Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

Haliday walked over to the desk with the radio. He checked in with Mike and Linda. “How you guys doing?”

“We’re doing fine, Rambo.”

That struck a bad chord with Haliday. “Not in the mood, Mike. Just doing what I hope any other American would do, that which was necessary to keep order in a place that didn’t have any. You guys going to be set for a while?” he asked Mike.

“Ya, we’ll be fine, sorry. I got a deer and we plan to use that up first.”

“Ok, talk to you later,” Roger said.

Haliday changed the frequency and called Rob. There wasn’t any answer. He would call back later. He looked down at a note. “Oh ya, Alan.” He called on the frequency that Kayla had written down. There came an answer. It was typical of a ham operator. Call sign and everything. Haliday apologized for not knowing the proper protocol and such.

The man said, “No problem, I understand.”

“If you have a chance, and Alan Haliday asks, can you get him on for me?”

“Sure, I’ll leave a note up for him. I put a message board up for folks.”

“Hey, my name is Roger by the way; can I ask a few questions?”

“Yes sir, how can I help you?”

“You hear anything about the military or feds doing anything?”

“I only hear what you’ve heard. They are locked down on the bases, they have had a lot of deserters and they don’t plan on doing anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just like I said, they don’t plan on doing anything any time soon. That’s the rumor.”

While it didn’t surprise him he still thought it was odd. “What’s going on around you?”

“Detroit.”

Roger asked, “What do you mean, Detroit?”

The guy said, “The city itself is pretty much a wasteland and the suburbs have become like Detroit itself. Looters, robberies, people shooting each other, it’s really bad. You can’t leave your house and you have to be careful. Hearing that some gangs are on the move. People aren’t putting up with a lot though.”

“I appreciate the info. Mind if I add you to my friends list or whatever it’s called.”

The man laughed, “Ya, go ahead. I’m Adam by the way.”

“Thank you again Adam, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll be talking to you again soon.” He sat back and tried Rob again. Still no answer at all. He flipped to the militia freq. This was interesting indeed.

It sounded like they were just attacked by Al Qaida themselves. “This is the Bad Axe Minute Men. Last night we were provoked by a group of terrorists. These terrorists have turned members of our community against us. They attacked us when we were openly attempting a cease-fire.”

“Bullshit,” Haliday mumbled under his breath, along with some more choice words. Our community? Oh, that was good. These guys are playing the psychological warfare game quite well. He couldn’t wait to hear what else they were saying. These guys are playing the victim role really well.

He heard a familiar voice. “These are all lies people. We united to save our community. The militia stole food, fuel and supplies from us. They want to sell it back to us while they keep what they want for themselves. The murdered Jim Simmons last night in cold blood, he was unarmed.” Haliday smiled; a propaganda war. The sad thing was this could lead to a civil war here within this little part of the state.

“We had a kid who belonged to them. When we contacted them to turn him over, they set up an ambush and killed the two guys who were taking him back to their compound.” Haliday was taken aback at this. He wished he would have told them how to handle the turnover. How the hell did that happen, he wondered.

The bantering would go on back and forth every so often. Haliday flipped over to Rob’s frequency. “Rob, you there?”

“Ya, I’m here. They shot two more guys.”

“I heard. Sorry to hear that. You didn’t offer to trade the kid for supplies did you?”

“No, we told them it was a straight up return. We just wanted him out of our hair. The guys were walking him down the street toward their compound and they came out from the bushes and shot them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Listen, you guys need to get busy with what we talked about. You get everyone you can on board. You’ll get those who will be on your side, those who will join you if they think you are winning, and those who will care less. You’ll also have some against you. I know it’s only been a little more than half a day, but time is important.

“Rob, listen up. Someone needs to move into that feed store or co-op, whatever you call it. You need to make sure that remains in your control. Fortify the hell out of it. Don’t let those guys get it. See if the guy with the tooling shop can build some boxes to cover the pintles on those trailers so they can’t be towed away. I’ll check in on you late this evening, but you call if anything major goes down. I suspect they’re still licking their wounds.”

In another couple of hours, it would be getting dark again. He needed to get out and check a few things. He went into the pole barn and got into the ranger. He and Kevin took a quick ride around the property boundary. It was simple fencing in most places. He drove toward the west property line and checked the woods. He scribbled some notes on some paper.

He followed the property line around and kept making notes. When he got up to the front of the lot he looked across the street at the neighbors. He had noticed the curtains pulled aside in one of the windows. He looked around some more not to make it obvious, but he made a mental note. Someone was watching them.

They drove back up to the pole barn. Haliday checked the vehicles real quickly. He walked over and looked at his old Jeep. He jumped in and started it up, just like Kayla said, ran like a champ. He looked up and saw Dawn and Diana bringing the horses in for the night. They put some hay in the stalls for them. Each fall they had a round bale delivered just as a prep. They rotated it out each year.

Haliday checked the small aluminum boat hanging over the Jeep. That should be fine, oars were EMP proof. He walked over to an old outboard motor from the 70’s. It was a simple engine, it too should work ok and if not, no big deal. Last but not least, the tractor. If it didn’t work, the horses would. They secured everything and went back to the house.

He could smell the cooking. “What are we having for dinner?”

Sarah said, “Burritos.” Karen and Bev were sitting there making tortillas and Sarah was making the beans and the beef.

“Sounds good to me.” He raised his voice slightly. “Everyone else please gather around, we have some things we need to do in the next couple of days, and we may have a problem.”

Everyone gathered around sitting at the table or standing nearby. “We need to get the concertina wire put in place. We also need to put out the foot spikes.” These were much like the stop sticks he had described, only they were just a couple inches wide and had slivers from the edge cut and bent upwards, then sharpened. These had barbs cut into them to tear flesh as they were pulled out. These were easier to hide in tall grass and bury under loose dirt. You’d spot them in the daylight, but not at night.

“We also need to make sure we clean out the holes and have them ready to go.” Near the front of the house by the corners he had built some decorative plantings. Small curved landscape walls, but when you took the grass off and removed the cover there was a concrete culvert pipe sunk into the ground.

These were just like the ones he had remembered using multiple times in basic training at the rifle range. Pea gravel on the bottom and sand bags in each to adjust the height of the shooter. These would let two gunners provide much needed coverage to the front of the house and the sides as well. He had installed planters around the whole area made of double rows of landscape bricks stacked 2 and 3 high in places. A few spots of fieldstone built up and holding garden sculptures.