Rebound: The TWO JOURNEYS series, #3

By Clemens P. Suter

A deadly pandemic has caused a societal collapse after billions have died. Together with his three dogs, Alan travels the lonely roads of Armageddon. He is soon joined by Imani, a young woman, and a victim of gang violence. Together they set out to discover the truth about the cause of the pandemic. During their travels from San Francisco to the European Alps, they discover a danger that could wipe out the final remnants of humanity. In a world ruled by anarchy, with the last humans squabbling over control, Alan's and Imani's chances of success or even survival look bleak. Can they save humankind from ultimate disaster?
"Yes, sometimes it was as if I had witnessed the entire scene, from the darkness of the tunnel, my hand on my revolver, ready to intervene. Latest then, as these thoughts entered my head, I would shake myself. We write our own laws. We live in a new world, a new reality. We only have our survival to cling to, our reality is an uncertain, twisting, exhausting thing, but my cause is just."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clemens P. Suter
• Release date: Mar 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005759650

Clemens P. Suter

Books You Can't Put Down Once You Begin. WARNING: make sure you don't have anything important going on the next day because these gripping books will keep you awake all night long. Clemens P. Suter is the author of top-rated SciFi and adventure stories. His novel TWO JOURNEYS (2011) describes the adventures of the sole survivor of a corona pandemic - how visionary is that then?!. FIELDS OF FIRE (2016) and REBOUND (2022) are further installments in this series. CELETERRA (2013) is one of the few atheist crime novels ever-written. Suter's novels and short stories are suited for all ages, combining straightforward adventure, philosophic elements, and dark humor. Clemens P. Suter has a Ph.D. in biology, his scientific know-how is omnipresent in all of his works. Remember: >>> THE BEST PAGE-TURNERS ARE WORTH THE LOSS OF SLEEP

Book preview

Prologue

It would be great if somebody could be with me when I kick the bucket, but if I must die alone, so be it.

I stare at the sheets of paper in front of me, my handwriting black against white. A tear, which has dropped from my remaining eye, has deformed a word, like a lens enlarging some long-forgotten sorrow. Just five pages completed. If I continue at this speed, I will be long dead before I manage to put the entire story to paper. I have often toyed with the idea of writing down this story, my story. It’s exciting by any man’s standards. My life, however, left little time for scholarly work. I was too busy surviving. And an author needs an audience, but is there any audience left?

The darkness surrounds me like a cloak, only disturbed by the candle’s flicker. I adjust the blankets around my shoulders. A fire roars in the potbelly, but I still feel cold. Outside, a snowstorm tears at the roof and walls of the cabin. The shutters are closed yet rattle with the wind. I have selected this hide-out with great care, far away from any marauder’s path. I’ve had enough unhappy encounters with two- or four-legged predators to last a lifetime.

I tilt my head to listen for any sound that might be able to rise above the storm’s shriek – yes, it almost sounds like a human, tortured and full of hate. It is deep in the night, early morning almost, hardly the time for any creature to be about. Nevertheless, did I hear something, a distant shout perhaps? A growl or a cry for help?

I look at my dogs, but they seem unalarmed. I shrug off my fears and retrace the thoughts that passed through my head just a few moments ago. Why did I survive so long when so many died? All my friends and many of my enemies are long gone. The hand that holds my pen is crooked and covered with spots of age. I have lost weight, muscle, the hair on my scalp, my sense of humor, and bits and pieces of hope. My joints hurt when I get up in the morning. Yet, I am still here, going like a clock, a machine, yes, almost like one of those damned robots.

The pandemic that struck Earth devoured humanity; the fallout sterilized the planet, but they didn’t manage to kill me. Was I chosen… or was I punished? I am neither religious nor superstitious and I know that no god, no miracle, I need no lucky star to explain my survival. It is simply a freak coincidence. I am like the single surviving bacterium that has developed resistance against an antibiotic, the last tree standing after a forest fire.

My thoughts continue to wander until they inevitably home in on the events of that singular period, so many years ago. They always do. With all the past drama in my life, these events stick out like a sore thumb. Impatiently, I stand up from my chair, shedding the blankets from my shoulders and the depressing thoughts from my mind. The hounds raise their heads towards my face, their eyes gleaming in the dark. Although I feel the need to write down my story, in the hope of finally expelling the bad taste from my mouth, I simply cannot continue. Restlessly, I pace the cabin and only slowly my nervousness subsides.

