Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

He asked for some water. Rich said, “Hold on a minute, it’s downstairs.” He brought them up a pitcher filled from the sump pump. He had been getting about 15 gallons a day out of it, but was only filtering a few gallons. He used a rotary pump to drain the rest.

Haliday had installed a separate check valve on the sump pump’s discharge pipe and Rich attached the hose from the rotary pump to that. Now he had found himself some guinea pigs. They drank the whole pitcher down and didn’t complain. Rich guessed it was safe to drink, which was a good thing. Water would be plentiful as long as the ground water kept up at a decent level.

Sarah gave them a big hug, she was happy to see her brothers. Kevin asked where Eric was. The room fell silent. Sarah teared up and said, "I don’t know, I don’t think he’s going to make it here."

"Don’t worry sis," Randy said and hugged her some more. “There’s still hope.” Elizabeth who had been watching said, "I want hugs too." She ran over and got her share of hugs.

Having these two here would be a great help. It would make bringing things up from the basement a lot easier and pulling security easier as well. Bev went over to the ham and called Roger; she told him what had happened. Roger said, “Ok, you copy Dawn?” She replied yes. Roger said, “Ok everyone, keep up the good work, and talk to you later.” He was relieved there were more people at his folk’s house now. “Dawn,” he said, “A2 again.” She switched frequencies again and waited for Haliday.

Haliday came on the net and said, “Ok. I want you to hold tight right now. When I call you I want you to go ahead with the first plan you have in your notebook. Any questions?” Dawn asked if he had an ETA. Haliday said, “Hell Dawn, I’m not sure we’ll even make it. If we don’t get back in the next 24 hours, the rate this country is falling apart will make it impossible. It’s going to be hard. No doubt about that. Switch back and talk to you later.”

Haliday was just about to tell everyone he was going to check back in a couple hours when he looked down the road and noticed something different. “That wasn’t there when I came through earlier,” he said to himself. He brought the truck to a stop. Mike asked him what the problem was. Haliday handed him a pair of binoculars.

Mike looked down the road and said, “Oh shit.” There were four humvees sitting there with about eight men as far as he could tell.

Haliday said, “This could be real bad. Give me a hand Mike.” He got out of the truck, Mike followed and they walked around to the back. “Help me unload this thing.” They unloaded the KLR and Haliday opened the hatch and searched for some gear.

“They gotta be wondering what we’re up to right now Mike. Right now we’re not too far from Danville. I’m not sure, but my guess is it’s a National Guard unit, most likely the 38 thMP CO. Not sure what their mission is right now, but I’m about to find out. You keep that ham tuned in and you listen to me. If you hear me say ‘aww shit, you got us fellas,’ you get the hell out of here as fast as you can. I’ll try to buy you some time if I can, but don’t expect much. There’s maps in the binder, find an alternate route. Right now they have us spotted and if we outright take off, someone is going to follow.

“Here’s my plan, let’s hope it works,” and he told Mike what he was going to do. He put a helmet on, placed an AR15 instead of his old Armalite 180 into the sheath on the bike, buckled on an equipment belt with thigh holster and mag pouches and a tactical vest loaded with more gear, but more importantly a handheld ham. “I’m Gecko45,” he laughed. The notorious mall ninja known across the internet for his ability to save the shoppers and keep the peace while dressed like an entire swat team. He attached an earpiece and push-to-talk mic to his vest and the ham. He started the bike and rode toward the road block.

Haliday slowed the bike down as he approached the roadblock. He looked at the stenciling on the vehicles and the lights mounted under the windshield. “38 thMP CO.” He turned the bike off and one of the MP’s approached him. Haliday noticed this guy didn’t actually have a unit patch on his right shoulder, that meant no combat assignment. He quickly glanced around and there was about a fifty-fifty split. The two on the humvees’ guns were combat proven. A MK19, automatic grenade launcher and a M240 G/B machine gun. Both not weapons to mess with but only the 240 could reach the Tahoe.

The MP was an E3, PFC, private first class. He approached Haliday and asked him for ID. Haliday reached into a pocket on his vest and pulled out a black nylon ID holder. It was dirty, looked well used and the vinyl window was fogged over. The ID inside was visible, but it would be hard to identify any detail without taking it out because of the fogged over window. Haliday actually stitched the opening closed a bit to make it harder just in case. The PFC looked at it and handed it back to him. You can do wonders using a laser printer, and hobbyist sand paper can wear the clear vinyl down nicely to make it look worn.

Haliday said, “Private, who’s in charge here?”

The PFC said, “Specialist Benson is sir.”

“Haliday said, "I’m prior Army and was an NCO and worked for a living, please don’t call me sir." The PFC waved the specialist over.

“This here is DHS officer Haliday. What brings you around here Mr. Haliday?”

Haliday answered back, “What are you guys up to? You have a checkpoint out here close to nowhere? In my day we would have said we were getting the big green weenie.”

The PFC looked at the specialist and said, "He’s prior service." The specialist just looked him over.

Haliday said, “Easy guys,” reached in his pocket and pulled out a large decorative coin. One side had the department of army seal and the other side had the crossed pistols of the Military Police. He handed it to the specialist. The specialist looked it over and handed it back to Haliday. It was a challenge coin.

“Any other day Mr. Haliday and I’d be buying you a beer.”

“Call me Roger,” Haliday said.

“Ok Roger, but back to business, what brings you around these parts and who is down there in the truck?”

“That, Specialist, is my partner with a special couple of folks that Governor Anders asked us to bring back from the University of Illinois for some of his staff members. As you can guess, it’s rough traveling out there and I am not taking any chances of running into rogue groups or militias of any kind. If you’ve been listening to anything on the com net, you know why. I’m guessing that’s why you guys are out here correct? Unless by chance; I’m in the middle of a well-executed ambush.” Flattery can get you a lot he hoped. Throwing the governors name around helped too.

“We reported to the armory, but not many of us made it there,” Benson said. “We were told to wait for orders and haven’t gotten them yet. Well, the town manager asked us to help out until they could get a volunteer force together. We only have two groups out here and we secured the two county road entrances into the city. The rest is just farmlands. We have a few more guys making reliefs at the checkpoints. We’ll stay until we get orders or the town manager gets some guys together.”

Haliday said, “That’s a smart move for Mr. Watts.”

Benson looked at him. “You know Watts?”

“No, not personally, but since I’ve been assigned to Indiana the past couple of years, it’s been my job to get to know the leaders of cities where there’s assets like the Danville armory and his name is easy to remember, Watts as in electricity.”

“Makes sense to me,” Benson said. Another side note he made and used; he updated the info constantly.