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Jan. 12th, 2017 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_ship_itDodger followed Mulholland Drive as it wound and meandered in a general westerly direction, steep slopes and sheer drops giving way to dark, natural tunnels through overgrown trees, and then back again to the open ridge along the Hollywood Hills. It was quiet up there, giving Dodger a good sense of what dangers were near, and which could be cautiously ignored. It felt safer up here, even knowing there were hellhounds in the area. But she didn’t know what might have been prowling along Santa Monica Boulevard. Or who. Up here, Dodger had the edge, however small it may have been. She knew countless hiding spots along the entire length of Mulholland, and she knew where it would eventually end. More than once, she found herself tempted to take a short-cut as Mulholland Drive twisted toward the north and more easterly than anything, and again as it turned back heading vaguely southeast. Sticking to Mulholland promised a long trek, but venturing off of that path was going into the unknown. Dodger didn’t know every little side street and private road that branched off, and any one of them could have taken her to a dead end, or in the wrong direction entirely.
She counted the No Parking signs, each one acting as a mile marker. They’d all been defaced in one way or another, distinguishing each sign from all the rest along the way - No Hope, No Mercy, No God, No Salvation; just a new way of measuring the distance travelled. Dodger stopped at each one, knowing somewhere nearby she’d find something stored away for the next person who came along. There was rarely anything useful, but there was always something. A road-side lost and found box for the cautious traveller. A bottle opener in one, half a roll of electrical tape in the next, a usable pair of scissors after that – all items that were potentially useful, but took up more room than they were worth when space was at a premium and travelling lightly was a necessity. These cache boxes and the water collectors were the only contact Dodger ever had with other survivors, however indirect it may have been. The less close contact she had with other people, the longer her expected lifespan would be. The cache boxes and shared water may have seemed like gestures of good will on the surface, but they were all about survival. Knowing where to find clean, fresh water was everything. Knowing where you stashed that second pair of shoes was everything else. You stashed them knowing someone else might come along later and take them, but hoped they’d trade out something just as valuable when making room in their pack. But you also stashed them knowing someone might come along and just take everything, whether they needed it or not. Hoping for the former, but counting on the latter was the only way to survive. Treat everybody as if they meant to do you harm, and be prepared to do harm to anyone who might threaten you. There was no more Golden Rule. No more Do Unto Others. Being kind only got you killed.
The sun was dipping low on the horizon by the time Dodger finally hit the 405. It was time to get out of the open, and into some shelter. Nestled in a shallow bowl between the intersection of the freeway and the winding mountain road, Dodger could see a modest campus of some variety. She quickly ran across the overpass, not wanting to spend a second longer than necessary up there, out in the open for anybody to spot. All she needed was for somebody to follow after her and wait until she settled in for the night to stage their ambush. Once she was on the other side of the freeway, Dodger found the first opening in what was likely once neatly-trimmed landscaping, but was now an overgrown mess of sharp, prickly bushes and out of control trees. She used her baseball bat to push through the thickest parts, before finally stumbling onto cracked pavement once more. A crooked sign at the corner of a parking lot marked the road she stood on. Walt Disney Drive. Dodger wanted to laugh. There were times when she would completely forget not only what things were like before everything ended, but what was still to be found all around her. She never went into Hollywood or Anaheim, or even Los Angeles proper. On the surface, it was because she knew there would be more people there to compete with. But there was also a strong sense of denial that kept her from going into any area that might have a familiar landmark. That anything had ever been familiar in the past was completely unbelievable. She had never been a college student, struggling to decide what on Earth to major in, while riding out a baseball scholarship. She never had a tiny apartment she shared with a friend, or a crappy car that only started about 50% of the time. No hamster that lived in a cage on top of her dresser. There never was a normal. Normal didn’t end with monsters and mayhem, and the words “a gate to hell has been opened.”
