Seeing that victory was within reach, Misha also felt a surge of excitent.
She pressed the start button and activated the propeller, bringing the sightseeing boat—idle for two days—back to life as it powered forward in the river.
“Rumble rumble rumble…”
The sightseeing boat sped across the wide river at full throttle, rapidly leaving the surrounding scenery behind. At the sa ti, a cool breeze over the water flowed in through the windows as the boat moved, sweeping away the stuffy heat and irritation that had built up inside the cabin.
Everly stood facing the wind, almost becoming addicted to the feeling of freedom.
Unfortunately, the refreshing sensation didn’t last long before the engine stalled.
The boat had run out of fuel.
Everly pulled out the satellite phone and ran another location check. It showed that their current position was about six kiloters away from the city.
Standing on the boat, she looked toward both banks.
The riverbanks were still covered with forest, with no signs of human activity. The forest villa they had encountered earlier was probably an isolated case.
The only good news was that, even though the river current had slowed to a frustrating crawl, the wooden boat was still drifting downstream. So theoretically, as long as she and Misha waited patiently, the sightseeing boat would eventually reach the city.
Everly stood on the boat for a while and noticed a suitably sized dead tree near the shore not far away. After a mont’s hesitation, she instructed Misha to steer the boat to the bank first and tie it there. Then she grabbed the fire axe and cleared a path where she stood before walking up to the dead tree. With brute force, she swung the axe and chopped down the dead tree—sothing that looked like a cedar.
The tree was about five or six ters tall, and the thickest part was only about the width of a calf. Carrying the whole thing would be difficult, but lifting just one end was sothing even a sturdy girl like Misha could manage.
After cutting it down, Everly used the axe to roughly trim the branches from the trunk. Then she and Misha each took one end of the tree and carried it to the stern of the boat. They placed the thinner end into the water, untied the iron chain securing the boat to the tree, and with a push of force, braced the trunk against the muddy riverbank.
Under the push of the reaction force, the sightseeing boat wobbled and slowly drifted away from the riverbank toward the middle of the river.
Hey—surprisingly, this thing actually worked pretty well!
The Abanaqi River wasn’t very deep. As long as they stayed near the edge of the river instead of drifting into the center, the “big wooden stick” in Everly’s hands could easily reach the bottom. Although this unconventional “pole” was a bit heavy and awkward to use, it gave the sightseeing boat a big boost, and their speed through the water increased noticeably.
Everly wrapped the cloth from a chair cushion around her hands and kept drifting while pushing against the riverbed. Whenever her arms gave out, Misha would take over. After working hard like this for nearly another hour, under the blazing midday sun, the small boat finally drifted out of the uninhabited area. Roads began appearing along the shore, along with scattered houses. On a distant hillside stood an old-fashioned church.
They had finally reached a place where people lived!
Everly observed the riverbank for a while to make sure nothing seed unusual. Then she and Misha adjusted their direction, guided the sightseeing boat to shore, slung their backpacks on, and hurried off the boat.
The mont Everly’s feet stepped onto the solid concrete road built by humans, a powerful urge surged through her—to rush into a restaurant and order a huge bowl of salad to devour.
But the strong sour stench on her body, along with the white sweat stains still clinging to her clothes, awakened what little sense of sha she had left. The greasy hair on top of her head itched constantly under the sunlight, almost creating the horrifying illusion that bugs were crawling through it.
“Let’s find a hotel first and clean up.”
“And we need to buy so new clothes. I’m practically marinated in this sll already.”
The two girls exchanged a glance and quickly reached an agreent.
They hadn’t arrived at their intended destination, the city of Grasiu. Instead, they had reached a small town on the city’s outskirts called Hayadow. However, the town wasn’t far from the city, and there was a direct bus route connecting the two.
The two of them rented a room at a well-reviewed family inn in the small town. Because Hayadow was a small place where few people actually stayed overnight, the inn’s managent wasn’t very strict. When registering at the front desk, Everly told a lie, saying they had gone on a forest adventure and accidentally lost their identification. The owner didn’t insist on checking and simply let them write down whatever information they wanted.
So Everly casually made up two identities and filled them in. After entering the room, they washed up and tidied themselves, changed into the new clothes they had bought, and then went to a small restaurant in town where they stuffed themselves, eating heartily.
Only after they were full and satisfied did they finally have the energy to investigate what had happened in Radyard.
When an entire city’s population disappears, people are bound to notice sothing is wrong. The two searched online and discovered that just the day before yesterday—the day after Radyard had been bombed into ruins—the Abanaqi State governnt held a press conference. They announced that at 3:23 a.m., a teorite had fallen onto Radyard, and the explosion it caused destroyed the entire city.
At the sa ti, various experts and professors—bought off by the governnt—along with nurous online comnters also began posting photos and videos of the so-called teorite, as well as confident “analysis posts.” Together they created an atmosphere suggesting the event was completely real, quickly convincing most people who didn’t know the truth.
“…”
Why did it sound both ridiculous and sohow reasonable at the sa ti?
Of course, the governnt’s explanation didn’t convince everyone. Especially since, before the zombie outbreak, quite a few people in Radyard had posted about zombies online. So lucky individuals had even escaped the city before the military sealed it off. Because of that, another voice also appeared online, insisting that Radyard had suffered a zombie virus outbreak, and that its destruction was not a natural disaster but a man-made catastrophe caused by the U.S. governnt.
The U.S. governnt was probably monitoring public opinion online the whole ti. Posts like these were often deleted and their authors banned shortly after being published. As a result, within just a couple of days, discussions about the truth gradually quieted down.
