Peter half-expected the guy to stuff the money into his pocket. His bosses would never know. Instead he pushed one bill back across the counter and slipped the other two into the register’s security slot. “You got nine dollars and twelve cents left if you want something else.”
“Keep it.” Lewis counted four more hundreds onto the counter. “And share these out for anyone else who needs food or water. On us.”
“That’s real kind of you.” The clerk pushed the grocery bags across the counter. “You folks have a real good day, okay?”
Outside, the hunter was staring at the Tahoe with the fuel cans tied to the roof. “No cell service. Radio ain’t even playing that emergency message. You fellas know something we don’t?”
“Power might be out awhile,” Peter said. “If you’ve got family somewhere, you should go to them.”
The hunter gestured at the other men. More people had begun tocollect around them. “We’re all trying to get home,” he said. “That’s how we ended up here. Stopped for gas. But the pump don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handles.”
Peter recognized the lyric from “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” He smiled. “You’re a Dylan fan?”
The hunter grinned and his severe face suddenly looked twenty years younger. “Oh, hell yes. The missus and I seen Bobby play live twenty-three times. We drove to Ellensburg last year to see that movie, with Timothy whatshisname? That kid really nailed it, you know? Made me wish I’d been in Greenwich Village myself back in the day.”
Peter turned to the clerk, who’d come outside to stand with them. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a bucket, rope, and funnel, do you? And the tool to open the access hatch?”
The clerk looked at Peter with hunched shoulders and a glum look. “Mister, I’d give everybody all the gas they need, but it ain’t mine to give. They’d be stealing it.”
Peter held out his hand and Lewis put his roll into it without a word. He never left home with less than five grand. Peter handed the roll directly to the clerk. “My buddy’s buying. Just keep track of how many gallons. You have a pen?” The clerk opened his coat and pulled out a ballpoint. Peter wrote his phone number on one of the hundreds. “Copy that somewhere you won’t lose it. Give the gas to anyone who needs it, every gallon you’ve got. And if you need more money, just text me what I owe. I’m good for it, I promise.”
“Gosh.” The clerk blinked at the money in his hand. “I guess that’ll work. That’s real generous of you. I mean, we’re all in this together, right?”
Peter nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “How about that bucket, rope, and funnel?”
The clerk went back inside. The hunter looked at Peter. “You guys fill up first.”
“We’ve got enough to get where we’re going,” Peter said. “We’re in kind of a hurry, though. Something we need to do.”
The hunter grinned again and the years fell away. “Well hell, us three can get this handled. And we won’t let nobody get greedy, neither. By the way, I’m Wendell.” He put out his hand and they all shook. “It’s been real good to meet you all. Travel safe and take care, you hear?”
They walked across the gravel lot toward the Tahoe, standing alone under the bright canopy of stars. June put her arm around Peter’s waist. “That was nice, wasn’t it? Makes me think that, if we work together, no matter how bad this thing gets, we can make it through.”
Peter thought of the incredible acts of generosity he had witnessed under the most horrific conditions. The other face of war, he supposed. An opportunity for selflessness. He pulled June closer, her hip bumping against his. “People never stop surprising you. They’re usually better than you expect.”
Lewis’s tilted smile turned wistful. “Almost enough to make you believe in humanity, ain’t it?”
—
They checked to make sure their prisoners were still breathing, then topped their tank from two of the fuel cans on the roof and set off again. The freeway was empty. They drank the cold gas station coffee and ate beef jerky and cashews.
Passing Ellensburg, everything was dark. Peter knew there was a hospital somewhere in town, that it would have power from backup generators until the diesel ran out. He looked for the light but he didn’t see it. He wondered if the Messenger’s contacts across the country had started taking down local transformers. Vance had mentioned people overseas, too. Peter wondered how far it had spread, how long it would last.
As they started the long climb up into the Cascades, leaving the high desert behind, the eastern sky began to brighten in the rearview. It was not quite six in the morning. They passed Cle Elum, then Easton, then the exit for the Stampede Pass, which they’d driven down from the Messenger’s compound just five or six hours before. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
At Snoqualmie Pass, the ski resorts and condos were lightless and cold-looking. The snow on the mountains glowed an unearthly white. To the west, the clouds were gathering. Then the road tipped downhill toward the coast, following the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River down through the valley it had cut over a thousand millennia and more. If humanity was at a tipping point, Peter thought, and got knocked back to the Stone Age, at least the wildlife would return. Elk and moose. Bears, mountain lions, and wolves. Birds and fish and everything else mankind had hunted almost to extinction. Without eight billionHomo sapiens, the rest of the planet would be just fine.
June took his hand and squeezed it. In the back seat, Lewis stared out the window with his rifle on his lap. Thinking about Dinah and the boys, Peter was sure. After he delivered Hollis and the kid to the Seattle police, they’d start to plan the trip home to Wisconsin. It would get harder as the days passed and the blackout grew longer. Harder to get food, harder to get fuel. It didn’t matter. They’d done much harder things before. Whatever happened, they’d make it work or die trying. There was a kind of purity to that.
They passed Tinkham Road, sweeping through the long downhill curves. It was fully light now, the clouds a pale gray shrouding the forested hills. Peter had made this drive a half dozen times over the years, and he’d always liked this stretch. North Bend was ahead, then Issaquah. He wondered if his Chevy was repaired yet. Even if it wasn’t, he’d need the camping gear from the back. The old truck got lousy mileage. Maybe better to leave it in Ballard for good. The end of an era.
The thought made him inexplicably sad.
He knew it wasn’t about losing the Chevy. It was about losing everything else. Going out to breakfast with friends. Dancing with June to a barroom jukebox. Seeing a movie in a crowded theater. The whole beautiful messed-up human world. Goddamn them, the Messenger and his people. How dare they end all this?
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Mourning for his lost country. June leaned over and took his arm. The Tahoe threaded its way downhill toward the sea. There were no other cars. The freeway curved right, then left. Because of the trees and brush along the road, he saw no evidence of civilization.
As they came around one long curve, the landscape opened up and June’s phone dinged in the center console.
