Page 9 of Last Light

I made a mistake earlier today when I rejected Travis’s offer to travel together. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Even if he later pressures me to give him sex in exchange for the protection—a reality of being a woman in this world—I can deal with it.

I get into the passenger seat of his Jeep. It’s got two seats and a roof but no doors. It’s a lot more comfortable than the motorcycle.

“Were you following me?” I ask him as he slides into the driver’s seat.

“Told you. We’re headin’ to the same place. This is the shortest route that avoids highways and cities.”

“Where did you find this Jeep?”

“Town back there. Someone’s garage. I was drivin’ an old clunker, but this’ll do better and it’ll work for off-road.”

“The motorcycle’s out of gas, so I needed a new vehicle anyway. I found some canned food and water in the back of that truck. I’ve got some here, and there’s more that I couldn’t carry.

“Show me.” He puts the vehicle into gear and drives up to the truck.

I lead him over to the water bottles in the back, and he grunts with what I assume is approval. I still haven’t seen the man smile.

I empty my backpack of food and water, and Travis grabs the other water bottles from the truck. He’s got packaged protein bars and homemade venison jerky in the back of the Jeep. More bottles of water. Camping gear. A couple more guns.

The man knows what he’s doing.

I hesitate briefly before pulling the packs of wet wipes from my bag. I put them plus some sunblock and bandages I found in a house a couple of days ago in with the other supplies.

“Did you check the dead guy?” Travis asks.

“He’s dead.”

“I know, but did you check him for anythin’ we could use?”

“Oh. No.” I feel sick again, thinking about that man’s final moments. I’m still holding the note in one hand.

Travis takes a minute to check the man’s body and comes away with a small pistol he adds to the other weapons in the back of the Jeep.

“What’s that?” He nods toward my hand.

The note.

I stare down at it and then slowly hand it to Travis. “The man had it on him. Before he died, he told me he needs to get it to Fort Knox.”

Travis reads the note, and then he must be reading it again and again because it’s a long time before he raises his head.

“My ex-wife is at Fort Knox right now.” I can hear in his voice that he’s afraid for her.

“Everyone I care about in the world who’s still left is in Fort Knox.”

He licks his lips. “Okay. We’ll take this. Droves move real slow. They have to with so many people, and they stop in every town on the way to pillage. We can probably beat ’em there.”

“You think so?”

“We have to. Cheryl’s there. Everyone’s there.”

“Okay. If we can find enough gas, we’ll get there pretty fast in this Jeep, even if we have to go off road.”

“We’ll definitely have to go off road eventually. But we’ll go as fast as we can.”

“I don’t understand the wolf part.”

Travis shook his head. “Not sure. But droves sometimes mark themselves. Maybe this is their mark—to let us know which drove is headin’ there.”

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