Fuel (Best Laid Plans Book 1) (6 page)

Trev did his best to control his rising dismay. “But you had fuel stabilizer in there, right?”

“Duh.” His cousin sounded equal parts sheepish and impatient. “That only does so much though. I didn't even realize there was a problem with the gas until I filled the truck and tried to start the engine, and let me just say it wasn't a pretty sound. I might be able to get away with using gas this old for chainsaws and other small tools, maybe even ATVs that have more leeway with that sort of thing, but I wouldn't want to try it in any more vehicles.”

Trev stared at his windshield. “I've got most of my most important stuff I've been gathering for years with me, not to mention I spent the rest of my money, emptied my bank account, and maxed out my credit card buying a ton of food at a store before starting down. My car's filled with things we could really use.”

Lewis was one of the most pragmatic people Trev knew, not one to just walk away from useful supplies. “Well I guess I could take my wagon cart and make a trip of it,” he said slowly. “But that would be a lot of effort and we probably still wouldn't be able to take everything. It would also take me a few days to get up there and I'd have to leave the shelter unguarded just when people might be most tempted to ransack it. Is it really enough to be worth it?”

Trev thought of all the stuff in his car, over five thousand dollars worth of incredibly useful and important items. Then he estimated how much he and his cousin would eat on as many round trips as it took to bring everything, even if for later trips he'd be able to bring his own wagon cart. He thought they'd still definitely be able to ferry down way more than they'd use, a net gain.

Then again, compared to the stores of food they had piled in the shelter what he had in his car was just a bonus, not to mention that at any point while he was away somebody could come and loot his car and make any further trips a waste. Lewis was right that it was better not to risk themselves any more than necessary when it came to the difficulty of travel and possible attack. Besides, if he had to he could just pack down his most valuable stuff like his guns and a decent a mount of ammo and still be fairly well off with what he had down in the shelter.

“I guess it's better not to travel in an emergency situation if you can avoid it,” he admitted reluctantly. “Especially not if somebody stole our place out from under us while you were out bringing down my junk.” He sighed. “I just hope whoever finds this stuff sitting on the side of the road gets good use out of it.”

There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence before his cousin finally spoke. “Um, I hate to point out the glaringly obvious but why don't you just cache everything? You've got a shovel and some tarps, don't you?”

Trev slapped himself on the forehead. “Right, I really should've thought of that.” But then his mounting excitement faded. “It would still be sitting right here, though. We'd have all the same problems getting to it that you just brought up.”

“I'm sure you'd rather have the option of solving those problems later than losing your stuff entirely,” Lewis replied. “I mean if worse came to worst you could always let people in Aspen Hill know it's there, that way if anyone wants to make the trip to go after it at least it'll be a neighbor benefitting rather than some random looter.”

He supposed that made sense. “Okay I'd better get to work. See you in a few days.”

“For 50 miles with a full pack?” his cousin said lightly. “I expect to see you here tomorrow before noon.”

Trev grimaced at his phone after his cousin hung up. He seriously hoped that was a joke, since to go the distance in that time he'd pretty much have to walk nonstop. That would be brutal even without lugging as much as half again his weight in a backpack.

Time to worry about that later, though. He spent a few minutes digging out his spare tarps and the folding camping shovel from his backpack. All bought at Lewis's suggestion, since he wouldn't have even thought of them. Then he set them on top of a pair of buckets and made the first trip down the steep slope to the copse of trees he'd spied earlier. He might not be able to hide his car behind them but he should be able to find a great spot for a cache.

There was one, near the middle of the copse in an ideally sized clearing with trees blocking the view of the outside world in every direction. His first task was to dig down as deep as he planned the hole to be and then wait a bit in order to make sure no groundwater seeped out: caching all his expensive, important stuff in what basically amounted to a well was about the best way he could think of to destroy it.

The water table around here was incredibly low, usually hundreds of feet deep, and it didn't rain too often, but with something this important it was better to be safe than sorry. After he'd dug down about three feet and waited a few minutes, making a trip to the car for another load, he felt the bottom of the hole and satisfied himself that it was bone dry and should stay that way.

He still dug the remainder of the hole with a channel at the bottom, which he filled with most of the smaller and medium sized rocks he dug up to make a drain. The drain was an idea he came up with on the spot, and between it and the tarp he hoped everything would stay dry.

