels we'd seen, the pegasus pony had something to say.
"I wish I could do more," she said with a sigh. "Here you are with your body that has claws and the ability to drive, and the only thing I can do is help load and unload the truck."
"Hey, don't say that," I said, making the turn into the parking lot for the home improvement store. "You're plenty useful. You gave me hope on the drive up, and I'm sure you'll think of something you can do once we're done pillaging the store for supplies."
"You think so?" she asked before I hopped out and opened her door for her.
"I know so," I replied. "Heck, I can think of something right now. Once we get the place set on power, I've got a plan. I know of a farming store down back where I came from. I can hit it up for seeds, and while I drive down there to get supplies, you and Skippy can raid nearby houses for non-perishable foodstuffs. You've got that wagon, after all. And crops take time to grow."
"That...sounds like a workable plan," Grace said as we walked back to where we'd found the solar panels.
"Oh, if you find more extension cords, I can store and cook my meat upstairs if it bothers you," I mentioned as I began loading more boxes onto the pallet.
"Yeah, I think I'll do that," the blue pony muttered as she walked off to somewhere else, presumably wherever she found the cords to begin with. It took me a few trips with the pallet, but this time we finally depleted the stock of solar panels. I can only hope that it would be enough for the roof of the museum, my wings were killing me over this abuse. Loading them and the coils of cords that Grace found made for our second trip back, just as the sun set behind the mountains.
We spent a good hour unloading at the museum, before everybody got their food. I waited for Grace to vacate the impromptu kitchen before I cooked my own food, and I set up a system of cables to lead power back up to my base camp in the Fantastical Creatures exhibit. Now I can power my tablet and my phone, along with my coolers.
Now all I have to do is get Skippy to understand that he'll need to protect Grace while I travel down back home to raid one last store, that I didn't think to last time.
"To those of you that can hear this, you aren't alone. I'm Henry." "And I'm Grace, and we're both survivors of this event." "Both of us are changed, but that hasn't stopped us from working together." "We'd be willing to work with you too, if you're in the Denver area." "Many hands make light work, after all. If you can hear us, we'll be monitoring the radio for any incoming chatter, especially on this frequency." "Please...please be out there to hear us."
Water finally cut out today, which we found out after breakfast. Shame, too, as I'd planned to refill our jugs today. Sorta derailed my plan to open up the solar panels and install them, since we needed to head to one of the lakes and top off on water.
After doing that , I got the bright idea that I needed to pick up another vehicle. One that wasn't so...unwieldy to drive. I had the luck to find a white van in front of an apartment building, meaning I'd have to look through the apartments there for the keys. That promised to be a bit of a chore, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and asked Grace to come along.
I picked up a pretty large rock near the front door, and used it to bash the front lock off. Due to the steps outside the front door, she couldn't bring her wagon too close. Still, she managed to raid the ground floor while I did my sweep of the apartments for keys. I managed to find seven sets, which I stuck in the small bag I carry all my small things in. While I tried all the sets of car keys on the door of the van, Grace walked up next to me and watched for a minute.
"Found anything yet?" she asked. As luck would have it, that was when I unlocked the door with the latest set of keys. I cheered in victory as I opened the door, getting situated behind the wheel.
"I am now differently mobile!" I said, testing out the engine and finding it still working, amazingly enough.
"Well, I'll admit it's better than driving that huge truck of yours everywhere," Grace said as she watched me with a little amusement.
"I'll probably use more gas this way," I admitted as I closed the door and lowered the window. "But we can move things a lot quicker now!"
With a small amount of help from Grace acting as my spotter, we got the van to sit in front of the front door, and started looting the hell out of the apartments. Dried goods, bottled water, cans of meat and packages of fish and shellfish (I'm very happy about that one!), and that was about when I noticed something...odd, on the wagon.
A bottle of rum. I poked it with one claw before talking about it out loud. "You do realize alcohol dries you out, right? We can't exactly go drinking willy-nilly anymore. Even though we have a reservoir to draw on for our water needs."
She chuckled and took the thing off the wagon, before walking back into the house with the neck of the thing still gripped between her teeth. I might have to watch that.
Still, we loaded a lot of things into the van, stacking them up like some sort of weird Tetris game. We had just about closed it up and started making our way to the driver's door when Skippy alerted us to something.
Namely, that there was a whole pack of dogs out in front of us, growling and baring their teeth. My new eyes immediately picked out that these dogs were malnourished, I could see their ribs. I didn't think they were into reason either. One of them started barking at us, causing the whole pack to pick up the tune.
"Skippy," I said, easing my way to the driver's side door. "If you can keep them occupied for a minute, I can scare them off."
The dog woofed before he returned to barking at the group of dogs. My goal while he kept them distracted was simple. I'd slipped off the bag I used to carry my small, delicate things while I moved the van to sitting up next to the house. Of course, it had more than that.
At the moment, it also held the handgun I'd pinched from the AFA. I eased the bag open, rooted around in there for a moment, and pulled the gun out before pointing it at the pack of dogs. I deliberately aimed at the ground in front of them and fired off a warning shot, sending bits of concrete and bullet flying through the air, causing the dogs to scatter.
"Yeah that's right!" I called after them. "You'd better run!"
"How many more guns can you possibly have?" Grace asked irritably as she walked up next to me.
"Enough to keep all of us safe," I answered before putting the gun back in the bag. "Good boy Skippy."
He just woofed as the three of us climbed into the van and drove back to the museum. We didn't unload, though. Grace had to get her wagon back, and Skippy and I escorted her, me with that bag around my neck, ready and waiting for any more dogs that wanted to debate our edibility. Fortunately, we didn't run into anything else on the way there or back, and unloading the van went rather smoothly.
"Okay," I said before closing the doors. "I will be right back. I'm just gonna go get one more thing for tomorrow, and then I will be ready to call this a day for now."
"What are you getting?" Grace asked.
"Rocks," I answered before climbing back into the van.
What? Rocks would be useful. Big enough to hold the solar panels down so that they wouldn't blow away in a breeze. Heck, if they were weighty enough, I could use them to bash open any doors we didn't have the keys for. I would just need to get a lot of rocks.
Lowes proved useful yet again, thanks to their garden center. Huge, decorative, weighty rocks were just what I was after, and the pallet and pallet jack were where I'd left them. It took a lot of heaving and pushing to get the bags onto the pallet in the first place, but I figured I could make a few trips. By the time I'd moved all the rocks into the back of the van, the sun was setting, and I needed to get back to base.
Who knew how many things roamed the street at night now, with no humans to reign them in. I pulled up in front of the museum, and managed to move half the rocks inside. I took a break for dinner, then moved the rest off the van to sit at the base of the stairs.
I don't know how I'm going to move those things up the stairs, but it'll be torture, I can picture that much right now. Heck, it'd probably be torture to move the boxes of panels up to the top as well. The first thing I need to do is locate the roof access. Then I can take one rock and bash that door open. We can worry about a new lock later. When there is a later.
"To those of you that can hear us, you are not alone." "I'm Grace." "And I'm Henry." "And if you need help and are in the Denver area, we'll welcome you with open arms." "Right now, it's more important that we work together than stand apart." "Please...let there be somebody else out there."
Today. Was. Torture.
Long, drawn out, weightlifting based torture .
Mostly because it involved moving vast quantities of weighty items up my greatest foe, stairs .
The first thing I did today was locate the staff areas up on the top floor, then pulled a bag of rocks up the stairs and used one to bash the handle clean off. After that, I investigated and found the roof access pretty easily, though it did take another quick bash with my handy rock to actually open the hatch. After that, came moving the panels up to the top. Though, fortunately, there I had an ally. One. Singular.
The escalators!
Mainly because even if they were inactive, they at least weren't the spiral staircases I had been using. Really, I don't know why I haven't been using them before. Even if they aren't working, they're easier to navigate than those other stairs.
It still wasn't easy, pushing those boxes up the escalators. But it wasn't as hard as it could have been. Then came getting them out the roof access hatch onto the actual roof, which was also an exercise in fun. Of course, I had the presence of mind to move the rocks upstairs as well. By the time I managed to get everything on the roof, it was time for a late lunch. If I was going to have one at all.
What was Grace doing during all of this? Well, early in the morning, she was monitoring the radio, but after lunch she took her wagon and Skippy and decided she would go back to the apartment building we'd visited before, finish raiding it of anything we'd not been able to get the first time.
Good dog, that Skippy. Knew to go with her and keep her safe with me only needing to tell him once.
Got the starter solar kits unboxed first and read the instructions, because I figured that was the way to start. With at least some knowledge. After laying them all down, I realized that I would need some of those leftover extension cords. Like, all of them. Especially if I wanted to coat the roof in solar panels and have them all feed into one centralized mass down the rooftop window.
Oh yeah, I'd planned this out.
So I weighted the panels down with some rocks so they wouldn't blow away, then drove back to Lowes and loaded that van up with every roll of extension cord I could find. Even went over to Wal-Mart in search of more, when that home improvement store ran out.
Driving back home with a load of cable, I whistled a happy little tune even if it did mean more lifting things up stairs. I had a plan for this.
I managed to get all the cords I'd gathered up on the roof, and gently , I pulled one massive pane of glass open. Still holding that pane open, I took the longest roll of extension cord and dangled it down into the museum proper, before gently lowering that pane again. Then I kept feeding the cord down into the museum, barely reaching ground level before I ran out.
The rest of my cords would be used to make sure that all of the solar panels networked together into one massive power line. That same power line I'd just fed down into the museum. Thank goodness most of the cords I picked up allowed for multiple things to be plugged into them.
Now I would just have to hope my insane plan actually worked .
I got all the starter kits opened up and set up and weighted down, and barely managed to get them all networked together. Fortunately, they seemed to be designed for that, as I saw that they also came with a battery each, which promised to convert DC to AC. Figuring that the sun setting was as good an indication as any, I headed back down into the museum proper and pulled the roof hatch shut after me.
After dinner, Grace and I sat around the radio like normal. "So," she asked before turning it on. "What's with the big blue cord in the middle of the place?"
"Gonna be our power line once I get the solar hooked up to it," I said, cracking my neck. "Got a good start on it today, gonna try and finish it up tomorrow."
"Sounds good," Grace said with a nod. "Found a lot of supplies in that apartment today. Think the place is nearly dry, though. Might need you to open another soon."
"I can do that," I said with a nod. "Just let me know when, and I'll open one with a trusty rock."
"Not a problem."
"To those of you that can hear us, I'm Henry." "I'm Grace, and we're survivors in the Denver area." "You are not alone. You don't need to be alone. We are willing to help those that need it." "Just, fair warning, you'll probably have to pull your fair share." "Please...be out there to hear us."
We are now solar powered! It is awesome. We actually have some leftover panels too. Guess I overestimated how many we would need.
Granted, it was long, tedious work, opening those boxes and laying out all those panels. And making sure they all fed into the battery array the starting sets had given me. And hooking the battery array into our extension cord that would be our main power line.
But if it means renewable power to keep our radio going and my food from spoiling, I would do it all again. And sooner.
There was a bit of a break at about...I want to say two. Grace came back from her raiding with her wagon and said that she'd finished getting what she could from the apartments that were open. So I accompanied her to another apartment building, and bashed it open next.
