by Nathan Jones
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.
The morning of the fourth day after the attack he found the swelling was almost gone and he could walk with barely any pain. He didn't even need the splint anymore. He was able to make a bit better time, although still nothing like he would've wanted. He hadn't seen a single car since that one on the first day.
His worry that day was water. He'd been drinking less than he should on the previous days to conserve his supply, which was a bad idea, but he'd still run out last night and had woken up thirsty several times. But luckily after only a few hours of walking he found a house surrounded by a log fence and with a gravel driveway built well off the road. The residents were willing to let him refill his water bottles, and while he was there Trev also got a good long drink.
He asked the family if they had any spare gas, since depending on how much they had it might open up all sorts of options. But if they did have any they weren't willing to admit it, and although he would've like to talk to them about what was going on in the world they seemed edgy and uncomfortable, maybe because of the rifle case on his pack that the wife kept looking at. So as soon as his bottles were filled Trev thanked them and continued on his way.
By that point his injuries were actually less of a concern than fatigue. He'd been doing his best to take it slow, but carrying the heavy pack for extended periods of time was taking its toll and he wasn't getting many chances to rest his muscles. He decided to rest most of the fifth day and continue on the sixth.
While he was resting he found a pond on some private property but didn't see any sign of a house or any other way to contact the owner. He got his first opportunity to break out his water filter and read the instructions on how to use it properly. It was surprisingly simple, but he still had to wonder how long it would've taken him to figure it out on his own.
The day of rest helped him more than he realized, even though he woke up on the sixth day sore and feeling like he had zero energy. In spite of that he made good speed, managing to travel most of the rest of the way to Aspen Hill before dark. It was the first day he'd really gone any sort of significant distance, although still far slower than he would've preferred.
Finally on the seventh day, an entire grueling week since the attack, he woke and packed up camp, passing the sign he'd slept beneath informing him that the turnoff for Aspen Hill was only 5 miles away, with the town itself another 4 miles along that road with the mountains of Manti-La Sal looming farther to the west.
50 miles carrying a pack that stretched him to the limits of his strength had turned out to be a much farther distance than he'd expected, especially while nursing injuries, but with any luck he'd be there sometime in the afternoon.
* * * * *
Professor Vasquez wasn't there when Matt arrived for his first class seventh day after the attack. According to Heidi, his TA, the professor hadn't shown up for any of his classes yesterday afternoon either, his office was empty and locked up, and he couldn't be reached on his cell phone.
The Spanish teacher was in good company considering that less than a quarter of the enrolled students had shown up for class. That made three of Matt's seven classes canceled, and in Chemistry they'd just spent the last few days watching the news while Dr. Harris spouted off his opinions on who'd been behind the attack and what the future of the US held, theories that made Trev's dire predictions seem sane in comparison.
All things considered Matt wouldn't be surprised if his remaining classes folded within the next few days, and he finally decided to accept reality and not even bother attending them. He had a feeling that no matter what he might want his college experience had pretty much been put on hiatus.
He couldn't believe the change the university had gone through in just a week. It seemed like everybody had just given up on things returning to normal. The students and faculty who still remaine
d spent most of their time huddled in groups talking about the situation or watching the news: ironically in spite of the heavy electricity restrictions being enforced by campus administration all the lounges were lit pretty much 24/7 and every TV turned on to various channels.
On his way back to his dorm Matt passed through the bookstore, more out of curiosity than because he needed anything. All the books were still there, but the stands that had held food or impulse buy nicknacks were disconcertingly empty, although he did find several empty 2-liter soda bottles that he gathered up to take back to the dorm with him.
Even the big bulk candy dispensary against one wall was cleaned out, aside from an array of flat multi-colored splotches on the floor around it that painted a pretty good picture of what had happened since he'd last been through here. He could just imagine students pushing and shoving to fill their backpacks as candy spilled everywhere to be trampled underfoot.
Not that the cafeteria was any better. Most of the restaurants had closed and all the various food stands and shelves were empty. The only business booming there was the ration line managed by the administration, which stretched back across the cavernous space in spite of the fact that they scanned your card to limit you to a once a day visit and you got barely a cup of food, usually oatmeal or some nuts and dried fruit.
Matt had already been through it not half an hour ago before heading to the class that turned out to be canceled. While in line he'd done his best to read his textbooks as he shuffled forward with the other students and faculty jostling impatiently around him. The pitiful meal had barely seemed worth the effort, but his dorm's kitchen was looking pretty bare in spite of the couple weeks' worth of cheap food he and his roommates had had on hand and the scrounging he and Chad had done the first day. He wanted to conserve what was left for as long as possible.
A fight had broken out just after he got his food, ending up in a mad shove forward that had turned the meandering line into a blob around the food counter as people clamored to get their share before the chaos made the ration dispenser close. In that odd way of things the desperate effort to try to prevent something ended up being the cause of it, and within minutes the people manning the counter fled back into the kitchen and locked the door, leaving the crowd to fight over the abandoned food.
For all he knew the ration line was closed for good now, just like his classes were shutting down. How long before the campus became a refugee camp as students and faculty with nowhere else to go struggled to survive?
Ironically in spite of everything that conspired to make up Matt's mind to finally give in and go home, the way Trev had warned him a week ago that he should, he'd stubbornly stayed waiting for the straw that broke the camel's back. Had it finally arrived with what he'd seen in the ration line followed by the cancelation of his Spanish class? Deep in his mind he knew it had, although he wasn't consciously ready to admit he was returning to his dorm from classes for the last time.
