Free Dark Days Rough Roads by Matthew D. Mark Page B

life, but you would
justify it with the “It was them or us” thought process. There would be anger
because the person made you do this and you didn’t want to. There would be
sadness you could not associate with anything at all. Sleepless nights would
occur at first, but you would eventually get past it. You would get physically
sick and probably throw up. But after time, you would learn to live with it.
You would never forget it, but you would learn to live with it.
    Dawn
snapped back from remembering this story, grabbed a trash bag out of the
kitchen and went upstairs to her room, where she took the clothes off and put
them in the trash bag. She put on fresh clothes and went downstairs, where she
tossed the bag in the laundry room. She wasn’t sure if she should wash or burn
them. She told her mom and sister to either go change and get ready for some
breakfast or just head to the kitchen because they needed to get a lot done and
get it done as soon as they could.
    Everyone
was sitting at the table now, they had boiled up some water and made some
instant oatmeal and sat there eating. Her sister asked her what they had to do.
Dawn went to the living room and grabbed her notebook. She had a list—she had
lists for everything. She always wanted to know what to do and what she needed
to have. She didn’t quite have everything they needed, but at least they were
ahead of the curve.
    She liked
the name sheeple she had read and heard on occasion. The sheeple were going to
be in big trouble. It was the sheeple she was preparing for. They were also
going to be a big problem for those who had taken the time, energy and money,
and had prepared for whatever event would change their lives forever.
    “Time to
get to work,” she said. “First things first.” She hated that saying. Wouldn’t
first things always be first? Just like “It is what it is?” Another one she
hated. She thought the degradation of the English language was a big part of
why this country was turning out the way it was. She remembered stores and gas
stations being closed on holidays. People attending church and not just on the
holidays. TV being clean and fun.
    Her
favorite show was Leave it to Beaver . Haliday said he watched it as a
kid and she remarked, "It’s good isn’t it?" He burst her bubble by
saying he and his friends only watched it because of the pointy bras and boobs
like June Cleaver used to have. That drove her nuts. Haliday drove her nuts. He
always had something to say. The good old days, she thought.
    She was
trying to keep herself busy thinking of these things, but soon enough the work
around the house would do that. She opened the garage door and grabbed some
wood. Haliday had helped her make the window covers he used. They got busy
putting these on the windows of the lower level. It took two of them and
sometimes all three, especially with the door wall to the patio. The lower
level was finished. They took a quick break, then readied themselves for more.
    The
upstairs windows were hard to get to. Only the two smaller bedrooms had an eave
under them, with the rest being out of reach. They added a couple more dowels
to keep them secured and then retrieved some fire extinguishers from the
basement to place by each upper window. The two windows over the eave could be
access points, so these they handled differently. Since they actually provided
a very good line of sight for the front of the house, they used quarter inch
thick Plexiglas, which was secured in a frame that had a couple boards across
the middle for strength.
    The eave
itself would have a few surprises itself. Haliday had taken some two and a half
inch nails and painted them black. He then took some heavy duty tar paper and
pushed the nails up through them. The pieces of tar paper were trimmed down
enough to slide up under the shingles and there were 60 of these ready to go.
The eave was a mere 20 feet wide and only 4 feet deep, so there were plenty of
foot and knee pokers.