Dark Days Rough Roads

by Matthew D. Mark

  One man looked at him; “You’re an outsider. What gives you the right?”

  Haliday answered, “Listen shithead. I’m not going to explain it. If you’d rather we continue to reduce your ranks, we can end the conversation now and go right back at it. Now you can talk nice or you can go in there and explain to everyone why they are going to die. So this is what will happen.”

  Haliday continued, “First, each and every one of you will surrender. You will all be placed into custody until these guys here decide who to try and who to release. They will hold the trials in a public venue with an impartial jury. The sentences they give out will be final. No appeals. There were some serious crimes committed here. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Second, any and all food here will remain in the townspeoples custody and that will be distributed according to how they see fit. There is a community here and everyone will come together and share resources. You guys will be included. You will not be leaving with what you think is yours; too many people paid the price for it already. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Third, your firearms will be seized along with all ammunition. Your homes will be searched.. These firearms will not be returned until they see fit to return them to you. This prevents you guys from banding together and playing warlords again. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Fourth, you guys are responsible for any women and children from your group who are now left on their own. You’ll take them in and you’ll take care of them. I don’t mean servitude, I mean as part of your family. We will be checking on them. That’s not negotiable.”

  “Fifth, you will provide burial for each and every person that has died here. You will dig their graves, you will bury them with respect and it will be done with the utmost dignity. You will do so at the sheriff’s house. That’s not negotiable. You have any questions?”

  “I do,” one of the militia said as he moved forward a bit. “What exactly do we get to negotiate?”

  Haliday smiled at him. “Your life. That’s what you get to negotiate. You take the terms and live or you roll the dice and see what comes out of it that way. You look smart enough to understand that. I’ll give you guys a few minutes to talk.”

  Haliday and his group backed off a bit. There was some arguing going on for a minute, then three of the militia members walked over. “Ok, we accept.”

  Haliday pointed over at the fourth man. “What about him, is he going to be trouble?”

  One answered, “No he shouldn’t be.”

  Haliday said, “Ok, he stays then.” He pointed; “You and you go back in and tell them what’s happening. Call me when you’re ready. We’ll walk you through the process.”

  Haliday moved away and talked to Chuck, Brad and Rob. “You guys good with that I assume?”

  Rob said, “Ya, how do we try them though.”

  Chuck spoke up, “I’ll help with that.”

  “That’s good,” Haliday said. “You’ll also need to set up some form of government rule to keep things civil.” The radio crackled. “They’re ready,” Haliday said.

  Haliday started with the fighting positions. He would empty one and bring the people in. He emptied the second and then had Rob’s guys move into the first. Eventually all of the positions were manned by Rob’s group. He had the people come out of the admin building two at a time and bring the injured with them.

  Everyone was outside now and disarmed. Haliday had them all bound and ready for transport. He’d be sending them to the county jail just down from the police department and would use locks and chains on the cells. They would be the community’s problem now. An hour later they were all in cells.

  Haliday walked over to the building where they had kept the prisoners. They entered it and found almost a dozen people inside. They were all still alive, but some were badly beaten and they were hungry and thirsty. They tended to these people and moved them to safety. Haliday asked them who was captured in the woods with the motorcycle and a couple raised their hands. “You guys can leave when you want, we’ll get you to your boat when you’re ready.”

  They went through each of the buildings and made sure each was empty and that they had all of the firearms and ammunition gathered up. This was all placed in the admin building. They made sure nothing that could be used as a weapon was left in the buildings at all, especially in the buildings used for housing.

  Haliday rounded up all of his people and they stood around and talked for a bit. He told Rob to make sure the people in the jail got food and water and had blankets so they would be warm enough. “Get their work detail busy and get the bodies handled right away. Use the chain gang format.”

  Rob looked at Roger, “Why the sheriff’s house?”

  Roger told him that if the sheriff ever saw freedom again, he would need a reminder every day.

  “Rob, keep this area under heavy security at all times, and move everything to a secure location as soon as you can.” Haliday looked around. What a hell of a couple weeks this had been. “Rob, good luck, we’ll be in touch.” They shook hands and parted ways. Haliday and Mark took the rest of the guys and they all headed home.

  They arrived back at the house. They all passed on dinner and opted for showers and fresh clothes instead. Afterwards they settled for soup. They were sitting around in silence. Kayla had security set up for the night. It would be Rich, Bev, Karen, Sarah, Dawn, Diana, David and herself taking turns tonight. They let the guys sleep through the night.

  Chapter 36

  It had been three days since the last assault on the airport. Roger sat at the table drinking his coffee and eating his breakfast burrito. Both Max, the mutant dog and Romeo, the cat, were eyeing his plate. “I don’t think so, animals,” he said. Romeo had his own food and Max was given scraps and leftovers to eat. The byproduct of that, however, was mutant dog farts which Max seemed to enjoy sharing with Roger.

