Earthbound Read Online Free

would
actually work together for a change and protect what’s ours. There
was only one other time when they banded together like that –
because of my father.
    Anyway, Route 87 wasn’t built for horses, it
was build for cars. Supposedly they can run fast. Ten times faster
than a horse. That is if anyone can find a car in pretty good
shape, and they know how to fix it up, and they have enough
electricity to spare to charge the thing. We’ve got a few broken
down cars in the settlement, but they’re really just scrap. So for
my own eyes, it was all just legend, so I didn’t pay it much mind.
Horse riding was all I needed.
    We reached the old bridge that goes across
the Missouri River. I’d been over it a few times before – really
slowly. It hasn’t been meant for travel since, I dunno, World War I
or whenever the Exodus was. Like I said, not much of a history
student here. Anyway, there’s just no telling when the bridge might
collapse.
    We all stopped our horses and tried to peer
across it. Hard to do when the light only goes ten feet. I hoped
the bridge hadn’t collapsed already, halfway across and without
warning. Would hate to fall down into the Missouri. No telling if
that was a survivable fall.
    Pace seemed kinda concerned. “We’re going to
make it across, right?” he asked, trying to hide his fear behind a
fake smile pasted across his face. I looked at Becca, and she
peered back at me. She didn’t need to say anything – I knew she was
nervous too, but she wanted desperately to trust me. I didn’t want
to give her reassuring words though. Not my thing. Not sure I could
believe ‘em if I said ‘em anyway. So instead I just tugged at my
reins and led my horse forward across the bridge. I could barely
hear their horses’ hoofbeats behind me – muffled in moss that goes
halfway up your horse’s leg. And I hoped Pace was pissing his pants
with fear.
    I rode as slowly as I could, straining my
eyes to make sure there was solid ground in front of me. Then I
started thinking maybe I should be riding last, not first. My every
step forward could be the one to finally turn the bridge into shit,
collapsing behind me, and then Becca would bear the brunt of it.
Pace too. If they were good swimmers they’d have half a chance.
    Finally I could see the other end of the
bridge in sight. Charon took those last few treacherous steps, and
then I had him run a few yards away to get some distance. I turned
around to make sure Becca and Pace made it across whole, which they
did. The dim glow from the lantern barely made out a huge grin on
Becca’s face. She was loving this.
    We rode in silence for a while, marveling at
the sight before us. Buildings, unimaginably tall. Skyscrapers, as
they’re called, cause I guess when you get that high up you scrape
the sky. I don’t really ever want to find out. Like the bridge we
just crossed, those structures gotta be ready to crumble, and I
don’t intend to be around when that happens. Rubble had fallen
everywhere. Some of the buildings had been charred by fire – that
can’t help their stability. Most of the ground-level windows were
shattered, probably from looters back when the Exodus ended. Hard
to believe people tried to live here back then, but they didn’t
last long. They killed each other, or worse were taken out by rabid
animals or wolves or disease. Cities are no place for a man
anymore.
    Hard to believe that nine million people once
lived there, building up the air force base, and then waiting their
turn to get off this planet. Not that I miss them, but I think they
didn’t leave any excitement behind. They weren’t too smart either,
the way I hear it. They put in all that effort, worked for a
hundred years preparing to go off-planet. 20 billion people gone.
And when they were gone, the hypernova that was supposed to blow us
up never came. The gamma radiation or whatever it’s called from the
exploding star was supposed to wipe out all life on Earth. But