With that, the farmers thanked him, and the people leaving on the convoy made their way to the farm vehicles with their belongings. A count was made of those staying: 15 passengers and one flight attendant.
The trucks moved out, and the captain stopped to say goodbye to the lead farmer. “It’s going to take farmers to keep this country alive. The politicians are history. The manufacturers are useless without electricity—nothing works anymore. I don’t believe that there are many vehicles working out there anymore either, including ships and planes. We are stranded on this continent and the people who are alive after the winter are going to depend on you to feed them. Spread the word, get others to spread the word, and tell them to get this country running again.” And with that he shook several hands, got a goodbye hug and kiss from the flight attendant who was staying and they drove out of the gate towards the main highway.
They found the tracks of the convoy running north to south in the snow, about six inches deep, as they climbed onto the southbound side of the highway. The captain realized that this convoy would not have seen their previous tracks, since his convoy had stayed on the northbound side, and he decided to follow them on the southbound side. The convoy up front would have to clear the road and that would help Captain Mallory and his vehicles catch up with them. He had no way to know that he did not want to catch up with them—they were Chinese.
For an hour, they drove south as fast as they could, sometimes getting up to 30 miles an hour for short stretches, but the unending dead vehicles continued to be a problem, even though it was slightly easier to follow the tracks of the forward convoy around them. The number of stranded vehicles started increasing the closer they got to Washington, DC. Their fuel was down to less than half when they came across several parked SUVs together, and the captain decided to call a break and siphon as much gas as they could.
Captain Mallory looked up at the sky as he was resting, eating a large Swiss triangular chocolate bar. Bad weather was coming in and he didn’t like it. With his experience, this storm looked ominous. Long wispy high stratus clouds, nearly pencil-thin, going south, were showing high wind speeds in the atmosphere, and it was only 9:00 am. They needed to get as far south as possible today.
They managed 60 gallons out of four vehicles, not enough for more than a quarter tank per vehicle, but enough for two hours of driving. The next stop 15 minutes later was at an actual gas station just off the highway, deserted and almost hidden amongst thick trees. The small and desolate gas station was out of view of everybody except those who had seen the signs. He had hoped that the convoy in front might stop at a place like this, but they had continued on.
A window was broken, and he sensed life in the small shop area of the gas station. It did not have a restaurant attached to it, just a small Subway sandwich bar. He gathered a couple of the men together with M4s and carefully went inside.
“Don’t shoot, mister!” shouted a young boy’s voice from behind the candy aisle. “Don’t shoot, sir! It’s only me, my mom and my two sisters. We are cold and trying to keep warm in here.”
“Anybody else in here?” shouted Captain Mallory.
“No, sir, there was a couple—a man and a woman—a couple of hours ago with a dog. They were also from the accident on the highway, but they left to walk south. It’s only us here now, mister.”
John ordered the boy to come out with his hands up, and a grubby kid about nine or ten years old came out with chocolate all over his face. He was trying to be brave.
“You’re okay, kid, we aren’t going to hurt you. We’re just stopping to get supplies and head on south. Where are you from?” asked the captain, as they lowered their weapons and the boy let his hands slowly drop.
“We live in Charleston, South Carolina, sir. We were on our way home after visiting our grandparents for Christmas in Philadelphia. My mom has to go back to work. She was driving when the car stopped, skidded on the snow, and then hit another one—with the couple who left a couple of hours ago.”
“Where’s your father?” John asked.
“I don’t know, sir. He left a couple of years ago.” The flight attendants went behind the counter to get the rest of the boy’s family and brought out a woman and two little girls, about six and three. The woman had a severe cut on her head, her clothes were covered with blood and she, or her son, had used a First Aid box to bandage and clean the wound. She looked sick and was cold and shivering, as were the two little girls who were carrying the blanket they had wrapped themselves in.
It took 30 minutes, but they took everything that remained on the shelves, all the bottles of water and soft drinks, got the new travelers warm and comfy in the back of the truck, and continued on their way.
It was only two miles later that they saw fresh blood on the snow in front of them and two bodies lying on the packed snow. A dog was curled up next to the bodies but it ran for cover when they stopped. The blood was still fresh and freezing as it hit the snow, the Captain noticed, as he and John looked down at what used to be a man and a woman, obviously alive only a couple of hours earlier. They had been both shot a dozen times, had fallen backwards, and then been run over by several large vehicles, most likely to make sure that they were dead. Their dog was off on the side of the highway barking at them, and John got the young boy to see if he could identify the dog. It belonged to the couple that had been with them in the gas station, and the dog remembered the boy, ran up, wagged its tail and was lifted into the back of the truck.
“I don’t think we want to meet whoever is driving up ahead of us after all,” suggested John, and the captain nodded. “The 495 interchange is a couple of miles ahead. I think it would be better to take the one they don’t take, since either of the 495 legs will get us back to I-95 just south of D.C.”
“Hopefully we don’t arrive together at the south interchange,” added the captain. “I think we should fill our tanks before we get there and if we reach I-95 first, we’ll keep going until our tanks are dry and get back on the northbound side to hide our tracks.”
Ten minutes later, they arrived at the 495 beltline around Washington, and the weather was getting bitterly cold and the wind increasing from the northwest. The first group’s tracks turned right on the beltline towards Fairfax, so they went east.
The stranded vehicles were fewer on the beltline and they made good time, averaging 30 miles an hour. They decided not to take the shortcut using 295 directly south, knowing that traffic could be heavier on that stretch and they could come out behind the other convoy, or be very close to them.
An hour later, they found another refueling opportunity—three Chevy Suburbans and a Penske truck all on the same stretch of road a few hundred yards from each other. They separated and began filling their tanks. It took 20 minutes and when they ran out of gas from those trucks, they switched to any other gas-powered vehicles, draining fuel until they had every tank filled to the brim, including the ten five-gallon canisters.
They were now three miles from the southern interchange and ready for action. All their weapons were checked and a couple of rifle grenades added to each vehicle. There was a lot of tension as they reached the final mile of 495, and saw the end of the other convoy, still in front of them, already on I-95 about a mile or so ahead of where they were. They felt a sense of relief, because if they hadn’t filled everything when they did, the two convoys could have reached the interchange at the same time, and ten vehicles was a big army compared to what they had.