I stop moving and tilt my head again. This time, the dogs follow my example. Together we listen to the night. There is some sound out there. Something is on the move. After a second of hesitation, I grab the loaded rifle and step to the door, remove the bar, and pull it open.

The storm is astonishingly violent, much stronger than I had expected, and snow immediately starts blowing in. Can this hut withstand this gale? Visibility is low, at the most a few yards; I cannot even sense the valley that lies beneath us. The freezing air hurts my face. The candle is blown out, and in the semi-darkness, I see how the papers from the desk are picked up by the wind, carried past me, and disappear into the night. I laugh madly. The dogs, baring their teeth and growling, cower close to me, their tails between their legs. Together we try to recognize some pattern in the whirling darkness. The sound of the storm is overpowering, yet I am convinced that I can hear a sound, far off, irregular, and organic. Friend or foe, I cannot tell.

I remain in the doorframe, waiting. Closing the door and putting the bar back is not an option; it never is. The enemy doesn’t rest; they never give up the chase. They continuously circle, pounce, bite and kill, without mercy. Likewise, the innocents are always in need of help; as they falter hopelessly, they lose themselves in the darkness. Fear or compassion, I am forced to confront any obstacle, to deal with any challenge, swiftly and if need be mercilessly.

I slip into my heavy coat and put on my leather gloves. I stuff a flashlight into my pocket. The storm picks up speed and roars with increased bitterness. The darkness is complete, with no sign of a rising sun, only snowflakes moving in an icy tornado. The snow stings in my eyes as I step into the wild, my gun raised and loaded, the dogs barking, but following. I feel my teeth baring themselves in a menacing grin. This is the life I have chosen, and this is the life that has chosen me. No matter how much these old bones hurt, by everything holy and unholy, throw it at me. I am ready.

Chapter 1

The morning sun hit the hills that ran towards the west. It was going to be a gorgeous California day, the air crisp and fresh, almost intoxicating. There was a beautiful blue sky, of a size and color that you can only find in Silicon Valley. To the north, the skyline of San Francisco was visible, the tips of the burned-out skyscrapers rising above the fog. A few birds circled high above as if they were waiting for something. Prey perhaps? Or were they observing our actions?

A few of us had gathered on a field, but we weren’t enjoying the weather. The tarpaulin that held the body rested on the grass. Someone had clumsily tied bands of dirty cotton around it. I had a hard time fighting back tears as my eldest son Carl and two men dug the grave. I fumbled with my eyepatch and waited, almost paralyzed. Somebody had suggested that a priest should say a few words, but I had waved the suggestion away. We were far past the point of praying.

A gas explosion had destroyed the house that we had been staying in. I wasn’t there at the time; I had been foraging for canned food, mineral water, clothing, and tools. On my way back to Emerald Hills, I had seen a cloud of dark smoke rising into the sky, ominously, like an angry finger. A terrible premonition had come over me. Only a few people were about in the area and fire and smoke didn’t spell anything good.

I had raced back to the burning house, which by then had already collapsed. There had been nothing that I could do. Some neighbors had risked their lives to pull victims from the house. They had put the body of my Silke on the lawn and one look at the blackened flesh had revealed that I had arrived too late to help. She was in such a bad state that I could only identify her by her wedding ring and some remaining shreds of her flowery dress, one of her favorite pieces. My oldest son arrived later; he had been working the fields. I still recall his face, pale and knotted with grief. I remained in a numb stupor for days, incapable of any emotion. I just sat about and stared at nothing.

The grave was ready, and the men climbed out, throwing their shovels to the side. We lowered the body into the pit. I stared at its shape, which suddenly looked very small and insignificant. Carl and I said a few sentences. I can’t remember the words, only the hoarseness of our voices. One man cleaned his hands in a bowl of water as if he was Pontius Pilate and innocent of the spilled blood.

