The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (26 page)

“She had a choice,” Elliot said with a stubborn jut of his chin. Ash could make out the barest outline of him, but their eyes had been adjusted to the dimness for a while, so he could see some of his expression. “Her choice was to stay home and risk getting attacked and killed or coming with you, who had provisioned for the eventual decline of polite society.”

Ash snorted. “You sound like a textbook.”

Elliot blinked. “So? That doesn’t change the fact that you were
ready
for this trip and every eventuality we couldn’t even begin to fathom. Does it fucking suck we’re forced to walk? Yes. Absolutely. But if I have to walk across the country, you’re the only one I want to do it with.”

Ash stared, then stifled a laugh of derision. “If you think I’m that prepared, you’re in for a rude awakening when we have to deal with shit I haven’t even considered.”

“We’re armed,” Elliot said, ticking points off on his fingers. “We have food for a few days and hunting supplies. Snare wire to trap small game. Fishing line when we’re near water. LifeStraws for drinking. Unlubricated condoms for collecting rainwater. Shelter. Clothing. First-aid supplies. Are we going to be uncomfortable? Yes. Will we get there alive?” He paused. Ash swallowed, waiting for it. “I believe we will. I like our chances. You need to stop thinking about what you’ve missed and start thinking about what you’ve accomplished. If you can do that, you’ll see we have more than a lot of people right now.”

Ash blinked at him, a shred of hope lighting the shadowed worry eating him alive. Maybe Elliot’s faith in him was blinded by his crush—of which Ash was well aware—but it felt good to be believed in. Maybe he had a point. Hell, people had lived off the land a hundred years before their time with half the supplies they had and they’d survived. He and Elliot could make it work.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Just remember to give that speech to my sister when we tell her how her scary road trip just got scarier.”

“She’s lived through an assault and the loss of her boyfriend in the last two days. I’m pretty sure she can handle a nature hike.”

Ash chuckled sardonically. “Or she’ll fucking flip out because one more stress is one too many.”

Elliot shook his head. “I don’t think so. Give her credit, too. She’s doing everything now for that little boy, and if she sees how losing her shit will make him lose his, she’ll rein it in. Mark my words.”

After a moment, Ash grasped Elliot’s knee. It was all he could reach. “Thanks.”

Elliot covered his hand with his own and squeezed. “You going to be okay?”

Ash nodded, pulling back. “How is it you’re the one who is most susceptible to stress and yet you’re the calmest of us all?”

“Lots of practice suppressing my emotions and being a ‘real man’ for my parents. I’m a quivering mess of Jell-O inside,” he said with a smirk, then shrugged. “Don’t sweat the small stuff, Asher,” he finished quietly.

“Small stuff. Walking across the country in the middle of a national emergency is small stuff.” He was incredulous.

“Look at it this way. It’s more time for you to spend with me and my shining personality.” Elliot grinned and shifted to kneeling, his head brushing the top of the tent. Static built up and made his hair stand on end. “Get some sleep. Morning in a few hours.”

“Yeah.” Ash’s eyelids pulled with a weight he only just noticed. “Thanks,” he said again. “I’d have probably laid here stewing about it until sunup.”

“Want me to stay?” The hope in Elliot’s words was unmistakable.

Ash didn’t want to hurt him, but he shook his head. “Probably not smart, if anyone wakes up before we do.” That reminded him of Charlotte’s question earlier. “Speaking of, if the others ask about… us. This.” He gestured between them, chickening out about breaking it off. Elliot had just chased away his fears and given him a shot to his confidence; it didn’t seem right to immediately stomp the guy with rejection. “What do you want me to tell them?”

Elliot shrugged. “Whatever you want,” was his flip answer.

Before Ash could respond, Elliot was out of the tent and the zipper pulled down, loud in the silence. Ash closed his eyes, cursing his clumsy handling of things. He wanted to call Elliot back, apologize, but for what he didn’t know. They weren’t a couple. Or so he tried to convince himself.

I have to end it,
he thought, turning to his other side.
It’ll just make shit harder now.
He fell asleep with his mind made up to do it the next day. Right after he broke the news to everyone they had to spend the next couple of months walking to Uncle Marvin’s.

“
W
hat
?” Charlotte demanded. “You’re fucking kidding me,” she said, face incredulous and red with anger.

Ash shook his head in solemn determination. “Not kidding. There’s no gas to be had in Mansfield. We’re hoofing it.”

“How far is it?” Riley asked cautiously, looking between his mom and uncle with clear trepidation, as if he expected them to come to blows.

“I don’t know exactly,” he said, which was a lie. He’d checked the waypoints in the GPS at dawn before anyone else was awake. “But we have to get as far as we can each day, which means we need to pack up and get moving. We heard gunshots in town last night, and I want Mansfield at our backs by sundown.” He stood from the picnic table when Charlotte’s hand on his arm stopped him, her eyes searching his face.

“We’re going to be okay, right?” she asked, demanding a promise he didn’t have the guts to give.

“If it’s the last thing I do,” he said as reassuringly as he could. It wasn’t a yes.

“Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

He pulled her into a hug. He wouldn’t lie about how well he thought he could see them through this. They were all going to have to toughen up now.

“We learned how to do this,” she said, stepping away and looking toward the lake. “Maybe not exactly this, but we can do it, right? With what Mom and Dad taught us?”

“Probably have to brush up on your marksmanship skills, teach Riley some things you weren’t planning to teach him about self-defense and first aid, but yeah. I think we can do this if we work together.” Watching her in his periphery, he waited for the explosion of her internal volcano.

Instead, she nodded. “Okay. Walking it is then.”

They busied themselves breaking down camp and surveyed the area when the site was clear of everything except the van. They would run the van dry, so when everyone was strapped in, they hit the road, the interior of the vehicle silent as a tomb.

