Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

“Go ahead, what do you want?” the minute man asked.

Howe continued. “We had some problems last night and this evening. We have some kind of gang causing problems. Lighting fires and shooting at people to scare them. We had a few trucks come through yesterday afternoon, but we lost track of them. The worst part though is they have some motorcycles causing troubles. You guys have any information on them at all?”

“No we don’t. We haven’t had any problems at all up here except for some local people looting. But the police are handling it. If we have any other information, we’ll call you on this frequency. We monitor it, but that’s all. We wish you luck.” Haliday shook his head. These guys are some cool players. Protecting their little country, lying through their teeth, they really are something else. Tomorrow night they’d be put to the test.

Haliday called the group before they settled in for the night. “Make sure you guys go over everything again and again. I can’t tell you guys enough how important it is. There are going to be a lot of people depending on us, but what you have to consider before anything else is your safety and the safety of everyone around you. Ok, we’re getting some sleep. Talk to you in the morning.”

This morning was a busy one. Rob had taken the scooter and made his rounds to make sure everyone was going to be ready. Haliday and Blake double-checked everything and loaded up the bikes to get ready. Rich, Bev, David, Dawn, and Randy got the Cherokee and Tahoe ready. They too were packed and ready. Kayla helped them go over everything and then made sure the house was ready. She would be staying with Sarah, Kevin, Bobby, Karen, Diana, and Elizabeth at the house.

Rich was driving the Cherokee and David the Tahoe. They headed out and northwest toward the western shoreline of the Thumb. They had with them quite a few little packages. Their main area of operation was going to be the Caseville area and along that shoreline. As they approached the area, they would stop on occasion. Timed surprises to help keep the militia on edge.

It was early afternoon and over at the airport, a crowd started to gather near the front gate. The militia warned them to leave and they did. They went about a quarter of a mile down to a feed store. They lit up a couple of burn barrels and stood around. The crowd increased in size, drawing the attention of the militia. They had a patrol drive by about every 10 minutes.

Over in the Caseville area, the two vehicles pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store. A militia patrol pulled in behind them. They got out and approached the vehicles with their weapons at the ready. A few minutes later another patrol pulled in to assist them. They ordered the group out of the vehicles.

David and Dawn got out first. Randy got out of the Cherokee and walked over to the driver’s door. He opened it and Rich got out. Rich leaned up against the fender playing the feeble old man. Randy went and opened Bev’s door and helped her get out. He pulled out a small stool and she sat down. The militia approached them.

“Who are you people?” David explained that it was his wife and son, and his parents. They lived in Warren and came up here to bug out.

“Where are you planning on going exactly?”

“We have a small cabin on Rose Island. That’s where we are heading to.”

“You guys have ID?” Rich walked over slowly and gave him his drivers license. The address was in Warren.

The man from the militia looked over at Randy and the rest. “You guys have ID?” Dawn said no, David pulled his out.

The guy said, “This says Roseville.”

David spoke, “Ya, my parents live in Warren. We live in Roseville and Randy lives in St. Clair Shores. We all made it to my parents’ house where we stayed until it started getting bad with riots and looters. Look at my truck, they were shooting at everything just to shoot, it’s loaded with bullet holes. We decided to head to the cabin.”

Over by the airport the crowd had grown to almost 50 people. They started walking back toward the airport’s main gate. When they got there, the militia doubled up the manpower at the gate and told them to go away. Rob demanded that he talk to the militia’s leader. The crowd called the militia Nazis, criminals, thugs, crooks and a few other choice words. There were men, women and older teenagers.

Back in the parking lot the militia told David and his group that they were the authority for the Thumb Region. They insisted on searching the vehicles. David and the group protested, but the militia convinced them by raising their rifles. The militia pulled everything out of the vehicles. They just tossed it all on the ground.

Sleeping bags, camp stove fuel, clothing, food and some odds and ends. One of the militia opened up a blanket and laid it on the ground. He placed a small .22 rifle on it along with a couple of Mosin Nagants and an older 12 gauge shotgun. Another guy put down two ammo cans filled with various ammo for the guns and opened it.

“I see boxes of 9mm. You guys have any pistols on you?”

David said, “Yes, I have a 9mm under my coat.” They told him to raise his hands which he did. One of the guys went and took the gun from him and then patted him down. He told everyone else to stand up as well. They completed the search and didn’t find anything else.

“Here’s a list of rules of the area. I suggest you go to your cabin and stay there. Check in once in a while in case we have information for you. We post bulletins regularly. You damn vacationers think you can just come up here and do whatever you want and it makes me sick. If I had it my way, we’d be shooting all of you useless assholes.

“We’re keeping the guns, that’s our law. You might want to think seriously about how long you plan on staying. Spring would be a great time to move the hell back to wherever you guys came from.” A third patrol had approached and watched the activity. David saw them talking on the radio. They heard him say that they didn’t find any truck tracks at the marina, just the bike tracks. They got another call and then they left. The other two patrols stayed behind, but David could tell they were getting anxious about something.

Haliday and Blake started to head toward the airport. They were following the path they previously had taken. Haliday would be taking a different path and he split off from Blake. Blake continued on for about half a mile. He stopped and waited. As he was sitting there the patrols quad came up along the wood line. Blake took off to try and avoid the quad.

The quad was following Blake as he tried to lose him. The quad was catching up to Blake slowly. Blake tried to get into the woods, but he couldn’t find an opening. He looked back and the quad was even closer. He laid on the throttle, but the bike became unstable and bounced around too much, so he slowed down.

He spotted an opening in the woods and shot toward it. Just after he entered the woods, he hit a patch of leaves and dumped the bike down sideways and slid. He got up and started running down the path with the quad behind him. The quad gunned it and blasted into the woods.

The rider’s arms were whipped backward and the pressure on his chest tore him from the quad. He landed on his back and rolled around in pain. Haliday had wrapped a piece of small coated wire cable around one tree and anchored it. Then he had fed the end through an eye bolt on another tree. As soon as Blake had laid down the bike, Haliday pulled the cable and wrapped the end around the eyebolt for strength. It knocked the rider of the quad off.

Haliday walked up and stepped on the man’s arm as Blake ran up. He pointed his .40 at him. “You guys don’t learn do you? Still out here playing army and trying to run your own little country?” The guy just looked up at him. He had to be only 18 or 19 years old. Haliday bent down, flipped him over, and applied some flex cuffs.