Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

Haliday interrupted him, “I’ll fill you in later on what they do and do not have, please go on.”

The man continued, “They caught people on the roads leaving and going to stay with family. If they had guns they took them. Sometimes they beat the people too. People around here are pretty frightened of them, but they keep telling us it’s for our own good. Then you guys showed up. Man, they have it out for you guys.”

Blake said, “Oh ya, wait until you hear the latest from them.”

The guy continued, “They call you guy’s terrorists.”

“They put out a flyer yesterday. They said in one more week they would open the trade store up. It said you would have to trade jewelry, coins, or valuables for food or gas. I don’t know how they can do that. It’s not right. It was our stuff to begin with. My store could have fed us for a long time until the government help came in.”

Haliday rolled his eyes at that statement. Why do people insist the government will always rescue them, he thought.

“Listen,” Haliday said, “these guys are not legitimate according to constitutional law. Even the damn sheriff is wrong. They are rogue thugs in my eyes. You people need to band together and take back what is yours. Otherwise you guys are going to die. You have anything at all from the store? Anything stored anywhere else?”

“Not really. I mean I have some stuff in my pole barn, but not any food. It’s all toilet paper, paper towels, things like that which are bulky. I stored them here to save space at the store.”

“Keep it all, you can trade it for what you need. You’d be surprised how valuable a roll of toilet paper will be. Speaking of, now that we’ve made acquaintances, I really have to go squirt.” He left for a minute then returned. “Now, back to business, where’s your brother?”

“They go to Arizona for a couple months each winter,” was the response.

It was Haliday’s turn to talk a bit. “Now let me tell you what they have and what they are all about.” He told the guy everything he knew about them. The guy was awestruck over what Haliday told him. “They will be searching for us with a vengeance. We killed six of them this morning. Somebody’s brother, son, husband, father, whatever. But they got what they deserved. They got what they were giving out. But we can’t do it all. We just want to get back to our own family as well.”

The man asked them, “Where are you guys going to go?”

“We are going to go find a place to camp until it’s safe for us to move out. We are going to connect with our family and try and wait it out until we can go home. Not sure when that will be. Hopefully soon.”

“Do you guys have food and stuff?”

Haliday lied when he answered. Ya, we have about two cases of MRE’s, a few more days’ worth of food for us, so we can hang out up here for about one week before we’re hunting with you guys.”

The guy thanked them for the coffee and cocoa. Haliday told him again, “This is still your country, your state and your home. These guys don’t have the right to do what they are doing. Should be enough of you out there to make a difference. Before they summarily start executing people, I’d get an alliance together and do something.”

“Can you guys help?”

“We did enough; it’s not our fight anymore. There’s nothing here for us now, we’re just fighting to live now, just like you. I’ll try to check back before we head back to the burbs. I wish you guys luck.” Roger and Blake took off and headed straight south. Haliday told Blake they had to start being more careful to avoid encounters like that again.

They went straight south hoping the militia would stick to the north where they were causing all of the trouble. They found a large patch of woodland near a small city named Freidberger. Blake said, “Friedburger.” Haliday thought that sounded good about now. Even though he had given up red meat except for a few times a year, a nice juicy burger with bacon and cheese on it sounded real good right now.

“This is Roger, checking in.”

“Roger, it’s Dad. We found the new frequency for the militia. It’s the fifth one you gave us.”

“Hold on Dad.” Roger had Blake tune in to the militia. “Okay go ahead.”

“You guys are in deep trouble. They are on the hunt for you big time. They know you guys are staying in the spots of woods. It’s not safe anymore. Did you guys really do what they’ve been saying?”

“Dad, I have no idea. We haven’t heard their claims. They could be full of it. We’re going to find another place to hide. I’ll call you guys later.”

“Wait a minute Roger, something else. Some guys from the militia snooped around a bit, checked out the place with binoculars. They know someone is here, smoke from the fireplace I guess. They left a letter in the mailbox with yellow caution tape tied around it to get our attention. We went and got it when it was safe.

“It states who they are and what their mission is. It says that all people in the district they control must abide by the mandates they have in place. It’s a whole list of crap, curfew, travel, all that garbage you said it was. They have a form they want filled out and put back in the mailbox.”

Roger asked, “What’s the form for? What info do they want?”

Rich responded. “They want to know the names, ages and sex of everyone staying here. They want to know if we have running vehicles, what kind, how much food and water we have and what kind of guns and ammunition are here. It asks about generators, fire wood…”

“Stop Dad, I’ve heard enough. When do they want the form back?”

Rich said, “It’s written down that they will pick it up the day after tomorrow.”

Roger thought for a moment, then spoke, “Ok, listen up. It’s not that safe outside right now. I’m not sure if they do or not, but assume you have someone watching you. It might be the militia or might be someone else close by that they have watching you. They are probably taking notes on your every move. Do not answer any questions, do not talk to anyone, understand?”

Rich said, “Yes, anything else?”

Roger told him, “Ya, as hard as it’s going to be, you need to add a third person to the security watch.”

He looked over at Blake, who was shaking his head.

“Not good,” he said.

Haliday dialed in his radio to the same frequency. “Keep listening Blake.” Haliday pulled out his maps. “Gotta find some place to hide.” He kept looking around and referencing his notes. “Let’s see, ok, got it, this is the best chance we have right now.

“Let’s go Blake. Time to go to school, the old Freidberger school to be exact. This place is very old, very unoccupied. No one has probably been there for years. It’s as rundown as you can get and we can hide there for now. It was left to rot out and crumble with no money to restore it. We just need to get out of the woods if that’s where they’re looking for us.”

They would wait it out until it was dark outside. Then they would make the move to the old schoolhouse. In the meantime they ate. Their food was getting very low. They each had an MRE left. Haliday had a couple bags of soup mix and a few other small items. They could get through the night and tomorrow, after that they were going to start to get hungry. He wished he would have taken a .22lr so he could hunt a squirrel or rabbit, but he hadn’t counted on being out this long at all.

They sat there and listened to the radio. These guys had pretty much pulled out all of the stops. Haliday figured that they had about 12 vehicles on the road and looking for them. If their area was roughly 35X50 miles, that was 1,750 square miles. That was one big area to cover. The only problem was that only about 10 percent was wooded. The rest was flat barren land for the crops. They had to have extra eyes out there as well. They were probably giving food to the people in exchange for them watching the area.