She smiled when I handed her a cup. “Thanks. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
I wasn’t sure that it mattered anymore, but I nodded.
I needed to tell her we weren’t going to be leaving, at least not yet, but I took a few minutes so we could both drink our coffee. My brain was groggy and muddled, and I needed to wake up a little before we tackled the next challenge.
A few minutes passed in silence, but it didn’t take long before Kiaya had narrowed her eyes on me. I was caught. She could tell something was up. Knew I had news that was going to change our plans yet again.
“What is it?” she finally said.
I exhaled and slumped onto the bed. “The car is on empty, and apparently all the gas stations are as well.”
Her back stiffened. “How do you know?”
“A guy I ran into mentioned it.” I shook my head. “What’s more, even if we were able to leave, I think we’re totally unprepared for what we’re about to face. I bought some road trip snacks, but not a lot. We need supplies, things that will help us if we get stranded in the middle of nowhere. Assuming we can find gas.”
“What kind of supplies?” Kiaya asked.
I gnawed on my lip, trying to figure out what to say, then decided to just go for it. Repeating everything the asshole had said to me, I laid it all out for Kiaya. The more I talked, the more her expression darkened, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Up to now, she’d been so closed off most of the time, making it tough to get a read on her.
When I’d finished talking, I sat back and waited for her to respond.
She blew out a long breath like she’d been holding it, and genuine worry flashed in her eyes. “You’re right. I should have thought about it. God knows I’ve seen the worst kind of people in my life.”
For a moment, I said nothing, not sure if I should ask or let it go. Kiaya definitely wasn’t one for sharing, something that had really irked me at first. Now I realized it was because I couldn’t possibly understand the things she’d probably been through. My family had been the ideal. The kind featured on television. Kiaya, however, had never had that.
“Weapons…” She shook her head, her frown growing deeper. “We’ve already established that neither of us has ever been around guns, so even if we managed to get our hands on one—which seems like a long shot in this tiny town—we have no clue what we’re doing.”
“I know,” I said. “I feel like I’d be more likely to shoot myself in the foot than anything.”
Kiaya’s eyebrows jumped. “You have amazing confidence in yourself.”
Despite the dire circumstances we found ourselves in, her lips twitched. She was being sarcastic, I realized, poking fun to try to lighten the mood, and I appreciated it. Things were getting heavier by the hour, and it was making me tense.
A small laugh popped out of my mouth. “In most things, I’d say I’m pretty confident in my abilities, but being able to figure out a gun probably isn’t one of them.”
“Yeah,” she said, the serious light returning to her eyes.
“Weapons aside, we need to think about what we might face and plan for it. Things have gotten pretty quiet in this town, and odds are it’s not going to get any better.”
I started gnawing on my nails as I gave it some thought, barely aware that I was doing it. Just a few weeks ago, right before martial law, I’d gotten a manicure. What a waste of money.
I spit out a tiny sliver of fingernail before saying, “We should try to stock up on food.” I thought about how many hours of driving through the middle of nowhere it had taken to get us here, and how many more we’d face. A lot. “Water, too. Just in case.”
“In case of what?” Kiaya asked.
“In case we get stranded,” I replied.
She sat back, saying nothing.
“If only I’d watched more end of the world movies,” I mumbled to myself, trying to think about what we might need.
“We’re smart,” Kiaya said. “We don’t need fiction to figure this out. Right? We just have to think about what we might face.”
“I guess,” I replied, shrugging.
Was it even possible to really prepare for most of the population dying?
I walked to the end of the parking lot and stopped, looking up and down the road. The diner was across the street, but other than that, there were few businesses in sight. And not just in sight, either. I’d thumbed through the yellow pages in the motel room hoping to find a listing for a Wal-Mart or a similar store but had come up with nothing. The best shot we had at getting any of the supplies we needed was going to be one of the several gas stations in town, and that was assuming they were open, which was a long shot at best.
“What are you thinking?” Kiaya asked.
“That we’re going to have to take a hike.”
“A hike?”
I tore my gaze from the empty road in front of me and focused on Kiaya. “I don’t want to drive the car anywhere, not with as low on gas as it is, which means walking. I could take some stranger’s word for it that every gas station was out, but that would be stupid. I don’t know him, and I have no reason to trust him.”
“Why would he lie?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Why does anyone lie?”
“Different reasons.”
“Exactly. There are a million reasons to lie, which means we can’t know them all. The smartest thing to do is to check things out for ourselves.”
“Okay.” Kiaya nodded and turned to study the road the way I had a moment ago. “So, we walk to the gas stations and verify they’re out. Then what?”
“If we happen to find some gas, we can walk back and get the car. If not… Well, I don’t know. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Kiaya gnawed on her bottom lip, worry flashing in her eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, feeling like I needed to reassure her. “I don’t know how, but I do know I won’t rest until we find a way out of this. If we have to walk or ride bikes or even horses, we will.”
