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When the power mysteriously goes out across the country, Martin‘s Plan B is to walk the 50 miles from Boston to his home in New Hampshire. His plan B must be revised to include Susan: a woman he only knew as a teller in his bank. They make it to his home in New Hampshire but they still have to adapt to a grid-down world. This podcast is a reading of Mic Roland‘s Siege of New Hampshire series. Available at http://mic-roland.com
Episodes
Friday Aug 20, 2021
Chapter 1: Trying to Get Out of Town
Friday Aug 20, 2021
Friday Aug 20, 2021
One Monday morning in October, the power goes out in Boston and apparently all across the nation. Martin decides to go home rather than get stuck in downtown Boston. With traffic gridlocked and no busses leaving for New Hampshire, his only option is to walk the 50 miles. He's not really ready for that.
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Chapter 2: Good Deed Quagmire
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Friday Aug 27, 2021
While on his way to North Station, Martin encounters Susan, the bank teller. He escorts her home through the gridlock. Once there, her apartment house has caught fire. Martin volunteers to help her find a hotel room but one after another of the hotels in town are full with other power outage refugees. His good samaritan deed was becoming quicksand.
Friday Sep 03, 2021
Chapter 3: No Room At The Inn
Friday Sep 03, 2021
Friday Sep 03, 2021
Martin tries to find a hotel room for Susan before continuing his trek home. The trouble is, all the other people stuck in Boston by the outage have already filled the hotels, or people are fighting over the few rooms left. They must search farther out from the city.
Friday Sep 10, 2021
Chapter 4: A Ride to the O.K. Corral
Friday Sep 10, 2021
Friday Sep 10, 2021
Stalled traffic on the highway becomes an opportunity for criminals to rob the stranded motorists. Martin hoped to avoid the trouble by walking through the woods, around the ongoing crime scene. A protracted gunfight between the criminals and armed citizens trap Martin and Susan in the woods as daylight fades and a cold night approaches.
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Chapter 5: New Dawn, New Direction
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Friday Sep 17, 2021
After a night of sleeping in the woods, Martin and Susan venture through Stoneham looking for food and water but find little. What they do find is a populace lingering in normalcy bias. Even though it is only the second day of the outage, the two of them wonder long will it be before complacency gives way to desperation.
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Chapter 6: For Lack of Easy Options
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Friday Sep 24, 2021
As Martin and Susan travel north, making their way through suburban Stoneham, they find a little food by dumpster diving. Susan begins to limp from a bad blister. This leads to an awkward moment, which leads to an even more awkward discussion about Susan's emergency housing options.
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Author‘s Notes: Two Questions
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Friday Oct 01, 2021
A pause in the story to answer two of the questions sent to the author.
One: Why isn't Martin carrying a gun? A few notes on why.
Two: What's up with Susan? She has her fans, others wonder how anyone can be that clueless. There are reasons...
Listeners can send in questions too: to mic@mic-roland.com
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Chapter7: Thugs and Doom People
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Friday Oct 08, 2021
As Martin and Susan travel north through Stoneham, they get to know each other a little better. Susan begins to have second thoughts about agreeing to go with him. She worries that Martin is one of those crazy Doomsday Prepper types. All this is overshadowed by trying to evade what they suspect are opportunists wanting to rob them.
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Chapter 8: Roadblocks
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Martin and Susan narrowly escape the would-be muggers but Martin does not escape unscathed. Walking north hits a snag when the pair run into police roadblocks preventing people from leaving the area – even on foot. A distraught Hispanic woman agrees to give the pair a ride if they can find her a way around the roadblocks.
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Chapter 9: Evasion and Camping in the Rain
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Riding with Isabel, the pair manage to slip past or get around some of the official roadblocks intended to keep the populace in place. That is, until they reach the checkpoint at 495. Now, the Merrimack River becomes a barrier. Once again on foot, they follow the railroad tracks toward Haverhill. Martin hopes an interstate bridge over the river will be less guarded. Before they get there, the sky grows dark and it begins to rain.