Ain't Talkin'

Roche rode through the night, keeping a wary eye at his back in case the coppers exhausted their search of the dead city and decided to continue the chase down the 50.

The sun rose and scattered light over the facade of the world.

Near midday Roche neared a rundown gasoline pump with a nearby teller station. It wasn’t much, a metal and light sign that had bowled over long ago and a gas pump that was surely tapped and dry. Out back of the station a truck settled further and further into the ground, only it’s cab and a portion of the hood were still visible beneath the dust and the age of the land.

Roche hopped down from his mare. The old stations were always worth checking out. Gasoline had once been a precious commodity and it’s distribution was closely guarded. Following the catastrophe most stations had been bled dry by looters and bands of highwaymen who had taken all the gas they could carry.

Still, gasoline being what it was, these old stations often had hidden caches of valuables. Bullets, shells, bank notes, cigarettes, liquor, maps. Valuable things.

Roche was a man who took his time, and understood the value in checking old buildings like gasoline stations.

The station looked deserted, he drew his sawed-off and let his wrist dangle it across his shoulders all the same.

“Wait here.” He told Lucky, leaving her by the gas pump. She nickered in response. Good horse.

The station was one of those two-doors-and-a-box kind. No toilet inside or place to sell food. It wasn’t a real emporium of any kind. Just tobacco, fuel and an exchange of bank notes.

One of the glass doors had been smashed in so long ago the blowing dust had worn the sharp edges soft like the ocean did.

The floor inside the little glass station box was thick with dust, the frames and shelves that had once held automotive fluids and cigarettes were bent and dismantled.

Roche kicked at the dust, moving the wreckage with his toes.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Less than nothing.

Providence.

Still in a plastic wrapped package, in the ass-end of a thin paper container that dozens if not hundreds of looters must have somehow missed was a package of smokes.

Roche picked the box up and dusted it against his oilskin jacket. Red and white box said Marlboro. Nothing Roche hadn’t smoked before but it had been some time since he’d seen a package of Marlboro’s. He stuffed the package in his jacket and walked back out into the sunlight.

The hunter looked south. He thought he smelled a campfire.

There was smoke to the south, further along the 50. Black smoke. It wasn’t a campfire. The smell didn’t matter, the smoke did though.

Roche whistled and Lucky trotted up. Roche spurred the bay mare south along the 50 towards the plume of black smoke that rose up out of the dusty hills.