Ruins of Mankind - The Road Back

The Road Back

The truck settled into a steady rumble as it rolled away from the settlement, the heavy tires grinding over broken asphalt that had long since surrendered to weeds and cracked concrete. Behind them, the great scrap-metal gates groaned shut with a metallic clang that echoed through the quiet morning.

Mara glanced over her shoulder through the rear window, the settlement disappeared behind the walls. For the first time since she'd returned to Earth, she was heading back toward the place where her old life had ended.

Sheriff Waites shifted into a higher gear, his hands relaxed on the oversized steering wheel. The old military truck wasn't fast, but it was solid, dependable, and surprisingly quiet considering its age.

"So," he said after several minutes of silence, "which way, Navigator?"

Mara unfolded her hand-drawn map across her knees.

"Stay on this highway for about twenty miles. There'll be an overpass that's collapsed onto the road. We go around it to the east."

He nodded.

"No shortcuts?"

She smiled faintly.

"Not unless you'd like to test whether this truck can climb six feet of broken concrete."

Waites chuckled.

"I'll take your word for it."

The world outside rolled by in muted browns and greys.

Entire suburbs sat abandoned. Cars rested where their drivers had fled or died decades before, many reduced to rusting skeletons with saplings growing through their engines. Billboards leaned drunkenly over empty roads advertising products no one had made in a generation. Nature was slowly reclaiming everything. Mara found herself remembering how these highways used to look.

Traffic jams, Rest stops, Holiday weekends, Families singing badly along to the radio.

Now there was only the steady drone of the truck's diesel engine. About an hour later Waites slowed, movement.

Three figures darted across the road nearly three hundred yards ahead, a woman a teenage boy and an older man carrying a hunting rifle.

The instant they spotted the truck they froze.

The rifle came halfway up before the older man recognized the vehicle he immediately lowered it.

"Scavengers," Waites said quietly.

"They're running."

"They're surviving."

Sure enough the three disappeared into the ruins of an old motel without another glance. Mara watched them go.

"They were afraid of us."

"They're afraid of everybody."

"You know them?"

Waites shook his head.

"No."

"You didn't stop."

"They didn't ask for help."

"You don't investigate?"

He smiled sadly.

"If I chased every frightened survivor into the ruins I'd never make it home."

Mara looked back toward the motel until it disappeared from sight. Around mid-morning they passed another settlement, not much more than a dozen reinforced houses surrounded by old school buses and stacked shipping containers.

Several armed lookouts watched the truck from wooden towers. One raised binoculars, another waved. Waites answered with two short blasts of the truck's horn.

"Friends?" Mara asked.

"They trade leather."

"You trust them?"

"I trust they'll keep their word if we keep ours."

The Bikers

Nearly an hour later the atmosphere changed, she heard them before she saw them half a dozen motorbikes. The engines roared somewhere ahead before six battered bikes burst onto the highway, riding two abreast.

Every rider carried a rifle slung across their back dust streamed behind them. Mara instinctively reached toward her shotgun, Waites noticed.

"Easy."

"They don't look friendly."

"They're not."

The motorcycles slowed as they approached for several tense seconds nobody spoke, the riders studied the truck. Then one of them recognized the man behind the wheel his expression changed immediately.

He raised two fingers to his forehead in an unmistakable salute, Mara watched as every other rider followed suit.

"Morning, Sheriff."

"Morning, boys."

"No trouble?"

"Not today."

The lead rider looked toward Mara.

"New deputy?"

Waites laughed.

"No. Our navigator."

The rider nodded respectfully toward her.

"Safe travels."

"You too."

The motorcycles accelerated away, disappearing in a cloud of dust Mara stared after them.

"I thought they were going to rob us."

Waites smiled.

"They probably rob plenty of people."

"And you just..."

"They know attacking one of my convoys means they won't be welcome anywhere within two hundred miles."

"So they leave you alone."

"They leave everyone from our settlement alone."

She looked at him.

"You've built a reputation."

"I've tried."

The miles drifted by as the sun climbed higher, heat shimmered across the broken highway while inside the truck cab the air grew warm despite both windows being rolled down. Suddenly there was a knock behind Mara and she turned, the sliding panel between the cab and the cargo bed opened one of the volunteers grinned through the opening.

"Lunch delivery!"

Two battered military canteens appeared first and then sandwiches wrapped carefully in wax paper, Mara accepted hers with a grateful smile.

"Thank you."

The woman winked.

"Don't thank me. Pete made 'em."

A voice shouted from the back.

"They better appreciate those sandwiches!"

"They smell amazing!" Mara called back.

"They'd better!"

The little window slid shut again they ate as the truck rolled along the sandwich was rustic and simple, ham and cheese with pickled onions on fresh home baked bread. Yet somehow it tasted better than almost anything Mara remembered eating before the war, Waites noticed.

"Good?"

She nodded enthusiastically.

"I think I've been living on canned beans for too long."

He laughed.

"Funny how your standards change."

She took another bite.

"I would've turned my nose up at this before the mission."

"And now?"

"I think I'd fight someone over the last one."

That earned a genuine laugh. Conversation came easier after that.

"So," Waites said between bites, "Houston?"

"Houston for engineering school."

"And astronaut training?"

She nodded.

"Johnson Space Center first."

