Dark Days Rough Roads (14 page)

*****

Bev was
taking a nap and Elizabeth was just sitting there with Sarah. “I want to see Daddy,”
she said.

Sarah
told her, “Maybe later honey. Daddy might be busy and still trying to make sure
he gets here.” Rich was listening in and asked Elizabeth if she wanted to play
a game and she said yes. They were playing when she asked him if he thought her
grandma had TV. Rich told her he didn’t know. “Can we call her?” she asked.

“Not
right now, the phone is broken too.”

“Everything
is broken,” she said, “it’s not fun.”

Rich was
thinking about Susan, his only daughter, who had moved to Texas a couple years
ago. He was wondering how they were doing. He thought of his son Greg in Missouri as well. That was the oldest of all the boys. Alan lived about an hour’s drive
away with his family. His other son David lived about half an hour away with
his grandson Bobby.

Rich and
Bev expected all of their kids in the state to make it here, and Sarah with her
husband and another couple nephews who lived here to make it in as well. Up
until two weeks ago one the nephews had lived with them, but moved out for what
he called “More freedom”. They didn’t know how hard it would be for them to
travel without vehicles.

Sarah was
just sitting there numb. It had been a full two days now and she was thinking
the worst. She could understand maybe half of a day, even a full day, but not
two. Her hopes had dwindled and she resigned herself that she could remain
hopeful, but had to expect nothing. This was putting her into a state of
depression. Bev had woken up and asked her to cook some dinner. Sarah obliged,
and Bev thought, good, she would have to keep her busy to help her get through
this. Rich and Bev knew enough to know Erik was gone.

There
came a loud crashing sound from outside in the backyard. Rich and Bev both
grabbed their pistols and Bev peeked out the window quickly. Over by the wood
pile, she spotted two people. She had wanted to open the door and shoo them
away because she thought they were stealing their wood. She wanted to tell them
she would shoot them if they didn’t leave. Rich said, “Wait a minute Ma, that’s
Kevin and Randy.” The two nephews ran toward the door and yelled to be let in.

Rich
opened the patio door wall and the two stuffed their bags through the wood
planks installed across the opening and then squeezed through themselves. They
fell onto the floor of the dining room huffing and puffing, trying to catch
their breath. Rich asked them what happened and they raised a finger signaling
him to wait a minute. They rested a few minutes and caught their breath. Sarah
ran over and asked if they were ok and they nodded yes.

Randy
said, “They wanted to kill us.” Kevin said, “No, they just wanted your shotgun.”
Randy had purchased a Mossberg 500. He made it all tacti-cool as a birthday
present to himself one year. He had it for almost two years, but had never even
fired it. He had just a few boxes of ammo for it, maybe 100 rounds total. It
was a mix of everything from 00 buck to small game loads because he never
really knew what to buy. He wasn’t really the outdoors type or gun nut. But, it
was a mossy and it was cool.

Kevin
said they were sitting around and decided the power wasn’t coming back on, so
they left early this morning to come here. They had a fairly uneventful trip
until almost the last half of a mile. They were passing by the grocery store
and people were basically stripping it clean. Some guy spotted them and yelled
at them to drop their gun. He called them punks and said he wanted it. He
called a friend over and they walked toward Kevin and Randy. Kevin and Randy
started running and the guy and his friend started chasing them.

They
started cutting through the neighborhood and going over the fences and didn’t
stop until they got here. Randy said when they went over the fence in the
backyard, they forgot about the wood pile. They landed on it, sending it
crashing down to the ground. They said they were scared and just ran for their
lives. They had no idea what the guys would do to them. They just didn’t want
any trouble and didn’t want to get shot with their own gun.

Randy
said, "Grandma, you should have seen the grocery store. It was chaos. I
think as soon as they opened this morning everyone was getting what they could.
Money or not it became a riot and people were fighting each other for anything
they could get their hands on. I don’t think anything’s left. They were
knocking people down in the parking lot and taking other people’s stuff. People
were hurt and bleeding all over the place. A lot of them were running with
their arms full to the apartments across the street.”

