Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

“I’ve had enough!” the loud mouth yelled at him. 1, 2, and the number 3 came in the form of a three round burst. Roger quickly leveled it at the next guy and barked out orders.

“Keep your weapons down. Keep your weapons down. Go, go, go.” The vehicles moved out leaving Roger, Kevin and Randy standing there. “Kevin, you lead. Randy and I are walking backwards. One of the guys in the group brought his shotgun up quickly and fired at Randy, but luckily he missed. Randy returned fire with two rounds and Roger fired a few quick shots as well. The guy dropped to the ground in a heap.

Roger yelled out again, “Don’t do it. Don’t be brave.” He kept the rifle leveled at the group that was armed and now standing by themselves. There were five left. They started walking backwards, as they did the group of bystanders moved back as well. You could tell they didn’t want any more of the gunplay. “Like I said, the food is in that house. Help yourself, it was mine anyway.” Phil’s kids were crying. Phil was yelling at Roger.

The armed individuals watched Haliday, but moved toward Phil’s house. Roger and Randy kept moving backwards and they saw a few more people head to Phil’s house. They were about 75 yards away when they reached the trucks. Roger told everyone to get in. He stepped on the side step of the truck and held onto the window frame with one hand. He kept looking back at the mob that was now at Phil’s house. It was like ants on a piece of candy.

He heard a few shots as well, but didn’t see anyone firing at them. They were probably arguing about who gets what. He saw Phil standing there watching his house being raided from across the street. Phil’s wife and kids were in tears. He smacked on the roof when they hit the end of road and Mike stopped. He switched places with Mike behind the wheel of the Tahoe. He pulled up next to the Cherokee and saw terror on their faces. He said, “Follow me,” and they drove off.”

Only about two miles away, he pulled off into a large parking lot of a small fabrication shop. He signaled for everyone to get out. They all stood around and he walked up to Randy. He grabbed his shotgun from him.

“I had to shoot him Uncle Roger I had…”

Haliday put a finger to his mouth to shut him up. Haliday pumped the shotgun emptying the shells onto the ground. “Pick them up,” he said.

Randy picked them up and held them out. Haliday grabbed one and looked at it. “Number nine shot, you used number nine shot? You didn’t kill that guy; I doubt you even pissed him off with this crap at that distance. Go find your double aught and load it Dick Cheney. Smaller the number, the better for people,” Haliday said. Randy loaded his shotgun. “David, Kevin, Randy and Blake come here. Basic gun course now.” Thirty minutes later they were back on the road.

Dawn, Diana and Karen were all set to go. They stopped by the main house to drop off a few things and the food for Mandy. They noticed a smoker going. She had taken care of that deer pretty quickly. If she wasn’t raped, beaten or killed, she might do pretty ok for herself.

In all reality this was not a bad place to be though. It was a good distance from a city of any size and since there weren’t a lot people around, there wouldn’t be much scavenging in this area. Just have to hide from roving bands of scum. They’d give her Haliday’s security speech.

“Thanks again,” Mandy said.

“Thank you,” they replied. They were horse people and glad the horses would have a fighting chance. “We’ll be back in spring or maybe sooner depending on how things progress after we find out what’s going on and when everything settles down. It’ll get worse before it gets better. People will be very hungry and desperate in the next few weeks.” They gave her the speech. Take care they told her.

Karen was driving the ranger and they had saddled up the horses to ride. They checked out their map. They were taking as many small roads as they could. This way the horses could use the shoulders of the road and stay off the pavement and they could avoid people. They had two legs of the trip to make. The first leg would take them to a preset cache with a few items and some gas if they needed it and a spot to rest. The next would take them to meet up with Haliday.

They were on their way and enjoying the slow pace. They were checking out the various farms as they passed them. You would almost think nothing had happened out here. They listened to the ham and couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Some of the rural areas were just like this, but then most urban areas, especially the largest cities, had basically crumbled overnight.

They were hearing stories of widespread looting. People had cleaned out all of the grocery stores within the first three days everywhere. They had heard of people rioting in places like Sam’s Club, Costco and other big box warehouse stores. People were taking everything though. Electronics, clothing, whatever they could get their hands on they took. Most of the stuff was useless, but they guessed people figured it would be an easy fix.

Police everywhere started giving up. The only thing they could even attempt to do was try to keep people from killing each other. Most had left heir jobs and were worrying about there own families and themselves. There were very few places where people banded together and took actions to secure their communities. Most of all, it was the small towns in rural areas that would be safer, where travel by foot was impossible due to the distances.

One guy up in Oregon was telling everyone to start hunting and gathering meat. He explained that hunting would be widespread. He went on to say that the animal population would be overhunted within a month. The animal population would be severely reduced and those left would be hard to find as they hid from hunters. Winter would make hunting very difficult. There were just no amenities to keep warm, move around easily, stay the night in camps, and bait the prey or anything.

It was still puzzling that they did not hear anything about any government movements or assistance to anyone anywhere. No one could figure that out. People said that a lot of the military bases seemed locked down, but they also said they did not see the amount of troops that they normally saw. Some commented that there had been a lot of desertion from all rank and files. Little to no equipment was moving and surely none of it was moving off the bases.

They couldn’t concern themselves with any of that. They would figure that out later. What they had to concern themselves with was getting where they needed to be and when they needed to be there. They had a great disadvantage right now, since there were only three of them and the pace they kept was that of which the horses moved. They almost wondered if maybe they should have left them.

They were coming close to their first stop. They hadn’t noticed anyone following them and they headed down a small dirt road. Haliday had scouted this area many times before with them. They knew it was not used more than maybe eight times a year. They couldn’t even figure out why. Maybe kids getting busy after a hot date. They came across an opening in the woods and they headed down that way.

Karen was having a hard time navigating the path. They had cut a few branches off some of the trees to make it more accessible, but had to leave enough so it did not look too obvious. They would be about a quarter mile away from the dirt road and well enough hidden to stay the night. They managed to reach the spot without too much more trouble.

They tied the horses up and got them some water and grain. They planned to leave the saddles on in case they had to bug out quickly, but that would not be the case. They commenced to get the camp set up for the night. They opened the trailer so they could pull out the gear they needed.