Free Fuel (Best Laid Plans Book 1) by Nathan Jones

thought of throwing away any of the stuff he'd spent so much time and money acquiring and carefully fitting into the pack's limited space, but he'd never make it to Aspen Hill like this.
    Did he go back and cache some more things? Maybe just stow them in the locked car to save time? The thought of wasting the mile he'd already walked sickened him, but at the same time he was already exhausted and with a pack this heavy he'd have trouble going 5 miles in 24 hours, let alone 50 like Lewis had joked.
    Trev stood tottering in the middle of the road, gritting his teeth at the array of undesirable choices in front of him. Then with a curse he dropped the stuff in his hands, fumbled his pack's belts unbuckled, and let the crushing weight slip from his shoulders with a groan of relief.
    About that time the roar of an engine turned him around in time to see a car coming fast around the curve behind him. Trev suddenly found the strength of desperation and grabbed his pack in one hand and the bag and gun case in the other, staggering towards the side of the road half-dragging everything. The approaching car swerved around him with a hand on the horn, and as it disappeared around the next corner going way faster than the speed limit the driver stuck his hand out the window to flip him off.
    Trev collapsed by the side of the road, wheezing. If he'd been paying attention he might've heard that car sooner and could've tried to flag him down for a ride, or at least not been standing in the middle of the road like a blinded deer. He honestly hadn't expected anyone to come driving this way ever again, as if the moment fuel stopped being available it would disappear from everyone's tanks.
    He'd have to pay attention in the future, and maybe he'd get lucky and find someone he could hitch a ride with. Until then it was time to drop off some stuff.
    He started off by eating a proper meal rather than just snacking, using up some of his two weeks' worth of food, then gulped down a bunch of water from one of the 4 1-liter stainless steel containers he'd brought with him. He was sure he'd be able to get water at any town or house he passed and he also had his filter with him, so he might as well drink up a bit of extra weight. He was even tempted to dump some water out, but he wasn't quite that desperate yet.
    Then he went through his pack and sorted out everything he didn't absolutely need. That was harder than he'd expected because he felt like he needed everything, or would in the future. But coming at it from a purely pragmatic eye he tossed his tarp, since Lewis had plenty at the shelter, his spare clothes, since they were something he could probably easily replace, a bunch of the smaller camping stuff that was redundant like firestarters and a bottle of liquid hand sanitizer that was way bigger than he needed, especially since he had a bar of soap in one pocket. He also unloaded a metal pan filled with a camping kit since he didn't plan on doing any cooking, his camping hatchet since he didn't plan on lighting fires, and his shovel since its main use, burying any waste, would just take up time he could spend walking.
    And, a painful parting, half the ammo he'd packed. It didn't take up much space but pound for pound was the heaviest thing he was carrying. He wrapped everything in the tarp and stowed the bundle between two big boulders along the side of the road that made a wedge-shaped depression, then covered it with smaller rocks to build sort of a cairn that completely covered it. Hopefully nobody would give it a second look and poke around, but if so there wasn't much he could do about it.
    Shedding the excess weight took off more than 20 pounds, and more importantly gave him room to put everything in the pack instead of having to carry some of it in his hands, which would make walking and balancing much easier. The pack still felt agonizing when he shrugged back into the straps and belted it on, but at least it was manageable compared to