The fire wouldn’t take hold.
She cursed, and tried again and again. She cussed and sucked her tender thumb. The lighter was too hot. She changed hands and struck it again. Still, no fire.
Emma and Olivia sat quietly watching her. They didn’t have much experience with campfires either. The guys always took care of that. Mei sat off by herself with her arms wrapped around her bent knees, rocking and humming to music only she could hear, apparently.
In exasperation, Gabby snatched her backpack. She furiously dug through it, looking for something—anything—to burn better. She pulled out a stretchy band with a square attached to it.
“Omigod. Look!”
It was a headlamp.
They’d walked all this way through the woods and the night, stumbling blindly, and all this time there’d been a flashlight. She rolled her eyes at her stupidity.
Clearly, they needed to take the time to really go through her pack.
She dug further and found a prescription bottle. Turning on the head lamp, she read the word “fire” written in red Sharpie around it. She turned it and read the rest of the word, “…starter.”
The bottle contained sticky cotton balls. Gabby smelled one and smiled. “Petroleum jelly,” she told the girls. She tucked one under the tinder and struck the lighter again.
It lit.
She looked up with a smile. “Who’s cooking? I started the fire.”
Olivia’s deadpan face told Gabby she’d rather go hungry than attempt to drum up enough energy to cook. And Emma didn’t cook, even in the best of times. Mei looked down at her feet.
“What are we going to cook over?” Emma asked.
“The fire,” Gabby answered. “Duh.”
“No, I mean, we don’t have a rack. Only a cup. You going to just stick it in the fire?”
Gabby dropped her head. Emma was right. She hadn’t even thought about it. There was probably some super-simple way to rig up a rack to hang the cup from, or set the cup on over the fire, but she didn’t have the brainpower to figure it out this late. Another thing we aren’t prepared for.
She sighed and pulled out a tiny rocket stove. “Here, start a tiny fire in this, too.” She handed it to Emma. It was lightweight and only big enough to hold one cup, but one cup was all they had anyway. “You’ll need some small twigs or pinecones. You can break them up and stick them in there to burn. We still needed a campfire out here though. It’s too dark.”
While Emma attempted to put the little stove together with light from the campfire, Gabby dug again into the backpack. “Okay, there’s two pouches of Mountain House Freeze-dried meals. We’ve got chili mac with beef or lasagna. I can’t handle either one of these without access to a bathroom. Thanks, Jake,” she grumbled. “Oh wait, here’s an envelope of Lipton noodle soup mix. That’s only enough for one of—”
“—then you better shut up before you end up having to feed the whole damn neighborhood,” a deep, gruff voice interrupted.
Gabby threw herself backward, landing on her rump in the dirt and scooting away from the voice—also scooting away from her gun that she’d taken out of her pants so she could relax against the tree for a moment.
“Who the hell are you?” she yelled.
Olivia and Emma scrambled in a crabwalk across the grass the few feet they needed to get to Gabby, where they all huddled together.
Mei froze in place, staring up at the stranger with an open mouth.
“I’d ask you the same, but I don’t give a damn. I’d have just rolled over and gone to sleep, except the missus insisted I come out here and check on you girls.”
“Missus?” Gabby asked in confusion. “Where is she? Where did you come from? What do you want?”
“From the farmhouse, just across the field over there,” he said as he pointed into the darkness. “Voices travel out here, especially now that the lights are out. I heard y’all as soon as you stepped into my field. You need to work on your sneak-skills.”
“We weren’t sneaking. We didn’t know we were in your field. We didn’t know we were even in a field. We’ll leave,” Gabby snapped. She stared the old man in the eye, after appraising his overalls, rubber boots fit for chicken-coop poop-scooping and John Deere cap. The bill was bent and frayed and short tufts of white hair stuck out the sides.
Regardless of his age, he was strong. His broad shoulders framed a rather fit looking torso, and his arms were corded with hard-earned muscle. He wore a red T-shirt under his overalls and Gabby could just make out the acronym: MAGA.
Make America Great Again.
His wrinkled face scowled through the scraggly lines and whiskers. He didn’t look the friendly sort.
With a big foot and a frustrated kick, he sent dirt over their fire, immediately squashing it. “Not only are you too loud, but you’re advertising your spot out here with this fire. I can’t leave you girls out here tonight. The missus won’t let me. She’s afraid something is gonna get ya, and trust me, there’s plenty of varmints out here tonight that would and could.”
A chill ran down Gabby’s spine. She couldn’t see much past six feet with the limited moonlight. Was someone—or something—watching them now?
The old man jerked his head toward the direction he’d appeared from. “Come with me. I’d rather deal with three whining city girls than deal with y’all’s dead bodies and told-you-so’s from the wife in the morn’. You girls can sleep in the house tonight.”
He stomped off, fully expecting them to follow.
They didn’t disappoint him.
23
GRAYSIE RAN her tongue over her gritty teeth and revved her engine. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. No one had come to let her out of the car parking lot; the gates were still closed. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep and slept all night and half the morning. She should’ve been sleeping in her car since the power went out. Smelled better out here and she felt safe cocooned in Sally.
But she was still stuck. The only way to get out of here now was to drive through the gate.
She shrugged. She’d seen it on TV a million times. She could do this.
She centered her car up in front of the gap and stepped on the gas, gaining a lot of speed in a short amount of pavement and barreling toward the small opening between the gates. Her dad was going to kill her when he saw Sally—her car. This was definitely going to leave a mark, as he liked to say.
She sped the short distance and at the last minute squinted her eyes. “Gird your loins, girl,” she whispered, again, something else her daddy liked to say.
Metal screamed and Graysie flinched, waiting for her seatbelt to slam into her as her car was ripped to a stop.
But it didn’t.
In complete astonishment to her, she actually did it! The mustang rammed through the gates, throwing them wide open, but leaving them bent as they waved and bounced back in fury. She gave her best rebel yell as she braked heavily to make the turn and screeched around the corner.
Her spirits lifted. Home was only a little over an hour away. If she’d made it this far, she could make it there alone. She’d be there soon.
To her surprise, it was clear all the way to the interstate and down the access ramp to I-77. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think the college administration had made everything up. Other than no moving traffic, everything looked normal.
So far.
But once on the interstate, she ran into problems only minutes later. She was coming up on both lanes mostly blocked by stalled cars. Some were wrecked into the others. As she got closer she saw there was an opening, but a crowd of people were walking, blocking the one clear side of the road.