They waited a few minutes and then they came across a few cars and old tow truck parked in an auto shop. Blake placed a device on the back of the tow truck. He said, “One left, Mr. Haliday.”
“Call me Roger, ok Blake.”
“Um, ok Roger.” It sounded odd. They looked down the street, too many candles glowing in windows, which meant too many people down there.
Haliday looked around. Blake said “look,” and pointed across the street. There outside another repair garage were six golf carts. Haliday said, “Go over there and put it on one of the carts.” Blake looked around and then darted across the street. He had just placed the box on the back of one of the carts when another vehicle approached. Blake ducked down low.
The vehicle pulled into the lot. They swept the area with a spotlight. Haliday got his rifle ready. Someone jumped out from the vehicle. It looked like an old Blazer. Haliday was praying Blake was well hidden. The guy who jumped out walked up to the door and peered inside. He then walked back to the Blazer and climbed in. They sat there for a minute.
Haliday kept watch, but reached down and hit a button on his ham and changed frequencies. All he heard was the end of a sentence. “It’s all secured at this time.” He changed the frequency back. The Blazer pulled out of the lot and took off. Haliday told Blake to wait a few minutes.
“You expect them to come back?”
“No, I want the aroma to clear out from you crapping your pants.”
Blake waited just a couple minutes, then bolted back across the street. “No, I didn’t crap my pants, almost, but I didn’t.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here now.” They worked their way back toward the river. Once they got there, they started the trek back to the bikes. It was almost nine now. They took another half an hour to make it back to the bikes.
They were about 50 yards away when they saw a flashlight. They dropped down low immediately. The light came nearer and nearer and they heard voices.
“We’re going to be in trouble.”
“No we’re not, only if they catch us.”
“It’s way past curfew and plus Mom will be mad.”
“We had to go, she won’t mind.” They went back and forth.
“They aren’t the police anyway. I don’t know who put them in charge.”
“Well they are in charge and whether we like it or not that’s how it is. If they catch us with food they’ll shoot us.”
“We didn’t steal it, we left a note. It’s our aunt’s house and they aren’t home. I don’t think they would care.” The kids were maybe 14 or 15, and sounded like brothers. They walked right by Blake and Haliday, but didn’t see them.
After about another 15 minutes they got up and finished heading back to the bikes. Blake asked if he thought they would really shoot those kids. “I don’t doubt it a bit. I hope they make it home. They have about 20 minutes before the fireworks start.” They sat down and waited. They heard a decent explosion. Now it had started.
They got up and secured their gear and got on the bikes. They pushed them to the river bank and waited again. The second device exploded and they started the bikes and headed along the river toward town. They put the bikes down and watched the activity. They saw two vehicles near the fires and a third coming down the road.
The third device detonated and now it looked like the Keystone Kops were in action. These guys didn’t know what to do. They were running around their vehicles and talking into their radios. Haliday couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. Everyone was trying to talk at once.
They were pointing in every direction and barking orders at each other. The fourth device detonated and two vehicles shot toward there. A fourth truck showed up and went down to the garage where the golf carts were. They tried to use fire extinguishers, but that didn’t help. The ham was blaring away.
“These pricks blew up the repair garage. The golf carts are all on fire. We can’t put them out. We saw some of them head north. We’re going to send a couple patrols after them.” Haliday was amused. Who the hell saw what, he thought, but then again the moonlight, flames and the dark night made for some great optical illusions. If they thought they saw something, more power to them.
All of a sudden everyone ran away from the repair shop. In just a matter of about two more minutes, there was a big explosion and flames were everywhere. One of their trucks had caught fire from this explosion as well. Blake and Haliday just looked at each other and wondered what the hell happened. Blake hadn’t noticed the 100 gallon portable tank sitting there.
“Those sons of bitches blew up a fuel tank. Damn near blew up all of our trucks too. Looks like Jim’s Blazer is toast. We need to find these sons of bitches now. I’ll be damned if they think they’re going to run around in my region and pull this terrorist shit on us. Don’t let me find out people are helping them or I’ll shoot them too.”
Haliday looked at Blake; they hit the road and took off. Coincidentally they were heading to Port Austin, where the family from the tornado shelter was from. Haliday had a few fond memories of this area. He had taken Kayla camping there a couple times as a small girl, old fashioned tent, hotdogs, sitting around the fire eating smores.
Another time David, Rich and one of David’s friends and he had chartered a fishing boat and spent the day catching lake trout. The water had been rough, but they insisted on going out and had a great day on the lake. Those were good times. Life was simple then, he thought, and before he knew it they were there.
They pulled in behind a large billboard. Haliday climbed up to the platform which actually wasn’t very high and pulled out a roll of hundred mile an hour tape. He wished he had spray paint for this but it was never really on his list of preps except for some basic colors of rustoleum to keep at the house. It took him about 15 minutes, but he finished it and it would have to do.
After climbing down he looked at Blake, “You get the next one.”
“That hard of a climb, old man?” Haliday figured it was time to shake him up a bit and keep him focused.
“No, too easy of a target up there.” Blake’s smirk disappeared instantly. They went down the road about half a mile. Haliday found a stalled out car. Old Chevy station wagon. He was surprised it was still on the road, so he didn’t feel bad about what he was going to do.
Haliday opened the fuel door. He dropped a model rocket engine down inside about six inches. The igniter was attached to one of his last two alarm clocks, complete with nine volt battery. The alarm would hit, the rocket would shoot down into the tank and another nice little fire would occur. They took off and found another billboard. Blake grabbed the tape and asked Haliday what he wanted him to put up there.
Haliday chuckled. He was thinking of Red Dawn. “Put ‘Wolverines’ up there,” he said. “That ought to make their day.”
“Ok,” Blake said; he climbed up and went to work. As soon as he was done, they moved a little ways down the road and found another stalled out vehicle. This one was a conversion van. This thing would burn like a champ with all that plywood and upholstery inside. He opened one of the back doors to make sure the flames reached inside. Haliday rigged this one up too.
He went over to his bike and opened a saddle bag. He reached in and pulled out a small bag and walked around and tossed the contents on the ground. This was all done to add to the illusion. Keep up the appearance of more than two guys doing this. “Now it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
They followed the shoreline road along the east side of the thumb. Just past a little town called White Rock they went into a wooded area. There hadn’t been anyone up this far that they had seen and they were hoping most of the militia was over by Oliver and checking out that area.