Chapter 62: Burning Plains, Pt 5
You eventually come to a scorched farmstead in the middle of hectares of burnt crops and grasslands. Like everything else around you, the buildings have been charred and blackened to their foundations. It's clear that whatever massive fire swept through here consumed everything in its path.
Scattered around the grounds are the burnt husks of vehicles, tools, animals, people, everything. Some kind of large pickup truck sits in front of one of the buildings - most likely the farmhouse. Its paint has long since gone, replaced by layers of pitch-black soot. Its wheels and rubber molding have long since melted away, and its glass and mirrors have shattered and broken - all damage from the intense heat.
Near it is an old metal wheelbarrow that shares a similar fate to the truck. Its wheels and wooden handles have melted or burned off completely, leaving only the steel tray and structural braces in place. Though without the rest of the parts, the whole thing has tipped over uselessly.
Its metal is still warm to the touch, but not painfully so.
Closeby is an old greenhouse, though the majority of its glass panes have long since shattered and fallen. Most of its metal frame is left, though it's all blackened and warped in numerous areas due to the flame and heat.
Of course, the inside of the greenhouse has been utterly ravaged, and there's nothing left of the plantlife in there but char and embers. Even the once-rich soil inside is now little more than ash. All that remains inside are numerous stone and ceramic pots and the metal remnants of gardening tools, such as spades and hand rakes.
Just outside the greenhouse is a robust stone well, though the wooden roof that used to sit on top of it has been burnt to cinders. Two scorched posts sit beside the well, while most of the roof itself has fallen into or just to the side of the well itself.
When you take a look, you can just barely see the surface of the water below - though you can hardly tell how clean it is. With all this fire damage, you're almost certain it's an ashy mess down there.
Next to the well is a metal hand pump, which when you test out still works. A bit of water spurts out and splashes on the dirt below. But in the dark, you're unsure of how potable this water is, and so you avoid drinking any of it.
Scattered all over the place are the burnt remains of various creatures. Though there's a few dozen of them in total, it's clear that some are the remnants of whatever animals actually lived on this farm.
A handful of the corpses are cow and horse sized, while many are much smaller - pigs and goats and chickens and such. At least as far as you can tell. The vast majority are even smaller than that, most likely rodents, weasels, and other similar critters.
One or two are clearly human remains, though you guess those corpses were there long before the fire. Perhaps due to the apocalypse itself, or bandits, or roaming Chimera, or something. It hardly matters what at this point.
Despite your dust mask, you can smell all their charred bodies clearly. It's a wholly repulsive, but ironically enticing smell, a bit like barbecue that's been left on the grill for a bit too long. As a result, you become somewhat hungry while also nauseated at the same time.
You do your best not to dwell on any of that, though. Instead, you consider what you're seeing all around you. It dawns on you that everything is still rather warm, and that some of the charred wood still glows slightly from the heat. It's very possible that this fire happened relatively recently - maybe a day or two at the most.
This fire has caused absolute devastation to the farmstead all around you, and has left nearly nothing to pick through. No loot or food or even water to draw. Of course, you're not exactly too concerned about that right now. The past few days have been bountiful - all you need right now is a place to lay your head for the day.
You find anywhere to sleep? you ask Noir through the Network.
She has been scouting out the farm just as you have, though she has been circling around the buildings rather than the spaces between them.
There's a spot out here, maybe, she replies. Some kinda tin can building? Can't tell what's inside.
You walk over to where Noir seems to be scouting, just at the edge of the open area where the main farm buildings are. The building is, like everything else, charred black and covered with soot. You can barely make it out in the darkness, at least until you get close to it.
It seems to be a corrugated metal shed that has a semicircular cross section. It reminds you of military warehouses, at least the kinds you've seen on the news or in movies. Except this one isn't quite as large as those - it's certainly not large enough to fit a tank inside. This shed is maybe half or a third that size.
At first you attempt to physically open the sliding door out front, but it seems to be stuck fast. And so you end up relying on your Telekinesis to force the door open. Though you make a bit of a ruckus doing so, you're able to break apart the rust and dirt and soot that has jammed the door's rails.
Doing so allows you to open up one of the two sliding double doors just enough to allow you to slip inside with ease. The inside completely surprises you - there's a whole lot of farm equipment in here sitting practically untouched. Even better, everything inside seems to be in great condition.
How this shed has escaped any kind of looting blows your mind. A place like this would have been picked clean, without a doubt.
Eager to use it, you wind up your flashlight as you scout around the large storage shed.
Right in the middle of everything is a relatively modern tractor, though the few years it has been sitting here has worn it quite a bit. You run one hand on its surface and wipe off a thin layer of dust and find that the paint is still relatively fresh beneath.
Beyond that, the tractor itself looks as though it's only a few years old. Some of its rubber seals and gaskets seem a bit stiffer and more brittle than the others - but nothing too egregious. And although its axles are slightly dirty and muddy, its engine appears pristine and freshly oiled up. You can only guess that it has just recently been serviced. Or, well, before the apocalypse happened, anyway.
It's quite possible that this thing could still work. Intrigued by the prospect and driven by curiosity, you open up the transparent door and hop into its seat. You turn the key that's still sitting in the ignition, but nothing much happens.
