Jason was troubled at where he found himself. The area was completely deserted. But it wasn't exactly "dead". The building he was in, had been recently built when he had first entered it. Yet, it looked years old. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere there hadn't been a breeze able to move it around. All of the connecting doors to this area, which was a large lobby area, with tables, a snack bar and a few dedicated, study rooms which had walls of glass on their lobby side. There were even animal tracks in some places in the dust. Nature had started "re-claiming" this area as well.
Grass and even a few saplings had rooted in the larger mounds of dirt and dust that had accumulated in corners and at the bases of anything standing within this open air area. A few trees were obviously older than 2 or 3 years. It looked like Jason had been in stasis for much longer than that, it looked more like 20 0r 30 years to Jason. Jason looked up at the roof of the lobby area and saw the A.C. duct-work suspended there, with vines hanging in various places along their respective routes.
Evidence of where the mechanical room and wing, which would contain the air conditioning center for this building was pretty plain to Jason. Large, once brightly polished "hard ducting", now tarnished in places, had been suspended from the ceiling. It had been done like this, for practicality as well as aesthetics and was suspended by threaded steel bars. Some would have been for the temperature conditioned air supply and others would be for the return of air from areas to be re-conditioned, warmer or cooler. Where those "ducts" would have gone through the walls of the mechanical area, they just stopped. As if they had been laser cut off at the edge of what Jason thought had to be a ball of energy of some kind.
Jason also reasoned that there might even have been a generator there for electronics experimentation. Jason could think of many reasons for having a separate power generation unit within an electronics and engineering building. Just using science fiction horror movies as worst case scenarios, was reason enough to isolate electronics. Artificial Intelligence all by itself would be reason enough for Jason. Jason didn't like A.I..
Jason was beginning to feel really uneasy. Everything he had been able to piece together from the time he had awoken from stasis to this point, seemed to indicate an attack of some kind from above. And too, there was the visual evidence and what SSGT. Darvy had written in his suicide note about an earthquake.
"Could there have been some kind of rocket attack, that managed to penetrate this countries' air defenses?" Jason thought in horror. That thought sobered him and his attitude shifted from wary to combat aware. Jason consciously shifted his attitude from a cautious search, to an identify and kill the enemy stance.
Jason felt a tingling go from the center of the top of his head, radiating out to his extremities. Jason's vision became crystal clear, he could smell everything, the dust, the soil, the old paint on the walls, any scent the air might carry, Jason was smelling it, even tasting it. His hearing seemed to have someone turning up the volume for it, as distant sounds slowly became clearer.
Jason couldn't make out what was being said but, he could tell it was a voice speaking, from the cadence, tone and pitch of the sound vibrations he was hearing. Jason dropped into a crouch and stealthily climbed the wide, arching stairway, leading to the second floor.
Jason climbed the stairs, 2 at a time, as fast as he could, while being as quiet as possible. He didn't want to be caught in the open, on the stairs, by a hostile lookout. Topping the stairs, Jason spotted a trash receptacle, quickly putting it between himself and where the sound was coming from. Jason could now tell that the voices were coming from a branching hallway farther south of his current position. Jason had seen the building plans and knew that the hallway where the voices were coming from, had been designed to be dormitory housing. Judging from the volume, the two voices were talking while searching the area for anything of use to them.
The voices became a little more muffled and Jason reasoned that they had entered and were searching the room. Jason could smell the fumes from oily burning rags of the men's torch mingled with strong body odor. Jason moved stealthily to the corner of the hallway and quickly peaked around it. Jason could tell that the two men were in a room about half way down the hallway. There was no power, to Jason's knowledge so, it was dark in this area. Not completely dark but, dark enough that extra illumination would be needed to effectively search the area. He moved to, then flattened himself to the wall next to the door and listened, rifle at the ready.
"I'm tellin' ya, Fred. You don't need all them pencils. And how come ya got so many different colors?" One asked.
