by Ron Foster
“What’s up guys? Did I worry you with that little maneuver? I wasn’t leaving you behind guys I just figured that little loop de loop was as close to the circling the wagons thing as I could think of.” Travis said with a smile that didn’t quite hide how nervous he was as Tina kept her gaze looking back down the road from whence they had come.
“We don’t even know which way this road hazard is meant to block!” Carl said concerned while noticing Tina and then he started looking back over his shoulder at Wilma doing the same watchful thing in the opposite direction.
“They kind of got us going and coming if they wanted to if you know what I mean.” Travis said thinking of the steep embankments but still wondering which side of this traffic jam any would be robbers or ambushers might be living on...
“Well we ain’t got time to ponder it. Steve says he votes that we try to snatch those cars off the road with the RV and go forward to the fish camp rather than turning around. Otherwise he has to back that thing up the road from here to high heaven until he finds him something like a small football field to turn that thing around on.” Slim declared thinking that for now they needed to at least unhitch that damn big boat anchor of a Cadillac and let Carl drive his own car for awhile.
Evidently this was when Steve was thinking the same thing and was going to the back of the RV to possibly do just that unhitching the tow bar task.
“He knows better than me what he can do with that big ass truck thing of his. Let’s go listen to what he has to say on the matter.” Travis said and then looked back to check on Tina and hesitated for a moment before going over to resume talking to Steve.
“You holler out real loud if you hear any cars coming our way” Travis yelled over to Tina.
“Will do!” Tina called back and then she started scanning the road as she moved closer to its edge and some tree cover.
“You want to try your luck by dragging or pushing those cars out of the way?” Travis asked.
“A bit of both I imagine. I think that we drop the caddy now and I can use the hauler to maybe maneuver those wrecks better. I used to drive a wrecker when I was growing up, I think I will make you proud of my experience with tricks from that job and it shouldn’t take me more than 30 minutes or so to clear this out enough for us to get by.” Steve said unstrapping the tow tie down straps from the Cadillac.
Carl holstered his gun. It had always amazed Travis how easily he could do that and make that thing appear and disappear seemingly at will in his waistband.
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“Why don’t we all sort of fan out and get ourselves ready for any nasty surprises that might be coming this way. Tina and I will go see what’s up on that left ridge. Hey Steve my friend, lend me that Mosin rifle you got please. I have a use for it now.” Travis said now desirous of the rifles long range accuracy and heavy hard hitting bullet capabilities that old warhorse of a weapon had. Now that he was outside the van and looking at a totally different situation that was indeed the tool of defensive choice for him. Steve had offered it’s use to him earlier but Travis had balked because it had that dang almost 2 foot bayonet firmly attached to it and they hadn’t struggled with it enough to unfasten it yet.
Weird thing about those rifles Steve had insisted they needed to know. He explained that he had left the bayonet on his on purpose because that’s the way the Russian army had sighted them in and were meant to shoot with the bayonet firmly attached.
They were more accurate to shoot that way he declared and besides he normally used it for nothing more than a relic curiosity wall hanger ornament. The bayonet was hard to get off because he had put it on about 10 years ago and never removed it. No telling what they would have to do to unlatch it. Travis didn’t want that pig sticker anywhere near his tent and air mattresses so it had stayed in the motor home until now.
You had to hand it to Steve, when it come to just lending some kind of cheap, durable as well as practical weapon or tool to the groups members he had really thought ahead..
Slim often joked that damn Mosin rifle thing was so long that if you sat on the couch with it and stood up you would poke a hole in the ceiling!
“Sure go get it out of the RV; you know where it’s at. Slim why don’t you go look around with Wilma over there on the right-hand side of this mess but stay close by. Carl you and me can get this car of yours unhitched and I will see what I can do about tidying up this road some.” Steve said organizing the effort.
Everybody took up their positions and Carl backed up his Cadillac and parked it across the road at a slant the same as Travis had his while Steve started a one man wrecking crew straining the big motor home’s engine and dragging on some chains snatching vehicles apart and out of the road.
Of course this created a horrendous lot of noise in the process and the would be guards probably couldn’t of heard another vehicle coming anyways after listening all the shrieks, groans and bangs it took to move the demolished cars out of the way but it worked out ok.