Maybe in a week or month or so, when the flies have died off, I'll recommend we hit up Wal-Mart again for dry goods. Assuming there are any left and insects or strays haven't taken the store over.
Of course, I could have gotten the set-up done a little faster if I hadn't been...
...Okay, I've been trying to control my wings, all right? It only stands to reason. Something with wings is meant to make use of them, unless it's an ostrich.
I managed to find the new muscle groups easily enough, I've only been causing all sorts of pain back there thanks to me using my back as an acceptable way to carry large, unwieldy items. And I even got enough control to flap my wings a good dozen times or so.
I'll have to make some sort of exercise regimen for my wings if I actually want to use them, though. And I sorta do. It'd be hella useful. Alternative mode of transport number...three?
Oh, that reminds me. Alternative transport. I know that these things exist...Yeah, that was what they were called. Tesla roadsters. Electric powered car. That , would be useful. It might suck all our power out while we charge it, but it'd be renewable...at least until the battery started to corrode. Still, that'd take it a while.
Now all we have to do is find one...bah, who am I kidding. We can't be that lucky.
"So," I told Grace as we gathered around the radio again. "I'm gonna take the van south tomorrow. Hit up a farming supplies store that I know of, see if there's anything left in it so we can start growing our own food. Think you'll be okay while I do that?"
Grace just nodded, and Skippy whined.
"Aw, hey, I won't be gone long," I told the mutt as I gave him a quick pet. "And I got an important job for you to do while I'm out, Skippy. You need to watch Grace, make sure that no bad dogs get her."
The border collie woofed once, either because he understood or he didn't. Not sure which I prefer at the moment, to be honest.
"To those of you in the Denver area that can hear us, you are not alone. I'm Henry." "And I'm Grace. We're willing to help those that need it." "In times like these, we need to help one another." "It is far more important that we stand together than apart in the wake of this event." "Just...please, be out there to hear us."
Wake up, have breakfast, load up the van. It was starting to become routine. I told Skippy to take care of Grace while I was out, and the mutt nearly tried to follow me, but I firmly told him to stay and watch Grace. It took a few times, but he eventually got that he wasn't coming with me on this trip.
It took me an hour driving at highway speeds to get back to the outskirts of the Springs, where I knew one farming supplies store was. Big R it was called, and once I pulled up and opened up the doors, I found that there was an entire section dealing with seeds. That I took.
Hey, I had a van, it would be a shame if I didn't fill it. Plus they had things that I could use to make it easier on myself for the planting. Took those too. Though I don't know how much good a trowel and spade are going to be, or things like that.
After that, I decided a small visit back to the actual city was in order. Who knew, maybe I would find somebody, or signs of somebody. The white van I had loaded up with gardening slash farming supplies from Big R pulled into the Springs proper, though it did display an important fact to me.
Namely, it wasn’t the most fuel-efficient of vehicles. That, or it had just been too long since I last refilled, as I was already half-empty from the drive down here. I would need to fill up again before making the trip back up to Denver if I wanted to make it without coasting on fumes.
“Now where is a gas station around here?” I mused aloud as I looked around. “Suppose I shoulda visited more often so that I knew what the city looked like before checking to see if anybody else was around...I can’t tell what’s meant to be this way.”
That was about when I heard a sound in this depopulated city. It sounded a bit like a song I had heard once or twice, though I couldn’t place it at first. The beat quickly got me bobbing my head along and I turned to follow the sound as well as I could. By the time I had roughly located where the sound had been coming from, or its general direction at least, the sound developed into a proper song.
“We all came out to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline, to make records with a mobile, we didn't have much time. ”
I had to be getting closer. That, or whoever was playing was deliberately turning the song up. Or getting closer themselves. Hopefully it was the getting closer one.
“Frank Zappa and the Mothers, were at the best place around, but some stupid with a flare gun, burned the place to the ground. ”
It was when the song reached its chorus that I finally turned the right corner and saw the set-up of the ones playing music at the almost-end of the world.
“Smoke on the water, fire in the sky. Smoke on the water… ”
It looked like an RV towing one of those U-haul storage pods behind it, but the pod itself had been decked out in speakers. It was just my luck that I had showed up behind the set-up, but I saw that they’d turned...and turned again at one of the next streets.
Ah, that would explain the song. And their patterns for driving. They were actively looking for people. Well, who would I be to deny them finding somebody? I pulled a quick U-turn before driving down the street, then moving to intercept their RV. Or at the very least, show up in front of them.
I managed to pull up in front of them just before the song reached its second chorus and stopped my van, deciding to leave the shotgun in it for now. Though I did still carry my small bag and the handgun within it around my neck, just in case.
Hey, for all I knew, they could be crazy just as easily as they could be sane. The fact that they were looking for people was a good sign, and I’d leave one weapon behind, but I didn’t want to go out totally unarmed. Just in case.
Once they caught sight of me, the song cut out, and a...well, it wasn’t a pegasus, but it did still have wings. Of a bat-like quality. Anyway, that pony stepped out of the RV, and I could swear I felt my head tilting as I considered the life-form I had been presented with. It was either the mismash of the anatomy of something other than myself that had caught my attention...or the goggles.
Might have been the goggles.
"Wow, you look cool. I think you may have gotten one of the better draws in this little event,” the pony said.
“And I’m trying to place a name for you, but failing horribly,” I returned. “Sorry, that came off as more rude than I intended. My name’s Henry.” I walked forward a little more and stuck out one clawed forelimb in a position to shake...before I realized that the pony had hooves and likely wouldn’t be able to.
The bat pony sinkered for a second before holding out their hoof. "I find that a 'fist bump' works well. As for my name, that’s pending. You can just call me ‘LF’ for now if you have to."
“LF,” I returned, balling up my clawed hand and bumping the hoof. “So, it’s just you in that thing? Driving through my old hometown looking for other survivors?”
"I like good questions! To answer, no I am not currently alone. As for looking for survivors, I do that in every town. That said, three other people are also heading here to meet us. We plan on setting up shop." I couldn’t see whoever this pony was with, but I had no reason to doubt them.
“Good plan,” I said, before jerking my- what used to be my thumb over my shoulder at my van. “Had a similar idea myself, came back for supplies for the long haul. Figured I might need the ability to grow things to eat that didn’t walk around, considering the industry for that probably collapsed overnight. Came back here to see if anybody was walking around, and ran into you.”
The bat pony was silent for a moment. Like they were considering their next words. "Hmm, well our plan is to set up in Fort Carson. You would be more than welcome to join us in that plan. The more hands the better after all."
“Kinda got a good set up in Denver at the moment,” I replied. “Got solar installed and everything...but if things go pear-shaped, I'll load up what I can and head south.” It’d be annoying to leave that much solar panels behind, especially after I had lugged them all the way up to the roof. But if it came down to it, at least now I had an option.
"The base had three to four large solar arrays hooked into it already. So it’s got that covered. On top of that it would have a ton of rations. On top of THAT when we have extra hands we would be happy to help you move stuff to the base. We didn't choose Springs for no reason." LF seemed to be quite sure in what they were saying, and I couldn’t blame them. Those sounded like very good reasons indeed.
“Hmm,” I said, thinking about it. “A thought occurs to me regarding water. I mean, yeah, we’ve got a lot of reservoirs hanging around, which is why I chose where I did in Denver for my base of operations. Do you know what Fort Carson does for their water needs?”
"The logistics of the choice were done by my group’s city planner, Qesun. I'm kinda sure he thought of water and how to maintain it in the area. That said, personally? I don't have a clue. Though I do have a good amount of faith in the people I work with."
“Fair enough,” I chuckled. “And hey, it wouldn’t be too hard to find a lake or the like. I know of at least two up in the Denver area. Plus there’s this river that runs through the state somewhere. We’ve got options for water.” I turned to look at my van, before looking at the bat-winged pony. “How about this, I’ll promise to think on it and, if things turn out to not be too tenable for me up there, I’ll come along. There is that whole Zoo in the area that I might not wanna live next to for too long…”
The bat pony gave a few nods. "Hm, okay that sounds fair. Well at least you will know where we are, and us you. If anything comes up you can come our way."
“Yup,” I nodded as well. “So, I was just going to tool around and look for people, like you. Maybe hit up a gas station for a quick top off afterwards before driving north again.”
"Sounds good, I'm going to do a few more passes throughout the city then go set up shop in the base. By safe out there."
I barely held back a snort as I nodded again and walked back to my van before starting it up and getting it out of their way. Who needs safe when you have a shotgun?
After tooling around the city and listening to more Smoke on the Water, I decided to take my leave and mentally wished the bat-like pony the best of luck. I had a few places to visit still, after all.
Going back up north, I decided to revisit the AFA and the weapons they had there, because I wanted something. One tiny little thing.
Grenades. Because you never know when you're going to want the ability to make things go boom.
After that, I passed by my home again, before sighing and continuing onwards. No signs of life in the neighborhood.
By the time I pulled into Denver, it was already getting late again. I drove into the parking lot for the museum, and Skippy greeted me eagerly. Grace...not so much. It took going into the museum before I found her.
And when I did, she wasn't in the best of states. I could tell by the empty bottles of beer on the floor that Grace had been drinking. I didn't know where she got them from , but she'd emptied the bottles of their contents.
And when I looked around for her, I heard the sound of her hoofsteps coming from the kitchen. Going there showed me that she was definitely wobbling around and walking unsteadily on her four legs.
Yup, Grace had taken the chance with me out of town to either raid an apartment of their booze, or drink her own. I walked over to her and tried to steer her towards her set-up in the Space exhibit, but she was having none of that.
"An' you!" she said, pointing one of her forehooves at me. "You mister high-and-mighty, with a body that can drive easily and digits! Where in the hell have you been today?"
"Grace, you're drunk," I tried to reason with her. Which was my first mistake. Reason doesn't necessarily work on the inebriated.
"I know I'm drunk!" she snapped at me. "I've lost my family, my friends, my body . Only person I got is you and you're not even like me! And you ran off to do who knows what today. Did you think I wouldn't ?"
Then something both amazing and weird started happening. Her wings started flapping. I didn't even know she could control them, much less when she was drunk. Slowly, they started picking up speed, and she actually started to get some lift.
"I oughta...I oughta sock you one for that," she muttered. And then she was airborne. Which was a bad idea, flying while drunk.
Because immediately afterwards, she covered her mouth with her forehooves and fell back on the ground, sitting on her rump and turning a pleasant shade of green in her face. I didn't manage to get her to a bathroom in time, leaving a puddle of vomit on the ground just in front of the restroom.
I washed her up as well as I could and stuck her on my back before carrying her back to her set-up in the Space section of the museum. I'm still there now, actually. I should probably send out a message tonight before I knock off.
"To those in the Denver area, you are not alone. I'm Henry, here with Grace. She can't come to the radio today, she had a little too much to drink. For those of you that ended up with a pony like body, yes, the answer is your new selves can get drunk. To those that are willing to help...I am willing to take you in."
Author's Note
A good...60% of this chapter is a crossover with Lightfox Lowell and his story Stacked Deck .
More people! I am always excited about more people!
