Free Black Treacle Magazine (March/April 2013, Issue 2) by A.P. Matlock Page B

everyone just up and left town."
    He dumped the
contents of the can into the gas tank and climbed into the stifling
truck cab. "Let's get going. Staying still like this is making me
edgy."
    He tried
starting the truck. The engine whirred and groaned, nearly turning
over several times, before falling completely silent.
    Jesse slammed
his hands against the wheel. Pain lanced up his arms. "God.
Dammit!" He threw the door open and jumped back out. It almost felt
comfortable out there after being inside the truck. Elaine came
back to his side of the truck.
    "I'm out of
ideas. You got any?" he asked her.
    "There were
cars in town, weren't there?"
    He nodded.
"Sure."
    "Well, there
you go. We'll just have to take one of those."
    Damn. Why
hadn't he thought of that? Even if the truck had been fine with the
gas, he didn't have to sweat his way back here. The heat must have
been making him stupid.
    But not stupid
enough to volunteer for a second hike into Blackrock. "Tell you
what, how about this time I watch the truck and you go into
town?"
    She rolled her
eyes. "Sure. Why not. You just wait your barely-legal ass here and
I'll go fetch us a car," she said. She took a few steps and turned
around. "Don't do nothin' stupid, Jesse. Got me?" She whirled back
and took off again without waiting for an answer.
    She was gone
for hours. From time to time Jesse could just barely see her, down
in town, going from building to building. The sun was getting close
to the horizon before she returned, not with a car, but on
foot.
    "Something's
seriously wrong here," she said after she sat down on her rock. "I
didn't have any trouble finding car keys. You were right, it's like
everyone took off. More like they just vanished. But none of the
cars would start. I tried checking the phones, too, and all of them
were dead too. The cell phones wouldn't even turn on."
    They were both
silent briefly.
    "So what do we
do now, Jess?"
    He ran his
hands over his face, thought, came up blank. "I don't know. What do
you think?"
    "Hey, you're
the boss, right?"
    "Yeah, but
you're..." he almost said "older" but caught himself in time to say
"pretty damn smart, too."
    "Well, this
isn't exactly my area of expertise."
    Down in the
town, a light flickered on. A moment later, another. And then a
third. They both watched quietly as several other lights came to
life.
    "Should we
check it out?" Elaine asked.
    "Probably just
lights on timers."
    "Maybe,
but..."
    He cut her
off. "I don't want to walk there just to see no one's around.
Besides, like you said, something's wrong here. Cell phones don't
go dead overnight. Sounds like no one's been there in a while.
Let's rest here tonight, check it out in the morning. If someone's
there to help us then, fine."
    Elaine didn't
answer and he figured she'd seen the sense in what he said. The
truck's cab had cooled a bit with the setting of the sun and Jesse
hopped up into it. "How about you take first watch, Elaine? I'll
sleep now, you wake me up in a few hours and we can switch
places."
    "Whatever,"
she said from outside. Hell, good enough for him. She was getting a
real attitude, but he was glad he hadn't planned on rubbing her out
too early. Having someone to watch his back during this part of the
getaway was going to be awful handy.
    He woke up to
Elaine shaking his shoulder.
    "I had an
idea," she told him. "Let's go back into town. Probably no one's
there like you said. But I bet the gas station has maps. We get
one, figure out where we are, and see if we can make it somewhere
on foot. If we do that now, we can walk while it's cool. We get to
another town, there's got to be a working car there, and we bring
it back here and get our stuff."
    He didn't like
leaving the guns and the money behind. But dragging that stuff
along would only slow them down and make them more conspicuous.
They weren't getting anywhere now and they'd be sitting ducks if
cops showed up.
    Jesse answered
by getting out of the truck. He shoved the money bags under