The waiting was the worst, and when the van began to sputter a few miles down the road, Ash was almost relieved. As he pulled over to the minimal shoulder, the power steering quit when the engine died, and he got them as far off the road as he could, then put it in park.

“That’s it then,” he said, getting out and speaking through the open door. “Grab everything you want and as much water as you can reasonably carry.”

They flipped up the Stow-n-Go compartments for water, and in a few minutes, backed away and shut the doors. Except Elliot, who lingered in the front passenger seat. When he turned, they were watching him, and when Ash saw what he was studying with a melancholic expression, a stab of true regret hit him in the chest.

Elliot’s iPod. Without the car charger, they had no way to replenish the battery.

Ash stepped forward, closing his hands over Elliot’s and looking down the two inches of their height difference into Elliot’s eyes. “We’ll conserve it, and if we have to, we’ll steal new batteries on the way, and I’ll learn how to switch them out.”

Elliot nodded grimly, thumbing the lock button and shoving the device in his pocket, then snagged his earbuds from the glove box. Without another word, he faced the road leading west and started forward.

The day was long and mostly uneventful. They kept to the state highway, on the grassy shoulder bordered by guard rails to shield traffic from a deep ditch to their right, which then was swallowed up in trees and vegetation that would have been better cover but more difficult to navigate. The branches of the trees had been cut far enough from the power lines along the road, giving the lane they followed plenty of sunshine. The occasional car would pass them, and as a joke, Ash stuck out his thumb, not expecting anyone to have room for five people but pretending anyway.

“Is that wise?” Brian asked, as a small sports car zoomed by so fast, the breeze it rustled up was more a stiff wind.

“No one will stop. It amuses me,” he answered.

“But it calls attention to us,” Brian grumbled. “What if the next car doesn’t have somewhere to stay tonight, and they see all our gear? We’re targets, and you said yourself, people around here are shooting. In fact, walking along the road is making me uncomfortable.” He looked over his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone following them with immoral intentions.

“Relax,” Ash said. “We’re armed, and they can see it.” He indicated the rifle in his hands. “No one will mess with us unless they’re better armed.”
Or desperate
.

“I hope you’re right,” Brian muttered, falling back.

Charlotte was out front, Elliot behind her, both of them carrying the handguns in their waistbands. Riley was dead center, with Ash and Brian and their rifles bringing up the rear.

They walked for a few hours, passing through Mansfield proper without incident, and could see in the distance a few buildings and houses, mostly set far back from the highway, as the area became less populous. Instinctively, they quieted the random conversation. Riley, to Ash’s surprise, hadn’t complained once about the distance or lack of breaks, and Charlotte set a decent but doable pace for the boy. He seemed to be enjoying himself, gawking at the town as they passed.

“Uncle Ash?”

“Hm?”

“What do you think happened to the people who lived there?” Riley pointed to a white, two-story house with a detached garage.

Ash gave the property a cursory glance. “I don’t know. I don’t see any cars, so maybe they decided to do what we did and drive. Maybe they have family in Montana and went to see them.”

“Are we looking for another car?”

“Yeah. If something looks like it might run and have gas, we’ll check it out.”

“Where are we?”

“Just outside Mansfield, Ohio.”

“Did you go into town last night?” Riley hadn’t been part of the discussion when Ash first informed the others of their plight, only coming from the lake when he’d heard raised voices.

“Yeah, kiddo. Elliot and I scoped it out.”

“It looked like a nice place.”

Ash considered his answer carefully. “It did. But it was dark out, and we went real late, so there weren’t any people around.”

“I still don’t see people.”

“Me either. Maybe they all went to their jobs and school.”

Riley snickered, knowing when his leg was being pulled. “I doubt it, Uncle Ash,” he said. “I think they all left. I bet we’re walking through a ghost town.”

A shiver skated up Ash’s back and down his arms, raising goosebumps. “Part of me hopes you’re right, because then we can get out with no problems. But that’s creepy.” He knew the town wasn’t deserted, but he didn’t want to scare the boy more than he already was.

As they neared the edge of town, Ash saw no evidence of life other than the small country store they passed. Its windows were broken out, the glass glinting brightly in the sun like so many jewels. They kept moving, though Charlotte instinctively slowed.

Ash caught up, walking slightly behind her. “What do you think?”

“I don’t like it,” she frowned. “We’re exposed on this road, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to get off it either. I’m hoping the kid is right, that there’s no one here to jump us.”

Passing a church on their left, Ash scanned the shadows created by the trees and foliage of high bushes trimmed back from the shoulder. “We just have to keep going.”

“When are we stopping?” Riley piped up. “I’m getting kind of hungry.”

It was nearly 11:30 a.m. Ash’s stomach grumbled, too. Up the road, there was a restaurant with outdoor seating, and when Riley saw it, he looked to Ash, who shook his head.

“Let me check it out first.”

They approached the building, three sides of a fence surrounding the patio and blocking their view of the area. Ash gripped his rifle with both hands, business end down but ready to aim at the first sign of trouble. When he reached the brick face of the building, he peered in through the glass door, cupping a hand against it to cut his reflection. It was dark and quiet, though the interior had been disturbed. The register lay on the floor on its side, the drawer open and coins spilled among scattered mints and business cards. A counter with stools separated the main dining room from the kitchen, and some of the stools had been upended. Ash surveyed the scene and narrowed his eyes at something on the floor, lying behind the counter, half hidden. He tried the door and found it unlocked.

“Brian,” Ash said, turning only enough to find the man, keeping his periphery open for movement inside. “I’m going in. Cover my back?”

“Why are you going in?” Charlotte demanded.