Out of Favor: The Traveler Read online

  Out of Favor: The Traveler

  Blaine Rincon

  Copyright © 2020 Blaine Rincon

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Blaine Rincon

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  In His Own Words

  Inevitability

  Acceptance

  The Traveler

  .75%

  Discovery

  The Town

  Visitation

  Connection

  Decision

  Mental Preparedness

  Old Friends, Bad Decisions

  Transition

  Time Moves On

  And Though She Be but Little...

  ...She is Fierce

  The Stay

  Decision Part 2

  Intuition

  Muito Tarde

  Reflection

  New Life

  The Journal

  Unexpected

  Are We There Yet

  About The Author

  Prologue

  Prepper

  /preh·pr '/ someone who actively prepares in the event of worst-case scenarios, such as the end of the world, by acquiring and practicing survival techniques and stockpiling supplies.

  "Good Afternoon Sir."

  The lone man stopped his pace. Three men, looking somewhat rough around the edges, stood in the road before him. Preoccupied within his own thoughts he'd made a mistake. Of all the times to not pay attention to my surroundings, he thought to himself.

  The oldest one, probably in his fifties, appeared to be the leader. He spoke like a leader, and the other two flanked him as though waiting for orders. The leader smiled at him. Not the kind of smile which struck him as being particularly friendly, either.

  "How are you today?" continued the leader.

  The other two were younger, probably mid to late twenties. One of them barked aloud, "I say we take his stuff."

  He kept his gaze at the three men standing before him, keeping a stoic, stone look on his face. No emotion, no reaction, no nervousness.

  "Now hold on boys." The leader spoke up, halting his men with a gesture. "That's not very neighborly. We just met the man."

  The leader studied the man.

  "What's your name, brother?"

  The man still stared. No answer given.

  "Ah hell, I don't blame you for not saying much. I mean you just walked up on us. I would have questions about us too. Well let me make things easier. I'm JB. Now ole dipshit here who already opened his mouth is Don. This other guy is Max."

  The man, still keeping them in check with his eyes, simply made a small acknowledgment with a short nod.

  A searing grin went across Max's face.

  He growled, "I want his hat."

  JB made an eye roll while throwing his head back. Obviously, he did not care for his underling's behavior sometimes.

  The man, facing the group of three, slowly reached up and took off his hat while watching everyone. Still maintaining a watchful eye on the group, he placed the hat on the ground, and took a step back.

  Max stepped forward starting to stretch his hand out for the hat. JB quickly reached over and grabbed his arm. "Dumbass! He's not giving the hat to you. He's saying take the hat, if you can." JB turned back to the lone man standing before him. "Isn't that correct, brother?"

  The man nodded. He removed his pack and tossed the bag aside, still watching everyone. The man stood straight with his staff. Max pulled out a hunting knife.

  "Put that shit away!" JB said.

  Max, eyeing the man, replied, "I intend to have that hat."

  "Well," sighed JB. He looked up and off in the distance. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  Don moved to the man's left, Max to his right. JB crossed his arms and stepped back. The man took a stance as his gaze shifted down slightly, watching both with his peripheral. Don quickly stepped towards the lone man, and received a hard staff thrust to the gut doubling him, Max moved slightly after, but in raising the knife he exposed his front, and got the opposite end in his stomach as well. With a quick turn, he swung the staff around hitting Don on the side of his neck, sending him end over end, landing unconscious on the ground. The man brought the opposite end around again in an upward sweep he took Max's feet out from under him. Max landed hard on his back, dropping the knife. He scrambled to reach his knife, but as he did, the man brought the staff down on Max's wrist and hand. The blow on his hand made a cracking sound, causing Max to scream from the flash of searing pain and shock.

  "My hand! Dammit! You broke my hand! Damn you! I'm gonna kick your ass!"

  "Shut the fuck up!" JB said. He uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. The man turned defensively towards JB.

  JB raised his hands up to the man.

  "Hey brother, it's cool. No sweat. I figured you could handle yourself. You have nothing to fear from me. These two idiots with me however, have a lot of learning to do if they are going to continue to survive. You think they would've learned by now." He paused. "I started with a total of four besides myself. I've already lost two due to stupidity."

  "Funny isn't?" JB put his hands on his hips and leaned back, like a philosopher contemplating the meaning of life. "The number of dumbasses who survived? Men like you and me, we know how to survive by wits. These two wouldn't survive a week without someone directing them. But, they will take orders. So, I keep them around."

