Dark Days Rough Roads (23 page)

Haliday
noticed a neighbor across the street standing on his porch. He didn’t really
know this neighbor, but had watched him closely over time and knew enough that
he too was prepped for SHTF. He was surprised the guy hadn’t taken off himself.
His son lived next door and he would catch them late at night unloading stuff
into their small pole barn. The guy then went back inside. I don’t blame you,
he thought, keep out of it. Remain unseen and unheard. Protect your own stash.

“You must
be deaf or dumb you son of a bitch.”

Haliday
was at his wit’s end. “Ok genius, this is what we are going to do.” He raised
his rifle and leveled it at the man’s head. “We are leaving and that’s going to
be good enough for everyone here. You understand?”

“Screw
you ya bastard. There are more of us than you.”

“We’re
all armed numb nuts. You aren’t. You’ll lose this one,” he told them.

Haliday
whispered to David and Mike who then got in the vehicles and started them. He
told Sarah to get in with Elizabeth and told Bev and Rich to get in as well.
“Linda and Kayla, you guys walk up the street a ways. When they get down a few
houses move the vehicles out. Watch your backs. Blake, close the garage and
lock it. Then go with them and cover the rear.”

“I told
you that ain’t gonna happen.” The group moved a bit closer. Haliday looked at
Phil; Phil said, “You’re on your own man, nothing I can do.” Haliday knew Phil
had a hunting rifle and plinker, but figured as much. Phil’s wife was standing
next to him now. Thanks for the help neighbor. He heard the vehicles shift into
drive. The crowd came closer yet, about 30 yards out now.

Haliday
said, “Ok, I’ll tell you how it’s going to work.

“If you
aren’t armed I suggest you step back now. The rest of you, well it’s going to
be us against you if you want it that way. I’m going full auto, and so are
these guys. You do not have enough firepower to win this. His rifle was full
auto capable but he hadn’t finished modifying the others yet. “Now, I’m ready
to kill. I already have and I will again. No doubt in my mind I can do it. I
prefer not to though. You hear that?”

“If it’s
food you want, my house was cleaned out. Phil there has it all. A good few
months worth. He’s got five cases of MRE’s alone. Now he broke into my house
while I was gone and stripped it clean of all the food.” He looked at Phil who
had turned white as a ghost. He nodded at Phil again with a smirk on his face
this time.

The group
had separated a bit as some of the people backed off. The loud mouth said, “How
you know that?”

“Well,
the MRE peanut butter could be his, but I doubt it. He doesn’t know how to
spell MRE. Now the doll his kid is holding is my daughter’s. It’s a one of a
kind custom we had made for her at a doll show years ago.” Phil’s wife called
him a bastard. “Look Heather, I’d beat feet away from the house.” She grabbed
the kids and ran across the street away from the crowd.

Phil
looked at Roger and pleaded. “Don’t do this Roger; I was just trying to keep my
family fed. You can’t do this man.”

“Look
Phil, your best bet is to walk away now. Let them take it when we leave.”

The loud
mouth piped in, “How you know we’re going to let you leave? I keep telling you
it ain’t gonna happen. Just more stuff for us.”

Roger
said, “Look guys, you can live or you can listen to this loud mouth. My guess
is you want to live. Take what’s in that house, split it up and move on. Don’t
die like this man is going to.” Roger still had his rifle leveled at him.

“I’ve had
enough!” the loud mouth yelled at him. 1, 2, and the number 3 came in the form
of a three round burst. Roger quickly leveled it at the next guy and barked out
orders.

“Keep
your weapons down. Keep your weapons down. Go, go, go.” The vehicles moved out
leaving Roger, Kevin and Randy standing there. “Kevin, you lead. Randy and I are
walking backwards. One of the guys in the group brought his shotgun up quickly
and fired at Randy, but luckily he missed. Randy returned fire with two rounds
and Roger fired a few quick shots as well. The guy dropped to the ground in a
heap.

Roger
yelled out again, “Don’t do it. Don’t be brave.” He kept the rifle leveled at
the group that was armed and now standing by themselves. There were five left.
They started walking backwards, as they did the group of bystanders moved back
as well. You could tell they didn’t want any more of the gunplay. “Like I said,
the food is in that house. Help yourself, it was mine anyway.” Phil’s kids were
crying. Phil was yelling at Roger.

The armed
individuals watched Haliday, but moved toward Phil’s house. Roger and Randy
kept moving backwards and they saw a few more people head to Phil’s house. They
were about 75 yards away when they reached the trucks. Roger told everyone to
get in. He stepped on the side step of the truck and held onto the window frame
with one hand. He kept looking back at the mob that was now at Phil’s house. It
was like ants on a piece of candy.

He heard
a few shots as well, but didn’t see anyone firing at them. They were probably
arguing about who gets what. He saw Phil standing there watching his house
being raided from across the street. Phil’s wife and kids were in tears. He
smacked on the roof when they hit the end of road and Mike stopped. He switched
places with Mike behind the wheel of the Tahoe. He pulled up next to the
Cherokee and saw terror on their faces. He said, “Follow me,” and they drove
off.”

Only
about two miles away, he pulled off into a large parking lot of a small
fabrication shop. He signaled for everyone to get out. They all stood around
and he walked up to Randy. He grabbed his shotgun from him.

“I had to
shoot him Uncle Roger I had……”

Haliday
put a finger to his mouth to shut him up. Haliday pumped the shotgun emptying
the shells onto the ground. “Pick them up,” he said.

