Kent Kelly - Gray Rain Exodus

She shifted her booted feet, and an aching tingle snaked up her adductor muscles, further in up her thighs. She stretched, arced back. And then like an idiot, she almost slammed her door shut out of habit.

You fool, this isn’t some shopping mall. She looked over her shoulder, left to right, listened. Smelled the garbage and the rot of human beings. That generator sound, the pulse of a beast beneath the wind, still echoed from what seemed very far away.

Wind, stench, and darkness. The feel of the suit, she was slick, a sweat of fear. There was the only absence of people. The aluminum rack of gassing hoses was overhead, and warning signage. There was nothing else.

She turned and opened the passenger door, so that Silas could look out with his guns. He was lodged in an awkward position, but he had maneuvered himself onto his side, so that he could lean up on his elbow and fire out behind Sophie if he had to. Indeed, the ARM assault rifle was near at hand and the pistol was already in his grip, its barrel wavering in the air.

The mouth of the pistol was very nearly pointing at Sophie’s face.

“Good God, Silas,” she breathed. She stepped back.

“Could have warned me you were opening my door,” he offered.

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry, captain.” Of all things, he grinned. He was doing a fine job, keeping the razor edge of terror from his voice. “Thought we were just rolling my window down. Just doing the best I can. You’re improvising.”

“Tell me about it, captain.” She kissed him on the forehead. The gun barrel lowered, he smiled a little longer.

She thought about taking off her gloves. She began to, but Silas shook his head. She was not about to debate the relative risks of gloved and gloveless static electricity buildup. But she did reach in and pull out the submachine gun by its grip, never touching the barrel.

“No. Don’t you hold that.” Silas’ eyes were wide.

“What if I need it?”

“Cord it. Pocket it.”

She re-corded the gun and slotted it into her suit’s catchall pocket, as carefully as she could. Her hands were free. She touched the H4’s frame with all fingers, hoping to ground herself, not having any idea if it did any good.

Can’t believe we’ve no choice but to keep the engine running. Turn it off regardless? No, not unless he says so. What if we never get it running again? What if… Her mind was a wrecking ground of conflicting thoughts, arguments and calculations. But you saw, you saw all the signs. There might still be people alive out here. And what if you need to fight soon, Sophie? What if you need to get out of here right away?

She sighed. Enough of that. Focus. Do what you have to do, and quickly.

Looking down into Silas’ eyes for reassurance, finding precious little there but fear, concern, fragility, Sophie nodded.

“Let’s do this now.”

She surveyed the immense and girdered rack of seven hoses, their stout tubes coiling up toward the bay’s arcing ceiling and lost to shadow. Some were blood scarlet, others brown. Each had a different fuel grade and some of these meant nothing to Sophie at all. The largest hoses were so bulky that each had a double-fisted grip clasp clamped onto its throat by steely bolts.

All the way past Loveland, since the untouched gas station where she had filled the duffel bags with supplies, she and Silas had talked about the dangers of fueling at a pump with the engine running, many times. And before, ever since we lost the barrels.

“Do this right,” she whispered to herself. “Do what you’re told.”

She felt a surge of girlish guilt, remembering her long-ago father hollering at her out the window the first time she had foolishly pulled the Volkswagen up to a gas pump ( How long ago did he teach you to drive, Sophie? How many worlds ago? ) and she had almost gotten out without turning the engine off. Are you insane? He had given her holy Hell.

Enough of this. It’s dangerous. Do it anyways.

Spreading out her fingers, moving quickly so that she could not outthink herself any longer, Sophie grabbed one of the red hoses.

“Naw.” Silas was watching over her from behind. “Think that’s diesel-two.”

And it was. The next was Ethanol, the third was something-S15, the fourth another grade she had not even heard of. The last hose in the rack had been hand-painted “SUB-RV” in letters of hasty white. Normal unleaded gasoline? Would it fit in the H4’s filler neck?

Here goes nothing.

Clink. The nozzle slotted in. She primed the pump. She heard the surge of air, the gurgle of pressurized liquid tumbling down and in. A normal fueling had just begun. It worked.

It worked!

“Oh, thank you oh Lord’s mercy,” Silas was whispering. She looked over to him, careful not to touch the fueling hose. He was blinking, struggling to reposition himself so that he could both see her and watch the opening of the bay.

The fueling continued. She thought about scraping the filth off of the headlights, then thought about static electricity. No. Instead, she tightened the roof bungee cords. She looked in and fretted over Silas while she worked, and listened to the wind. She could hear the clang and clatter of solid garbage hitting the bay walls, the aluminum doors and rebounding off.

Silas no longer watched her. He too was listening, scanning, staring out the wide opening then up at the fuel bay’s ceiling.

He’s looking for a convex mirror, she realized. Something to look out and around the corner. There was none. We’re blind in here…

There was some monstrous, unspoken terror-thought behind his encrusted eyes, and Sophie knew they should not have stopped at Pearson’s Corner. Not for fuel, not for anything. We had no choice. She stared at him, whiling the fuel to pump faster.

The gears of his mind were whirring, his face was trembling as he fought with pain and suppressed the urge to say whatever he was thinking.

He knows there’s survivors out there. He’s waiting.

Still, she was certain anyone still alive in Pearson’s Corner could not be in much better health than Silas himself was. There was only a fortified truck stop, a partial ruin. There is no true shelter here. And how many weeks had passed since the War of Hours, the fiery destruction of the world? But the spiral maze of the trucks and welded metal had been huge, deliberate. If there were AWOL military, or survivalists, they probably had access to more than one generator. How else could the fuel pump be running? If they had fuel, the trucks and some few still operational, maybe they even still had lights, electricity inside.

What was possible? What if, Fate forbid, the pumping of fuel had caused another backup generator to come to life in the other building?

Oh, no.

When she next looked down into Silas’ widening eyes, she could see that he had just realized precisely the same thing.

He mouthed to her, holding himself to silence: Get out of here. Now.

She nodded. The gas they had stolen would have to be enough. The fuel was still running, they needed much more considering the leak and the drive to Kersey, the route bypassing Fort Morgan, but there was no time for that. She clicked the fuel feed off, pulled the hose, hung it back. The clack as it settled back in its rack socket seemed ominously loud against the wind.

She took only a second to think about screw the connected gas cap back on, and was just deciding what to do about closing Silas’ door when the alarm klaxon went off.