snow storms up to this point in the season, but she could only hope a blizzard did not sneak in on them overnight. Without satellite imagery that had been readily available in her youth she wasn’t any better at predicting weather than the pioneering farmers. She closed the cover of the journal, then buckled and wrapped it up. Jennifer stepped out of her tent to make one last survey of the camp and to verify that the sentry watch had been set up. The first watch looked highly alert, skittish even as she went around checking them. They believed they hid their fear from her. She could still sense it though. This was fear born not of man, nor wild animal, but of something else.
The town that was formerly known as Lincoln, Nebraska was far behind Jennifer and the rest of her rag tag group of volunteers. Doom had followed them since just outside of Lincoln. It came in the night, and stole the lives and sometimes the bodies of her band of wanderers. Mornings had become frightful events. The sentries usually saw and heard nothing. The very first morning had found her second in command missing, and two dead; high volumes of blood splattered about in all three cases. It was unnerving then, but when it happened a second and then a third night in a row it was deadly to group morale. Not Jennifer’s, of course, her morale was already at rock bottom and had been for some time. The only thing that kept them all together was the fear that alone they would be easier targets. Onward Jennifer and her group strove; destination within only another couple of days. If the secret Camelot base was found it would be culmination of almost seven and a half years journey for the one time owner of a real estate development company, one time leader of a Camelot Enterprises Recon team.
Jan 30, 2247?
The terrain had been getting rougher as the day stumbled on. Progress was slower than back on the plains. The group was particularly tired after today’s hike. They were all sweaty despite the cool temperature as there had been little wind. It was earlier than she would have liked, but Jennifer gave the order to set up camp. Going through the motions would help keep her mind from all that she had done to get to this point. It did not help completely though. It did not distract her from counting the number of times she had sold her sex for ammunition to stay alive. She thought it would not take long living in this new world for Ian to understand her actions. Delivering that news would be anything but pleasant though. The dread of it skulked in the dark recesses of her mind.
Base Camelot Alpha had been a derelict by the time what remained of her original recon team had arrived. It was hard to decipher from all the debris how many other teams had gone through it hoping to find a trace of their loved ones, leaving enraged. Vandals and those who hated Camelot Enterprises, and all it stood for, may also have been to blame for the shambles as well. It was her knowledge of sewer construction that had provided a break in finding an unmolested section of the base. There had been precious little information of any usefulness left there anyway. Yet it had provided enough clues to get them started on finding the family bunker, or Base Camelot Forever as it was called in files and documents they found.
At that point, her Camelot Recon team had decided it would not be possible to continue without gathering or recruiting more personnel. Out of the original ten team members, Rose, Harley, Raven, and Jeremy were all that survived until then.
Garick was a scruffy but well-disciplined twenty-something fellow and the first to be recruited. That was four years prior. He became her Second Officer two years afterward when there was nobody left to connect Jennifer to her past life. Through sheer force of will she had kept herself going through it all. Garick had tried to convince her that finding Base Camelot Forever was not going to bring back the past or her family. During their fourth argument, she had vented her full frustration and anger at him for it. It still surprised her that he stayed, but he had remained steadfast from then on without ever again expressing his opinion about searching for the base. Marta now tried to fill his shoes. She was tough and capable, but it was not like having somebody who had been a bosom buddy next to her in a time of crisis. Something unspeakable made her wonder how many lives had been lost at her expense. Would those men and women live still, if not for her? The world had changed for the worse becoming an untamed and deadly beast. Yet all the team members had seemed to want to press on.
The chill in the air numbed her to her soul. The automatic motions of setting up camp finally pulled her mind from its torturous reverie. Nobody else mentioned it, but she could tell everybody was afraid. Thankfully they also believed that locating Base Camelot Forever would grant them shelter from the death that hunted them now. Tomorrow they would be in the general area, and the search would begin in earnest. If the slaughter kept up much longer or increased in ferocity, she didn't think they would last the week. Would tonight be the night terror and death wandered her way? If it were not for her hope and yearning to find Ian and Darren again, that death would have seemed a release.
Darkness descended along with the temperature, and froze the cheerful banter of Jennifer's party. After the sparse meal, and her watch, at first she fell into a fitful dreamless sleep, clasping her Browning pistol in its holster. Jennifer eventually dreamed of ghosts and ghostly whispers. Those voices sounded hauntingly familiar from her past, another world and time. They told her where to find Base Camelot Forever, and also told her it would be empty. So she cursed the ghosts and their voices not wanting to hear that Ian and Darren were no longer there.
Morning broke to a cheerless sky, snow drifting lightly down, and the number of survivors down to twenty-three from forty-five just four mornings ago with news of 6 more vanished or vanquished. The air took on a note of desperation as those who remained glanced at each other wondering what the next night might bring. It was also getting to be as time consuming burying the dead as it would be traveling, or searching for the Camelot facilities.
Feb 1, 2247?
The campsite was empty when she woke up this morning. Desertion is normally hard on those left behind, but in some measure for Jennifer there was also relief. At least the nightly horror had not taken any. There were no pools of blood or lifeless bodies strewn about. The half remembered dream voices had been strident during the night. An hour later she located the small stand of trees mentioned by those disembodied voices. With growing concern she operated the portal to enter the facility. Ducking through the opening she descended the sloping corridor to Camelot Forever. If the ghostly voices were right about the location, could they also be right about what she might find? She tried her best not to think that thought while getting nearer to the underground entrance. Unsteadily she slid her pass key card through the read mechanism.
Everywhere Jennifer explored, empty cryogen tubes, dead computers, empty rooms, empty corridors, until the ache in her heart swelled and swelled into a hard knot that choked her breathing into a sob. She sank to her knees and shook as the anguish mixed with frustration. She had no reason any more to doubt the ghostly voices in her dream of a night ago. She had seen where her husband and child had been stored. There was no one left connected to her previous life. There was no one left connected to her current life. She clutched her belly and wept, rocking back and forth for a long few minutes. She tried to envision her future and all she saw was a graveyard with headstones for all those she knew plus empty graves for all those she would come to know.
She withdrew her pistol from the holster and cocked the hammer, a round already in the breach. Slowly, moving the tip of the barrel to her head, she prepared to fire. A shadow fell across the floor behind her and was followed by a plaintive, "Don't... please don't?"
Without looking back Jennifer queried, "Garick, is that you? Have you come back from the dead to haunt me for my mistakes?” With bitterness born of self-torturing anguish she added, “You're too late for that."
"Will you let me explain?" asked Garick.
The gun fell to her thighs as she sighed. A few more moments of self-hatred and recrimination might be just what she
needed, thought Jennifer. "Explain what?"
"I've loved you from the moment I met you. I was so lonely before you came along."
"You're a young man Garick, you'll find somebody else. I would still be looking for ghosts from my past."
"I'm older than I appear, older than you. I've been alive for seventy years, almost twice your age. The symbiont has kept me young as well as alive. I don't know if the symbiont has had a chance to take effect in you yet."
"You've infected me?" Fresh tears dropped from her eyes as she contemplated more than her share of the rest of a life having lost her loved ones, and having caused more death than anyone has a right to. Her pistol came up to her head again and fired as she heard Garick scream.
"Wait!"
Feb 7, 2247?
Jennifer opened her eyes slowly as they had difficulty adjusting to being open for the first time in 6 days. She wondered where she was, until Garick wandered in, and then she started wondering why she had to be still alive. He noticed her watching him and moved to her side and sat next to her on the bed, left foot still on the floor.
"I thought I'd lost you. I haven't