Dystopia: The Long Road by DJ Cooper Page A

me.”
    Rita looked up saying, “What’s that?”
    Amy responded, “If she and Matt have been carrying on like you say, then why did she bring Kevin with her?”
    Rita said, “I don’t know why, but he tolerates her whoring.  I think he just loves her although I don’t know why.  I’m sure she wants something from him because that is what she does, I think most likely it is because he has been friends with Matt for many years and it would look odd for her to be going there without him.”
    Amy nodded and said, “I’m sorry Rita, I don’t know what to make of all this yet, but we only had Matt’s word on things until now.  I hope you’re wrong about all this.”
    Rita looked at her defensively saying, “You don’t have to believe me, but just watch your back.  She is a liar and a home wrecker, if she can sleep with any of these guys along the way she will… John included.”
    On the other side of the fire John saw Amy go over to where Rita was and nodded.  He and Dickie were talking with Mark, Ray and Roger about their destination. 
    He wasn’t listening when Dickie nudged him asking, “So what do you think of the comm's mate?”
    John looked startled and said, “What? Oh, sorry, what did you say?’
    Dickie sighed and said, “CB’s?  I think we need to find some CB radios for each vehicle. The only problem with CB's is they ain't secure comm's, so we will need to come up with some system of switching channels so we can't be monitored”
    John said, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” 
    Re-joining the conversation they were having about the trip, John said, “We are going to need to try and avoid the cities, so we are going to have to think creatively to find them.”
    Ray said. “We should look where semi-trucks park many of them have CB’s, and if we stick to fleets of trucks we could know where we got them so if things go back to normal, we would return them.”
    They all agreed that it was a good idea, but none believed things were going to go back to what one would call normal any time soon.  They sat looking at the map, realizing they had made little progress on their journey.  Knowing it would be even harder as they continued because Ray and Roger were sure to be found AWOL by now and could not get them through roadblocks anymore.
    Deciding to head south in the morning, out and around Binghamton down into Pennsylvania. The thought was that if they could get over to route 92, it would take them far west of Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Not really knowing much in the way of news they decided to adjust as they needed to along the way.
    It was getting quite dark and Kevin and Danny had not returned from fishing.  John walked over to the lake to find them.  They had already caught twenty-three fish and cleaned them as well.  They were already getting the tackle and poles ready to head to camp by the time John found them.  The three men walked back to camp chattering about the great fishing.
    Everyone was getting settled in for the night while watches were established.  Dickie and Danny would take the first watch and moved to an area of cover where they could watch the camp but been unseen.  The evening was quiet and
    Dickie looked to Danny saying, “This trip usually takes about fifteen hours to drive it and it took longer to just get here.  Do you think we can make it in a week?”
    Danny shrugged, saying, “I thought we would be there already, I hope it won’t take that long.”
    Dickie replied, “I don’t know what to think right now, we saw a lot of shit just trying to get to John’s place.  How bad do you think it is out there mate?”
    Danny shrugged, saying, “Not sure, but I think we are gonna find out.”
    As Danny continued to talk Dickie looked around and putting his finger up to his mouth indicating he wanted Danny to be quiet while he strained to listen, sure he had heard something.  There it was again, they had both heard it this time. It was a rustling in the