“So you’re just going to sit there until you either starve to death or get killed?”
“That’s the plan,” said Paul, finally actually making up his mind as he spoke the words.
Ken shook his head.
“I guess I shouldn’t have packed up my bag. We’ll have to camp here tonight until this mood of yours shifts. You know, your little bouts of intense depression were tough enough to deal with when you were just my colleague. But now they’re actually putting our lives in danger.”
“This isn’t just a bout of depression,” said Paul.
“Sure,” said Ken. “Sure it isn’t.”
He was already unpacking his bag.
“The thing is,” said Ken, “is that if someone else comes here tonight, we’re dead. I guess I won’t start the fire. It just makes it easier for people to find us. So settle down for another cold night. I guess it’s good it’s not snowing, though.”
Paul said nothing. He was staring off into the darkness, his mind wandering to a thousand places. But wherever his thoughts went, they didn’t change what was deep inside him. He’d lost the will to live, and he knew that now more certainly than he’d ever known anything. He was so convinced of his nonviolent philosophy, that he couldn’t shake it no matter what, not even to save his own life, or the life of his longtime friend. And it led to a complete sense of hopelessness that he’d never be able to shake.
14
Max and Mandy had driven away in silence through the moonlit night. They hadn’t seen the Spaniards again, and they hadn’t discussed the topic any further. They both knew well that there were plenty of people out there in worse situations.
It seemed to be affecting Mandy more than it affected Max.
Sure, it was a shame. A real shame. But Max knew his limits. He knew what he could do and what he couldn’t do. There wasn’t any point in beating himself up about it. There wasn’t any point in ruminating endlessly on what couldn’t be done.
Max chose instead to focus on what he could do.
He couldn’t save everyone. But he could help one poor kid who was stuck alone with no one to help him. Dan sounded like a good kid, the kind of kid who was smart enough to do the right things, make the right choices. But that didn’t guarantee survival. Far from it.
They’d found a place where they could cut across to the parallel road, Route 100. It’d been bumpy, but the truck had done fine across the mud. There’d been tire tracks indicating that other vehicles had taken this very same route.
Route 100 led across the state border. It was a four lane highway, not exactly the type of road that Max relished being on. But they had to take what they could.
“I don’t get it,” said Mandy, peering through the windshield into the darkness that the headlights cut through. “Why aren’t there a bunch of cars here? You’d think there’d be more, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Max. “I thought roads like this would be packed full of cars. I thought it’d be a parking lot, with people dying in their cars, stuck, and starving.”
“What do you think happened?” said Mandy.
“I don’t know,” said Max. “Who knows. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this, though. We’ve had such a limited perspective on the whole event, and the countries response. It’s time we got some more information.”
“It’s good it’s not an endless traffic jam of unused cars,” said Mandy. “Or else we’d never get there.”
Max glanced over at Mandy in the passenger seat. She looked beautiful sitting there in the moonlight. A single tear was rolling down her face. She brushed a strand of her hair back away from her face, and turned away from Max, looking out the passenger’s side window.
“You OK?” said Max.
“Yeah, ” said Mandy. “It’s nothing.”
They drove in silence for almost a full minute before Max spoke.
“What is it?” he said.
“It’s just… I don’t know, Max. It’s everything. I mean, it’s one thing when we’re constantly trying to survive. When things are a little more calm, I don’t know, then it really starts to get to me. Our society has fallen apart completely, and I just hate to think of the nightmares that so many people are living now… or their last days if they’re dead.”
“Yeah,” said Max. “It’s tough.”
Expressing empathy and comforting people wasn’t exactly Max’s strong suit.
But he felt bad for Mandy. He knew that the situation wasn’t affecting him as much as it was her. He could hear it in her voice that she was really feeling the pain of everyone. At least at that moment.
Max didn’t know what to do.
So he turned the wheel and guided the pickup to the side of the road. There wasn’t anyone else on the road, but Max didn’t want to park the truck right there in the path of any vehicle that might happen to come speeding by.
The right two wheels of the truck were on the grass. Max put it in first and killed the engine.
“What are you doing?” said Mandy, sniffling a little as she spoke.
He turned to her. She was wiping another tear away from her eyes, looking away from Max, obviously embarrassed about her reaction and her tears.
“Look at me,” said Max.
Mandy seemed to hesitate, but she turned to Max and looked him right in the eyes. Her eyes were watery, but beautiful, particularly in the moonlight.
Max leaned towards her. Her hair had fallen again in front of her eyes. He pushed it back behind her ear.
He kissed her. Their eyes closed, and their lips gently touched, gently at first, then harder and faster.
The kiss seemed to last a long time.
Finally, they both pulled away, moving at the same time.
Mandy ran her hand through her hair, keeping her eyes fixed apparently on her shoes, sneaking glances over at Max, who didn’t look away from her.
“What was that for?”
Before Max could answer, the sound of a vehicle caught his attention.
“Do you hear that?” whispered Mandy in hushed tones.
Max didn’t answer. He was listening.
It sounded like a civilian vehicle cruising along, at least sixty miles per hour. It was, though, of course, hard to guess its speed.
Nothing was showing in the rearview mirror.
Turning, Max looked through the flat back windshield of the pickup.
That’s when he saw the headlights speeding right towards them.
He reached for his Glock instinctively.
The vehicle was traveling fast, and it was abreast of their truck before they knew it, only moments later. It barreled right past them.
It was some type of sports car. Low to the ground. Maybe a two door. Hard to get a good look at it.
“What the hell was that?” whispered Mandy.
Suddenly, the tail lights of the car glowed a burst of red, and the car screeched to a stop. The driver had evidently just slammed on the brakes, the smell of burning rubber wafting back to them.
The sports car had stopped about a hundred yards in front of the pickup.
“What do we do?”
“Get ready,” was all Max had to offer.
Max’s mind was flashing through the different possibilities. There’d been so many encounters like this since the EMP, where there was no way to know the intentions of the other party were. There’d been times where no harm was meant. And there’d been times when Max and the others had been tricked, like at the compound.
Mandy was checking her rifle, making sure it was ready.
The door of the sports car opened and slammed closed.
A tall figure stepped out. A man. Big chest. Strong build. Not too emaciated, considering the conditions. He wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat.