Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

“I’ll tell you how to make a rain catch, that way no contaminants from the roof get in it. Bird or goose crap mainly. It rains, you unfold and secure the tarp, and it catches in the barrel.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

“Your tractor running?”

“It is, but we’re saving the fuel for it, we only got about 250 gallons of diesel for it.”

“Ok, save it then. Firewood and everything else?”

“Plenty of that too.”

“How about security?”

“Well, now that we have two more, maybe we can get something set up. Hoping my son makes it here too.” Haliday spent the next two hours explaining how to secure the farm and house as much as possible.

“Last but not least, firepower?”

Bill smiled, “Oh, I got plenty of that.”

“Let me see what you have.” Bill led him to the den. He opened up a safe and exposed a fairly impressive collection. 30-06, couple 12 gauges, little Marlin 22, but most noticeable was the two AR15s and couple of 9mm pistols.

“Nice, you got ammo?”

“I have about 1,000 rounds of 5.56, 500 9mm, couple thousand 22lr, and about 200 each for the rest. Got bows too,” he added. “Mike bring his?”

“Yes, he did.”

They walked back into the kitchen. “Bill, you mind if we stay in the barn tonight?”

“I sure do, I’d prefer you to crash anywhere in here you guys can find a place.”

“We appreciate it.” It was close to dinner time now. Haliday said dinner was on him. “Before I cook though, can we park the vehicles in the barn?”

“Sure thing,” he said.

Haliday had everyone get what they needed for sleeping tonight, had them bring in the cats and dog and then he walked in with a bucket of groceries. He went over to the kitchen and began cooking. He cooked up a hell of a dinner. He made some chicken alfredo, some corn, even made some naan and for desert they had some bananas and honey. He mixed up a couple pitchers of Arnold Palmer. There wasn’t anything left when they got done.

They talked a bit longer before setting the watch schedule and heading to bed. Haliday went over a few more things with Mike and Bill. Bill, too, asked about the government. Haliday said, “Nothing from them at all. As far as I can tell they are nonexistent.” They headed off to bed. He checked with Dawn and heard they too were camping for the night. It looked like they were in the home stretch.

The morning sun arose and they all got ready to go. “Kayla, can you load up the cats.”

“Ok, I’ll grab them.”

“Take your mutant dog too.” She called Max; he came prancing by and stepped on Haliday’s toes as he passed by. Before he walked into the cage, he took the time to look back at Haliday. Kayla grabbed Romeo and stuffed him in there with Max. Haliday really hated that mutt about now.

Everyone said their goodbyes. Mike and Linda hugged Kayla and told her to be careful, listen to her dad and that they loved her. They were all relieved that right now everyone was safe. Everyone piled into the vehicles and Mike walked down and unlocked the gate. Haliday paused at the gate and called Mike over. “I have a gift for you.”

He handed him a handheld ham. “You can recharge it with the small solar panel I left back in the barn. Directions are on it; it’s easy. You can flip it on every hour on the hour and if we need you, we’ll call then, and we’ll listen for you as well. You know the protocol, no last names and no locations. I left a couple other things in there as well. We’re only going to be about 50 miles away, but these days that’s a lot. Good luck old man.”

Mike locked up the gate and then went into the barn. There were some buckets and boxes of food along with the little solar panel and frequency chart. He found a few notes on how to cook the food and what proportions to use. There was a lot of soup, rice, pasta, beans and some canned meats. This would help them get through the winter easily.

He looked around at some bales of hay which he moved aside and hid everything. He went in and told Bill and the two Lindas what they had. They were all more relieved. He would go hunt for a deer to start them off before they got to the cows. The longer they could keep those, the better. Same for the chickens.

Haliday’s group made it to the rendezvous point. He heard from Dawn and told her they would be waiting. They had two more places that could be trouble and they would need to go through together. He was making some instant coffee when the radio went off. “Roger, we’re stuck. The trailer is stuck and we can’t get it out. We’ve been trying for over an hour and a half.”

Haliday said, “Hold tight; I’ll be there in a bit.” He had the guys unload the KLR and he got ready to go and help. They were about 20 miles away and he would go it alone. Everyone else would stay here and wait. They were out of sight, out of mind, and as long as they stayed that way and kept quiet, they would be fine. He kicked over the bike, turned his radio on and put his earpiece in and rode off.

Haliday set out west to meet up with them and see what he could do. He should have asked them to be a bit more specific about how they got stuck, but then maybe someone would try to figure out their location. Who knew if there was anyone listening in on their frequency or not. He’ll see what’s going on when he gets there.

He was cruising down the road when he passed an older Jeep that suddenly pulled onto the road coming the opposite way. At his speed, it caught him by surprise. He glanced in the mirror of the bike and noticed it was turning around. As far as he could see it had a couple guys in it. He couldn’t tell their age because they had the top off and looked like they were bundled up a bit. It was one of the coldest days yet.

He hadn’t given the temperature much thought because he had slipped on some thermals under his pants and shirts because the ride on the bike would be cool anyway. He saw them coming up closer now. There didn’t seem to be any glass in the windshield which might be the reason they were bundled up. The closer they got the more detail he could see.

He slowed down and took a right hand turn. The Jeep followed. Two guys only, wearing camo of some type and both had balaclavas on. Now he wasn’t sure they were both male or not. Judging by their size, he was pretty sure they were. It was that or they were big women, but he doubted that. He was wondering what happened to the glass in the windshield.

The Jeep pulled up almost right on his rear fender now. He glanced back and saw the passenger waving to him to pull over. I don’t think so, Haliday thought. He throttled the KLR a bit more to put a bit more space between him and the Jeep. The Jeep started honking the horn and the passenger was waving again.

Haliday gunned it a bit more and as he increased speed so did the Jeep. He glanced back and saw the passenger holding what looked like an AR. He rested what looked like a bipod on the hood. That explained the missing glass, but why didn’t they just flip the windshield down, he thought. Maybe they had broken it doing that.

Haliday saw an access drive for the corn field next to him; he slowed and spun the KLR into the field. This field had been cleaned of the ears of corn, but the farmer hadn’t yet turned it under. The stalks were hitting him and hurt like hell. He felt like he was getting whipped across his shoulders, thank goodness for the hand guards and helmet.

The Jeep had whipped in too. He heard a couple shots and hugged the bike as low as he could. He didn’t know if these were warning shots or if these were meant for him. All he did know was he didn’t care. He slammed on the brakes and cut across the rows. It was bumpy as hell and the Jeep would be bouncing like crazy. That would make it harder to target him.