This is the Lone Man on the Ridge, Episode 11, Route 23 North. Jack had been driving for only a few minutes, but it seemed much longer. He then noticed that his hands had finally stopped shaking. The adrenaline had carried him out of the parking lot, past the reinforcements SUV, and on to Twin Oaks without thinking. He got on the twenty three North within minutes of leaving Johnson City, pushing the truck hard, checking his mirrors every few seconds. But no one came. No headlights behind him, no engines gaining, just empty road and darkness. Somewhere around the thirty minute mark, the adrenaline burned off and left him feeling hollow. His chest ached, not a sharp pain anymore, more like someone had parked a cinder block on his sternum. Every bump in the road sent a dull pulse radiating outward from the impact point. He reached under his shirt and pressed his fingers against the body armor. The plate had done its job, but the bruise underneath was already spreading. He could feel the heat of it against his fingertips. Jack eased off the gas and let the truck slow down. No sense burning fuel at a dead sprint if nobody was chasing him. He pulled over on the shoulder of twenty three North twice before reaching I eighty one. The first time he got out and checked the cargo in the bed. Everything had shifted during the frantic loading, including the chickens. The totes were jammed sideways, one of the rifle blankets had come partially unwrapped, and the chickens were huddled together in their crate, silent and wide eyed. He straightened out what he could, secured the tailgate properly, and gave the chickens a handful of feed from a bag wedged behind the cab. On the second stop he let Mr. Rogers out to go to the bathroom. The dog circled once, did his business, and immediately came back to Jack's side. Even Mr. Rogers seemed to understand they weren't lingering. Jack stood in the dark beside the truck for a long moment listening. Crickets went through the trees, nothing else. He was not being followed. He got back in the truck and kept moving. Another five or ten minutes and he merged onto I eighty one North. The interstate was a little easier to navigate in the dark, wider lanes, fewer obstacles, even with the dead vehicles scattered across it. Jack settled in at a steady thirty five miles per hour, fast enough to cover ground, slow enough to see what was ahead and conserve fuel. He left Johnson City with about half a tank of gas, maybe sixteen gallons. But that is all that he had. No gas cans, no reserve. When the gauge hit empty, he was on foot. mister Rogers had finally fallen asleep against the passenger door, his head resting on his paws. His breathing was slow and steady. Jack envied him. Jack's mind drifted back to the Duncan Donuts, not the tactical piece, those he could process, catalog and file away. The doorway, the angles, the timing, that was just mechanics. What he couldn't shake was the sound Matt's body made when it hit the floor. He'd fired his weapon before. Years ago in the job, but there had been structure around it. A sergeant on scene within minutes, a union rep, statements, a shooting review board. People told you it was justified, people who walked you through it. But there was none of that now. In a very short period of time, this was the third person that Jack shot. Jack looked over at mister Rogers, the dog's ears twitched in his sleep. It was him or us, buddy, Jack said quietly. That's all it was. Mr. Rogers didn't stir. Jack turned his eyes back to the road and kept driving. Dawn came slow and gray somewhere in southwest Virginia. Jack had been on the road for maybe three hours. Even at a steady thirty five miles per hour, the dead vehicles on the interstate made the going slow. Constant weaving, sudden stops, sometimes crawling around the shoulder to get around pile ups. The fuel gauge was sitting just under quarter tank. He figured he maybe put a hundred, one hundred and twenty miles between him and Johnson City. He believed he was somewhere north of Whythville, Virginia. He watched the needle and did the math. At this pace he had maybe another sixty or seventy five miles before the tank ran dry. After that, he would have to find fuel or walk. The first thing he noticed was a smell. It hit him through the cracked window like a wall, sweet, thick, and wrong. The kind of smell that gets into your clothes and stays. Weeks of no sanitation, no water treatment, no garbage collection, the smell of civilization rotting in place. Jack rolled the window up. Cars were scattered along I eighty one like someone had flipped a switch mid commute because from what he'd been able to piece together, that's more or less what had happened. Vehicles frozen where they died. Some still in their lanes, some drifted into