You wake up with the sound of an engine running. A two cycle from what you can make of it and you're intrigued at the source. You pull the curtains of your cab and you see a small enduro motorcycle pulling into the truck stop. It's still very early and the light from the eastern sunrise is rising behind some clouds sitting low on the horizon. The rider looks like a middle aged man dressed in jeans and a chambray shirt with no helmet. He cuts the engine and walks towards the store. There is an eerie silence this morning. You fell asleep last night with the hum of the generator used to keep the store's coolers running. This morning there is no sound at all. You think that maybe someone didn't fill up the fuel tank for the generator and had let it run out during the night. Whatever the case, you toss on your clothes and head over to the store to maybe get a cup of coffee before you leave.
You are not prepared for the scene that is now playing out before you. The owner has been tied up and his throat has been cut open. The man who rode in on the motorcycle is standing over him with his hands on his hips. He turns when he hears you enter and gasp at the sight. He quickly reaches down and pulls his gun from a holster that you couldn't know he had because of the low light this morning. It's pointed right at you and he yells for you to stand still. Your hands go up and your mouth drops open as the man asks who you are. You explain to him the circumstances of you being there and how you have been here for two days now. He informs you that he is the sheriff of this jurisdiction as he lowers his gun and inquires what you might have seen or heard last night. You tell him about the meal you had last night and how everything was fine when you went to bed. You notice that the generator is now gone and you tell him how it's not here now. He asks if you can tell if anything else is askew or missing and you tell him that you're not sure.
You can't believe that you were that close to a murder. You wondered how that happened in such a short time frame with everyone so near? Being that close to a situation like that has made you sick to your stomach and you go outside to the nearest trash can to heave your guts out and to try to comprehend what just happened.
After just a few minutes the sheriff comes out to join you. You know that this is a small closely knit town and the sheriff brings that out in the conversation. He can't possibly fathom how any of the folks in his town or area could possibly commit such a heinous crime against the owner of the store. He had given credit to folks who were hard up and was a leader in the small community.
One of the drawbacks however was that this town was 99 miles from Petersburg, VA and about 75 miles away from Raleigh, NC. It would take gas to get to one of those towns and without any power, the gas pumps wouldn't be working. Someone had been desperate to get their hands on that generator, but how did they get it and what did they come and get it in. Who could have been that desperate? These were questions that the sheriff asked of you but you knew you wouldn't be around to find out. Now more than ever you wanted to get home or at least somewhere away from here.
You have some questions for the sheriff now. Has anyone contacted him or does he have any idea what is going on with the power outage and the electronics not working. He informs you that he knows just about as much as you do. You tell him your plans about heading home and he asks that you have a safe trip and wishes you the best. The sheriff has found some keys in the owner's pocket and he takes them to lock up the store to keep the crime scene from being contaminated. He gets back on the motorcycle and rides back to the station to maybe gather some equipment and someway to transport it back to the store. Most of the other drivers have already gotten up and left and there are no people in sight.
Your thoughts turn to the diesel that is in the refrigerated trailers tanks and how you have decided that no one is going to miss it. You find a bucket and a hose and go to work on filling the tanks on your truck.
After about an hour you're ready to roll out, confident that you will be making it home soon. You decide to take your trailer with you even though it's only loaded with paper towels and napkins. You think how you never know how things might come in handy.
You let off the parking brake and start shifting gears out of the truck stop and start headed north on I-85. It's only 14 miles to the small county highway to where you decided to start heading south.
Within the first few miles you see a couple of cars parked on the side of the road, doors open and abandoned with no passengers. This sight becomes more common the further up you go and then you take the exit off of the interstate. It's a good stretch of road until the first signs of civilization appears. A small town comes into view and you notice how nothing or no-one is moving. A few folks are standing around and you notice the look on their faces as you pass by. It's a look of wonderment and puzzlement but you don't feel like even slowing down. After the sight you saw this morning you have a new penchant for staying safe. Being in a semi-truck with a trailer behind it gives you a sense of security that nothing will get in your way that you can't handle if you wanted to.
It's been two whole days since the event and you are thinking that things probably haven't gotten that serious yet. You hope that when you get further into the state that you will find out that things have returned to normal and it was just a localized happenstance back there in Virginia. As you cross the North Carolina line about ten miles later you know that things haven't gotten any better.
Ahead, sitting in the middle of the highway was a john deere tractor with a hay wagon behind it. In the hay wagon was a group of men. The only thing menacing about them were the guns they were carrying. The most menacing thing about the guns were that they were pointed at you and they were motioning you to pull over....
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