And, a painful parting, half the ammo he’d packed. It didn’t take up much space but pound for pound was the heaviest thing he was carrying. He wrapped everything in the tarp and stowed the bundle between two big boulders along the side of the road that made a wedge-shaped depression, then covered it with smaller rocks to build sort of a cairn that completely covered it. Hopefully nobody would give it a second look and poke around, but if so there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Shedding the excess weight took off more than 20 pounds, and more importantly gave him room to put everything in the pack instead of having to carry some of it in his hands, which would make walking and balancing much easier. The pack still felt agonizing when he shrugged back into the straps and belted it on, but at least it was manageable compared to what it had been.
This was his reward for being unprepared and making poor decisions. 26 miles into the trip and he’d already cached just about everything he had that wasn’t in Lewis’s shelter.
Spurred on by that cheery thought, Trev continued on down the road as the sun sank towards the horizon slightly behind him and to his right. He had less than 5 hours of daylight left and a long, long way to go. With no other choice he took it one step at a time, doing his best to ignore the complaints of his muscles and keep up a good pace. He was forced to stop frequently for rest, drinking more water but avoiding eating more food to prevent cramps.
The distance seemed to crawl by compared to when he’d been driving, and his assumption that he’d be able to walk the usual pace of 3 miles an hour was replaced by the grim reality that with his heavy burden he was having trouble going 1. All the while he watched the sun sinking and realized that far from being able to reach Aspen Hill sometime tomorrow, it would probably be the day after that at best.
By the time the sun started to set Trev was beyond tired. He knew he was exhausted too, and for more reasons than because he was panting like a bellows and his muscles felt like rubber. He’d started to stagger a bit with every step, even more off balance thanks to his pack, and common sense told him he should stop for the night or at least pause to rest more. But he was already resting every few minutes and it was eating up time he didn’t have.
He could stop when he got home, and the faster he went the faster he’d get there. If he couldn’t push past exhaustion when it really mattered and keep a good pace then he wasn’t ready for the end of the world. In retrospect he should have realized that was a stupid way to look at things, but in his state he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
At least he’d reached another downhill slope in the road. It presented its own work on the muscles, sure, but still felt almost like a vacation compared to the brutal uphill slog. His speed even increased slightly.
The help of gravity gave him the boost he needed to keep going as the sun disappeared and twilight began sinking into full night. There was no sign of the moon rising, and Trev kind of wished he’d paid attention to what phase it was in so he’d know when he could expect to get a little light. As it was he didn’t want to give away his position with a flashlight, even though there probably wasn’t too much danger from lawless elements before things had even started to go sideways. Even with the light fading he could still see the road he was on and keep following it, which was all he really needed.
Besides, he might need the flashlight batteries in the future.
Looking at it later Trev could blame inexperience and impatience for this series of poor decisions that seemed rational at the time, and giving in to exhaustion and blind stubbornness rather than thinking things through certainly didn’t help. But either way he had no one to blame but himself as he stumbled along the downhill slope and suddenly found his right ankle giving out on him in a blaze of pain.
Before he quite knew what was happening he collapsed onto his right knee, slamming it hard into the pavement, and then sprawled sideways from the weight of his pack. That extra weight worsened what might have otherwise been minor injuries, and he ended up curled up on his side in the middle of the road cursing through gritted teeth and doing his best to ride the wave of excruciating pain throbbing through his body from his ankle and knee. To distract himself from it he scrabbled blindly around on the road with his hands, searching for what had made him fall.
At first he passed over the culprit entirely, sure it couldn’t be responsible, but after another minute of searching with his hands he found nothing but smooth pavement. What had made him stumble couldn’t even be called a pothole, barely more than a dip in the road an inch or so deep. He would’ve missed it entirely if he’d been walking a foot to the left or right.
A pothole. He’d injured himself on a pothole in the middle of a smooth road. How stupid was that? Pain giving way to anger, Trev tried to force himself onto his feet to keep going.
He immediately collapsed back to the road again, falling into a seated position leaning back against his pack, and his cursing gave way to a frustrated moan. His rubbery muscles couldn’t support his weight, but more importantly the moment he tried to stand on his right leg it reminded him of his new injuries with sharp jolts of agony. He was done for the night, and with an injury like this he might be laid up for a week.
Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Who was he even kidding anyway? He’d felt so smug about how prepared he was for the end of the world, laying up a few supplies in a backpack and defending himself against an idiot who hadn’t even known how to use a gun. But for all his “foresight” he hadn’t even stored enough gasoline for the drive home in case of an emergency, and used up what little he had in a greedy bid for more he didn’t need.
And he’d never bothered to prepare himself for walking long distances, especially not while carrying a heavy backpack. Not to mention he didn’t know the first thing about first aid. And even though he had the tools he needed for a situation, like a flashlight, he was too stupid to use them.
And the rifle and pistol he was so proud of? He was barely competent with them, going out to the range a few times a year and firing off fifty or so rounds. He barely ever practiced drawing and holstering, he’d mostly ignored Lewis’s advice on dry fire practice, and he still had problems with anticipating the recoil and actually hitting the target.
Ready for the end of the world? He was a joke, barely more prepared than Matt or the others he’d left behind. Overloading his pack, pushing himself past exhaustion and walking in pitch black just begging for an injury that would keep him off his feet just when he needed to be moving, with no idea the proper way to treat the injury. Even common sense should’ve helped him more than this.
With some effort Trev dragged himself over to the sparse grass at the side of the road, doing his best to favor his right leg and not make the problem even worse. He hadn’t seen another car since that one that had roared past earlier, and with crippling fuel shortages it was anyone’s guess whether he would, but it wasn’t like he wanted to camp in the middle of the road anyway.
The thought of trying to set up the tent in his pack made him groan. It was difficult enough just to unbuckle the belts and shrug out of it, then root around inside for his sleeping bag. With his hurt leg it took forever to scoot inside and ended up being a miserably painful experience. And if it did rain or dew in the night he’d stupidly left his tarp behind to shed less than a pound of weight, because he’d assumed he’d have the energy or even ability to set up his tent.