After the fire, Carl, his wife, and I moved into a new house, the mansion of a former IT manager, with twelve rooms and four baths. Downstairs, we had a recreation room with a pool table and sports equipment. These hadn’t helped the previous owners much: the photo in the hall showed an overweight family of five, a lot of red hair and rosy cheeks. They had done us the courtesy to die off-premise as I could find no corpse inside the house. I had moved into a bedroom on the second floor. It had belonged to the daughter, but I hardly noticed the furniture or decoration intended for a teenager. I just sat on the edge of the bed, staring out of the window. The house stood on a slight rise, and the view from the room would have been truly stunning under other circumstances. Over the rooftops and lawns of the surrounding villas, we could catch a glance of the Bay.

We weren’t relishing the moment. Besides the loss of Silke, my daughter-in-law and my son also suffered from the aftermath of a miscarriage. In our little colony, these happened with alarming frequency. I had my suspicions. The pandemic that had struck Earth several years before had not only caused the deaths of billions of people, but without humans, there was no maintenance, and all machines had come to a standstill. We had no power, no more telephones, no internet, no more factories, no fresh or frozen food, no functioning hospitals, no tap water, no law and order. This would have been sufficient to spoil anyone’s soup, but there were consequences that even I would never have anticipated.

The nuclear fuel of the power stations was traditionally stored in large cooling baths. In absence of maintenance, the cooling systems of these baths had broken down and the water had evaporated. Once that had happened, the uranium rods of dozens of reactors across the globe had started to burn. This had led to meltdown and the release of copious amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. As a biologist, I knew all about the dramatic effect of radioactive fallout on our health… and on the unborn.

The days and weeks passed by. Mechanically, I went through the motions of my daily life. What else could I have done? At least I found some comfort in routine. I’m an early riser, and I usually started the day with a cup of coffee, canned fruit, sardines, and beans for breakfast. I would feed the dogs and wash. I regularly circled the house and inspected the neighborhood. Were there any traces of passing humans, or any new neighbors? The grass of the lawns stood hip-high, and it was easy to find the tracks of deer and other animals… and humans.

There was a family of four several mansions down, and I regularly chatted with the family father, Milind. Together, we spent some time creating a new waste plan. We produced immense amounts of garbage: empty cans, plastic plates, knives and forks, leftovers, clothing. There was no reason to bother with washing or recycling; we were living in a shopper’s paradise. Nonetheless, garbage attracts vermin, so we needed to be conscious about correct disposal.

We collected all rubbish in large plastic bags, which we usually stored in an empty house. Some survivors just threw their garbage out of the window. How they coped with the flies and rats is a miracle; I knew some that just moved to the next place if the amount of waste became too much, leaving their former dwellings behind like pigsties. These folks weren’t much cleaner themselves: the men didn’t wash or shave, with big, scruffy beards; the women had soiled dresses and dirt on their skin. Many of them were young and the pandemic had happened before they had learned the basics of hygiene.

How quickly people forget! They didn’t know the correlation between waste, rats and flies, and disease. We had started to call them down-and-outers. Down-and-outers didn’t care too much about human lives either – our lives. As a result, we never walked about unarmed. I had a belt with two pistols, always carried a rifle, and I always had my three dogs with me. My son and daughter-in-law did the same. It was the only signal the down-and-outers understood. They were armed too, naturally. To meet a fully armed down-and-outer was at the very least unpleasant. In the absence of law and order, they thought they were the kings and queens of America. Dirty nobility. There were rumors of unnecessary, haphazard killings, in which some innocent fellow would get shot during a fight over some triviality. The killers usually got away scot-free, after all, there was no police, no judges, no prosecution.

But don’t get me wrong, all-in-all, life was OK and continued, filled with memories of previous, pre-pandemic lives, and for me, memories of Silke. We were surviving.

Chapter 2

Milind and I had become good friends, so it came as a disappointment when he and his family decided to leave. They packed a vehicle with some belongings and got ready to travel to the east coast.

Why are you leaving?

Man, I need to go back home. I was born in New Jersey.

Moving from California to New Jersey? You’re much weirder than I thought.

He laughed. Yeah, I see what you mean, man. But we arrived here before the pandemic, and I lost three kids here. Neither my wife nor I associate this place with happiness. We spent our youth in New Jersey. That’s where my parents used to live, where they built their home.

You will need to cross uncharted territory, with roads of poor quality, an unknown number of down-and-outers, and other dangers. Are you guys up to it?