He asked
for some water. Rich said, “Hold on a minute, it’s downstairs.” He brought them
up a pitcher filled from the sump pump. He had been getting about 15 gallons a
day out of it, but was only filtering a few gallons. He used a rotary pump to
drain the rest.

Haliday
had installed a separate check valve on the sump pump’s discharge pipe and Rich
attached the hose from the rotary pump to that. Now he had found himself some
guinea pigs. They drank the whole pitcher down and didn’t complain. Rich
guessed it was safe to drink, which was a good thing. Water would be plentiful
as long as the ground water kept up at a decent level.

Sarah
gave them a big hug, she was happy to see her brothers. Kevin asked where Eric
was. The room fell silent. Sarah teared up and said, "I don’t know, I
don’t think he’s going to make it here."

"Don’t
worry sis," Randy said and hugged her some more. “There’s still hope.”
Elizabeth who had been watching said, "I want hugs too." She ran over
and got her share of hugs.

Having
these two here would be a great help. It would make bringing things up from the
basement a lot easier and pulling security easier as well. Bev went over to the
ham and called Roger; she told him what had happened. Roger said, “Ok, you copy
Dawn?” She replied yes. Roger said, “Ok everyone, keep up the good work, and
talk to you later.” He was relieved there were more people at his folk’s house
now. “Dawn,” he said, “A2 again.” She switched frequencies again and waited for
Haliday.

Haliday
came on the net and said, “Ok. I want you to hold tight right now. When I call
you I want you to go ahead with the first plan you have in your notebook. Any
questions?” Dawn asked if he had an ETA. Haliday said, “Hell Dawn, I’m not sure
we’ll even make it. If we don’t get back in the next 24 hours, the rate this
country is falling apart will make it impossible. It’s going to be hard. No
doubt about that. Switch back and talk to you later.”

Haliday
was just about to tell everyone he was going to check back in a couple hours
when he looked down the road and noticed something different. “That wasn’t
there when I came through earlier,” he said to himself. He brought the truck to
a stop. Mike asked him what the problem was. Haliday handed him a pair of
binoculars.

Mike
looked down the road and said, “Oh shit.” There were four humvees sitting there
with about eight men as far as he could tell.

Haliday
said, “This could be real bad. Give me a hand Mike.” He got out of the truck,
Mike followed and they walked around to the back. “Help me unload this thing.”
They unloaded the KLR and Haliday opened the hatch and searched for some gear.

“They
gotta be wondering what we’re up to right now Mike. Right now we’re not too far
from Danville. I’m not sure, but my guess is it’s a National Guard unit, most
likely the 38
^th
MP CO. Not sure what their mission is right now, but
I’m about to find out. You keep that ham tuned in and you listen to me. If you
hear me say ‘aww shit, you got us fellas,’ you get the hell out of here as fast
as you can. I’ll try to buy you some time if I can, but don’t expect much.
There’s maps in the binder, find an alternate route. Right now they have us
spotted and if we outright take off, someone is going to follow.

“Here’s
my plan, let’s hope it works,” and he told Mike what he was going to do. He put
a helmet on, placed an AR15 instead of his old Armalite 180 into the sheath on
the bike, buckled on an equipment belt with thigh holster and mag pouches and a
tactical vest loaded with more gear, but more importantly a handheld ham. “I’m
Gecko45,” he laughed. The notorious mall ninja known across the internet for his
ability to save the shoppers and keep the peace while dressed like an entire
swat team. He attached an earpiece and push-to-talk mic to his vest and the
ham. He started the bike and rode toward the road block.