There is a momentary CLICK, and its headlights flash on for a fraction of a second. But then nothing after that. The battery's pretty much dead, and you just killed whatever charge was left in the entire thing.
Still, you're pleasantly surprised at how well maintained this tractor is, and play with its controls inside the cabin. You hop out shortly once the novelty wears off, allowing you to continue your exploration of the rest of the shed.
Sitting in orderly piles in one corner are numerous bags of soil on top of wooden pallets - and there's different kinds as far as you can tell. Clay soils and potting soils and loam. You've no idea what the differences are, but considering it's a farm they used every kind.
Close to the bags of soil are a couple of wheelbarrows, one of which looks completely new. The older one has a small pile of tools sitting in its tray - shovels and rakes and hand tillers.
Neatly laid on on some folding tables are even more spare tools, all in varying degrees of wear. Most have been clearly used and are stained with dirt while some are brand new - they're still adorned with their packaging and stickers and such.
There are a number of power tools here as well, though they're stored neatly along shelves and sturdier wooden tables. The most plentiful of the tools appear to be chainsaws of various length and robustness, all of which have seen quite a great deal of use.
You also spot some augurs and drills also in various sizes, and they too are laid out neatly in their storage areas. And from how these look, all have seen good use as well. In the far right corner are a number of mowers - some gas powered, a couple of hand powered, and one riding mower. There are also a couple of weed whackers laid out on the ground near them.
Curiously, with the exception of a few hand tools, most of these have been cleaned up and oiled to such a degree that they look almost store-bought.
In the far left corner is a kind of open office area. There's a desk with a desktop computer, a comfortable office chair, some filing cabinets, and even a small safe with a lockbox on top of it.
You find that the lockbox itself is open - the key locking it is sitting in the lock. There's nothing interesting inside, just some loose cash and a number of other keys. You pick up the key labeled 'storage safe' and use it to open the safe just beneath.
It opens up nicely and you find some old world valuables in there: cash, accounting paperwork, some certificates, a nice watch. Sadly, none of that's even remotely useful to you.
You do pick up the watch though - it says it's made of sterling silver and could be worth something to someone, somewhere. Even if it isn't actually silver, it looks quite nice and is clearly a showpiece. Makes sense why its owner would keep it in a safe.
On top of the desk are various papers, most of which are just reports, though all are orderly and nothing seems out of place. There's also a rather thick ledger on the desk, which appears to be in the middle of some kind of audit. It's been opened up to somewhere in the middle, and is being compared to a small pile of receipts sitting on top of the open page.
When you open up the filing cabinets next to the desk, you find it filled with similar ledgers inside. All are organized by month, then year. Judging by the dates listed in front of each drawer, this farm had been operating for well over fifty years.
It dawns on you that this entire shed isn't quite for storage - it's for accounting. Whoever worked in here used this space to ensure everything was properly listed out and valued. It just so happened that it worked as a kind of storage area as well.
Of course, that's the long dead past, and this has all turned into a forgotten treasure vault in the time since. All this is hugely valuable, so you decide to keep a note where it is in case you decide to come back.
The rest of the space along the left edge of the spacious shed all the way back towards the entrance is filled with crates of various sizes. Some are about a cubic meter in size, and are bound together by wooden planks. Many others are just plain cardboard boxes, some of which have been opened up and inspected.
Inside all of these boxes and crates are a variety of seeds - some in packs, others in sacks. When you look them over, there are all kinds of flower seeds and crop seeds for various seasons. Hemp and rye and wheat, clover and dahlia and lavender and so on. There are certainly plenty of varieties in here beyond your knowledge.
There's so much that you're tempted to grab a few packets for yourself. As your time with the caravan has taught you - seeds and water are perhaps the most valuable things in the world now. These seeds may as well be gold.
You end up stowing away a large pack of seeds labeled 'Heirloom Garden Seed Kit'. The packaging notes that it contains a variety of fruit and vegetable seed packets, from melons and tomatoes to peas and carrots.
Thousands of seeds in there, apparently. It should be worth a small fortune, or at least you hope it does.
One of the final things you find excites you deeply, as it has been pushed up against the corner along the floor well out of sight. It's behind a number of seed boxes, and possibly forgotten by the auditor. Or perhaps hidden by them, carefully.
You smile widely as you pick it up and lay it out on a bare stretch of floor - it's a well-used rope hammock. And it looks incredibly comfortable. You pull out its metal frame from its hiding spot and assemble it with relative ease. Its parts pretty much slide or screw into each other and are far from complicated to operate.
All this time, the sun has been rising into the sky though you've barely noticed.
In your exuberance, you've ignored just how hot you've become, at least up until you hang the hammock up on its frame's hooks. It's when you wipe your brow that you realize it's light out, and that you're already sweltering, somehow.
When you peer out the door, you can already see heat warp and haze the air. It's minutes later that the heat rises significantly, no doubt absorbed easily by the blackened exterior of the shed itself. You find yourself panting from the heat, and are forced to shed most of your kit in order to avoid overheating.
You also open up the doors all the way with your Telekinesis, as well as the small window at the other end, ensuring that there's some airflow going through. But the only wind that comes in is already warm, owing to the few patches of dry grass outside suddenly catching alight and allowing fire to consume them completely.
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