Nathan Jones: Fuel

With a Whimper

Before Trev headed for his car he ducked into his dorm room just long enough put on the underarm holster for his 1911 and slip on a light jacket to cover it. Bringing the reliable .45 might have been bordering on paranoia just for going shopping, but he had no idea how quickly chaos might descend and preferred paranoid to dead. Besides, with his concealed carry permit he was perfectly within his rights to wear the pistol, even though it would be the first time he’d taken it anywhere outside his room since coming to college, aside from to the car on breaks when he went down to Aspen Hill to practice with it at the range.

With its somewhat unfamiliar weight constantly drawing his attention, not to mention making him feel awkward and conspicuous, he made his way to his car and pulled out of the lot.

As he drove he didn’t see any signs that the world had noticed the abrupt change in the status quo, even after the speech they’d just heard. No panicked people in the streets, no rioters or looters. No gunshots or sirens in the distance, no screams of horror and cries for help. Just like it had over the last year, America would sink into its final oblivion blissfully unaware.

Sure, there were quite a few more vehicles than usual on the road, people out to do whatever last minute preparations they thought would help for the lean times ahead. He also saw more people than usual out on their lawns or front porches in small groups, talking about the recent events. Some were looking up at the sky, as if idly hoping to catch a glimpse of some major disaster while they stood there gawking.

This trip was intended to be a short one, since much as he’d like to just drive straight for home he couldn’t go just yet. He still had a ton of stuff in his room, stuff he’d lugged around all this time and barely used, keeping it for no reason other than that in a situation like this he’d be glad he had it. And he was.

But at the moment he was headed to the nearest gas station. Technically he had enough fuel in his tank to travel the 75 miles to Aspen Hill and then some, a deliberate decision on his part just in case he ever had to make the drive without the opportunity to refuel. But with the local, state, and Federal governments seizing all the remaining fuel he wanted to get as much as he could before it couldn’t be got for love or money. Not only would he fill up his tank but he also had four 3-gallon gas cans in his trunk he’d been meaning to fill up before gas prices got too outrageous, and then it had been too late because gas prices became outrageous.

It didn’t matter now. Any money left in his wallet, in his bank account, and under the limit of his credit cards would soon be worthless. The economy had barely been limping along as it was, and with zero fuel sure to grind commerce to a halt it was about to crash and burn.

To his dismay when he reached the nearest station he saw it was filled with vehicles. That wasn’t the problem, though: on every single gas pump an “OUT OF ORDER” sticker had been put over the fuel type selector buttons. And if that didn’t get the point across, judging by the blank screens the pumps were all turned off.

Trev grit his teeth as he took in the sight. He should’ve expected that the government would act first to secure the sources of fuel and then make the announcement. Specifically for the purpose of preventing people like him, and the dozens of people crowding the station lot with their cars and trying to make the pumps work who’d had the same idea, from snatching up all the fuel before it could be seized.

He was tempted to go in and talk to the station attendants to confirm his suspicions, but the poor employees were already being harried by a crowd of customers demanding they turn the pumps back on. Trev had a feeling that could become a potential source of violence, and he assumed the City Council would soon send a tanker truck around to all the gas stations and other places where fuel could be found to pump it all in and take it somewhere more secure.

As for Trev, he had a feeling it would be a waste of time but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. There might be some stations that were slower to respond and were still selling gas, or at least hadn’t turned off the pumps so he could pay with a card before they did.

He signaled and edged out of the turning lane, continuing on to the light and reentering the turning lane there. He hadn’t seen the roads this crowded since before the Middle East Crisis, and while he’d cursed the bureaucracy that had kept the streetlights on their stupid high-traffic timers back when the streets were deserted and he was forced to wait for several minutes at an empty intersection for them to finally turn, now they were actually performing their function again.

So he sat waiting at the light, cursing the waste of gas but with traffic this dense not wanting to turn off his engine to save fuel and end up pissing off everyone behind him.

Although it looked as if the driver of the SUV in his rearview mirror was already pissed off enough, considering the vehicle was lurching forward then easing back in an obvious display of impatience. The SUV was riding his tailgate so hard Trev expected to be nudged at any moment. If he hadn’t already assumed some uncharitable things about the guy from the fact that he was driving a vehicle that had to get less than twenty miles to the gallon when gas was over ten dollars at the pump, this display would’ve confirmed it.

Finally the driver backed up a bit, but only to roar past everyone in the turning lane on the oncoming traffic side of the road while everyone at the intersection was stopped by red lights. His impatience allowed him to turn left about two seconds before their light turned green and the cars in front of Trev started going. The driver also flipped everyone a rude gesture as he passed. In spite of the situation Trev did feel a bit of satisfaction since, unlike the SUV, he had seen the patrol car sitting in the gas station lot.

The patrol car roared out after the miscreant, lights already on as he wove through traffic and forced the SUV to pull over for a ticket. Unfortunately that meant everyone who’d just turned left had to shift lanes to accommodate the slowing vehicles, which wasted more time than if the asshole had just waited two more seconds.

In spite of his satisfaction at seeing the SUV’s immediate karma Trev had to wonder why the police were bothering with traffic stops in this situation. With fuel so scarce all law enforcement and emergency vehicles should’ve been back at their respective stations, only brought out when they were truly needed. Maybe the local government had decided that keeping order on a day like today was important enough to justify the waste of gas.

Or maybe they were just super eager for the extra revenue from that ticket in an economy that was about to collapse.

Either way Trev had his own problems as he drove for the next nearest gas station only to find it also closed down even though its lot was packed with cars searching for fuel. He kept going to another one just down the street and it was closed too. Common sense told him today wasn’t the day for exercises in futility, but Trev wasn’t about to give up on his idea just yet so he kept going looking for more stations.

It was the same for the next one he tried, and the one after that. On the sixth gas station he finally gave up and turned at the next light to make his way back to campus by a different route so he could try the gas stations along it and maybe get lucky, although at this point he wasn’t holding his breath. The change had been too sudden, and he’d been caught unable to adjust from a world of plentiful, if expensive, gasoline to one where it couldn’t be found anywhere for any reason.