Chapter 24: A Cold and Unexpectedly Smooth Journey Back to the Station
Before we headed back to the station, we closed all of the opened crates. The purpose was none other than to provide themselves with the remaining firearms should they went inside to the museum and came across the storage room.
I also gave my fire ax to Ryan, who had the least firepower among us three, to balance the damage potential that each of us could deliver to any coming threats. When I was already done, we went out of the storage room, the first floor staff room, and then back to the lobby to get out from the main entrance.
Just as we stepped at the front of the entrance, I got a brief dazzle on my eyes. It was probably caused by the long time that I spent inside the museum, since it was very dark inside. I also wondered if Jonathan and Ryan also experienced the same, although I did not really worry about Jonathan.
As I regained my clear vision, I eventually got to see the view of the street again. The first thing that I focused my eyes on, was the aircraft that was stuck on a building wall. That was the aircraft that I crashed earlier with the pickup truck.
It was also no longer burning, but I did notice that a couple of bent plate was lying on the road just in front of the same building. I assumed that it might be the parts of the rear hatch door that the aliens had to force open a few hours earlier.
"Somehow, I kind of not expecting this…" Jonathan said with a low voice, as he aimed his rifle towards the street.
"What is?" I asked him, as I lower my left hand that covered my eyes just earlier.
"In your opinion, how far would you have to be just to hear a faint sound of gunshots and boom?" he responded, "Besides, we did not just blow up one of them. We blew two…"
What Jonathan said was indeed very true. With the tensing silence that filled the street outside, I was quite sure that anyone could even hear the explosion that occurred inside the museum from as far as the closest station. Since the aliens had much larger ears, their hearings must be more sensitive than us. Nevertheless, we had to let it slide for that time being, as trying to figure out that mystery would not bring us anywhere.
"But enough of that for now, we still have to bring these things back to the guys at the station." Jonathan continued, as he sighed and started to walk further from the entrance.
We took a different method back to the station from the one that we took when we were going for the museum. We decided not to walk back on the railroad anymore, since we agreed that the railroads might be swarmed by other aliens who were alerted by our presence a few hours earlier.
So instead, we started to continue our journey back to the station by walking on the main road just beside the shore of the great lake. We thought that even if there were ruins blocking the road, there would still be some space left for us there to walk on. When we started to walk, the museum behind us slowly faded away, engulfed by the surrounding fog until it could no longer be seen from our backs.
As we were walking, I also started to feel the chill of cold weather, which was most likely caused by the lack of afternoon sun heat since the surrounding fog must be blocking it. I also noticed that despite the cold weather, the waters at the lake seemed to not freezing. When I thought about it, Jonathan and Ryan might also felt cold because the three of us were only wearing a form of undershirt on our torso.
I only wore a short sleeve green t-shirt, while Ryan only wore a half sleeve brown t-shirt. However, I also think that if someone was to complain about the cold weather, it should be only Jonathan since he only wore a gray tank top, and he did not complain at all. Aside from that, instead of the tense atmosphere between us like before, I only sensed a fatigued atmosphere, particularly coming from Ryan who looked like he was already tired from carrying his backpack.
"Hey, do you guys mind if I drink?" Ryan asked us while panting softly.
"Just do not empty the bottle." Jonathan replied.
Just as Jonathan finished talking, Ryan took out the water bottle from his medical kit pouch, and drank about half of its content swiftly. I watched as he gulped the water, looking at him like he had not been drinking for days. When he was done, he slowly closed the bottle, and put it inside his medical kit pouch. Therefore, it only left Jonathan who had not been drinking from the bottle.
Shortly after, Jonathan started to slow his pace down, while readying his rifle and aimed to his front direction as he walked slower. Seeing that, I also readied my submachine gun and signaled Ryan to be on his guard, who pressed his handgun slide, and aimed towards our front just as I did it.
As we walked ahead slowly, something big slowly began to get uncovered before eyes. When we finally got to see what was standing right in front of us, it turned out that it was no more than a mere blocks of building ruins.
Although it did not pose any threat to us, it did give us a problem as we could not just climb through the ruins since they were really like tall walls stacked together on the road. The distance between the ground and the shortest wall was no less than 15 feet, making it very challenging for us to climb, even without our backpacks.
"Wait. Let us knock on the walls first." Jonathan said as he started to knock it.
"Oh, I get it. We have to find out if one of its other sides is hollow right? So we just have to make a hole instead." Ryan responded, just before he started knocking one of the walls near him.
I also then proceeded to knock the walls in front of me. As we check each walls, none of them seemed to give out a loud noise, indicating that they were all thick, solid walls, until Ryan found the wall which was the one blocking the part of the road that was nearest to the lake shore.
Jonathan then told Ryan to stand back, before kicking the walls four times. Just as he delivered the fourth kick, the wall collapsed, and a narrow cavity emerged before him. There was another wall on the other side of the cavity, which also collapsed right after Jonathan kicked it again, three times.
Finally, a clear road emerged before us, and we could continue our journey back to the station again.
Since the cavity was too narrow for the three of us to pass through altogether, we took turns to pass it one by one. Ryan was the one to pass first, I followed second, and Jonathan followed right behind me. As we stepped our feet on the other side of the blocked road, I got the faint sight of a beach just on the side of the road a few feet apart from us.
I actually had the intention to go down to the beach, to find out if I could see the large flying object that flew right above the military base before it landed on the great lake at the previous night. It was unfortunate however, as none of us had any means of telescopic tool and thus I ended up holding up my intention.
As I gazed back to the road in front of me, Jonathan also mentioned that he would do the same had he found a scope on the storage room. Apparently all kinds of additional accessories, including rifle scopes, were released from the weapons before they were put inside the crates and transferred to the museum.
"If only there was one rifle scope inside on of those crates…" Jonathan said, as he started to walk again, "I checked again when you and Ryan were getting the backpacks, and I was finally sure that there were no scope."
As I listened to him, I also wondered on how he was able to check all the crates again for something rather small, before starting to pour the whole content of one ammunition box to a backpack neatly in a short time. That, and he did all of them in total darkness. I noticed that Ryan also did not expect him to be able to do it, since he let out a surprised expression on his face as Jonathan was talking.
That was the last words that Jonathan said before our return to the station. Shortly after he finished talking, I realized that since the moment we went out from the museum, up until we came across the stack of walls blocking our way, we had not encountered any aliens or even their aircrafts again. It made me wondered why since we had made few loud noises back at the museum.
"Um… perhaps I should not have said this in the first place, but..." Ryan paused, and continued again,
"Frankly speaking, I have been somehow expecting them to ambush us somewhere along our way from the museum to the station. In fact, I did not expect that it would turn out that smooth up until we found out that we were blocked by those walls."
I turned my head towards Jonathan to see his reactions towards Ryan's words just as he finished speaking, but he did not said a single word and just kept his sights at the road in front of us sharply. Since I was also not sure on how to respond, I only let out a sigh.
Thankfully, the atmosphere did not get tense after Ryan said it, although a fatigue air kicked back in around us. When I looked back again, the walls and the beach could no longer be seen. It seemed that we had been walking further from the thing that was blocking us as well, which gave me a bit of relieve since that meant we were getting closer to the station.
We then started to walk deeper into the town, as we were getting closer to the station. The road beside the shore then slowly began to fade as we ventured into the town, and before long, tall and partially destroyed buildings started to surround us again. Eventually, we began to see an elevated railroad again. We followed it, and we finally turned up at the station again.
We had finally returned to the station, and unexpectedly without any encounters with any aliens. I looked at my watch, and realized that it was already 04.20 p.m. We had successfully made it back before dark.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone