Day 275: I've finished moving all the stuff to the Abandoned lookout. It's a nice place. Something about being all storm resistant glass that makes it basically a solar hot house. Comparatively. Being only slightly freezing is a step above deadly. Still. Had to spend some time here. Not for any particular reason. It just took a while to get all the gear out of the coal mine. At one point I just stripped naked and ran through the mine with only my running shoes, underwear, and my moose satchel. It actually gets rather warm in that mine. Again, comparatively.

 

Wouldn't want to live there, however. At least two dead bodies in there from mine collapses. One guy got trapped and starved to death, the other guy got crushed by a cave-in. I know which way I'd prefer to go.

 

Still, the view from this place is nice. It might make a great place to go relax. Better then sitting in an ice fishing hut surrounded by wolves. I think I will drag that pile of rocks I have back in the coal mine up here. Might be fun to start chucking them off the balcony.

 

Regardless, this part of the transfer was rather easy, normally there's a couple of wolves wandering about up here. Didn't see either of them. I wonder if the bear living down below by the trailer is the reason? No harsh weather events either. Just the fog. That odd, welcoming fog that surrounds you and holds you like a mother welcoming a soldier home from the war.

 

Yes. It's like returning home.

 

Day 276: Completely lost track of time. I have no idea where the day went. I spent the better part of the day gather coal and rocks. Why? because coal burns hot and the customers will certainly want some. And the rocks, well... I hauled them up to the top of this abandoned tower. This isn't a good morning for it, but some day, I'm gonna take these sixty seven rocks and throw them off this tower all over the place. I'll need something to pass the time.

 

Gonna take a short trip off to look at some of the abandoned buildings in the area for the fun of it. Then I'm gonna get this loot down the side of this cliff.

 

Day 277: Nothing interesting at the trailer, but that's not the problem. The problem is these storm lanterns. I was packing them up and realized how crappy they look. I'd better take a few days to clean and fix them up. Only the finest stock for my customers.

 

That's what I like about this lookout. It's got so many glass windows you can see what you are doing by moonlight.

 

Day: 300: Holy crap. I just realized how much I've had to haul ass around this area. Unfortunately I seem to have developed some sort of phobia for being indoors too long and The wolves that I thinned out before have returned in force. Between running around trying to get wood, hauling the inventory down to the garage, and trying to repair all the damaged stock, and every three days rushing out to squat in a fishing hut surrounded by pacing wolves. Also, I discovered that water boils faster on the stove out at the ice hut. So I have to haul all the water I want to stock my store with from the ice, which means I have to keep fighting through wolves.

 

And wolves are good meat.

 

So every time I have to kill a bunch of wolves, I lose days cleaning them, gutting them, harvesting the hides. And once I got sloppy and didn't even notice my gauntlets had iced up.

 

I tried to thaw out my left hand and a finger snapped off. You know, normally that sort of thing would have freaked me out. I've gotten kind of blasé about things as of late. Maybe being back in the area and having some sort of purpose has changed my attitude.

 

So I used a torch to cauterize the stump and a kit to sew it closed. Then I snapped the finger in half and used it to catch two of the biggest coho I've ever seen. You know, I think they might look good in the deli section. I'll have to save them. Dragging them uncooked to the garage is bound to attract attention, but it will be worth it to have on the shelf when the customers come by.

 

Day 314: So I finished stocking the shelves when I asked myself where was the fifty pounds of coal I had collected. Then it dawned on me that I left it up at the abandoned look out. And I also remembered that I moved the rope so I'd have to try and sneak past the bear that moved up on the ridge over looking the garage.

 

Well, you know what? I wasn't in the mood to delay anymore. So I grabbed my arrows and bow and headed up to go clear the path. Yes, I just lost a finger, so I was in a bad mood. I snuck up on a rock, waited for it to stroll into view, shot it in the side. I honestly thought it was dead. So I worked my way around the rock to get down to it. And... the bear was gone.

 

I mean, poof. Vanished. No idea where it went. So, looking around, thinking it walked off a bit to die somewhere else. Then I heard it. I had missed that the sun had got down and that an aurora had started. There's this weird humm in the air when you get an aurora. And then I heard the bear. So I turned around.

 

You know, I had fought an aurora wolf before. But it never occurred to me there would be aurora bears. And funny thing about the aurora, it seems to heal bears.

 

So my first shot goes wide, which just gets its attention. Then it starts to charge me and my second one drops it. Now, this is when it gets weird. I'm not bullshitting.

 

The arc of my arrow was hanging in the air.

 

No. Seriously. It was softly glowing and just, hovering there, ending right where the arrow hit the bear. It had fallen over, dead, glowing eyes and green swirly fur, but it's... dead. It was just dead. But the shot that killed it was just glowing and hovering in the air.

 

As I was looking at it, I got to thinking. So I spent the next week working on carving it up, cooking it, and making me another bedroll for the customers. That'll be my fourth.

 

Sorry. I digress.

 

So, I was thinking, this doesn't make any sense. Why are they glowing along with the aurora? Then I noticed that the bear was warmer then normal. And come to think of it, no snow fell on the aurora wolf, even though I killed it in a snow storm. I think, and this is just a theory...

 

I think this aurora thing has happened before. maybe it's a solar thing. It happens, it dies down, it happens, it dies down. Maybe it lasts a few centuries, or a few decades, or a few thousand years. When it happens, energy pours down onto the world. Makes all this electronic crap flicker and spark. So, why the bears and wolves?

 

What if... there is a bacterium. I know of bacterium that respond to magnets and other electromagnetic energy. Now, bear with me, but I think I remember this. It was called Magnetotactic bacteria, I think, that are are a polyphyletic group of bacteria discovered by Richard Blakemore. When they grow, they orientate themselves along magnetic fields. So, here's the theory.

 

If this bacterium EVOLVED to feed off the energy, right? But it needs to be warm and the energy isn't constant. It fluctuates. So it needs warmth from somewhere else. It evolved to live in the fur and on the skin of carnivores. It keeps them warm during the aurora, and the wolf keeps the bacterium warm when the aurora is off. The glowing bacterium also seems to make what it is growing on more aggressive. So, if it started growing on a bunny, the bunny would get aggressive, then it would die. But an aggressive wolf that is warmed up by glowing aurora bacterium, that could become more aggressive because, you know, burning bacterium in your fur, but also it's more likely to SURVIVE being aggressive.

 

So, if that's the case, I think that the bacterium isn't new. It's old. It's been around a long time. It just turns on and off during these solar cycles. Plus, it has a nasty implication.

 

It's been almost a year and it hasn't gotten any warmer. In fact, I think it's gotten colder. That means that the whole world is getting colder and all over the world every form of electronics is screwed as well as every carnivore that evolved along with this bacterium is going to be hyper-aggressive.

 

If that's true across the world, then nobody is coming. Everyone would be heading south, where it's warmer.

 

But I could be wrong. And maybe, maybe there's people to the north of here who are going to try and make it south. They aren't going to find much left in the area, especially since I've looted everything. They're going to need supplies. Clothing. Food. Shelter. even water. Fortunately for them...

 

at Quonset Garage...

 

The water is always free.