Chapter 252: Trading in Grefort - I
Distant explosions woke Old Nick much earlier than he wanted. He lay still for several seconds as another low rumble reached the settlement.
There was only one place nearby where that could come from.
"Those Golden Eagle bastards are already bombing Horjus?"
Nick pushed himself out of the old bed.
Outside, the settlement looked much the same as yesterday. The barricades were back in place, smoke was beginning to rise from a few homes, and somebody farther down the road was already shouting about breakfast.
But the northern road was open. Just knowing that made the morning feel different.
Nick left the apartment and found the other four waiting near the truck.
They had packed food and water for the trip, along with several things they thought might be worth trading if the soldiers had been telling the truth about Grefort.
Nick carried the rifle he had been using for months. The others had their own weapons as well.
The Golden Eagle soldiers looked dependable enough yesterday but that did not mean they were driving anywhere unarmed.
"Howdy, Old Nick. Still alive this morning."
"Shut up, brat."
Joe laughed as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
Before the Event, he had been one of the settlement’s problem teenagers. Six months of surviving had taken most of that out of him, although unfortunately not his slick mouth.
Nick climbed in beside him.
"Get us there in one piece. Don’t drive like a drunk piece of shit."
"Old man, if anybody here is going to kill us while driving, it’s you."
The other three laughed from the back.
"Just drive."
Joe started the truck.
The southern edge of Grefort was only around eight kilometers away. With the road open, the trip should not take much more than ten minutes.
The truck left the settlement and entered the road.
Abandoned vehicles that used to block parts of the highway had been pushed onto the shoulders.
The pavement and concrete looked almost new, as if parts of the road had only been laid yesterday. Nick still remembered the large crater along one side of the highway, yet even that was gone.
Joe slowed as they passed.
"Isn’t this place supposed to be fucked up?"
"Not anymore. Seems those soldiers did something miraculous for once."
"You hate them that much, old man?"
"Disappointed, not hate. But they’re starting to change my mind."
One of the men in the back leaned toward the window.
"Those soldiers have Engineers, don’t they?"
"I saw some yesterday," Nick said. "The ones carrying those yellow cases."
"They work fast."
"And a good job at that."
The road became quiet again after that. A few kilometers passed without another vehicle.
Nick looked through the window at the empty fields and scattered buildings beside the highway.
Before the Event, the road was rarely empty.
Buses came through every day. Rental cars moved between the smaller towns and Grefort. Trucks used the corridor constantly.
Then there were the motorcycles.
Nick remembered enough idiots flying down the highway with police vehicles somewhere behind them that the memory almost made him smile.
Most of that was gone now.
"Hey, Old Nick."
Nick looked over.
"What?"
"You sleeping with your eyes open?"
"Yeah, I miss the times your mouth wasn’t as shitty as this."
Joe snorted.
"Old people do that a lot. Can’t get over the past so easily."
"Keep talking and you’ll become old somewhere outside this truck."
The men in the back laughed again.
Joe was about to laugh when his expression changed. He pointed through the windshield.
"Hey, look. We’re almost there."
Old Nick followed.
A temporary position occupied a cleared section beside the highway. Several soldiers stood around the road while barriers narrowed traffic into one usable lane.
Behind the barriers sat one of the larger command vehicles Nick remembered seeing in yesterday’s column. Its Radar system was fully deployed beside the highway, with the security position built around it.
A Guardian APC waited farther off the lane while another group of soldiers occupied the cleared ground nearby. An Engineer worked beside the highway with the familiar yellow case open beside him.
Joe’s foot came off the accelerator.
"Holy shit."
Nick looked at the Guardian. Yesterday, two of those things had put their entire settlement on alert. Over here, one was being used to guard a road.
"Slow down," Nick said. "You’re about to kill us with your speed."
The truck rolled toward the checkpoint.
Nick glanced toward the others.
"Keep the rifles down. Should be no problem if they see us with this."
"What if they confiscate it?" One of them worried.
"They’ll return it later anyway. And if they confiscate ours, you think others wouldn’t have suffered the same fate?"
The tension eased inside the truck, though the sight of the soldiers still unnerved them.
One of the soldiers stepped toward the lane and raised a hand.
Joe slowed the truck to a crawl.
"Well," Nick muttered, "here we go."
The truck stopped just before where the soldier stood.
"Hello, officer."
The soldier simply leaned over and checked each one of them.
"From the settlement south?"
"That’s right."
The soldier glanced at the rifles.
"Keep those down inside the city. Core and marked military areas are restricted."
"We won’t be rash, sir."
The soldier stepped away and waved them through.
Joe eased the truck through the gap between the barriers.
Once the checkpoint blurred out from the rearview mirror, Joe let out a deep breath.
"Fuck. I thought we were about to get shot."
"Good job, kid." Nick laughed while patting Joe’s shoulder. "But don’t let that get over your head."
"Shut up, old man. I know what not to do."
"I was worried you don’t."
The truck sped along the cleared highway. Grefort’s southern outskirts were beginning to appear on the horizon.
The taller buildings farther inside rose above everything around them, dark shapes behind the lower development spreading across the approach.
Nick had seen that skyline plenty of times before the Event but now, it all looked different.
Too many windows were dark. Several towers showed obvious damage even from this distance, while other buildings disappeared behind sections where smoke and old dust still hung above the city.
Millions of people used to live somewhere beyond that skyline. Now somebody was telling him the infected were gone.
Nick tightened his grip against the side of the seat.
"Keep your eyes open."
The others stopped joking and put their rifles close to their chests.
Joe slowed the truck as the scattered roadside development thickened around them.
Repair shops appeared, followed by warehouses, apartment blocks and commercial buildings along the wider road. Some were damaged badly enough that nobody had bothered touching them.
Others had markings painted across their entrances. Some were green and yellow. A few were marked red.
Nick did not know what all of them meant yet, but he wasn’t curious enough to explore it himself.
The farther they drove, the harder it became to believe the city was supposed to be dead.
The first civilian vehicle passed them several minutes later. It was an old pickup carrying several water containers in the back.
Then another appeared from a side road.
A motorcycle followed shortly afterward, its rider barely looking at Nick’s truck before continuing in the opposite direction.
Joe watched it disappear through the mirror.
"Did that guy just drive past us like nothing happened?"
"Keep your eyes on the road."
"I’m just saying."