This morning was spent helping Grace recover from her hangover, which called for copious amounts of water. I would have let her had some headache pills, but I wasn't sure what a proper dosage for her would be anymore. If she were human, I'd just give her a couple of some sort of generic headache medication, but I didn't know how they'd affect her new body. In the end, I merely prescribed her a load of water and monitored the radio. No new transmissions coming in, sad to say. Once noon rolled around, Grace said she felt a lot better and took over the radio from me.
Another issue was made plain to me today, though. Without water for the plumbing, we're going to need somewhere to, uh, go. The restrooms won't work anymore. The order of the day was port-a-potties and shovels, so I got my truck and drove over to Lowes. It took a lot of work to get even one of them on the handy pallet jack, but I managed to get two port-a-potties into the back of the truck. Took me a lot of heaving and grunting, though.
Then I decided, while I was out, why not pick up a few more supplies from Wal-Mart? I loaded up a cart with some things from just about everywhere in the store. A frying pan for the smaller meats, another bag of kibble for Skippy, a nice and big sledgehammer, for breaking doors in, some dry and canned food for the both of us...
Then I went and grabbed a charcoal grill, for the larger meats, and a nice big bag of charcoal. I had space, why not use it?
On my way back, though, I saw a pack of dogs in the streets, chasing two ponies. I was ever so thankful I never went anywhere without my shotgun. I put the truck in park, grabbed the gun, and hopped out before firing a blast into the air. The dogs scattered, while the ponies breathed a sigh of relief as they did. Once they turned to me, though, I could tell they were slightly confused. As was I, by one of them.
One of the ponies was orange in color, with a red mane and tail. Said pony also had green eyes, and no wings of any sort. The other was yellow, with a blue mane and tail that had lighter blue streaks running through it. And that pony had a horn jutting out of its head. It wasn't until they spoke that I managed to place a gender for either one of them.
"Thank you," the unicorn pony said with a sigh, revealing that it was female by the voice. At least, I hoped it was a female, I couldn't imagine a guy with that voice.
"Yeah, but what are you?" the regular pony said gruffly, indicating to me it was a male.
"I'm Henry the Griffon," I said as I pointed my shotgun at the ground. Rule number one, never point at anything you don't intend to shoot. Rule number two, finger off the trigger unless you intend to shoot. "Used to be a human, woke up with a day missing and a body not my own."
"Sounds like us," the male of the pair said. "We both lived in the same set of apartments and woke up recently. What day is it?"
"June 6th," I answered, causing them to look at me in disbelief.
"It...it was the 23rd just a day ago," the unicorn of the pair whispered.
"Missing time isn't unusual, though you're the first two to be missing so much that I've heard of," I said to them. "I was just missing one day. You two seem to be missing two weeks."
"So, what, are you the only person to have pulled through?" the normal pony asked.
"Nope, I know of more down south, and there's somebody else hanging out with me at the Museum," I said. "I'll give you a lift there."
"I'm Chris," the male of the pair said.
"I'm Yvonne," the unicorn introduced herself. "And thank you so much for doing this."
After that, it was a short drive back to the museum with my two guests. Yvonne took the front seat, while Chris had the thin, narrow back seat all to himself. Once we arrived, I told the pair of them that Grace would be easy enough to find and to introduce themselves. Meanwhile, I had a small bit of unloading to do. I'm not stupid enough to bring in a grill to an enclosed area, I'd probably just...huh, no electricity for the bigger stuff, right. So maybe I wouldn't set off the fire alarms. Still, it'd be safer to just leave it outside where it is. I still have a fair bit of meat hanging around, so I won't even need it for long. I mean, not unless I take up hunting.
...There's an idea. I'll have to think about it later. The Springs did see their fair share of deer this time of year...
Then I managed to slide the port-a-potties out of the truck, along with the really big shovel I picked up to help me dig a fair hole for them. It took me half an hour to dig what I thought was an acceptable hole for both of them, and a few minutes longer to get both situated over their respective holes and facing the Museum. After that, it was just the food and tools I had to drag into the museum. I left the sledgehammer by the front door, so that I'd know where it was if we needed it. The frying pan went up to my camp, and the food for ourselves and Skippy went to the kitchen. The mutt came up and licked my face multiple times after I finished unloading everything, apparently having finished greeting the others for the time being. Chris and Yvonne brought Grace with them, and the four of us chatted about our plans.
Chris was a construction worker before the great shift, while Yvonne worked in customer service for Lowes. Grace divulged that she used to work as a stocker for the local Wal-Mart, and I was just an attendant for the local gas station. Our pasts divulged, we talked about the future. I told our new faces about the set-up we currently had, with most of the basic necessities seen to. Chris said he had a small garden at his home, just something to help him grow spices that he'd rather not buy, nothing not in a plant pot. Yvonne agreed that she'd help him with farming, and I showed them where the seeds and farming equipment were.
"Try not to plant them all, though," I said. "We might not be staying in this city forever."
"Really?" Grace asked. "News to me."
"The dogs were chasing these two," I said to her. "Plus I'm surprised the animals from the zoo haven't gotten loose yet. Who knows when they might try for us?"
After that, they fell silent and all made their ways to the Space exhibit, probably to socialize a little more. Fine by me, that gave me more time to keep watch outside and practice moving my wings. I can flap them for about five minutes now before I get tired, though I seem to be recovering faster. Who knows. Maybe soon I'll actually get airborne. That'll only leave the all-important step of coming back down to work on. I mean, gravity might work on that for me, but I'd like to be able to go up and come back down without breaking anything.
Dinner was a nice affair, even if I did have to leave halfway through to start up the other half of my dinner. Still, the mood was celebratory, thanks to doubling our population. And hey, now we had goals and a schedule that would go into effect tomorrow.
In the morning, Grace and I would monitor the radio, while Yvonne and Chris would tend to the farm that we would set up in the museum's lawn. Come afternoon, we would switch who was monitoring the radio. Meanwhile, Grace and I would go out to find a place for her to raid, applying brute force as our lockpick of choice. Once I saw to that, I'd come back and drive a vehicle around to get supplies en masse. Tomorrow, my shopping list is beds. I know there's a Serta store around here somewhere...
Of course, tomorrow morning is going to see me helping Yvonne and Chris with the farm to begin with. I'm probably going to do a lot of digging tomorrow...
"We send this message out to all who can hear us. I'm Grace. And you don't have to be alone." "I'm Yvonne, and these guys have been very welcoming and helpful to us." "It's not so bad, I guess. I wouldn't have thought of living in a museum." "If you are out there and can hear us...please, answer us."
The morning was interesting. In the sense that digging long, shallow rows in the side yard of the Museum was interesting.
Long and constant digging. Yvonne and Chris took up the smaller tools and held them as well as they could with their hooves, trying their best to pitch in. They didn't get very far, but the thought counted. I didn't get quite done before noon rolled around and we all stopped for lunch before changing up what we were doing.
Yvonne took the radio, while Chris began planting some of our seeds. Grace decided to take the roof, probably to keep watch, while I took the van out to look for the Serta store. I found it quickly enough, it was near one of the main streets and easily visible. I drove up to it and parked with my back facing the front door, before I hopped out and used my sledgehammer to break some of their glass windows. Bigger than the doors and all. After that, I watched my step before checking the back first, finding a broom easily enough and using it to sweep the broken glass to one side, where I wouldn't step on it.
Then it was time to look for beds for us all. Four twin-sized beds was the order of the day, because I don't think any of us were sleeping with anyone else. Nice, comfy, memory-foam beds. Then my mind considered another problem, and I drove over to Wal-mart again.
The order of the day - Blankets. And pillows. Lots of them. Grabbed some more packaged food while I was over there as well, along with some bottled water. Because we could always use more water. The van was packed nearly full, though. I...might have overindulged on the blankets and pillows a little. Sue me, they looked comfortable.
Just as I pulled into base, the sky opened up with some rain. It had been threatening to rain all afternoon, and only actually did once I needed to unload things. So we waited, though the little moisture I'd been splashed with made my feathers puff up a little once it dried. I could only imagine what would have happened if I had stayed out there, trying to unload the van while the rain poured down. I'd probably look ridiculous.
Eventually the rain paused, and we took the chance to unload the food first, followed by the blankets and pillows. The water was quickly moved out of the way, and then the beds were quickly moved in as well, before I shut the van and bolted inside. Just in time as well, because once I did, the rain picked up again.
Dinner was a more subdued affair. Chris said he'd managed to spread some seeds throughout the furrows I'd dug, but would like me to help dig a little more tomorrow, if only to plant a little more. I agreed to his idea. Yvonne said that she'd heard nothing on the radio, and Grace said she hadn't seen anything from the roof at all today.
It was the last one that worried me. The dogs were also quiet today. That can't be good at all.
Tomorrow, after helping Chris with the farm and lunch, I'll be Grace's escort through the city. Just in case.
I managed to actually feel some lift from my wings today during my little exercise period for them. Guess that means I'm getting closer to actual flight. Now if only I could remember the finer points on bird-of-prey flying from that video, I might be able to do something with them other than crash when the time comes.
Skippy's taken to the new guys so well, he's only just now showed up here. Yes, hello mutt. You like the attention, don't you? C'mere, I'll give you a quick scratch behind the ears before I nod off. That's a good boy.
Well, it's late and I'm tired. G'night.
"To those in the Denver area, you aren't alone." "We have food, water, shelter. We're willing to share." "Yeah, but don't expect to get it for free." "We won't make you pull more than your fair share, but you can't contribute less than your best either." "Please...somebody. Anybody. Be out there to hear us."
No progress at all on hunting down the lions today. Sadly. I stood nearby when Chris and Yvonne tended to our little garden and made sure it was still going strong, while Grace took the radio. She didn't want us to miss any transmissions, and I didn't want anything to get the jump on either of the new guys.
Once noon hit, Grace and I went to a nearby apartment building. The height of the day was the best time to get the raiding done, and it wasn't like we would have time to fill up anything more than her wagon anyways.
It didn't take us long to break in, nor did it take us long to locate a wide variety of dried goods to fill up her wagon with. We even made a second trip, there was so much food for us there.
Still, once night started to fall, I escorted Grace back to the museum and made sure there wasn't any unwelcome surprises. I'm on the roof right now, looking to see if I can't find where the lions are coming from...
...there's one. It's going west down the road. That's...a bearing I can use, I suppose.
...That was a yipe of pain. I...I think the lions are hunting the dogs. And the other animals that might be out and about now that there aren't humans around to corral them.
...Well I suppose this might take care of our dog problem, but what will we do when they run out of dogs? They'll see us as a mobile source of food next.
Which is why I'm going to find their den, wherever it may be, and get rid of them. Time to lionwatch. Maybe if I see where they all come from up here, I can pinpoint it a lot easier...
Just hope...I don't...pass...out...
June 10th - 24 pills left
Okay, I've made a decision. I can't take any pills tonight. They knock me out, and I need to be on night watch, to make sure that the lions don't show any more curiosity about this place.
Gonna be a little more cranky tomorrow, though. If we had coffee, then I might not be.
Got my hunting rifle and a nice position on the roof. The others are downstairs asleep already. Always was a bit of a night owl, guess this half-bird transformation brought that out in me ag-
Thought I saw something. Let me just...
There you are. Oh, you're a right dangerous beast, aren't you. What's that? You want to show a little more interest in this building I'm protecting?
Sorry little lady. Can't let you do that.
That's it. Keep coming...
(BANG)
Got you. Now just walk away...