"I like 'em, Luke. I can draw colored pictures on some of this paper we found. I like this paper, it ain't got nothin' on it. Ya don't find much of this kind. It's all wrapped up and blank in packages. General Bradford might want some more of this stuff. It'd be great for writing orders down on." Came another voice speaking conversationally.
Jason had moved to the doorway, where the door had been pulled open into the hallway and was standing open. He could see the two men through the crack between the hinges, moving around in the room during their search.
"Shit, man, save some room for stuff we need. General Bradford wants us to find stuff we can use. Food, clothes, weapons or ammo. Pencils and paper ain't on that there list. Paper is okay, it can be used as kindling for a fire, but not too much man. The shit's heavy. I'm having the worst fuckin' day today. I shoulda' stayed in camp." The Luke voice sounded like he was complaining.
"But, I told you this building wouldn't have no food in it. It looks like this is some sort of fancy officer's quarters or somethin'. I ain't got no idea what they did here back then, but that fuckin' hole out there gives me the willies." Came the Fred voice.
"Hell yeah, me too. It's like it's been hit by one of them fiery meteor ball things. Kinda weird about the hole, though. I ain't never seen nuthin' like it. There ain't no mound around it or nuthin'. Like it just came down, melted everything it touched and vanished. It's too fuckin' weird for me. I'm gettin' outa' here. I'll meet ya at the pack-mule." The Luke voice was walking out of the open doorway.
Jason tensed with only an open wooden door between himself and the owner of the Luke voice.
Luke exited the room, making a hard right, heading for the exit where the two men had entered originally. Jason exhaled slowly. "Still a ghost to them." he thought.
"Right behind ya, Luke", Fred was saying as he was closing the door separating himself from a tensed to kill, Jason.
"Wha.." Fred was saying as he dropped the torch, grabbing over his shoulder, for his sawed off, pump action, shotgun trying to get it out and pointed at Jason.
Jason reacted from nerve memory more than any actual plan of action. Jason executed a blocking maneuver with his M-16, pivoted and drove the bayonet to the hilt into the side of Fred's neck and up into his brain. Fred went down like a sack of potatoes, falling against the door, causing it to slam.
Jason had to jerk his bayonet twice to get it free of Fred's scull as it had jammed there, having been thrust through the bone and into the brain.
As Jason pulled the bayonet free, three things happened simultaneously.
Light from outside, flooded the hallway from the exterior door opening, Luke had turned around and leveled his shotgun in Jason's direction. Jason had just started his desperate leap across the hall. The report from the business end of a 12 Ga. shotgun is deafening, especially when it's in a polished floor and locker walled hallway, that carries sound well under any circumstances.
To Jason, it felt and sounded like he had stuck his head in a cannon being fired. His lower half, from his thighs down in the back, felt the peppering of bird shot on his legs. He didn't know how bad he was hit, but knew he had been hit. He landed in a shoulder roll, sliding against the door of the room across the hall. Jason quickly scrambled forward as Luke, also ran forward a few steps closing on Jason, flattening himself against a door as well.
These hallways had been built in an school standard design, with wall lockers along both sides of the hallway for the students to store their school work and supplies in. Fortunately for Jason and Luke, it gave them about a foot of cover from each other.
"And I thought my day was already bad. Now, you, mother fucker! You managed to make it even worse. Now, I'm gonna ruin your fuckin' day!" Luke screamed angrily as he re-loaded.
Jason hated being pinned down. He felt his anger rising. The backs of his legs were burning and that made him even angrier. Jason peeked out quickly. Luke fired one barrel of the double barrel sawed off, moving a room closer. Jason moved the lever from semi, past auto, to 3 round on his M-16, dove across the hallway, squeezing off 2, 3 round bursts. Jason landed in a slide and ripped off a burst into Luke's chest, ending Luke's bad day, permanently.
Jason went to the open door way for light, so he could lift up his trouser legs to examine his wounds. He lifted his trouser legs which had been penetrated by the bird shot pellets and found only his untouched stasis suit legs, where he expected to have bleeding pellets wounds in his legs. "Damn. My lucky day. Hit, but not wounded. Bad ammo. That's a good thing, I'll take as a win." Jason mumbled, straightening his trousers legs.
