Free Aftermath by D. J. Molles Page A

will Mr. Jenkins feel about us using his truck?”
    Bus pointed to the door. “You’ll have to go ask him.”
     
    ***
     
    Keith Jenkins turned out to be the same Keith in the worn out canvas overalls that had eagerly got the ball rolling on Lee’s inquisition. When Lee first realized this, he instantly began thinking of who else he could persuade to loan him a truck for his expedition. However, once in private, Keith seemed far more amenable than when Lee had first met him.
    Now, Keith was chewing on a straw and gazing with a sort of forlorn love at his Dodge Ram 2500, as though he might never see it again. Lee and Harper had gone to speak with him while Miller assisted Bus in rounding up what other supplies could be spared for the trip. The old man leaned against his old dually with a hand on the bed that drew back and forth, as though caressing the flank of a well-loved draft horse.
    “ So...” Harper ventured.
    “ Shit.” Keith Jenkins spat. “It’s kinda tough, fellas. Me and this truck, we been through a lot. You see that big ol’ dent on the front fender? That shit came from two infected I knocked the Jesus out of ‘fore I got here. Yeah...we been through a lot.”
    “ Mr. Jenkins,” Lee eyed the beast of a machine. “I can’t make you any promises, but we only got sixty miles to drive in this thing and I will do everything in my power to return it to you, no worse for wear.”
    Keith’s savvy old eyes scanned along the truck, then poked at Lee. “You know, I was in ‘Nam. ’67 to ’69.”
    “ Tough years,” Lee said, as though wondering where this might be leading.
    “ Sometimes when things go down, I start looking around for my old rifle, but alls I got is a shitty-ass deer rifle. Couple 30-06 cartridges to load it.” Keith crossed his arms and lowered his head. “You want my truck, I’ll loan it to you. But I get first dibs on one of them rifles you bring back. You got M16’s?”
    “ I got M4’s,” Lee admitted. “A carbine version of the M16.”
    Keith nodded. “That’s good. Yeah. I’ll take one of those.” He sniffed. “You promise me first pick on one of those puppies, you can take my truck and do whatever the fuck you want with it.”
    Lee and Harper smiled and were about to extend Keith a hand, when he cut them off.
    “ Just one more thing,” he said. “Tank’s almost empty. Doubt you’ll get to your destination and back, especially the way this thing guzzles gas. You wanna use it, you’re welcome to it, but you’re gonna hafta come up with the fuel on your own.”
    Lee’s smile became reluctant, but Harper’s faded completely.
    Harper put a hand to Lee’s shoulder and turned him so they were both facing away from Keith. “That’s a tall order,” he mumbled quietly.
    “ Can’t we just siphon some from other people’s cars?” Lee answered in turn.
    “ Yeah, we can. But there’s only a few other vehicles here. Most everyone came in on foot, and the people with cars were almost empty by the time they found us.” Harper sighed. “Gas got pretty hard to come by at the end there. The stations are all tapped. We can siphon, but we’re going to have to go outside the wire to get enough to fill the tank on that thing.”
    Lee swore quietly under his breath. “Well we don’t have much of a choice, do we?”
    Harper looked uncomfortable. “Not really.”
    “ Fine.” Lee turned back towards Keith and extended his hand. “One rifle of your choosing, and we provide the gas. You got a deal.”
    Keith shook Lee’s hand vigorously, with a big smile plastered across his weathered old face.
     
    ***
     
    Lee and Harper eventually decided that filling the Ram’s monstrous 35-gallon tank was being overly optimistic. Working by the same calculations as he had when he’d appropriated the Petersons’ truck, he figured on the 35-gallon tank getting them approximately 350 miles, if it was full. For their needs, they settled on rounding up to forty miles both ways, with