tactical shirt, and a pair of Danner Acadia boots. I was very product loyal. Wrangler, 5.11, and Danner had served me well for several years.
As I said, I wanted to avoid confrontation as much as possible so preventing people from seeing exactly what I had, would keep their curiosity down. My Eberlestock ruck had a rifle scabbard built into the back of the pack. I placed my AR15, barrel down, in the scabbard. I then strapped on my battle belt, knife, and thigh ride pistol holster.
Once my gear was on, I attached my surefire light to my 1911 and placed it into its holster. I pulled the rain cover over my ruck and slung my pack, grabbed my boonie hat, and moved to the door.
I stopped and went over to blow out the candle. I looked around at the home that I lived in for ten years, scanning all my possessions, all the material things I had worked so hard to acquire. The TVs, furniture, movie posters on my walls, all the DVDs, everything was worthless now. I was leaving everything to essentially rot away or be stolen by somebody else. It amazed me how everything was gone in an instant.
I went over to the couch one more time and said my final farewells to Freddy. I blew out the candle, went to the door, and turned the knob, walking out into the unknown.
4
The rain was painful and was blowing almost sideways. It blew straight into my face and felt like hundreds of little needles poking at my skin. The rain and clouds were so thick that it was almost completely dark outside.
I knew the area around my apartment pretty well. I knew which way was north and moved in that direction. As I had hoped, the weather ensured that the streets were clear of people. My pack was heavier than I would have liked, but all the camping trips and repacking had taught me what could be eliminated without taking out what I felt was important. The pack was heavy, but it only contained the necessities, at least what I felt was necessary for my current mission parameters, which in this case was to get home.
The average person can move through the woods with gear and make about six miles a day. I was guessing that I could do about four, maybe five miles a day. By roadway only, Laurel to Indiana, Pennsylvania, was approximately two hundred and forty miles. At five miles a day, that would take me forty-eight days of travel. It would take me a little over a month to get home. That was if I followed the roadways and didn’t stop anywhere for an extended period of time. Traveling cross country would eliminate miles, which would cut some time, which would eliminate days.
I moved as fast as I could without risking injury. My plan was to follow roadways until I was able to get out of town. Then I would move into the woods and navigate by compass the rest of the way. I would move throughout the day and rest at night. I wasn’t going to set up full-blown camps each night. I wasn’t in a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) type situation, but once again, I wanted to avoid detection as much as possible.
I negotiated around apartment buildings and what was now boarded-up businesses. It took me about an hour to get out of town. I had reached the outskirts of the city limits and was entering wooded territory. Once the chances of running into anybody had dropped, I pulled out my AR15, charged a round, and slung the strap over my shoulder. The rain had not let up and was still coming down pretty good. I decided to stay with the highways and move along the wood lines that ran perpendicular to the roadways, staying hidden among the trees and using them as cover. This would keep me out of town as much as possible.
Shortly, the sun started to come up, but with the rain, it stayed gray out. Once I could really start to see, I would be able to move a little easier and, subsequently, faster.
There were cars everywhere, stalled out all along the roadway. I needed to be careful. Cars stalled in the roadway, could also be used as ambush spots for people looking to attack travelers. The abandoned cars sat at all different angles, left to rust where they sat. It was the beginning of the third week into this thing, so the drivers had already left, looking for some shelter or a way to get home.
After a couple of hours, the rain stopped, and the sun finally started to shine. I had been on the road now for about three hours, so I decided that it was a good time to take a break. I looked around the wood line for a decent-sized tree. Although it had been raining, the ground under a big tree would be fairly dry.
I was able to find a large pine tree, with an abundance of soft, brown pine needles under it. I dropped my pack, dug out my army canteen, and took a couple of long pulls. The sun was out strong now, so I decided to also dig out my sunglasses, which I had in a pouch strapped to the outside of my pack. I would get hot and sweaty as it was, but the rain suit would have made things worse, so I took it off and repacked it in my ruck. I was starting to feel hungry, but I really needed to watch my food consumption, so eating now was out. I also decided to change my clothes. I took off the civilian clothes I had on and changed into 5.11 real tree camo pants and shirt. I folded my civilian clothes and placed them into a waterproof bag and put them into my ruck. The real tree camos would be my primary clothing for the rest of this trip.
The birds were out now, singing to anyone or anything that would listen, oblivious to the new world. I sat and listened to them sing, relaxing for a few minutes under the tree.
After about a twenty-minute break, I repacked my canteen and shrugged my pack back on. The humidity had started to get thick after the sun started to dry up the rain. As I walked, my mind started to wonder, and I started to think about things. I thought about my parents, and how now, after the fact, I was happy that they weren’t around anymore. They would have never been able to survive something like this. My mom, June, was a great woman with a heart of gold, but she was never able to understand the evil that the human species was able to inflict on each other. She would not have understood the need to defend herself, and what people would have done to take what she had. Dad, his name was Bob, just never believed something like this could happen. When he passed away, he still had the farm I grew up on. I had talked to him several times about using the space and the land he had to store and grow food that he would need to survive something like this. But he just never took the initiative to do it. For their sake, I was glad they were gone.
My sister, Cari, had died in a car accident about a year after my parents had passed. She bought herself a scooter and was on her way to work when somebody in a Dodge truck, who wasn’t paying attention, ran into her. The driver of the truck had been doing about seventy miles an hour when he hit her. The doctors said she had died instantly, so she didn’t suffer.
I never really felt alone. Even though my immediate family was gone, I still had family left. The only family I really had now were my best friends Josh, Mike, and their families. I met both of them when I worked with the sheriff’s department.
Indiana, Pennsylvania, is roughly located in the center of Indiana County and can be found just east of Pittsburgh. In 2013, Indiana became part of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area and established itself as the “Christmas Tree Capital of the World.” The National Christmas Tree Growers Association was founded there, and a large number of Christmas tree farms can still be found in the area. Until this event took place, Indian University of PA was located there and was the largest employer in the area.
For years, the biggest industry in the area was coal mining, but mines began to close, creating an ongoing economic difficulty.
Indiana was also the hometown of veteran and actor, Jimmy Stewart. Although he left the town right after high school, the town had continued to support his career. A museum was built in his memory shortly before his death, and a bronze statue of Stewart could be found at the county courthouse.
Josh,