“Horses?” Kiaya asked doubtfully.
“I saw a listing in the phone book for a horse ranch. It was just a thought.”
“I’ve never been on a horse.”
“I haven’t since I was a kid, and even then it was a guided ride.” I exhaled. “But if it comes down to trying to figure it out or being stuck in this shithole, I’m willing to try.”
“Me, too.”
“According to the phone book, there are seven gas stations in Vega, so we better get moving,” I said as I started walking.
Kiaya jogged to catch up.
The sun pounded down on us as we walked, neither of us talking. I could see the sign for the first gas station in the distance, probably only a few blocks down. It was a long shot, but I found myself whispering a silent prayer that the guy at the motel had been a compulsive liar.
Not a single moving car was in sight, and just like yesterday, the day was deathly silent. The emptiness that had fallen over the world felt like it belonged in a movie, not in reality, and I found myself suddenly wanting to scream just so there was noise. Since I was pretty sure that would only freak me out even more, I decided instead to try to fill the silence with conversation.
“Tell me something about yourself,” I said.
Despite how quiet she’d been since we met, Kiaya didn’t hesitate to say, “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. I just need some noise to distract me.”
“I get it.” She blew out a long breath as if thinking then said, “I got a full ride to the University of Phoenix. I chose it because it was far away from Indiana and seemed like a totally different world. I never wanted to go back, haven’t been back in two years.” She paused before adding, “I’m not even sure why I’m going now.”
“So, you really have no family?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure my mom is around somewhere, although I haven’t seen her in years. My dad hasn’t been in the pictu
re since I was little, and I don’t remember a thing about him. Not that it matters. I have no desire to see either of them.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what else to say.
“I’m not. Foster care wasn’t always great, but it wasn’t that bad for me. Or at least it could have been worse. I know it would have been worse if I’d stayed with my parents, so if nothing else, I’m thankful they decided I wasn’t worth their time.”
“I can’t imagine that,” I said, thinking about how different our experiences with parents had been. “I mean, my parents tried for years to have me. They wanted me more than anything, and once they brought me home, I became their everything. Their lives have literally revolved around me for the past twenty years.”
Kiaya looked at me out of the side of her eye. “What’s that like?”
“Depends on the day,” I said, shrugging the way she had a few minutes ago. “Sometimes it’s great because I basically get whatever I want. Other times it’s suffocating because my mom’s focus is always on me.”
“And your dad?”
“He had his job,” I said, barely noticing that I’d used the past tense. “Plus, it’s different with a dad. It’s not as all-consuming. I guess that’s the best way to describe it.”
We reached the gas station and paused next to one of the pumps. I couldn’t tell just by looking at them whether there was gas, but the dark interior of the station didn’t make me very hopeful.
“They look closed,” Kiaya said as if reading my mind.
“Yeah.”
I exhaled and closed my eyes, the urge to scream coming over me again. The midday sun was hot, and my skin was moist with sweat, my hair clinging to my neck and my shirt sticking to my back. By the time we returned to the motel I’d be a sweaty, burned mess. It would have been nice if I’d packed sunblock, but I hadn’t thought about it. This wasn’t how my trip was supposed to go. I should have been home by now, or at the very least getting close. Instead, I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with very little hope of getting out of here.
I was going to have to call my mom and let her know what was going on.
“We should keep moving,” Kiaya said, jolting me from my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I replied, sighing.
The next closest gas station was a few streets over and more than a mile away, so we headed off, following the directions on my phone. Once again, we were silent, but this time my brain was too full of thoughts and questions to really notice. I was too busy thinking about what we would find at the next gas station and the one after that, about the supplies we might need and how we were going to get hold of them, and about what was happening at home. I’d purposefully avoided asking Mom about Dad the night before, both because I hadn’t wanted to upset her and because I’d wanted to shield myself, but the way my calls went right to voicemail was something I couldn’t ignore. If he were alive, he would keep his phone charged. He would call Mom even if he didn’t want to go home and risk exposing her. He hadn’t done either of those things, which meant he had to be dead.
Movement caught my eye, and I turned, squinting as I peered through the large picture window of a nearby house. The glare made it tough to see at first, but after a moment, I saw it again. A figure just inside the house, standing at the window as if watching us.
“Someone is in there,” I said, nodding to the house.
Kiaya followed my gaze and had just opened her mouth to reply when something banged against the window. We were fifteen feet or more away, but the sudden thud still made me jump.
“Shit.” My hand went to my heart. “That scared me.”
“I know.” She shook her head, squinting like she was trying to make out the person better. “You think that was the point? That he was trying to scare us away?”
“I guess so. Why else would someone throw themselves against a window?”
“Well,” Kiaya said, grabbing my arm and pulling me with her as she started walking again. “It worked.”
“No shit,” I muttered under my breath.
The next gas station was a repeat of the first, dark and empty with no one in sight, so I typed the address for the third one into Google maps. By then, I was past the point of hot. My mouth was dry, my head pounding from the combination of the heat and the sun, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the pool back at the hotel. Diving into the water sounded amazing right about now.