But the name Walt Disney, still showing boldly on the aluminum road sign challenged that assertion. It was a stark reminder that all this wasn’t normal, and shouldn’t have been normal. It seemed like the new normal, but it was all just a twisted reality that should never have been.
Pressing on, Dodger looked anywhere but at the road signs and made tracks to the nearest building. There was an empty swimming pool outside the flat-roofed building, with an upside down car at the bottom. Staying in a school gym wasn’t the fanciest place Dodger had ever bedded down for the night, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Breaking in was easy, and barricading the doors again was just as easy. The only problem was there wasn’t a whole lot to loot. Dodger found herself a quiet corner in the huge room and pulled the last tin of Fancy Feast from her bag before settling in for the night.
She was up again with the first hint of light coming through the windows high on the walls. It was time to leave, and start heading south again. Dodger hated following any open road, but the 405 was the most direct way back into the city. Rather than walking along the actual freeway, Dodger took the boulevard that ran parallel to it. She still felt open and exposed, even though the road she was on sat beneath the freeway, with the stone retaining wall and steep slopes towering high above.
Even early in the morning, the air was getting hot, forcing her to stop more than she wanted to for rest and shade. She tried not to drink much of the water she’d collected from the hills, not having any idea what she might find at her next stop. She had to save what little supplies she had, since she was going to be starting all over again. She knew she was in for a lean couple of days to follow, until she could find some good scavenging ground. And that was always the hardest part with moving to a new area. She knew where she’d been, and where there wasn’t much left to be found, but she didn’t know where other people had been. But she’d survived this long without much at all, and had gone without more than a few times already. This wasn’t going to be any different.
Cars were still parked all along the road, left behind from when their owners had bailed out to run on foot. Dodger didn’t bother checking inside any of them, though. They’d been sitting on the road for who knew how long, and anything still inside would have been baked and disgusting by now. Abandoned cars were a good place to spend a night in a pinch, but they weren’t worth much more than that. In the movies, abandoned cars always seemed to be stripped down of anything extra or cosmetic, leaving just the shell or chassis. But that wasn’t what had happened. There was no value in scrap. Nobody needed fancy rims or hubcaps or chrome trim for anything. The gasoline still in the tanks was the only useful thing to be taken from any of the cars, and someone had been down this road doing exactly that. For more than a mile, all of the fuel flaps were open, with the caps dangling down on their chains or sitting somewhere close on the ground. Someone had been shacked up nearby for months, and might have even still been around, enjoying the comforts of a gasoline-powered generator. It was the incentive Dodger needed to keep moving and get to somewhere with a little more cover.
Santa Monica Blvd was exactly the same. Cars everywhere, some broken into in the hopes of finding something useful and most with their fuel tanks standing open. But whoever had been siphoning off the gas didn’t seem to be sticking around. The street was completely deserted and silent, except for the noises from the wildlife that had all moved in and taken over. Birds chirped and whistled, making it sound more like a cheery forest than the middle of LA. Somewhere far in the distance, Dodger could hear a dog barking, again encouraging her to pick up the pace and find a place to settle down before looking for supplies. If she was lucky, whoever or whatever the dog was barking at would stay far away from her.
The sun was high in the sky and burning hot when Dodger finally reached the coast. She walked under the pier to get some shade, and to keep off the hot sand that wanted to burn even through her shoes. She walked straight to the water’s edge, letting it get up to her knees before finally stopping. The temptation to just let herself fall into the water completely was almost overwhelming, but even with the sun as hot as it was, she didn’t want to be walking around with soggy, wet clothes. Soggy wet shoes and jeans was going to be bad enough, especially getting back across the sand. Which it was soon time to do. As much as she wanted to just enjoy the cool water and dark shade, Dodger knew she had to find shelter. Not far down the beach, Dodger could see the lifeguard headquarters building, with its yellow trucks still parked outside on the sand. Curious, she made her way toward it, getting sand stuck to her shoes and jeans with each step. It seemed mostly intact, with no busted out windows or broken doors, but it was also unlocked. Dodger carefully stepped inside, peering around corners to make sure nobody was hiding quietly. It seemed like someone had been there before, but nobody was there now. There were a few large cooking pots with lids and rubber hoses piled up in one of the corners, and some trash kicked up against the walls, but nothing was left behind that was actually useful. A scour of every nook and cranny revealed no hidden food, but that wasn’t exactly unusual. Still, Dodger decided it would do, at least for a few days.