The campus was eerily deserted, with the sort of hush that reminded Matt of the tension in a crowded room just after somebody shouted angrily and was escorted out. Or around groups of fans from different teams before a fight broke out. Either way the stillness gave Matt the willies, and he hurried from the bookstore to his dorm.
He found the lounge packed with students as usual, not only because power to the rest of the building was shut off during the day but because news developments literally occurred hourly to be displayed on the several large screens. Sometimes minutely. Ironically while the physical world ground to a standstill the internet kept going a mile a minute, at least until the power ran out, so even though news teams couldn't physically go out to where events were occurring they could still get video footage from people at the scene. The background behind the newscasters was usually dominated by shaky camera clips urgently narrated by their breathless, usually barely audible owners.
He paused to watch the news for a while, although the developing stories and video feeds were so similar they could've come from one place instead of all over the nation. It turned out the “wait and see” policy the President had advocated on the first day after the attack wasn't much better than Matt's own. In less than a week Matt had been proven wrong about people holding together until things could get back to normal, but the Commander-in-Chief's resolution hadn't even lasted that long.
An official nationwide state of emergency had been declared just 3 days after the attack, after the first riots started and the first cities began reporting food shortages critical enough that already tens of thousands of their citizens were going without meals. Martial law and a strict curfew had been imposed on the cities with the largest populations and the President had appeared back on TV for another speech.
This one hadn't been quite as calm and reassuring, and the only nuggets of good news offered were that construction of the new refineries was already underway and that the Federal government had officially dispatched FETF, the Federal Emergency Task Force, along with elements of the National Guard working with other branches of the Armed Forces, to render aid and restore order in the cities where circumstances were most desperate. He also promised further aid to every city in the nation as the situation warranted. And, finally, he'd practically begged citizens to remain calm and orderly, stating that civil unrest would only cause problems for everyone.
The attempts by the nation's leader to impose order were largely ineffective, and over the next few days even though the news constantly reported on new events they always followed the same trend: looting and riots in major cities, fires burning unchecked through entire neighborhoods, crime shooting through the roof, and local government officials who hadn't had enough fuel to even truck in food now not having enough to send police and emergency vehicles where they were needed after the first few hours.
The news was interspersed with PSAs and statements from public officials, actors, religious leaders, and other prominent people urging everyone to remain calm and exercise social responsibility in the face of this crisis, which didn't seem to be helping at all judging by the news stories regularly appearing of escalating violence.
Chaos raged in state capitols and along the east and west coasts, with any city with a large population getting a taste of it. Even though it was far too soon for people to be starving experts were already estimating death tolls in the tens of thousands, a number they grimly projected could increase by an order of magnitude within the next few days, and probably rise into the tens or even hundreds of millions over the winter if the fuel crisis wasn't resolved.
Matt was shocked by how quickly things were falling apart in spite of the rationing and emergency measures cities under Martial Law had to have taken to prevent just this sort of thing. His waning hope that things would eventually go back to normal had long since given way to alarm as he instead saw things spiraling further and further out of control, with no sign of any return to normalcy on the horizon.
For the first few days newscasters had optimistically parroted the President's assurance of quickly building new refineries and using the nation's last reserves to make sure food and necessities were trucked to population centers all over the U.S. to outlast the crisis. They'd spoken of the various measures being taken to secure vital supplies and of doubling the workload at remaining refineries to meet increased demand.
But after those first few days after the attack the news reports of developments in solving the crisis dwindled down to nothing, and Matt couldn't help but feel that in spite of the old saying that no news was good news, the eerie silence on the subject of when they could expect the refined fuel to start flowing and food trucks to start running again was very, very bad news. The sort that hinted at a long term disaster instead of a short term crisis.
The long and short of it was that it was only a matter of time before riots started here as well, and he had a feeling that was going to be days or even hours as opposed to weeks. Matt couldn't take looking at the shaky videos of fires raging out of control and crowds
hurling rocks and bricks at capitol buildings anymore, so he hurriedly left the lounge and made his way to his apartment.
The dorms were split into apartment clusters with four rooms each shared by two people, with two shared bathrooms and a kitchen and small living area completing the space. Five of Matt's roommates had already left, including Chad, and he barely saw the two who remained. Neither was anywhere to be seen when he entered the apartment and took the soda bottles over to the sink to wash them out and fill them with water. Trev had seemed sure the power would go soon and the water would quickly follow, and Matt wanted to be sure there was plenty around just in case.
He was actually a little amazed that, thanks to the power restrictions and whatever fuel reserves the electric companies were running on, they still had plenty of running water and lights at night and even internet and cell phone service. And yet the flow of trucks bringing food and other necessities into the city had slowed to a trickle, quickly seized by city officials for rationing when they arrived, and only a week after the Gulf refineries attack the city had already run out of food and people were going hungry all around him.
Was Trev right, and that was all the food available in the entire city at any given time? A week or so? Sure, Matt could guess people were hoarding whatever they'd managed to snatch up and those who'd acted fast were doing okay. But even with all the stores with full shelves, the restaurants stocked for service, and the warehouses where extra food was stored until it was needed, not to mention locally produced food like orchards and egg and dairy services, he would've expected the food to last at least a month.