CHAPTER 9
That night, after a delicious dinner of fresh venison, we discussed our next move. In our conversation, we decided to avoid Atlanta. While staying on the highways might have made it slightly easier to navigate our route forward, it would take us through Atlanta; plus, these roadways didn’t provide us with our most direct route south. And no one in the group thought it’d be a good idea to head into a large metropolitan area just yet. We still weren’t sure whether the flu had completely run its course and what sorts of people it had left behind in urban environments. We didn’t want to head into a large city only to find ourselves met by people similar to those we’d encountered in southern Illinois. Combating roaming gangs of thugs was not something we needed to add to our current “to-do” list, and with just enough fuel to take us maybe another 50 or 60 miles, we didn’t want to run out only to find ourselves stranded in the heart of Atlanta. However, this strategy would also likely take us away from our best chance at finding more fuel. We figured that due to the swiftness and severity of the flu as it ran its course through an urban environment like Atlanta, there would probably still be plenty of vehicles with full tanks as well as gas cans left in garages there. But it wasn’t a risk we were willing to take. Instead, we decided to stick to the more remote state and rural roads for a while until we got past Atlanta, at which point we hoped to link back up with the highway somewhere past Macon.
After debating it for a bit and going around the group to collect everyone’s input, we decided not to leave for two more days. It wasn’t that we weren’t itching to get going, since our living quarters inside the barn were a far cry from the plush surroundings of our former digs back at the castle, but we thought the delay would be a good idea. Ray and I both felt that the pickup truck on the highway could draw curious outsiders. Whether it would be travelers stopping to pick over the wreckage in search of supplies as we had done or compatriots of the two men who had been traveling in the truck coming to search for their comrades, we didn’t want to chance being caught out on the open road by those who might attack us for our supplies or in some sort of confused reprisal over the fate of their fallen brethren.
And so we decided to wait.
In the meantime, we gathered and boiled more water for our upcoming trip, filling all the containers we had with us. We rationed our food, estimating that by the time we departed we’d have about enough for five or six more days if we stretched things out. And while Sharron boiled some sort of soup concocted from various grasses she’d found in the area, the rest of us enjoyed a bone marrow and venison stew. It wasn’t the best stew we’d ever tasted, but it was warm and nutritious, and it helped us stretch our meat supply.
Several days later – once we felt we’d given things enough time to cool down out on the highway – we made our exit from the barn under the cover of darkness. Earlier in the afternoon, we’d taken turns going to the creek in small groups to have one final wash before we left. While shaving for men – or women for that matter – was out due to lack of razors, we all got a quick wipe down with towels and washcloths in an effort to maintain some semblance of hygiene before beginning the next leg of our journey. We had no idea what the situation would be over the next few days and when we might have the opportunity to get clean again.
We departed the barn at 2:30 a.m. It was a clear night. I estimated that the low temperatures were hovering somewhere in the mid to lower 40s. There was a half moon out and it provided just enough light for us to travel slowly – about 20 to 25 miles an hour – without the need for headlights once our eyes adjusted to the darkness. We weren’t afraid of hitting any wildlife, since even if we did, it wouldn’t do too much damage to our vehicles considering our rate of speed. The slower speed also helped us maximize our fuel economy, and we didn’t need to make great time since we only had enough fuel to run for a couple hours anyway. We guessed we’d be completely out of gas by 7 a.m. or so.
We decided to use the highway initially to link up with the smaller roadways that would take us on our most direct route south.
I’m not sure how many people have ever driven on a dark highway, without headlights, creeping along at 20 miles an hour, but it’s a strange experience, almost as strange as walking up a highway on-ramp. Something about it just doesn’t sit right with all those prior experiences and countless hours spent zooming along at 75 miles an hour watching strings of taillights snaking along ahead of you and headlights behind.
At about 3 a.m., we neared the turnoff that would take us from highway to county road. As we approached, the outline of a huge billboard loomed off to our right. I decided to take a chance and flipped the headlights on to see what it was. It turned out to be an enormous advertisement for a shopping center three miles farther down the highway.
“Let’s give it a shot,” I said to no one in particular.
“Huh?” Dad mumbled, half asleep in the passenger seat.
“There’s a shopping center coming up in about three miles,” I said. “Could be some good supply options there. At least some gas maybe.”
“Maybe,” Dad sighed, falling back asleep. His arm was doing better now, but it was still far from healed. Claire tended to him, cleaning and re-dressing his wound when necessary. She said in a week or two, they might be able to start some light therapy on it.
Will’s injury was healing as well. Claire spent most of her time tending to Dad and Emily, leaving Sharron to handle her husband. Claire had a natural curiosity about burns and burn patients from her time as an occupational therapist, and since Emily’s burns were so painful and difficult to manage on her own, Claire took very good care of her of mother. We also had to be extremely careful of infection, especially considering that our recent living location in the barn was far from what one might consider sanitary.
