Roads Untraveled 2

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Dec. 2, 2277

It was late at night when we finally got out of the city gates. We had to clear a lot of rubble along the way. Now that we left the road was mostly open, a side from a few Brahmin and some merchants. The wrecker went about 35-45 mph top speed. I don’t have any idea how the mechanics got that much speed out of that thing, but I didn’t question it. About 10 miles outside of the main city we were able to speed up to nearly full speed. About 20 miles out we stopped for the night. The Motel was in poor condition but still provided some protection from the elements. Another guard and I stayed outside all night to watch the vehicles. He had a medium build and wore tribal decorations on his leather armor.

“Mentat?” he asked.

“Yea, I’ll have one, thanks.” I answered

“Welcome, who are you by the way?”

I thought for a moment before answering. “Spectre”

“Sound like you needed to think about it. Recent name change huh?”

“Yea.”

“ it’s alright, my name is Shane Cold-Wind, came from a tribe up north in Canada.”

“Nice, I come from Illinois actually, spent a lot of time traveling, mid-west, eastern seaboard, south, even Canada.”

“Lucky, really want to be able to see my family again.”

“Well when this is over, I’ll see if I can help arrange that, I don’t really need the caps comin’ from this little trip.”

“You’d do that me? Well, I’ll be dammed. Thanks man.”

“No problem.”

We continued talking for a while about the area, the day, families, friends, etc. until sunrise. We said goodbye and headed to breakfast to plan out the day.

“We need to be in Nashville by the fifth.” Jed yelled over the clanging of forks and knives.

“What ‘bout Boston?” One man yelled from the back.

‘We’re skipping out of there, some Commonwealth don’t want out business, and frankly, I didn’t plan to give it to them. Any other questions?” Jed asked

This time, it was Rev that piped up “We should stay off the main road until we hit Penn. It’s only a day’s travel or so away. There’s a dry lakebed nearby that we can use for an alternate for a while.”

“Sounds good” He said to Rev, Than yelled to everyone. “Follow her buggy people, we move in ten mikes.” He said over the crowd

It was about an hour or so later when we got to the dried lake. The dirt had filled over the rocks and most other stuff save for some old boats half buried in the dirt.

“Um… what your name again… Spectre! That’s it. Stop and get the others to stop alright?” Rev said to me. I did as she asked and stopped; Jed got out and wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“Well, the buggies should go first to scout around the bed, the rest should go about 30 across ‘till you reach the old marina at the far side. Is that ok with everyone?” I asked. Nearly everyone agreed and several minutes later we were off.

At first the bed was flat, that slowly hills and valleys appeared. The other buggy kept doing circles around the area, on the other hand, Rev and I just floored it, going about 70mph over hills and large jumps, It was a blur of dirt, excited screaming, and G forces screwing with my mind and body. It was fun as hell; one of the Jeeps tried to join us, but couldn’t keep up with us. The rest of the convoy went into a large valley; we were on top to the left.

“Hold on!” I yelled as we went flying over the side.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!” screamed Rev, grabbing for dear life on one of the guns and the frame. It seemed like hours before we landed on the other side, the buggy landed with a hard thud, the suspension creaked with the strain. We skidded to a halt, a stupid smile on my face, Rev looked pale, almost like she had been scared to death.

“What’s the matter Rev, I thought you were a merc, fearless?” I said

“No… no… I just wasn’t… prepared for that…” She replied, her knuckles white from holding on.

“Nice excuse. C’mon, we’ve got to keep moving, there’s more jumps we haven’t done yet.”

“Yea, let’s go.”

I sped up again, this time aiming for another large hill.

It took most of the day but we got to the dock, We set up camp in the parking lot. The three cargo trucks were surrounded by the jeeps and barrack trucks. The drivers and gunners of the jeeps and trucks slept in the trucks and around them . The buggies wee left in the night sky, we would need our sleeping rolls. I started a large fire and Rev and Shane started cooking. When that was done I ate and played my guitar. I played anything from Johnny Cash to random tunes I thought of and everything in between. If anyone knew any words they sang along, of course the whiskey and Rushing water helped a lot. Hopefully by tomorrow we would be at Union City, Pennsylvania. I had a feeling that something might happen near Ohio. I checked and cleaned my pistol and shotgun over and over again. I wondered what the next day will bring. I hummed a snatch of “Paint It Black” to myself as I fell asleep, It was past three in the morning when all was quiet and sleeping.