The Last Day On Earth (Book 1 of The Galaxy Series)

Chapter 4

After passing through the Outlier that had once been called Bedford, I found nothing but broken and twisted pavement for miles as I kept on the old road. There were some buildings from before the war that seemed to be partially standing still, but I didn't dare enter them. It was impossible to tell if they would collapse from a strong enough breeze.

Eventually, as I approached the city of French Lick, I began to see a sight I hadn't seen since Indianapolis: the tall housing units of the Wasps. Doorways were at least fifteen feet tall, with the highest point of the building being double that. They were still pristine, colored with blue for the guards and red for the leaders who ran the city from the Tower.

Honestly, thinking about it, I had no idea where the Wasps lived in the Outliers, as I did not see the units in the ones I had passed through. Regardless, these were good places to restock quickly when I came across them, as those aliens loved to eat freeze dried, easy food. It tastes like chalk, but it kept me alive. No one could certainly argue with that in an environment where food was mostly scarce.

After grabbing a few of these freeze dried meals from the nearest housing units, I continued along. The closer I got though, the worse it began to smell. This must have been where the sulfur pits were.

Wasp technology ran on many things, from what I could understand, but sulfur was one of the main thing in this part of the world. Now I understood why. It always smelled whenever sulfur was used, but never like this! There must be a deposit here or something!

Toward where the smell was getting stronger, there was a facility set up, probably to extract and transport it to nearby cities, like Indianapolis and Evansville, and Outliers.

I covered my nose with my shirt and moved quickly away until the stench began to fade. That smell was terrible! How did Humans deal with that pre-invasion?

Maybe there was an elder I could ask about that at Evansville. Probably not though; I don't know why I kept telling myself that. I knew most of the elders that would know the answers to those questions were most likely dead.

Finally, I stopped near the French Lick Tower, trying ignore it as I checked the map in my bag. I was at a crossroad in front of the Tower, which stood where something called the French Lick Casino once did, according to the map. From here, I needed to start heading south more so I could get around or cross a lake.

Hopefully the bridges that were supposed to cross this lake were still there. It was always iffy since the Wasps had destroyed many bridges at the beginning of the invasion to limit escape routes from enslaved cities and Outliers.

Toward the hopefully still standing bridges was my best bet, however, so I started down the road in that direction.

As I walked through what clearly was where people had lived, I felt eyes on me. Years of enslavement teaches you to be on your guard for such things, and this felt like when the Wasps would watch us carefully, trying to determine if our work was good enough to let us live without being tortured for the day.

When the eyes didn't let up, I stopped in a puddle and looked around me. I had assumed that maybe the prying eyes were leftover Humans who had decided to stay, like the ones I had met earlier in the day, but I would have figured the eyes would have let me be by now if that were the case. There didn't appear to be anyone or anything around me, but I knew better than to trust solely my eyes. My gut feelings had kept me alive this long, I wasn't going to stop trusting it now.

"If you have something to say, come out and say it!" I yelled into the rows of houses. "I'm just passing through, trying to get to Evansville!" Silence, but the eyes were still there.

There was familiar stench below me, so I glanced down to look at the puddle I stopped in. It was a puddle, yeah, but a small puddle of blood. Not Waso blood either; it was definitely red. Oh, oh shit. "You could come with me. If you want." My voice wasn't as strong at that last part, but I didn't like where this was going. I kept moving, even as I spoke, just a tad faster than I had already been.

After a few moments more, the eyes stopped watching me, but there was a feeling of dread that did not leave me until I had left the area entirely.

What was that? I hadn't encountered such an odd feeling as that one before now.

I stopped and looked back toward French Lick. Maybe I should go back and investigate. Maybe the people watching me wanted to come but were too frightened by the memory of the Wasps. Looking at the sky, however, I realized I didn't have time to go back to check it out. I had to keep moving if I was going to make it to the ship in time to leave this planet behind.

My stomach knotted when I thought about it this time. Nerves, probably. It was an exciting, terrifying thing to be doing; to be leaving the planet to populate another.

After another quick glance back toward French Lick, I continued on.