Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

He dug down and hit a piece of rotting plywood. It was marine grade and he had treated it practically six times sealing it up, but it was meant for indication of the cage and not protection. Once hitting it, he knew he would have to finish digging the cage out by hand. He turned the tractor off and jumped down. “Grab a shovel guys, let’s get going.”

They cleared the dirt off and removed the piece of wood. Sitting there was a big metal box that had been buried five feet under the ground. The box itself was roughly 48X48X48 inches. It was actually constructed of a couple of boxes nested inside each other. Redundancy was the key to keeping the contents safe, Haliday thought. He had looked up info on cages and everyone had a different idea of what would work, so he went with his own.

He built the first box with one eighth inch steel and lined it with rubber. The contents were placed inside and the top sealed with a rubber gasket and then metal tape. This was covered in rubber and then a copper shell applied to this. He was able to sweat the lid of the copper on in order to seal it entirely. Next was another thin metal skin and sealed again. They hoisted it out using the tractor and some slings.

Haliday started the slow process of opening the cage. Once it was opened, everyone looked inside. You would have thought it was Christmas with all of the oohs and aahs. “Don’t get excited yet,” he said. “We might have boat anchors here.” He carefully pulled the contents out and the guys took it all inside.

He walked inside and looked at the pile. Two 32” flat screen TV’s, two DVD players, two small surround sound set ups, a couple of portable radios, a couple of Ipads, two laptops and a massive computer tower filled with hard drives along with some other various electronics. He grabbed one of the laptops and walked over to an outlet.

He plugged it in as everyone stood there and waited. A few lights blinked and then the tell tale Microsoft windows sound came on. Roger looked around, “Solitaire anyone?” he asked. They all cheered. They set most of it aside and got a TV set up downstairs along with one of the laptops on the desk. The large computer tower was loaded with files. E-books, dictionary, digital encyclopedia, music and over 5,000 movies.

They would be ok for entertainment, this would help keep some of the normalcy of life flowing. That had been the reason behind having back ups for the TV and such, in case something broke before the country was back on the grid. They would limit the use of everything in order to avoid burning through it in a short period of time.

Next on the to-do list was to complete an entire inventory of everything they had and to work out some menus in order to maximize the food stores. They were actually much better off than they thought. The small caches around the property were just a bonus. Farming and bartering would allow them to sustain themselves.

Dawn called down to Roger; “Rob needs to speak to you.”

“Ok, tell him I’ll be there in a second.” Roger went up the stairs and sat down by the radio. “Hey Rob, what’s going on?”

“Roger, we had a problem today. We had the fuel truck from the airport come out with six armed guys. They went to one of the gas stations and took the gas. Well, they took a truck load. We didn’t have enough people to try and defend it.”

“There’s more,” he said. “They dropped a bunch of flyers on the ground. They said they were going to be taking more gas and other supplies as form of payment for the vehicles and equipment we took from them. There was to be no interference or they would defend themselves. They also said they would consider anybody on the streets armed and hostile.”

Roger replied, “Rob, that means they’ll shoot anyone for any reason. They say anything else?” Rob went on to say that they wanted their prisoners back, that they expected full cooperation at all times, and most importantly they would not be setting up any trade or distribution of food or supplies until spring. “Roger, not a lot of people can make it that long.” Roger told him that was because that’s what they wanted; to cull the population. For some reason Roger kept thinking about that.

Roger sat there in disbelief. He couldn’t grasp what he was hearing. The militia had at least 25 dead and maybe 12 injured, of which half of those were likely to die. This was almost half of their forces and yet they continued to hang on and keep up their BS. Roger spoke aloud; “You’d think they were sitting on Fort Knox or something.”

Dawn said, “No, you’d need a bigger army for that.”

“Hey Rob, do me a favor.”

“What’s that,” Rob asked.

Roger told him to put a lot more intel on the militia compound. “I want a complete count of everything and everyone. There has to be something else going on that we don’t know about and we might need to figure it out pretty quickly.” Roger said goodnight and looked over his notes.

Dawn asked him what was wrong. “I think you found the problem,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Their numbers are growing. I kept thinking I was screwing up the people count that I had, but that’s not it. Unless they have rabbits in there and they are spitting out full grown humans, then people are getting into that compound somehow. Somehow or at some time, more people showed up.”

He sat back in his chair and mumbled. “Meeting time!” he yelled. Everyone gathered around him. “I’m getting a little tired of this stuff,” he said. “I’m going to go meet with Rob and his crew tomorrow morning. I think the militia has been growing their numbers over the past week. I would venture to say they had people show up from out of town and they expect more.”

Mark looked at him and spoke. “That would explain why they still have the attitude. They are trying to hold on as long as they can until their entire group comes in. There’s no telling how many are on the way or how soon.”

“My point exactly,” said Roger. Everyone looked around at each other. They wanted to ask but knew the answer. The fight wasn’t over.

Roger sat for a minute more. He looked at Mark and asked him if he would join him to go meet with Rob and Brad in the morning. Mark slowly nodded, “I think I better. If you’re thinking about what I’m thinking about then ya, I better go too.”

“Ok, it’s settled.” Roger called Rob and set up the meeting. They would have to take that compound and disband the militia before any more of them arrived or they would have to leave the area themselves and that wasn’t an option.

They arrived for the meeting just outside of town. Rob, Brad and two more guys met them there. They sat down to talk about the militia and Haliday mentioned what he thought was happening. Brad looked at Roger. “I think you’re right. I’ve seen a couple of cars the past few days in town that I don’t really remember being there. Plug wires were missing, so not sure if they run or not, but one had Ohio plates on it.”

Brad finished speaking. “They must have come in, parked and then snuck in. No one had really been watching the whole compound until last night. We just watched the main gates and admin building. This poses a big problem for us.”

Rob shook his head. “We’re in deep, real deep.”

“And you don’t have a paddle,” Roger added. “However, this is what we are going to do. Take notes.”

Haliday and Mark spent eight hours covering everything they would need to gather as far as equipment went and what the plan was. They got a good count of how many people they had to work with and what types of firearms. They wrapped up the meeting and set the assault plan in motion. They would play it by ear as to when it would begin because everyone had preparations to make. Haliday and Mark went home and explained it to the group. Only Haliday and Mark would be involved, everyone else would be staying put.