I put my hazard lights on and pulled over to the highway’s shoulder, allowing Ray to pull up along side us.
Out of consideration for the sleeping passengers in his vehicle, he got out and walked around to our SUV. I put my driver’s side window down.
“What’s up, punkass?” he smiled at me quietly.
“There’s a shopping center up head a few miles. I was thinking we could take a look around. Might find some good stuff there or at least some gas.”
“Worth a shot I guess,” he shrugged.
Ten minutes later, we were pulling onto the off-ramp that angled down toward the shopping center. Instead of a bright sea of lights, we could tell the structures existed only by their black silhouettes framed on the horizon against the moon’s glow as it hung low in the pre-dawn sky.
I soon noticed that there were dark outlines on the off-ramp in front of us, and we were closing on them quickly. Just as I began to slow, a floodlight hit us full on, blinding me and causing me to stomp on the breaks. I heard screeching of tires behind us as Ray locked up Will’s mini-van to avoid rear-ending us.
I held my arm up in front of my eyes to block the ferocious light. It took me a minute to regain my normal sight as we had been traveling for so long in the moonlit darkness. To buy myself a few extra seconds, I flicked my own headlights on bright, hoping that in doing so, whoever was blinding me would find themselves equally impaired.
“What’s going on?” Dad asked, waking from his slumber.
“Not sure, Dad. Just sit tight.”
As my vision cleared, I could make out three vehicles about 50 feet in front of us. It appeared that two were pickup trucks and the other a large car. They were parked fender to bumper across the width of the exit ramp. In front of the vehicles were stacks of old tires, boards, what looked like cut pieces of highway guardrail, and similar debris that helped form a large barricade. Two men sat perched atop one of the pickup truck beds, a solitary man in the other. All three appeared to be heavily armed with assault rifles aimed at us. A flag was flying from the back of one truck. It fluttered softly in the breeze and in my headlights’ glare, I could make out the image of a coiled snake with the words “Don’t Tr
ead on Me” written across the top of the flag.
“Out of the car!” One of the men yelled.
I felt a hand on my shoulder from the back seat. “John…no,” Claire whispered. “Let’s just get out of here.”
I looked at the rifles aimed at us and figured it wise not to try anything. “Just hang tight,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I took a deep breath, handed Cashmere from where she’d been sleeping peacefully upon my lap, back to Claire, reached down, opened the door, and stepped slowly out onto the pavement.
I raised my hands slowly so that the men could see that I wasn’t holding a weapon. I then walked around in front of the SUV and stopped about ten feet in front of in the headlights.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I called, lowering my hands. “We were just looking for a little gas is all.”
One of the men slung his rifle around in back of him and jumped down from the pickup. He walked over and patted me down. Finding the .44 in my waistband, he took it and stepped back a few feet.
I didn’t like it. I felt exposed and defenseless, but again, I decided it was best not to argue. A wrong move here and these men could easily fill our SUV with lead, killing everyone inside.
“We’re not accepting any outsiders,” one of the men still perched atop a pickup yelled.
“We’re not looking to stay. Just need some fuel. We’d be willing to trade,” I called back hopefully.
There was a pause and then the man called back, “We don’t need anything. And we don’t want any more people here. You all need to move along.”
“Please…we’re good people,” I pleaded. “We just need a few gallons of gas so that we can move along.”
“Can’t do it, partner,” the man called back. “Now you best be on your way. We don’t want any trouble, but we got no problem killing outsiders if that’s what it takes.”
He was right. I wasn’t going to press our luck – not here, not now, and not for a few gallons of gas.
The man standing nearby walked over and handed me back my .44.
“Okay,” I said, taking it from him. I shoved it in my waistband and walked slowly back to the car. The whole time, I was waiting for the sounds of gunfire and the impact of the bullets as they ripped into my back, but nothing happened. I got back inside the car, put it in drive and made a slow U-turn on the exit ramp. Ray followed as we traveled back up the ramp and swung around, headed in the wrong direction, onto the highway.
Ten minutes later, we were on the county road we’d passed a few miles back, heading southwest and traveling farther into the unknown.
* * *
We finally ran out of fuel about four hours after our shopping center exit-ramp encounter. We had towed Will’s minivan the last 10 miles, but this time both vehicles were run until their tanks were bone dry. As soon as our fuel indicator light blinked on, I began looking for a spot where we could safely pull off to the side of the road. I found it just as the engine began to sputter – a deserted looking side road that we took for about a half mile before the engine conked out altogether.
It was 7:04 a.m. Dawn was already breaking, and daylight would be upon us soon, not leaving us much time to find a place to shelter for the day, although our location seemed pretty desolate. I would have liked to have just stayed and slept in the vehicles, but I was afraid scavengers might come calling, thinking our vehicles abandoned, which could lead to trouble.
We pulled over to the side of the road and rolled to a stop. Then everyone began piling out, collecting their belongings and untying the bags strapped to the top of the vehicles.
