Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

"How did you know?" he said.

Haliday said he saw smoke from three of the rental cabins. “I figured someone was out there. Two cabins, one for each son, you in the main trailer and someone in the third cabin.”

“What about you Roger, any more surprises?”

“No sir. Thank you for letting us in George.”

The winter caretaker walked in and George asked him to let their wives know it was ok. He went and told them and they all returned from hiding somewhere. They talked a bit about what was going on and what had transpired, but Haliday didn’t share a lot of details about any of the gunplay. Last thing they would want to hear and they might not trust them then.

“How did you know we were here George, your alarm system working?”

“Oh, hell no. We used some fishing line and tied it across the driveway by the main road. When you tripped it, that pulled a stick out from under a can full of rocks. These rocks would fall on a couple of more empty cans to make even more noise.” They had made sure they ran it across some trees to use the bark to help keep the line from sagging too much. Crude, but it worked. George looked at the caretaker. “You mind?” he said. The caretaker said, “No problem,” and then went to reset the alarm.

The lasers and spotlights were unusual as well. After asking about them it seems this was a good time of year for spotlighting deer. Haliday didn’t care about that. He asked them if they were set for food and everything. He didn’t expect George to tell him much, but George actually filled him in on everything.

He had hit the local Sam’s club in town, where he often bought a lot of supplies for the campground. He had towed the trailer he normally used for fire wood delivery behind the tractor. They managed to get a couple hundred pounds of rice, about 12 cases each of canned fruit, canned vegetables and beans. Also some flour and other items.

They paid cash of course and he figured George kept most of the cash from the campground to hide from the IRS, so he had enough on hand. Plus he had what was left in the camp store. He told them at Sam’s it was for the last big party they were having. Not sure the people realized otherwise as it hadn’t even been 24 hours yet since it happened.

They’d make spring with no problems, so long as no one got to them here. Haliday said, “Hide it. Hide it all and not all in one place. Keep your guard up too. In the next few weeks they’ll remember who was buying what and they’ll want it. But, back to the business at hand. Can we rest for about six hours?”

“Sure thing,” George said. “We’ll keep guard for ya.”

Haliday said, “We’ll help you stay awake.” No sense in waking up dead, he thought. They slept in shifts, but they had let Haliday sleep the whole six hours.

Dawn, Diana and Karen were making about 5mph and were a couple hours into the trip with only about an hour to go. They didn’t have to stop at all which was nice. They did get a lot of questions about what they had, where they were going and of course people asking for handouts. Diana was driving now with Karen in the passenger seat. Dawn would stand up in the back seat, rifle at the ready, whenever they were approached.

Haliday had shown her a dual 10/22 Gatling gun monstrosity as a joke and she had actually wanted one mounted on the roll bar. Haliday laughed it off, but she was thinking it might not have been a bad idea. 22lr’s were not quite battle tested, but then again, nobody likes to leak blood. Would have been like getting stung from a bee hive but only worse.

Dawn was listening in on the ham when she heard Roger call Bev’s house. "How’s everything going?" he had asked. Bev filled them in on David’s event. He pretty much thought as much. The city they lived in was north of Detroit and the auto industry was its primary job source. Over the years, it had become almost like a smaller Dearborn with a heavy Middle Eastern presence, but with a lot of Eastern European mix as well. It was quite a melting pot. Throw in the mass amounts of apartment complexes and it was outright dangerous right now.

Haliday said, “Ok, it’s time for you guys to get moving. You need to pack up everything and everyone and get going now. I want you to head over to my place. I’m about six hours out now and leaving here in an hour or less. When I get there’ll we’ll get things ready for the long haul.”

“What about Alan and his family, we’re still waiting for them.” Oh boy, he thought. This was going to be a delicate situation to handle.

“Ok ,” he said, “let me put it to you guys like this. So far, I’ve shot at about a dozen guys, I know I’ve dropped at least four, I’ve been shot at and hit, and Kayla has been shot at and had to shoot someone, Mike and Linda have been shot at and I don’t even know if they dropped anyone. Things are that screwed up. Everywhere we go it looks like we will be eating lead. This country is out of control and getting worse by the minute.

“You get out now or you don’t get out at all. Sit and wait for anyone else and you might as well start digging your graves. You will have to hope Alan and his family are doing what they need to do in order to make it right now. That’s the best you can do right now. I hope you guys understand. It’s about all of you right now, not just any one person or part of the family.”

Bev wasn’t happy one bit. In her eyes it would have been the whole family uniting and moving out. She and Rich talked a bit. Rich called Randy, Kevin, David and Sarah into the kitchen. He told them to get things packed up and ready to go. He handed them a list of instructions and told David to delegate the duties but make sure it all got done. They would do what they could to help.

Dawn, Diana and Karen just looked at the radio in awe. “Holy crap,” they all said. They had it made compared to what they had just heard, with the exception of Dawn’s little incident. They had more ambition now to get the hell out of there. They kept moving on. They were only a couple miles away from their destination now. It was totally different here and they were only 20 miles north of Haliday’s house.

In the garage over at the Halidays’ was another 5X8 trailer. This one was loaded similar to Dawn’s. They did the same thing, going through the house and triple-checking everything. Bev left a note on the top of the entertainment center. It was cryptic, but whoever was reading it would know what it meant if they were supposed to know. It gave them instructions on what to do and where to go.

David called Randy and Kevin over. “We are going to go out the back door, over to the corner of the yard and get the Cherokee from under the tarp. I’ll drive it around to the front and back it up to the garage door. Open the door when I get there. I’ll back up to the trailer and connect it. You guys have to stand guard.” They proceeded with their plan.

The Cherokee was an ’84 with about 120,000 miles on it. They had it reworked and kept it in good running order. They rarely drove it, just enough to keep it clean and running. The old Cherokees were almost bulletproof with the inline six cylinders, automatic tranny and lever activated 4X4. Small, but durable and dependable. Great for converting to a BOV.

Diana turned the ATV down the driveway. She looked around and saw the barn manager coming down toward them. Mandy, the barn manager, was a woman in her early forties, blonde, thin, attractive, but weathered from the outdoor lifestyle and the tattoos didn’t help much either.

She greeted them and assumed they were here for the horses. “I guess you guys are getting out of Dodge.”

“That’s the plan,” Diana said. “Maybe later tonight or early tomorrow, we’re not sure when.”