Chapter 102
Thankfully there was a fairly deep ditch on the south side of the road, as the zombies did not stay milling about in the field. Within minutes of the two women crossing the road and entering the ditch, they all started to slowly shuffle back towards High River. More specifically, they started moving back towards the rough direction of the downtown core where they had first been encountered by the pack. As Natalie saw this, more questions popped up in her head about how the zombies' function. It was possible that they were tied to the area where they were raised, and were only able to go up to a certain distance away. Did that meant that it was possible to eventually run away from a group of zombies? It would also explain at least one reason why they did not follow the orcs out of town. Sure, they were rambling corpses of the recently deceased brought back to tear all life a new one, but they more and more seemed to be similar to a territorial animal. What other things could she find out by examining them?
She was shaken out of her musings by Shannon, who physically grabbed her shoulder and shook her. No words were said, but the motion of Shannon's arm implied for her to hurry up. Staying low in the ditch so as to not be seen by the returning zombies, they moved west alongside the road. When they passed the first inroad back into High river along the trail, Nat chanced a look back, and was glad that they had moved when they did. When thousands of zombies started shambling back towards town, some went slightly off course. She watched as one literally tripped over nothing and went face first right by where she had stopped before. If Shannon was not there, she may have had to test out her theory about being able to run far enough away. Now seeing how widely all of the monsters had spread out, she moved forward with gusto, doing her best to maintain a certain amount of distance from the desiccated bodies.
As the two put the zombies behind them, none of the canines came out to join them. While Nat's theory that only the larger monsters could sense the use of the Soulscape, they did not want to chance she was wrong. They were still walking along the edge of town, and the range of their senses was currently unknown. As they came up to the end of the trail, it branched into a few other directions. There were two immediate turns, both to the left and right, with a road heading straight west breaking off just a few meters into the turn to the north. Honestly it was one of the weirdest intersections she had ever seen. Granted, she did not get out much and barely traveled outside the province, let alone the country. Her repertoire of weird things she had seen when it came to roads was severely limited compared to others. Natalie just stood there and admired the strangeness of the design while Shannon consulted the map.
Apparently, they were on a backroad, but that suited the two of them just fine. And with the zombie horde being extremely slow at moving away from where they were, travelling along it seemed to be the most prudent of ideas. Thankfully, it flowed all the way back up and into Calgary. They just had to decide on which path they wanted to follow to the big city. In the end, they decided to go through Okotoks, and make the quickest time they could. That, and similar to Lethbridge, it had four bridges that had been built to cross the Sheep River. That meant that crossing it should be relatively easy, as long as they did not run into additional complications.
Having their course figured out, the two started moving north. It was not until they hit Highway 543 that Maia and Kali came back out to travel with them. Given how rough of a day it had been, both came out in their quadruped forms, as to not add additional strain onto Natalie. Together, the four of them headed west on the highway, staying vigilant despite the lack of anything along the road. The main thing that all of them agreed to travel around was a small power distribution complex, not dissimilar to the one that was by Shannon's old home in Lethbridge. After giving that a wide berth, the only other things of interest was a dip in and out of a small recess in the ground. Small on a geographic scale anyways, as it was only about ten meters deeper than the rest of the road.
After that came their right turn onto Highway 783, which was a straight shot to Okotoks. Almost immediately there was an actual valley, but it took them barely anytime to walk down the road to the bottom and back up the other side. The only thing of note that they came across on this road before seeing the small city was Okotoks' landfill. Seagulls seemed to have laid claim of the area, circling the area and perching upon both the fence and the interior. They came to the top of a small hill, which sat a fair distance away from the city, but was still able to overview most of it just as clouds started to form overhead. These looked like some solid storm clouds, and rather than travel and attempt to set up in the rain, the pack agreed that it was better to call it a day now.
Finding a slightly slower batching of trees on the west side of the road, camp was set up not a moment too soon. As soon as both tents had been set up and placed, raindrops started to fall from the sky. All that came to Nat and Shannon's minds was that April showers brought May flowers was a possibility this year. With their tents placed side by side, food and other materials were passed back and forth through the windows. The coyotes even split up for the night, with Copper taking watch from inside Shannon's tent while Edwin and Lucille set themselves up at the mouth of Natalie's. After the evening practice and workout, and the shifting of Kali, everyone but the night watch laid down and embraced the void of sleep.
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