Day One

The first few days were an odd mix of relaxation, goofing off, and hard grubby work.
As Mister Station had predicted, once they got the railcart moving it didn’t take much to keep it rolling. After a few incidents of fallen branches bringing the whole thing to a grinding halt. They adopted a system of two pushing from behind and one walking ahead to keep the track clear, and at Cy’s suggestion, keeping anything small and dry enough for firewood by heaping it onto the front of the railcart.
“I wonder whose idea it was to catch the water from these panels?” Bug wondered as she washed the cleaning gear. ”It’s saving us a lot of effort.”
“Mister Station, maybe?” Said Luce. “He does a lot of building stuff out of other things, and all of this looks like it was made out of other things.”
“Can he even come up this far?” Asked Bug. “I know he can unplug from the station sometimes, but not how long for.”
“Not this far anymore, I think.” Said Cy. “My father said he used to be able to unplug for days at a time in the old days, but … Not anymore. Now it’s only a few hours, or he gets sick.”
The tied the cleaning gear back onto the railcart and prepared to head off.
“Besides,” Cy continued, moving to the front of the railcart in the hope that he could avoid the next bit of pushing. “The rainwater catchers are made of whatever was lying around, the buckets don’t keep the bugs and algae out, so the water can’t be drinkable, but the whole thing makes the job easier because you don’t need to fetch water.”
He looked back over his shoulder at Bug and Luce, who nodded knowingly.
“Lumpy.” They said in unison.

Camp the first night was at the burned-out station.
As Mister Station had promised, the railcar on the branch of track which looped around behind the wrecked building was watertight and relatively clean, though it took the concerted effort of both Luce and Cy to evict several large spiders who’d taken up residence.
Bug, despite appeals based on her name, had refused to have anything to do with spider-removal, and instead set up their cooking equipment and built a fire up on the station plkatform, where a neat ring of bricks and a pile of ask showed the best spot. Acting on a hunch, she checked inside the nearest doorway of the ruined building, and found a small pile of firewood and a couple of jugs of water, next to some folding chairs with decaying cushions.
“I’m starting to think that Lumpy has the best job in the village!” She shouted out to the others through a gap in the wall.
Cy triumphantly waved the branch he’d been using as a broom as he chased the last spider out.
“We found some water-barrels, but these ones have a sort of filter thing, so … Probably drinkable!” He called back. “Not a powered filter or anything, just rocks and sand and cloth, but it smells and tastes OK?”
“Probably we should boil it though?” Luce added thoughtfully. “I’m starting to think that Lumpy uses his moonshine to make his water safe, but … That’s not a good option for us.”