“Take only what’s necessary,” I called to everyone. “Water, food, guns, ammo, and medical supplies first.”
I don’t know why I wasted my breath. Such things were about all we had left anyway.
I had Paul and Sarah carry our sole remaining tent and the extra blankets since they were relatively light. Ray and I donned packs, knowing that we’d then have to carry Emily on her stretcher in addition to our loads. Dad and Claire would assist Will in walking. Everyone else would take as much as they could and follow us into the scrub brush that lined the road.
First we had to clear a barbed-wire fence bordering the road. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded since we had to lift Emily up and over, jostling her in the process and leaving her crying out in pain. Then we had to assist Will, Dad, and the kids as well. Eventually, we made our way about 100 yards from the road to a spot where the ground rose into a very gradual hill. At this point, there was a grove of trees that grew into a cluster and appeared as though they would provide some decent shelter. It wasn’t much, but considering we couldn’t go too far, this was about the best we could hope for.
After we laid Emily down and got Will situated, Joanna, Claire, Ray, Sharron, Pam, and I all went back to the car and got whatever else we couldn’t carry on the first trip. Dawn was just starting to break as we worked to get settled into the spot. The sky was cold and gray looking.
“Guess this will have to do for now,” I said as we made our way back to the campsite.
The kids got to work putting up the tent without being asked. They were becoming little adults well before their time, and while I felt bad about their situation, I appreciated their help and work ethic.
The trees in the area were tall pines and provided a soft layer of needles on the ground that was conveniently devoid of other vegetation. Skirting the perimeter of our chosen campsite grew a combination of weeds, small trees, and assorted bushes. They served as nice windbreakers and made our spot invisible from the road.
And so we began settling in. First we helped the kids finish putting up the tent so that we had a safe place to lay Emily and Will as well as a spot to safely shelter our supplies. We picked the highest spot in the clearing to avoid being flooded out if it rained. The sky hung heavy with clouds and the air just had that feel of rain about it.
After this was accomplished, we got Emily inside along with Will, Dad, Jason, and Cashmere so that they could rest while everyone else finished setting up camp. We tossed blankets, packs of clothing, food, medical supplies, guns, ammo, and other items that might be susceptible to moisture or that weren’t in garbage bags inside the tent with them. When we were done stashing all our stuff, there was hardly room to move inside the cramped quarters.
We decided that at night, Emily, Dad, Joanna, and the kids would sleep inside the tent. It would be a tight squeeze, but with temperatures still dipping into the upper 30s and low 40s at night, the extra body heat would be welcome in such conditions. This meant that the rest of us were on our own for getting some sort of shelters built to keep us warm and dry. We set to work cutting and collecting sticks, logs, and saplings that we could form into small structures that were just large enough to fit two people. These weren’t meant to be comfortable, just to provide shelter.
We created three such structures in a tight semi-circle facing the tent about ten feet away. In between we built our fire pit so that all the structures would be relatively close to the warmth and security it provided. We used rope, string, bungee cords, vines, and anything else we could find to secure the bones of our structures and then layered them with trash bags and any other pieces of plastic we had available to serve as extra insulation and help keep out moisture. Finally, we mounded pine needs up, over, and around our little sleeping huts, using stones, and more logs and sticks to help weigh them down so that they weren’t blown away by the wind. Then we put more pine needles on the ground inside to provide some level of comfort for our sleeping spots.
They weren’t pretty little hovels, but we hoped they’d be enough to keep us warm at night. Sharron helped Ray, Pam, Claire, and me with our structures, and then we helped her construct hers since Will wasn’t able to.
This activity took us until almost noon. We then took about an hour to collect several days’ worth of firewood that we covered as best we could with the remaining garbage bags and that we held in place with heavy stones.
The sky remained gray and I guessed the temperature hovered somewhere in the upper-40s. Our work kept us warm, but as soon as we were done, a feeling of cold exhaustion began creeping over us. We finished ringing our fire pit with stones, ate a quick lunch of some pre-cooked venison, and headed to our huts for naps.
After traveling all night, I was wiped out, and even those who had slept in the cars were ready for a break. Moving from place to place meant we never really felt at home anymore and this made it harder to let our guard down and relax. We were always working, always worried, always thinking about what was coming next, always wondering where we’d be in a week’s time, always counting supplies, always deciding what needed to be done or figuring out how to do it. It was a constant mental battle that led to increased physical fatigue. One day we’d have plenty of food, the next we were starving and malnourished. One day we’d have a relatively safe spot to sleep, the next we’d be on the road again. One day we’d have fuel for the vehicles, the next we’d be out completely. It was continual stress, never knowing what was around the next corner. It was feast or famine, and I hated that type of living. I wanted my castle back. I wanted to be able to stockpile, and plan, and know what was coming not just in the hours ahead, but in the days and weeks ahead. I wanted to get back to a life where I was in some sort of control again; not in control of everything of course, but in control of most things, which was all one could really ask for.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 50