You know how to encourage people, don’t you? He laughed again. My two boys and my wife can handle a gun. It will work out.

I walked over to their place a few days later and found the four of them ready to leave. Together we studied the map. They had picked a route that went relatively straight east. We shook hands and they boarded their truck. I stood on the lawn and watched them drive off.

The three of us were now completely alone; several other neighbors had also packed their bags. Some wanted to go home, others couldn’t stand the climate. I didn’t mind the solitude much; there were days that I hardly exchanged a word with anyone, not even my son and his wife. You must be your own best friend. Or you get a dog.

My youngest son Andrew drove up from his farm on the Pacific coast. The four of us visited Silke’s grave. Andrew had heard of Silke’s death, as we had regular radio contact. We spent some time together in the garden, training my three mongrels, Bo the leader, Lex, and Jaws. The dogs all had short fur, broad chests, and mighty jowls. I had trained them intensely; they alerted me of any danger and were able to defend… or attack. They knew how to stay silent; barking dogs can easily give away your position.

Andrew and I talked about the past, about Silke, his farm, and some technical stuff. As the sun started to set, unrest crept up in me. I suddenly pictured Milind’s family driving across the Rockies and Midwestern plains, the car’s headlights illuminating the darkness of the road. I felt a pang of jealousy. Wouldn’t it be great to get a car, load it up with equipment, and set off to… yeah, where to? To the east? To the south? Mexico? Like Silke and my two sons, I was born and bred in Europe; it was a coincidence that we had ended up here in California. Why not move someplace else?

Initially, I tried to shrug off the idea. In pre-pandemic times, as a scientist and businessman, I had traveled the globe… and since the pandemic, I had my fair share of travel too… but, hell, always with a goal. I didn’t have a goal now. Nevertheless, over the next few days, this illogical wanderlust didn’t abate. It grew stronger and stronger as if the air was full of electricity. I tend to trust my gut: could it be that I sensed that something dramatic was about to happen? Was something afoot?

Then, my youngest son, after talking with his brother, announced that the three of us should join him and his partner on their farm. Carl and Andrew seemed to have reached an agreement of some sort. Andrew’s farm was off the beaten track. The coastal highway, the former State Route 1, passed by his house, but it wasn’t traveled much as several landslides to the south and north blocked through traffic. I had traveled that route once on a business trip but had been forced to turn around because of such a landslide.

In those days, it would take road maintenance a week to clear the road, but now the road would simply remain impassable. Andrew was certain that his partner would welcome us, and indeed I recalled a friendly young man in his early twenties who I had liked from the start. Together we could live in comfort and safety, and there was enough work to keep us occupied… Carl and Andrew went out of their way to sell the idea to me. I kept quiet and listened, all the while becoming more convinced that this would never work out.

The next day, and more or less by coincidence, I went through my small library and came across my old map of the USA. My fingers traced the shortest route to the east coast. Then, during one of my ramblings through the neighborhood, I stumbled across something that provided a clear sign, if you believe in such things. I had often passed a run-down villa, a magnificent old building, the paint coming off but still in good shape. That day, I decided to take a closer look.

The inside of the house turned out to be uninteresting, with a few mummified corpses in the bedrooms, dreary furniture. However, it had a large garage and I glimpsed inside through the dirty windows. With a crowbar, I opened the doors and came upon an old Mercedes Mog-Home truck. A four-wheel drive, albeit with flat tires and covered with dust. An extra-class camper, its owner must have loved traveling in extreme conditions and the outdoors. It was fully equipped with all the necessary frills.

Over the next few days, I regularly escaped from our house and used my time to get the truck into shape. Once it was ready, though, I hesitated to drive it over to our place. I wanted to talk with my sons first. However, I had already come to a decision. After dinner, we remained on the porch, and I explained that I would not join them right away at Andrew’s farm. I needed to travel, with my wife having died and so on. Sure, I would join them soon, perhaps sooner than they would like. I was only considering a trip through California, perhaps Arizona or New Mexico.

The disappointment was visible on their faces, but they also knew how hardheaded their father could be. They tried to argue with me, to convince me to stay. I guess they were worried, but around bedtime, they appeared to have swallowed the bitter pill.