  The man gathered his belongings. He picked up his hat, turned to JB and simply said, "Good luck on the future."

  JB snickered, looking at the ground. "You gonna to tell me your name?"

  The man said, "I'm just a traveler."

  "Well Traveler," JB said, looking up at him, "Safe journeys my friend. Perhaps we'll cross paths again. Preferably under better circumstances. "

  The man, pausing to scanned JB cautiously, replied, "Perhaps so."

  The Traveler continued on.

  In His Own Words

  Inevitability

  The world is gone. Decimated. One giant desolate landscape.

  Well, almost.

  You never think tragedy can happen to you. It can. This tragedy was, for lack of a better word, The Apocalypse. An event which occurred on a global scale, but not like a war. It was worse... far worse than any madman or dictator could have imagined.

  They say the course of events that put the Earth on the path of destruction started in a lab. Not a big lab. Nothing like a big scientific conglomeration, like the CDC or some research station in a remote Colorado facility.

  The government placed the lab in a city. A highly populated area. Really great planning, Right?

  The ideas behind the government’s reasoning to place the lab in the city:

  1. In an average city neighborhood, the lab would be less conspicuous. Steps could be taken in order to blend in with local businesses.

  2. In the event of a containment breach, the city could easily be closed off and contained.

  3. Access to law enforcement allowed for quick and easy access to personnel, who could be efficiently implemented and mobilized if necessary.
r />   These were ideas thought up by people sitting behind a desk, not understanding how much the average person moved about the city. These armchair quarterbacks, high level government officials calling the shots and making decisions from behind protected doors, did not comprehend how the real world operated.

  In the neighborhood where the lab opened, suspicions grew immediately. Ten well-dressed people suddenly showing up in a neighborhood business complex? Slightly odd, perhaps. By all exterior indications the office front operated as a legitimate office, complete with a business sign up calling itself a "call center". The office, however, turned out to be merely a front. The people who began to occupy the building complex dressed distinctively different from what you might expect in that neighborhood. As a working-class neighborhood, people began to talk and rumors abounded when high dollar suits and outfits appeared. High level cars, suspicious unmarked vehicles and dark colored SUV's began to park in front of the small line of storefronts. Rumors floated around of political offices coming, watchdog programs, or some silly campaign of the mayor to govern a portion of the city.

  The call center, far from what the official sources claimed the office to be, housed a bio weapons testing facility right up under the nose of the public.

  Stories began to circulate of an occurrence within the lab. Someone tore a hazmat suit. They panicked. In their rush to get to decontamination, chaos ensued and a vial shattered and broke. Something escaped. Something not meant to and something deeply powerful.

  The first signs of panic brought in unmarked first responders removing people from the "telemarketing" business. The unmarked response vehicles were all black. People were brought out of the building on stretchers, some covered in sheets, and loaded in the vehicles. Within a day, a number of the neighborhood residents started to fall ill. The news called the outbreak an isolated incident of an unusual virus. In reality, the shattered vial contained a weaponized smart virus. A smart virus which could adapt and mutate for maximum kill efficiency. The virus attacked the human body for at least eighteen hours before the first symptoms appeared. All the while the virus spread, passing on and multiplying in others to do the same.

  Several city blocks surrounding the neighborhood were sectioned off. After reviewing the situation, the containment area broadened to contain the entire city. Thanks to bureaucracy, time did not favor the foolish. The cost? The entire world.

  The world as we knew it began its demise when military personnel ordered the neighborhood people to step back on the first day of the accident. The virus infected some locals. They infected their neighbors. One took a cab to interview for a job. The cabbie picked up a business man on his way to an international flight. The cabbie argued with a police officer over a parking ticket. The policeman advised a tour bus on taking an alternate route. Geometric progression. Containment, taken out of the equation within a day, did not materialize whatsoever.

  The unofficial news outlets and rumors said the virus became airborne. A disease that would contact everyone on earth eventually, merely a matter of time and statistics.

  The pathogen attacked the body fast. The first symptoms were fever and chills. Within 3 hours of the onset of the first symptoms, the nervous system became compromised. Infected people began displaying symptoms of salivating, disorientation, partial blindness and rage, much like Rabies.

  The first week, 750,000 died.

  Second week; 330 million.

  Third; 1.7 billion.

  We never received any news after that, the networks began to be sporadic in broadcasting, then simply went off the air. Soon afterward the grid went down.

  In the last reports, before all journalism and news outlets shutdown, the CDC put the virus at a 99% mortality rate.

  Of the 1% remaining;

  .75% would survive with “serious medical side effects”.

