The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (21 page)

“Yes, Uncle Ash,” Riley said obediently.

Charlotte remained tight-lipped, staring out the window at the blackness. After a minute, she couldn’t seem to keep her anger inside.

“We could have taken Russ for help, Ash.”

He tightened his grip on the wheel, making the plastic creak with the pressure. If it had been light out, he’d have seen how white his knuckles were.

“I know,” he finally admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“How much contact with other cities do you think those police have?” Elliot asked tentatively.

“I don’t know,” Ash said. The razor wire was back in his stomach, only this time, trying to snake up his esophagus and choke him. “We have a few hours at best to get out of here. Char, you take my tent with Riley, okay? I’ll sleep in the other one.”

She sniffed, but nodded. Elliot shifted in his seat to look at her.

“I know you’re upset,” he began, hesitating when she turned her glare on him, but he plowed on. “You have a right to be, but how far would we get if they’d managed to keep Ash on suspicion of murder? Not saying they would, but who knows what it would have taken to get him free if they decided he was the one who’d caused Russ’s injury?”

Charlotte didn’t reply, but Ash watched her in the mirror, his eyes flickering back and forth between her face and the road.

“I’m sorry about Russ,” Elliot said. “I really am, but I don’t much like our chances without Ash around. Do you?”

“No,” she grumbled.

They finished the drive in silence, and when they got back to camp, Charlotte rushed Riley into the boy’s tent and decisively zipped the flap shut. Brian watched them curiously, then listened while they relayed the situation. Without a word of instruction or judgment, he moved around the camp, gathering their supplies and repacking the back of the van. Ash heard him telling the fish their sentence had been commuted and they’d been given an executive pardon before he dumped them back in the river. With most everything packed up, Elliot bid Ash goodnight and went to get into his tent. Brian had already retired, so they were alone.

Ash stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “If you hadn’t been listening to your gut, I don’t think we would have gotten out of that situation quickly enough.”

Elliot eyed him, then nodded. “If someone else gets hurt, no more playing field doctor, okay? If someone needs medical attention, and we don’t know if the hospitals are in bad shape, we go check it out.”

Ash was surprised by how cold Elliot’s voice was. “Okay,” he agreed.

Elliot paused and stared at him. “That could be me, Ash, if I have a bad seizure. I don’t want to die because you think there’s a threat in going for help.”

A chill breeze blew Ash’s hair off his neck, and he shivered as his sweat cooled. It was a clammy, uncomfortable feeling.

“I fucked up,” he said, his remorse plain. “I fucked up, and Russ paid for it with his life. I have to live with that. I won’t make the same mistake twice. From now on, if we stop near a town, we drive through and see if we can figure out their emergency capabilities. I don’t know what else to say to make up for this.” That last was said in a tone bordering on pleading. “I’m sorry.”

Catching him off guard, Elliot kissed him. “I forgive you. And once she realizes you didn’t mean to misjudge anything, Charlotte will, too.” He turned toward his tent and zipped himself inside, leaving Ash to stare stupidly after him, his fingertips ghosting over the impression of warmth from Elliot’s lips.

C
haracter
, like a photograph, develops in darkness.

—Yousuf Karsh

S
LIPPING UNSEEN FROM Allegheny National Forest
hadn’t been difficult, given no one manned the entrance and exit booths, but Ash hadn’t wanted to chance driving too close to Warren. At first light, he had Elliot and Brian map out a route leaving the forest on the southwest edge while he deconstructed the tents and repacked all their backpacks. It had taken them a full two hours to emerge from the canopy of trees, the sun making them squint with its spring vividness. As they left one danger behind, he’d grown increasingly fidgety, Elliot noted, catching him glancing repeatedly at the dash.

“Everything okay?” he murmured. The others were playing a game of road sign ABCs, and Riley cackled because he’d grabbed the only
q
on a sign boasting
Antiques, Next Right
.

