Escape of Western (North Carolina I)

Chapter 3

We ended up walking for about an hour before we came upon an obstacle in Polk County. The terrain around here was very mountainous and contained sharp drop-offs. There was brush everywhere that contained rattlesnakes and scorpions, and there was very little paved roads. We came up to a blockade of walls, cars, dirt, and just about everything that they could use to create a safe barrier. While it did help cover their evacuation, it didn't help us trying to get through. The thing was forty feet tall and there were not any good footholds we could use to climb it. There was no going around it because it stretched from the side of a drop-off, to the top of a drop-off.

    It became clear to us that if we did not make it around this that we would be sitting ducks. There would not be any escape from an attack coming from the only possible exit. From looking at the large barricade, we could see that there were layers to it and it was not just randomly placed objects in a horizontal shape. The bottom was made of dirt, rubble, and trees, the next layer was cars, with a top layer of walls. If the bottom could still hold the weight after digging a hole in it, we had our way through.

    Within our supplies we dug out of the Hummers were three axes, four shovels, and two pickaxes. Maddy, Madii, Makayla, Emilee, Chris, Will, Sadie, Sophia, and Noah started working on digging the hole through the barrier. Meanwhile, Cameron, Tiffany, Alexis, Justus, Ky, and I sat and watched our backs while also talking about what to do when we make it to Camp Lejeune. I had the idea of signing to become a Marine squadron within the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force regiment. I chose this regiment for the fact that was where my dad was, and I was hoping that they would accept me for the fact of being his son.

    No one else had any other ideas, so for the time we would follow mine until a new one was thought up. We sat there for what felt like hours. Every thirty minutes or so we would rotate and the six of us would dig while the other nine would sit and watch. We only got about three-quarters of the way through the barrier within the first day. We had to set up a camp under the drop-off using the material we dug out to create a little wall of protection. We ate more of the deer Ky had killed and set up for the night. We had three mounted pulverizers, as we called them, set up facing outwards and one of the snipers on a little ledge about ten feet off the ground. This time only Noah or I would be up there, with no one else being able to take our weapons. We went in shifts of four with the last shift having five; Ky, Sophia, Cameron, and I had first shift. Then it was Noah, Sophia, Chris, and Alexis. Then Maddy, Madii, Makayla, and I. Final shift was Noah, Emilee, Sophia, Justus, and Will. Each shift lasted for three hours and allowed us to get a good sleep, except for Noah and I.

    Morning came and there was no sight of any threat. Everyone got back to digging while Noah and I caught up on sleep that we had lost. We woke up four hours after daybreak and breakfast, lord and behold the tunnel was nearly finished. Noah and I helped chip in at the end by just trying to push through the barrier. We did not move enough for a person to get through, but we did move enough for us to see the other end. What we saw did not make us happy. There were more barricades, but these ones were smaller and we could get through them a lot faster than this original one we had to tunnel through. Once through the main tunnel it only took about thirty minutes to get through each of the other barricades. By the end of the day we were on the other side of the barricades and were ready to keep on moving towards Shelby.