Down: The Fall

Chapter Twelve: The Freeway

  Three days after the event:

   The farmer guided the rooster down the old trail running along the cornfield. This was the quickest clearest route on his property to the freeway.

  The rooster started bucking him all the sudden. It jumped and ruffled its feathers taking a fighting stance as if to fight another rooster. It struted around with its neck high and its chest out. Then it ran as fast as it could zigzaging up the road. Finally it jumped flailing in the air and came down abruptly.

   The farmer had made use of those fish hooks in the roosters nostrils. At first he'd been to petrified to move, hanging on for dear life. Then when he seen the rooster making for a roost in the trees he went into action. He jerked down hard on the reins causing the hooks to dig in to the soft tissue inside. The pain surprised the rooster and caused it to be more submissive. He wasn't going up in to those trees. That had been the worst spell it'd had since he'd started riding it this mornin.

  Since he'd started riding the rooster it would go through spells every so often. It was like it realized he was on its back and it didn't want him there. In reality even though he didn't know it yet he was slightly loosing his mental grip on the roosters mind. He had a connection with the animals he just hadn't full come to grips with it. He thought the animals were talkin to him, they were just responding to him.

  He made a mental note to try and clip the rooster wings when he got back home. He didn't want any more high flying adventures.

  He'd made slow progress towards the freeway. Usually he'd just drive his truck down if he needed to mend a fence. That only took ten or fifteen minutes at the most. Going on chicken back was taking hours.

  When he finally seen the freeway in the distance, the bumper to bumper cars were quite obvious. As he rode on he could hear a few horns honking.

  When the farmer was almost at the freeway he could See something moving towards him. As he drew closer he began to make out people. They were clad in all kinds of garb. Some had fastfood napkins wrapped around them, some handkerchiefs. Others had obviously ripped pieces of clothing to cover themselves with. It was a small group made up of about ten people.

  When he finally reached them a woman came forward. " Sir can you help us, no one has come I don't think the government knows we're out here like this". She jestuerd towards herself oobviously referring to hers and her companions size. " Do you live close by, maybe have a phone we can use?" she asked.

" Mam I've got a phone and your welcome to use it but I don't think anyone you'll call will pickup" the farmer replied. He'd called everyone he knew and no one would pick up. He figured they were in as bad of shape as he was. " We can't keep staying out on that road! what do they expect us to do? ! " the woman cried out  panicedly.

" Well I don't think' they ' are to worried about what you do mam. Their probably in just as bad of shape as we are" he said smartly. He couldn't stand the way society had rolled over lately waiting for someone else to solve their problems.

  " You don't have to be so rude! This whole situation is crazy, no one knows what to do" the woman exclaimed. The farmer realized he'd been to cross with the woman. " I apologize mam, I'm probably just as frazzled as you are" he said in his best countryboy drawl. Seeing it work he questioned " how many people would you say are out on that freeway?" The woman eager for any kind of help answered " maybe hundreds".

" Well let's go and see if there's any way I can help" the farmer said.

  As they came onto the highway a group of people came to meet them from under a blue pickup truck. They all seemed to be amazed by the farmer on the rooster. Some began to point and laugh, others seemed to look on with approval.

A tall bearded man wrapped in pieces of a teeshirt approached the farmer carrying a metal fork. " Hellow I'm Tom" ," hi I'm Clyde nice ti meet you" the farmer returned his pleasantry. Tom looked past the farmer to the woman. " Any luck Lauren were you able to get a hold of the police, state troopers, anyone? He questioned. " He said it was no good" she replied pointing to the farmer setting up on the rooster.

   " Why do you think that, sir?" Tom asked the farmer.

" Well don't you think if there was any one to come they would have been here by now?" the farmer asked. " What should we do? We can't stay here on thus road. We've already seen two people taken by a hawk and three just disappeared. We'll due if we stay out here." " Well I don't plan on letting anyone out here die" the farmer replied to the terrified man. " What are you going to do" Tom asked expectantly. " For starters I plan on offering anyone interested a place to stay at my farm" he'd thought about it on the way out to the freeway. What the little girl had asked back out at the house last night about Jesus had struck a cord with him. Sometimes Jesus used people just like him to help the people around them. The more he thought about it the more had knew it was what he needed to do. This must be good ole Jesus talking to him." Y'all can all come and wait thus out with me out at the farm. I only ask one two things respect my property and pull your own weight" he said to the crowd of people in front of him. " I'll need the women an children to follow This old dirt path here to my house. Stay together. Men I'm gonna need you to stay behind and help search for anyone else" the farmer told the people.

  After sending the women off with the children and instructions on what to do when they reached the farm the farmer headed out. He and the men and a few women began searching and directing the people they found to the farm. They didn't make it back to the farm until well into the night. After puting the rooster up in an old wire cage the farmer headed towards the house to help everyone to get settled in fir the night.

  One thing was for sure they hadn't reached everyone more people awaited them on their search tomorrow. Thus wasn't gonna be over in a day or a few and it was going to take all of the farmers ingenuity to help them all survive this new world.