Free American Apocalypse Wastelands by Nova

were being built. The plan was that people would participate in the building and earn stakeholder privileges. Whether the government would ever allow people to leave once the communities were done was never mentioned.
    The government did not want everyone driving to the assembly points. If refugees brought their vehicles, they might cling to the idea that they could keep them and use them. When they discovered they couldn’t, well, the Feds would inherit thousands of abandoned cars. Who needed the headache?
    The solution was to send buses into neighborhoods to pick up the people who wanted a new life. They would be sent to the Planned Community Holding Area assigned for their zip code.
    Unfortunately, the system didn’t work quite as it was supposed to. Then again, it was new and it involved the potential relocation of more than a million people. As with most government programs, it soon became clear that you could game the system. What sparked the gaming was the populace’s realization that certain camps were better than others. The Movers were those folks who managed to relocate to a nicer zip code just before the scheduled assembly.

    We were counting on the confusion and the government’s failure to execute the program as planned to help us get clear of the Zone and into what they were now calling the Badlands.
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    To my surprise there were more people moving into the Zones than out. For some, it was the direction of the new “promised land.” But none of the Movers seemed to be well equipped for what they were trying to do, nor in shape to do it.
    We began to find lots of useless belongings jettisoned along the trail. The stuff looked as if it had been dropped wherever people were standing when they decided “to hell with carrying this another foot.” No attempt had been made to toss things into the grass or bushes. Some of what we came across included fancy rugs, lamps, a plasma TV, and a lot of clothes. A vacuum cleaner stood out for the total stupidity of hauling such crap. Basically, it was the contents of a yard sale, repeated over and over. The Tree People may have found a use for some of the stuff. At the very least they could resell it at a local market. We encountered a few of them working the trail for the trash.
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    Night had point the next time we ran into a group of Movers. She insisted on walking point. I was not happy about it, but that was the way it was. It looked to be a twofamily group. They were white, clueless, and, like most Mover groups, totally unprepared. They were headed back the way we had come. Night gave us the FREEZE AND FADE sign. We did. I don’t think the group even saw us until they were almost on top of us. One of the kids saw Night but didn’t say anything. She just stared.

    The kid—my guess, she was about seven—looked to be the only one in the group who was enjoying herself. She had been walking, skipping, and hopping her way down the trail. Her Hello Kitty backpack was not much of an encumbrance. The stuffed rabbit that poked out of it was probably the heaviest thing she was carrying.
    The adults, especially the females, looked very unhappy. It was hot and they were all packing extra weight in rolls of fat around their waists and asses. So were the men, one of whom looked like a prime candidate for a heart attack. They weren’t walking so much as doing a heads-down, sullen trudge to the promised land.
    They wore daypacks, probably leftover school backpacks from the kids, and pulled Samsonite luggage. The little wheels had probably been adequate when the trail was asphalt. It no longer was, and one suitcase had already come off its rollers. It didn’t stop the woman, who dragged it behind her anyway.
    The leader, a white male in his forties, had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. One of the other men had a holstered semiautomatic pistol in a SWAT-style holster. As he was the one who looked on the edge of cardiac