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

what it had been.
    This was his reward for being unprepared and making poor decisions. 26 miles into the trip and he'd already cached just about everything he had that wasn't in Lewis's shelter.
    Spurred on by that cheery thought, Trev continued on down the road as the sun sank towards the horizon slightly behind him and to his right. He had less than 5 hours of daylight left and a long, long way to go. With no other choice he took it one step at a time, doing his best to ignore the complaints of his muscles and keep up a good pace. He was forced to stop frequently for rest, drinking more water but avoiding eating more food to prevent cramps.
    The distance seemed to crawl by compared to when he'd been driving, and his assumption that he'd be able to walk the usual pace of 3 miles an hour was replaced by the grim reality that with his heavy burden he was having trouble going 1. All the while he watched the sun sinking and realized that far from being able to reach Aspen Hill sometime tomorrow, it would probably be the day after that at best.
    By the time the sun started to set Trev was beyond tired. He knew he was exhausted too, and for more reasons than because he was panting like a bellows and his muscles felt like rubber. He'd started to stagger a bit with every step, even more off balance thanks to his pack, and common sense told him he should stop for the night or at least pause to rest more. But he was already resting every few minutes and it was eating up time he didn't have.
    He could stop when he got home, and the faster he went the faster he'd get there. If he couldn't push past exhaustion when it really mattered and keep a good pace then he wasn't ready for the end of the world. In retrospect he should have realized that was a stupid way to look at things, but in his state he wasn't exactly thinking clearly.
    At least he'd reached another downhill slope in the road. It presented its own work on the muscles, sure, but still felt almost like a vacation compared to the brutal uphill slog. His speed even increased slightly.
    The help of gravity gave him the boost he needed to keep going as the sun disappeared and twilight began sinking into full night. There was no sign of the moon rising, and Trev kind of wished he'd paid attention to what phase it was in so he'd know when he could expect to get a little light. As it was he didn't want to give away his position with a flashlight, even though there probably wasn't too much danger from lawless elements before things had even started to go sideways. Even with the light fading he could still see the road he was on and keep following it, which was all he really needed.
    Besides, he might need the flashlight batteries in the future.
    Looking at it later Trev could blame inexperience and impatience for this series of poor decisions that seemed rational at the time, and giving in to exhaustion and blind stubbornness rather than thinking things through certainly didn't help. But either way he had no one to blame but himself as he stumbled along the downhill slope and suddenly found his right ankle giving out on him in a blaze of pain.
    Before he quite knew what was happening he collapsed onto his right knee, slamming it hard into the pavement, and then sprawled sideways from the weight of his pack. That extra weight worsened what might have otherwise been minor injuries, and he ended up curled up on his side in the middle of the road cursing through gritted teeth and doing his best to ride the wave of excruciating pain throbbing through his body from his ankle and knee. To distract himself from it he scrabbled blindly around on the road with his hands, searching for what had made him fall.
    At first he passed over the culprit entirely, sure it couldn't be responsible, but after another minute of searching with his hands he found nothing but smooth pavement. What had made him stumble couldn't even be called a pothole, barely more than a dip in the road an inch or so deep. He