Fortune

We got lucky today. This morning it got much warmer, into the high thirties by eight or so. Rain started to fall pretty hard, and that helped clear away a lot of the snow. Well, it made the snow into slush, but for our needs that was fine.

It took a while to dig ourselves out yesterday, and the going was terribly slow. I think we managed about seventy miles before we stopped to camp again. It was just too dangerous to go more than ten miles an hour most of the time and there were spots where we had to stop and scrape the road clear to make sure the irregularities we saw in the snow cover weren't missing sections of road or hidden pieces of debris that would cripple the truck.

That being said, today we've had to take several detours off the main roads we're using to try to get home. The first came about ten minutes after we got rolling this morning, in the form of about two dozen new breed zombies waiting in the road for us. The truck makes a lot of noise, so I can't say I'm surprised that they heard us coming.

That was a fun little diversion. We saw the undead, immediately went off onto the nearest side road, and Bill drove like mad to lose the swarm before it could catch and overwhelm us. He maybe hit a top speed of twenty MPH. In the end, Steve and I climbed up through the hatch in the trailer's roof and picked off the faster zombies chasing after us. Eventually we lost them, but it was a tense few minutes.

Our other major detour came not long after we got onto the main road. We ran into a downed tree we couldn't drive around, but it seemed a bit suspicious to us. It was right in the middle of a swath of overgrown bushes and trees that hugged the sides of the road. None of us wanted to get close enough to cut through the tree. The whole thing screamed 'obvious trap' to the team.

So we backed the hell up and took another side road, trusting Bill yet again to steer us back toward the highway eventually. I'm up to drive next, so I haven't a lot of time, but I'll add here that one other fact has presented itself to us: the roads are suspiciously clear of abandoned vehicles. When survivors travel certain roads often, they tend to make paths through them. Sometimes they just drive heavy vehicles that can take a beating and nudge cars and trucks out of the way. Less often they'll take a shot at driving what vehicles they can off the roads. Sometimes we'll even fiddle with the steering wheel if we don't have keys to use, put them in neutral, and push them out of the way with sheer muscle.

There are tools for that kind of thing. Our mechanic back home is brilliant that way. Makes it easy for us to move cars we can't start. Many survivors do it.

Thing is, no one uses this route for trade. Yet all of the main roadways are very clean. The side roads are even relatively so. If trade doesn't explain this, the remaining options are far from happy ones. I'm trying not to worry about marauders right now. Especially since I have to drive.