Trev ignored him, glaring at the officers rifling through their packs. Matt saw with uneasiness that the older officer had put away his gun to draw out a smaller, plastic device with a blunt square tip. A taser. That was even worse, wasn’t it? The policeman might not just outright shoot someone who hadn’t done anything, but he probably wouldn’t be as shy about using a stun gun.
Incredibly enough, Trev kept going. “We’re just trying to get to his family and bring them home, and you’re going to make that almost impossible for us? Don’t people already have enough problems?”
The wiry officer glared at him, finger shifting slightly on the trigger. “Going to get violent, tough guy? I could picture you at one of the riots throwing a brick at my head.”
Oh no. Oh no no no. They were so going to end up in jail. Why couldn’t Trev just shut up? “We’ll get to I-15 as quickly as we can and follow it the entire way,” Matt said hastily, trying to sound calm. “Can we go?”
The older officer watched Trev with narrowed eyes. “You know, son, I’m tempted to call a van over and have you hauled off to Point of the Mountain. That’s the camp where all the rioters are hauled after we round them up. You want to paint us as the bad guys just like everyone else, but you’ll notice that I haven’t tased you yet. Even though I’m very, very tempted.”
Trev looked like he had something to say to that, but by some miracle he kept his mouth shut and looked away instead.
Matt spoke for him. “He won’t cause any problems, officer, I promise.”
The policeman dragged his eyes away from Trev and glanced over at him. Matt felt like a criminal under that considering gaze, and it was all he could do not to hunch his shoulders. Finally the man nodded. “I wouldn’t stay too long in the valley. The public unrest is only going to get worse from here on out.”
He nodded back, feeling a surge of relief. “Thank you.” The officers finished rooting through the clothes and camp equipment still in their packs, then gathered up the food, knives, and guns and walked away. Trev knelt and began shoving his remaining possessions back into his pack, and after a moment Matt followed suit. As quickly as possible they slung their packs over their shoulders, not even bothering to belt them, and started through the roadblock towards the onramp leading to I-15.
Matt felt like he was walking past an unchained rottweiler as he edged around the patrol cars, doing his best not to make any threatening moves or come too close to the glaring officers. After they were past the roadblock Trev came up alongside him, then quickened his pace and pulled ahead.
Matt hurried to catch up to his friend, who said nothing. The look on Trev’s face was curiously blank, the only sign of emotion his white-knuckled grip on the straps of his pack as they followed the ramp onto the merging lane. Matt didn’t blame him: he was pretty pissed off himself.
After a few minutes of incredibly oppressive, temper-thick silence he cleared his throat. “I bet you think this is my fault.”
Trev laughed harshly. “No, you did the right thing. Duck and cower, jump to help them as they rob you blind, make your friend sound like a crazed lunatic when he protests and tries to defend our rights, then thank them when they mercifully let you go rather than hauling you off to a prison camp for the horrible crime of walking down the street.”
Matt’s anger boiled over. “I didn’t have to make you sound like a crazed lunatic, you idiot. We might have convinced them to let us keep our food if you hadn’t called officers of the law robbers.” No response. “Besides, at least now we won’t have to worry about running into armed thugs.”
“Aside from the ones we just ran into?” Trev laughed again. “You don’t get it, do you? Real criminals will all still have their guns because they know how to keep them hidden. Everything those policemen think they’re doing to “protect” us only serves to make honest citizens helpless while mildly inconveniencing real criminals.”
Matt resisted the urge to snap back. It was starting to sink in that unless April and Terry still had their food storage it was going to be an awfully long, hungry trip the rest of the way and back. He was already feeling the first pangs just thinking of it, and the thought of what lay ahead made him feel queasy. Had he ever in his life gone more than a day without eating?
“I guess we’ll be walking on I-15 up to Midvale after all.”
“Did you finally change your mind?” Matt asked, unable to help himself. “Or are you doing some ducking and cowering of your own obeying the police officers’ directions to stay on the Interstate?”
Surprisingly Trev didn’t rise to the bait this time. “Our weapons and food are gone. We don’t have anything to steal anymore so it doesn’t matter if we walk right through refugee groups wishing them a nice day. But at least we have your talents of persuasion to keep us from getting shot in the head now that we’re unable to defend ourselves.”
“Well you’re just full of sunshine and rainbows, aren’t you?” Matt demanded.
“Sorry, I just got robbed at gunpoint because you wanted to go through a police roadblock in a riot zone. All so I can help you find your family, who might not even be home when we get up there and could be literally anywhere among millions of people on the move. I really should try harder to keep a positive attitude.”
Matt wanted to stay pissed off but his friend had a point. After all the stupid things Trev had just said and done, though, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. He just fell silent and kept walking, at least for five minutes or so as Trev fumed beside him. Then he remembered. “We’re not completely defenseless,” he said, pausing to dig in his pack. As his friend watched he pulled out a couple cans of bear spray and tucked one into his pocket where he could get to it fast, holding the other out.
Trev took it, looking slightly mollified. “I’m surprised they didn’t take these too.”
“Me too, actually. They’ll be better than nothing.”
“So now we just have to worry about starving to death.”
For the love of… would his friend ever let up? “Yes, we have to worry about starving. I guess we’ll just have to forage for food on the way.”
“No foraging,” Trev replied, ignoring his tone. “We don’t have time, it would be dangerous to look, and after all this time you’d have to be an idiot to assume there’s food to be found in the city without serious searching. Not to mention that any food we did find would be heavily guarded. Get ready to go hungry, and remember that a human can survive three weeks without food. We’ll worry about eating once we’ve got your sister’s family safely out of the cities.”
Matt made a face. “We’re going to be walking that entire time, we need something or we won’t have the energy to keep going. Have any ideas?” He tried to sound snide, but it was sort of ruined by the fact that he really, really hoped his friend actually did have some.
To his surprise Trev nodded. “You saw my abandoned car along Highway 6, right? Well I might not have mentioned that it had a ton of food in it that I had to leave behind.”
It was hard not to laugh out loud as relief surged through him, and Matt felt all the anger and tension that had built up during the confrontation with the policemen and since fading away. He threw an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Seriously? That’s amazing!” His smile abruptly vanished. “Wait a minute though, your car was completely trashed. There’s nothing in there.”
“Doesn’t matter. I cached the stuff.” Trev abruptly stopped and turned to face him. “But now we’ve got a decision to make. Do we go back and crack into the cache or do we keep going to Midvale, find your family and get them out of populated areas, and grab the cache on the way down?”