Jason took the time to look around the area from his elevated position. Jason's memory told him that, he was looking south at what was a housing area for college students in his memory. Now, it was a dilapidated former housing area, where most of the buildings were in serious dis-repair or had collapsed completely. There was also evidence of extensive fire damage in some areas.
Jason was stunned to his core. What had happened to his world? Jason's head hurt, from trying to wrap itself around the reality that Jason had found himself in. The ringing from the sound of the firearms didn't help.
"Now, this is unexpected." Jason muttered sarcastically. "Now what, Jason? The fuckin' world is all screwed up. What The Fiddily Fuck!?" Jason had started pacing on the metal landing and muttering to himself. "Okay, Jason, you can do this. You're armed. So what, if everyone you've met so far has tried to kill you. Not your first rodeo there, pal. You're still alive and they won't be seeing any more days, good or bad." Jason drew a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "You improvised, adapted and over came being trapped below ground in a government funded lab. You improvised your attack and overcame your enemy. You are a Marine, Jason. And it looks like you've been activated."
If anyone would have been looking, they'd have seen him stand up straight, square his shoulders, take a deep breath, his eyes become hard, as his visage changed. His jaw was set and his jaw muscles could be seen flexing. He had the look of deadly determination.
Jason went back inside and rifled the two bodies. Then he dragged them downstairs and threw them into the weird bowl at the west end of the building. After tossing the two bodies off the edge of the floor, into the "bowl" made by a strange meteor, according to the two dead men, Jason went out to the pack mule to search it's load.
Jason had noticed that it was starting to get warm and from the position of the sun, it was early in the day. Jason thought back and figured that he must have gotten out of the stasis chair in the hours around midnight last night. Even with his short nap in the locker room, Jason figured he couldn't have slept more than an hour or two at most. Jason knew that he had probably only "cat-napped" because he didn't remember dreaming.
Jason stopped and sat on a chair in the "food court/study area" seating, opened his old ammo bag, took out the Kevlar vest and laid it aside. Jason stood, removed the harness he was wearing, put the Kevlar body armor on, then put the harness back on and buckled the belt again. He left the ammo bag on the table, heading outside to start bringing things in from the pack mule. He noticed that there was a bricked in room behind a counter where the main office of this building would have been.
Jason decided that he'd check that area, since it looked like it might be completely solidly walled in. The inner offices had windows high up on their exterior walls for natural lighting within the office. Jason found what any office within a college administration office might contain. There were copiers, typewriters and even an old mimeograph machine, the hand crank kind. There was also a large closet that would have been used for storage of office supplies and general storage of other things between the two large, windowed offices. It had no windows and large shelves on both side walls, each shelf was about 6 feet long, 3 feet deep and 18 inches between shelves. It had a crude look for being in a science and engineering building. But, was extremely sturdy and well built. The shelves themselves were made of 3/4 plywood and could be removed from the frame for storing taller items from on the floor or one of the lower shelves. The closest row of shelves to the exterior wall, had it's shelves cut in half so only half of a shelf could be removed. This would facilitate having the continued use of the shelf if a tall item needed half of the shelf space to remain standing.
Jason liked this room. It was defensible or could be made so, it was out of the weather. And the science and engineering building had been built with the latest building technology. So, it would be the most stable structure one could find, if there were an earthquake or apparently, even a nearby meteor strike. Judging from the "bowl" at the west end of the building. He noticed that even the block walls looked undisturbed after this area had gone through a serious earthquake. Evidenced by the many collapsed houses Jason had seen from the second floor, exterior emergency stairway.
Jason also knew that there would be roof access somewhere on the second floor and could be used for a lookout position, if he managed to find human allies out there somewhere.
Many of the campus buildings were mostly standing, having used more modern construction practices in their original construction. What Jason found of particular interest as far as buildings were concerned was the old sandstone rock construction clock-tower built in the early 20th century was actually still standing. Jason had made a mental note to check that building out, at some point in the near future.
