Dark Days Rough Roads (16 page)

Haliday
stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. He laid there trying to get his legs
to move and get his feet up under him. He wasn’t able to get up. Kayla ran over
and started yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, are you ok?" Haliday couldn’t
speak right now either. No words could come to his mouth. His breathing wasn’t
normal. The younger kid looked over at him and said, “That’s what you get you
bastard. You can rot in hell.” Mike whipped the kid with the AK stock, knocking
the kid out.

Linda
went over to Haliday and knelt down. Kayla was holding his hand crying. She
noticed it was blood covered. Haliday spoke, but he managed only a few words.
“I love you, kiddo.”

“I love
you too, Daddy,” she said. Max came over from cowering under an oil can rack
and sniffed at Haliday and whimpered. Haliday’s eyes blurred and then started
to go black. He closed them and tried to take as deep a breath as he could and
then exhaled. Kayla spoke to him, but there was no response.

Max
walked around in a few circles and whimpered some more. Linda was shaking
Haliday, but there was no movement. Mike had been keeping an eye on the kid who
shot Haliday. He was now starting to come around. Kayla ran over to the Tahoe
and grabbed a first aid kit. She ran back over to Haliday’s body. She knelt
down next to his head. She opened the box and pulled a small capsule out and
snapped it in the middle, then waved it under Haliday’s nose. Haliday opened
his eyes and whipped his head to the side. The ammonia capsule did the trick.

Kayla
asked him how he was doing. His breathing was still a little off. “Damn, I feel
like someone dropped a brick wall on me. I’m pretty sure my ribs are broken.”
Haliday had managed to catch the round from the .38 snubbed nose with his body
armor. The impact had knocked the wind out of him and knocked him down. Kayla
had thought he was hit because of the blood on his hands, but then noticed his
shirt didn’t have any blood on it.

She
remembered he still had his vest from when he worked as a police officer and
used to tell her he would make contact with people because he had a little
protection. It was only a level two vest, but would stop most handgun rounds.
He sacrificed safety for comfort, a dumb thing to do. There was no doubt a
level III would be better in this situation.

He looked
at everyone and said, “From now on we make sure everyone is dead.” Linda asked
him how they would do that. “With a head shot,” he replied. Mike, with an
unsure tone of voice, asked him if he wanted him to shoot the last kid. Haliday
looked over at the kid, who was staring at him. “No, just tie his ass up, and
then come over here and help me get up.” Haliday laid there for a few minutes
while they tied up their prisoner. The kid never said a word. Mike then came
over and they all helped Haliday get on his feet.

Haliday
took his shirt off and ripped open the Velcro side flaps holding the vest in
place. He took it off wincing as he did this. He had a large welt growing on
his right side. It would be a massive bruise soon. He pushed in and felt his
ribs. “Might not be broken clean, but hairline fractured for sure,” he said. “A
good 2 or 3 of them. This hurts like hell.”

He told
Kayla to grab his bag. She brought it over and he dug out a t-shirt that was
part cotton and lycra and changed his shirt. It was a size too small. He hoped
the compression would help a bit. He called it his “Ahh-nuld” shirt. He’d put
it on, tried his best Swarzenegger accent, and tried to look super buff. Kayla
used to laugh at him and make him change it.

He kept
it to help keep his “12 pack”, as he called it, from bouncing around during
training. Next he wrapped it with an ace bandage. He looked at the vest and was
amazed. Best investment he ever made at this point. He put the vest back on and
then his shirt. The hole in the shirt would be hard to explain he thought.

Next he
looked around and went over to the small office. Broken glass crunched under
his feet. He opened a refrigerator that was inside complete with a couple
bullet holes. Linda said, "You aren’t going to eat that stuff in there are
you?"

“Nope,”
he said. He held up some bottles of Fiji water, “Gotta love snobs and their
quest for quality,” he said. “I’m going to wash my hands off.” He grabbed a
couple of clean rags from one of those Box-O-Rags things and wiped his hands
down. He asked Kayla to bring some antiseptic rinse over and she did.