When Everly and Misha first flew to Radyard, records of their arrival were easy enough to find. But with so many people entering and leaving a city every day, the U.S. governnt probably wouldn’t investigate each individual to confirm whether they were dead or alive—they simply didn’t have the manpower for that. Therefore, Everly believed that as long as she and Misha kept quiet, the two of them wouldn’t be exposed.
After resting in the small town for a while and waiting for the weather outside to cool down, they put on their backpacks and took a bus to the better-connected city of Grasiu.
As the bus was leaving the town, a military jeep drove past them in the opposite direction, heading toward the town.
Because of what had happened in Radyard, Everly paid close attention to this. After she and Misha arrived in Grasiu, she took so ti to search online and discovered that it wasn’t just Hayadow—every city and village along the Chata River had recently received a squad of military personnel, sooner or later.
Maybe they were trying to prevent the zombie virus from spreading through the river? After all, quite a few zombies had fallen into the water that night… Co to think of it, could the zombie virus infect animals? If it could, the whole world might descend into chaos very quickly…
But that was sothing for the U.S. governnt to worry about. It probably wouldn’t be too serious anyway, since the world seed to have a fairly strong chanism for self-repair.
Everly began to feel fortunate that she and Misha had left early. Otherwise, if they had been stopped by the military in Hayadow, it probably would have caused a lot of trouble.
Setting the zombie issue aside, the next thing to consider was how to travel from Grasiu—far in the southeastern corner of the United States—to the northeastern corner, the state of New Osebuch.
If they flew, there were no direct flights from nearby cities; they would still have to transfer through several hub cities. Unfortunately, those hub cities were the sa familiar trouble spots Everly had already looked up. Unless she wanted to personally experience sothing like the Ten Plagues of Egypt along with protests and riots, traveling by air was definitely not a good choice.
That left only land routes and water routes.
For land travel, they could take a train. However, that would require transferring to long-distance buses midway and constantly switching vehicles between several cities. The whole trip would take at least six or seven days and cover more than a thousand kiloters. Not only did it sound exhausting, but they might also run into unexpected trouble along the way. After all, there was no way to be sure that any of the cities they passed through wouldn’t suddenly experience chaotic events like what had happened in Radyard.
Another option was the water route—or rather, the sea route.
Grasiu was already close to the coastline. From there, they could take a ride to the port city of Savannah, then board a coastal cruise ship that departed from Dalifer State and sailed north along the coast, crossing the entire eastern seaboard before reaching its final destination, Yaming State. The whole journey would take about six days. The cruise ship would stop briefly at several major ports along the way, but otherwise it would mostly be sailing at sea.
Yaming State bordered New Osebuch. After arriving in Yaming, they could take a long-distance bus and reach the university city of Dalami in about half a day.
Given that the travel ti was roughly the sa, the sea route required almost no transfers and stopped at relatively few cities. If chaos broke out at one of the ports, it would also be easy to leave the shore quickly. Overall, it seed like the safer option.
Of course, there were also horror movies set at sea—like the classic Deep Rising. But films like that usually take place in the far ocean to create a sense of isolation and hopelessness where no help can arrive.
Everly specifically looked into it: coastal cruise ships generally sail in nearshore waters, usually staying just a few to a dozen kiloters from land. At the ship’s maximum speed, it would only take about ten minutes or so to reach the coast, which hardly counted as being “far from civilization.”
So after a series of analyses, Everly ultimately decided they would go to Savannah to board a coastal cruise ship.
Perhaps because their earlier experience in Radyard had been so unlucky, the journey that followed went surprisingly smoothly.
The two first logged onto the cruise company’s official website and booked a room on the coastal cruise ship. Then they took a long-distance bus to Savannah, stayed one night at a local hotel, and the next afternoon at 14:28 successfully boarded a small cruise ship called the Mary Jane at the local port.
The ship had departed from Dalifer State the day before, and the Port of Savannah was the first stop on its route. The cruise ship stayed there for two hours to restock supplies, took on more than a dozen new passengers—including Everly—and then sounded its horn, turned around, and left the harbor.
After placing their luggage in the booked twin room, Everly and Misha stretched and headed up to the top deck.
This was the spot on the ship with the best view. It had a sky lounge, an open-air café, and plenty of lounge chairs for relaxing. The two of them leaned against the railing, squinting as they watched the land grow farther and farther away while the vast, boundless ocean gradually surrounded them. The feeling was strangely wonderful.
As a small-town girl who had grown up inland, Misha had never seen the ocean before. Everything she looked at was filled with excitent and curiosity.
Everly, on the other hand, had seen the ocean before—and had even once made “blanched tripe” in it. However, since leaving Pukati when she was seven months old, she had never returned to the seaside.
Before she turned seven, it was because she was afraid of attracting the attention of the sea sirens. After turning seven, it was simply to avoid trouble. After all, traveling from the dry eastern foothills of the Iramore Mountains to the west coast required crossing a long distance. Who knew what kind of horror-movie scenario might occur along the way and cost soone their life?
Unexpectedly, now that she was heading off to university, she had ended up traveling by sea again through a twist of fate.
Whenever Everly saw the ocean, she thought of the fog-shrouded town, the cold, damp embrace of the sea siren, and the gentle humming of her siren mother.
She lowered her head and carefully opened a small gap in the cloth pouch hanging around her neck to peek inside.
Eighteen years had passed, yet the siren’s eyeball inside the pouch remained gray and dull.
No one knew when Lamia would finally awaken from her long slumber…
User Comments
0 comments from readers