Chapter 6

Mike didn't feel like it was his fault that the young 18 year old Maria was all smiles in the morning. Ginnie was not in the least bit upset and organized breakfast like she used to do in the old days. When he saw the amount of food the seven mouths consumed at a single meal, he realized they needed to start getting hot on laying in provisions just in case they got in a bind.

Their back door on the North was not a good direction to go on a search. The band of looters from Los Angeles were squatting in the frightened small town and terrorizing the surviving residents. There had to be at least 40 of the scum living off the stuff they stole from travelers and using the females for their pleasure. The transients were only trying to find a safe place away from the horrors of the hordes of crazy people using the law of the jungle as their only guide.

This town was not what they were looking for.

He decided to take Maria with him to act as an interpreter if one was needed. More and more of the transients and even the original survivors were Spanish-speaking and filled with distrust for the non-Spanish-speaking "others". Wesley was coming with him armed with the shotgun. He gave one of the small .22LR automatics to Maria and told her to use it only for defense. He had the Henry break-down .22LR rifle but carried it fully assembled and ready for action. The remaining weapons he left back at the cave with Ginnie, Tom and the two girls, Heather and his daughter Wendy. He opted not to take either of the .45s with him because they were heavy and the ammo was limited.

Maria was in a feisty mood fully restored after a night of "spooning" and Wesley was chomping at the bit to find out what was happening in the "outside" world. Mike got them pointed in the right direction and they headed back downstream to the paved road running from the highway intersection back into the deserted emptiness of the foothills. There was no sign of any activity at the fallen bridge or at the non-working farmhouse. They approached the paved road cautiously waiting almost an hour before emerging from hiding in the tall weeds.

Mike wanted to head inland to the small towns that dotted the desert terrain next to the paved road. Wesley thought it would be more productive to head back to the highway. He thought about his son's use of the word "productive" and decided that perhaps he was correct in predicting their chances of making contact with others would be in that direction. Yet he was not altogether certain if that was their objective. It would probably be better if they just scouted for provisions or indications of what was going on rather than experiencing face to face contact with unknown parties.

He let Wesley have his way despite his better judgment because he had become obstinately adamant about it.

Maria just sat in the dust with a little smile on her face.

They walked for about an hour and a half before they heard clanking sounds just ahead around a blind corner. Mike waved them all to the ditch and he crouched there with a rapidly beating heart. His adrenalin was working overtime. He didn't say anything to either of them but he was certain it sounded just like a tank maneuvering to get a different angle of fire or move into a different position. At that moment, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He scouted ahead staying in the ditch and raised his head enough to see a roadblock on the road pointed in their direction. There were two tanks in defilade on each side of the road and a couple of CP tents under the trees. The soldiers seemed lethargic and bored but still dangerously on the ready.

Several abandoned vehicles were in the empty field on the far side of the blockade. They ranged from sub-compact cars made in some foreign country to big pick-up trucks with a battered look about them. It looked to him like the troops were stopping and collecting up any "strays" from the aftermath of the short and deadly confrontation with North Korea and Venezuela. He was not aware of it yet, but they had been joined by landing ships from Cuba carrying platoons of Marxist trained terrorists striking into the Gulf port cities all the way from Texas to Florida. These incursions had to be fought off with local police and National Guard units with local resources. The virtually "untouched" cities of Detroit and Cleveland and even Chicago were subjected to uprisings of fanatical Islamic extremists who were determined to eliminate the USA as a world power. Actually, those were the easiest to subdue because their very fanaticism led them into stupid confrontations against overwhelming odds. For some unexplainable reason, people of color tended to stay aloof from the conflict as if saying,

"This ain't my fight!"

On the other hand, the black soldiers were well trained and were entirely effective in combatting the enemy on all sides. Of course, Mike and his group were not aware of all this and were only concerned with their own survival.

A large truck with the familiar logo of a well-known rental company approached the blockade coming from the direction of the foothills. The tanks whirred as they followed the truck with their turrets turning slowly. Nobody was visible on or near the tanks. A soldier who was unmistakably an officer stood in the middle of the road flanked by two enlisted men with rifles at the ready.

The driver jumped down from the cab.

It was a female who was obviously pregnant. She talked excitedly with her hands but Mike was too far away to hear the conversation. They all walked around to the back of the truck and she rolled up the door. He could see inside and saw that it filled with people who had been injured in one way or another being tended by several females with medical equipment. The soldiers all backed away from the truck and then a squad of hazmat suited soldiers ran down from one of the CP tents with some kind of spraying devices to decontaminate the area around the truck and even the woman on the ground. The woman was shouting now and Mike could hear her pleas for mercy. They pushed her into the back of the truck and one of the hazmat guys drove the truck to the edge of the field. Two suited soldiers turned their flame throwers onto the truck causing it to explode with a sudden whoosh of sucked in air. Not a single person emerged from the back and the truck slowly melted with the extreme heat.