from home, I know the night runners will always be a part of this world. I’m only looking to clear them out of our little patch of woods.
Some shrieks grow louder and soon the first slam is felt against the fuselage. Although they have never been able to come close to breaching the 130 before, I am a little anxious thinking about their tremendous ability to adapt although I don’t know how they can adapt enough to get into a rugged aircraft like the 130. Even if they could manage to manipulate the door or ramp entries, we’ve chained them shut. However, I don’t want to assume anything with regards to the night runners so we keep a watch posted.
I notice Carl and his group sitting up and shifting in their bags nervously. I tell them we have been out a number of times and haven’t been breached yet. I see by their eyes this doesn’t put them completely at ease. I can’t imagine it’s too easy feeling trapped like this and sitting in the dark for the first time. For me, the slams against the aircraft seem heavier and the accompanying shrieks louder. This is most likely because it’s been absent, for the most part, since we established our compound and it’s been a while since we were out in the 130.
Not being able to sleep with the awful racket outside, I decide to experiment more and reach out with my mind. I sense only a few night runners just outside of the aircraft. They show up in my mind clear as can be. Reaching farther out, I sense others in and around the base. I relax rather than force the sensing and cast out even farther. I pick up a tremendous number of echoes from the direction of Great Falls. The city is filled with a multitude. I shut down the images from them and just concentrate on sensing them.
At first, this is hard to do as I haven’t really thought about the two being different. The “noise” from all of the images I pick up is overpowering. Shunting that aspect to the side allows me to actually continue. The vast amount of images I had from reaching out threatened to overwhelm my mind and I was on the verge of having to shut them out altogether. I find I can limit the images by focusing on certain ones or shut the images out completely.
The sense I have of them never leaves yet it doesn’t create “noise” in my head. The images and sensing of the night runners is, in fact, two different parts of the same thing. I notice that the sensing of them comes and goes to an extent. The whole of the host doesn’t leave, but more that some seem to vanish and reappear. This seems to be with those farther away.
This confuses me though. The city is miles away and I was only a mile above the horde we saw emerging from the buildings just a few nights ago. Here, I seem to be able to sense them clearly but wasn’t able to get but just a glimmer then. I wonder if it’s the area, the relaxation of the mind, or something completely different. Maybe it’s just an ability, if it can be called that, which comes and goes.
Although I can’t shut out the sensing completely, I can compartmentalize them in a way and concentrate on a select group or area. I push farther although that becomes more difficult. It’s farther than I was able to go earlier today and maybe it’s with practice that this develops. Perhaps there is a limitation to the distance. That would make the most sense. I mean, I can’t imagine pushing out to cover the globe. At the far edges, the senses are dulled to the point that I can sense something there but not define the exact location or see images from them. It’s more like I know something is out in a general direction.
At the limit, I feel a strange sensation. It’s similar but not like a night runner. That has a different sense than the one I barely feel. And it’s not like a host but seems like it is coming from an individual. It somehow feels familiar. I can’t even begin to describe the impression. It feels like a night runner in some ways but completely different in most others. I feel whatever it is brush against my mind. A series of images form, “Who the fuck are you? Get out of my head!”
The strange sensation vanishes from my mind.
The attacks against the aircraft continue, tailing off after a period of time as the group of night runners outside run off to find better hunting grounds. No others show up to replace them. Our distance away from the buildings must be keeping us from being smelled out or there is an abundance of food in the area. Although we keep a watch posted, the rest of our night is one of relative peace.
I pull Greg aside in the morning telling him of my feeling that there may be a few other survivors in the area and my desire to search for them. The sensation I felt last night is still with me and I want to investigate what it was. With the early morning light streaming in the now open windows, it feels to me that the strange one I felt last night wasn’t a night runner and that leaves only one other option — it was a survivor.
There is a part of me that wonders if I didn’t imagine the whole thing. However, we are ahead of the schedule we set and we can afford to take a day to investigate. It will also give us a day to rejuvenate to a degree. Greg is in agreement that, if there is a chance of finding someone else, even if it’s just one, then we should take a look. We brief the others, unload the Stryker, and head over to the vehicle lot by the ramp. There, the Stryker is refueled and we locate a fuel truck to refuel the 130. I attempt to radio base and Leonard with the sat phone but am unsuccessful raising either one. Worry sets in but the fact that I can’t raise either leads me to believe there is something wrong with the phone or satellite itself.
Downing a quick breakfast, we load up into the Stryker leaving three to guard the aircraft and watch over the others we have with us. I reach out in an attempt to find the other one I felt. I feel night runners holed up in groups in various areas. The sense of them is diminished to a large degree and I don’t feel them as clearly as I did during the night, nor do I feel them in the numbers I did. Perhaps their sleeping causes the ability to fade or it’s one of those times when the ability is weaker. I do, however, vaguely sense the other one.
It still feels different than the other sensations I have of the night runners. I can’t put my finger on exactly what that variation is, only that it is distinctly different. The other contrast is that the sense is much clearer. It’s far enough away that I only have a general direction but feel that, if I were to get close, I would be able to pinpoint the location like I can with the closer night runners.
The direction I sense is to the west northwest. I don’t know the area well but flying over the city on our arrival gave me a basic layout. The highway we traveled down yesterday heads through the heart of the city in the other direction. I’m all in favor of avoiding going through such a crowded area. Not crowded in terms of people but rather in terms of buildings. Running into a group of marauders or someone trying to defend their area is not how I want to start my day. Instead, we’ll try to circumnavigate the city and get closer in order to better ascertain where this sensation is coming from.
Heading out to the highway, we take the first large road to the north that runs between the base and the city. The sun is above the plains to the east but still low enough to cast long shadows. A few birds skirt low over the street as we travel along. To the west, a few residences lie near with flat brown fields lining the rest of the road. The windows glare briefly from the sun striking their surface as we pass. We could be on the start of an early morning family outing. The exception is that we are packing M-4s instead of picnic baskets and our ride is not the family sedan.
The road curves to the west and we are soon passing through abandoned industrial complexes. Many of the industrial yards are filled with piles of scrap metal, stacks of forged steel beams waiting for shipments that will now never occur, and tractor trailers parked in rows. A few places house storage tanks. We pass through this lonely area and soon come to the river. The road proceeds along its banks passing a dam spanning the river’s width. With no one to regulate the flow of water, it flows over the top of the dam. I look on with interest. Dams aren’t meant to hold that amount of water for any great length of time and I imagine it will only be a matter of time before the dam gives way.
There is a large dam, actually several large dams, across the Columbia River back home and I imagine it now looks the same with the similar span. The Hanford Nuclear Storage Facility lies just downstream from one of the smaller dams on the upper Columbia River. I wonder how it will be affected when the dam breaks. For that matter, I wonder just how long that facility will last before spilling its contents into the Columbia River and how that will affect us. That’s just one more worry to pile on the list. Frank is keeping measurements of the radiation in the area but a large spill of this nature could cause us a lot of problems. The south winds during the winter months in our area will bring any radiation in the Columbia in our direction.
These thoughts occupy my mind as we leave the dam behind. We are closer to the sense of the other one and I can now locate the source. It’s almost directly north from us across the river. I see several bridges ahead spanning the waterway and we cautiously cross reminded of the barricade Sam threw across the Tacoma Narrows. We haven’t sighted a soul and the only movement has been from birds wheeling through the clear morning sky and a couple of dog packs.
I keep trying to raise the others on the sat phone without success. It’s not like we haven’t been out of
