Dark Days Rough Roads (8 page)

Haliday
jumped up and ran over to the Tahoe. He grabbed his AR180 and fired close to a
full magazine at the guys running toward him. They ducked for cover under the
train cars and tried to fire back, but the shots went wild as they tried to
stay covered. He slid behind the wheel, started the truck and jammed it in
gear, closing the door as he drove off.

He
bounced over the tracks and floored it. The wheels were spinning like crazy as
they tried to get a decent grip in the gravel along the rails. He finally made it
to the asphalt and he gunned it some more. He kept looking back and saw the two
guys had made it to the four wheeler. They picked the kid up and sat him down,
where he was holding his face.

They
jumped in the four wheeler and started off after him. Haliday started cussing
to himself as he tried to control the Tahoe. The road wasn’t straight here and
he was taking the turn a bit too fast, so he slowed enough to gain control. As
soon as the road straightened up a bit, he floored it again. These guys were
actually trying to catch him. He saw another hard turn up ahead and as soon as
he reached it, he slammed on the brakes and jumped out with his rifle and
dropped to his knee.

He saw
the four wheeler just hitting the curve and he fired three shots at the
passenger front tire. The four wheeler lurched down and tumbled over a couple
times. Haliday didn’t see any bodies flying out, but he didn’t care anyway. He
jumped back in and placed it in drive and floored it again. As far as he could
tell, there was no one else following.

Dawn, who
was the dispatcher from the hospital, had left the parking lot where she had
retrieved her get-home bag and mountain bike. She had gone through her CPL
course and then had purchased a couple of pistols, which she always carried
with her in her truck after following the concerns Haliday had expressed, and
after reading a couple of books that were about various  TEOTWAWKI scenarios.
The end of the world as we know it. She was an above-average shot and was
taking tips from Haliday at the range on a monthly basis to try and hone her
skills.

Just a
few days earlier, they had tried a new outdoor range north of her, where she
had commented about needing to get a rifle too. Haliday was unloading his 12
gauge and she asked to fire it. He loaded up one round and gave her a quick
demo on how to fire it. She was a little miffed, almost like he was treating
her like a little kid. He said shotguns were easy; one round is all you need to
appreciate it.

She had
held it to her shoulder, squeezed the trigger and practically fell backwards
when it fired. Haliday burst out laughing and she simply called him an ass. At
5’7” and 135 pounds, she could have handled it ok; it was just the sheer
surprise of the recoil and loud report that caught her off guard.

He pulled
out a 22 and told her this was more her style. She said, “That looks cute.”
Cute was not quite how Haliday referred to firearms. He gave her a run down on
that one, loaded a magazine and let her fire away. She really liked that one.
She told him she wanted to buy one and he said, “Next gun show.”

As she
was riding toward her house, where she lived with her sister and mother, she
rubbed the bruise on her shoulder as it started to ache a bit. She was cursing
Haliday under her breath. She had ridden about five miles when she turned onto
an access road that led to the county municipal complex, where she was greeted
by a sheriff’s deputy who stopped her.

“Where
are you going,” he asked? She responded that she was going to meet up with her
mother in one of the parking lots so they could go home together. The deputy
asked a few questions and was satisfied with her answers, and told her to be
careful. He also told her to cover her pistol while on the grounds of the complex
for safety’s sake. She pulled her windbreaker down over it and took off.

She rode
into the parking lot where her mother was and there were a bunch of people that
were standing around talking to each other. She spotted her mother and rode up
to her. Her mom had been standing there talking to a friend. This friend looked
at Dawn and said, “See, I told you guys to store food and stuff. I hope you
have guns.” This lady looked like she was about 80 and showed Dawn a Glock and
said, “I have mine.”

Dawn
said, “Good for you. You go girl.” At this time, her mom started to change her
shoes and she put on a pair of tennis shoes. A quick good-bye and they left.
They had about eight miles to go before they made it to their house. Dawn slung
her mom’s get-home bag over the bike frame and they walked along.

Dawn
looked around at all of the people just standing around in the parking lots.
Every once in a while, she spotted a deputy who looked to be standing guard. She
asked her mom what everyone was talking about. Her mom said most people think
it’s just a big power outage but a couple left. It looked like they were ready
for this event too.

The
deputies were telling everyone it would be ok, that they suspected it was just
an industrial accident at one of the nearby electronics manufacturers that did
defense work. If any of them would have taken a walk to the rooftop of the
highest building there and looked around, they wouldn’t be saying that. They’d
see trouble for miles.

This area
was known as automation alley. Something they did must have caused a small
interference with the electronics. That of course was just wishful thinking.
Shockingly they had some old radios that worked that had been stored in a
sub-basement long ago by the county’s emergency management department. They
shrugged their shoulders and took off.

The walk
was slow, but they moved along at a steady pace. They had to stop every mile
for a quick break as Dawn’s mom wasn’t used to walking at all. She merely
tolerated Dawn’s preparedness, but didn’t suspect it would amount to anything.
She kept the gear in her car only at Dawn’s insistence.

There was
no way at her age she was riding a bike, she had told her. The pace was a very
slow─ two miles an hour. After about five hours they headed into the
entrance to Chrysler’s world headquarters where they met up with Dawn’s sister.
She had ridden there herself from about five miles away and had been sitting
there waiting.

This
parking lot was much the same as the county complex. People were either
standing around in bunches talking or sitting wherever they could find a seat
and talking about what was going on. There were people who kept trying to turn
their phones on every few minutes. The site was surreal. This complex sprawled
over 500 acres and had over 10,000 employees.

