March 10th, 2013
1
Still alone and once again in danger, Samantha's heart was pounding, as she waited motionless in the dank basement of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado.
Her worried eyes watched the drunken passage of a very large group of dirty, well-armed Mexican men, rolling down the street like they owned it. Praying none of them looked her way, she listened to shouts, glass breaking, and wild gunfire that made her duck down a bit more.
These were the stragglers, hurrying to catch up to the main group she had already watched go by, the sky behind them warning of another nasty storm coming. She ignored the throbbing leg that confirmed the forecast. Samantha had been moving very cautiously since surviving the battle with wolves, and her alert eyes saw the billowing, black smoke filling the air in the direction the Mexicans had come from. Were they the ones who had taken NORAD?
The small cellar room Sam had taken shelter in was cold and stank of mildew. The floor was covered in standing, stagnant water, but she only had eyes for the dangerous men moving through the devastated neighborhood bordering the big, dark city.
Samantha didn't know who they were, but it was clear they were trouble. Not that she would have made contact even if they'd looked okay. She hoped to be left alone until she got to Cheyenne, and it never crossed her mind that this group might be headed there, too.
Samantha had seen more bodies around here than in other places, the dead carrying sores that made her push away horrible flashes of the bunker where she had killed her first man, but there had been live people, too - brief, distant glimpses of her fellow survivors that sent her dropping out of sight as fast as she could.
Sam was heavily-armed now, shame and paranoia her constant companions. The pair had settled onto her shoulders, making her prefer the lonely solitude to the conversations she would be forced to have. What would she say? "Hi. I'm Sam. I had a pass to the government's safe bunker, but my chopper crashed, and now I'm stuck out in this hell with you common folk." Not a good idea.
She did want to be with others again, longed for her normal life back, but there was only one type of people she could live with, she understood that now. The thought of being alone didn't bother her nearly as much as how everything had changed, how dangerous even living had become.
Sam's eyes looked over the last of the vehicles driving though the dirty slush, lingering on the very distant shadow of purple mountains with dull, white peaks. They would be full of lavender columbine by now, gigantic ash trees and evergreens providing homes for the rabbits, cranes, and larks she hadn't seen down here. Up there was a whole different world.