...Dammit, I said go away! Now I have to put another bullet in you!
(BANG)
There you go. Limp back to your den...
Meanwhile, I'll pack up my guns and follow your blood trail. I'm going to deal with all your friends.
...
Henry? Henry, we heard a noise. Henry, are you up here? Wait, what's...
...Henry, what have you done?
June 11th - 24 pills left
Hell...hello journal. In the absence of Henry being here to record things in you, I'll do it.
So, I, uh, went through the journal and made a few observations out loud to the others, even going so far as to snoop in Henry's things to find his pill bottle. Not like I could open it with these hooves of mine, but now we all know that Henry isn't joking when he said he was medicated.
We've all agreed that when he returns, we're going to have to have words with him. Namely about why he didn't tell us he was medicated and what he was planning to do when he ran out.
Fortunately, Skippy was left behind from Henry's little lion-hunt, and while he probably be much good in a fight, he's better than nothing.
Chris and Yvonne tended to the garden while I watched from on top of the roof, careful not to step on any of the solar panels while I maneuvered into position. Henry was right, this is boring...
I debated going out to look for supplies before deciding against it. I might have a few choice words for him when he comes back, but for all his faults, I felt...safer, around Henry and his guns than when he wasn't here.
Speaking of, there has got to be a way for us to use them. We can't just let Henry have the monopoly on guns. We need the ability to use them as well. Maybe if we modified them a little? I don't know how we'd do it, but I'm sure if we put our brains together, we could come up with something.
Most of our time was spent looking out from the top of the museum and listening to the radio, with occasional breaks for water or the port-a-potties. Wait, I see something coming down the road. It's...
...Wow, Henry has seen better days. It looks like he got in a fight with a chainsaw. I'm just gonna turn this off and stick it back in his things, hope he doesn't notice...
Motherfuckin' yeah!
Killed all those lions!
I'll talk about it more tomorrow. Right now I'm gonna rest and hope we can find a hospital easily. Gonna need some fuckin' bandages to hold myself together. That and some goddamn medical supplies.
Henry, peacin' out.
June 13th - 22 pills left
Hiss...
It hurts to move, still. Especially when I strain the stitches. I'm just gonna let Grace update this thing, I didn't do much but lie here today.
O...okay.
Relax, you'll do fine. Your journal entry was great, and you at least know what was going on.
If you're sure...
So today was pretty boring. I watched Yvonne and Chris do the farming while I kept a watch, just in case there were dogs or other things lurking the streets. There wasn't anything, and while I was up there I, uh...did a little bit of practice in using my wings. I got a little bit of lift, I think.
Awesome! If I could move, I would show you how I glided down after the lions the other night. It was pretty sweet.
I'm sure it was. And I'm glad you're behind me in my attempts to fly. Once noon rolled around, Chris and I went out with Skippy to look for more supplies. We found a new place and managed to bash the lock off with that hammer you took. It took a little fineness before we could manage to get it into position, but we managed.
Cool, what's the haul?
Oh, some bottled water, some rice, some noodles...a few packages of vegetables and tuna fish.
Yes!
Yes, I know you like your fish.
After that, we managed to work on what refining what we're actually looking for next.
Oh?
Yeah, a metalworking shop. We want to modify the guns so that our hooves can use them. We can't let you have the monopoly. What if you're laid up like you are now, or just away?
Huh. That is a very good point. I sorta like the guns I have, but I can see your point. If we find one, then we'll modify the guns we find so that you all can use them and feel safe, okay.
Thank you. That's all we ask.
Ssss! Okay, that hurt. And now I'm feeling woozy. Okay, bring it over here and I'll stop the recording...
June 14th - 21 pills left
All right, I...am feeling a lot better. Grace, how am I looking?
Well, your wounds look mostly closed by now. We might have to take your stitches out soon.
Yeah, that's gonna be fun. I've been bored up here. Good thing I thought to pack my 3DS.
...You brought a gaming system. To the apocalypse.
Hell yes I did. One thing you are gonna want in times of rest or healing: entertainment. And I have like five games downloaded onto that thing. This whole 'rest' thing I've been getting, along with our renewable power? I've been catching up majorly. Only thing that sucks is that I didn't grab any strategy guides for them while the internet was still a Thing.
All right, fair point. What, do you have a laptop with games on it as well?
Dammit, I should have done that with my mom's. Too damn late now. Wait...idea. Maybe if I head back home, I can nab my old computer and the power strip as well. I had a lot of Steam games installed on that thing...
...Something tells me that's...not really a priority.
It is to me. Anything happen today?
Not much. Just the farming and the gathering that normally goes on. I saw a dog today, but it didn't seem to show any interest in us.
So the lions didn't get them all.
I know, we'll have to be careful still when we go out to gather things.
Careful's a lot easier with a shotgun.
Yes, but you're going to take it easy when we go out there, all right? I don't want you injuring yourself protecting us.
Hey, wounds come with the job. How's the water holding up?
Oh, we've used up only a few jugs so far, we could hold out a lot longer.
Good, good. Okay, I have a plan. We'll look for supermarkets and the like on the edges of the town, look for water and non-perishable foodstuff. Ask around for what sort of utility items we might need, we'll make a list and get them one run. We'll take the van, it's smaller and quicker than the truck. Once we find a place, we'll establish a route back here and take notice of any gas stations on the way. But what we're really going to start looking for after a few days is something completely different.
What?
We're gonna hit up all the parking garages and lots of the city in search of a Tesla. One a day. I want a car that doesn't need gas to run, and I know I saw one around my hometown before the world changed. It's not inconceivable that there would be one in this town either.
Do you even know what one looks like?
Sorta kinda. I know what the decal on the front looks like anyways. It's a T in a shield.
That sounds like a decent plan of action.
Yeah, but it relies a whole lot on luck...
June 15th - 20 pills left
Damn, I am looking forward to not having to be gentle when I get up and lay down again.
Easy there, Henry.
I know, I know. It's not like I forgot I was injured or anything.
Today was pretty boring, except for the fact that the plants Chris has planted and looks over in our farm seem to have sprouted. The one's Yvonne's planted are...less healthy. I don't know why, I don't know how. But now I know what we're gonna use for a duty roster, if you can call it that.
Chris will be on the farm. Hopefully he can save the half of the crops Yvonne's planted. Meanwhile, Yvonne will be on radio duty. She can also take stock around the museum and keep track of any major issues at home base we'll need to be aware of.
And lemme guess, the both of us will be scavenging.
Yup! We'll go out and look for food, supplies, tools, anything we think we could use or need. Maybe when we find another person hanging around here, we can have a guard beyond Skippy. We'll also take the chance to work on using our wings when we're out, maybe together we can come up with something to help each other.
Sounds...reasonable. We're still on the lookout for a Tesla though, right?
Oh hell yes we are. That would be the best prize to drive back. Though...getting it back along with whatever vehicle we're using is probably going to be interesting.
Yeah, it'll probably involve a lot of walking. If only we could actually fly, then maybe it wouldn't...
Don't count on it just yet, I'm barely capable of gliding as is. Maybe I can show you that tomorrow. Gah, I wish I remembered that video more...
Which one?
The one detailing how birds of prey fly. It's too late to look it up again, what with the internet being dead and all...
We'll work it out.
Yeah, probably painfully. So what was our haul today anyways?
Oh, a few boxes of dried food, some kibble, and plenty of water bottles.
Nice, those should be plenty useful. Hmm...Y'know what I think we could use?
What?
Stuff for the kitchen. Like, actual appliances we could plug in. It'd give you some variety to the food situation.
...You just keep coming up with sensible ideas for comfort that I can't really disagree with...
Yeah, I'm like that. Wal-mart?
Wal-mart, tomorrow. Get some rest.
Yes, mom .
June 16th - 19 pills left
Well, today was...interesting. Apparently, Yvonne is a Jedi.
I doubt it.
Did you see what she did to move things? It may have been glowy, sparkly, and colorful, but she still moved her dishes with her mind this morning.
Yes, and afterwards she looked shocked that she'd done it to begin with. A Jedi would have known what they were doing, if there were such things on Earth, and not been surprised by their own powers.
...Fine, I concede that point. She still has new powers that she should figure out.
On that point, I agree, but maybe we should wait until the whole 'I am now a different species' shock wears off a little more? I can't imagine she'll be eager to learn whatever this is while she's still thinking with hands.
Yeah, fair enough. So aside from that shock this morning, today was fairly productive. We managed to hit up Wal-Mart for some kitchen stuff, find a few apartments where there were still supplies to raid, and had a run-in with a dog. He either knew better or remembered us, because he booked it when he saw who we were.
I feel bad for them, you know. Maybe there's a way to...not have to be at odds with the dogs anymore?
What do you want me to do, leave out kibble for all the dogs of the city? We'd run out quickly.
I know, but still...
Either the dogs will move on or die off. Whatever happens, they won't be a problem for us anymore. I won't let that happen.
I know that too. So how about that gliding?
Oh yeah, you finally managed that. So how'd it feel?
...I think if I had to sum it up, exhilarating would be the word I would use. The freedom of nothing but air around you as you drifted downwards through it...It's not long until we start flying, I don't think. It should be just as simple as flapping in the middle of the glide.
Flapping's easy. It's the landing I'm concerned with. I've already been laid up once. I'd like to not repeat the experience.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, let's find a small building to use for practice then. We don't need to go jumping off any skyscrapers.
We can look tomorrow. I'm sleepy now.
Fair enough. Tomorrow your stitches are coming out.
Fun...
June 17th - 18 pills left
Well if I had to sum up today, it would be pain .
Oh hush, it wasn't that bad, pulling out your own stitches.
It still feels like I did it wrong . What I wouldn't give for a medical professional.
One that works on griffons?
Grr...fine.
And if you want to talk about pain...
Yeah, I know. Asphalt roads were not made for landing on. We tried flapping today. With mixed results.
If by mixed you mean none at all. I swear I left half my fur back there.
I at least managed to land on grass more often than not. But it still hurt to land like I did.
I felt...something. For a moment. It almost felt like I was actually gaining some lift.
Yeah, I know. I felt something like that as well. Almost like I could almost stop my falling if I just flapped harder.
Ah well. At least we accomplished everything else we set out to do, right?
More food, refilled our water, scouted out a few locations for us to raid later. And we even found a parking garage we can look at in the near future. Now all we need is to get lucky and we'll have everything we could ever want.
Rechargeable transportation. That's something I could get behind.
We might need more cords...there's no way we're fitting a Tesla anywhere near here if we need to charge it up.
We'll worry about that when the time comes. Get some rest. Tomorrow's another day.
Yeah, I know.
June 18th - 17 pills left
Yes, yes, yes! We found...well, half of what we wanted today.
It's still better than never finding it at all!
I know, I know, I'm not complaining. Now it's just a hunt for the keys.
Still, at least we found one. That's something.
It certainly is. Now all we need to do is raid any nearby houses for the other half. I don't know how to hotwire a car, and the internet's been dead for a while now, so it's not like we could look it up.
I don't know either. But if you want to talk progress...
Yup! The both of us actually flapped today! Managed to stop our falls for about two seconds.
It was just so startling that I...forgot to keep going.
This just doesn't seem right, though. I mean, our wings are just too small to actually lift something as heavy as we are off the ground, let alone keep us airborne.
