Chapter 8: The Promised Land?

As urbanized as the area around Washington, D. C. is, western Virginia seemed like another realm. Miles upon miles of tree-covered hills leading up to the misty, time-worn peaks of the Appalachians broken only occasionally by settlements probably not that much bigger than some of the frontier towns that cropped up in similar places some three centuries ago. Civilization broke into the wilderness in the form of rutted roads of asphalt that eventually petered out into dirt roads, some of which would have been hard to see from the air. Most of the towns we passed by that night were dark, visible only in the occasional fire. None of them, however, were ablaze like the cities to the east. Single structures or cars were smoldering or scorched but still largely intact. No, the fires often seemed to have people around them. We avoided the lights that night. Nothing good had come of interacting with anyone else except meeting James and Heather and even then someone had died at my hands.

Before we had even set out, I picked James' brain of all he knew about Lake Moomaw, which was a lot. Turned out he had vacationed there with a girlfriend once or twice when he was stationed at Norfolk. She was an avid outdoorswoman who loved camping and fishing. I had joked that she sounded perfect and asked why wasn't she his wife? No answer. Lake Moomaw was a man-made lake resulting from the construction of a dam on the Jackson River. We didn't have to worry about the dam's eventual collapse washing us away because all of the water would simply empty the lake downstream. He also remembered there being a few islands in the lake, which might be a good place to hole up, at first. The land around the lake was covered in trees and very hilly. Fishing and the scenery were the big attractions of the lake and there were a few habitations but no overly big towns on the lake itself and most of those would be half empty due to it being the off season. There were a few houses set back from the lake and some Army Corps of Engineers and DoE (Department of Energy) buildings around the dam along with Fish and Wildlife and Campground offices around the lake. We were far enough out from civilization that we both thought that there might still be some normal humans left in the Lake area, but we were not counting on it and we would be avoiding everyone. The least reason being we did not want to infect anyone not already infected. We still had small flickerings of hope buried deep down that we couldn't bring ourselves to kill just yet.

James had taken over driving after nightfall. I slipped into the rear of the truck and dozed for a couple of hours, waking at the least bump or jolt of the truck. Sometime before midnight, I woke and took up a position next to James, sending Heather back to sleep. The rest of the ride into the dawn was driven in near silence. We knew what we were about and there was little else to say. I imagine James' thoughts were no prettier than mine and that kind of thinking did not need to be shared. It was probably going to be a very long winter in which the weather would be the least of our concerns.

We had long since been off the main highways when the sky behind us started to haze with grayish-purple. The road we were on was a poorly maintained country road that led us right by the dam sometime in the night. Now we were coming to the lakeshore that James had picked out to give us a look at our new home. He slowly drove through the trees and up to a hill, stopping the truck.

Heather started awake. "Are we there?" she squeaked nervously, noticing the hazy light outside. I was happy to see her hand automatically went straight to the short sword she slept with. James and I would definitely have to teach her how to use it when we got settled. "Is it morning?"

"Yes and almost," I replied, standing up and slinging the claymore over my shoulder. "Stay here while James and I look around. You might want to grab one of those energy bars we stored away back there when we stopped last."

She nodded as I opened the door and James grabbed his rifle, following me outside into the bitter end of a very cold night. It would be hard to hear anything trying to sneak up on us over the noise of the truck, but Heather needed to keep warm. She seemed to have a harder time of that than James or even me. I felt the wind bite as we moved around the truck in a widening circle, but it did not bother me much thanks to the hairiness of my new body and the insulation it had. The same with James and his thick fur covering what was his own nice layer of insulating fat. Eventually James and I wound our way over to the bluff overlooking the lake and watched it in the growing light.

"Is it safe?" Heather demanded irritably from the truck and we nodded, waving her over. From our position we could see much of the lake, including a couple of islands one of which was fairly big and might do for us for the time being. James and I could probably build a decent sized shelter to serve us until spring when we could build something a little more permanent. If we could find a boat and then make sure it was the only one on the lake, we would be pretty safe until then, at least.

James looked down at me and grinned. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Find a boat to get us out there and then make sure there are no others on the lake?" I replied with a smile of my own.

"Yup. The dam's thatta way and there are a couple of private docks for rich folk that come up here, but bein' winter, their boats'll be stored somewhere else," he said waving to the south. "Come on, I know where there should be some boats stored for the season. We gotta hurry cuz I'm startin' to fade."

We got back in the truck and James drove us northward for a bit before crossing over a small river and turning left, heading back southward. "This is Mill Creek. It trickles down to Back Creek a ways north. Near the mouth of Mill Creek, before it turns into Lake Moomaw, there are some docks, a boat ramp, and a parkin' lot where some folks store boats and RVs, dependin' on the season. I haven't been up here in the dead of winter but I know some of the locals pull their boats out of the water and keep 'em here for the off season."