Nobody came guns a blazing to confront them or have a dispute with them about their dismantling of the barrier and they ended up having barely, barely an inch or two clearances on one side of the smashed up vehicles to ease the RV carefully and awkwardly past
When it was done and enough of the roadway was cleared Travis had remarked “I don’t know what this place we are about to be leaving behind us in a minute is set up for, but it’s no time to breathe a sigh of relief drop our guard now. Maybe we were just lucky to be on the opposite side of that thing? Have you all been thinking the same as me? You know it’s possible the danger was only going to be coming from this other side we are traveling too.”
That statement had got everyone to pondering and worrying about what now may lay ahead and had them clutching their weapons tightly as they proceeded along. They drove somewhat slowly doing about 35 miles per hour versus their 50 -60 mph normal rate of clicking along trying to make time. They wanted now to be able to see and react at further sighting distances but even at that slightly reduced rate it seemed to them they were moving along at a speed that might be still be a bit hazardous for quick encounters and slowed down a bit more.
As they traveled along warily they wondered what kinds of dangers got someone to make barricade against or an ambush trap for. Evidently it was well planned and executed.
Later on after they had settled in for awhile at their destination they would find out that some of the local farmers around here used the hay bale mover forks on a big tractor to create that monstrosity of broken glass and twisted metal out of couple naturally wrecked cars previously found on the road from some else’s fatal mishap and had adjusted and deliberately added to it.
It was said by locals that blocking off the road best they could was done as a proactive as well as protective measure after months of starving refugees had been coming down this road and continuously threatening to eat the horses at a rich mans Arabian horse farm a few miles up from the wreck.
The community had decided that they had about enough of desperate people wanting to do desperate things and that they had already shot a few outright criminals threatening the farmer’s co-op and blocked the road off months ago for any general traffic to pass through.
Problem solved except for the occasional walkers and motorcycle travelers that they kept their eyes open for passer bys hiking that didn’t act respectful or looked like they had ill intents that needed correcting.
After awhile no one came by or if they did they were so wore out and thankful for di
rections or a donation of a chicken egg and a biscuit for an empty belly to send them on their way the community became less watchful.
Everybody it seemed nowadays was busy living and trying to get by in this new life that wasn’t really new at all. Their Great Great Grand Parents had done it but for these left over staunch folks of the land it was something new for them to reaccept.
They were far too busy as a whole these days working a field or tending a flock of chickens to worry or even think about removing what used to be considered temporary barriers to what civilization once was. They pretty much walked or rode a horse now and saved what gas they had collectively to run the tractors come springtime.
Their reasoning was simple because mostly everyone agreed awhile back that they weren’t going anywhere anyway so why bother reopening the barrier unless one of the people in the community wanted to leave in that direction?
Folks liked the fact that people from out of the area were not traveling through anymore. Less people to be worried about stopping or having them eying their places for possible pilfering later on so it was a nuisance to limit travel with the closed off road, but it was also a bonus to have around and it could stay where it was at unless a community meeting was needed to exit the area by someone.
The State police, the county Sheriff etc. didn’t care. They weren’t going to do anything about it, no way; nobody had even seen one of their cruisers on duty since they didn’t know when so the wreckage stayed where it was at mostly as a barricade to approaching evil until this particular group of survivors had came by and reopened the road...
What kinds of folks these newcomers were going to be possibly letting in behind them now who knows?
Not many people or vehicles traveled the roads anyway these days and the bugged out survivors heading for the fish camp weren’t looking back, only forwards for now.
If you were out and about driving these days their experiences told them that the reasoning was that you were either fleeing something like fire or criminals or if not those two things that it was what everyone was doing, you were searching for something, which in most cases was usually food and usually that wasn’t to be found anywhere.
This was a miserable existence of being always on the run fueled by the fears of violence from where you were coming from all the way to where you were going to.
The desires of looking for a feast while dying from famine forever seemed to be driving you towards the unknown. Somewhere out there you or your group’s leader hoped that there was a shit load of food for the taking that no one had claimed or found yet...
People foraged far and wide but really all you or they ever seemed to find for sustenance from the modern world was a small morsel, a discarded or forgotten bit or in Travis and Tina’s case a dead bird or two every few days to prolong this retched existence of eating anyway you can and when you could.
After awhile as the big die off continues, for some people there weren’t any morals when it came to accomplishing the feat of feeding a starving body anymore. You shouted at the devil, you showed your teeth like a starving dog when needed and snarled at other survivors and then found yourself cringing and surrendered to the bigger dogs wanting the same meager morsels you sought.
