Nathan Jones - Fuel

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.

As he lay awkwardly on the rocky roadside, gritting his teeth against the throbbing in his leg and staring up at a clear, starry sky, he came to a realization he should have had a long time ago: it wasn’t supplies that spelled the difference between life and death in a real disaster. Once those ran out or if they were stolen or, in his situation, if he couldn’t even carry them, he’d be in the same situation he would’ve been in not having them at all.

It was knowledge and learned skills he needed to survive long term, and survive any situation life threw at him. That and deliberate, educated consideration of the situation to avoid making possibly fatal mistakes. He should’ve taken a page from Lewis’s book and learned all the things his cousin was learning, mimicked his pragmatic and thoughtful approach to life.

Maybe, like Matt, Trev hadn’t really believed this day would ever come. Or maybe he’d assumed that preparing with some supplies would be a good enough substitute for knowledge and skills. Or maybe, arrogantly, he’d been thinking that if he needed any of that knowledge or those skills Lewis would be around to help him.

As he did his best to fall asleep in spite of his intense discomfort he decided he was going to need to learn some important things, and quick. And he needed to be ready to solve his own problems because he couldn’t always count on someone else being there to help him.

For crying out loud, he hadn’t even thought to pack painkillers!

In spite of a sleepless night and waking up to find his ankle and knee bruised and swollen Trev felt a lot more hopeful the next morning, the second day after the attack.

He had the food to rest and heal up for as long as he needed, and enough water for another day or so as well as a top quality purifier. He’d also gotten ahead of himself in survivalist mode and forgotten that most of the rest of the world thought this was going to be a temporary disaster, and the bad news had only been sprung yesterday anyway. Power was still running, which meant water too, and there might even be a car coming by that he could hitch a ride with.

All in all even if it was the end of the world, it wasn’t the end of the world. The important thing now was to focus on doing what he could for his leg and plan out his next moves. He’d gone just over 30 miles yesterday, which meant that he just had 45 left to go. And a lot of his problems the day before had come from lack of sleep and tiring himself out digging the cache, so he was more optimistic he’d get farther if he saved all his energy for walking. He could up his speed from just over a mile an hour to at least 2, maybe more.

Once he was back on his feet he could make it the rest of the way in two or three days even if he moved at a snail’s pace, as long as he moved constantly. He’d also take it slower and rest when needed to prevent exhaustion and any future injuries.

A tortoise could beat a hair with a broken leg any day.

First things first was to test his leg. The knee was heavily swollen and bruised and bending it was excruciating, but the ankle was what really worried him. He thought he’d just rolled it, but carrying that much weight while falling he might’ve actually broken it instead. With the muscles stiff from swelling and not moving all night it was painful to try to move his foot at all, but he grit his teeth and did his best to try moving and rotating it. In spite of the ache he was able to, which ruled out a broken ankle and made him feel a bit more hopeful.

Even though he’d tossed his clothes he’d kept his extra pairs of socks, since experience had shown him what it was like taking an extended hiking trip with dirty socks and the problems they could cause with blisters and other nuisances. He took a moment to put on another sock and wedge his sheathed skinning knife between the two as a crude splint. Once he’d put his shoe back on and tied a short length of rope around the hilt higher up the ankle it kept his foot fairly straight.

He couldn’t do anything for his knee at the moment besides take his only other piece of clothing, a sweater in case it got cold, and wrap it tightly around the joint and then tie it off. That would keep it from bending too much, at least. All in all it was a pretty pathetic bit of first aid, but he thought it might be enough to let him limp a few feet. He carefully levered himself up on his good leg, straightening awkwardly, and took a few careful steps.

It hurt, and he had to almost completely favor his right leg, but he could walk. Leaving his pack behind he limped down the side of the road to a spot with a wider shoulder where trees grew up the steep hillside almost to the road. There he gathered the straightest sticks he could find to make a more proper splint, then went back and laboriously dragged his pack down to the trees as far from the road as he could get and still have a level surface, where it took him way too long to set up his tent.

For most of that day he rested, keeping his leg still and occasionally dozing. He called Lewis to let him know what had happened and that he’d be later than expected, noting when he did that his phone was nearly dead. Another thing he hadn’t thought of. His cousin chewed him out for his carelessness while looking over his injuries from a few photos of them that Trev sent him, in between discussing specific details. As far as they could tell the knee was just bruised and the ankle was heavily rolled.

The good news there was that neither would prevent him from walking, although Lewis still advised that he rest a few days, then be careful and take it slow. Trev hung up and shut off his phone to save the battery in case of an emergency, then did as the doctor ordered. For the rest of the day boredom was a bigger problem than discomfort, although he tried to make the most of the time by practicing drawing and holstering his 1911 in the few positions he could manage without being able to stand or kneel.

The morning of the third day he was relieved to find that the swelling had gone down significantly, and after a bit of careful stretching his leg and limbering up he was able to walk around. His muscles were sore from the first day’s exertion, but by noon he’d decided he was ready to set out again and packed up his camp.

He managed to go a few hours before he found himself tottering on his feet, his knee a mass of pain even though he couldn’t bend it through the splint. Learning from his earlier mistake he immediately stopped to rest for another few hours, then continued on until sundown at a very slow, deliberate pace.