He looked around the room, Jason thought. "This whole area would make a pretty good settlement, if I wanted to start one. But, this building will make a good base of operations, for now. This room would make serviceable quarters too, storage, bunk area, yeah, I could work with that. Now, to set up defenses."
Jason started by stacking tables and chairs in a rough funnel toward where he decided his "quarters" would be. While Jason had been searching the office, he had picked up a set of keys and one of them matched the lock on the closet doorknob.
There was a reception counter with an area behind it, containing a metal desk, separating the office doors from the courtyard area. Jason strengthened the counter by stacking the denser copiers and stacks of paper from their storage cabinets under the counter. Making the counter wall more resistant to bullets. Jason rolled the carts they sat on, into the area between the counter and the metal secretarial desk for the receptionist.
Jason used the inner cords on the 50' length of para-cord to set up trip-wires for "alarms" and set up a lethal spike bar fall, above the suspended ceiling with a trip-wire trigger across the funneling path to his quarters.
Jason had completely removed some shelving panels and their 2x4 framework from two shelves above the shelf Jason had decided would be his bed. Jason had gotten the idea for the swinging spike fall and it's construction, when he was removing the framing and a board split, leaving a sharp, angled spike nailed to one of long 2x4s. If tripped, the spiked board would swing down and drive the spike into the chest, neck or head, depending on the victim's height, hopefully. If it missed, it'd scare the shit out of someone. And triggering it, would trigger an alert fall inside Jason's quarters.
Jason had pushed all of the tables that had not been secured to the floor to the area in front of the counter as if they had been delivered and just haphazardly pushed in front of the office counter and over to the side of it, leaving a path between them to the entrance of the reception area behind the counter. Jason used any loose objects that he could find that would make noise and set up alerts with trip-wire triggers.
Jason took the 4, 3ft x 3ft sections of 3/4" plywood and placed them on top of the wall section that had the door in it, starting in the corners, building a 3' x 10' platform above the drop ceiling facade.
Jason did a more thorough search of the ground floor and found the nurse's station. He was happy to find a gurney there with a mattress on top of it that would be perfect for his bunk as padding. He took that and all of the medical supplies he could find. He was gratified to find that there was aspirin, ibuprofen and Diphenhydramine, for his allergies.
He hadn't had any symptoms up to this point. But he had been in an air conditioned and indoor filtrated air system, at least 2 layers deep, for he didn't know how long. Jason knew himself and from the flowering plants that he could see, the area was in late summer bloom seasonally.
That meant that soon, if not already, Cedar trees would be casting off their pollen and that was Jason's least favorite time of the year. He fully expected to have his eyes start watering, have a runny nose and feel like coughing at any time. Jason was one of those unfortunate individuals who had allergies to pollen from plants that bloomed in the spring and to Cedar which bloomed in the late summer and fall.
Jason had worked for hours on setting up his area to be as secure as he could make it with the items he had on hand. Jason looked over his new base of operations and was as satisfied as he could be with his handiwork, considering what he had to work with.
The thought that, the two men he had killed, might have something worthwhile stored in the burden of the animal, again occurred to him. Jason decided to check the pack mule's burden and went outside to get the animal.
Jason found the poor overburdened beast, tethered to a stake, standing with it's head down, eating grass. The poor animal didn't seem to notice Jason's presence as he walked up to the mule. When Jason started removing the items that had been secured to the pack-saddle, the mule snorted as if in thanks and resumed it's meal.
Jason made several trips between the pack mule and the study area on the first floor, placing bundles of goods the two men had gathered on their trek to this building. When Jason had removed the last burden from the pack mule, it snorted again rubbing Jason's shoulder with the side of it's head, as if thanking him for removing all of the weight from it's back. Once Jason had removed the mule's pack-saddle, he pulled the tether stake from the ground, took off it's bridle and released the animal to fend for itself or find it's way home if that's what the animal wanted.
