Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

He thought about it a minute. Most of the property outside of the small town was large 25 to 50 acre lots. The populated areas were very small. “Go ahead and stay there for now if you can.”

“Ok, got it.”

Rich found a piece of wood in the garage and he had David screw it over the hole in the window. This would seal the house back up. While he was out there, he noticed a couple shelves that had some candles, matches, propane bottles, butane bottles and few other items as well. He was surprised these weren’t gone.

He looked around and saw a camp stove and lantern. The garage apparently was left alone. He walked over to a drum sitting there. He opened the bung on it, closed it right back up. It was filled with gas. A smaller 15 gallon container was filled with kerosene. The generator was chained down to the floor.

Haliday had cut a large square of concrete out and dug out the hole. He then laid fresh concrete with a massive eye bolt in it. He had staggered spacers and washers so there was no pulling it out. He figured the block of cement itself weighed about 500 pounds, so it wasn’t going anywhere easily. The chain was reminiscent of something on a ship’s anchor. Big and heavy, lock included. It would take an immense amount of work to cut through it.

Over in a corner was a kerosene heater. Rich had David grab it and they also grabbed a smaller can of kerosene that was next to it. David took it inside and got the heater going. It was going to be cold this evening and with Haliday’s detour, they didn’t know when to expect him to be here and wanted to stay warm and ready in case anything happened.

They gathered everything they could find that they thought Haliday would want to take with him. They piled it all behind the trailer in the garage. This would make it easier to load when he got here. They walked through the house, but didn’t find anything else they thought they could use.

Dawn, Diana and Karen moved the ranger and trailer behind the barn so it wasn’t visible. They locked the steering wheel down and Haliday had shown them how to disconnect the wires to the spark plugs. They also placed a wheel lock on the trailer and double-checked the doors to make sure they were locked. They couldn’t afford to lose anything now.

They walked over to the little lodge house that was there. It was really just a large one roomed building about 15X20. Had a fireplace, TV, bathroom and queen size bed in one corner, and a small kitchen area with large refrigerator. This was used for barn parties or for guests who stayed the night. They pulled out some books and read, waiting to hear from Haliday while taking turns on guard duty.

Mandy came up and knocked on the door. She asked if they would be here for a while and they said it looked that way. She told them she was going to get an early start on hunting. She had seen a few deer earlier in the morning while out for a ride and was going to see about getting one. She had a bolt action 30-30 with her and held it like she knew how to use it.

Dawn asked her if she hunted a lot.

“I was born and raised in Kentucky. My dad and older brothers included me in everything they did. I was pretty much a tom boy. I moved up here chasing a boyfriend which didn’t work out, so I took the job here running the barn.” It wasn’t great pay, but the free use of the house and utilities made it worthwhile. She earned extra money giving lessons to newer riders.

She went and saddled up her horse and took off. The three of them just looked at each other. Yuck, deer. They were all vegetarians to one extent or another. Karen snuck in meat once in a while at work on lunch. Dawn did the same thing, but no beef at all, and Diana was a straight up vegan. Haliday loved offering her jerky when they would all go to the range for practice. He loved torturing people like that.

It hadn’t even been an hour and they heard a single rifle shot. About an hour after that Mandy came back in dragging a buck behind the horse on a canvas deer drag bag. She paused by the lodge house and asked if they would want any steak or anything, but they declined. She told them she would be over by the house processing it. She would be making a lot of jerky with this one. They were impressed in a sense, even though she was currently making herself bambi-kabobs.

David was checking Bobby’s bandage. He explained to him that what he had done was wrong. Not only was it wrong at any time, but in the days to come it would get him killed and almost did. Bobby asked what the big deal was. David explained that WROL the country was a changed place.

“WROL?”

David told him, “Without Rule of Law. It was the Wild West now. It was respect or expect.”

“Expect what?”

“Expect to get killed.”

Bobby just said, “Fine Dad.” The look on his face acknowledged the lesson had sunk in.

It was getting to be late afternoon now. Randy went out in the garage and tried listening to the radio, but inside the garage the reception was poor. He asked if he could open the garage door and Bev said, “No, use this, and go out on the back deck.” She handed him a handheld with whip antenna.

“Uncle Roger?”

“Go ahead,” Haliday said.

Randy asked him, “Anything going on, are you almost here?”

“Negative, we are getting ready to pull into Uncle Alan’s neighborhood. We’ll call you back in a bit when we find out what’s going on. Let grandma know.”

“Ok, I’ll tell her. Good luck.”

Dawn, Diana and Karen gathered around to listen. Rich, Bev and David joined Randy on the deck. They all lit up a cigarette. They didn’t smoke in the house, Roger didn’t allow it. They knew he would sniff it out in a second. They were allowed to smoke in the garage, but after eying the drum of gas they decided not to. Everyone was listening for the report to come in.

Haliday had re-routed himself to his brother’s house. These were large 3,000 square foot homes on postage stamp size lots. There was literally about 20 feet of space between homes. The only benefit was a large communal common area in the back of the homes. They all looked the same with the exception of different trim color once in a while.

He was getting ready to pull in and hesitated. Toward the entrance it looked like a roadblock, but upon closer inspection it was a stalled car. He checked out the exit side and it was clear, so he drove down that side. Just a few scattered cars here and there. About halfway there, he noticed Nancy’s Durango stalled out about three houses down from their own house. That was good news; she was close to home when it hit.

Haliday didn’t see Alan’s truck anywhere nearby. Alan worked for a construction company as an estimator and salesman and his job took him everywhere across the tri-county area. That was going to suck, no telling where he had been at the time. None of them bought into the preparedness realm, so he knew they didn’t have GHB’s or anything. Not even a pistol that he could remember.

They got a lot of looks as they drove up. Haliday backed into the driveway. He would get used to doing this for tactical reasons. He did it in the military and they did it at work, it saved time from trying to back out of areas or parking spaces so you could get out quicker, or respond quicker without the hassle of ground guides or watching your mirrors constantly. Too many blind spots that way too. Took too much valuable time to back up.

“Kayla and Linda, you guys cover the Tahoe. Keep everyone away. Fire two quick shots if you need us, or if you need to take action, keep firing and we’ll be there ASAP.” Haliday and Mike walked around the house and noted it was all locked up. A neighbor came out of the house next door and asked them what they were doing.