Are you doubting the results we got?
I'm more saying we shouldn't have gotten the results we did. It doesn't make logical sense.
Oh, and Yvonne lifting things with her mind, or Chris being able to grow things quickly makes perfect sense in comparison.
All right, miss sarcasm. That's my job. Quit horning in on what I do.
I'm not the one with the horn.
Hilarious. I still think this doesn't make sense. I mean, I'll take it, but it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
I understand where you're coming from.
...Grace, can we talk? I, uh, want to go down to my local Wal-Mart in the next few days so I can refill my prescription.
...Yeah, okay. I can see the point. You can go tomorrow, take the van you found. Pick up some food and water bottles while you're down there.
Thanks. I just...I know the sort of person I am when I'm not on my meds. I don't...I don't want to subject you all to that person again.
What, the sort of person that hunts down lions?
Yeah, the sort of person that doesn't think things through. I would rather be the semi-thoughtful soul I am now.
We'll watch the fort while you go get your medicine, Henry. And we have Skippy to watch over us, so there's that at least.
There's...another thing I want to discuss with you. C'mere, take a look.
...Oh, that's not good. You're out?
Yeah, had the last bit of meat just today. I might have to take up hunting. I would rather not, but...I get the feeling I might be just as bad without meat as I would be without pills.
Yeah, okay, I can see how that one might be a real issue...well, at least there's a city full of wild pets out there...
...That is a gruesome solution to our dog problem. One that I wish could say didn't appeal to me. But it does.
Get some sleep, we'll talk about it when you come back from your trip.
It's been gnawing at me for a little while now. No meat, whatsoever. I mean, I know I won't die of malnutrition right away and all. And you guys seem perfectly capable of living on just the green stuff.
We're tiny horses. Ponies, really. Even if we are all different subspecies, I wouldn't expect us to suddenly turn omnivore. Especially considering the reaction we had to even the slightest whiff of your grill.
...I moved it outside. I know I did.
Didn't really help. One smell and...
Okay, fine. I'll look into moving it further away. When I have actual meat to grill again.
There are other things we need to consider as well.
Oh?
Winter, for one. It comes really fast when it does. And I'm pretty sure the museum isn't insulated all that well. And the heaters aren't working either. Meaning we'd freeze at night.
Crap. We'll have to move to an apartment building, won't we?
Eventually, yes. When we find one. We can still use this place during the summer, but it won't do for winter unless we deface one of the exhibits to put up more insulation.
Well, let's compromise. How about we find a nearby apartment building that's well-insulated, see what it'd take to turn on the heaters in both whatever we find and this place, and go from there? Whichever is easier to boot back up, we'll do.
That sounds like a sound, reasonable, and logical plan. Except for the fact that all our solar panels are already here.
Eh, I'll go get more for wherever we end up.
Meaning you'll get to cart them up stairs again.
Joy .
...Are you...okay?
I just...I don't really want to have to go, y'know. I promised someone I would be here if they showed up. It's why I'm still here. This place is a landmark. It's easy to find.
You can't always stick to the plan. Sometimes the plan has to change to reflect reality. It's never as nice as you'd like it to be.
...Yeah. But we can at least try.
Author's Note
I have had one of those days today...
Okay, let's go down the list. New building for us to live in come winter?
Check.
Electricity checked out?
Check.
We made sure to go over all the stuff from said apartment?
Check. Still no Tesla keys.
Bummer. Did we find the electrical systems for this place?
Negative, we'll have to do that for both here and the new place tomorrow.
As well as figure out how many solar panels we can shove onto there, as well as how many it'd take to actually turn on the heating in any real capacity.
Or we could just stockpile blankets now.
While that's a solution, it's by no means a permanent one.
Hey, anything to make the job easier.
Let's keep going down the list here. Chris showing more aptitude with making things grow?
Check. Yvonne demonstrating more dexterity with that aura stuff she keeps flinging around?
Check. Dogs?
In line. For the most part. Any more escapees from the zoo?
Not that I've seen. Flying?
Still hurts to land at full speed. Working on not doing that. Any progress on finding a metalworking shop, so that ponies can pull the trigger?
None whatsoever. Your little meat issue?
...I'll work out something. Anybody new show up?
Not yet. We haven't even heard anything on the radio.
So in short, we have a lot to do, and little time to do it with. Cold weather will be here sooner than we'd think. Plus if someone else shows up, we'd have another mouth to feed.
We need to get the new place outfitted to hold not only us, but also all our stuff. And there's another thing we're going to have to do.
Oh?
Yeah. Stockpile water bottles and see to it we can store the stuff during the winter months, because if our reservoirs freeze solid...
That's an unpleasant thought. One that we'll need to prepare for. I'll look out for more bottles and an axe.
Why an axe?
To cut through the ice in case of emergency, duh. And chip it off and take it back to melt if things get really dire.
Oh. Okay, that works.
Vitamin supplements. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I can get the iron I'd need from them, keep me from going completely crazy over no meat.
And I'm sure there are a few other sort of vitamins you might do well with. I'm thinking B12.
Why? What's that one do?
Improve energy, might help you control your mood a little better.
Right, so iron and B12. List made, I'll go and get them tomorrow. Okay, you can take it from here, you know what you all did over here.
Yeah. So I found the route to the basement and discovered the main power lines. I don't know if we'd be able to adapt it to function with our solar. And even if we could, I'm pretty sure the power requirements for running this sort of place are immense.
It'd be the same wherever we went, you know. Actually keeping a building going is going to require quite a bit of power. We might need to set up a solar field somewhere.
Or we could use all the cords in the city to place solar panels on top of all the buildings nearby to keep just one of them going.
Idea.
Listening.
I'm pretty sure I saw a starting wind turbine in Lowes. You know we get quite a bit of wind, and it'd work at night or during stormy weather. We put a few of those up in an apartment on the outskirts...
...That actually sounds like a good plan. I'm pretty sure that with both a lot of solar and some wind energy, we'd be able to keep an apartment going during winter, or even a few houses.
Heck, we make sure it's got enough and is comfy enough, we could move into it on a permanent basis. The actual move will be annoying, though.
Yeah, probably. But you've got that van and that truck. We'd manage.
Oh, I also managed to actually take off from the ground! Came right back down, of course, but I think whatever muscles are in charge of flight are getting stronger the more I use them.
I'll have to try that myself. Oh, I just realized. We'd have to leave the farm...
We'll wait until winter comes around, when Chris can't grow anything anyways. Then we'll move and set up a new one around...wherever we end up in the spring.
Colorado has a spring?
Funny.
June 24th - Heavy lifting
Just...beat...tired...leave me...to die...
Oh buck up. It can't have been that bad.
Give me...a minute...
...Waiting...
There we go...caught my breath...and yeah, it was.
Oh?
Had to find their heavy lifting equipment at the Home Depot. Work out how to turn it on. Got lucky enough that one still had a charge in it.
Sounds pretty straightforward so far.
Then had to get out and push the damn thing into the container of the truck the rest of the way.
Okay, I can see where you might-
And then I had to push the damn thing out of the truck when I got where I needed to go. Was not easy. Tired now.
Fine, fine, you can rest. I'll fill in the rest of the diary entry for you.
Okay, so, for the record: the first thing we did was fill up our water today, then I went out to a neighboring apartment building as compared to the one we'll be taking over and raided it. There was a run-in with a few dogs, but Skippy was there to protect me, so it all worked out with a lot of growling. Yvonne says that there aren't any new signals yet, but she'll keep listening, and Chris is working his butt off on the garden, and it shows. Then this birdbrain went and did a lot of heavy lifting on his own.
Gonna...set it up tomorrow, if I can.
Get some bloody rest already. Or I'll knock you out.
Yes ma'am...
June 26th - An interesting development
You look happy.
As I should be! Found a construction site, including a rivet gun!
Does that...work?
It should. Otherwise we'll quickly find out when a windy day comes around. Already used it on the turbine's base.
Oh boy.
I also hit up Wal-Mart today and found something I wish I had thought of earlier.
Oh?
Jerky! Lots and lots of prepackaged, dried, salted meat! Stuff the mutts couldn't get at easily.
Oh! I...wish we had thought of that earlier.
So don't I! But it helps out a bunch . I don't have to cook it, and I can keep my meat-eating separate from you guys.
Skippy and I went raiding again today, found some water bottles and some dried foods. Small things, but it all counts.
Sure as hell does. What does Yvonne say about the signal?
She says its weird. She keeps sending out a message but not getting anything in response.
That is weird. Is she still staying on top of it?
Oh yeah. It seems to be getting stronger but nothing is coming from it. She only knows it's there because it's a change in the constant static from every other wavelength.
Well, let's see how it turns out. I mean, we're already not human anymore. Things can't get any worse.
I have no idea what the hell that thing is , but it doesn't feel right.
You're not the only one who says that. Yvonne says that it feels like a void. Chris says he feels hollow when he gets near it.
And you?
My skin crawls just thinking about it.
Well it's definitely a drone. It's not large enough for there to be a crew. The only questions that remain are, who's piloting it, and why?
Do you not feel weird when you get near it?
Oh no, I do. It's just a trickle up my spine, though. I don't know why.
Don't tell me you're going to investigate it.
No, I'm not going to look into the drone.
Thank goodness.
But I will keep an eye on it. We already had dogs and lions. I'd really rather there not be a new contender for us leaving.
...You're going to make some sort of hair-brained scheme to break it, aren't you.
Would I do something like that?
Yes, yes you would.
As a sidenote, I am neither licensed for explosives, nor know how to make them.
You would blow it up if you could.
Only if it proved dangerous. In which case I would not hesitate. But yeah, I can't, so I won't.
And things were going so well too.
Hopefully whoever's on the other end of that thing finds whatever they're looking for and has the drone leave soon. I'd really rather it not be a permanent thing.
Okay, new rule. No going anywhere within like a hundred feet of the drone. Hell, don't let it even see you if at all possible.
Why? What happened?
It took one look at me and started firing warning shots.
That's going to make traveling around the city a lot harder...
Upside is, though, it doesn't just shoot at me. I saw it shoot at some of the dogs as well, just to ward them off.
What is it even here for, do you know?
No clue, but we can track where it goes and what it does, so that we'll have a better idea. Here, give me that map of the city...yeah, it's moved to about here, last I saw.
You know what worries me?
What?
There has to be somebody on the other side of that drone. I'm of two minds as to who it could be. If it's someone who's still human, then...I mean, they have to be operating all those finicky controls somehow.
Yeah, I know. But if it's somebody who isn't...heck, I haven't seen anybody who wasn't changed yet. Granted, I have a pretty small sample size to be working with.
Either way, we have questions.
I'm not inclined to go looking for answers, though. Especially if all they are involves bullets being shot at me.
You might not have to wait that long. Assuming it isn't on automatic or just following a program, then there's a good chance there's somebody on the other end.
Yeah...Still, that feeling of just...wrongness doesn't make me want to go towards it with a 'we come in peace' sign anytime soon.
Bad news, though. We need water.
Sonuva...okay. We'll plan our route around it. Assuming it isn't actually at the reservoir tomorrow, this should be fine.
Well it only took us a week of searching.
Are you sure it was that long?
Felt longer. But we finally found a Tesla in one of the city's many abandoned parking garages.
