Red Sky In Morning

     The outskirts of town were the same as we'd left them, this indirect route back to the apartment costs an additional two hours to our journey. The extra time and distance strained me, I couldn't hardly stand it, we were so close and yet with each turn of the pedal it seemed that we were not getting any closer to our home. I broke down and decided to travel directly towards the apartment, only four miles away.

     The wind was blowing away from us, the breeze felt nice on my sweat soaked brow, rejuvenating us as we road, unfortunately it had another effect. The cars littered the street making travel difficult, and made planning your path through the remains nearly impossible without seeing past the car your next to. We weren't able to see them until we cycled passed.

     Dozen's of Ghouls sat bent in the street hovering over a corpse, they were gnawing on the bare bones of a long dead jogger, parts of her clothes and shoes still sat exposed. The once pink and white running shoes, now just various shades of red, and the spandex pants; Nothing more than a board, soaked and baked in blood and sun. My heart skipped a beat as the Gs began to stir, I hoped with everything that I had, that they would let us pass without notice. They did not.

Last Leg

     Awakening from our restless sleep we roused ourselves and prepare for the long journey still ahead of us. The trailer that we found would make things a lot easier to move along the road, I had nearly fallen from my bike many times on the way here, the Remington weighs so much. I had found an ammo belt for my shotgun and a sling to keep it at the ready. We looked around and tried to secure anything of value, a good knife, fire start, and believe it or not a GPS, I suppose it didn't seem too important at the time every body was hurrying around during the initial chaos.
     We had packed up and were ready to get moving, breakfast was a number of energy bars and some water from self filtered bottles (of course we took a number of them with us too). We moved out of the sporting goods store, and found the street eerily void of Gs. Moving into and through the parking lot we easily found ourselves back on the highway, shortly after starting our ride we found out where all the Gs went to.
     They were swarming around a nearby house, we could see it from the highway, they were forty deep creeping around and trying desperately to enter the house.  On the roof we saw the reasons why they so wanted in. Laying in a shambled pile was a family of four, the blood dripping from the roof and onto the Gs below gave clear indications of the mutual murder and suicide of a despairing family. Crimson Gs fought for position under the red nectar flowing onto them.
     I could barely control my emotions as we stopped to view the horror in front of us. My stomach retched, I could feel the bile filling my throat, swallowing hard I returned my fluids where they belong. Rika was not so lucky, she vomited on the road, her wet sobbing eyes, bulged and reddened as she continued to heave on the ground. I was at a loss for words, I couldn't think of a thing to say that would help her through this, I got off my bike and walked over, huddled with her and we wept together. We couldn't afford to stay long in one place especially this close to the Gs. After a short time and few words of encouragement, we were back on the road, our pace had lessened and our mood sank to a nearly unbelievable low. The next few miles seemed to take years, the time and distance passed in silence.

Pinkie and the Shotgun

Our journey back from Denver was slow moving. It seemed that every couple of miles we would have to stop and take cover. With all of the bags and supplies we had collected from Resef's apartment, we were too encumbered to escape successfully. After what seemed days, we made it back to the half way point at the Centerra shopping center near Loveland. It was a chance to relax and regroup without too much fear of Gs.

There were still a few lingering Gs stumbling around the expansive parking lot. I recognized one Walker from before. She had been a cashier at Victoria's Secret. She wore a torn black blouse exposing a lacy black bra underneath. Her name tag still barely clung to what was left of the blouse. She clunked around on black high heels, her overly expensive tights were littered with holes and tears, the biggest ones on her knees from repeatedly falling. There was something too pathetic about her to put her down. She didn't seem interested in us, anyway.

I went back to the Dick's Sporting Goods where I had found my lucky pink .22 rifle. It had been the only firearm leftover in the chaos. In fact, it had still been sitting on the shelf, totally untouched, when I found it. All of the more powerful firearms had long been looted. I managed to find more ammo for "Pinkie" and Resef's damn shotgun and also found one of those bicycle trailers I used to see parents towing their kids around in. I hadn't see it last time, but wow were we happy to find it this go around! It was perfect for towing all the heavy bags we brought back. We settled into a storage room we had outfitted with pillows from the nearby mattress store. It felt good to get some shuteye.

Arrival

  We arrived late, the darkness was oppressive and the air was stale. The recent cold and subsequent heat had caused this night to be relatively cool and non-offensive, I was exhausted. I worried that if we left our bikes out that any passersby would notice the new additions and come looking for the owners, we decided to take our bikes up stairs. Each step of the three flights were torture on my ears, the echo seemed louder than life. As we approached the top I paused, my ear to the hallway door listening quietly for any signs of what lay beyond, I heard nothing. Opening the door everything looked as it had always looked, bland and cheap. I took my keys out of my pocket and set the bikes aside. I told Rika to wait behind me and be ready if something were to come barreling out, I would step aside and make shift club would finish it. Nervous and shaking I slowly turned the key. Sweat on my brow and tears in my eyes I imagined what horrors lay beyond the door; what had become of Andrew? The click of the lock was a horrible siren that I swore all of the world could hear. I pushed the door open and peaked through the door. I saw nothing, and nothing immediately reeked of death. I quickly pushed the door open squatting to make room in Rika's line of sight. nothing came flying out at us.... I locked the door and explored the rest of the apartment to my surprise it was empty, staying completely quiet we collected our supplies, the Remington Model 11 with 200rnds of ammunition, more than enough to defend ourselves. It was my father's he left it when he died, the shotgun was his fathers and is still in as good of condition as the day it was built, 5+1 semi auto 12 Gauge.  While collecting supplies my thoughts again went to my roommate's whereabouts. It was clear that he wasn't home and hadn't been for some time, all of our food was still there and nothing had been disturbed. Securing the door we quietly made my bed and slept soundly through the night, three floors up behind a steel door and two dead bolts. After waking and gathering more toiletries we proceeded to leave. As a last thought I disassembled my fishing rod and packed up some of my extra bags, duffel bags and what not, with everything ready and packed up we headed out, I wrote a note and left it for Andrew,  reluctantly I left the door unlocked, perhaps it will serve some one in the future.

The Windy City

The weather in Colorado is so weird, especially here in Fort Collins. Yesterday it was in the 80's; today snow flurries. Oh, and the wind here kills me! It can be very strong. And once the wind picks up, it doesn't stop for days.

At times it can take my breath away as I struggle against it. It's the worst on my bike. When those wind gusts start up, I find myself unable to pedal forward. I end up frozen to the spot.

But I'm pretty stubborn. I don't like giving into the wind. As if it's my adversary- I am unwilling to show weakness in front of it. So I stand on my pedals, struggling in vain, only to give in when I finally lose my balance.

Sometimes it feels like the wind becomes even stronger in those times, as if to spite me. I hate the wind. It gets so loud that you can't hear the Gs approaching. It's not smart to be out when it's windy- I swear it carries your scent right to the unholy beasts.

But then, what can you do when you're in unfamiliar terrain on a bike expedition to Denver?