She counted the No Parking signs, each one acting as a mile marker. They’d all been defaced in one way or another, distinguishing each sign from all the rest along the way - No Hope, No Mercy, No God, No Salvation; just a new way of measuring the distance travelled. Dodger stopped at each one, knowing somewhere nearby she’d find something stored away for the next person who came along. There was rarely anything useful, but there was always something. A road-side lost and found box for the cautious traveller. A bottle opener in one, half a roll of electrical tape in the next, a usable pair of scissors after that – all items that were potentially useful, but took up more room than they were worth when space was at a premium and travelling lightly was a necessity. These cache boxes and the water collectors were the only contact Dodger ever had with other survivors, however indirect it may have been. The less close contact she had with other people, the longer her expected lifespan would be. The cache boxes and shared water may have seemed like gestures of good will on the surface, but they were all about survival. Knowing where to find clean, fresh water was everything. Knowing where you stashed that second pair of shoes was everything else. You stashed them knowing someone else might come along later and take them, but hoped they’d trade out something just as valuable when making room in their pack. But you also stashed them knowing someone might come along and just take everything, whether they needed it or not. Hoping for the former, but counting on the latter was the only way to survive. Treat everybody as if they meant to do you harm, and be prepared to do harm to anyone who might threaten you. There was no more Golden Rule. No more Do Unto Others. Being kind only got you killed.
The sun was dipping low on the horizon by the time Dodger finally hit the 405. It was time to get out of the open, and into some shelter. Nestled in a shallow bowl between the intersection of the freeway and the winding mountain road, Dodger could see a modest campus of some variety. She quickly ran across the overpass, not wanting to spend a second longer than necessary up there, out in the open for anybody to spot. All she needed was for somebody to follow after her and wait until she settled in for the night to stage their ambush. Once she was on the other side of the freeway, Dodger found the first opening in what was likely once neatly-trimmed landscaping, but was now an overgrown mess of sharp, prickly bushes and out of control trees. She used her baseball bat to push through the thickest parts, before finally stumbling onto cracked pavement once more. A crooked sign at the corner of a parking lot marked the road she stood on. Walt Disney Drive. Dodger wanted to laugh. There were times when she would completely forget not only what things were like before everything ended, but what was still to be found all around her. She never went into Hollywood or Anaheim, or even Los Angeles proper. On the surface, it was because she knew there would be more people there to compete with. But there was also a strong sense of denial that kept her from going into any area that might have a familiar landmark. That anything had ever been familiar in the past was completely unbelievable. She had never been a college student, struggling to decide what on Earth to major in, while riding out a baseball scholarship. She never had a tiny apartment she shared with a friend, or a crappy car that only started about 50% of the time. No hamster that lived in a cage on top of her dresser. There never was a normal. Normal didn’t end with monsters and mayhem, and the words “a gate to hell has been opened.”
But the name Walt Disney, still showing boldly on the aluminum road sign challenged that assertion. It was a stark reminder that all this wasn’t normal, and shouldn’t have been normal. It seemed like the new normal, but it was all just a twisted reality that should never have been.
Pressing on, Dodger looked anywhere but at the road signs and made tracks to the nearest building. There was an empty swimming pool outside the flat-roofed building, with an upside down car at the bottom. Staying in a school gym wasn’t the fanciest place Dodger had ever bedded down for the night, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Breaking in was easy, and barricading the doors again was just as easy. The only problem was there wasn’t a whole lot to loot. Dodger found herself a quiet corner in the huge room and pulled the last tin of Fancy Feast from her bag before settling in for the night.