It was hard to guess exactly how big the hole needed to be to fit all the stuff he planned to leave behind, so he went the extra mile and made the hole bigger than he thought he strictly had to. The small shovel wasn't his ideal tool and he spent most of the roughly two hours he spent digging cursing at it, and at the frequent rocks he encountered in this stony soil. At least he had plenty of experience digging, most recently while helping Lewis bury their shelter with the aid of a backhoe and their back muscles, so the job was familiar enough.

Finally he had a hole he liked, or at least one that was good enough after hours of backbreaking work on top of a sleepless night. Trev paused for a meal of jerky and trail mix and drank most of a bottle of water from one of the cases, then extended his break a bit longer as he lined the hole with one of the tarps.

After that it was time for more backbreaking work ferrying everything down the steep slope. He started with the buckets and boxes as a base, then filled up the space on top and around them with plastic bags full of cans and bags of rice and beans. For a bit of added water protection he tightly tied the grocery bags shut before piling them on, leaving enough leeway in the handles so he could still carry them that way later.

Last of all he piled on all the more delicate and valuable stuff he didn't want destroyed inside a sort of nest between the softer bags filled with rice and beans, covered it all with his blankets and winter gear that was too heavy and bulky to take along in his pack, then covered it with a second tarp and made sure the upper tarp would drain water to the ground below rather than somehow making its way inside.

Once he thought everything was as good as possible he grabbed the shovel and set to work on the final difficult task of filling the hole, with was thankfully much easier than digging it in the first place. And finally he spent several minutes smoothing the dirt and then kicking dead leaves and mulch from the rest of the copse over the spot, then gathering any deadwood he could find to spread around to further disguise it. Then he stood back to inspect the area and make sure nothing would draw the eye.

It looked pretty good. At last, after roughly four hours of exhausting work, he was finally finished. He sincerely hoped it was worth it. He'd heard the sound of a few semis and a single car driving by on the highway above while he'd been working, but unsurprisingly none had stopped. He didn't know whether that was a good thing, since they wouldn't know about his supplies or his cache and be tempted to steal from him, or a bad thing because it meant he couldn't hitch a ride.

Oh well, maybe he'd get lucky and another semi or car would pass by going the right direction and offer him a ride once he was on his way.

All that was left was to find a way to shove everything he'd left out to take with him into his pack or tie it to the outside. He had so much stuff that he ended up taking out his sleeping bag, tent, tarp, and inflatable pad and wedging them under the pack's front straps as he pulled them tight in order to fit everything else inside. He still had to strap his camping shovel across the back and carry his Mini-14's case in one hand, balancing it out with a bag of ammunition and sundry items in the other.

It wouldn't have been ideal if he'd had to do the slightest bit of climbing, but for just walking along the road it should be okay. He gave his car a once-over to make sure he had everything, locked it up, and then with some effort lifted his pack and pulled it onto his shoulders, grunting at how heavy it was as he buckled and adjusted the waist and chest belts.

He'd done his best to keep the weight at 80 pounds, not counting the stuff he'd be holding in his hands, since that was the weight he'd heard soldiers carried in the field. He might have gone a bit over, but either way the pack was so heavy he had trouble leaning over to pick up the case and bag without losing his balance. That, too, wasn't ideal, but he only had to go 50 miles and this was all stuff he felt he needed to take with him.

Trev worked his shoulders under the pack's straps, hefted the stuff he'd be carrying, and gave his car one last longing, slightly resentful look. A half hour of driving this morning, maybe closer to forty-five minutes. That would've taken him at least another third of the distance, maybe even gotten him to within 10 miles. No help for the past, though, so he got going.

Since he'd ended his drive at the bottom of a hill with even steeper hills ahead he got the treat of having to climb for the first few miles, which was an excellent way to demonstrate that he'd definitely packed way, way too much. By the time he'd gone a mile he was absolutely exhausted. The pack, which had seemed cripplingly heavy at first, now felt like a mountain on his back, threatening to topple him over with every tottering step.

Eighty pounds, he'd figured. Now he was wondering if it didn't weigh closer to a hundred. And for that matter, those eighty pound packs were being lugged by trained soldiers in the best shape of their lives. He rarely exercised more than the occasional game of volleyball or swimming at a nearby apartment complex's pool. Even that wasn't really swimming, more goofing off with his roommates.

There was no help for it, he was going to have to lose some weight. Hopefully not physically, although that would probably happen all too quickly once meals started getting scarce, but his pack definitely needed lightening. He hated the 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.