  Blake was sitting next to him, and Alan was across the table with Kevin. Mark was sitting in a chair next to Lisa who was doing much better now. In a couple more days, she would be ok and as long as Haliday was certain no infection or issues would arise, he would let them head back with Mike and Linda to Mark’s parents’ farm. They all reflected on the past couple of weeks.

  Kayla walked over and sat down as well. “Hey Dad,” she said, “how much more of this we gonna have to deal with?”

  He looked at her, “I hope none, but we still don’t know what the hell is going on in this country. I’d really like to know what the hell the government is doing about this, and what the hell even happened. I think the immediate threat is over for now. I don’t suspect we’ll get a lot of activity during the winter. Not too sure many plow trucks are working these days, so it’ll be hard to get around.”

  He continued on with his thoughts. “We’ll have to get a good grip on the inventory of everything we have. One thing in particular will be to hide as much of the food as possible now that people think we are loaded down with stocks of everything. That will be easy enough though. We’ll cover the doorways downstairs with the paneling covers to hide them again. We can move some to the other caches, and set up some more alarms out there.” This would all be done within the next week.

  For the most part everyone was in rather good shape as far as health or injuries went. David was a little worse off. He would heal up ok, but the leg injury would definitely leave him with a limp and the cold winter days would remind him of the injury. The loss of the leg would have been much worse, so he was lucky. Both he and his son Bobby would have the battle scars to go along with their stories. Haliday teased Bobby saying it was Bobby’s lobotomy scar.

  Diana was the one who would get mad at him. Her arm was sticking out in a makeshift brace so her collar bone would heal. She had about six weeks of being in the contraption, according to the doctor. Roger would walk up and try to hang some of his laundry on it to dry. Everyone but she thought it was funny. Once he taped a piece of jerky on it and she couldn’t reach it to take it off. Since she�
�s a vegan it drove her nuts.

  Alan’s face had become infected, but the doctor got it cleaned out and he changed the antibiotics. The doctor had cut a little tissue away in the process, which was enough to leave a reminder every day when he shaved. Alan thought they would nickname him Scarface but they called him Gash instead. He insisted on Scarface once, but Roger pointed toward Alan’s pants and said in his best Al Pacino voice, “Is that, your little friend?” He emphasized ‘little’ and Alan never mentioned it again as they all had broken into laughter.

  Alan’s wife Nancy would set Elizabeth, Bobby, Matthew and Teresa down and home school them a little bit each day. No one had any idea if or when school would ever be back in session. They could not afford to have the kids not learn the basics and whatever else they could teach them. They would all have chores to do in order to help out.

  After a couple of days, Mike, Linda, Mark and Lisa were packed and ready to go. Roger made sure they had ammo and sent a couple of welfare buckets along with them even though Mark insisted they had brought some of their own and had enough at his dad’s, not to mention what Haliday previously left. Roger told them if they needed to that they could come back, bring his parents and they would co-op the house across the street or here at the cabin. Gas would be at a premium and traveling back and forth would be hard, even if it was only about 20 miles.

  Karen, Rich, and Bev settled into routines playing solitaire, puzzle books, reading and doing their share around the cabin. They seemed the least affected by the change so far. They’d miss their Kindles and casino trips and online games, but that was something they hadn’t had all their lives and could do without. The kids were the ones who would be suffering technological withdrawals.

  Dawn was overseeing the horses and their care. When Diana was healed, she would help too. They did a lot of reading all of the time as it was, so they would pop on the computer and read or play games. The vegan and vegetarian cooking they were used to would help the group out when meat became scarce, and would it extend their current stores.

  Sarah took charge of cooking and kitchen duties. Everyone helped and took turns assisting her. Sarah had long been resigned to the fate of Erik, but didn’t mention it at all. Elizabeth was told he was still out helping people and she was content with that. Eventually they would plan on placing a marker by an empty grave to put him to rest in their hearts.

  Kevin and Randy used the ham to keep in touch with their parents and their other brother in Texas. It was still puzzling that they had electricity, but as time went on things were made clearer as to why that was. They kept busy playing video games, chopping wood and getting more familiar with the toys Roger had around. They were also learning new tactics just in case they were needed.

  Blake and Kayla always joined Kevin and Randy to keep their skills updated and fresh. Surprisingly, they were still maintaining nothing but a friendship, which was fine with Roger. He wasn’t ready for any crib lizards to be crawling around. This was quite a mix of people here, but they all worked together rather well too.

  Roger had called Rob to see how everything was going. He asked them about the prisoners and what had happened with the trials. Rob started with the sheriff who was the militia commander. He was still in fairly bad shape and they put him under house arrest. When they went to check on him the next day, they found him hanging from a rope inside his garage with a note that just said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He would have been hung anyway.

