Chapter 25: Trip to Millbrook

October 2033

Clark got out of bed before the rooster had a chance to announce the new day, and made his way to the barn with two milk pails. The days were getting shorter and the nights, cooler, but after nearly two years, the day finally arrived to go to Millbrook, and he wanted to get a head start on his daily chores of milking and feeding the goats. This time everyone agreed that Sally should go with him.

All the crops, vegetables and fruits were harvested, stored or canned. Most of the logs had been hauled to the wood shed to be cut and chopped into stove length pieces. The barn was brimming with hay and straw, ready to keep the animals fed and comfortable for the winter.

The trip to Millbrook the year before had to be postponed because the weather was too wet, and Katie was too busy with ten-month old Joshua. That left Clark and Sally to hustle to get everything harvested and ready for the long winter months.

The two nannies didn’t expect him so early, but were eager to stand up and give up the milk in their burgeoning udders. He and his family needed all the nourishment of goat milk they could get, now that Joshua was nearly two years old and had stopped breastfeeding over the summer.

They were now a big family of three adults and five children. Fifi and Trish had just turned 7 years; Matthew was 4, Mary 2 and Joshua 22 months. Of course, Blizzard and Ginger were considered family, too. They had a flock of chickens too many to count, two billies, four nannies, and were hopeful to get two more nannies into producing milk in the spring.

Before hurrying back to the house, Clark poured a little milk into a chipped dish for the cat. No one knew where she came from and when she showed up. She didn’t let anyone get too near her litter of 4 kittens. That meant there was also a tom cat prowling around somewhere, too wary to show his face or just plain wily.

Clark also poured some milk for Blizzard and Ginger who lapped up their portions with sloppy gusto.

Sally and Katie were busy getting the kids settled around the table to have breakfast. They were happy to see Daddy and he gave each one a daily dose of his kisses, plus a gentle squeeze of Katie’s plump behind.

“Daddy did it to Mama again,” Trish said, bringing Fifi and Matthew to giggle.

“I couldn’t help it,” Clark explained. “It was a reflex from squeezing Molly’s and Dolly’s teats.”

“What’s a reflex?” Fifi asked.

“It’s when Daddy does something that’s he can’t control,” Sally responded.

“Oh, like when Matt squeezes his penie?” Trish concluded.

Matthew quickly brought his other hand up from under the table and looked around to see if anybody had noticed.

“Yep, that will do it almost every time,” Sally nodded, which made the girls giggle even more and Clark to give a silly smile. “But now finish up your oatmeal. We need to get going.”

The frenzy that ensued was like a whirlwind of controlled chaos. The younger kids didn’t understand what the excitement was all about.

Just as the sun was rising over the treetops everyone piled into the car to drive over to the monastery where Katie and the kids would await Clark and Sally’s return. Blizzard and Ginger had to stay behind to guard the homestead.

In addition to two rifles and a hand gun, Clark was taking a bolt cutter, hack saw, crowbar, sledge hammer, and a twelve-foot long chain. At the last minute, he also hoisted into the back of the vehicle a heavy log that he thought might come in handy as a battering ram to break down a door in case the sledge hammer couldn’t do the trick. The days of ramming his shoulders against a locked door were over.

They had winterized the monastery the week before and were assured that everything still looked safe and secure. As Clark was about to climb back into the driver’s seat of the vehicle, Katie came and stood squarely in front of him. Without a word she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. He was surprised by the insistence and strength of it and clasped her in his arms, too.

“You will come home to me,” she said boldly. It was not a question, not even a request. It was an order from an impassioned woman who could not bear for her man to be away from her for long.

He nodded firmly and was dismayed that a tear had escaped her left eye and ran down her cheek.

“Don’t worry,” he said stroking her cheek and wiping away the tear before pressing his lips firmly to hers. “Sally and I will be back before you know it.”

“Promise me you’ll stay clear of danger,” she insisted tightening her grip around him and remembering the deadly encounter with the rabid dog on their trip back from Warrenton.

“Not only that, but I also promise to bring back the warmest socks and gloves in all of Millbrook for you.”

Katie smiled and loosened her grip around him. “All I want is you to keep me warm.”

Clark waved to the kids standing at the top of the steps of the monastery and got into the vehicle. They waved as he backed out through the gate. Katie watched him lock the gate and drive away.

“Please God, bring him and Sally back to us safe,” she murmured.

The county road was still in relative good shape and within minutes Clark and Sally reached the junction to the scenic road to Millbrook. They slowly drove past the defunct convenience store. The canopy over the rusting fuel pumps looked a little more tilted, its collapse very imminent.

For miles the road was empty and seemed like an endless straight line, rising and falling with the lay of the land. Its gray, sun-bleached asphalt was filled with a web of cracks and a patchwork of old repairs forcing Clark to drive slowly. There were no shoulders. The thick grass grew right along the edges, yet was unable to get a foothold through the cracks and smother the road. Worn out and uneven, it had a certain nostalgic appearance like something from the Depression Era and rural past of their great-grandparents.

Barbed-wire fencing ran parallel on both sides of the road making the trip feel like they were passing through a narrow canal. Clark wondered if Columbus felt as nervous as he did on his journey towards the unknown new world.

To their right among the tall grass of open fields rising towards the foothills an occasional covered cattle feeder stood like a ship floating in a vast mysterious sea. The only discernible livestock were a few deer calmly minding their own business, but staying close to the tree line.