Jason picked up the pack-saddle and returned to the "study area", laying the saddle on an empty table and began going through the bundles of items that the pack mule had been carrying. The first item that caught his interest was a large, heavy, wooden box. Upon opening the box, Jason found a complete re-loading setup. A press and dies for "re-sizing" brass ammunition cartridges and for reloading shotgun shells. There was also a powder measuring devise that was adjustable for the amount of powder used in the load, some lubricant and a block of beeswax. Jason immediately took these items and set them up in his "quarters" on one of the 3 remaining shelf stacks.
The next item was identical to the first box and had been stacked next to it. This box was compartmentalized into 3 different compartments. Jason Opened the box and was gratified to find two cans of gunpowder in the largest compartment, one was a fast burning powder generally used in pistol ammunition and the other was a slower burning rifle round powder. Jason had re-loaded his own ammunition as a young man with his father who was an avid re-loader and competition pistol range shooter. In the second compartment, Jason found an assortment of primers, pre-cast pistol bullets of 45cal, .38cal, .44cal, 9mm and some rifle bullets in .223cal. Jason also found 2 bags of lead shot, one was bird-shot and the other was buckshot in the bottom.
In the last compartment, he found a small cast iron bowl with three short legs, a small steel ladle with a wooden handle, clam shell molds for bullets, shot and fishing weights as well as some old lead wheel balance weights. Jason knew these last items could be used to melt lead and cast it into bullets, weights and shot pellets. In the bottom of this last section was a set of high quality counter weight scales with a full set of counter weights in grains, grams and ounces.
After finding and setting up the re-loading equipment in his quarters, Jason went back to where the two men had attacked him, picked up the spent shells and put them in his pockets. Then Jason sought out and found the roof access in a connecting hallway.
Jason climbed up the ladder and onto the roof to try to get "the lay of the land" and maybe see signs of habitation anywhere near. Jason didn't like being in groups of people congregating together, it made him nervous. But, Jason liked people in general as a whole, he just didn't trust them. He'd had too many bad experiences, with people he had thought he could trust, breaking that trust in one way or another. For him, it was safer to stay away from groups of people for the most part, and only associate with a trusted friend or two. Yet, the idea of being truly alone in the world didn't appeal to him in the least.
Jason walked around the roof and looked out at the surrounding landscape. It was obvious that some sort of natural disaster had occurred. Perhaps more than one. There had definitely been a major earthquake, with buildings in various states of collapse and lots of fallen brickwork everywhere as well as some long cracks here and there. The most noticeable thing indicating cracks in the earth was the fact that one side of the crack was higher than the other. And too, there were craters where meteors had impacted the earth, destroying buildings and even some whole neighborhoods. There were also signs of major fires in lots of places where whole blocks of wooden framed buildings had burned to the ground.
Jason looked off to the north, hoping that his former dwelling would still be standing. The nature of the surrounding terrain was of rolling hills. This actually put a small hill between Jason and where his apartment occupied the second floor. Jason decided to make the 3 block walk to his old apartment and check to see if any of his stuff was still there. Jason knew that he had some important and useful "survival" items stashed in his apartment. Jason decided to go there and check it out as soon as he was satisfied with his current base camp. He checked the rest of the directions on his internal compass and was certain that there were at least a series of disasters that caused this level of devastation. He was thankful that at least there hadn't been a nuclear war to his knowledge.
Jason finished his inspection of the roof-top and returned to going through the pack-mule's burdens.
There had been 4 other sacks of items the two men had gathered for their commander, according to what they had been discussing when Jason had happened onto them. Jason opened the first sack which contained, some tanned hides, some clothing and some small personal items like combs and brushes. The second sack contained, canned food-stuffs, beans, fruit, vegetables and bottles of condiments. The third sack contained, tools of about any hand tool available, hammers, hand saws and even a hand crank drill and bits. The fourth sack contained, weapons, and ammunition. Most of the weapons were old, rusty and un-serviceable. Some were obviously broken, but might have salvageable parts that could be used on a firearm of the same make and model. The ammunition consisted of miscellaneous loose rounds, and several partial boxes of bullets.