Haliday
slowed the bike down as he approached the roadblock. He looked at the
stenciling on the vehicles and the lights mounted under the windshield. “38
^th
MP CO.” He turned the bike off and one of the MP’s approached him. Haliday
noticed this guy didn’t actually have a unit patch on his right shoulder, that
meant no combat assignment. He quickly glanced around and there was about a
fifty-fifty split. The two on the humvees’ guns were combat proven. A MK19,
automatic grenade launcher and a M240 G/B machine gun. Both not weapons to mess
with but only the 240 could reach the Tahoe.

The MP
was an E3, PFC, private first class. He approached Haliday and asked him for
ID. Haliday reached into a pocket on his vest and pulled out a black nylon ID
holder. It was dirty, looked well used and the vinyl window was fogged over.
The ID inside was visible, but it would be hard to identify any detail without
taking it out because of the fogged over window. Haliday actually stitched the
opening closed a bit to make it harder just in case. The PFC looked at it and handed
it back to him. You can do wonders using a laser printer, and hobbyist sand
paper can wear the clear vinyl down nicely to make it look worn.

Haliday
said, “Private, who’s in charge here?”

The PFC
said, “Specialist Benson is sir.”

“Haliday
said, "I’m prior Army and was an NCO and worked for a living, please don’t
call me sir." The PFC waved the specialist over.

“This
here is DHS officer Haliday. What brings you around here Mr. Haliday?”

Haliday
answered back, “What are you guys up to? You have a checkpoint out here close
to nowhere? In my day we would have said we were getting the big green weenie.”

The PFC
looked at the specialist and said, "He’s prior service." The
specialist just looked him over.

Haliday
said, “Easy guys,” reached in his pocket and pulled out a large decorative
coin. One side had the department of army seal and the other side had the
crossed pistols of the Military Police. He handed it to the specialist. The
specialist looked it over and handed it back to Haliday. It was a challenge
coin.

“Any
other day Mr. Haliday and I’d be buying you a beer.”

“Call me
Roger,” Haliday said.

“Ok
Roger, but back to business, what brings you around these parts and who is down
there in the truck?”

“That, Specialist,
is my partner with a special couple of folks that Governor Anders asked us to
bring back from the University of Illinois for some of his staff members. As
you can guess, it’s rough traveling out there and I am not taking any chances
of running into rogue groups or militias of any kind. If you’ve been listening
to anything on the com net, you know why. I’m guessing that’s why you guys are
out here correct? Unless by chance; I’m in the middle of a well-executed
ambush.” Flattery can get you a lot he hoped. Throwing the governors name around
helped too.

“We
reported to the armory, but not many of us made it there,” Benson said. “We
were told to wait for orders and haven’t gotten them yet. Well, the town
manager asked us to help out until they could get a volunteer force together.
We only have two groups out here and we secured the two county road entrances
into the city. The rest is just farmlands. We have a few more guys making
reliefs at the checkpoints. We’ll stay until we get orders or the town manager
gets some guys together.”

Haliday said,
“That’s a smart move for Mr. Watts.”

Benson
looked at him. “You know Watts?”

“No, not
personally, but since I’ve been assigned to Indiana the past couple of years,
it’s been my job to get to know the leaders of cities where there’s assets like
the Danville armory and his name is easy to remember, Watts as in electricity.”

“Makes
sense to me,” Benson said. Another side note he made and used; he updated the
info constantly.

Haliday
asked if it was ok to move on and asked Benson if there was anything else he
needed. “Just your name on the log sheet if you don’t mind,” he answered.

“Sure
thing Specialist Benson.” He wrote his info down and handed the clipboard back
to him.

“Anything
else?”

“Sir, do
you know what happened by chance?”

Haliday
remarked, “I wish I knew. All I do know is an EMP or something took out most of
everything. I’m surprised your vehicles are running. We don’t know who, we
don’t know why, all we know is it’s FUBAR. I got my orders through the radio
and was assigned to the governor’s contingency. I wish I knew. I honestly do.

“Can I
expect the same thing going through the other side,” Haliday asked?

“I’ll
call them and tell them you will be coming through.”