Busline

If someone finds this journal, I may as well explain myself. My name is Tyler, and I live in the United States. I've walked too far to know what state I’m in. I’m somewhere in the west, since I was walking out of Nevada. This is how it started. It began with Peter.
I was an architectural engineer working on a job in Flagstaff, Arizona. Our client, a man named Peter, was a wealthy man who'd moved here from Orovada, Nevada for the quietness. He wanted to build a new house and he told me he wanted a secret project built. The project was a bunker for anything that would happen in the future. I got his old address and was about to travel there, until something happened. My co-worker, Jason, was on vacation in Oahu with his wife. I couldn’t just call him in out of the blue. Unfortunately, my car had been towed and impounded for unpaid parking tickets, so that meant that I had to take a bus.
I hopped on a bus to Orovada, a wonderful little company by the name of Bloodhound Bus Lines. Bloodhound had recently laid off a lot of workers. What did you expect? It’s the late 40’s. Luckily for me, I had gotten on the bus where the driver was a good friend of mine, Frank. Frank and I had been friends since grade school. About the time of our departure, there was a man trying to get on the bus. This man had injured his arm, it was cloaked in the crimson of blood. The bus driver got off the bus to talk to the man. Being the impatient person I am, I decided to walk. That was the best decision I had ever made.
Along the highway, I met a homeless man. I asked him if this was US 95N, but he only responded with, “What’s my name again?”
Not knowing the answer and fearing for my life, I walked away. I walked a little ways until a man drove by me. He rolled down the window, and I got a good look at him. He was about 30-ish, sleek black hair and was buff as hell. He asked where I was going, and I told him I was going to Nevada. He asked if I wanted a ride, since he was going that way anyway. I accepted.
He asked my name, and I asked him the same. He introduced himself as Clement. Clement asked what I was doing walking on the highway, and I told him about the whole thing. I asked him why he was headed to Nevada.
Clement explained, “Well, I was in Texas about two days ago. My cousin got hired by the government as a scientific engineer. He was always the smart one,” he chuckled, “but I was the good lookin’ one. We were celebrating at his place. My wife, Rachel, is back in Nevada, and I’m headed back to her.”
He pulled out his wallet and showed me what Rachel looked like. She was about the same age as Clement. Her hair was orange-ish, and her eyes were a light brown. We were in Nevada before the day was done.
I finally found the address, it was a little way out of Orovada. I was checking the inside of the bunker, taking measurements and whatnot. Suddenly, the door shut, and the lock on the inside of the door was a combination lock that Peter never gave me the code to. I was locked in, with no way out.
Then an earthquake hit. I knew earthquakes were frequent, but I didn't know that would happen to me now. It was so massive that I thought the bunker would collapse in on me, but it didn't, thank God. The quake stopped, and I went to work on the lock. There must be some kind of code in here, I kept telling myself. I looked all over, but it wasn’t there.
So, there I was, who knows how many days later. My flashlight was running out of battery, and the food supply was getting low. There must be some kind of clue here somewhere. I thought to myself, Wait, what’s that in the corner? A mouse hole, but no mouse could get through the concrete. I decided to reach in because I had seen enough action movies to know that people sometimes hide things in plain sight. There was no mouse, but there was something else. I took it out, and it was a paper with numbers and arrows. It was the code! I entered it on the dial, and there was a loud ka-chunk. The door unlocked, and I exited. The horror had started.
What was once a beautiful town had become a horrid wasteland. There was fog and smoke everywhere. In the middle of town, there was a massive crater. That was no earthquake. Well, the only thing to do now was walk. I had to find out what happened. As I walked, I found it hard to breathe. The smoke was hard to see through, and it didn't help my lungs.
I saw something in the distance, a figure. I yelled to the figure, and it turned. The person, I think it was a man, was covered in blood and had many cuts. He started walking to me, and it seemed to me that he had a broken leg, as he was limping. As he got closer, I noticed he had bright blue eyes, and he was looking with an empty gaze. He fell over, and I ran over to him to help. I asked him if he was alright, but all I heard was a low growl. I decided to move on, he wasn’t going to move anytime with that leg of his.
I'd been walking for a long time, and I’d seen things no-one should see. Finally, I reached a cabin, but I wasn't the only one. From inside the cabin, I heard crying. Slowly, I opened the door and peered in. There was a woman, about 30 years of age, sitting on the bed. She had orangish-red hair that glowed in the light of the fireplace. Her body was covered in cuts and bruises. She must have been through a lot. I slowly walked in, and the boards creaked, causing her to look up.
“Who are you? Are you going to hurt me like the last man who came here?!” she yelled, looking at me with a terrified expression on her face.
“No,” I answered. “I’m just looking for a place to rest. I've been walking for a long time.” She stopped crying, and her fear seemed to disappear.
“This is not a good place to stay,” the woman explained, “This is made of wood, and there are a lot of fires that seem to pop up. There is a motel that’s in the town up the road, if you want a place to stay.”
At that moment, we were attacked by a thing that was just like the man on the road with the same blank stare. There was an axe on the wall, and I rushed over to it. I grabbed the axe just as the girl was being grabbed. I had to act fast, she wouldn’t last long. I aimed for the head of the person, and hit my target, but that didn’t stop it. Instead it turned to me, and grabbed me. The thing pinned me to the floor, I thought I was going to die! I heard a gunshot, the creature fell on top of me, a bullet hole through the back of its head. The woman stood where it was with a gun.
I asked her to come with me, she hesitated. After a minute, the woman nodded and we walked out of the cabin towards the town.
Boy, that wasn’t a town at all. There were only a few buildings, and none of them were houses. The motel was easy to spot, but we had to climb a gate to get to it. I looked at the neon sign on the front of the motel. Almost all the lights had been broken, except four letters. There was no one inside, thank God, but there was a lot of blood on the floor.
We climbed the stairs to a room that was empty except for a bed. I looked out the window at the sky. There was no sun, only a dull light in the sky, hidden by fog, ash, and smoke. I can’t see much, but I guess it’s fine, considering that I’m inside and not out there. Everything seems to have been destroyed, nothing is like it was before. I looked over at Rachel, she looked back at me, but something had changed about her. Her brown eyes were now blue.
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