Page 5 of Last Light

My grandmother died two days ago, which is why I’m on my way to Fort Knox.

Maybe I can find the rest of my town.

There’s nowhere else I can go.

***

THE GAS IN MY MOTORCYCLEtakes me almost fifty miles. I stick to small country roads where there’s less chance of running into other people since people invariably mean danger. I do pretty well and only encounter a few small groups hiking on the side of the road.

When I see my gas starting to get low, I pull over and look at the pages of the road map I tore out of an old atlas back home. I have more than three hundred miles left to go. I need to get more gas, and the only way to do that anymore is to find an abandoned vehicle with fuel that hasn’t been already siphoned.

It’s not an easy prospect. It usually involves finding an abandoned town and searching empty houses until you find a vehicle with gas in the tank. So I’m surprised and suspicious when I see an intact pickup truck with a camper shell on the side of the road a few miles later.

Abandoned cars get stripped within an hour, so this one must have just stopped.

I slow down and don’t see anyone sitting in the truck.

It probably ran out of gas. That’s usually why vehicles are left on the side of the road. But it’s also possible that it had mechanical problems and there’s still gas in that tank.

I have to check. No matter how unlikely, any chance of finding gas is too important to pass up.

After pulling my motorcycle off the road in front of the car, I get off and walk to the driver’s side door.

I gasp and jump back when I realize there’s a man across the bench seat.

He’s slumped over, which is why I couldn’t see him from the road.

His shirt is soaked in blood.

My first instinct is to back off quickly. This man clearly met a violent end—something I want to stay as far away from as possible. But this car might be working, and it might have gas. There could be supplies in the back. I’d be a fool to not check it out just because of some blood and a dead body.

So I steel my nerve and approach again.

I open the door and push the man’s limp body back from the steering wheel so I can reach the ignition.

The body is still warm. And not as limp as I expected.

Then it groans.

I jerk back as the man opens his eyes.

His gaze meets mine, and his mouth opens. He’s trying to say something, but it comes out as a wordless rasp.

I check his shirt for the source of the blood and see an ugly wound in his abdomen. It looks like a gunshot. In the days of EMTs and working hospitals, it might have been a survivable wound, but there’s no way he’s going to make it today. He’s on his last breaths as it is.

I feel kind of sick, but not sad. The death of a stranger can’t touch me anymore.

And if this truck has gas, I need it.

No matter how much I’ve changed in the past four years, I don’t have it in me to drag his body out of the vehicle. Not while he’s still alive.

“I’m sorry,” I say at last. “I wish I could help, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.”

“F-Fort Knox.” His soft moans have finally formed complete words.

“What about Fort Knox?”

“Take... take this... Marshall. Watch for... wolf.” His right hand fumbles in his pocket until he’s pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

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