"Do we have to give up supplies to get an ID card?"
Quincy shook his head. "No, it’s free."
"Then let’s live on the outskirts of a town. Being closer will make it more convenient if we need to trade for supplies."
"Good idea." Not too far, but not too close. They’d be able to go into town for supplies, and they wouldn’t be completely cut off from information.
"By the way, I also asked about the towns and bases. They said that life in Frelia has mostly returned to normal, and the cities and bases have schools and hospitals."
"Places like that are probably hard to get into." In these chaotic times, schools weren’t places that bottom-tier refugees could enter. In the apocalypse, schools and hospitals served only the upper class.
"True."
"So, which road should we take tomorrow?"
There was a fork in the road ahead with several diverging highways. The roadside signs were all gone. They had no idea where they were and could only press on blindly.
"Straight ahead. We’re switching vehicles tomorrow."
The RV was too conspicuous to keep driving.
"To a truck?"
Evelyn Ford shook her head. "Of course not. We’re switching to horse-drawn carriages and disguising ourselves as merchants."
"Good idea. Several horse-drawn carriages already passed by on the road tonight. Besides, we haven’t traveled by carriage in a long time. The road is lined with trees, so we won’t have to worry about fodder. The only thing is, with thirteen of us, we’ll probably need three carriages."
"That’s not a problem. Get some rest. We’re leaving at five tomorrow morning."
That night, Evelyn Ford was staring blankly at a slip of paper. Ronan Kendrick had to call her name twice before she snapped out of it.
"What are you thinking about?"
Evelyn Ford handed the slip of paper to Ronan Kendrick. It had the Hooper family’s address in Frelia: a residential district in The Third Base.
"I remember Kevin Holloway saying the Hooper family has a food processing plant in Frelia."
"Are we going straight to The Third Base to find the Hooper family?"
"No rush. Once we’re settled, we’ll go and settle that old score."
Evelyn Ford was in high spirits after successfully entering Frelia. It really was a good place. Elsewhere, people were living in misery, but here, aside from the cold, not much had changed.
—
At four-thirty, Evelyn Ford woke up right on time. She had just opened her eyes and taken out her pocket watch when Ronan Kendrick woke up as well.
"What time is it?"
Evelyn Ford rubbed her eyes. "Four-thirty. Let’s get everyone up."
The JINGLE-CLANK of movement could already be heard from the nearby road. Evelyn Ford yawned and jumped down from the top bunk.
"Mmm... Time to get up?" Wyatt Vaughn asked, squinting at Evelyn Ford. Evelyn hummed in agreement and turned on the light.
"Everyone, hurry and get up. We need to get the carriages ready and load our things."
The Mammoth was too conspicuous, so Evelyn Ford only brought out six horses.
There were three carriages. Evelyn Ford, Ronan Kendrick, Officer Graham, and Wendy took one. Quincy, Wyatt Vaughn, Zoe, Miles Vaughn, and Joelle Finch took another. The last one held Ethan Dawson, Peter Owens, Taylor Vance, and Zion Lowell.
The horses were unsettled after being suddenly let out. Ronan Kendrick spent a long time calming them before they finally grew docile.
The carriage bodies were the same ones they had used before and were in excellent condition. While not as imposing or luxurious as the one they’d seen yesterday, they would provide shelter from the elements.
Ronan Kendrick led the others in assembling the carriages. Once their supplies were loaded, Evelyn Ford stored the RV away.
Peter Owens went to cut some branches while Quincy and Miles Vaughn fetched a few buckets of water. The horses needed to eat their fill before they could set off.
"A horse-drawn carriage might be slow, but it has a certain charm. I keep feeling like this is less of a carriage and more of a pumpkin carriage, like the one Cinderella rode to the ball."
Evelyn Ford couldn’t help but laugh at Wyatt Vaughn’s words.
"We’re fleeing for our lives. There’s nothing charming about it."
Zoe looked up at Wyatt Vaughn. "Mommy, what’s a Cinderella?"
"Cinderella is a girl who tends to the cinders."
Zoe’s eyes lit up. "I’m a Cinderella too! I’m great at tending fires."
Wyatt Vaughn ruffled her hair. "Silly child, you’re a little pixie."
At five-thirty, with the night still thick around them, everyone ate breakfast and boarded the carriages to set off.
The horses were intelligent enough that they didn’t need to be driven from the front. With a CREAK and a GROAN, the carriages slowly started to move. Evelyn Ford and Wendy sat before a small stove roasting sweet potatoes, and the sweet fragrance soon wafted to the carriage behind them.
From morning until afternoon, they encountered few other merchants on the road, only two other carriages. They simply exchanged glances from a distance before going their separate ways.
The disguise was a success.
"Wendy, do you want to go to school in town?"
Wendy shook her head. "I don’t want to. I can learn so much just by being with you, Joy Ford. I don’t want to go to school; I just want to learn medicine and farming. And I don’t want to deal with outsiders."
Evelyn Ford didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but she wouldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want to do.
"I’ll give you a set of Silver Needles later. You can start learning the body’s acupoints."
Wendy rushed over and hugged Evelyn Ford excitedly. "Joy Ford, I’ll study hard! I won’t let you down."
"Wendy, you can consider Evelyn your master now. You have to listen to her from now on, understand?"
Hearing Officer Graham’s words, Wendy nodded emphatically. "I will."
They began to see more and more villages along the road, as well as the occasional patrol team. The patrols didn’t inspect the carriages. If they found people who had frozen to death on the road, they would dispose of the bodies on the spot, burning them to cinders.
While passing a small village, Evelyn Ford saw a large wooden sign by the road. A few words were written on it: "Mine Recruiting—Room and Board Included."
The mine was affiliated with The Second Base. Quincy got down to ask a villager and learned that The Second Base wasn’t far. There was also a county town next to it, about forty kilometers from their current location.
"Another twenty kilometers, and we can settle down."
"Twenty kilometers from the county town, won’t that be too far?"
Evelyn Ford shook her head. "No, the distance is perfect."
The villages along the road were sparse and scattered. The houses were all simple structures—some made of earth, some of stone, and a good number of them wood.
The weather was so cold that the villages mostly grew potatoes and white radishes. People could be seen walking through the woods with bows, arrows, and hunting rifles. Some were hunting, some were foraging for wild vegetables, and others were even scraping bark from the trees.
"That child’s face is bright red from the cold, and his lips are chapped. What a hard life."
"Hardship isn’t what’s scary. As long as there are no natural disasters, people can survive even the toughest of times."
At eight in the evening, the carriages slowly came to a halt. After storing the carriages in her space, Evelyn Ford led the group into the adjacent Rimefrost Forest.
’Better to carve out our own territory than to try and fit into someone else’s.’
Evelyn Ford had set her sights on this particular stretch of the Rimefrost Forest because its trees were tall and it was encircled by a stream. To enter it, however, they would need to cross the water by boat.
"This part of the Rimefrost Forest ahead is practically an island. Without a boat, we can’t get in. Evelyn, give us a couple of hatchets. We should start by chopping some wood to make a raft."
"No need to bother." Evelyn Ford produced the rafts they had made back at the farm, leaving everyone dumbfounded.
"You still have these rafts? When did you put them away? I thought the flood must have washed them away."
Ronan Kendrick, of course, was the one who had stored them. Who knew they would come in handy today.