"What was it like?"

She smiled despite herself.

"Busy."

"That's all?"

She laughed.

"Busy doesn't begin to describe it."

He looked genuinely interested.

"So tell me."

She leaned back.

"We'd start before sunrise for physical training, running and swimming then onto survival exercises followed by engineering classes and flight simulations then medical drills and zero-gravity practice then onto classroom work until late evening, Every day for years"

"And Cape Canaveral?"

She looked out through the windshield.

"...That was different."

"How?"

"The first time you see your rocket standing on the launch pad..."

She searched for words.

"...it's like seeing a mountain somebody built, you realize you're actually expected to climb inside that thing."

"Weren't you scared?"

She smiled.

"Terrified."

"You still went."

"I'd spent my entire life trying to get there."

She looked down at her hands.

"The fear didn't matter."

Waites was quiet for a moment.

"You miss it."

She nodded.

"Every day."

Arrival

The afternoon stretched into evening the roads became familiar, a collapsed bridge, the burned gas station then the dried creek bed.

Mara's heartbeat slowly increased.

"I know where we are."

"You sure?"

"Very."

She pointed ahead.

"Slow down."

Waites eased off the accelerator.

"Next left."

"There isn't a road."

"There used to be."

He steered onto what looked like little more than packed dirt the truck bounced violently, one of the men in the back shouted something unintelligible.

Waites grinned.

"I think Pete's complaining."

"He'll survive."

"I certainly hope so."

The trail wound through scrubland before opening suddenly onto an immense dry lakebed, silence and dust. The setting sun painted everything bronze and there, Mara pointed.

"There."

Half buried beneath a week of drifting dust sat the Odyssey re-entry capsule. Its parachutes still lay spread across the lakebed like enormous faded flowers, tangled and motionless. The white fabric had turned almost brown beneath layers of dust, but the capsule itself looked remarkably intact.

For several seconds nobody spoke, Waites slowly brought the truck to a stop beside it and killed the engine heavy silence draped over the dry lake, one by one everyone climbed out. Every face tilted upward toward the scorched spacecraft, Pete was the to finally break the silence.

"Holy..."

Another volunteer whistled softly.

"I'll be damned."

Mara walked toward it almost without thinking, she reached out and rested a hand against the scorched heat shield. Cold now, lifeless yet more familiar than the world she had returned too she whispered quietly.

"...Hello again."  

Camp

Waites clapped his hands once.

"Alright."

The spell broke, he looked around the team.

"We're losing daylight, we work tomorrow, tonight we make camp."

He pointed.

"Tents over there, kitchen by the truck, fire pit here and no unnecessary lights after dark."

Everyone immediately scattered into practiced motion, within minutes tent poles were clacking together and canvas unfurled, firewood appeared from the truck, someone began digging a shallow fire pit while another unloaded cooking pots, Mara instinctively joined in, helping unload equipment before holding one of the tent poles steady while Pete drove the pegs into the hard earth.

"You've done this before," Pete observed.

"Different kind of camping."

"What kind?"

"NASA survival training."

They laughed.

"I bet this is cheaper."

"Only slightly."

As darkness settled, the smell of stew and toasting cornbread drifted across camp the capsule loomed over them like a silent monument, Pete looked up at it, then looked at Mara then back again, he scratched his head.

"...Can I ask a stupid question?"

She smiled.

"Depends."

He pointed at the capsule.

"You flew through re-entry......in that?"

Every conversation stopped, everyone looked toward Mara, even Sheriff Waites. She burst into laughter, a genuine laugh that echoed across the empty lakebed.

"Yep."

Pete blinked.

"...Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"You were inside while that thing was on fire?"

"More accurately..."

She smiled.

"...I was inside while the air around it was on fire."

Pete stared for another second.

Then shook his head.

"Nope."

"What?"

"Nope."

"What do you mean 'nope'?"

"I don't even like elevators."

The entire camp erupted in laughter, even Waites chuckled, shaking his head.

"I've got to admit," he said, "I'd rather fight raiders than ride that thing through the atmosphere."

"It was actually smoother than this truck."

Everyone laughed even harder Pete threw his hands in the air.

"Now she's insulting the truck!"

"Blasphemy!"

After dinner the laughter faded into quiet conversation beneath a sky thick with stars, Waites stood and checked his watch the camp became quiet.

"Before everyone turns in, we'll keep watches."

He knelt beside the fire and drew a circle in the dirt.

"Two-hour shifts."

He pointed around the group.

"I'll take first watch, Pete, you're after me."

Pete nodded.

"Got it."

"Danny after Pete."

The assignments continued until everyone had a turn, finally he looked at Mara.

"You've spent enough nights alone, you sleep."

She started to protest.

"I can stand watch."

"I know you can."

His tone was calm but firm.

"Tomorrow we'll be hauling electronics and probably fighting half the dust in Indiana."

"You'll be more useful rested."

She hesitated before finally nodding.

"...Thank you."

Waites simply tipped the brim of his hat.

"Get some sleep, astronaut."

Mara climbed into her tent. Outside, she could hear the Sheriff quietly walking the perimeter, boots crunching across the dry lakebed, keeping watch beneath the stars while the rest of the camp settled into sleep. For the first time since returning to Earth, she drifted off knowing someone else was standing guard.