Ashley Greene
Manhattan, New York
Do you know how far it is from Libby, Montana to Manhattan, New York? 2,483 miles. You might say, well that isn't so bad. You might have been right under normal circumstances. The problem was, the world had sort of ended. Infrastructure had gone up in nuclear fire, roads had been wiped out, and the Compton effect from the nuclear discharge had fried most vehicles' fancy electronic parts. So where you could normally take a plane, bus, or train, you now had the option to walk. There was also the bicycle if you were lucky enough to find one in working condition. Most were either smashed under rubble, had flat tires, or were melted beyond use. There was nothing wrong with walking. Built character, Ashley's father used to tell her.
Walking had it's share of problems. You needed shoes or boots that would last you. You would be surprised how quickly the soles of shoes wear out over long distances, especially over the wasteland the United States had been reduced to. A pair of sneakers would last you a few hundred miles. Boots lasted longer, but they still wore out. Shoes were really the last issue Ash had to worry about though. There were animals, radiation pockets, bandits, toxic fumes, and a number of other things that could snatch the life from her body if she wasn't always alert.
Now if your trip was only a few miles, the odds of any of the aforementioned problems coming to pass were very low. If your trip was almost twenty five hundred miles long, you were bound to encounter all of the above at some point, if not multiple times on the trip.
Ash was no war survivor. She was no gruff mountain man, no hardened biker, no outdoors-man. She was an art student. She wasn't even an art graduate, she was still an ignorant girl raised in a small town. She had been forced to hunt a few times as she grew up, but she never really took to it. Hurting and killing things didn't mesh with Ashley's artistic personality. The trip across the country changed all of that. Ash had been ambushed, attacked, poisoned, burned, cut, scraped, and injured by the environment, bandits, and animals alike. She had been tricked, lied to, decieved, and nearly killed more times than she could even keep track of anymore. The cross country trip changed Ashley.
Now instead of a bubbly art student, Ash was a nervous nomad. She learned how to scavenge for food and supplies in towns on the way. She learned to fight, to survive, and to not trust anyone or anything. Ashley was now a survivor.
With the knowledge and the skills she had picked up across country, she had also picked up a fair amount of scavenged supplies. She had canned food, a Brita water filter jug and a few spare filters, a few pairs of shoes tied to her backpack, a medical kit filled supplies from a Hospital she had broken into. The most important items she carried though, were weapons. Ashley had a large hunting knife strapped to her calf, a Walther P99 pistol tucked into her back waistband, and a Winchester Model 70 slung over her shoulder. She didn't have much ammo for the two weapons. Maybe twenty or so shots for the rifle, and just the one pistol magazine for the Walther.
The odds Ashley would use that many rounds before she found more was low. The rifle took .308 Winchester, which was easy enough to find. It was a very common hunting rifle round, and an even easier place to find it was any place that had formally been American military. The 7.62mm rounds fit inside the Model 70 just the same as normal .308 rounds, Ashley had discovered while looking for ammo replacements. They weren't an exact match, but they worked none the less.
Now of all the things Ashley had learned on the road, there was one inescapable rule. One rule you had to follow, or risk being killed for breaking it. You never, ever, ever, went into a large city. Places like Minneapolis, Chicago, Toledo, and other large cities in the same kind. There were too many places to get ambushed from, too many people all trying to survive, and most of all; too many bandits. Bandits would rape you to death, steal your clothes and supplies, then skin you and make you into leather for their shelters. If you were very lucky, they would do it in that order.
This wasn't just a guess either. Coming through Illinois, Ashley had been shadowing a caravan of people. She had intended to steal away into their camp during the night and take some much needed food. It was a shitty thing to do, but it was survival of the fittest now that the world had ended. As she was following them, the caravan was attacked by raiders mid-day. Through her scope, she watched as they murdered and maimed the entire caravan, picked them of their belongings, and skinned them all. With the supplies, the skins, and their fill of sex, the bandits moved on. Ashley had wished she could have helped, but knew she would have been killed for the attempt. It was sick, but it was better them than her.
Back to rule number one; no cities. Ashley sighed to herself as she stood in front of the Brooklyn bridge. She had already broken the rule by entering Brooklyn, and she was about to shatter the very same rule by crossing the bridge and entering Manhattan. The bridge didn't look like it did in pictures. It was burnt and destroyed, and most of the road had fallen into the East River. You could probably walk along the maintenance walkways and girders, but it was dangerous. No less dangerous then swimming in the East River though, or trying the bandit filled Lincoln Tunnel.
This was it, Ashley thought to herself. This was where she could settle down. This is where she could hide from the world and get back to her art. An island of rubble and subway tunnels, a maze to get lost in and disappear.
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