As he
wiped his hands with the rinse, he asked her how she was doing. She said, “I’m
ok Dad.”

He said,
“Come here sweetie.” She walked over and he hugged her. “It’s going to be ok,”
he told her. “We had to do this, if we didn’t there’s no telling what might
have happened.” Kayla teared up a little bit. Haliday had spent a lot of time
with her training her in marksmanship and weapons handling, but never expected
one day she would need it. She was a natural at it, just like her old man was.

They
walked back over to the truck. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all. There were
quite a few holes in the body and a couple in the side window glass. The kicker
was a flat tire. A quick check of the KLR and it turned out to be ok, except
for one hole in the front fender. Unfortunately the bike wouldn’t hold them
all. He looked down at the ground trying to think this through. There was Max
looking at him wagging his tail. “Max the mutant,” he said aloud.

“Hey, I
heard that,” Kayla said.

Mike
said, “I have an idea. I’ll take a quick look around at the vehicles here and
see if I can find a match. If anything has the same bolt pattern and rim size,
we can put one on.”

“The spare
tire is full size and will work if it’s not flat,” Haliday said.

Mike
said, “Ya, that might be fine, but then we’re out of a spare tire in case we
get another flat. I’ll go look and see. You guys wait here.” Haliday thought
that was a good idea.

“Hey
Linda, grab a rifle and go with him. I’m going to have Kayla keep an eye on me
while I rest a bit.” He laid down and did not get up until almost two hours
later.

Linda was
standing there watching him now. Kayla had laid down as soon as they got back,
while Mike was working on the truck. Haliday got up still sore and moving a
little slow. “How’s it going Mike?” he asked.

Mike
looked up from the wheel and said, “Almost done.”

“I found
a Chevy pickup around the back of the hangars; they must use it for plowing. I
took the best two tires off it and put them on the back here. That’ll give us a
matched pair in the back and we still keep our spare.”

“Thank
you,” Haliday said. He looked around the hangar and saw Mike had dragged the
bodies over to the side and covered them with a tarp. “Thank you again.”

Kayla got
up now and stretched. The event took a toll on her. You can never fully prepare
for this kind of thing. She walked over to the truck, reached in and grabbed
the thermos with the coffee. “What are you doing with that?” Haliday asked her.

“What, I
can’t have any?” she asked.

“Not
unless you share,” he said.

She
poured out four cups, one for each of them. They drank it down and looked
around. It was now late evening and dark out. Haliday walked over to the kid
sitting there tied up. The kid just looked up at him and told him to go to
hell. “You’re going to pay for this,” he added.

Haliday
said, “Look kid, we were just minding our own business trying to get home.
Nothing here is stolen. You were walking through this place like it was your
personal shopping mall. None of that stuff in that bag over there belongs to
you. How do you explain that smart-ass? Not quite the exemplary citizen, are
you?”

“Then
you’re going to go pointing guns at people, then bitch and moan about getting
shot at?” Haliday was getting angry now. Kayla walked up and touched his arm, “Dad,
relax,” she said, “his gene pool is probably a little shallow.” She was a
smart-ass like Haliday in this regard. He turned and walked away.

Kayla looked
at the kid. He was her age, twenty maybe twenty one. “You can’t blame us,” she
said, “you can only blame yourself. You caused this to happen. No one has the
right to steal anything, regardless of what’s going on.”

“You
clueless little bitch,” he said, “people out there are taking what they want,
police can’t stop them, what’s the big deal anyway, they can afford it.”

Kayla
looked at him. “If the lights came back on right now, how would you justify
what you’ve done?” she asked.

The kid
said, “Ask yourself the same question, bitch.”

“I did.”
she answered, “I helped save my life and my family’s life.”

