Nathan Jones - Fuel

His poor car was in even worse condition than the last time he’d seen it, now with the tires slashed and the roof caved in as if a heavy person had jumped up and down on top of it. He had to wonder who had the energy for that sort of senseless destruction while racing against death by thirst or starvation.

There were a few refugees in a group ahead of them, and they’d passed others about fifteen minutes ago who’d catch up too soon, so they stopped for a while near his car to rest and wait until the coast was clear before hurrying down the steep slope to leading from the highway to the copse below, getting into the cover of the trees just as they caught sight of people coming into view on the road above. Trev could only hope they hadn’t been noticed as he led the group to the small clearing.

“So now we finally get to use those shovels and can openers you grabbed,” Matt said, staring at the ground where he’d dug the cache as if expecting an angel to rise out of it. “Please tell me you’ve got a ton of food in there.”

Trev grinned, barely caring how his legs nearly buckled as relief washed over him when he saw that his attempts to hide the hole he’d dug had succeeded. “Not quite a literal ton, but it’s enough to last me about a year. And that’s not counting the cartful of stuff I grabbed from a grocery store on the way down. That’s probably another two or three months easy. I’ve also got some cases of bottled water.”

“That’s amazing,” Terry muttered. “And you’ve had that much food just sitting here all this time?”

Trev shrugged as he set his pack down and dug out the shovels. “I didn’t really have a way of getting it down to Aspen Hill. I probably would’ve tried at some point but I had other things to do.”

“Like coming to help us,” April said, resting a hand on his arm. “And now you’re sharing all this with us. It’s a godsend, Trev. You’re a godsend.” Terry and Matt were quick to agree.

Doing his best to hide how his face flushed with embarrassment at the praise, Trev handed out the shovels and together they got to work. Even with the small, inadequate tools it only took a few minutes of frantic digging to get down to the cache, drawing on their last reserves of strength and driven by hunger.

Terry was first to hit it, pausing when his shovel struck dirt with a crinkling sound and throwing his shovel away. He dropped to his knees, staring at the spot in excitement. “I hit tarp!” he nearly shouted. He began digging with his bare hands, scrabbling to get a grip on the plastic mesh.

Trev put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “We’re going to have to do a lot more digging before we can uncover the tarp.”

Matt made a choking noise. “I know you told us how much there was, but it still hasn’t sunk in.” He got to work again in nearly a frenzy, digging down to the tarp and then expanding the hole around the edges. Trev joined him, and Terry retrieved his tool to continue as well. Finally they got enough of the tarp uncovered that working together at one end they managed to heave it and the remaining dirt off.

As Matt and Terry dropped the tarp and fell to their knees beside the hole Trev yanked on it one last time, partially displacing the blankets underneath, which the other two men pulled aside to reveal the things he’d cached nearly three weeks ago.

April also fell to her knees beside the hole, and together they all stared at the bags of food and other gear piled atop boxes and buckets with expressions of awe and almost desperate need. April was the first to reach into the cache, pulling out one of the tied shut grocery bags with a grunt of effort and ripping it open with her fingernails. She pulled out a can almost reverently. “Green beans,” she said, making a noise that was half laugh, half sob. “I hate green beans.”

In direct contradiction with what she’d just said the blond woman accepted the can opener Trev offered her and attacked the top with almost desperate frenzy. Once it was open she dropped to sit cross-legged with her two children crowding around her and pulled the lid away. The three of them immediately set to scooping in mouthfuls of the stringy food with their bare hands, dripping green bean juice all over their dirty clothes.

Trev handed out more can openers and they all got to work opening cans and filling their bellies with real, solid food. The rose hips had felt like manna from heaven, but even while eating them the last few days Trev had craved something more substantial. Now he finally had it.

They gorged themselves that evening, eating extra to make up for the lean days, and then at Trev’s insistence they took out as much food as they thought they’d be able to carry with them to Aspen Hill. Terry and April transferred the lightest of their things to Aaron’s small backpack so they could fill their only slightly larger school packs, then got to work finding a way to load the wagon to capacity beneath their few possessions.

As for Matt and Trev’s backpacks, they were larger and could hold more and Trev actually had to empty a few things from his friend’s pack to lighten it, reminding him of the harsh lesson he’d learned his first day. Matt protested that he was willing to overburden himself if it meant having more food when they got home, and Terry quickly offered to share the load, so Trev stopped arguing and focused on his own pack. He also planned to pick up everything he’d unloaded a mile down the road, assuming it was still there, so he packed with that in mind.

In the end it felt like they barely made a dent on the cache. Trev had them help him cover it up again with blankets and the tarp, then they filled the hole back in and covered it with a carpet of leaves and sticks to camouflage it once more.

That night they slept in the clearing right on top of the cache. For Trev it was the best night’s sleep he’d had since the FETF camp, with a full stomach and the comfort that the long, harrowing journey was nearly over and they were almost home. It didn’t even occur to him that he was facing the same 50 mile trek that had nearly defeated him the first week after the attack, and yet after all the traveling he’d done it felt like no more than the final stretch.

Just before noon on the 22nd day after the Gulf refineries attack found Sam making her way to Roadblock 1 for a shift.

She’d done four so far, all fairly uneventful. The biggest trouble they’d encountered was a brief scuffle between refugees and “townies”, as the refugees had taken to calling the residents of Aspen Hill, at the spring a couple days ago. A few of the men manning the roadblock with her had hurried to break it up, sending the refugees back to camp and the townspeople back to their homes, and that had been that.

At least within the town itself. Troubling news had been making its way around the roadblocks that people were being robbed outside of town. Some blamed bandits, others came to the more logical conclusion that the refugees were causing trouble, but either way Mayor Anderson and Officer Turner had tightened the town’s borders even more and cautioned the residents of Aspen Hill to stay behind the roadblocks and patrols.

When Sam arrived at the roadblock she saw that the town’s lone policeman-turned-leader was there for an inspection, currently talking with Chauncey Watson, who she’d done a shift with, and a tall man about her age with light brown hair and the lean, wiry look of someone who ran track or marathons. Or in this case went on frequent long patrols, since from the descriptions she’d been given she guessed this was Lewis Halsson, Trev’s cousin. Matt had told her about how draining the shifts had been the few times he’d helped out, and from what she understood Lewis did them frequently.