Randy
picked them up and held them out. Haliday grabbed one and looked at it. “Number
nine shot, you used number nine shot? You didn’t kill that guy; I doubt you
even pissed him off with this crap at that distance. Go find your double aught
and load it Dick Cheney. Smaller the number, the better for people,” Haliday
said. Randy loaded his shotgun. “David, Kevin, Randy and Blake come here. Basic
gun course now.” Thirty minutes later they were back on the road.

Dawn,
Diana and Karen were all set to go. They stopped by the main house to drop off
a few things and the food for Mandy. They noticed a smoker going. She had taken
care of that deer pretty quickly. If she wasn’t raped, beaten or killed, she
might do pretty ok for herself.

In all
reality this was not a bad place to be though. It was a good distance from a
city of any size and since there weren’t a lot people around, there wouldn’t be
much scavenging in this area. Just have to hide from roving bands of scum.
They’d give her Haliday’s security speech.

“Thanks
again,” Mandy said.

“Thank
you,” they replied. They were horse people and glad the horses would have a
fighting chance. “We’ll be back in spring or maybe sooner depending on how
things progress after we find out what’s going on and when everything settles
down. It’ll get worse before it gets better. People will be very hungry and
desperate in the next few weeks.” They gave her the speech. Take care they told
her.

Karen was
driving the ranger and they had saddled up the horses to ride. They checked out
their map. They were taking as many small roads as they could. This way the
horses could use the shoulders of the road and stay off the pavement and they
could avoid people. They had two legs of the trip to make. The first leg would
take them to a preset cache with a few items and some gas if they needed it and
a spot to rest. The next would take them to meet up with Haliday.

They were
on their way and enjoying the slow pace. They were checking out the various
farms as they passed them. You would almost think nothing had happened out
here. They listened to the ham and couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
Some of the rural areas were just like this, but then most urban areas,
especially the largest cities, had basically crumbled overnight.

They were
hearing stories of widespread looting. People had cleaned out all of the
grocery stores within the first three days everywhere. They had heard of people
rioting in places like Sam’s Club, Costco and other big box warehouse stores.
People were taking everything though. Electronics, clothing, whatever they
could get their hands on they took. Most of the stuff was useless, but they
guessed people figured it would be an easy fix.

Police
everywhere started giving up. The only thing they could even attempt to do was
try to keep people from killing each other. Most had left heir jobs and were
worrying about there own families and themselves. There were very few places
where people banded together and took actions to secure their communities. Most
of all, it was the small towns in rural areas that would be safer, where travel
by foot was impossible due to the distances.

One guy
up in Oregon was telling everyone to start hunting and gathering meat. He
explained that hunting would be widespread. He went on to say that the animal
population would be overhunted within a month. The animal population would be
severely reduced and those left would be hard to find as they hid from hunters.
Winter would make hunting very difficult. There were just no amenities to keep
warm, move around easily, stay the night in camps, and bait the prey or anything.

It was
still puzzling that they did not hear anything about any government movements
or assistance to anyone anywhere. No one could figure that out. People said
that a lot of the military bases seemed locked down, but they also said they
did not see the amount of troops that they normally saw. Some commented that
there had been a lot of desertion from all rank and files. Little to no
equipment was moving and surely none of it was moving off the bases.

They
couldn’t concern themselves with any of that. They would figure that out later.
What they had to concern themselves with was getting where they needed to be
and when they needed to be there. They had a great disadvantage right now, since
there were only three of them and the pace they kept was that of which the
horses moved. They almost wondered if maybe they should have left them.

They were
coming close to their first stop. They hadn’t noticed anyone following them and
they headed down a small dirt road. Haliday had scouted this area many times
before with them. They knew it was not used more than maybe eight times a year.
They couldn’t even figure out why. Maybe kids getting busy after a hot date. They
came across an opening in the woods and they headed down that way.

Karen was
having a hard time navigating the path. They had cut a few branches off some of
the trees to make it more accessible, but had to leave enough so it did not
look too obvious. They would be about a quarter mile away from the dirt road
and well enough hidden to stay the night. They managed to reach the spot
without too much more trouble.

They tied
the horses up and got them some water and grain. They planned to leave the
saddles on in case they had to bug out quickly, but that would not be the case.
They commenced to get the camp set up for the night. They opened the trailer so
they could pull out the gear they needed.

After
pulling everything out they started to set up. The first thing they did was to
string a few booby trap simulators up around the perimeter. This would alert
them to anybody sneaking in. Haliday had Dawn buy these at one of the gun shows
they had frequented. They just had to hope animals wouldn’t set them off, but
they placed them two feet off the ground, so unless it was deer they were good
to go.

They set
up a nice little four season tent. It wasn’t big, but big enough for two to
sleep comfortably with some gear close by. They tossed in a couple sleeping
bags that were zero degree rated, so it would be warm enough. The temperature
was only going to dip down to about 35, but they wanted to stay warm in order
to stay nimble and quick.

They
placed a light blanket over each horse. They pulled out a small camo net and
covered the trailer. After some squabbling about who would pull guard duty
first, they settled in for some food. They heated up some water on the small
camp stove and made soup. They opened up a can of pears and split it.

Dawn
looked around. She had to use the bathroom. She grabbed a bucket with a potty
lid on top and biodegradable trash bag in it and hauled it over behind a tree.
Haliday taught them to use the blue RV chemical in it to keep the odor down and
help degrade the mess. She finished her squat as Haliday called it and headed
back to camp. She hated his crudeness at times.

They made
sure the camp stove was out, no food was left out, and hunkered down for the
night. They figured on three hour shifts, which would give everyone six hours
of sleep. Based on Haliday’s progress, they could nap a little longer if they
needed to. They wouldn’t know until the morning though. They looked up at the
stars. Without any lights, the stars were so bright now. There had been few
places on earth you could experience total darkness.