“We need to stop for gas soon,” Ash responded, equally quiet so as not to alarm anyone. Because they avoided interstates, there were fewer places to stop that had any kind of population, and without power, there was no way to get the gas from the reservoirs in the ground, anyway. All the pumps they’d passed were electric.

When the low fuel indicator lit up, Elliot looked over his shoulder to see if any of the others had heard the dinging. Brian glanced up, but he’d kept from giving anything away. Thankfully, Charlotte had chosen that moment to lament, wishing they’d pass a sign for a Dairy Queen. She hadn’t heard.

“How do we do this?” Elliot asked.

“Siphon,” Ash answered. “It’s about the only option, so we need to find a place with some cars but no people.

He frowned. “Most everyone will either still be at home or….” He let his voice die off. He didn’t know what sorts of conditions they’d face once they got to the next town. Just then, Elliot spied a sign:
Oil City, Pennsylvania, 10 Miles
.

“Well, if we can’t fuel up in Oil City, we can’t fuel up anywhere,” Ash said.

The last two miles before they began to see civilization, Elliot kept his eyes peeled for what Ash required. Mostly, a house here and there stood sentry on the highway, but they saw nothing useful. There were no other cars on the road, and there wasn’t anywhere to stop. Elliot worked to keep himself calm, knowing if they ran out of gas, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Not ideal, by any means, but they were near a town.

“There!” Elliot exclaimed, immediately kicking himself for alerting the rest of the passengers with his volume. He pointed at a sign for O’Leary’s Auto Body, heralding the gravel entrance to a brick building with three garage bays off the side and a darkened glass storefront. Parked around the place were several cars, a few crumpled at one end or the other, some simply sitting as if their owners would saunter out of the building at any moment and speed off.

“Good.” Ash squinted.

“What are we doing?” Charlotte asked with more tension than curiosity.

“Need gas,” Ash said in a clipped tone. Either he didn’t want to bother explaining they would need to steal it, or he was still upset with her from the night before. All morning, things between them had been strained, and Elliot had spied Charlotte wiping tears from her face more than once.

“Can we use the bathroom here?” Riley asked as his mother pulled him into her lap protectively.

“I don’t know if we’re going inside, buddy,” Ash replied. “But if it’s deserted enough, you can go ’round the back of the building.”

“Mom says that’s gross, going pee outside.”

“I think in this case, you don’t have a lot of choice, Riles,” Charlotte said wearily.

They pulled in, and Ash parked behind the building in case someone came along. Elliot got out and met Ash at the back of the van as Riley scampered to the back wall, where a dumpster sat a couple feet from the brick. Riley slipped into a space too small for an adult. Elliot watched with an amused smile, then realized he probably should relieve himself, too. Charlotte got out slower than her son, grumbling.

“Everything okay?” Elliot asked her. He hadn’t really known what to say to her since the night before, feeling awkward after having gotten on her case about ratting Ash out. She didn’t seem pissed at him, but he didn’t quite know how to read her.

“Fine,” she said, then heaved a resigned sigh. “I need to go to the bathroom, too, but going outside for me is a bigger pain in the ass than it is for you boys.

“Well, I have something that might help you,” Elliot said. While Ash was bent into the cargo area, Elliot pulled at the backpack he’d claimed as his—now that there was a pack for each person—and unzipped it. His tongue snaked out of the corner of his mouth as he searched the contents by feel, careful not to nick the cutting wheel of the can opener when his fingers brushed it. “Aha,” he declared, unearthing a squished roll of toilet paper. With a slight smile, he passed it over to her. “
Pour vous
,
mademoiselle
,” he quipped, hoping to make her smile.

She did one better: she leaned up to kiss his cheek in gratitude. “You are a true gentleman.” Scurrying off into a stand of trees, she sought as much privacy as possible to do her thing.

“Have you got what you need?” Brian rounded the van.

Ash asked distractedly, “Do you remember which pack has that three-quarter inch plastic tubing?”

