Dead Woman's Journal Read online

  The field of tomatoes ended very abruptly, but at least I saw the fencepost before I ran into the fencing. I’m guessing they had major problems with deer out here, because it wasn’t just a single fence, but rather two of them. The outer fence had to be eight feet tall, mostly made of chicken wire, but hung with colorful streamers along the top. I have no idea what that was for. The inner fence was regular height. Could I jump it with my legs like this? I didn’t have a whole lot of choice, so I tried.

  What a bunch of buffoonery.

  I made it over the first one, but I landed wrong and wound up shuffling all over the place to keep on my feet, or rather, my foot and my blade. Something unexpected happened when I did that though. The truck noises suddenly changed. I could hear it perfectly fine. Someone slammed on the brakes and slid in the field. Even as I was trying to figure out how to best jump the taller fence without breaking an arm by falling, my brain registered those changes.

  It’s weird, but right before I jumped, I remember grinning and thinking they must have seen me flying up and over the fence. I figured they’d be watching and wondering. I felt much better jumping the second fence when I realized that. Up and over I went, but this time I landed better, tucking my regular leg up just a little so they’d be closer to the same length. It wasn’t graceful, but I didn’t break anything.

  Well, I didn’t know that I’d broke anything yet. That’s for later.

  Anyway, I took the opportunity open to me and ran through the knee-high grass toward the trees. I was almost there. I ran right over one of those non-screamers. It was laying in the field and I jumped at the very last second. I’m not ashamed to say that I almost peed myself.

  The truck noises zoomed again, so I figured they either decided to come after me or they decided I wasn’t worth it. After all, my car was right there with all my gear and most of my food. It’s possible they weren’t entirely sure what I was, which is fine with me. I’m happy to be the boogieman that haunts their dreams, a half-robot monster that chases them each night in their sleep.

  I’m still mad about the car.

  Once I got into the tree line, I almost passed out from relief. As fearful as we’ve become of the woods and what hides there, I could have kissed each and every tree. Even so, I stopped and listened. About a hundred yards in, I changed out my leg. Now, the funny thing is that I brought two pairs of legs, but never anticipated having to carry them. So, I sat there on a downed tree, watching for screamers, and wondering how I was going to carry these heavy legs home.

  I almost left them there. What made me take them was the forest. You’ve seen enough of them around here to know they aren’t like the movies. Undergrowth is heavy in a lot of places, vines and briars and every other damned thing crowding the spaces between trunks. Some of it is truly impassable for anything taller than a fox. But, other parts of it are open, especially where the growth is old and stable.

  In short, I had a lot of miles to cover and some of it would require feet, while some would benefit from blades. I checked my pack and found only the two water bottles shoved into the side pockets, a pack of those disgusting lifeboat rations that Fred always stocked, and a pair of underwear. Also, probably most important, my machete was still strapped to the front of the pack. That’s it. Luckily, my legs were wearing their boots and socks and it’s not like my artificial feet sweat.

  I repacked so that I could shove my sport legs into the pack, leaving the less heavy knees and blades to hang out and over the back of the pack. I secured them with the little loops meant for a tent, so they wouldn’t flop. I’m sure it looked hilarious.

  Also, I now had no map.

  Even without a map, I knew where I was in general. I knew the roads I could take to get home once I got to the other end of the nature area, but that’s not the same as the best route home by a long shot. It would take me miles and miles out of my way in an inefficient upside-down U shape. It’s the messy in-between of the path home that I didn’t know.

  What shortcuts existed? What housing developments, wasted spaces, potential traps? Did I know those? Nope. Not even a little bit.

  The only bit of useful information I had was that my house would be west-northwest as the crow flies, but a river stood between us…well, more than one, but the one near our development was the one that mattered. The same muddy flats and muck-filled bottom that trapped monsters would more than trap me. I couldn’t just go that direction and hope for the best.

  So, north it was. In that direction lay the nature area, with its acres and acres of undisturbed forest and 2.8 miles of trails under a canopy of branches. It could be worse. I mean, I could have been stuck with two different legs.

  Surprisingly, I saw almost no monsters. I’m not sure if it’s because the area is rural and there weren’t any out here to begin with, but I saw very few. One was nothing more than a trunk and a head, which was completely bizarre, but it was making a strange hissing noise, so I noticed it. Another was livelier, but it didn’t see me until I was close enough to kick it in the face and stop the scream before it came.

  Really, it was almost normal, this walk. The poison ivy wasn’t awesome, but at least my legs can’t get a rash. I was wearing long sleeves too, so as long as I remembered not to touch my legs with bare hands until I got them wiped down, I could manage.

  There were more monsters as I got closer to the nature area, mostly because there’s a road leading to that little tourist area I mentioned before. It’s a straight shot, and there were likely people around when things went haywire. On the upside, monsters are loud. They don’t watch their footfalls or try to be quiet, so I heard most of them well before I got within sight of them. I even heard grunting and other weird noises coming from some of them.

  Still, I was nervous by the increasing activity. It struck me that I was in a place where the light was brighter, the trees broken by the road. The light.