  .25% would be immune with no infection whatsoever.

  Once a person contracted the illness, they did not come back. The virus either killed them or they were seriously affected the side effects.

  I was one of the immune. Not sure if I can consider myself lucky. The world became a decidedly different and dangerous place to live.

  They never told us what the "serious medical side effects" were.

  We found out for ourselves.

  Acceptance

  "Fortune favors the prepared mind."

  That statement, repeated to me many times as a youth, still rings in my thoughts on a daily basis.

  I grew up in a small town, spending summers with my family in the country. Most of those summers were spent with my uncle. Everyone seems to have one family member that everyone thinks is a nut job. That is how my uncle was viewed by most of my family. Yeah. You know, Conspiracy theorist. Never trusted the government. Doomsday prepper kind of guy. I am alive because of him. In my youth, in my mind, I believed my uncle to be the most fascinating person I ever met in my life. Older, strapping, tough as nails, and slick salt and pepper hair. I never referred to him by his name, or uncle, or any of the usual terms. "Old Man" is the only thing I'd ever known him by. He found it amusing when I referred to him by the term in my early days with him. Later in the years he never thought twice when I called him "Old Man". Old Man became his name to me. And I spent most of my summers with him, fishing, watching him set traps, showing me how to survive and listening to his fantastic stories of survival. He did this because he said he wanted to make certain he gave me the knowledge to make my way in the world when the government crashed, or whenever our nation became a third world country. Not if. When. "Learn to live off the land, boy! You'll never have to depend on anybody!" he would say. I often wonder if he knew he became a prophet of sorts.

  Old Man once told me that a soldier is all he wanted to be. He left the service to his country due to a disability, and got a check each month. He didn't like the idea of not being a soldier. Even though he'd seen things most people would lose their minds over, he handled those circumstances with military professionalism. As a pure soldier to his core, Old Man accepted the consequences of his life's choice. But, while he never wanted to be out of the military, he did like the monthly check. Military Disability covered his bills and bought supplies, so he used his pension to continue to live and train himself as a survivalist.

  A natural fighter. That is my best description of him overall. Having served in some sort of special ops in the military, one thing vital to our daily routine when I would visit; combat training. He went easy on me as a youth, as I got older and better, he got tougher. Once, just after I became eighteen, I sparred with Old Man as usual. This particular time however, he held nothing back. I held my own against him. He might have been an older guy, but he was tough, skilled and hard fighter. We began to spar, and as we did, he became more intense. I countered with the same intensity. The more he threw at me the more I returned. Finally, I put him on his ass. I dropped from exhaustion next to him. We sat on the ground a few minutes, bleeding and trying to catch our breath. I peered over at Old Man. He was laying on the ground, breathing heavy from exhaustion, bleeding, sweating, and had the biggest grin I ever saw on his face. That day was one of the few times in his life he smiled. And a genuine smile. I knew at that moment; no one ever earned his respect and pride more than I did at that moment of our lives. Training was complete.

  Not surprisingly, I also became a student of first aid in these training sessions.

  In his last years he knew death waited for him. Something he had been exposed to during his military service, and the reason the military put him on disability. One of the last things he told me on my 30th birthday; "Boy, I've seen some weird shit in my day. Don't think for a second the government has your best interests in mind. There is some crazy shit going on behind closed doors, and I doubt your generation will pass before something weird and fucked up goes down. Always remember above anything else; when it starts, shit will happen fast. When that happens, get your ass out of whatever city you are in and go to the countryside. It'
s your best chance."

  The fall of a civilization is incomprehensibly horrific. You read about the collapse of a society in school, during history. A civilization which falls to another, or the discovery of one that mysteriously disappeared. I just happened to live through the one time when of all society, everywhere, came crashing down. Mass hysteria, martial law, complete breakdown of government and social structures. You witness things. Things you hope to god you never see. Like the most law-abiding citizens turn into narcissistic anarchists. People shooting their neighbors over a loaf of bread. Bread, for god's sake. What the fuck.

  The world I knew ceased to exist.

  The end of days came crashing down on the entire human race. The Apocalypse. End times. Whatever you want to call it. My plan from the beginning? Focus. Fight. Survive. The best thing to do would be to find a place to settle into. I have to admit; I have never been a social person. After everything fell, I understand more of why I am the way I am. People suck. I knew as much. They say tragedy brings out the best in people. Well, complete bullshit, I say. I have seen the human race, or at least what is left of the human race, at its worst since this happened.