A few minutes on the southern road and we came to the parking lot. There was a wooden dock jutting out into the chill lake waters and a boat ramp nearby. James was right; there were three boats and a camper trailer sitting in the lot.

"I had a thought," I said as we all got out, guns and swords at the ready as our eyes darted around the dawn lot.

"Yup, that seems to be a habit with you," James replied snarkily, setting Heather off into a fit of giggles. He grinned his bearish grin at the girl and added, "Go ahead and haul it out for us. I am sure we will be amazed and astounded."

I grinned too. "You are in fine form this morning," was my wry retort. "My thought was that we should get you and Heather out to the island so you can bed down. I will show her how to pilot the boat on the way out and she can drive me back to get at least one of the other boats, preferably both. There will inevitably be times when one of us may need to go to the mainland to hunt or scavenge and it would be nice if we all didn't have to troop out together. Those left behind will still have a way off the island if need be."

"Hmm, sounds good to me. Let's get all of the boats in the water and tied up at the docks. We will take the big tent and some food and leave the rest locked up in the truck for now. Y'all can wake me up early and we can come and load up on some of it later today," he replied with a jaw-cracking yawn, scrubbing his ursine face with a huge, hairy paw-hand. "I'm gettin' close to done in, so let make it double time before I pass out."

"When Seamus and I come back we can check out the camper trailer for anything good, too," Heather suggested brightly as we all headed for the first boat, a small fishing boat similar to the ones you see on professional fishing shows. The best we could use it for was to move around the lake, fish, and carry minimal amounts of stuff. "It probably has bedding at the very least and maybe lighter fluid and charcoal, since there is a grill chained to the back of it."

I nodded approvingly at her, glad she was starting to think along those lines. It made me feel better about her chances of living through this to find something better than hanging out with a couple of old men.

We unhooked the U-Haul trailer from our truck and hooked up the first boat, backing it into the freezing water. Since it seemed I was immortal, or close enough to it, I got to splash around in it to unhook the boat from the trailer while James steered it to the docks. Shivering, I climbed back into the truck and drove over to the second boat, a catamaran-type pontoon boat that we could probably use to haul a lot of gear out to the island with but it wasn't going to win any races. Like the first boat, there was some fishing gear in the boat, but no poles or anything else of use. It took all of James' and my strength to get it hooked up to the truck with Heather anxiously at the wheel to back it up. Amazingly, she had never been behind the wheel of a car.

The third boat was a bit of a mystery. It was larger than either of the others, had a decent-sized cabin with two twin beds and a very small galley and was powered by engines that could run circles around the other two boats. James could think of no good reason to have such a big, expensive boat on such a small, out-of-the-way lake in backwoods Virginia. Inside the cabin were linens for the bed, some nice clothes in the chests built into the beds, and a few handguns and rifles with ammunition. No fishing gear was to be found anywhere on the boat, however. If we struggled with the pontoon boat, getting the luxury craft hooked up and into the water was a labor worthy of Hercules. We eventually got it wet and snug to the dock and began loading food, blankets, a few weapons, and the tent onto the boat. At the last second, I rushed back to the truck and grabbed a couple of shovels and a pick-axe as another idea came to me.

"Another idea?" Heather asked, her eyebrow quirked over twinkling amber orbs betraying her enjoyment of James' sense of humor about my brain and its functioning. She added, in her best and very good imitation of our ursine friend's voice and accent, "Haul it out for us."

James grinned as I grumbled. "We should work on digging a tent-sized hole to put the tent into. The ground will insulate us from the temperatures dropping below freezing. That is also why I loaded more blankets than we need. We need to keep our bodies insulated from the ground because it will be cold and it will leech the heat from our bodies if we don't insulate well enough."

James eyed me blearily. "Are you sure you weren't in the military?"

I laughed and shook my head. "I just watched too much Man vs. Wild."

The island was not impressive. At one point in the distant past, it looked to have been two small islands that simply grew together. It wasn't very tall and was covered by trees. We beached the boat on the north shore and I splashed ashore with Heather on my back, James jumping from the bow to the dry sand of the beach. I grabbed the bow line on my way past and handed it to him. Heather slid off of me and we all pulled the boat up a little farther onto the sand. Then we spread out to look for a good spot to set up our new home.

The was a small bare spot near the center of the larger half of the island that we cleared and hastily set up the large, four-person tent unknowingly supplied by Walmart. Two large sleeping bags, a neon pink sleeping bag, several down comforters, and three pillows went into the tent, making a snug little nest for us until we could get something a little more secure and permanent going. Weapons went by each of the beds and James crawled in and was snoring almost before Heather zipped up the tent.