Brian grabbed a backpack and rummaged. Elliot left them to it, looking for his own square of privacy. Staying out of the waist-high weeds bordering the back half of the parking lot for fear of snakes, Elliot wandered to the side opposite Charlotte, looking over the cars in the lot. He managed to find a bit of seclusion between a pickup truck and a medium-sized SUV.

Fluffy, white clouds scudded overhead as his gaze wandered while taking care of business, and he lifted his face to the sun. For a brief moment, he almost believed he was on vacation, a spontaneous road trip where he and a college buddy had decided if they didn’t get out of the doldrums of studying and classes, they’d go mad. Going on the cheap meant stealing gas and eating crap food, because in his imagination, they were both broke and saving their money for when they got to a city, where they could go out on the town and say they’d partied like college kids are supposed to. Including the sweaty romp between the sheets at the end of the night.

With a sigh at the pleasant indulgence, he tucked away and zipped up, turning to go back to the van and running smack into Ash.

“Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that!” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.

Expecting Ash to snap at him for being loud, he was surprised to get a chuckle instead, and a quick kiss. Ash steadying him when he wobbled.

“Sorry.” Ash held up clear plastic tubing, about three feet long, and wiggled it like it was a dead snake. Elliot’s smile turned sheepish, and he ducked his head, hoping his daydream wasn’t visible on his face in any way. “Found it, but I need a container to put the gas in. Help me find something that’ll work.”

They walked toward the front of the building, and when they got to the windows on the side, which wrapped around to the front entrance, they slowed. Ash peered into the darkness, then cupped his hands around his face, cutting the glare.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“Do you see any gas cans?”

Ash shook his head. Elliot was glad. One less place they’d have to break into. Even if he understood the necessity, he didn’t like doing that kind of thing, given how easy it would be to walk into someone else’s danger. Ash turned to circle around back and ran into Elliot, who’d been expecting him to go the other direction. He tried to step to the side, but Ash went the same way at the same time. They repeated the process the other way. Ash made a show of peering over Elliot’s shoulder to where the others milled, then pulled Elliot to him, slipping his hands to Elliot’s ass for a good grope.

“Thanks for the dance,” Ash purred, then shuffled past him to the back of the building. Elliot stood dumbly for a second, then wheeled to follow. As they passed the dumpster no longer shielding Riley, who stood by the van, chucking small rocks into the field grass beyond the edge of the parking lot, they found what they were looking for. Lined up along the back wall on the blind side of the dumpster were several dirty red gas cans, five gallons each.

Ash hefted one and discovered it wasn’t empty. “Oh, maybe we don’t have to siphon,” he murmured, unscrewing the cap and putting his nose to the nozzle to smell. His shoulders slumped. “Used oil. Shit.”

They tried the other four and found all but the last one was full. “Here,” Elliot offered as he passed the empty over. Ash unscrewed the nozzle completely and peered inside.

“Marginally clean. C’mon.”

Ash chose the SUV Elliot had used as a shield and pulled off the gas cap, shoving the tubing down into the tank as far as he could get it. Then he put his lips to the other end and began to suck.

Elliot watched, mesmerized by the way Ash’s lips mashed up to the end, his cheeks hollowing as he tried to pull the gas from the tank with the power of his lungs. It only took a couple minutes and several mighty sucks for the golden liquid to emerge into view. When it was a couple inches from Ash’s mouth, he lowered to his knees and pushed the end into the opening of the can, letting gravity and the vacuum he’d created pull the gas out of the SUV.

Elliot clasped his hands in front of his groin, trying to hide his reaction. Ash looked up, one eye closed against the glare of the sun off the mirror of the truck. His lips were swelled to near comical plumpness from suctioning.

“I expected that to be a lot harder.”

It is,
Elliot mused, but he only nodded, hoping against all hope Ash didn’t notice his discomfort.

“And to get a mouthful.”

