Jack, Week 6

Jack had followed the stream to a larger river. He threw The Gunslinger into the river to gauge the current, and watched as the book was quickly carried downstream, and pulled under the surface. He walked a bit further down the river, searching for a higher vantage point.

So he could jump.

A day or so later he found a minor waterfall at what appeared to be the edge of the forest. There was a mountainous region in the distance. The river continued on for a few miles; if he jumped from this point, he’d be pretty much assured to die. He set his things against a nearby tree, and walked over the rocks to stand at the cusp of the falls. He stood still for a moment, reflecting, looking out at the world in front of him. It was a beautiful sight. Even with the crumbling interstate cutting through the mountains ahead, there was an awe-inspiring sense of nature to the sights that made Jack smile. He scanned the horizon, and suddenly stopped as his eyes landed on a cabin on the other side of the river, easily reachable by walking over the rocks he was standing on.

Jack stood, conflicted. To jump, or not to jump?

Moments later, as he was searching the cabin, his decision was justified: he, at last, found medicine. He found a weak antibiotic and some aspirin. He went down to the river and popped some pills into his mouth, swallowing them with a swig of water. He slumped against one of the walls of the cabin and waited for a few hours as the aspirin kicked in, and clarity began to return to him.

Why would he have jumped? To end the pain for a fleeting moment? He cursed his weakness, his inability to endure the illness. He had survived for a long time since the Incident – why should he abandon all hope because of a fever?

He stared out at the river and the forest from which he had emerged. The sudden silence of the world in the wake of his fever was shocking to him. A week of illness and he had already forgotten how tranquil this world could be. What made him think death would be better? Hope, desperation – or naivety? Death could feature many unimaginable horrors, he reasoned – and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out any longer.

Night fell, and Jack’s state had improved tremendously. His thinking was clear – but with that clear thinking came the return of the paranoia that had marked his time in the city. The silence of the forest that had struck him as tranquil in the day now struck him as foreboding. He retreated into the cabin and covered the windows and door, lighting a candle to provide some warmth and sight. He slept soundly that night, the medicine keeping the sickness at bay.

Throughout the week he began to improve, the antibiotics fighting the infection well and the aspirin keeping the fever down. He was making his way to the mountains in the distance, in the hopes of picking up an interstate again and finding civilization. He made sure to find suitable structures to camp out in at night, still worried about whatever creatures might have been following him.

One day he came to a road and began to follow it, which eventually led to a large tunnel through the mountain. The sun was setting when he reached it, and it appeared to be poorly lit. He resolved to camp at the base of the tunnel near a small guardpost (that appeared to have been built and abandoned post-Incident, interestingly enough), and venture through the tunnel the next morning.