Chapter I, part 4

The drive home was thankfully uneventful after he crossed the county line near the Eisenhower Tunnel, and he only had one stop for fuel and brackish coffee in Silverthorne. There were a few changes since he had been this way a few years ago. Upon exiting the interstate at Frisco to cut down Highway 9, Mike noticed that all of the side streets leading toward the residential areas to the west had been closed. Not just with orange cones and signs, but with jersey barriers and a distinct lack of signs. As he passed Main St, he saw it now had a checkpoint with a rolling gate, with an unmarked cruiser parked adjacent to the booth erected over the center stripe. The parking lights were on, indicating someone was paying attention to the passing traffic on the state highway. South of town, the county office complex had been thoroughly fenced in, as well as the entirety of the hospital grounds, with fortified checkpoints at each.
The once quaint ski town of Breckenridge looked to have had a facelift as well, as the downtown shopping area and the residences beyond were now closed to vehicles. The only access appeared to be a hastily constructed gate on the south end of town, with a guardshack situated to the north of what was once Ridge Street. It appeared that entry required a vehicle search, as a uniformed cop was leading a good sized German Shepard around an old Toyota pickup parked in front of the gate. Spotlights from atop the structure flooded the whole scene.
Even tiny Alma had changed, if only with signage telling visitors to keep going. There wasn't much there before life in America began its drastic change in the past decade or so, but now there was literally nothing. Most of the buildings had been boarded up; those that weren't looked as though they had been gutted. A few houses off of the highway appeared to be inhabited still, but this was a ghost town. It was depressing to see, even at night. Mike remembered driving up here right after he married Darcy, and stopping into a little restaurant on the northbound side of the highway. The food had been good, with locally grown produce and meat that still tasted like meat. They had stayed longer than they had anticipated, playing a few rounds of pool and cajoling with the locals before driving on to Breckenridge for a rare ski weekend getaway. The building still stood, but it had more in common with a pole barn now.
The only other traffic he saw after leaving a bleak looking Fairplay was a 15 year old State Patrol cruiser that followed him for a few miles south of Buena Vista, which flipped back around to the north as suddenly as it had appeared in his mirrors.
Mike finally pulled into the driveway of his rental house just before 2 am, and he parked the Honda in front of his 25 year old diesel Dodge. It hadn't moved in almost 2 years, thanks to the injector pump giving up at 600,000 miles and his lack of the $2000 it cost to replace it. He sat just looking at his old pickup for few minutes, reminiscing of the days when that poor truck was all he had to take care of  in the world, aside from himself. Things were alot more simple back then, if not lonely. He felt himself treading into a self induced guilt trip and blinked himself back to the present. The front door to the 100 year old two story was locked now, where it would not have been when he and Darcy first moved in together.