February 1st, 2013
Black Rock Desert, Utah
1
Charlie saw them first, and knew instinctively they were who the Marine was looking for.
It was only three o'clock, but the blanket of sky crap, as the boy called it, made it look like dusk. Five long, hard days of walking into the strong, gritty wind had given them both red, squinted eyes, and rough, scratchy skin on their faces and hands. The two tired males needed it all -food, water, and transportation. The bike had been left back in northern Arizona. Totally empty of fuel, and with no refills in sight, the Honda was now just another rusting pile of metal on the side of an American road.
It had rained nearly every day since the War, but Kenn refuse to consider trying to sterilize it, worried it would still make them sick. They had run out of the water this morning and towns around here seemed to be nonexistent. This was the Southern Badlands, the Black Rock Desert, and they were in trouble.
Kenn knew there had to be at least a gas station somewhere, but with the sand blowing so thickly, he couldn't see beyond the occasional dead car or body, or hear much better. He had chosen not to leave the main road. Utah was a huge place, and there would be no rescue party sent after them if they got lost.
Kenn hadn't seen a home or business of any kind since dawn, only the faint, gritty shadow of mountains to the east, north, and west. There was occasionally a vehicle, the battery dead, paint faded, with few windows and inches of dust inside, but there were no outlines of structures. There were only layers of sand.
Kenn's eyes swung east, toward home, but his mind was on NORAD. There had been smoke from that direction almost continuously and he'd moved them farther west to check the Dugway Proving Ground first. Overall, 257 was a surprisingly desolate stretch of highway. It was depressing, and the Marine forced his sore feet to keep moving and his scratchy eyes to keep looking.
Brought up in a wealthy family where he had been the clown and party favorite, being totally on his own was new to Kenn. Even in the Corps, there were his fellow Marines to rely on, be admired by, and the feeling of worry was not welcome. It didn't help that Charlie still wasn't talking to him unless he had to. Their direction wasn't due east and the teenager didn't want to hear about slavers or detours. He just wanted his mom.
Charlie was staying a couple of feet behind the wide-shouldered Marine, sheltered from some of the stinging sand as he looked through Kenn's powerful binoculars. He wasn't really searching for anything, was just bored, sleepy, and very tired of walking. There was nothing to look at except the big ants that Kenny wouldn't waste their ammunition on, and no sounds beyond the wind and crunch of their boot steps.