[ IP ] The Long Road

The apocalypse was n't as bad as every one had made it out to be. To be honest, a lot of us really enjoyed the freedom that a world-shattering event gave us. No school, no work, no mortgage or rent or water bill to worry about. Besides, whose going to spend money on irradiated water anyway? None of that matters any more. Out here, in the apocalyptic wasteland that is the world, the only thing that matters is what is in front of you. And quite frankly, what's in front of us is n't as bad as it sounds. 
 
 It's quite beautiful actually. The radiation may still leak into the water and the sky, but there was n't enough of it around to destroy the environment on a global scale. No, ten years after the Big Drop, things are actually quite nice out in the `` wastes.'' If you can call it that, it's just nature with a drop of rads. The real thing that killed most of the population was the virus, but that's a story for a whole'nother time. 
 
 Really, the only complaint I have about it all is the walking. Since all the cars that did work are now shot to shit, walking is the only thing we do. Which sucks. Of course, I survive, but I mean it's the little things in this world that will get to you, you know? Like getting shot at every day by a band of mercenaries looking to make a quick buck over whatever you might be carrying is normal. But trying to find another backpack or a new walking stick is just a pain in the ass. 
 
 I try to look past that though, considering I did choose this as my career. We only walk when we really have to nowadays, but it's called the Long Walk for a reason and we're about the only two people who do it. I mean getting from Philly to California was n't easy in a car, it sure as hell ai n't easy without one. And sure, there are cities sprinkled in between, but once you hit the `` Wastes'' it's two hundred miles each way between any sort of settlement. That's if you do n't count the merc settlements either, which if you are, I do n't want to be friends with you anyway. 
 
 Sticking to the highways is the easiest way, also the most dangerous at night. Jackie and I have figured out a good enough system that gets us moving during the day and away from most mercenaries, but also allots plenty of time for rest. We've done the Long Walk so many times in our lifetime that it is more like a second nature to us than anything else. It's actually quite funny, most people around the Wastes know the two of us, the Walkers as the traders call us. We're the only two people, as far as we know, who have made the walk from California to Philly and back again more than twice. 
 
 Actually, this Walk will be our seventh time. But there's good compensation in the Walk, and the fact that you're never in one place for too long really helps get over the deaths that take place. Almost every settlement we hit they're having a funeral on the way in, or on the way out, which can last anywhere from a day to a month; depending on where we sent and by whom. 
 
 Walking ai n't an easy job, like I said, Jackie and I are about the only two people who do it. There were others, hundreds in the beginning of the apocalypse that attempted the Long Walk. Most of them died, killed by mercs or nature itself, but a few dozen survived the first couple years. The Walkers quickly became the most profitable job in the Wastes, we were a select few, and now, we're a select Two. And we do n't walk without the other. It's one of our rules. 
 
 It started out as a way for traders to get their goods to far off settlements and families, a couple hundred miles in any direction paid well enough. Then we started getting a little adventurous, walkers from the East and West making treks almost a thousand miles out to map the globe and see what settlements still stood. Traders paid good enough gear for a good map, and settlement leaders paid even better to get things from one settlement to another. It used to be food and water, we'd take horses and carriages and transport hundreds of pounds worth of the stuff from one settlement to another. Most of the time it was peace offerings, so that the two settlements could trust each other and live comfortably at each others borders. Other times it was traders getting their wares out just like in the beginning. 
 
 Nowadays, with only two of us left, Walkers carry the most precious of all commodities. 
 
 Antidotes, and more important than that, the location of where the antidotes come from. The virus still kicks, somehow. Most people believe it's carriers, people who have it but are n't affected by it, for the most part they're right. But we just deliver the antidotes, we do n't say where we go it. And we certainly do n't write it down on any map. 
 
 A while back, about six or seven years, a group of Walkers, present company included, found an establishment somewhere out in the Wastes. A place where the pre-apocalypse government shoved all of their eggheads who just so happened to be protected by an army's worth of jarheads. We made contact, found out what they were doing, and started to cash in. Mercs started to stop bothering us once they realized that killing us would n't get them the location of the hideout, so Jackie and I are basically immune to other humans. But we take the precautions. Especially when we found out those scientists were experimenting, working on continuing the civilization that was destroyed. To be honest, part of me always thought they had something to do with the unnaturally beautiful landscapes that were being created, but I let it slip. If I had to stare at something for most of my life, I wanted it to be a nice view. 
 
 We found this little haven, made a deal with the leaders, and have been dishing out the antidotes ever since. They come at a heavy price. For scientists, the only type of currency they understand is the kind that furthers their own. Same goes for the jarheads. 
 
 Settlements that give us weapons, they get a couple antidotes. Settlements that give us people on the other hand, they get a few dozen. 
 
 I'm not proud of it. Jackie's always taken issues with it, but we just put the offer out there. The settlements and the people agreed to them. So when a town needs antidotes, and a lot, a few people are offered. We take them to a discreet location, they're picked up by the jarheads, and the town gets their antidotes. With very quick return-on-investment times. Jackie and I are very good at the Long Walk. 
 
 It's a job. That's all it has ever been, but I can tell it's taken a toll on Jackie as the years went on and the Walkers dwindled to the two of us. And it's struck some chords with me as well. But out here, in this beautiful apocalyptic wasteland that is the world, you take the job you're good at it. Some people are good at killing, some people are good at leading; Jackie and I are good at walking. We're good at every single aspect of the job, and that involves getting over death. 
 
 We've been walking for a long time, a real long time. And we're not about to stop.