  I crept past, then dashed across the road when I saw an opening. Even though I was wearing my regular legs, I can go pretty darn fast, so I hit that trail at speed. I must have covered the first half mile before I felt safe to stop and check my pack. Even then, I didn’t really feel safe, only temporarily unobserved.

  Plus, it was getting late and the light would soon be waning.

  I remembered something when I started looking for trees I might sleep in. A house, but not just any house. This particular historic home was built long ago, restored, and now anchored the nature area, a living example of colonial life in the 18th century. I know it because it carries a name from my family on my adopted mother’s side, some distant relation from a time when everyone had way too many children.

  It would take a while to get there, but it might be just the ticket.

  Okay, I’m literally starving over here, and my hand is cramped so bad it won’t straighten, so I’m stopping here. I’ll tell you the rest later. Or tomorrow.

  Day 45 - Morning

  I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s possible I broke more than I thought. When I woke up this morning my left stump was burning a little. It’s not exactly like the feeling I get when my nanites run low, but not entirely different either. It also aches and there’s a strange red spot about two inches above the place where my connector goes through my skin. I hope it’s just poison ivy. It’s not time for me to need my last dose of nanites yet.

  I’d better get to that part of the story, I think. Just in case.

  Long trip made short, I got to the park grounds around the historic house just as sunset was fading. Dusk is long in the summer, which I’m grateful for. I was even more grateful for it at that moment. The notion of staying the night in a forest where I couldn’t see what was coming was not a comfortable one. Even so, I didn’t just burst out of the trees, and it’s good thing too, because the place was crawling with monsters.

  While there are some beautiful old trees around the house, the area was clear. Last time I was there it was a lawn, very lush and green. It was overgrown by then, but the
re were monsters in it. Like everywhere else, they seem to keep distance between themselves, like birds perched on a wire. I don’t think they like to be too close to each other unless there’s food or metal.

  Strangely, they looked peaceful. The whole scene was peaceful, really. The last rosy light of sunset, the trees, the breeze rippling through the field grasses. And them simply standing or sitting or lying down. It was like I was looking into their private lives and seeing something very different than the public face of the monsters.

  And also, I obviously wasn’t going to find safety in that house. I’d never get to it.

  I settled for a tree about fifty feet inside the tree line. It was a nice one, with big branches staggered just so. The problem was that when I tried to jump, only one leg did it well. I sort of flopped and didn’t make it to the branch I was aiming for. I’m very lucky none of the monsters heard me.

  At that moment, I realized I had a problem with my leg. It had let me run and walk, but it wasn’t performing right in the jumping arena, which might mean that it wouldn’t do well in a truly fast run either. I’m not going to lie. I got really scared right about then.

  I aimed for a lower branch on the other side, and using my working leg as the base, I did manage to get up to it. It wasn’t high enough to make me feel safe, but it wasn’t on the ground. That’s what mattered.

  There was no way to do any inspecting with the dark mere moments away. There was no flashlight for me to use anyway, so I simply braced myself as much as I could and hoped for the best.

  When I woke the next morning—and I don’t mind telling you that I’m surprised I fell asleep—I didn’t get down immediately. Instead, I checked my leg. I have several toolkits for them, but the one I brought with me was in the car, so there was little I could do. What I found was a smell.

  Smell is an excellent diagnostic tool when it comes to these legs. Truly. My first legs broke constantly, and many times there was a faint odor like burned plastic or scorched metal coming from a joint or access port. Sure enough, I smelled the same thing coming from the knee when I took off the leg and gave it a good sniffing.

  Some of the techs at the testing facility called me Buzz because I kept “buzzing my relays” during tests. Those tests, plus the ones done by the first man to get these legs (but also an arm), are what made them decide to go for something called “black box” construction. Since the limbs were custom jobs and took time to repair, they shifted to a new model with as many uniform innards as possible, settling for making the customizations on the outside or in the supports, which are sturdier.

  I have loads of black box parts, which plug into various ports inside my leg. Inside each box are components that have been standardized as much as can be done. Even so, there are about thirty different kinds of black boxes. The trick is that I have to identify exactly what went wrong first, and that’s the hard part. I don’t have the internet to hook up my leg to, which is how the techs used to do the diagnostics. They were working on a standalone diagnostics unit for people to keep at home, but we weren’t there yet.

  I have a port on each leg, and I hooked it to my computer using a cord exactly like the one for my phone. I used to joke and say my leg was phoning home, like the alien in that old movie. Anyway, at least once a month something had to get fixed, which is why all of those like me have boxes of parts. It’s not like they’ve worked out all the kinks after only a couple of years.

  So, there I was, up a tree with a busted fake leg. I also had a long way to go over uneven ground, which made wearing the sport legs risky. In the end, it all came down to what I could survive. I might survive a ground race on roads better than having my regular leg entirely break down while I’m slogging through the woods.

  So, sport legs and the long way home it would have to be.

  You’ve been out there if you got here, so you can imagine how that went. I may have gone past thirty miles per hour on the test track, but that was a test track. That was after good sleep, great meals, all my physical needs perfectly cared for, and on a track without a single thing to hinder me. This time, I had a few squares of disgusting lifeboat rations, a bottle of water, and a few hours of fitful rest in a tree.