A Coke machine at the side of the building caught my eye, so I dug my wallet out of my purse, nodding to it. “I need a drink. You?”
“Yeah,” Kiaya said, her voice scratchy like she was feeling as parched as I was.
I found a couple dollar bills and tried to insert them into the machine, but nothing happened. Of course, the damn bill acceptor would be busted. I wasn’t sure if I had enough change to get two drinks, but I dug through my purse anyway. Until this whole virus thing, I hadn’t carried cash very often—everywhere took cards these days—and usually when I did, I ended up just tossing the change in that bottom of my purse, so it took a few minutes to locate enough coins for one drink.
“That’s all I have,” I said, holding my hand out for Kiaya to see. “You?”
She avoided looking at me, instead focusing on the machine. “I only have bills.”
“We can share?” I said.
“Yeah.” Kiaya’s head bobbed. “We can share.”
“Cool.” I turned back to the machine.
I slipped the first quarter in, and a second later it clanged into the change return at the bottom. I knew what that most likely meant—that the whole thing was out of order—but I put a second one in anyway. A clang followed.
“Shit,” I muttered, scooping the quarters up.
Kiaya’s eyes were narrowed on the building when I turned to look at her.
“What is it?” I asked.
She took a step closer to the gas station. “I think the power’s out.”
Following her gaze, I studied the building. The interior was dark, which I’d taken to mean the place was closed, but I now realized it was abnormally dark. The signs hanging in the window that should have been lit up weren’t, and the refrigerators in the back of the store weren’t illuminated the way they usually were either.
“You’re right.”
I turned so I could study the surrounding area, curious if the electricity was out in the whole town or just here. It was the middle of the day, though, and the sun was bright, so the streetlights weren’t on, and at first I couldn’t see anything else that would tell me one way or the other. Then I spotted the stoplights hanging over the intersection at the end of the street. They were dark.
“I think it’s out everywhere,” I said, pointing down the road.
“It must have just happened,” Kiaya replied. “It was on at the motel.”
I hadn’t even thought about the motel, and the realization that we were going to get back to no power made me groan. “Shit. I guess there’s no real point in checking out the other places on my list. I mean, even if they had gas, we wouldn’t be able to get it without electricity. Which means we’re stuck, and not just in the middle of nowhere anymore. We’re stuck in a town full of rotting bodies with no chance of getting away and no power. Do you know how hot and smelly it’s going to get?”
I was starting to think nothing was ever going to go my way again, and the thought brought on a wave of panic. I was used to having everything my way, and I didn’t know how I would cope in a world where that wasn’t the case. How would I survive? Could I adapt to this new reality? Suddenly, I was more unsure of the future than I’d ever been.
“It will be fine,” Kiaya said, sounding so sure that I tried to grab hold of her certainty.
It didn’t work.
“I don’t see how,” I said. “Unless you have an idea of how we can get some gas, we’re either stuck or we walk.”
“We can siphon it from other cars,” she said, her voice quiet and uncertain even though her expression wasn’t. “I’ve bee
n thinking about it since you brought the whole gas thing up. I mean, there are dozens of abandoned vehicles in the parking lot and more all over the city. It might take a while, but it could work.”
I stared at her while I thought it over, but no matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I would be able to siphon gas from a car. The first—and most important—reason was that the only real experience I had with something like siphoning gas was what I’d seen in movies and on television, and I had no clue if the way it was depicted was actually how it worked. It wasn’t like you could trust movies to be totally realistic.
“I see a few problems with that,” I said. “The main one being that I have no idea how to siphon gas. Do you?”
“Honestly,” she said, her expression thoughtful, “I don’t think it would be that hard. It’s basic physics, really. It’s all about gravity, liquid cohesion, and air pressure. Simple.”
“Simple?” I blinked. “Not to me.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “To me, it is. I mean, it’s really just a matter of the air pressure in the gas tank forcing the liquid out. Although, I think I remember reading something about the manufacture of newer vehicles that prevents siphoning the simple way. If that’s the case, we’d just have to look for older cars.”
I thought about our trek through town and the cars at the motel. There had been some newer ones, but there had been plenty of older ones, too. “That shouldn’t be a problem. There are a lot of older cars around.”
“Then we could do it.” Kiaya gave an unconcerned shrug, which for some reason made me feel more confident even if the idea of siphoning gas was still foreign to me. “We just need to find a hose and a gas can.”
“How do you know this?” I asked her.
“I told you. Physics.”
“Like, the class?”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding almost irritated.
I thought about the textbook she’d thrown on the bed in our first motel room and how much time she’d spent reading it. It had seemed like such a waste at the time. Who knew there’d be something useful in there?
“Okay,” I said, thinking it through. “So, we need a couple gas cans and a hose. Where can we get those?”
Far Series (Book 1): Far From Home Page 9