James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

That afternoon, he passed through Folkestone. As the terminus city for the Chunnel, Folkestone had some rough characters, who eyed his bike and trailer with hungry eyes. Andy gave them stern looks in response. To one ruffian who started walking toward him, he shouted “Back off!”

Once he got away from the city on the New Dover Road, Andy felt the most at ease since he had left Vilseck. The economy was a wreck, and there were very few cars and trucks on the road. But at least here he found more shops open than in France, and some friendly faces.

Bicycling through England in the winter wasn’t much different than on the Continent. The weather was just as bad, but at least language wasn’t a barrier, and he encountered more hospitality. His first night in England was outside the town of Church Hougham. Just as he was looking for a secluded copse of woods, he was flagged down by a middle-aged man carrying an umbrella. As soon as the man heard Andy’s accent and learned that he was a stranded American, he often offered him a place to stay for the night. Sleeping in the man’s barn was much preferable to sleeping in the woods in his bivy bag.

One downside was that Andy felt even more self-conscious carrying a pistol in England than he had in France. He decided that he would draw it only in the most dire circumstances. If he was ever arrested, he would undoubtedly be searched. His SIG pistol would land him in a world of hurt. The last place he wanted to end up was in Wormwood Scrubs Prison just as the world was falling apart.

As he was bicycling toward the city of Dover, Laine stopped to repair a flat tire. Just as he was finishing pumping up the tire with the replacement inner tube, a policeman pulled over to observe him. Andy nodded and waved. The policeman, dressed in a black raincoat that was half covered with optic yellow safety patches, strolled over to Laine. Andy clipped the pump back onto the bike’s frame and reattached the trailer. “What do you have in that trailer?” the policeman asked.

It was again Andy’s American accent that quickly changed the situation from a suspicious encounter into a friendly chat. The policeman, who appeared to be in his early thirties, had an acne-scarred face and was tall enough to look Andy eye to eye. Laine introduced himself and gave a one-minute summary of his trip from Germany. His only omission in the story was of the French fishing boat. By that omission and his mention of “arriving in Folkestone,” the policeman assumed that Laine had come by train through the Chunnel. “So you’re all on your lonesome, and you want to pedal up the coast, looking for a ship?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, sir, that’s a very dangerous thing to do at the present time. It’s a good thing that you didn’t get merked right there in Folkestone. There’s a bad lot down there. Yobs, they are. And there’s more of the same in parts of Dover as well. Mind you: Don’t go near the Dover docks. You’ll find no yachtsmen there, just Barney-nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen their kind before. I had to stare down a couple of them.” After a beat he added, “You know, just coming off active duty, I feel a bit naked, traveling by myself, unarmed.”

“Can’t blame you.” The policemen hesitated and then said, “My name is Michael Lyon. I think you need my help.”

Lyon’s palm brushed the top of his baton, and he gazed at it. He continued in a matter-of-fact voice, “Let me explain the legalities, Captain Laine: You carry one of these, it’s an offense. You carry a knife, it’s an offense. You carry a cricket bat, it’s an offense. You carry pepper spray, it’s an offense…”

“So what am I supposed to stop the bad guys with? Harsh language?”

Lyon laughed. “Well, it’s fortunate that you’re a bicyclist and not just afoot. That gives you a bit of leeway. You see, here in the U.K., on a bike you can legally carry ‘safety equipment,’ and that includes flashlights… and the law doesn’t specify what size flashlight.”

Andy smiled and asked, “What do you recommend?”

Lyon glanced around nervously and said: “Hang on a sec, Yank. I’ve got something in the boot.” He stepped over to his police car and opened its trunk. Unzipping a duffel bag, he pulled out a six-cell Maglite flashlight. It looked like the other turned-aluminum police flashlights Andy had seen before, but slimmer. Then he realized that it held C-cells instead of D-cell-size batteries.

In an even lower voice, Lyon said, “Now, this can be used just like a baton, but you can legally carry it on your bicycle. Not in your hand , mind you, and not on your person when you are walking down the street. But attached to your bicycle or in your pack when bicycling, it’s a fully allowable exception.”

“Is that one for sale, by chance?”

“Huh! I can’t be peddling wares on the street whilst on duty, now, can I? That would be unseemly. But there is nothing that says that I can’t give it to you.”

“Are you kidding?”

Lyon shook his head. “No, sir, just consider it an act of Christian kindness.”

“That is very kind of you! Tell you what: If you are ever in the state of New Mexico, my home will always be open to you and your family.” Laine pulled out his notepad and a pen. He continued as he was writing, “Here’s my address. When the Big Trolley gets back on its tracks, I fully expect to see you on a holiday. Plan on spending a week or two at my home. I’ll take you to see Monument Valley and some of the Indian cliff dwellings. Ever heard of a place called Mesa Verde? From where I live, it’s just across the state line, in Colorado.”

Michael Lyon shook his head from side to side, and Andy continued: “Those are some amazing ruins. Now, again: I fully expect to see you and your family on my doorstep someday. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t.”

Andy stuffed the flashlight into the loops on the back of his handlebar bag. He and the policeman shook hands and wished each other well. Lyon waved as Andy pulled out from the curb into the drizzle. As he pedaled away, Andy realized that the Mesa Verde ruins had belonged to a culture that had been erased from existence. In the late 1200s, Mesa Verde was abandoned, and the society was never rebuilt. He wondered about the hopes for his own civilization in the long term.

Heeding the policeman’s warning, Andy avoided central Dover. Instead he skirted around the city. He kept on the Dover Road, which roughly paralleled the A258 highway. Eventually he got to Pegwell Harbor. There, Andy learned that there were no boats headed to the U.S., since the East Coast and Gulf Coast were reportedly in utter chaos. The few yachts and commercial vessels there that might be sailing were all headed to New Zealand. One of the motor yachtsmen kindly spent an hour on his VHF radio on Andy’s behalf, calling yachtsmen and commercial vessels to ask of any boats with planned sailings to the U.S. or Canada that winter. There were none. This was discouraging news. But also hearing that all flights were still grounded, he had no choice but to press on up the coast.

As he was cycling up the Hereson Road, just north of Ramsgate, Andy was confronted by two young toughs on Kawasaki motorcycles. They zoomed up behind him, and one of them turned sharply and braked to a halt right in front of Laine. He was forced to apply his own brakes to avoid hitting the motorcycle. The thug quickly dismounted and shoved a length of hoe handle through the spokes of Laine’s front wheel. It was deja vu of the incident near Homberg. Andy jumped off his bike, simultaneously pulling his newly acquired flashlight from its retaining loops. Taking a high swing, he brought it down hard on the young man’s forearm. The biker screamed and shouted, “My arm!”