  Even so, I got home. The last mile was the hardest, because I picked up followers. I already had some from the caravan I’d passed on the way out, but they were losing interest as they fell behind. It was the ones close to the road here that bothered me. They might still be close by. Only one made it to the barrier, and it was just sitting there when I saw it after I got my rest, so I got lucky.

  But, you can see why I was so truly exhausted. And the reason I think they want the light. When they congregate, it’s always places where the sun can shed light. Like the clearing around that old house.

  I’ve got two of the monsters out there under my tree now, so I think I’ll wait until I have a few more before I use the shooter’s nest. I can get them taken care of in a group, instead of continuing to make noise every day. They really do seem to like the electronics tree.

  Day 46 - Evening

  Today, I made cookies. Yes, I did. And they are delicious.

  I snagged the recipe from Doris’s book. She kept all her secret recipes in it, and I adore those cookies, so I figured I might as well try to preserve something good in this world. This recipe counts as one of those good things. Also, I think my lack of a baking gene only involves baking things that require yeast, because these cookies are out of this world.

  It’s in the back with the rest of the recipes: Chewy Chocolate Chip.

  Don’t be put off by the oatmeal, because it’s the oatmeal that makes them chewy. Just trust me and go for it. Where did I get the butter and eggs, you ask? Well, there’s a freezer at Fred’s with gobs of butter in it, but he also showed me his powdered butter in big cans in his survival stash.

  At the time, I’d laughed and asked what in the world he would do with powdered butter. I haven’t opened it, because of what’s in the freezer, but he swore that if you mixed it the way the instructions say to, then it will work like any other butter.

  As for eggs, well, that’s from my stash. I opened one of the cans of freeze-dried egg crystals. They’re good! I tested them by making scrambled eggs this morning and they reminded me of the ones in the hospital, not great, but definitely eggy.

  And bonus, they work perfectly in cookies.

  I promise not to go hog wild with the packets and leave them for important things, like cookies.

  How’s my leg this morning? I can almost hear you asking, whoever you are. Well, it’s okay. The red spot is a bit bigger and the ache is still there, but the burning sensation is gone. I think I may have done something to my internal relays. I think I basically gave myself a burn from the inside.

  I don’t want to stress it, so I’m not giving into the temptation to jump and see if I can. It’s entirely possible that my jumping days are now behind me. Who knows? I don’t, but seriously, I’m lucky at this point and I know it.

  While I was doing the baking this morning, I watched the monsters at the tree. There are three now, and I wonder if they’re feeling crowded. One of them is a tad livelier than the others and I’d swear its shouldering both the other monsters away on purpose. It’s hard to tell, but it sure looks that way from here.

  I think I might be anthropomorphizing again.

  What else did I do today? Well, hopefully something useful to someone. If we flood, then it might be a problem, but even then, it might be okay considering what I used. That sounds confusing, so I’ll explain.

  During my last day out there running, I needed a break to drink the last of my water and catch my breath, so I’d been on the lookout for somewhere I could hide. It would have to be someplace that the monsters wouldn’t see or hear me, and hopefully a place complicated to get into, because they can’t operate doors, but they go through windows.

  Unfortunately, I was running past a whole lot of busted in doors and broken glass and the like. It was t
he shopping area where I spent that first night. Given the whole jumping issue, I didn’t want to rely on the roof again, so I was searching hard as I ran. Then something caught my eye.

  As I wrote before, this is a relatively new area. All the businesses were put up to accommodate the growing, affluent suburbs beyond. That’s not to say this was virgin land. A single old house, the kind with tall windows meant for this climate, stood between an upscale dog-sitting place and an equally upscale bike shop. The bike shop was trashed. I had given it a good once over on my way out, but the house between hadn’t really registered on me.

  Whether this was the farmhouse original to this whole area or simply a house in the country once upon a time, I don’t know, but it was a new age shop in its most recent incarnation. The clapboards had been painted in happy, but muted, shades of green. The shutters were a bright yellow. It looked friendly.

  It was also trashed.

  What caught my eye was the crawlspace. A single orange piece of something trailed from one of the grills on the crawlspace. It stood out because of the color, fluttering in the breeze. It almost looked like someone did it on purpose, a way to signal without being obvious. I took a chance and swerved to that side of the street, then set to looking around. Sure enough, there was a large access grill in the rear, and when I yanked on it, it pulled free.

  I crawled in and set the grill back in place. It was only then that I noticed two things at the same time. First, the smell of decay. Second, pieces of wire dangling from nails near the grill, meant to hook onto the screws at the edges and keep the grill in place. There would be no reason to have the hooks on the inside if it was meant to be secured from the outside. This was a hiding place for someone. Or it had been.

  The decay smell made me pivot to look around the dim space, fear rising. Nothing came out at me or even made noise, so I figured the smell might be coming from somewhere nearby or even above me, in the business. It took effort to get the wires over the screws, but once they were on, I felt better. This low space would give me a much-needed break, possibly even let the monsters currently alerted to my presence get bored and wander off in search of something tasty. It was also significantly cooler down there, with the earth to give off a bit of cool air and the entire area eternally in deep shadow.