The next day, I brought over the truck and started packing. Never one to delay, I had the truck ready within a few days. I had water, fuel, food and medicine, guns and ammo, and my citizen band radio. I packed a generator so that I could produce electricity, as well as a portable charger so that I could jump-start a car battery. A hand pump came in handy to get fuel into the gasoline tank. I packed jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, and my bulletproof vest and a helmet. The vehicle wasn’t armored in any way, which made me feel slightly uneasy, but Carl welded metal plates to the left and right of the car and behind the driver's seat. He also welded a plate onto the hood, which reduced the driver’s field of vision, but also the risk of being hit by a bullet. We put mirroring plastic foil on all the windows so that the interior and the passengers remained invisible. The night before my departure, and while I was asleep, Carl and Andrew even put metal plates over the four wheels, which stopped just a few inches above the ground. I could easily remove these plates and store them within the truck.

The next morning, they showed me the result. This is one ugly bastard. It hurts the eyes, I said. If I were you, I would focus on farming, don’t attempt to recreate the Sistine Chapel. For some reason, perhaps plain nervousness, the three of us laughed until tears ran from our eyes. But it was a sad time too; goodbye always is. We had our final dinner together, and we ended up talking about my wife, their mother. Silke was still very much on our minds. She had managed to keep us, men, together, better than I had ever managed. Perhaps that was one of the reasons for leaving. The future in front of me was uncertain, like a first step into the fog or a dense forest. Beyond the next bend, I would find… something.

Five o’clock in the morning – a Monday. I got out of bed and fed the dogs; they would be my sole companions for the weeks to come. I had a quick breakfast and met my two sons in the driveway. We didn’t speak much. Carl gave me a box of chili that his wife had prepared. Andrew gave me a flip knife, which I dropped into my boot.

Without further ado, I started the engine, waved, and drove off.

Chapter 3

Admittedly, I had already modified my plans and set out for Sacramento, with the idea of turning south from there. I hadn’t heard from Milind and his family in a while, so I thought I might as well look for traces of their passage. The Oakland Bay Bridge couldn’t be used since down-and-outers had set fire to a couple of gasoline trucks, which now blocked the road. But the Golden Gate Bridge was still standing, and we had crossed it a few times in the last few months. I parked my truck on the center of the bridge, let the dogs out, and looked over the Bay. Alcatraz and the Treasure and Angel Islands seemed like diamonds of green in the gray water. I could see all the way to Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond. I scanned the surroundings through my spyglass and saw no movement whatsoever, no rising smoke, no human activity. Even San Francisco, which was just south of our position, appeared completely deserted.

However, I didn’t fool myself. This deceptive tranquility could evaporate in the blink of an eye. Since the pandemic, our lives had become completely unpredictable; not only had so much knowledge been lost due to the breakdown of the electricity networks and the resulting collapse of communication, but the unpredictability of human behavior added a spicy, at times life-threatening ingredient to our existence. In this world, nothing was certain. It was as if we, the last survivors, staggered through a mist of confusion, hearsay, and human ignorance.

I took the spyglass from my eyes and tried to enjoy the view as it was. I recalled a Gary Larson comic that had been stuck to the fridge of one of the laboratories where I had worked during my time at university. It showed God, dressed as a cook, busy creating Earth. The bearded man’s thought bubble says: "And just to make it interesting… while he uses a saltshaker labeled jerks" to sprinkle spice onto Earth. Certainly, there were plenty of jerks around to mess with my life. That’s why I had to park on the middle of the bridge, out of range from the average gun. Some down-and-outers had fun shooting at passers-by for no reason at all.

I got out the map. After some consideration, I decided to head for St. Louis, by way of Sacramento, Reno, and Salt Lake City. I wasn’t sure what my motivation was – except following the path that Milind had selected. Something was calling me east… I had had radio contact with people all over America, and even across the globe. Many of us used the citizen band and long-wave radios to keep in touch. Most of the conversations focused on rumors and hearsay, but there were snippets of useful information, too. People in the east were mentioned, who had created communities and were working on some intriguing projects.