  Chuck had taken over as the chief law enforcement official for the area. He had made sure each and every one of the prisoners was tried. Most were assigned to hard labor on chain gangs performing burials, clearing the roads of cars, chopping wood, and anything they needed done. If they didn’t work one day, they didn’t eat. The children and a few of the wives were released.

  Some were allowed to leave the area. Presumably they met with the ones who were waiting for their husbands who had launched the last attack on the south end of the airport. Five people were hung for their involvement with the militia, the torture of the police chief and the other prisoners. It was later found out that several citizens were summarily executed for almost no reason by the militia men.

  Brad and a few of the veterans in the area were put in charge of forming a regional defense coalition group. Haliday made it clear to them to avoid using the term militia at all costs. They had quite a complement of equipment with what they had seized, and had already. As word spread they were able to bolster their ranks. Haliday and Mark would be helping them with training.

  Rob asked Haliday how they had been so fortunate as to take out the militia like they did. Haliday told him it was one thing to put on a uniform and call yourself something and it was another thing to gather the people, to educate them, to train them, to keep up their skill sets and that this was proof of that explanation. “Rob,” he said, “you can want in one hand and crap in the other and I can tell you which one will fill up first. You have to not only want it, but do what it takes to make it happen as well.”

  Rob was heading up the interim governing body and he would see to it that some proper elections were held and people put in place to help transition the area into the new rule. Rob would end up doing a great job getting that in place and getting the area to work together through the crisis. He was their best bet.

  A couple of weeks later Haliday was at the ham again. He had made quite a few contacts across the entire U.S. The urban areas were in full crisis now. Just about everyone was beyond hungry. They were now starving. People were pulling out all the stops and doing what they needed to survive. Looting became scavenging, self-defense bordered murdered. It was utter chaos.

  He took notes on all of it. His map was just unbelievable to look at. Alaska and Hawaii were fully untouched. Most of California was operational along the coast, as was Oregon and Washington State. The southern border, like he discovered earlier, was intact. The lower third of Florida was intermittent with functionality. It was almost as if those areas had been untouched in order to preserve the border control of the country.

  A lot of Canada was fine with the exception of the southern parts of the country bordering the U.S. The U.S. east coast was devastated though as well. It was a weird puzzle to try and figure out. He had heard most of the navy had been fully recalled and had taken station off the coasts. Most of the military overseas remained there however. The U.S. was the only country really hit and nobody could explain it. No country or terror group claimed responsibility.

  Still, there was no major military movement from the bases, and no federal mobilization of FEMA, DHS or any other agency. There was actually very little from the government in the form of communications. Haliday went over his notes again. He made some radio calls across the U.S. and got some more answers. He heard information from some other countries as well. He started piecing more together.

  It all made more sense now. He had heard bits and pieces, but it was clearer now. He never thought this would have happened. He called the group together for a meeting. This is what he said. “We all know the SHTF. I think I know who took the dump and I think I know who turned the fan on high. There’s a lot of manure being spread around. I don’t think spring is going to be bright and cheerful.

  “It seems we have a civil war here in the U.S. Not north versus south, but large groups comprised of the military, the government and some other group calling themselves the Constitution Restoration Army. Right now with all of the propaganda, we don’t know who is with whom, or who is good or bad. Not sure which of them popped the nukes or EMP’s over our own country to cripple us, but we’ll find out eventually. We have a lot of work to do people. I have a feeling we aren’t out of the woods yet.”

  Afterword:

  Although this is a work of fiction, it is meant to demonstrate how easily the world we live in can be impacted by those events which we can not control. This is not to show you what will happen, but instead it is meant to show you what can happen. The trigger event depicted here has
become far too real of a threat in today’s technological age. There also exists, however, far too many events that could occur with the same basic ending result.

  The actions of the characters in this story may seem far reaching to most. What we need to ask ourselves before judging these actions is a simple question. What will you do to ensure the safety, security and survival of you and your family? When mass disasters occur it is true that the best in people will shine through. It is unfortunate, however that others will use the opportunity to show their worst.

  Religious faiths around the globe teach preparedness to one extent or another. From a few simple days to a year or more. The government suggests food, water, shelter and first aid supplies for a minimum of three days for each person in a household; pets included. Disasters of all magnitudes can happen within seconds. Are you ready?

  About the author:

  Matthew D. Mark was born and raised in Michigan, is a U.S. Army veteran, former police officer and has worked in private security. He has instructed in self defense, chemical deterrent and force continuum. He enjoys his family, outdoor activities and firearms as his main hobbies.

  Watch for the sequel, Dark Days Troubled Times