Jason put all of the sacks, along with their content on the shelves in his quarters, locked the door and left to check on his old apartment. When Jason opened the door he had entered the building through on his first visit, he found the mule grazing in the grass growing along the base of the building. When Jason walked by, the mule followed him and Jason thought that was interesting but, otherwise paid little attention to it.
As Jason walked through the desolate and abandoned suburban neighborhood, the mule caught up to him and was following closely, as if on a lead. The neighborhood, although desolate and apparently abandoned, looked to have a few houses that might serve as shelter in dire circumstances. Jason kept his eyes scanning the area as he was walking through it, looking for movement or anything that might indicate the presence of other possibly hostile, humans. So far, all seemed quiet as Jason walked warily along.
Jason had traveled about half way to his old apartment when the mule began acting funny. And too, Jason caught the unmistakable scent of human body odor. Jason instantly dropped into a crouch, which was a good thing as a gunshot rang out and Jason clearly heard a bullet whiz by his head. Jason had smelled the odor carried on a westerly breeze and heard the report of gunfire from his left.
Jason had been carrying his M-16 at the ready and he brought the rifle to his shoulder as he was turning and dropping into a crouch. He ripped off a quick 3 round burst from his rifle and saw the unmistakable pink cloud appear at the junction of two broken brick walls. Jason knew he had hit the assailant in the head, having seen the "pink cloud" many times when he had served in the Marines in combat.
When Jason had seen the "pink cloud" appear, he sprinted to the next door house, south of where the attacker had fired from and dove through the broken out window, in the front of the earthquake damaged house. Jason hit the floor in a shoulder roll, rolling up against an inner wall that was still standing and solid, to Jason's dismay. Hitting the wall as hard as he did, slightly knocked the breath out of Jason. He scrambled to below the northern side window of this "living room" in the front of the house and caught his breath.
As Jason was catching his breath, he heard footsteps running in his direction, the mule was braying and kicking for some reason. Jason could hear the animal's hoofs hitting the pavement as it jumped and kicked.
Jason heard one set of footsteps trying to be stealthy, creeping by the window he was crouched below. Jason knew that the walls within this shell of a house were made of lathe and plaster from his abrupt stop against an interior wall. Jason reached to his front pocket and pulled his open assisted knife that looked like a dagger when opened, preparing to attack the sneaker.
Jason listened and could hear the other set of shuffling footsteps of the man in the front of the house. Jason knew that he would come in the front door or window. The second attacker would most likely enter the room firing his weapon, spraying the room in a shoot and pray attack.
Jason had no time to think and reacted as his experience and training, so many years ago, had taught him. He quickly peaked over the window sill, flicked open his knife and drove it deep into the center of the back of the sneaker's neck, just under the skull, as he dove through this window to the outside of the house. "Gaa!" Was all the sneaker could utter as the knife passed between his vertebrae, severing his spinal cord.
Jason again shoulder rolled and ended up against a chain link fence in a bunch of tall prairie grass, in a prone firing position. As expected, the front assailant had kicked the front door open and was entering the front doorway, firing what sounded like a semi-automatic weapon over and over. Jason jumped up, running in a crouch to the front corner of the house, where he shouldered the brick wall, flattening himself against it, listening.
"Joey, he ain't here!... Joey?" The other was shouting, realizing that his partner was not answering. "Well, fuck!" The other muttered, sprinting toward the back of the house from the sounds of footfalls that Jason heard. Jason, quickly moved to the front of the house, next to the front door and peaked around the corner.
Jason could see the man, standing next to the door, against the wall, bent over and panting from his recent exertions. Jason stepped into the doorway, leveled his M-16 at the man and cleared his throat. The man looked at Jason, wild terror in his eyes and started to swing his pistol in Jason's direction. Jason pulled the trigger once. Three spikes of fire spit from Jason's weapon, the man hit the wall jerked twice, fell to the floor and didn't move again.
