Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

Bev had worked in a variety of jobs as waitress, packing boxes in a warehouse and ultimately put herself through school and became a substance abuse counselor. She had the ability to help people think through problems clearly and this experience came in handy right now with Sarah. She was able to keep her calm for now.

He got up one more time to see about prying the doors open. He was shouldering one of the doors when it started to slide open. He moved his feet to brace himself for leverage and stepped into the open hatch, causing him to tumble down into the car. He landed and snapped his leg just above the ankle.

There was no way possible he was going to get out of this by himself now. He sat there in pain and straightened his leg out a bit. His pant leg was damp and he knew he was bleeding. He grabbed the service cart and latched onto some rags which he tied around his leg.

All the while he was thinking about Sarah and Elizabeth and hoping they made it to her grandma’s house. He thought about how cute Elizabeth was during her ballet recitals and how good of a cook Sarah had become. He reminisced about all of the good times they had had over the years. He was tired now and drifted off to sleep with these thoughts on his mind. Erik would never wake up.

Haliday had just checked in again with everyone and had pretty much figured out that everyone would be doing ok. With just about a day and a half after the country went dark, things would still be fairly civil. In another couple of days, the people would start to panic.

The realization that their food would be running out would hit. This is when things would start to go Wild West as he used to say. Rule of law would become rule of gun. He wanted to be as close to home as he could be at that point. He would prefer to be back in Michigan period.

He was well clear of Bryan and now into Indiana heading west just about 15 miles above Fort Wayne. He would start to head south and run through another small town called Warsaw. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any problems. He had noticed a lot of old tractors and ATV’s on the road, but very few cars.

What cars he did see you would expect to see in a museum or better yet, the Woodward Dream Cruise. Detroit’s only saving grace these days. One day dedicated to cruising Woodward Avenue with vintage autos. One thing he did not see yet was the sign of any military vehicles. Of course he was trying to avoid any installation of any kind. There would be far too much explaining to do if he got caught.

With dusk here, he flipped on the headlights and continued his trek. He was making pretty good time. A lot of the vehicles had been pushed out of the way, making travel easier. It was much different than up in the Detroit area. People up there had no respect for anything and just left cars where they were. Hell, they did that when one broke down in normal times. Civilization turned for the worse years ago and just kept turning as far as he was concerned.

Staying off the highways and sticking to smaller county roads he encountered very few people. When he did, he simply flipped the light bar on and honked the horn to clear them out of the way. He learned quickly that if he didn’t bother to slow down they got out of the way much faster. He heard plenty of shouts as he passed by but he didn’t listen. Most of them were yelling pig, useless feds and some more colorful choices. He kept the windows up and paid no attention. No distractions, he had had enough of them already and it wasn’t fun.

He had skipped through some frequencies on the ham and stopped at one in particular. This guy sounded like he was reading from a script. He was telling everyone in the armed services, National Guard, reserves, all branches, to make their way to their installations as soon as they could. He was telling all hams to pass the message along the best they could. Post messages in communities, word of mouth, any way they could. Was this guy crazy? How many of these guys were going to leave their families? There was no telling.

The distance he was covering now was great. He was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and didn’t see any houses or people close by so he pulled over and turned the lights off. He grabbed a small bag and one of the thermoses from the truck and walked around to the hood so he could keep watch.

He opened the thermos, opened a small bag of instant soup and dumped it in. He closed up the thermos and shook it violently to mix the soup. Cheddar broccoli, not his favorite but it would do. He opened the thermos and drank it down. It was just barely warm, but he hadn’t really had anything and needed to eat.

He grabbed a bottle of water and dumped a tube of powdered Tang in it. He drank this down quickly too. He had bought some plastic tubes used for making candy art at school carnivals and filled them with pre-measured amounts of Tang so it would be easier to mix. He grabbed another bottle of water and swished a little in the thermos and dumped it out. He stopped what he was doing. He looked toward the direction he was heading and heard a noise. Clop clop clop clop .

He went over to the passenger side door and opened it so he could grab his rifle. The door was left open and he took cover behind it. He watched as the figure came into view. It was a teen age girl riding along on a horse. She stopped and looked toward him. “You ok mister?”

He said, “Ya I’m fine, what are you doing out this late?”

“I’m going home; I was visiting my friends down the road.” He slid the rifle into the truck and walked around the front.

“Your truck die mister?”

“Not at all,” he said, “I stopped to grab a quick bite to eat and something to drink.” She asked him how it was possible his truck was running when most of the cars around here didn’t. Haliday was cursing himself under his breath and was thinking dressing as Charles Manson actually might have been a better idea. More risk of getting shot right away, but fewer stupid questions time after time.

“The government has a fleet of hardened vehicles in case of problems just like this. The EMP that went off would not affect the fleet and the vehicles could be used in the recovery of the nation,” he explained. “How far down the road do you live?” he asked. She said about another mile or so. He remembered a smaller farmhouse with a large barn.

“Well, you better get going, and let me give you some advice,” he replied. “You never want to get caught out here in the dark, and you never want to get caught out here alone. Times are different young lady. You have no idea of what type of people you’ll start to encounter out here.”

She said thank you and that it was time for her to get going. She started riding off and as she did so, he walked around to the road and watched her. Her right hand holstered a pistol of some sorts, but he couldn’t tell what kind. She had drawn it and kept it out of view before she got to him, but he could tell by her one-handed control of the horse and by her keeping her right hand down that she was hiding something. “Damn,” he said, “some of these people just might do ok.”

He looked around and heard the horse getting quieter. He reached in the truck and grabbed a roll of toilet paper and bottle of baby powder. He walked over to the ditch and took a squat. Before he pulled his pants back up, he used a little baby powder. The BDU’s were rubbing him raw and he needed a little comfort. “Ahhhhhh, big difference,” he told himself. He walked back to the truck and climbed in and took off.

He was making up some of the lost time, but was still short of his goal. He turned a flashlight on and looked down at his binder. He had made it through Warsaw ok and a few smaller towns as well. He was now about 150 miles out. His radio checks hadn’t revealed any problems or any new info. Things were going good right now. He looked down and noticed he needed gas soon. He would have to start looking for some soon.