Dark Days Rough Roads (3 page)

Haliday
shook his hand, told him thank you and wished him the best of luck. The old guy
said, “You’re quite welcome and I pray you keep safe.”

Haliday
said, “Well sir, right now we all need to pray.” People started heading their
way and Haliday told him he better get going and waved goodbye as he started
off to the shoulder of the road and toward an access road. He heard the drum of
the old Ford’s engine dwindle away. He laughed out loud, even spoke out loud,
“Yep, we all need to pray.”

He
stepped down off the shoulder of the road, took a few more steps to cross over
the ditch and the ground under his feet felt spongy. When he looked closer, he
could see the soil was wet and since there had not been any rain in the past
few days, he didn’t know why. He squatted down a bit to pick up a leaf, which
was halfway in the muck, and grabbed it by the dry stem and took a quick sniff.

It was
definitely water and not sewage, which he thought it might have been. At least
that was a good sign. Sewage would bring disease real quick and he wasn’t sure
how long the municipal waste system would last. He was still on well water and
a septic field, so he didn’t pay much attention to that.

Slowly
standing up he looked around and saw a younger guy working under the hood of
his car like it was going to do him any good. Looking past the car, he saw a
substation for the water system. Out here in the suburbs, he was really not far
from the Detroit city limit, give or take 12 miles or so, and the water that
was used was purchased from the city of Detroit. It was pumped throughout Lower Michigan with these little pump stations scattered around all over to help boost
water pressure.

Toward
the east side of the fence line, there was a large pipe coming out of the
ground in a sweeping elbow which reminded him of the air intakes on old ships.
This one, however, was dumping water into a retention pond which apparently had
overflowed a while ago. Off toward the actual substation building, he spotted
another guy who looked to be working on valves. The man was feverishly turning
valves on this pipe, more valves on that pipe, and it looked like a losing
battle. Haliday was interested in this and started heading that way.

The young
kid working on his car looked up at Haliday and then turned white. The kid
started to visibly tremble at the sight. Haliday had not realized it at the
time, but at this particular moment looking at a guy with a .40 caliber
strapped to his belt and carrying a rifle slung on his pack was just not normal
in this area. Haliday said, “Take it easy kid, just moving on through to go
check out that water plant.” The kid got inside his car and just watched as Haliday
strode by. Coming up a little closer to the substation, he saw a sign warning
trespassers of an electrical fence, so he stopped.

He just
stood there a moment longer watching the worker turn valves, cussing as he did
so. He started to wonder how the water was being pumped and doubted the extreme
nature of the emergency, thinking the power loss was actually sporadic and not
an entire regional or national loss. This was the reason he didn’t get too
close to the fence.

The
worker glanced up and saw him standing there. He too stopped dead and looked at
Haliday. Again Haliday found himself telling another person not to worry. This
time he got a response. “No offense partner, but you don’t look like you’re out
hunting rabbit,” said the worker.

Haliday
said, “I guess you’re right, but anyway, my name is Roger and I was just
curious as to why the pump station has power when the rest of the area is out.”

The guy
said, “We don’t have power.”

Confused
a bit, Haliday asked how the water was being pumped. He got a one word answer
to that question. “Gravity.”

Haliday
said, “I don’t understand, how can that be? Could you put it in lay man’s terms
for me? I’d appreciate it.” Haliday was always looking for this kind of
information; you never know what you may need to do and how to do it.

The guy
working the valves said, “It’s simple. The river downtown is a lot lower than
the land out here in the burbs. The pumping stations are daisy chained together
to pump the water up the elevation. The pumps stopped, the back flow valves
were electromechanical and they failed along with some of the safety valves.

Therefore
all of the water pumped into the burbs is now flowing back toward the main
plant and coming out of the overflows into the retention ponds located nearby
their substations.” The pond being past capacity was why the ditch was wet. The
water had to go somewhere.

When he
thought about it, it really made sense. Haliday asked one more question, “How
much water is flowing back and what’s going to happen at the plant?”

The guy
paused then said, “I don’t know, but the worst that could happen is that the
main plant and downtown Detroit gets a few wet streets.”

“No big
loss,” Haliday said. “As a matter of fact that place could use a bath. Not
quite the infamous motor city with sprawling plants and bustling workers and
shops it used to be,” Haliday added.

Haliday
thanked the man for his time and started moving on again. He had a plan which
required some very delicate adherence to time tables and he was about an hour
behind. He had a goal to achieve and the quicker the better.

He was
only about a mile and a half away from home at this point, and this early on he
just took the sidewalks and streets. Very few people would be a threat this
early on, but he was still very aware of what was going on around him. He was
closer to home and cutting through a parking lot by the local supermarket when
he noticed they had the doors propped open.

“Ahh,
just a few steps out of my way,” he told himself and so he walked in. Eddie the
store manager spotted him and told him they were closing up. Haliday nodded and
told him “Ok,” then turned and walked out. Eddie shouted out, “Hey, are you
going bear hunting or something, Roger?”

Haliday
said, “Good luck Eddie,” and continued walking out, not saying another word.

On his
way out he looked at the store front. Typical of a grocery store; it was all
windows. He wondered how long these would last. Other than the single back set
of double doors and the one roll up loading dock door, this was the only way
in. Chances were when he got back this place would be stripped clean. He didn’t
give it any thought; he had what he needed, but of course he always wanted
more.

Hell, he
would have been happy to walk out with a few bags of rice and beans. That
thought made him chuckle. Beans, beans and more beans, he thought. Oh boy, the
butt trumpet was going to be playing a continuous melody shortly. Simple things
amuse simple minds, but that was not really the case here. He was an average
guy. Things like that were just plain funny.