Yeah, so, y'know, bonus for us.
Only to find that the keys we have for it don't work in unlocking it.
This just means there's another Tesla out there that these keys do work for, and that there's another set of keys out there for this one.
Just how many electric cars are in this city?
More than we'd thought, less than we can access.
Whatever. Made another run on some of the home improvement stores, found some jerky near the checkout counters. So, y'know, bully for me.
Hey, any port in a storm, right?
Yeah. It might be boring as all hell, but if it means I get the protein I need I'll take it. Oh, the drone moved.
Uh oh. To where?
Here, let me just...it's right about here, last I saw.
It...appears to be making its way to the local Best Buy.
...Huh, didn't notice that. Wonder why. I'll check in on it tomorrow, see if its near there or not.
Maybe its just some sort of...automatic military drone?
I have not heard of any drone this advanced. Granted, I don't think the public would have heard of such a thing, but my point stands. Humanity did not get that far into AI before it all disappeared.
Point taken. Which leaves us with our original questions. Who and why?
I'm not that desperate to be shot at while I get the answers.
July 1st - Good things come
Well I've finally mastered the art of the glide and the landing. Taking off is a bit more troublesome. Especially, I've noticed, if I'm weighed down by, say, any of my self-defense articles.
Why do you even carry that many guns around?
As if the occasional dog wasn't enough of an answer to your question, I'm not sure the freaking zoo is empty.
Surely we would have seen something by now.
Unless they're just waiting until there's nothing left to eat in there.
Morbid thought. Anyways. Better news. Chris can't explain how, but our garden is almost ready for harvest.
Yeah, that doesn't feel right at all. Something like that happening? Humanity would have paid through the nose for that. World hunger? Solved with a little pony looking after your crops.
Are you...
What?
Are you looking a gift horse in the mouth?
...Not cool.
You have to admit it is a little funny.
Not as much as you seem to think it is.
I'm gonna remember that for a while...oh! Yvonne says that the weird static is gone. So maybe the drone is too?
Maybe. I'll look into it tomorrow. I have other plans for the next few days, mostly revolving around raiding again.
Oh?
Yeah. You'll like it, I'm sure.
We'll see.
July 3rd - Secret preperations
Not a whole lot going on at the home front today. Where were you?
Doing things. Busy. It's a surprise.
Oh?
Yeah, but you'll like it. Promise.
So you say.
I know. How hard do you think it would be to convince the others to come with us down to the stadium tomorrow?
Not very, why?
I have a plan. I want to keep it a surprise.
Fiiiiine. Keep your secrets. But you better tell us tomorrow.
I won't need to tell you anything, it'll all be made perfectly clear.
Wow, today was awesome and I don't have long before the drugs kick in. Grace is downstairs with the others, including Skippy, so I only have my memory to go off of today. Let's hope I remember everything.
So yesterday I spent most of my time getting everything together in the stadium for today. A generator, a portable screen, a projector, the works for movie playing. Raided a few stores for the latest in movies, and moved a grill over as well.
No, I wasn't gonna cook meat. Kebabs! Veggie ones! For them at least. I had another grill downwind for myself, even if the only thing I did manage to heat up on it was warm hot-dogs. It was better than nothing.
Today was spent kicking back, relaxing, and watching the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, I like the movies, what of it? I made veggie kebabs for them and grilled 'em, and had my hot-dogs off to one side. But the best part was yet to come.
Once the sun set I made sure the fire extinguisher was at the ready and showed off the other thing I'd found yesterday. Fireworks!
Granted, I had no idea which ones were which, so there were a few cases where I mixed up what order they were supposed to go in. Plus there was more than one instance of one of the sparks nearly setting the dry field on fire. We won't be doing that part again.
I still had one more thing to pull out, though. Once I'd set off all the fireworks for them, I walked back over and gave the little speech I'd been thinking of all this time.
"We must assume, if we haven't turned back yet, that this...is permanent. That there is no way to revert. That we will forever be something other than human. But that doesn't mean we have to forget who we were. Humans were the apex predators for two simple reasons. Our ability to use tools, and our sheer, stubborn, determination. We may have lost one of those. But as long as our human spirit burns brightly within us, we will overcome this. We will manage to recover. We may have been scattered to the winds of time itself. America may no longer be. The world may have lost its conflict for the time being. But the former human race...will live on. As long as one person is willing to fight for it, and remember . We will scavenge out a living, eke out an existence, here, in the city, for as long as it remains standing."
There was silence for a few minutes, and then Grace came up and...I think the term is nuzzled me. Everyone was touched by the speech and didn't speak for a little bit. I think that's what they were doing when we came back, actually. Talking about my words.
Anyways. It's late. The drugs are kicking in. Henry out.
Okay so we have like...most of the open lawn around us surrounded in corrugated steel. I'll work on the barbed wire in a bit. Took longer than I thought it would to modify the gloves. Had to find a strong enough pair of scissors to just nip one finger of them off.
Still, the walls do give us the feeling of actual security now.
Glad to hear it. Oh, and I think I have an idea as to how we're going to get a door installed.
Oh?
Yeah, it involves a piece of steel rolling to one side and a latch to hold it in place when it's closed.
That sounds workable.
Yup. Just gotta find the materials for it.
I think there's someone else in the city.
Oh?
Yeah, I found evidence of someone else having scavenged the house we hit up today. Skippy kept sniffing around, but we didn't find anyone.
Hmm. Interesting. We'll have to see if we can't find them. Once our defenses are up and all that. Yvonne hear any new signals?
No, and we didn't hear anything on our way back either. But I couldn't help but feel like we were being watched, all the way back.
...Okay. So you're gonna go in like, the complete opposite direction tomorrow. I'm gonna try and get our defenses finished up. Then the day after, we'll hit up wherever you went again, see if we can't draw him or her out.
...That works. Get some rest.
Yes'm.
July 8th - Sometimes I feel like...
Okay, so today we went back to where Grace said she was being watched. And yeah, I got that same vibe when we were in that area.
I knew it wasn't just me!
Plus every other house we came across was ransacked already. Clumsily as well.
They probably did very well for being in a new form.
Yeah, I'll grant you that one. So I can only come to the conclusion that there is in fact somebody else in the city. Either they've suddenly appeared, like Yvonne and Chris...and to some extent, I did, or they came here. Neither one tells us anything about the person in question.
How are we going to learn anything about them when they hang back behind whatever wall they've built themselves?
Okay, A, walls are useful and time-consuming to build. A real energy sink. And B, I have a plan.
This sounds...well it promises something.
We'll walk into that area again, not trying to hide what we're doing at all. We won't call out for him, but we can still be obvious. Then we'll put a whole day's worth of food out for him to find. Good faith gesture. Might get him to realize we're not his foes and get him to reach out to us.
...You know, that might actually work. But flip it for me. What if it doesn't? What if he's super paranoid like a certain feathery beaked being?
Well then, it's a good thing I don't go anywhere without my handgun.
You are not going to shoot someone just because they're there.
Of course not!
Thank you.
Now if they start acting super threatening and try anything to either of us while we're out, then yeah. I probably will.
...You are not selling me on this.
Look, let's not be pessimists here. We're going out to meet somebody new and try to get them to join our little commune here.
...Fine. Let's just hope you're right.
July 9th - Being alone was better.
So hey. Henry here. Grace is...recovering. We didn't exactly have the gentlest of meet-ups with our newest...friend. Yeah, let's call him a friend. That's being generous enough, I think.
God...where do I even fucking begin?...
So we went to the block of the city where it felt like we were being watched. We left out our food and water for whoever it might have been. We made sure to be plenty visible and make enough noise to where we couldn't be mistaken for anything else, counting on whoever it was being friendly.
The next thing I know, something big and black and hole-filled has jumped out of a shadowy building and is on Grace. It took her a few moments to throw this thing off of her, and that was when I realized that except for the fucked-up buglike nature it had, it looked to be similar in shape to the stuff the others have turned into.
So, my second response was to lower my gun. It turned to me and let out a hiss, an honest to god hissing noise. It was more instinct that I responded with a louder cry than his, and he actually seemed cowed by it.
"The fuck is your problem?" Grace asked as she looked herself over. The buglike thing turned to her and said something in a language I barely recognized.
Bloody hell, but what in the fucking world is a Frenchman doing in Denver?!
"Oh great," I moaned. "We've got a tourist."
He turned to me and said something that I didn't quite catch. Hey, French was years ago.
"Well I'm pretty sure we don't need to take him with us, so..." Grace said as she edged away from the creature.
"Grace, what is your issue with him?" I asked her. "He's a survivor like us. We should try to take him in and see if we can't reach a common understanding."
"I don't know, how about the fact that he fucking attacked me?" Grace said. "He just gives me the creeps. Can we go?"
Apparently, whatever this guy had been turned into seriously weirds out ponies. Or other people in general. I have no problem with him. I tilted my head in confusion, before sighing and turning to the new guy, saying the one sentence of French that I still recalled. "Parle vous Engles?"
"Oui," the frenchman said. "I read up on it before coming. What is your name?"
"I'm Henry," I said, pointing to myself. "This is Grace."
"And you creep me the hell out, acting the way you did," Grace said as she stood further away from the bug-looking creature and closer to me. "Henry, can we go?"
"Apologies," the creature replied. "It was, how you say...instinct. I could not control myself until you, Henry, screamed at me. That made me regain control."
"See?" I said to Grace. "Perfectly reasonable answer. Don't think I haven't seen you or the others fighting your bodies about eating the lawn."
Grace blushed and looked away. "Fine. Fine. But don't expect a warm fucking welcome if you come back with us."
"Anything is better than nothing," the frenchman quipped. "Oh, my manners, forgive me. My name is Dominique."
And that was how four became five. Though two of us are up here in the top of the museum away from all the ponies below. I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I at least can stand being in the same room as the guy.
It's getting late, we should get some sleep.
Oui, mon ami.
So uh. Dom and I found...something, when we made our usual water run.
It looks like one of your Hollywood-inspired summoning circles, or what have you.
Yeah, I agree with you. There was definitely a set of symbols around the interior edge of the circle, along with one in the center. I don't know how it got there. It wasn't there the last time I hit up that reservoir for water. And based on the fact that it hadn't...washed away or anything yet, I'd say it's recent.
There must be someone else in the city who caused it. The questions remain as to how and why, though.
Yeah, no kidding. Yvonne says that weird signal is still active. Apparently the weirdest part is that it's not saying anything, but just making beeping noises. Which of course reminds me of that drone...
Drone?
We had a run-in with a mechanical shooty robot.
Ah. I see. I put the blame on you Americans for making them in the first place.
Yeah, I accept that blame. Anyways. I have a plan.
Go on.
Tomorrow, you, Yvonne, and I, we'll go out cruising in the Tesla. We'll see if we can't pinpoint a source for that weird signal.
Are you certain about taking me along as well? You know my presence...unnerves the others.
Look, it's either taking you with, or leaving you behind. In either case, you're going to be around someone who may not like your presence. I figured that if you were around me, you'd at least be around one person who doesn't mind what you look like. I mean for chrissake, I'm half-lion, half-eagle. I am in no position to judge you. Especially considering you didn't ask for this.
...You make a compelling argument, my avian friend. Very well, I shall go with you.
