The Time of The Cat: Epilogue

MOUNTAIN LIFE

Liz thought I should have quit telling the story when we crested the pass in Rocky Mountain National Park and headed down to Grand Lake, but I thought you’d want to know what happened afterward. I’ve got a little more to tell, some of it good and some of it bad.

Here’s what happened after the meeting:

The EMP burst didn’t cause quite as much damage as it might have, but it was still a showstopper for our civilization. A few years before, the trucking industry had released a report detailing the effects of a trucking stoppage, which was about the same. The EMP disabled almost all our more modern vehicles, leaving only the older ones still running. A few modern ones had been somehow shielded in metal buildings and such, but mostly they were all kaput.

The Mayor and Sheriff proved competent and got everyone organized pretty well, and although it has been touch and go, we managed to survive through the first winter without losing too many people.

We sent a party into the park, and they blew up the road near Poudre Lake, so it would be more difficult to reach us from that direction. On the south side of town, we made connections with people in Granby, and they followed our lead and prepared. They now serve as a buffer for us, and they’ve been the ones that were forced to decide to either turn away or absorb the few refugees that made it over the mountains. They used an old bulldozer to cut the roads into their town for more security.

There have been a few people who showed up, wanting refuge. Most of them were survival types who were prepared to take care of themselves, and some of them have proven to be true resources for the community.

There has been little crime. The repercussions are so severe that no one is tempted to misbehave. There was a small group of refugees who sneaked into town and killed a man and his children to steal their supplies. We caught them, and, in due course, after a speedy trial, they were hung. We took to posting warning signs outside town about it, and it seems to have worked.

Water is plentiful, needing only to be sterilized due to the presence of Giardia. No one wants to suffer weeks of debilitating diarrhea and fever, so we’re pretty careful about what we drink. Food has been a little more difficult, but we’re surviving on elk, mule deer, and lake fish. There are chicken eggs, but they’re pretty scarce, so we usually have them only on special occasions. There are now enough gardens and greenhouses in town to keep us stocked up on vegetables. Wheat and bread is one thing we miss, but it never was really too healthy for most people, anyway. Some of the locals owned some cattle and goats, so we’ve had a source of milk and cheese. One of the townspeople even had a breeding colony of tilapia, and he now makes his living selling those firm-bodied fish. The crazy things have to be kept warm, but they’re so productive that everyone can eat them whenever they want.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that the radio in the Chevy pickup was a piece of original equipment. I pulled it out, and several of us worked at rewiring it. The insulation of the original wires had deteriorated because of age, and most of the contact points were corroded. Fortunately, the tubes were still OK, so it wasn’t too long before we had a working AM radio.

We had to drive up the mountain a few miles to receive anything, but there were still a few AM stations broadcasting at first. We learned from them that there was a lot of damage when the transporter network blew and a lot more when the EMP went off. Planes crashed out of the skies, and millions died in the first few minutes from accidents and natural causes. We estimated there were close to a million heart patients with pacemakers that stopped instantly due to the EMP. It wasn’t good.

To top it off, although some of the Pugs simply gave up, many of them came out of hiding and attacked, knowing that they were going to die and wanting to do as much damage as possible. They killed many, many people before what was left of the military, and private citizens with weapons managed to put an end to their threat. The last groups of them died when their respirators failed.

The other problem we faced was the spiders and Feral Pug-bears. Thankfully, we haven’t seen any of the intelligent Pug-bears, but the feral ones have proven difficult. They showed up in town sporadically for months and were responsible for some deaths.

The most notable sighting of one was when a grizzly came running up Grand Avenue, closely followed by a huge Pug-bear. The grizzly turned at bay right in front of the mini-golf course, and the two came together with a crash. It didn’t take the Pug-bear more than a minute to have the grizzly by the throat and kill it. We shot the Pug-bear shortly thereafter, so it didn’t get to enjoy its kill.

There haven’t been any Pug-bears around for some months now, so we hope most of them are dead by now.

We haven’t heard anything on the radio for a couple of years at this point. We still check the radio frequencies every so often. Someone else, somewhere, will have survived, and we hope they’ll be able to get civilization back together where they are. We’re doing our best where we are.

It seems like the country has broken up into small enclaves. Most of the surviving people are dependent, as are we, on their local community, and they haven’t been traveling much as yet.

Mike and Nancy, the people from Florida, have taken over the local school. They’re working hard to ensure the kids get a practical education and know their history and science.

I should backtrack for a moment. Right after the meeting, Liz and I located the city judge and got married. It was a great decision. Liz is very happy with me and vice versa.

We located a spot of land, out of town, on North Supply Creek. It has a good view, and it offers a lot of privacy. We got help from some of our friends and raised a cabin, and Liz and I have a nice garden, a couple of horses, and a cow that I traded for. We also have a little boy, Michael. We named him in part in remembrance of Colin and also in part for our Florida friend, Mike. He just turned four last month.

Both Liz and I have continued to develop our ESP abilities. It’s no longer sporting when I go elk hunting. I can always locate them by their mental aura. We’re also working with Michael to train him. We’re making the training up as we go, but he’s starting to exhibit some ability. I’m hoping that it will be similar to raising a child in a bilingual family. With any luck, he’ll pick up our mental skills and blend them seamlessly into his life.

There are some limitations, though. I’ve tried to impart my ability to many of the local people in the same way I gave it to Liz and Rudy. Only about one in twenty townspeople seem to get even a smattering of it. Perhaps humans must be emotionally close in order for the mental link to be strong enough to transmit the ability.

My knowledge of the aliens, the information I’d received from the ‘Ancient One,’ has gradually organized in my mind, and I can now recall much of it at will. There are gaps in what I learned, unfortunately. The ‘Ancient One’ didn’t seem to understand what it had learned from the original source, and much of the information is incomplete. It’s a source of frustration for me.

Jefferson has quietly set up a small kingdom around our cabin. He’s older but still in fighting trim. He has a coterie of local females who drop by at times when they’re in the family-making mood. He’s had a few short spats with some of the local Toms, but they all learned to stay out of his territory. In short, he’s adapted and is happy. We’re glad that he took up with us. He’s been a real advantage to our team.

There are a lot of new kittens around town that have his distinctive orange coloring. Everyone hereabouts knows him and his reputation as an alien fighter and detector. I think all of his kittens have been adopted as a result. Families with children seem to especially like them, which is fortunate because there are a lot of children that have been born in the last three or four years.

We sometimes talk about what humanity had and hope for the future. That’s all anyone can do, ultimately. Without hope and plans, humans have no meaning in their life. We’re not ready to let the race disappear, so we all are working hard to rebuild.