He
thought about the market. That place would be an absolute nightmare. He didn’t
buy into the whole 3-day food supply theory. He knew that once people realized
it was their last chance, the place would be stripped in hours. Three days my
ass, he thought. Not in this neighborhood.

On the
other side of the strip mall at the end was his favorite pizza place. There
were a few folks inside here too. It looked like all kids in their late teens.
He waved at the kids who were cleaning up and getting ready to close the store.
One waved him over. He told him he was in a hurry, and the kid said, “We have a
couple pizzas nobody picked up, you want one?” There was no hesitation. He
agreed, even offered to pay for it; but they told him not to bother. He thanked
them, took the box and started to walk out. They asked him if he knew what
happened and he said, “No idea.”

One kid
said, “Well sir, based on your firearms, I’d say you have a very good idea.”

He felt a
little badly about his answer. He looked at the kids and asked them how far
away they lived. A couple miles away was the furthest any of them lived. He
told them to listen carefully. He advised them to forget about cleaning the
store, forget about locking it up, and forget about anything other than getting
home as soon as they could.

That’s
all he would tell them. Out of the three kids, two left immediately. The third
who commented on his guns looked him square in the eyes and asked him just how
bad it was. “It’s real bad, worse than you could ever imagine,” Haliday said.
The kid grabbed the last three boxes of pizza and left in a hurry.

Haliday
opened the box and took a slice out and started to eat it. It was room
temperature, but he didn’t care too much; it was going to be the last pizza he
ate in a long time. He walked out and headed straight for the sidewalk. He saw
the last kid dart down one of the nearby side streets. Haliday figured most of
them were from the neighborhood.

Haliday
had almost reached the sidewalk when he looked across the street and saw the
oil change shop. He made a mental note of it. Although sooner or later someone
will take the drums and bottles of oil, they might overlook the waste oil tank.
This could be filtered and used for a variety of purposes and even burned if
necessary. He started back on his way home.

As he
continued to walk along the sidewalk, more and more people started looking at
him. How funny this must be. This 6 foot 2 inch tall, 250 pound guy with a gun
strapped to his waist, a rifle slung on his backpack and walking along eating a
pizza like it was just another stroll in the neighborhood.

Just 10
minutes later, he was almost home. It was a typical suburban neighborhood with
half acre lots and the houses too close for comfort, but he did not have the
resources to relocate like he wanted to thanks to the wonderful economic
conditions. He had to make do with what he had and that was fine with him as
long as his plans could hold.

If he
could maintain a good level of security, he should be fine. He paused long enough
to tuck the pistol away along with his good old rifle, which was an Armalite
AR180 with a folding stock, somewhat similar to an AR15. He took his pack off,
folded the stock and slung the rifle on his back and then put the pack back on.

He looked
like just an average guy except for the backpack and of course the pizza box.
He was not worried about his neighbors, who were out and about and talking to
each other. He had maintained a great level of OPSEC, operational security, and
seeing him with his backpack was a normal everyday event. He told them before
it was his uniform and equipment from work and they never paid him any
attention after that. They didn’t this time either.

He waved
as he passed the folks. He said, “Hell of a power outage, huh?” He walked the
last couple of hundred yards to his house. Approaching the door, there was an
electronic cipher lock which he attempted to use out of habit. No luck of
course; he dug into his pocket and fished out the key.

As soon
as he opened the door and stepped in, he breathed a sigh of relief. In one
sense, it was good to be home, in another it was bothersome. Bothersome because
he would have to temporarily leave for a few days or more and wasn’t sure what
he would come home to in that amount of time. He walked around the house and
made sure all of the windows and doors were locked.

He peeked
out into the attached garage at his baby and said, “I’ll be out there shortly.”
“For goodness sake,” he said. “It’s a truck. Don’t talk to it. You have work to
do and the quicker the better.” It was mid-October and the Michigan weather was
so varied that even though today it was sunny and 70, tomorrow could be wet and
40. Fall was here and the impending winter would be harsh with all things
considered.

The first
thing he did was go over to the fuse box and turn off the main power. No sense
in any lights or anything coming on by accident. Next he reached down by the
floor and flipped a single switch. This completed the circuit from a small
array of deep charge batteries which ran a small series of 12v outlets
throughout the house. Another switch actually turned them on, but until he
pulled the bulbs out of their protective wrappers he didn’t bother to try it.

He
unwrapped the bag that he had bought from eBay and took out a bulb. It was
supposed to be like a Faraday cage, but he thought it looked like a Mylar bag.
Not even sure it would work, he screwed it into a lamp that was on the counter
and went and hit the other switch. There was nothing, the light did not come
on.

“Damn eBay,”
he cursed. He looked it all over and noticed he hadn’t plugged the lamp in. One
more try and there it was. It still worked. He turned it off, there was enough
light still out and he could see in the house just fine. He wasn’t sure how
long the batteries would last anyway, and he didn’t want to waste them. He had
a simple outlet in each room and four in the garage. That was the important
area of the house.

He
stepped out into the garage, walked over to the back wall and removed a sheet.
Under the sheet had been a stack of plywood sheets he had prepared. Next to the
sheets of plywood was a large roll of adhesive laminate plastic that printers
used on big signs.

Haliday
grabbed the roll of plastic and snagged a utility knife off a nearby bench. The
plastic was practically useless for anything other than protecting signs the
printers made, but he had a different idea for it. He cut off large pieces,
peeled the backing off and placed it on every window in the house.