Haliday
covered the holes in the back windows with some hundred mile an hour tape. Most
people just called it duct tape, but in the army he came to know it as hundred
mile an hour tape. Legend had it that during WWII, people said it was so strong
it’d hold a Jeep together going a hundred miles an hour. He chuckled at that.
Ya, try and find a Jeep that could do a hundred, he thought. He found a small
whisk broom and they cleaned out what glass they could out of the Tahoe, but it
was not a lot.

"What
are we going to do with him?" Mike asked.

“We are
going to walk him out to the gate, and we are going to cut him loose and drive
away,” Haliday answered. “He can do whatever the hell he wants after that.”
Mike reached down and he and Linda pulled the kid up. They opened the hangar
door and Haliday slowly drove the truck out to the gate without the lights on then
they walked the kid to that point. They cut the kid loose and everyone jumped
in the truck.

As they
were pulling away the kid just stood there. He started walking back toward the
hangars. One of two things: he was either going to bury his father and brother
or most likely he went back for the bag of loot they were stealing. Haliday
couldn’t help but wonder what the hell people were thinking.

It was
two and a half days, and they were pulling this stuff already. He got to
thinking about what Kayla said to the kid. She got it, it was hard lesson, but
she got it and did what had to be done. He felt bad; this is not a lesson he
thought any kid should have to learn. Unfortunately in the new society, it
would happen again and again across the country.

Haliday
looked over at Mike as he drove along and said, “Take a breather, I’ll keep a
look out for some gas.”

Mike
said, “I did that already.” Haliday looked down and the tank was full. Mike
added that he filled the two empty cans as well. Mike reclined the seat and
took a nap.

Haliday
did a quick calculation. Twenty six gallons in the tank, 10 in the cans wedged
between the bike and tailgate, twenty five more in the back. With sixty one
gallons total and about an average of maybe eight miles a gallon with this
crude engine, they would have a range of almost 500 miles. They might be able
to make it without having to stop for anything but rest breaks. That’s if
things held out ok. That was a big if.

It was
late and he looked down and turned the ham on. He spoke into the mic, “It’s
Roger, anybody on the net?” He just waited. “Hey, it’s Roger, is anybody on the
net?” While he waited, he popped open a small bottle and sucked down some
Tylenol. He took four of them hoping to take the edge off the throbbing pain.
He had some heavier meds, but hated taking that stuff. Besides that, he needed
to be fully aware at the moment. Everyone else had fallen asleep. He really
wanted to join them, but wanted to be back in Michigan more.

“Anybody
out there?” he repeated. He heard a voice, “I am.”

“Who is
‘I am’?” he asked.

“It’s
Karen, Dawn’s mom.”

“Oh, ok,
must be your turn to watch the house.” He was tired and didn’t recognize the
voice at first. She just said yes. “Where is Dawn, is she available?”

Karen
told him they were sleeping. “Diana is next to pull security and then Dawn
after that.”

“Ok, have
Dawn call me when she gets up, anything going on over there?” She told him they
heard the grocery stores were stripped and so were a lot of other stores where
people were taking generators and all kinds of other supplies. “No real trouble
yet,” she said.

He said,
“Ok, take care, and talk to you later.”

“Bev,
Rich, how about you guys, you there?” Kevin came on and said they too were all
sleeping. “Ok, anything new on your end,” he asked.

“Hold on,
grandma is here now.”

“Hi
Roger, we haven’t heard from you in a long time, what’s going on, is everything
ok, you almost home?” she wanted to know. Roger didn’t know where to begin. He
didn’t want Karen, Dawn or Diana to hear. They were very new to this and might
get panicky if they knew how bad it was. “Switch to A2,” he told her.

He waited
and then she came on. “Are you there Roger?”

“Yes, I
am Mom. Listen, I’m not going to repeat myself. We hit a major snag and it tied
us up for hours. We weren’t sure we were getting out of it alive; I’ll explain
it when I get there. Anyway, we are going to be a while longer. A few things
have happened that are going to make it harder to get back so you might have to
move a little quicker than expected.