Running with the Horde Read Free Page B

scream a weak “hey” at them but I’m not sure they heard me as they sped by. I briefly considered my middle finger but thought better of it. One should never taunt a group of armed angry men, it’s just bad business.
    As I climbed out of the ditch and tried to brush the dirt from my scrubs , I thought about the troops I’d just seen. I had always known conceptually that there were military people stationed in Minnesota. I had just never actually seen them around doing military stuff. I figured they were the National Guard or something but I was really only guessing.
    I had driven by Fort Snelling on my way to the airport sever al times but I had never had reason to give it much thought. It was just a historic place where my grandfather was buried. Now it seemed like the Pentagon in my mind. If they were active in a city like Friendly, of all places, things must be very bad indeed.
                  On the corner of 73 rd and Central there was a gas station. It was the kind of place an average person generally doesn’t visit unless there are no alternatives. This isn’t usually a conscious decision with these types of places. People drive by them all the time but just don’t really notice them. It had one of those generic names these places have like; Drive up Gas Place for Less! Or Super United American Vacation Gas!
    This particular place wasn’t having a good day. I stood in shocked silence on the corner with a handful of gawkers as it was being aggressively looted. There had to be thirty people on the property and in the store just running out with armloads of stuff and stealing gas.
    The owner, he was too emotionally involved to be anything else, was shouting at the top of his lungs for them to stop or for someone to help him. He tried physically stopping a few people himself but that didn’t work out. Nobody did help him, including me. If I had been closer I may have advised him to cut his losses and run for it. Sometimes the odds just aren’t in a person’s favor.
    The owner was on his knees wailing as people smashed the glass storefront behind him. I could see his face was covered in blood. Instead of rushing to his aid, I took it as my cue to leave and resumed my journey home.
    I often see that man now through the window of my memory. He is sitting on the hot pavement rocking back and forth as tendrils of smoke from a fire in the store curl up around him. It’s the picture that pops into my mind from time to time when I start thinking I am a decent person. That vivid scene reminds me that I’m not.
                  The walk home wasn’t entirely chaotic. The giant car dealership was shut down and abandoned but otherwise seemed no worse for the wear. Of course, at some point during my coma it had been fenced in and ringed with barbed wire, which always helps.
    There were also a number of mom and pop places along the way in little micro malls. They seemed fine but then they sold things like bait and offered doll repair, specialties which probably didn’t rank as high on a looter’s wish list as food and gas.
    The big brand gas station I passed was very crowded but still in o peration. Gas was selling at over 12 dollars a gallon. If anyone deserved a little looting it was that place but that would’ve been difficult, they had some of those armed men in fatigues keeping things orderly.
                  At Mississippi Street I decided to head east and walk up some of the side streets for my last mile home. My decision to avoid walking any further down Central Avenue was due largely to the giant plumes of smoke I could see billowing on the horizon. There was a complex of strip malls up ahead. I had to assume they were burning and I didn’t want to see that.
    Thing s were busy but far less tumultuous as I walked deeper into the neighborhood. It was more like the area around the hospital, lots of barricading and lots of leaving going on.
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