Jason took a deep breath and moved to the window sill and sat on it, collecting his thoughts. "So much for finding, friendly humans, dumb ass. At least right away, anyway. What a day!" Jason finished in exasperation. He got up and went to the last man he had dispatched to search the body. This man was wearing a backpack that was full of clothing and a can of beans.
Jason went through his pockets, finding a large roll of paper currency. "Now, this is interesting. It looks like they are still using currency or he was collecting it for some reason. I'll just hang on to this. It might have some value to someone, namely me." Jason continued his search of the dead man, finding another pocket knife and some coins in a small pouch. Jason held up and shook the pouch, hearing coins jingle inside. "Well. would ya lookie here. A money pouch. I wonder if they're still using the old money? I'll just hang on to this too." Jason said as he stuffed the pouch into his ammo bag. Jason relieved the dead man of his 9mm Beretta, checked it for functionality and serviceability.
Jason was not happy. For Jason, having a dirty, rusted, firearm was sacrilege. No Marine would allow their weapon to become rusty and as filthy as the one he was holding, looking at it in shock. Jason kicked the dead man's head angrily. "Fuckin' shit-bird." Jason grumbled.
Jason picked up all of the brass casings he could find from the entire scene and even found some old brass casings that might have been from a fire-fight at some point in the past. Jason had wiped off his pocket knife, folded it and returned it to his pocket while he was searching the bodies. Jason retrieved 2 bags of miscellaneous household items, that could be used without electricity, silverware, skillets and metal cups and plates were among the various items he found among the content of the bags.
Jason finished searching the bodies and the general area, picked up the bags and went outside to continue his walk to his old apartment. Jason was feeling a little depressed over not yet finding friendly humans in this new world he found himself. He had only been out of stasis for a few hours, perhaps a day and the only two groups of humans he had met to this point, had both tried to kill him. For Jason, things were definitely not looking good for that hopeful line of thought.
The mule had run off when the shooting started and was now returning to the scene when Jason stepped out the front entrance of the old house. The mule walked up to Jason with it's head lowered in equestrian submission, angling itself to Jason, as if expecting Jason's burdens to be placed on it's back. Jason had grown up here in the central United States, where horses and mules were common animals. Used mostly for pleasure, show, competition and were still used by real cowboys for herding cattle, sheep and checking fences in remote locations of cattle ranches.
Like many teens in "cattle country", the annual wheat harvest was a regular summer job for Jason. He regularly worked for the same farm/ranch owner who had a large section of land that he used for both raising sheep, pigs and cattle, as well as for wheat, hay and alfalfa farming. Jason had spent many solitary days, riding and repairing fence line, then spending the night in one of many "line shacks" in remote areas of the ranch/farm.
Jason got the distinct impression that the mule had decided that Jason was it's new owner and was happy to carry what Jason wanted it to. Jason figured this was just fine with him as he did have some things at his old apartment that he wanted to get. Jason put the content of the backpack into one sack and the empty backpack in the other. He then, tied the two bags together using their draw strings, and put them over the mule's back with one on each side. One of the sacks had some rope in it. So Jason made a rope halter with it and put it on the mule, so he would have a lead leash for his mule and it couldn't wander off.
Jason crested the hill between his old apartment and his new base of operations and saw that his entire complex had been reduced to single story units where they were even standing at all. "At least my upstairs unit is now downstairs." Jason thought ironically, out loud. "I wonder if anything in it is still serviceable?" The entire block had been five different, two story apartment complexes with a row of five houses on one side of the block between 2 of the complexes. Jason's complex was the last one on the block, where the street made a turn to the west and then back to the north, after about a half of a block.
The entire block had not fared well, in the time Jason had been in stasis. A meteor had impacted near to the east, causing a medium sized crater. The resulting wave of energy from that impact, had caused the ground to shift suddenly to the west several feet. That movement literally broke the bottom half of the complex units loose from the top half, causing them to fold under the weight of the upper units. Most of what Jason saw were the results of an earthquake's destruction, plain and simple. Then there was the resulting fires caused by electrical shorting and the sparks they cause. Jason's old neighborhood was largely a burned out, collapsed, suburban wasteland.