Good. Now, another thing I want to talk to you about. Don't think I haven't noticed that you haven't eaten a single thing.
...I simply am not hungry. I do not know why. But I am not. Maybe this form I am in does not need to eat as much?
...You know, I would call bullshit, but I don't think I know enough about you to say that for certain. Will you at least try to eat something in the morning? I worry about everyone. You included. You may be the newest addition to our little group, but you used to be human, same as us.
Your concern is touching. Very well. I will try to eat something in the morning.
Thanks. Okay, tomorrow we signal hunt. Maybe we'll get lucky. Who knows.
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July 12th - Signal hunting shouldn't require a blowgun
Okay, so we learned a few things today.
The most important of which was how to uncouple your truck from its cargo.
Yeah, because the radio Yvonne uses needs electricity to function, so we couldn't exactly just pick her up and take her with us. So it was just me and Dom in the cab of the truck, cruising around town, looking for signals. We did get her to tell us what frequency to look for, though.
And that was about the end of the good news.
I thought you enjoyed looking at the city?
...Okay, so today was mildly enjoyable. Still frustrating though.
Yeah, no kidding. The moment we got closer to wherever the signals were coming from, they just...stopped. Once that happened, I stopped too, but I couldn't...see anything, or anyone, who might have been causing them.
It is most likely that they heard your truck coming and turned off whatever they were doing.
Yeah, probably. Especially considering once we left for the stadium to practice our flying, the signals came back. I think tomorrow we'll go looking for them again.
This does beg a question, my avian friend.
Yeah?
Two, actually, now that I think on it.
Well go on.
Why are they sending out signals in the first place? And why do they stop when we draw close to them?
...Great, now you got me thinking about it. As if I wasn't paranoid enough.
Apologies, I just thought it was an avenue worth thinking about.
Well it is, but it also shouldn't be. God. Maybe I should go out armed next time, just to be safe.
You can? Oh right. Talons. You Americans and your guns.
Hey, guns have saved us before. These scars could have been a lot worse.
I'll take your word for it. Let us get some rest. Tomorrow we shall find out who or what is doing this.
Agreed.
July 13th - Signs of life
Okay, this is getting fucking ridiculous, this is.
I agree, my American friend.
We go to where we heard the signal yesterday, we poke around, what do we find? Something that closely resembled a firepit. Which, granted, I don't mind anyone making. But then there was that...circle of runes or whatever the hell those squiggles were.
Whoever is giving off this odd signal is responsible for the rune circles we have been seeing.
You would think, with this sort of trail, they would want to be found. But no. Of course not. I booted the radio up again and we couldn't find hide nor hair of that signal at all today.
It could just be that whoever it is is skittish.
I just want to know who it is and how they're leaving those circles around! I mean, have you seen most of the people these days? Hooves! Granted, Yvonne can do that...thing. She's getting really good at it too. So maybe she could move...I dunno, a candle and do something like this. But she's been manning the radio!
So not only is it likely to not be her doing this, but it still does not answer the question of what their purpose are.
Could just be something like our spray-paint markings to denote which houses we've raided.
Could be. I don't get that feeling, though. These feel...deliberate for a different purpose.
Yeah, they weird me out as well. Upside though, I saw the others actually pay attention to you today!
It would seem familiarity removes fear.
And I saw you skipping breakfast.
...I am not hungry. I do not know why.
We really need to find out what you eat. And how often you eat. What, are you part snake now? No, that wouldn't explain why you look sorta like a bug.
I will try to take note of when I feel hungry for you. And when I stop feeling hungry.
That'd help. I'd like to be able to pin it down. Hell, my diet as it is unnerves the others. Your lack of one freaks me out. Mostly because I'm not sure if we're doing it right.
Understood. So. Tomorrow we hunt again?
Yeah, but I think I might go it alone. I'm...half-decent at the flying. I'll get close in the cab, then fly around and see if I can't pick up signs of someone in the city.
I see. And what will I do?
Play lookout. Just in case whoever it is comes here instead. And yes, that means you and Yvonne will have to get along. If need be, I want you to help out Grace with the raiding as well. She's starting to have to go out further and further to get anything.
...Understood, my friend. I will try to do as such. I just hope they will let me.
Today has been awesome! It really has!
Okay, so after taking care of Skippy today, I squeezed myself into my dad's pickup truck, making sure I wasn't sitting or lying on any part of my anatomy. It hurts more than you'd think to lie on your wings or tail.
With Skippy to defend the home front, I was off to see about procuring a truck that we could use to become mobile. Like hell I'm going to stay around here once the water gives out. I don't know how long that'll take, but the Internet has finally started lagging way too much to be of any real use. Only a matter of time before it gives out. Soon after will be the power, followed by water. I need to plan to head up to the reservoirs soon.
Which will be easy in my brand spankin' new 18-wheeler! I made it down to the truck stop to see about eight of the things, all with a trailer attached to them, sitting near the small building. The first thing I did was look in the stop itself to see roughly that many sets of keys hanging around the place. Along with quite a few sets of clothes. Guess whatever took care of everybody else didn't think about the clothes. Or keys. Yoink!
I eventually put all the keys to their respective trucks, and truck number five had a surprise for me.
It wasn't a stick shift.
I was blown away by that. I did not know you could have trailer-trucks that didn't use a stick and clutch to shift gears! Guess that bit of research yesterday wasn't useful after all. Plus when I opened up the back to check the cargo, there wasn't any! I could not be more lucky with this truck!
Of course, then I had to drive both vehicles back...Let me tell you, walking that far was an experience in this new body. One that I hope I don't experience again. I tripped more than once, but I wasn't about to let something like that stop me.
I would have both pickup truck and trailer truck, and nothing was gonna get in my way. I parked the trailer truck on the main road, while I eventually parked the pickup truck back at my neighbor's place. By the time I got back, it was late enough for me to have to cook for myself and feed Skippy again. I'm just glad he's still housebroken.
Yes, you mutt. Y'hear that? We're gonna be mobile soon.
Tomorrow I plan to take the pickup truck out to get some kibble provisions for Skippy. And I should probably see into another matter as well...
Whatever, it's late. Get some sleep, dog.
Welp, it's official. We're either leaving as soon as possible, or not going anywhere.
The predators from the zoo finally broke out. I wonder what was keeping them.
...Scratch that. They were probably just waiting for their food to run out. And in this case, their food was everything else .
The only ones I'm actually seeing are the lions. I'm guessing they already killed and ate everything else from the zoo. That, or the other animals starved to death in there. One of the two.
...Dammit all, lions are mostly nocturnal. They hunt at night, and I sleep at night.
All right, two seconds. I've got a plan.
Back now. Okay, so the others might have been wondering what I was doing, but it was simple. The only real hole in our defenses was the glass doorways out front. So I parked my 18-wheeler right in front of the front door, to give the impression that there's nothing of interest here to the lions. Hopefully it'll work.
And the day started off so normally as well. We'd finally completed the garden, and I'd been just about ready to go out and scavenge some supplies when I saw a lioness walking down the road. I immediately pulled a one-eighty and told everybody else that we weren't going anywhere. I pulled the front gates shut again and looked around for other weaknesses.
Namely, the adjacent parking garage. It's a free road into and out of the museum grounds for the lions. If I'm gonna do something about that, then I'm gonna need something to keep them from getting at us. Heck, the entire grounds are pretty much open to them...
Hmm. I could make a wall of cars to keep them at bay...nah. That wouldn't hold them out for very long. Plus they'd just climb over it.
Hmm. Oh, I know.
The best defense is a good offense.
Come tomorrow, I'm going to go on a bit of a hunt. If I thin their numbers enough, they'll leave us alone and move on. We'd be more trouble than we're worth.
Now I just hope I can do that and leave home base undefended for as long as it takes me...I'd really rather not lose anyone to the lions.
"This transmission hopefully goes out to everybody in the Denver area." "Assuming there is anyone in the Denver area to receive it." "If you are out there braving the night and wondering how you'll survive the animals loose, you don't have to be alone." "We have our own defender. He's willing to help out anybody that needs it." "Presumably. Did you clear this with him?" "He helped out us, why wouldn't he help out anyone else?" "Alright, fair point." "If you need a place to stay, come to the Denver Museum of Science. It's safer here."
June 12th - 23 pills left
Fucking ow ! Getting stitched back together hurts !
Well it was your decision to go out after the lions in the first place...
Yeah and I stand by it! They were a goddamn threat! They didn't hurt nearly as much as having to sew myself back together! Jesus, why didn't we find the damn anesthetic first?
Well, if you were numb, you wouldn't know when you had or hadn't managed to poke yourself in the right place...
Dammit Grace, stop making sense.
So yeah, for anybody who's reading this, Grace is with me criticizing my journal entries and giving me the stink eye, generally.
You could have told us you were on a medication, you know. We would have understood.
Yeah, right up until I ran out and snapped at somebody. Then you would have been angry. I had a plan.
Oh really?
Yeah, break back into Wal-Mart and break into the pharmacy in search of some.
That's...a half-decent plan. You'd probably be better off searching your local one, though.
Yeah, which I wasn't going to do until I was sure you guys were safe ! I may not know you all very well, but I'm not just gonna throw you all to the lions! I'd have to be less than human to do that!
You know, technically none of us are human anymore, and you are part-lion...
Oh shut it, you know what I mean.
And in case anyone is curious, it wasn't much of a battle that ended up giving me these wonderful scars. I brought my guns and cleared their little den in one of the parking garages relatively quickly. There were just a few stragglers is all, and they got the jump on me. I didn't know lions could move that fast.
How else would they hunt?
Yeah, alright, fair enough. And I'm back on my medication again, taking it like I should. Once I don't need these half-assed stitches anymore, I'm going back to my local Wal-Mart for a refill on my meds. I might just take all of the stuff that matches what I'm taking, just to give myself more time.
Still, that's a stopgap measure at best. One day I'm going to run out. Then all of you are gonna have an easily irritable, confrontational griffon on your hands.
We'll deal with it. By then you'll have made up for being such a moron.
Yeah? Here's hoping.
June 19th - ??? pills left
Well, I don't know if these pills will work. They...should.
You filled your bottle full for a reason, I assume.
Yeah, they were there on a shelf. Thankfully. But, uh, they weren't for me.
Meaning?
They're larger than my usual fare. Meaning more potent. They might not have the same effect. Or they might have a more intense effect.
I wish we weren't guessing. Where's a doctor when you need one?
Probably caught up in whatever this change is. And I couldn't find any meat. I did pick up a hunting rifle and some ammo for it.
Oh, so you reconsidered my idea?
More like, I know that deer come through my home neighborhood every now and again. I can still hunt, I just have to make sure that whatever is on the other end of my gun isn't a pony first.
Fine, I suppose your idea has merits too. So did you bring us anything else?
Some dry food, a couple of containers for water. Couple of pillows. Basically I grabbed whatever I thought was useful at the time.
I'll have to go see.
And you didn't drink yourself into insensibility while I was gone this time, so we're making progress.
Yeah, the others stopped me from doing that.
...What?
I'm waiting for you to take one.
Oh, right, yeah. Okay, lets see how my body reacts to a five milligram dose.
...Anything?
...Nothing outside of the ordinary. And it takes time for me to get sleepy anyways, so I wouldn't know right away. G'on, go talk to the others. There's nothing exciting going on up here.