Sure, most of those stories couldn’t be believed. I suspected that serious people would be hesitant to talk about any achievements over the radio, or even disclose their location, lest it should attract down-and-outers. But still… I was intrigued by the possibility that some people might have managed to create a bit of structure in this unstructured, confusing world. There was sufficient risk too, as some people would attempt to install too much structure: a Fascist state perhaps, in which citizens were kept as slaves. I knew I would need to stay on guard.

Nonetheless, once we were driving again, travel went relatively smoothly. Abandoned cars stood parked on the roads, but some survivors had taken time to bulldoze bigger obstructions onto the banks, and thus most of it was easy driving. Not too fast though, the grass was sprouting up between the slabs of concrete, and smaller and bigger pieces of refuge lay about: pieces of plastic, branches, planks. Getting fuel was easy enough; I used my hand pump to funnel it out of the underground tanks of the gas stations.

We crossed the Richmond Bridge without any issues. I had to grin as we passed the Kaiser Permanente Richmond Hospital; in my previous life, this had been one of my customers. From there we passed by Vallejo and Fairfield. I liked the barren hills that bordered Interstate 80, the electric masts, and the occasional billboards; it looked pre-pandemic and familiar.

The first couple of days I was quite happy about my progress. I didn’t meet a single living soul. In pre-pandemic times, a trip to St. Louis would have taken at most a few days, and at this rate, I was optimistic that I wouldn’t need much longer. I am an incurable optimist.

Chapter 4

We passed by Sacramento and the truck started to climb the slopes of the Rockies. There were impressive and high mountains ahead, many with snowy caps. We came to a long, elongated curve that carried us up the mountain. Fir trees stood on the rocky land next to the road. There were no houses, no cabins, no gas stations, nothing.

I stepped on the brakes, and my truck came to a sudden halt. I looked in my rearview mirror. Another truck stood parked on the side of the road, its front wheels precariously close to a ditch. It seemed to be empty. I nervously checked my surroundings. On the left was the flank of a mountain, the top of which I could not discern. On the right, the landscape dropped down towards a rocky plane covered by trees and shrubs. The highway in front and behind us was empty. There wasn’t a footpath in sight; we were in the middle of nowhere.

I pulled the stick shift into reverse and slowly backed up the truck. As I arrived next to the other truck, I pulled the handbrake and switched off the engine. I listened for sounds and observed the dogs.

Get out, boys, get out, I whispered, and opened the passenger door. Bo went first, followed by his two companions. They stayed close to the truck, kept on moving and sniffing and raising their heads and ears. Bo disappeared behind the parked vehicle, circled it, and soon appeared again in front of the hood. I opened my door and slid off my seat, a revolver in each hand. Quickly, I stepped to the other truck and looked inside. The passengers were beyond help. The two boys in the back had fallen to the middle of the backseat, their heads touching. One of them was still holding the comic magazine that he had been reading. They had been shot in the face.

Milind’s wife sat bent over in the passenger seat, blood over her dress. Milind hung back in his seat, looking asleep except for the hole in his forehead. The four had been killed by a small-caliber, high-precision gun. The birds stopped singing and the buzz of the insects became inaudible. I stared at them for a few seconds. Then the sounds started up again and became almost deafening. I took a deep and slow breath and quickly looked for any useful information around the truck. As far as I could tell, the initial shots had been fired from a distance and had killed both parents. The two children had been shot from close by. All of that had happened recently: decomposition had not set in.

Let’s go! I growled to the dogs. Get in! The animals jumped into our vehicle, and I banged the passenger door shut, nervously checking our surroundings. I got into the driver’s seat and started the engine and pushed the pedal. The engine roared to life, and the truck started to crawl up the mountain.

It was essential to move as quickly as possible from the crime scene. Most likely the murders had been committed by some local person, a freak roaming these mountains. This down-and-outer could still be in the vicinity, waiting for an opportunity to add me to his or her death list. As I fretfully continued to inspect the landscape for any movement or sign of human activity, I cursed the day that I had allowed Milind to leave the Bay Area.

In retrospect, I realized that they had been poorly prepared. None of them had been wearing bulletproof vests and the truck had neither bulletproof glass nor any shielding. Milind’s wife should have been in the back seat, and with a gun in her hand. Damn, they had looked like tourists on their way to Disneyland. I cursed the fact that I had recognized their license number. If I had