There
were thousands of them just standing around like cattle waiting for feeding
time. The mentality of the majority of the people was shocking. Just who did
they think was coming to help them and when did they think this would happen?
Dawn, along with her mother and sister all wondered what they would start to do
when it was completely dark outside.

She
glanced toward the sky and thought about how clear the stars would be now. No
bright haze from parking lots, billboards and buildings scattered across the
country. It would be pure darkness, except for moonlight or starlight. “Time to
get going,” she said. They got up and started their trek.

Only
about four more miles or so and they should be able to make it home about
midnight. All three had pistols, all three could at least point and pull the
trigger and they felt safe. Walking along, they just had some small talk, took
the occasional drink from their water bottles and nibbled on some granola bars
to quell their hunger.

They were
walking along the roadway, as there wasn’t any real way to reach their street
easily and they didn’t want to cut through one of the metro parks next to their
neighborhood. They had passed a couple of other folks heading the same way and
didn’t say anything to them. One lady asked them if they had any water.

Dawn’s
sister pulled out a small 8oz bottle and handed it to her. She also gave her a
granola bar and then just turned away and continued walking without saying anything
or even responding to the thank you she received. About a quarter of a mile up,
they paused to rest again. It was quite dark out now. Very few stars were out
tonight.

While
taking a quick moment to stretch, a guy walked out from behind some bushes
where he had been hiding. He had seen them coming and wanted a bike. He
approached Dawn’s sister and grabbed at her bike and pushed her away. Dawn’s
mom stepped over and said, “Stop that” and the guy pushed her hard, causing her
to fall to the ground. He had a medium sized pocket knife and opened it,
exposing the blade.

Dawn
yelled at the guy, who turned to look at her and he saw nothing but muzzle
flash. It had been a single shot clean through his heart. Dawn’s sister helped
her mom up and they all stood there motionless. They didn’t know what to say.
Dawn looked down at the motionless man and threw up all over him. She gagged a
bit on her vomit and tried to spit it out, but just puked some more.

She
walked a few feet away and opened her water bottle and rinsed her mouth out.
She was still dry heaving a bit and they moved a bit further away from the
body. Dawn said, “We need to go.”

Her
sister looked at her and said, “You shot the guy to death.”

“Well,”
she answered, “It was him or us, didn’t you see his knife? Let’s go,” she said
again.

They
started walking again and no one said anything. Dawn kept thinking they should
have just let him take the bike. They didn’t know if he would use the knife or
not. He had pushed them around though. But was that enough, she wondered. All
she knew was her instinct at the moment led her to squeeze the trigger.

They kept
walking the rest of the way, which was another mile and half home. They went
inside and opened the garage and put their gear and bikes in the garage and
then went into the house. They lit up some candles and went to work. They were
tired from the walk, but they were also exhausted from the encounter they had
just an hour ago.

They
placed some large wooden dowels in the tracks of the windows and door wall,
made sure everything was locked and closed the shades. They all just fell
asleep right there in the living room. They would get up in the morning and
finish what needed to be done then. None of the three really slept well that
night.

Right
around seven in the morning, Dawn jumped off the couch and ran to the front
window and looked outside at the racket. Her neighbor across the street had an
old Chevy Nova II that he used to take out on weekends and it used to really
make her mad. His routine was to start it, gun it a couple dozen times, then
leave it running for almost half an hour before he would leave. He had it
straight piped for no reason other than the sound, so there were no mufflers to
keep it quieted down.

On her
weekends off, she preferred to sleep in, but was always woken up early by this.
She watched for a few minutes and noticed the guy and his wife were loading up
the old Chevy with suitcases and boxes. She remembered Haliday telling her that
if they were going to bug out to have everything ready beforehand. If they had
decided to take extra clothes, use good old army surplus laundry bags.

The
reason behind the surplus laundry bags was that they were cloth, thus they were
flexible and with the odd shapes of trunks, they could mashed into the tighter
spaces to save room. The shapes of suitcases and boxes didn’t really make good
use of trunk and cargo spaces. Too much wasted room in his opinion. She wasn’t
about to tell the neighbor that though. Screw him. He probably didn’t have them
anyway, but trash bags would work.

All those
weekends waking up at six in the morning were for nothing. They looked like
they were finished and he closed their garage door and got in the old Chevy.
Halfway down the driveway it stalled out. He tried to start it again, but no
luck. After a couple of minutes, he got out and opened the hood. He wiggled a
few wires, checked some connections on the spark plugs, got back in and tried
again, but no luck.

He got
outside and was visibly upset and glanced toward Dawn, whom he saw standing in
the window. She had the biggest smirk on her face and obviously he saw it. “Oh,
is this amusing you?” he yelled. Dawn raised her hand, flipped him the bird and
then went back into the living room.

That
actually felt good, she was thinking to herself. She couldn’t recall ever
giving anyone the bird and used to scowl at Haliday for doing so, which happened
quite regularly because Haliday suffered some of the worst road rage you could
imagine. On their trips to the ranges, inevitably someone driving along pissed
him off. He was quick to salute anyone he thought was deserving enough. A quick
toot on the horn made sure he had their attention.

When she
walked back into the living room, her mother and sister were sitting there.
They just stared at her a bit and she said, “What? They just looked at her some
more and she glanced down to see what the problem was. She saw blood droplets
all over her clothing and the previous night’s events rushed back to her.

She ran
to the bathroom where she flipped up the toilet seat and threw up again. There
wasn’t a whole lot to come up, but she still managed to empty her stomach. She
grabbed a towel and wiped her face off. She knew this was a natural reaction.
She knew it would haunt her for some time, until she learned how to handle it.
Haliday relayed a story about what to expect.