Jason walked quickly down the hill to his old apartment's parking lot and saw that his apartment seemed largely intact. Jason fished in his pocket to retrieve his keys, walking quickly to hop over the stairwell's, formerly second story railing, to unlock his old apartment door. Jason pushed the door open with some difficulty but, it did open reluctantly. Inside of Jason's apartment, anything that might have been standing wasn't any longer. It looked a lot like it had been picked up, shaken several times and set back down. Jason made his way around the couch and the old style big screen TV to his bedroom, where he had put his survival gear in his "Alice" pack inside his closet.
Jason picked up his pack full of survival gear, turned and saw a man standing across the room from him out of the corner of his eye. Jason dropped the pack, drawing his weapon as he turned, dropping into a crouch. Something about the young man he saw across the room was very familiar. Jason realized with a shock that it wasn't a strange young man, holding a handgun, that he was looking at.
Jason was looking at the large mirror, attached to the back of his dresser, he was seeing himself. The man he saw looked to be in his mid to late twenties, with a full head of dark brown hair, cut in a flat top, he was muscular but not bulky and weighed around 190lbs. Jason recognized his younger self, but had to shake his head to get it to soak in.
Jason was amazed that the mirror hadn't broken from the condition of the rest of the room. Jason took everything that he thought he might need at his new quarters, blankets, sheets, a pillow, some canned goods and several sets of old camouflage utilities in gray, green and brown patterns. He fastened two sheets together, placing what he was taking back with him to his new quarters inside them, so that it made a two sided, cloth wrapped bundle. Jason went into his kitchen and retrieved his stash of gold from it's hiding place and returned to the mule to return to his new base of operations.
Jason's return to his base was uneventful and he made good time.
Once back at his base, he unloaded the pack mule that he had decided to call Clyde, stored what he had gathered from his apartment and made himself a meal from the cans of food he had gathered.
After Jason had finished his meal, wiped off his plate and fork, he sat on the one chair he had set up in front of where one shelf had been set up as a desk. Jason sat and pondered on all that transpired since he had awaken from stasis.
"What in the hell happened to the world while I was sleeping? The meteor damage I can understand, it's fairly obvious with the craters. A severe earthquake I could understand, hell I could understand both happening together or close to the same time. But, what really puzzles me is where the hell are all the people? There must be places where people have gathered together out there somewhere. Those first two guys had been talking about being on some sort of mission to gather guns and food-stuffs for some General. There may be civilization if there is still an active military. But, those guys weren't any kind of military that I know about. They were more like bandits or scavenging raiders than any organized military. And I'm young again, damn. Way to go Doc, I appreciate the youth serum, but, hey. Where the hell are all the people? Even with an earthquake and a meteor shower at the same time, nothing I've seen would have killed so many people."
"Okay Jason, what DO you know for sure? "
"There ARE people alive and in at least one group of survivors of an obvious natural catastrophe or two. This city and college area have been apparently abandoned. Why?"
"Even with the devastation, for some reason even the survivors haven't tried to move back into previously developed urban areas. Why?"
"Those who've survived, may have gathered into other groups as well. Why not in the already developed areas?"
Jason pondered on all of these inconsistencies for quite some time until he noticed it was getting dark. He realized that he was going to need a light source, if he were going to continue trying to figure out what he had gotten himself into.
While he had been ruminating on these inconsistencies, Jason had been absently organizing his desk/shelf, had pulled a lantern in front of him, filled it with lamp oil. Jason was lighting the lantern when he realized that he needed it for continued illumination within his quarters.
Jason shut and locked his quarters door, moved to his bunk/shelf, sat down, removed his boots, blew out the lantern and laid back to try to catch some sleep. He was tired and knew that sleeping would refresh his mind and maybe, an answer might come after such a rest.