She was up again with the first hint of light coming through the windows high on the walls. It was time to leave, and start heading south again. Dodger hated following any open road, but the 405 was the most direct way back into the city. Rather than walking along the actual freeway, Dodger took the boulevard that ran parallel to it. She still felt open and exposed, even though the road she was on sat beneath the freeway, with the stone retaining wall and steep slopes towering high above.
Even early in the morning, the air was getting hot, forcing her to stop more than she wanted to for rest and shade. She tried not to drink much of the water she’d collected from the hills, not having any idea what she might find at her next stop. She had to save what little supplies she had, since she was going to be starting all over again. She knew she was in for a lean couple of days to follow, until she could find some good scavenging ground. And that was always the hardest part with moving to a new area. She knew where she’d been, and where there wasn’t much left to be found, but she didn’t know where other people had been. But she’d survived this long without much at all, and had gone without more than a few times already. This wasn’t going to be any different.
Cars were still parked all along the road, left behind from when their owners had bailed out to run on foot. Dodger didn’t bother checking inside any of them, though. They’d been sitting on the road for who knew how long, and anything still inside would have been baked and disgusting by now. Abandoned cars were a good place to spend a night in a pinch, but they weren’t worth much more than that. In the movies, abandoned cars always seemed to be stripped down of anything extra or cosmetic, leaving just the shell or chassis. But that wasn’t what had happened. There was no value in scrap. Nobody needed fancy rims or hubcaps or chrome trim for anything. The gasoline still in the tanks was the only useful thing to be taken from any of the cars, and someone had been down this road doing exactly that. For more than a mile, all of the fuel flaps were open, with the caps dangling down on their chains or sitting somewhere close on the ground. Someone had been shacked up nearby for months, and might have even still been around, enjoying the comforts of a gasoline-powered generator. It was the incentive Dodger needed to keep moving and get to somewhere with a little more cover.
Santa Monica Blvd was exactly the same. Cars everywhere, some broken into in the hopes of finding something useful and most with their fuel tanks standing open. But whoever had been siphoning off the gas didn’t seem to be sticking around. The street was completely deserted and silent, except for the noises from the wildlife that had all moved in and taken over. Birds chirped and whistled, making it sound more like a cheery forest than the middle of LA. Somewhere far in the distance, Dodger could hear a dog barking, again encouraging her to pick up the pace and find a place to settle down before looking for supplies. If she was lucky, whoever or whatever the dog was barking at would stay far away from her.
The sun was high in the sky and burning hot when Dodger finally reached the coast. She walked under the pier to get some shade, and to keep off the hot sand that wanted to burn even through her shoes. She walked straight to the water’s edge, letting it get up to her knees before finally stopping. The temptation to just let herself fall into the water completely was almost overwhelming, but even with the sun as hot as it was, she didn’t want to be walking around with soggy, wet clothes. Soggy wet shoes and jeans was going to be bad enough, especially getting back across the sand. Which it was soon time to do. As much as she wanted to just enjoy the cool water and dark shade, Dodger knew she had to find shelter. Not far down the beach, Dodger could see the lifeguard headquarters building, with its yellow trucks still parked outside on the sand. Curious, she made her way toward it, getting sand stuck to her shoes and jeans with each step. It seemed mostly intact, with no busted out windows or broken doors, but it was also unlocked. Dodger carefully stepped inside, peering around corners to make sure nobody was hiding quietly. It seemed like someone had been there before, but nobody was there now. There were a few large cooking pots with lids and rubber hoses piled up in one of the corners, and some trash kicked up against the walls, but nothing was left behind that was actually useful. A scour of every nook and cranny revealed no hidden food, but that wasn’t exactly unusual. Still, Dodger decided it would do, at least for a few days.
