Chapter 2
Sidney, Ohio
It was early morning. Elijah had just came out of an abandoned car he slept in, that was left in the middle of the southbound side of Interstate-75. Elijah walked southbound down a four-lane highway that once was a continual river of car and truck traffic, flowing in unison like a massive moving parking lot.
Those days were gone. Now the freeway was quiet. There was no traffic, because the gas had long ago ran out. Even if there were some gas, the road was blocked with thousands of abandoned vehicles. By now most were inoperable. If the vehicles were not burned out, then there was typically a hole punched in the bottom of the drained out gas tank. There was a period of time when gas became completely unavailable, that people would kill to get just to get a gallon.
Looking back on those extremely violent days, what did it gain the killers? Those who they killed, often innocent, died a horrible violent death. Meanwhile, the killers were able to live a little while longer. Their ill-gotten gain was probably soon squandered just to make their murderous life a little less problematic for a short while.
Marauders were still out there. Everywhere; and Elijah knew it. Thieves and killers were always watching. That is all they had to do with their time. Look for someone to kill, rob, and perhaps, to eat.
Surveying the road up ahead, Elijah pondered whether to continue on, or hide out until nightfall. The road was elevated compared to the built-up city on both sides of the road. He would be clearly visible on both sides of the road. If he chose to walk on the far side of the road, he may only be visible on that side.
Elijah knew how it would be if he hid out. He had done it before. He would lay around all day tormented by boredom and hunger. He knew that if he chose to lay under a car or in a culvert then he would be arguing with himself all day which was worse; boredom, or death.
Elijah had provisions in his backpack that his friend, "Angel" had prepared for him, but the pack was intentionally packed light. The load was heavy enough with all of the extra water he packed. The quantity of provisions were at best only good for a one-way trip down to Cincinnati, which was the goal.
Back when all of the trouble really started to get serious, Elijah and his wife, Aliyah, wanted to leave Detroit, and go to Cincinnati. In fact, Cincinnati was going to be their retirement destination all along, even before the trouble. They wanted to go there, because Cincy was where their daughter, Rene, and her husband Matt lived. If only they had left for Cincinnati a day sooner, because they never made it.
The Dollar became worthless and the wheels totally fell off of the economy. The complex economic system started to unravel, with no one left on the payroll to fix it. People started running out of gas. They abandoned their cars in the middle of the busiest highways because they had to. So more cars were blocked on the road with no way out.
The cities became enveloped in violence. People who lived under the notion that they were to be taken care of by government felt as if they "deserved" food, a comfortable home, and all creature comforts, on the basis that they simply didn't have any of it. These needs were seen as an entitlement that would be vigorously pursued, even if they had to use violence to take from all of the other have-nots. The days of depending upon government were over.
So they Elijah and Aliyah, along with their friend, Henry, were running out of gas back then and had to stop somewhere, they wound up in a little place called Crawfordton. It was supposed to be a one night emergency visit, but the night turned into a sojourn, which turned into a permanent residence.
Then Elijah, Aliyah, and Henry got caught up in various armed conflicts and war. The wars started out as a million tribes in the US who were killing each other just for the chance to try to survive on things not being made any more. Now many of the clans were consolidating into larger, but still weak and untrustworthy factions.
Most Americans had perished in all of the violence before they had a chance to starve to death. Those who remained were those who were either of a strong breed, or exceedingly evil, willing to violate any taboo.
The most intolerable thing to Elijah was that Aliyah was still there, back in Crawfordton. Elijah knew that everyone thought his journey south to Cincinnati was pure folly. In his head he could not mentally argue with them. His heart, his love for his daughter, said "go on".
If they could have just travelled a couple of more hours in the car. . .
Elijah noticed a man up ahead walking on the road. The man clearly had seen him. The guy was wearing a coat and. . . some kind scarf on his face. Was this some guy a lone bandit? Elijah reasoned that bandits did not need to hide their identity since there was not much in the way of law enforcement for any bandit to worry about.
The guy up ahead was also carrying a rifle. But being armed only made him normal. Elijah could see the guy in the distance, and realized that when he compared the man's position to an abandoned car along the road, they were walking in the same direction, at roughly the same speed.
Maybe if there was trouble up ahead, the scarf guy would run into it first. So maybe it would be good to keep a fair distance, to stay away from predators, or perhaps even the scarf guy.
This tactic continued for what seemed like a couple of hours. They were both walking at about the same pace. The road was warming up in the sun and felt good on the old, tired feet. But each step forward was another one that would have to be taken to get back.
There was a cluster of cars up ahead in the middle of the road. Scarf guy was just walking in among them. It would take five minutes or so for Elijah to progress to that point.
