Post by Laura Costigan on Jul 25, 2017 0:09:18 GMT -5
Six months, Laura thought as she drank the last of her water from her canteen, taking a moment to look around and get her bearings once more. It'd been a long lonesome trek across the bulk of the former United States from New Mexico north but - obstacles, bandits, walkers and creeps aside, Laura mused - at least she'd learned to live again....sometimes, at night, she'd wonder where Robbie was at, think about the night they'd gotten separated back in New Mexico and the days of fruitless searching, trying to find him but ultimately believing the worst had happened to him.
Thankfully, the tracking skills she'd learned, back in the days when she was a Utah Highway Patrol officer, came in very handy; using the old cattle trails, Laura had made her way north and, at first, west, spending several days in her old hometown of Salt Lake City. Before heading east on the former pioneer trails that had brought people west, she'd made a point of stopping at the Salt Lake Temple, using the LDS Church's spiritual home as a guidestar and a starting point east. It'd been a dangerous trek east: numerous storms, encounters with bandits, small numbers of walkers - how in the holy hell were walkers still around after this long? she'd often wonder - and a near-disastrous encounter with slavers in central Kansas - seemingly everything had been thrown in her way but as the Mormon pioneers of old had fought through everything on their way west, so too did Laura Costigan as she headed east....
...and so now, she thought, I'm in the middle of Ohio, within sight of some gated community up ahead...is it a friendly place, a place of solace and refuge in an uncertain world? Or is it a place of depravity, a post-apocalyptic version of the Mos Eisley Cantina? As she walked towards the gate, she figured the only way to find out was to just walk up and see what was what, making sure her weapons - which she'd checked and re-checked who knows how many times on the trek east - were ready in case things went south. Hopefully, someone's at the gate and they'll see me, Laura thought, walking closer and closer to the gate, to what could be a new beginning for her....or to what could be a potential nightmare awaiting her.....
Thankfully, the tracking skills she'd learned, back in the days when she was a Utah Highway Patrol officer, came in very handy; using the old cattle trails, Laura had made her way north and, at first, west, spending several days in her old hometown of Salt Lake City. Before heading east on the former pioneer trails that had brought people west, she'd made a point of stopping at the Salt Lake Temple, using the LDS Church's spiritual home as a guidestar and a starting point east. It'd been a dangerous trek east: numerous storms, encounters with bandits, small numbers of walkers - how in the holy hell were walkers still around after this long? she'd often wonder - and a near-disastrous encounter with slavers in central Kansas - seemingly everything had been thrown in her way but as the Mormon pioneers of old had fought through everything on their way west, so too did Laura Costigan as she headed east....
...and so now, she thought, I'm in the middle of Ohio, within sight of some gated community up ahead...is it a friendly place, a place of solace and refuge in an uncertain world? Or is it a place of depravity, a post-apocalyptic version of the Mos Eisley Cantina? As she walked towards the gate, she figured the only way to find out was to just walk up and see what was what, making sure her weapons - which she'd checked and re-checked who knows how many times on the trek east - were ready in case things went south. Hopefully, someone's at the gate and they'll see me, Laura thought, walking closer and closer to the gate, to what could be a new beginning for her....or to what could be a potential nightmare awaiting her.....