Fine. And just so you have it on record, there's nothing exciting going on around here, either. I looked for the keys today, couldn't find them. And I tried flapping again as well, didn't get very far. We saw nothing more than the occasional stray.
Fine, fine. I hear you. Take care down there.
You as well, you big lug.
June 23rd - Setting up the winter house
Good news first, I assume.
Yeah, that'd be best.
Well, there was plenty of Iron, B-12, and even Protein supplements down at Wal-Mart. Picked up all of the ones on the shelf and stuck them up here.
That'll help, hopefully. What's the bad news?
I looked into the wind turbines I was talking about. Home Depot has a lot of them in their store. The really good ones, though, look like they'll be...involved. Plus they'll need space apart from each other, otherwise they'll hit each other.
How involved?
Put it this way, if you all were human and I had all of your help, maybe we'd be able to get one up.
Well Yvonne has that glowing thing she can do...
That...that might actually help. Assuming she has control over it.
Yeah, she's been using it to do things like hold a fork, operate the radio, things like that. I think she's gotten used to whatever it is pretty quickly.
Gonna have to assume its a consequence of being turned into not only a pony-like lifeform, but one with a horn. I don't see either Chris or you being able to do it, and I wouldn't know where to start, even if I could.
That's probably a fair assumption. And besides, you got wings and the closest thing to hands we've seen yet.
True. Okay, I'm gonna need to make use of the heavy equipment at the Home Depot to move...all the wind turbines, and then put them on the truck as well. Because there is no way I am trying to move any of them in the van.
That makes sense as well. Oh! I managed to take off today. For all of three seconds.
Still, that's progress! We'll be actually flying in no time, I'm sure. ...Just recalled that I'm gonna need to make a water run tomorrow.
Yeah, we are getting pretty low. And we should probably start looking for more supplies soon as well, just to keep our kitchen topped off.
Okay, so tomorrow we refuel. The day after is when I take some wind turbines to our picked out place for the winter.
And some solar panels. Can't forget that. Not every day is windy.
Yeah, yeah. Get some rest, Grace.
You too, Henry.
You know what I said yesterday about killing me?
I don't think you did...
Anyways, I take it back. Kill me today .
Oh, it can't have been that bad.
You're half-right. Getting the turbine put together was just a giant jigsaw puzzle, and I was always good at those.
See?
Getting it upright , on the other hand...
Oh.
Yeah. Not easy. Not fun. And the fun didn't stop there! I also had to make sure it was anchored correctly, so it wouldn't blow over the next time a strong breeze came through!
So what did you do?
Temporary measure, surrounded the base with some large, heavy stones. There are holes in there for some bolts, I'll have to see about actually driving some into the ground to keep it stable. I'll look into it when I'm not dead .
On a...lighter note, I actually managed to take off and fly around a little today.
Wait, really?
Just for like a minute, tops. Came back down when my wings were tired.
Awesome all the same! I'd have done some wing practice myself, but kinda sorta wore myself out already.
Yeah, I heard. How are the drugs treating you?
It's going okay, I suppose. I still crave some meat, but it's not as bad as it used to be. Think I might raid Wal-Mart for anything that survived. I don't expect a whole lot, but you never know.
Yvonne thought she heard something on the radio today, but she couldn't get a fix on it.
Still, that's a good sign. We might not be alone in the city.
Get some rest, you. Tomorrow is another day.
Yes'm.
July 2nd - Alone in the city again
Okay, so I figured out that the drone thing is gone now. Dunno what it was after, but it's gone now.
Well at least we won't have to worry about being shot at randomly. That's a good thing.
Yeah. So I went ahead and took our water jugs to the reservoir to be filled up. I also marked some new houses for us to raid, and found some spray paint. I marked the ones we have raided as well.
You'll have to show me. That sounds useful.
Yeah. So another thing I did was some scouting around, and I found a bigger, better map of the city down at city hall. Lemme show you.
Huh. Okay. So?
So I was thinking, here. The stadium. You and I could practice our flying, take-offs, gliding around there. Large open space. It'd make the most sense, right?
...That's not a bad idea, actually. Okay, sure. We'll do that one of these days. Raided a home with Skippy watching my back. Think whoever owned it had a dog, there was kibble all over the place. Guess their dog got into it and scattered it everywhere. He couldn't stop eating it.
Yeah, I don't want to imagine what'll happen when we run out of the stuff. But we've got a lot just lying around, we should be good for a little while.
No new signals, and Chris has harvested our garden and planted some more. We'll see if this is a regular thing or just a fluke.
Yeah, if he can look after our crops and have them constantly come up more often, then we'll not run out of food anytime soon. Or, you guys won't.
Yeah, I know. Big scary carnivore.
Omnivore. I can still eat veggies and fruit. I just need meat as well.
Lucky.
Oh really? I'm only lucky for as long as I keep myself supplied, you know. You lot will last a lot longer than I will.
...Let's not think about that. Get some rest.
Yeah, seeya tomorrow.
July 5th - Base established
Okay, so. Today I made the decision that we're going to need some actual defenses. Like better walls.
We noticed.
Hey, I'm just saying. We got lucky with the lions thing. Who knows when some bigger, badder thing will walk around in the city?
And we've heard that before as well. I just wish your method of protecting us didn't look so slapdash.
Well when it's only me building!
I know, I know. Can you at least make it possible for us to easily get in and out?
Making it easy for us to get in means it'd be easier for other things to figure out how to get in as well. We have to strike a balance. I mean for you and me it'd be simple, we'll be able to fly in and out one day.
Assuming our practice continues to go well, yes.
And then if I make it so that I can open it easily, then I can just take the job of gatekeeper.
And what if the others need to get in or out while you're not around?
...Yeah alright, fair enough. Something that'd be easy for everyone to work. I can try. Maybe a simple strong latch.
It'd be interesting to see how you'll work that into your steel plates and barbed wire plan.
It's not that bad, handling them. You just have to be really careful with the barbed wire, so that you don't cut yourself on it. I might look into modifying some work gloves so that I can handle it without worry. In fact, I think that's what I'll do tomorrow.
I'm glad we're at least finally thinking about defenses now. You have offense covered.
Yup! Okay, time to rest I think.
See you tomorrow.
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July 7th - Rudimentary defenses do nothing...
Gah fucking dammit! I knew I should have picked up some bug spray when I saw it!
What? What's the matter?
Fucking yellowjackets, that's what! Can't stand the little bastards. I just...
...Are you...are you afraid of the little bug?
Apiphobia, Spheksophobia, and a general hatred of buzzing insects. I'm fine when they're in a game or something like that, but I cannot stand the little bastards when they're right in front of me. Or anything that looks like a bee or wasp. To include yellowjackets.
It's tiny! It's barely a thousandth of your mass!
I hate all flying things with stingers with a passion greater than the fiery pits of hell itself.
Look, where did you see it?
They were making a hive in a tree on the grounds. Well I guess I can't go over there anymore. Not unless I find a fucking flamethrower.
Please don't tell me you have one of those.
Sadly not. Hey, maybe the military base will. I should go check.
No, you should not. You do not need a flamethrower.
The tree full of bees would beg to differ.
Bees are useful, they make honey.
They also scare the piss out of me. I am not going anywhere near that tree.
Look, just...just ignore it, okay?
I'll try, but if a bee shows up in here I am getting a flyswatter and killing it.
...You really are afraid of them, aren't you?
What was your first clue?!
They won't attack unless you threaten them. So just don't go anywhere near them and you'll be fine.
...It's not working.
Get some sleep.
I can't! Not with those winged demons around!
You say that, but I know your pills knock you out eventually. Five, four...
What are youuuu...
Good night. Don't worry about the bees.
July 10th - A body's natural responses.
Okay, so. Today I have learned that my newest...friend up here, elicits a response from everyone but me. Even Skippy doesn't like Dominique.
I really don't see what their problem is. The guy's just lost and confused. Sure he looks a little creepy. But he used to be human like the rest of us.
Took him out to the stadium where Grace and I practice our flying, and today I managed to almost actually take off, sustain flight, and land. It was the last part that tripped me up a little. Grace didn't manage it either, though I think she was more focused on Dominique watching us than flying.
She hung back while I looked him over, wondering what sort of body he even had. That was when I learned that he's more than a little buglike. He's got a shell on his back, and when he opened it, I could see the weirdest looking pair of wings underneath. Who knows. Maybe he'll be able to fly as well one day. It'll probably make a hell of a noise, though.
The garden is doing well, though Chris like all the rest sorta stopped and stared when Dom and I checked up on it. Another few days and it'll be ready for harvest. And Yvonne says that there's still another signal out in the city somewhere, though it's weak. So maybe we'll find someone else in the next few days. Who knows.
I took Dom out on a evening raid after the flying practice and all the base check ins, and while we didn't get much done, I did learn a bit about him. Apparently he was on a tour of America's capitol cities and had just hit Denver when...well. I filled in the rest from there.
He'd apparently been on his own for about a week in his new body, not fully in control. Now though, he says he's back to his old self. Well, as much as his old self can be anyways.
Tomorrow I'll need to make another water run. I'll take Dom with me and we can work out things we need to do then. I don't even know where he went. All I know is he's up here somewhere...Screw it, I'll find him in the morning.
Writing this one alone today. Well, not exactly alone, but I'm not back at the base for it. There's a good reason for that.
I, uh. Well. I packed up my things just in case I actually found something and wanted to take a picture or the like of it, to prove a point. And I hunted the signal a little more.
I was not expecting to find more pony-like life forms.
Okay, so, as we've noticed, everyone has their own coloring. That didn't stop being true for these guys. The one with a horn is violet with a blue mane and tail, and green eyes. The one with wings is orange, with a yellow mane and tail, and also green eyes. The regular pony is red, with a blue mane and tail, and blue eyes.
Every single one of them has a mark on their butt - Sorry, I've just been informed it's a flank. Also, the correct terms for them all are unicorn, pegasus, and 'earth pony'.
...Yes, I am making a log of this. Did you think I wouldn't?
...So that the others will believe me.
...Yes, there are others around here.
Anyways!
It took me most of the day to convince them that I wasn't going to hurt them. It didn't help that they'd apparently seen me tooling around with Dom the other day. Apparently all ponies are skittish around...whatever he's turned into. I had to spend hours assuring them that I was myself. Which mentally raises a few warning bells as to what Dom's turned into in my mind.
Still, I noticed that they had fresh food and water, and when I asked where they got it from, they clammed up.
...Oh? Okay. Apparently they'll be willing to tell us when I lead them back to the others tomorrow. Which is promising.
...I asked them about the rune circles I've been seeing around, and they said that they were responsible, but that they'd tell me about it tomorrow as well. There's a lot of things they'll have to cover tomorrow, apparently. I hope...actually, I can just make a list.
...What? You all don't make a list of important things so that you don't forget them?
...That's what I thought. And my memory's not that great to begin with. I was getting better about it before I became this. Anyways, that list.
Okay, runic circles, where they're getting the fresh food from, oh, and what they're even doing here to begin with. Check, check, and check. Okay! So tomorrow, you three are going to tell us a lot of things.
Get some sleep. It's relatively safe out here, and if something bothers us, I'll wake up and deal with it.