Oh god, stop talking,
Elliot silently begged. “Tube’s clear,” he pointed out, mortified when his voice squeaked. “That was smart,” he tried again.

“Brian’s idea,” Ash said, looking off into the distance.

Brian must have gone somewhere to relieve himself, too. Elliot couldn’t see him. After a few moments, the gas petered out, and they had almost a full can.

“Not quite five gallons,” Ash said. “We’ll have to hit a couple more cars.” He dumped the contents into the van’s gas tank and did just that, emptying the truck as well as the car on the other side of it.

“Load up,” Ash called. No one had gone far, though they’d definitely made use of the time out of the van to stretch their legs. When he started the engine, he shot Elliot a grin. “Full. Should get another three hundred miles before we have to do that again.”

“Should we keep the gas can?” Elliot asked. “Might not find one next time.”

Ash shook his head. “I don’t want the fumes in the car. It’ll make us all sick.”

“Here,” Brian offered, getting out and picking up the can Ash had abandoned on the trunk of the car beside them. He twisted off the cap, unseated the pour spout and reversed its direction, then recapped the can and shoved it in the back before climbing in. “Closed tight with the seal in the spout reversed. No fumes.”

“Huh,” Ash said in wonder. “Good to know.”

The surprisingly event-free gas stop had taken no more than twenty minutes, and they were soon driving through the small, picturesque town of Oil City, keeping a wary eye out for unruly mobs or danger from unknown corners. It wasn’t long before the town was behind them. The highway followed the curves of the Allegheny River, and with the bright, clear day, the brilliant blue sky and the sparkling water, it was easy to get lost in the fantasy that they were on a vacation. Until Elliot remembered they were down one man.

The next several hours passed easily, and they crossed into Ohio. When they stopped for lunch just before noon, Ash pulled out his map and studied their route in conjunction with the GPS he’d programmed their last day in Auburn.

“We doing okay?” Elliot asked, not even pretending to guess if they were on course.

“Yeah,” Ash said and gave him a small smile. “I figure we’ll stop here for the night.” He pointed at the small blue smudge on the map that meant lake, just to the east of Mansfield, Ohio. “Probably some campgrounds we can sneak into, and we should get there by mid-afternoon, assuming passing through the Akron area doesn’t get too hinky.”

Elliot frowned at the larger dot on the map. “How big is Akron?”

Ash shrugged. “Not sure. Couple hundred thousand at least. Canton is to the south and looks only slightly smaller, so between them and the outlying areas, we’re looking at close to half a million people.” He traced the highways he planned to stick to, still avoiding the interstates with a short exception along Highway 224. “This one takes us through another state park, which will probably be pretty deserted, like the last one. I don’t want to stop there, though. Too close to people.” Elliot involuntarily shuddered. “What’s wrong? Don’t like people?” Ash teased.

“People are fine,” Elliot said with a wry twist to his lips. “As long as they stay over there.” He gestured to a space far away from himself.

“You live in a city where people are practically on top of each other. How do you not handle crowds well?” Ash asked, perplexed.

“Bony elbows,” Elliot said.

“Yeah, I saw how well you did that before our lab class,” Ash smirked.

Suddenly, the lighthearted mood soured Elliot’s gut. Was that how Ash saw him? That weak kid who couldn’t have gotten away from bullies? He wiped the smile off his face.

“I think anyone in a three-on-one fight would have had some trouble figuring out how to get out of it.” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked to the back of the van, where Riley and Charlotte were sitting on the lip of the bumper, the open hatch shielding them from the sun. Charlotte held out a bag of beef jerky, and Riley passed him a bottle of water.

“Elliot?” Riley asked, swinging his feet, oblivious to the scowl Elliot wore. “Can we listen to something else besides violins when we get back in the car? It makes me sleepy.”

Absentmindedly staring at the field by which they’d stopped on the widened shoulder, Elliot nodded and drank some water.