Elijah thought of the reports he had gotten from the area directly south long before he left on the journey. The stories were sobering. It seemed the chances of Rene and Matt being alive was fairly remote. Was he throwing his life aw. . .
"You lookin' for me mister!?" It was scarf guy pointing a gun at Elijah's face.
Elijah froze in place and tried to catch his breath. "Not really."
"Well, it seems like you've been following me pretty close for the longest time."
"We're just going the same way, friend."
"How do I know you're a friend?"
"How else would you expect me to talk, given the gun and all."
"At least you are honest about that."
"C'mon man, you aren't carrying anything. You're not much of a target to rob. On the other hand, you do look like a robber to me."
"If I was a robber, you'd be robbed."
"So, you're not a robber?"
The man moved closer.
"Easy now," Elijah said.
"Shut up and keep your hands up!" He moved even closer, wary of Elijah having a weapon.
Elijah didn't warn him again. But Elijah didn't grab his own pistol, which was holstered on a belt under his long coat. Instead he grabbed the stranger's rifle.
They both tried to seize control of the rifle. Both of the men had both hands on it. Elijah was driven backwards into one of the cars with a slam. Items in his back pack dug into his back. Both men refused to let go of the rifle. Elijah gathered himself. He was pinned up against the car.
"Let go. . . of. . . it!" the stranger commanded.
Elijah had no leverage to push back. But when he looked into the eyes of his adversary, he saw no real fight in him. Elijah relied upon his hand-to-hand combat training as a Iraq War veteran and a Detroit Police officer to out maneuver his much younger assailant. He pulled the rifle down with one hand and up with the other, spinning the rifle so the stranger crossed his arms and had to let go.
This move caused Elijah to turn his body, and his hip was exposed to his foe, and his coat opened. As the man let go of the rifle, he easily reached down and pulled the pistol out of Elijah's holster. The stranger then pointed the pistol back at Elijah.
Elijah quickly pointed the rifle back at the long haired panting man. Elijah realized that his trusty method of taking the gun should have been done in the opposite direction so his pistol would have been out of his opponent's reach. Elijah said, "We aren't making much progress here."
"Au Contraire. That rifle is empty."
Elijah pointed the rifle to the ground. Click. "So, you couldn't have shot me anyway, but now you have the gun and you still didn't shoot me." Elijah put the empty .22 rifle down and started walking down the road away from the man. "Okay, we're good."
"What?! Hey!. . .No! You better stop! I'm the one with the gun! Hey! I said get back here!" He tried to keep up with Elijah.
"I want that back, by the way," Elijah said.
"No! It's mine now!"
Elijah said, "You should go get your rifle."
The man scrambled back to get the rifle, while trying to point the pistol at Elijah.
Elijah asked, "Are you weird or something? That scarf is nasty looking." The white scarf had dried blood all over it.
"No, it's not a scarf. It's a bandage."
Elijah stopped and took a good look at it. "Sorry. It's not very well wrapped for a bandage. Let me fix it."
"No! Keep back!"
"Have it your way." Elijah was not sure how much effort to invest in this stranger. "Where you headed?"
"I gotta go to Kentucky."
A short while later, Elijah asked, "So what's your name?"
"Does it really matter?"
"That's a weird name."
"Jason."
"I'm Elijah Williams."
They walked several more minutes in silence. The interstate took them through the industrial part of Sidney, now all abandoned.
Elijah said, "Maybe once we get out of this section, we could go get some road salad."
"That's all I ever eat. I'm surprised I'm not green now, on top of everything else."
"You mean your neck?"
"Yea."
"What is it?"
"I have no idea."
"I bet my wife would know. She's a doctor."
"Really? Where is she?"
"Well you'd have to go back the other way about twenty miles."
"Maybe I should. This thing on my neck might kill me. But I'm trying to get to Kentucky."
"Family?"
"Yea."
"Well, Jason, you can go north and see the doctor and then convalesce, then walk back, maybe healthy. Or, you can keep going south and would be at least forty miles further south and still have who knows how far to go."
"You got me thinkin'." Jason kept walking southward. "Your wife got the medicine to heal me up if she does know what it is?"
"Not likely."
"Well then."
So they kept walking. They reached the southern side of Sidney's former industrial area.
"Over there looks like a good place to forage," Jason said.
"Okay."
The men were able to find some greens worthy of consumption. This time of year any vegetation found that was leftover from summer was bitter, but tolerating some of the bitterness was something that could be gotten used to.
Jason said, "I'm tired." An abandoned luxury car along the road provided an inviting place to bed down for a nap. He got into the back seat.
"Mind if I join you?" Elijah asked.
"It's a free. . .State," Jason said.
Elijah figured out how to recline the passenger seat in front and sat down.