That is if there pack let you live to carry on another day and then again if you were lucky when your paths dangerously crossed once more and people became even hungrier.
A Dog won’t eat another dog but some humans had become cannibals, a satanic curse on the earth and these savages had no qualms about eating another person, no they desired them and hunted them.
That primordial taboo and blood curdling threat loomed ever more for happened more frequently than some wanted to consider.
when will it happen or who is capable of doing such a nasty vile dead to occur after a chance encounter or even a hunt in the woods. Your death and why consumes your thoughts as you watch civilization fail.
These vile and abhorrent starving creatures who were unworthy of life that lurked about had sacrificed all of their humanity and even their very souls to partake of human flesh in order to just to survive in a macabre existence of the effects of ultimate famine.
They had become the manifest destiny of evil and were gluttonous in some areas with their horrific practices. These fiends were surely on their ways to hell in the afterlife as they with other cannibalistic groups or tribes warred with each other for hunting rights like some did in deepest darkest Africa or head hunting Borneo islands.
Death stalked them and they smelled of death. It surely wasn’t for the weak or faint of heart to decide to hunt them and lead the civilized survivors who lived in fear of them to band up if they could and just root any alleged cannibals out of an area by outright killing them on sight or be killed by them in a suicidal confrontation if cornered later. The whole idea was not become meat for the stew pots themselves and to wipe out these blights on humanity off the face of the earth.
Kindness was weakness now, nothing that threatened you was allowed to live and it went across the grain of many poor goodhearted souls to be as hard and nasty as you had to seemingly now. Ruthless was a new term to be learned.
To offer help to others, to consider being a good Samaritan to the needy was sometimes to literally put your very neck in the noose of adversity and calculated deception and become victim to robbery by those who knew no other way in these days and times.
Woe to those with no street smarts or long term fortitude for just plain surviving because to lack either was to die and to die not too pleasantly either by those that wanted to deceive and rob you of the little you had.
In order to live another day was to get stronger and keep your will and resolve to fight and forage for another day. Never give up, protect the family, yourself and the weaker members of the community you have designed to survive with.
Fight on for tomorrow as best as you can, to protect your own life, to protect others and what little you had left you could call your own.
You forage for what you can to live another day but you try keep your sanity, dignity and wits about you as all the others lose it. You don’t forget, you don’t dissuade any would be joiners to your group if they have true intentions of group survival and mutual assistance. Civilization, kindness, cooperation and awareness of some kind of forward thinking humanity can start here again and life will go on.
This is Travis’s and the groups focus for today and everyday from now on. Fight on for another day, savor the life you had but be not be remise in casting it away brooding on more or less forgotten times in your private thoughts of wishing things were back to the way they were.
These memories of haunting prior existences and yesterdays caused the downfall for many and thoughts liker these caused them enough distraction to give up on life it’s self. They just quit trying.
Death lives next door, this fact and it is evident in the unburied corpses that reside in the neighbor’s houses all around you. Too many dead bodies and not enough people to bury them, the nation has fallen.
Do you care anymore? Travis and the others asked themselves that very question a lot these days but you don’t dwell on the answer. Your ok, your not like the others, you want to survive but you don’t want to be haunted with reprisals, blood lust, and any more new fears or deep regrets anymore.
You can’t give up, you won’t give up is your mantra! But you’re driven, as sure as a game animal or prey finds itself driven by a hunter to flee into a trap or ambush is. You are pursued by danger constantly just like a forest fire drives fleeing animals in front of it to an uncertain future or death and you become as mobile and migrating as they, targeted as new prey in new unknown environments.
Targeted for what exactly you can’t say, you don’t know. Targeted for new threats and dangers is all you know. There are just too many options and things to be careful of in this apocalyptic world.
You’re targeted for your very being, your body and your very existence on this earth you feel like these
days. All you simply desire most is a safe place to rest awhile without threats and with food but you no longer understand that concept, always on edge, always on guard and always the nagging stomach grumbling thoughts of long term hunger to besiege you and torment you.
Watchful now, you are ever watchful for signs and carefully listening to the new primordial sounds and intuitive feelings for any helpful clues to assist you to make it by safely another day.
You have become your own creator of worlds both within and without in your suffering delusions brought on by famine and hunger pangs. Yet you are driven to overcome these, nay compelled if you consider yourself still civilized to somehow reestablish, try to regenerate that which was taken from you in an instant. So you get up and try a little harder today.
