Free Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1) by Luke Prochnow

slight indentations, thankful that his bike wasn’t showing any serious signs of wear.
    The engine roared into life, sending leaves and dirt skittering across the hard ground. Joe secured the backpack’s strap around his chest and checked the gas gauge that showed only a quarter of the tank remaining. He tapped the smudged glass, pursing his lips, and for the first time, worried about making it all the way to Slushland. The nearest gas station could be ten miles away, or a hundred. He had no choice but to keep traveling on.
     
    .........
     
    The nearest gas station turned out to be a squat building fifty-nine miles from where Joe had stopped to sleep. He pulled beneath its broken awning, which peppered the ground underneath with spots of bright light, and parked beside a pump marked ‘6’.
    The windows of the gas station were boarded up, marred with graffiti and coated in a layer of mold. Joe hoped the place wasn’t deserted. He didn’t know how much further his bike could carry him. It’d been a long time since he had pushed the bike to its limits of gas capacity, and he wasn’t sure of its breaking point.
    He loosened the backpack strap from around his chest and slid off the bike to check the fuel pump. A nervous chill shot through him when he discovered the patches of rust on the nozzle signaling that the pump was dry. He pulled the trigger slowly and shook it. Nothing. ‘Shit,’ he mumbled, slapping the nozzle back into the pump’s holster.
    Before venturing up to the building’s entrance, he took a look around the deserted station. A square, flat lot took up most of the space to the right of the building. A deep gash cut through the lot’s concrete like a wound. Buried in the grass were some old tires and rusted bits of abandoned vehicles, torn apart, strewn about. Joe wondered about the half-mangled chassis sunk in the grass several yards away. From the looks of it, the chassis had belonged to a larger vehicle, most likely a van. Had a family once taken road trips, possibly to Florida, in that van—a family with two kids and two happy parents, singing traveling songs as they drove lazily along the open road, en route to better times?
    Joe tried the gas station door. It creaked open, sending motes of dust spiraling around his hand that he waved away.
    ‘Anybody here?’ he called.
    Plaintive music wafted through the squalid air to where Joe stood at the doorway. After a couple of seconds, a voice joined in with the expertly strummed guitar, keeping perfect harmony.
    Joe pushed the door wider. He poked his head inside and glanced around. A stationary fan vibrated against a far wall, sending waves of warm air circulating around a room filled with toppled food racks. The tobacco shelves behind the cashier’s desk had been looted, the ground covered in broken glass. Joe cut to the left, following the tune’s sad trail.
    A black tarp hanging from the ceiling split the room in half. Joe slowed, staying as silent as possible, and listened to the voice and guitar that came from behind the makeshift curtain. He gripped the crisp tarp and slid it aside. A man with a full beard and wrinkled, tanned skin was lounging in a rickety wooden chair and strumming a threadbare guitar. Joe squinted at the worn out sack of a man whose smooth, calming voice didn’t match its begetter.
    The man opened his eyes and saw Joe standing there watching him, but didn’t immediately stop playing. He sang one last verse, thumbed the final chord decisively, then lay a gentle hand over the strings. ‘You ever hearda knockin’?’
    ‘Sorry,’ said Joe, motioning outside with his thumb. ‘I stopped in for some gas and—’
    ‘Ah,’ the man interrupted, setting the guitar aside. ‘I figgered you was here for the parade and apple pie.’
    Joe tightened his pack around his chest, feeling uncomfortable. ‘Parade?’
    The man sighed. ‘Damn, you’re thick.’ He stood up. Dust billowed off his clothes. ‘The last parade that came