ditches, doors hanging open, a minivan on the shoulder, rear hatch up completely empty, a pickup truck nose down in the median, windshield spider webbed. A few had bodies still in them. Jack didn't look too long. He passed a school bus pulled onto the shoulder. Windows smashed out, no children inside, just an empty shell. He found himself trying not to think about where the kids had gone. He stopped himself, that part of the brain, the cop brain, it was reading every scene like a call sheet, categorizing, prioritizing, dispatching resources that did not exist. A gas station came into view on the right, pumps ripped out of the concrete, hoses scattered across like dead snakes. The canopy was partially collapsed. Someone had spray painted across the front window in red. No gas, no food, don't stop. Jack clinched his jaw and forced his inner voice quiet. A half mile later a neighborhood became visible off to the left. Rows of houses, no lights, no movement, laundry still hanging on the lines, shirts and towels that had been there for weeks, sunbleached and stiff, a child's bicycle lying on its side in the driveway. Then he saw the church, a white clapboard building with a full parking lot, not cars but tents, tarps, shopping carts loaded with belongings, people moving slowly around a fire barrel in the early morning light. There had to be at least thirty or forty of them. Jack slowed the truck. He could see two men posted at the entrance to the lot, both holding long guns. They had to be lookouts. That meant they had already been hit at least once, and they had learned. One of the lookouts noticed Jack's truck and raised a hand. Not a wave, not a threat, just an acknowledgement. We see you keep moving. Jack gave a slight nod to the windshield and kept driving. His cop brain was screaming at him. Those people needed help. Organization, leadership, sanitation protocols, water purification, security rotations. He could see a dozen things wrong with the camp from the road, and a dozen things he could fix. But he kept driving, because the last time he stopped to help strangers, one of them put a bullet into his chest. The foot traffic started as the sun climbed higher. At first it was scattered, a man walking alone with a backpack, a couple pushing a stroller loaded with supplies instead of a baby. But as the miles passed it thickened. Families with shopping carts, groups of three or four staying close together, a teenage kid pulling a red wagon full of canned goods, an older couple sitting on the guardrail, not walking anymore, just sitting, staring at nothing, all of them heading north, away from whatever was behind them. Jack passed them all. He did not stop. Mr. Rogers was awake now watching them through the passenger window. His head tracked each person as they passed, ears rotating forward, then back to Jack, then forward again, like he was asking a question. Jack did not have an answer. A man stepped into the road and waved his arms. Jack swerved around him without slowing. In the rearview mirror he saw the man drop his arms and stand there watching the truck disappear. That easily could be a setup, there could be people in a tree line, box me in if I stop, or it could be just one man that needed water. Jack didn't know anymore, and the uncertainty was enough to keep his foot on the gas. Then he saw her, a woman walking alone on the shoulder. No pack, no cart, no visible supplies, just her and a toddler balanced on her hip. The kid's head was resting against her shoulder, eyes closed. The woman's steps were heavy and uneven. She was exhausted. She didn't look up as Jack passed her. She didn't wave, didn't call out, didn't even turn her head. She was past the point of expecting help from anyone. Jack's hand tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. That Walmart parking lot five years ago, the young mother being beaten while he stood there and watched and did nothing. That shame drove him to the ridge. That shame that made him leave everything behind, and here it was again, right outside his window, walking north in the morning light. Mr. Rogers let out a soft whine from the passenger seat. Jack simply stared straight ahead. He kept driving, and he hated himself for it. The silence in the cab was suffocating after that. Jack needed noise, something to drown out the voice in his head. He reached over and powered up the HF base station mounted under the dash. The unit hummed to life. He still wasn't entirely sure while some electronics survived and others didn't. His truck, the radios, they made it through when most things did not. He started scanning several frequencies, but many were dead. Fragments came through, a woman reciting Bible verses on repeat, her voice flat and mechanical. A man reading list of coordinates over and