Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

He continued on with his thoughts. “We’ll have to get a good grip on the inventory of everything we have. One thing in particular will be to hide as much of the food as possible now that people think we are loaded down with stocks of everything. That will be easy enough though. We’ll cover the doorways downstairs with the paneling covers to hide them again. We can move some to the other caches, and set up some more alarms out there.” This would all be done within the next week.

For the most part everyone was in rather good shape as far as health or injuries went. David was a little worse off. He would heal up ok, but the leg injury would definitely leave him with a limp and the cold winter days would remind him of the injury. The loss of the leg would have been much worse, so he was lucky. Both he and his son Bobby would have the battle scars to go along with their stories. Haliday teased Bobby saying it was Bobby’s lobotomy scar.

Diana was the one who would get mad at him. Her arm was sticking out in a makeshift brace so her collar bone would heal. She had about six weeks of being in the contraption, according to the doctor. Roger would walk up and try to hang some of his laundry on it to dry. Everyone but she thought it was funny. Once he taped a piece of jerky on it and she couldn’t reach it to take it off. Since she’s a vegan it drove her nuts.

Alan’s face had become infected, but the doctor got it cleaned out and he changed the antibiotics. The doctor had cut a little tissue away in the process, which was enough to leave a reminder every day when he shaved. Alan thought they would nickname him Scarface but they called him Gash instead. He insisted on Scarface once, but Roger pointed toward Alan’s pants and said in his best Al Pacino voice, “Is that, your little friend?” He emphasized ‘little’ and Alan never mentioned it again as they all had broken into laughter.

Alan’s wife Nancy would set Elizabeth, Bobby, Matthew and Teresa down and home school them a little bit each day. No one had any idea if or when school would ever be back in session. They could not afford to have the kids not learn the basics and whatever else they could teach them. They would all have chores to do in order to help out.

After a couple of days, Mike, Linda, Mark and Lisa were packed and ready to go. Roger made sure they had ammo and sent a couple of welfare buckets along with them even though Mark insisted they had brought some of their own and had enough at his dad’s, not to mention what Haliday previously left. Roger told them if they needed to that they could come back, bring his parents and they would co-op the house across the street or here at the cabin. Gas would be at a premium and traveling back and forth would be hard, even if it was only about 20 miles.

Karen, Rich, and Bev settled into routines playing solitaire, puzzle books, reading and doing their share around the cabin. They seemed the least affected by the change so far. They’d miss their Kindles and casino trips and online games, but that was something they hadn’t had all their lives and could do without. The kids were the ones who would be suffering technological withdrawals.

Dawn was overseeing the horses and their care. When Diana was healed, she would help too. They did a lot of reading all of the time as it was, so they would pop on the computer and read or play games. The vegan and vegetarian cooking they were used to would help the group out when meat became scarce, and would it extend their current stores.

Sarah took charge of cooking and kitchen duties. Everyone helped and took turns assisting her. Sarah had long been resigned to the fate of Erik, but didn’t mention it at all. Elizabeth was told he was still out helping people and she was content with that. Eventually they would plan on placing a marker by an empty grave to put him to rest in their hearts.

Kevin and Randy used the ham to keep in touch with their parents and their other brother in Texas. It was still puzzling that they had electricity, but as time went on things were made clearer as to why that was. They kept busy playing video games, chopping wood and getting more familiar with the toys Roger had around. They were also learning new tactics just in case they were needed.

Blake and Kayla always joined Kevin and Randy to keep their skills updated and fresh. Surprisingly, they were still maintaining nothing but a friendship, which was fine with Roger. He wasn’t ready for any crib lizards to be crawling around. This was quite a mix of people here, but they all worked together rather well too.

Roger had called Rob to see how everything was going. He asked them about the prisoners and what had happened with the trials. Rob started with the sheriff who was the militia commander. He was still in fairly bad shape and they put him under house arrest. When they went to check on him the next day, they found him hanging from a rope inside his garage with a note that just said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He would have been hung anyway.

Chuck had taken over as the chief law enforcement official for the area. He had made sure each and every one of the prisoners was tried. Most were assigned to hard labor on chain gangs performing burials, clearing the roads of cars, chopping wood, and anything they needed done. If they didn’t work one day, they didn’t eat. The children and a few of the wives were released.

Some were allowed to leave the area. Presumably they met with the ones who were waiting for their husbands who had launched the last attack on the south end of the airport. Five people were hung for their involvement with the militia, the torture of the police chief and the other prisoners. It was later found out that several citizens were summarily executed for almost no reason by the militia men.

Brad and a few of the veterans in the area were put in charge of forming a regional defense coalition group. Haliday made it clear to them to avoid using the term militia at all costs. They had quite a complement of equipment with what they had seized, and had already. As word spread they were able to bolster their ranks. Haliday and Mark would be helping them with training.

Rob asked Haliday how they had been so fortunate as to take out the militia like they did. Haliday told him it was one thing to put on a uniform and call yourself something and it was another thing to gather the people, to educate them, to train them, to keep up their skill sets and that this was proof of that explanation. “Rob,” he said, “you can want in one hand and crap in the other and I can tell you which one will fill up first. You have to not only want it, but do what it takes to make it happen as well.”

Rob was heading up the interim governing body and he would see to it that some proper elections were held and people put in place to help transition the area into the new rule. Rob would end up doing a great job getting that in place and getting the area to work together through the crisis. He was their best bet.

A couple of weeks later Haliday was at the ham again. He had made quite a few contacts across the entire U.S. The urban areas were in full crisis now. Just about everyone was beyond hungry. They were now starving. People were pulling out all the stops and doing what they needed to survive. Looting became scavenging, self-defense bordered murdered. It was utter chaos.

He took notes on all of it. His map was just unbelievable to look at. Alaska and Hawaii were fully untouched. Most of California was operational along the coast, as was Oregon and Washington State. The southern border, like he discovered earlier, was intact. The lower third of Florida was intermittent with functionality. It was almost as if those areas had been untouched in order to preserve the border control of the country.

A lot of Canada was fine with the exception of the southern parts of the country bordering the U.S. The U.S. east coast was devastated though as well. It was a weird puzzle to try and figure out. He had heard most of the navy had been fully recalled and had taken station off the coasts. Most of the military overseas remained there however. The U.S. was the only country really hit and nobody could explain it. No country or terror group claimed responsibility.