Day 18

I know, it's been a while since my last entry, but a lot has happened. Had to kill some folks, had to say goodbye to some folks, and had to bury others. Fest Town's gone. Hope you haven't been looking for it, based on my earlier entries, but unless someone's taken the time to rebuilt it, all you'll find is ash and the skeletal remains of people's homes.

As I came back, I spotted the smoke on the horizon from the direction of town, so I hustled my ass getting back. Alternating between running and walking, to keep cool and not push myself to exhaustion, it still took me an hour to get back, and I crested a hill to see what was going on. By that time, most of the town was already gone, burned away. There were still fires burning at one end, circling what buildings remained standing. Judging by which areas which were still smoking, it looked like the fire had started at the gates and burned inward. I'm just glad there had been other exits, because otherwise people might've been trapped behind the flames.

While I looked, stunned for a moment, I noticed movement just below me. I crouched down quickly, seeing someone that I had never seen before, a man with a scoped hunting rifle aimed toward the town and a large bag next to him with a few pieces of lumber sticking out. I'm not sure I even really thought about my next move, next thing I knew I had jumped down and clubbed with my own rifle in the back of his head. He went limp, bleeding where I'd hit him, but he was alive. I left him there, taking his rifle and making my way carefully toward town. I didn't see any other snipers but no one shot at me, no one ambushed me. I assume they figured the fire would do most of it and just one guy would be enough for clean-up.

I weaved my way into town through burned-out gaps in the walls. Bodies were all over the place, scorched and burnt, lying in doorways and in the ruins of the buildings. A thought struck me as I moved through the destruction to where the fire still raged, and that was the realization that some of these buildings were spaced too far apart for the fire to have spread this easily without a lot of wind. I made a mental note to check more thoroughly later, for now I needed to see if anybody was alive and needed help.

I tossed most of my gear on the ground as I moved quickly toward the flames, and saw movement as I approached. Armstrong, the smith, was carrying one person over his shoulder while helping to support another one, getting them clear of the flames. He had a leather blanket or something tossed quickly over them all, helping to protect them from the flames, but it still had smoldering holes and ragged edges, all trailing smoke as he moved. He greeted me as he recognized me but never stopped moving. As he passed, he simply called out to tell me where he had taken anyone he had found, and he wasn't sure if anyone was left alive. With that, I dove past the flames as best I could, and began searching.