over with no context. Someone crying, just crying, no words. Jack kept scanning. He passed through a stretch of empty frequencies, then caught a burst of chatter. Two men discussing a checkpoint on I eighty one near Bristol. Talked about the supplies he had collected, laughing about someone who tried to run it. Jack noted the frequency and kept moving. Then he switched to the frequency he had been using on the ridge, the one he and Stephen had agreed upon. Alpha Lima Lena Uniform Delta, this is Jack, you copy? Static. The bands were kind of tricky early in the morning. HF propagation depended on atmospheric conditions. Time of the day, solar activity. Sometimes you could reach thousands of miles. Sometimes you couldn't reach fifty. Jack waited. Thirty seconds, then a minute. He was about to key the mic again when the static broke. Jack, is that you? Stephen's voice came through. Distant, slightly tinny, but clear enough. I've been trying to reach you for two days. Where the hell are you? Jack let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. I'm somewhere in Southwest Virginia, I eighty one corridor, been on the road since the middle of the night. Virginia? You left the ridge? Had to. Situation untenable, Jack then paused. Had some real trouble along the way, but I'm well into Virginia now. I've been driving all night. Stephen was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his tone was careful. Are you okay? I'm alive, that's all I can say right now. Another pause, then Stephen said. Jack, listen. I've been wanting to tell you this for a few days. Things up here have gotten organized. Not government, that's over with. But there's a group of us. Former military guys, a couple of farmers, an engineer or two. We've been building something. It's small, maybe forty people, but it's defended and it's growing. Jack stared at the road ahead. Where? Northern Virginia, just west of DC. I won't say exactly where we are on an open frequency, but if you can stay on I eighty one north, I can guide you in once you get closer. Jack did the math in his head. Three hundred miles, maybe more, through whatever was between here and there. And he maybe had thirty or forty miles of fuel left in the tank. Stephen continued. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, Jack. The road between you and here is not clear. There are at least two groups running toll operations on ID one. You pay in supplies or you do not pass. And there's even some nastier elements near Roanoke, but if you can get through what's ahead, there's a place for you. We can always use good people. Jack did not respond right away. Stephen let the silent sit, then added, You cannot keep running forever, Jack. At some point you've got to land somewhere. Jack closed his eyes for just a second. The woman with the toddler flashed through his mind. The church camp, the lookouts. I'll think about it, Jack said. That's all I'm asking. I'll be in this frequency tomorrow morning, same time. We'll talk it through. Copy that, thanks, Stephen. Stay safe out there, Jack. The radio went quiet. Jack drove in silence for a long time after that. The road stretched ahead, straight, empty, morning light now fully broken across the hills. For the first time leaving the ridge, he had something he hadn't had before. Not safety, not certainty, but he had direction. A place that just wasn't away from, a place that was toward. Stephen's group, forty people, defended, growing, a place where he might not have to do everything alone anymore. A place where the things he knew how to do, organize, protect, hold a line might actually matter again. But between here and there, another 300 miles of highway, at least two toll operations, whatever nastier elements meant near Roanoke, and a fuel tank that was about to run dry. Jack looked at his fuel gauge, forty miles, maybe fifty, if he babied it. He would have to find fuel at least three or four more times to cover that distance. And fuel was not something that was just found anymore. But he had food for at least a week if he rationed. Water, weapons. He looked over at Mr. Rogers. The dog was watching him again. Calm, patient, what do you think, buddy? Do you want to keep running or do you want to find some people worth a damn? mister Rogers tilted his head slightly, his tail gave a single slow wag. Jack nodded to himself. He reached over and adjusted the HF radio, locking in Stephen's frequency so he wouldn't lose it. He then checked the mirrors one more time. The road behind him was empty. Just a long line of pavement disappearing into the distance, and someone back there a woman walking alone with a child on her hip. Jack faced forward and kept driving north. This has been the Lone Man on the Ridge, Episode eleven, Route twenty three North.