Ten minutes into their ride, buildings started to appear. Clark and Sally were shocked to see that every house, barn and shed had been burned to the ground. They seemed to have been victims to a scorched earth policy to deny shelter to anyone trying to seek a place to stay or escape from the madness in Millbrook.

The road was anything but scenic; the landscape dreary, until they spotted a spherical water tower that looked like a gigantic golf ball nestled atop the distant, fuzzy tree line. From afar, they also saw the first cars obstructing their path into Millbrook.

As they came closer, they realized it was a barricade of staggered vehicles sitting at right angles across the lanes set up to force cars to slowly snake their way through it. It had aspects of a military security setup. Clark’s gut told him that this was a death trap and he knew better not to repeat the harrowing experience he had at the barrier escaping the City years ago.

He swung the car around pointing it back in the direction towards Farrville and exited it to get a closer look at the layout of the barrier. The air was calm, brooding like a spirit over the still surroundings. He crouched low and ducked behind the first car.

The second car sat crosswise over the opposite lane about fifteen feet away. He made a dash for it and peered through the smudged windows to make sure he hadn’t been sighted. He repeated this maneuver remaining crouched and sprinting to the third and then the fourth car where he hunkered down to catch his breath.

The world around him remained silent; even a few solitary clouds appeared to have stopped drifting eastward. His heart however was at full throttle trying to keep up with the adrenalin racing through his body, fear being at the forefront of his mind. He took a deep breath and raised his head enough to see that the next vehicle was a U-Haul box truck straddling the entire left and part of the right lane, allowing very little space even for a small car to navigate around it.

His senses were on high alert as he scanned the tall grass in the ditch and beyond the fence in both directions to detect and defend Sally and himself against any hidden dangers. He checked his rifle again to make sure it was ready to shoot and blast his way out of a sudden ambush. With his back against the car, he slipped to the rear and behind the passenger side fender to assess the truck and the next obstacle.

Propped up against the side of the truck was a ladder. Spent machine gun ammo belts and lots of ammo cartridges littered the pavement around it. The back doors of the truck were swung open and nothing appeared to be inside except a couple of rusted, green metal crates.

The scene forty feet further down to his right confirmed his earlier suspicion of this being a death trap. A double row of cars had been positioned occupying the middle of each lane and the grassy shoulders, leaving a narrow corridor down the center of the road. From his vantage point he saw a bullet riddled car on flat tires stuck like a doomed heifer in a cattle chute.

He grabbed a chunk of loose asphalt and hurled it like a grenade in the direction of the crippled car. It landed on the rusting hood with a loud thump, producing a terrifying commotion from the field behind him. Startled, he turned and pointed his rifle in that direction only to see a flurry of grouse take flight. Once the air around him turned calm again and his heart stopped pounding, he peered from behind the car. There was no one inside the truck nor was there any other movement nearby.

From the front of the column of cars directly facing him, concertina razor wire was strung down into the ditch and across to the barbed wire fence to thwart any attempts to outflank the barricade. Mostly likely the same coils of sharp wire were put in place down the other side of the road. Clark didn’t bother to look, but was certain that there was no way to get through or around the barricade to continue into Millbrook.

He jogged back to the idling vehicle where Sally anxiously awaited his return and assessment.

They were so close to their goal and refused to return home. Instead, they backtracked about a half mile to the nearest driveway on their left and followed it another 200 yards to a burned down farmhouse and barn.

From there, they headed south again through fields of knee high grass, over ditches and around groves of trees. They had to stop several times to open a cattle gate or cut through barbed-wire fencing separating pastures which took more time than they liked. The terrain was bumpy and rough, and the vehicle’s engine and four-wheel drive system strained to negotiate the ruts and clumps of grass. Sally tightened her seat belt and held on for dear life as she was thrown around on the passenger’s seat like a Raggedy Ann doll.

They finally reached a field where the ground was smoother and large round hay bales were dropped in a row with space in between like scoops of cookie dough. At the far end of the field, a line of trees stood between it and a residential subdivision. They drove to a spot where the trees and brush were sparse and the roof of a house was visible. A five-foot chain link fence frustrated their advance. Clark had to use the bolt cutter to cut away a section, and then gunned the vehicle, punching through the opening, leveling underbrush and shrubbery on the other side.

They found themselves in the back yard of a split-level house surrounded by tall grass and weeds. There was no sign of life, and it looked safe to drive around the side of the house and out onto the neighborhood street.

The houses sat quietly on each side of cracked and forgotten neighborhood streets. They were newer than those in Farrville, but everything else looked the same with overgrown lawns and shrubs, debris filled gutters, faded cars atop deflated tires, toys and personal belongings mindlessly left or strewn on cracked and crumbling driveways. As they wound their way through the streets, they wondered what kind of stories lay buried inside each home left behind by each family. Eventually, they found the street that led out of the subdivision and onto a wide tree-lined avenue.

They continued heading south down the broad street passing many older homes set far back from sidewalks. Extensive lawns in front and on both sides of every house with long runway-like driveways showed advanced signs of degradation. Attorney, dental and real-estate offices dotted the neighborhood on both sides. No signs of human life greeted them.

Gradually they entered a stretch with larger commercial buildings, contemporary looking storefronts, wide sidewalks, and retro classic lamp posts. Rusting vehicles that looked like piles of scrap along with many that were burned out littered the drab street. They swerved around fallen traffic lights and those ever-familiar grocery carts scattered about, forming an obstacle course. Most of the stores that had food or other useful items had been broken into and looted a long time ago.