Free Less Than Human by Tim Meyer

cold? Josh thought. He thought he'd feel something. Sadness. Despair. Hopelessness. But he didn't feel any of those things. Instead he felt normal. Like nothing traumatizing had happened at all. It'll hit me later, he thought, feeling better coming to this conclusion.
    Minutes passed before either of them spoke again. Ben sniffled, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying his best not to burst into tears. Josh watched the grown man try to compose himself with great difficulty.
    Ben wiped the tears away from his eyes. “Sorry about that.”
    “ I understand.” Josh fought his way through the pain. He inched his way up in the seat, sitting up, staring out the front windshield. Never had he experienced that kind of pain before. He had never broken a single bone in his body, which surprised him due to the countless hours he spent doing asinine stunts on his skateboard when he was younger. The pain seared through him, as if knives were being driven through his arm, poking the bone. He remained silent, but inside he was screaming. His eyes welled, but no tears breached the surface.
    “ You shouldn't move around a lot,” Ben told him. “I'm pretty sure your arm is broken.”
    “ Yeah, I'd have to agree with you there,” Josh said. “Where the hell are we?”
    Ahead was a long stretch of highway, vaguely reminiscent to the one Josh had been on when Ben came along. A vast, endless forest lay on both sides of them. Dusk was starting to settle. To the right, just over the branches, orange smears of sunlight were being absorbed by a bruised sky. To the left of them lay darkness.
    “Route 77 South. About twenty minutes west of LBI.”
    LBI, Josh thought. Long Beach Island. They were about forty minutes south of his apartment. The old shitbox . There was nothing back there for him anyway. He had some supplies they could have used, and an unregistered handgun he had stashed beneath his mattress, but that was it. Nothing worth risking their lives for.
    “ I have something I need to do.”
    “ And what might that be?”
    “ I'm heading to Pittsburgh.”
    “ Oh,” Josh said. “Why?”
    “ My son lives there,” Ben said. “With his mother. They might... still be alive.”
    “ Yeah, maybe.” Josh didn't have the heart to tell him that he had seen news reports about cannibalistic attacks in Ohio, not too far from the Steel City. Instead, he shook his head. “Anything is possible.”
    “ Do you have any family that might be alive?”
    Josh thought about it. He couldn't be certain. His mother had been eviscerated in front of him. His father ran out on him when he was little. His uncle in Oklahoma was arrested for diddling kids. He had no siblings, at least to his knowledge. Every single grandparent died long before the end of times. He might have had a few cousins left in Detroit. He hadn't seen any of them in over ten years.
    “No,” he said.
    Then he thought of Olivia again. Fuck, how could I forget her?
    Maybe because you don't care about her as much as you let on, you useless addict, a very harsh voice responded in his head.
    “ I'm sorry,” Ben said.
    “ I have this girlfriend, sort of. It's off and on. Complicated.”
    “ Oh?” Ben tried to smile. “And... uh, is she...”
    “ Alive?”
    “ Yeah.”
    “ Don't know. She's on vacation with her folks in Harrisburg.”
    “ Really?”
    “ Yup.”
    “ It's on the way.”
    “ Do you have a cell phone?” Josh asked. “I could call her.”
    Ben shook his head. “No signal. I've tried everywhere.”
    Josh closed his eyes. “How did this happen?”
    “ I've asked myself the same question.”
    “ The government will bail us out. I mean, they prepare for this sort of thing, right?”
    Ben shrugged. “It happened so quickly.”
    Josh rested his head against the seat, staring at the ceiling.
    “ I can take you to Harrisburg, if you want.”
    He ignored Ben, leaning his head toward the window, trapped in some horrific reverie. Then he glanced over at the man