She’s asleep now, those radioactive green eyes shut tightly. For a minute, I think she’s dead, but when I press my fingers to her cloth covered lips, she murmurs and I can feel her soft, hot breath pouring through the fabric. Making sure the .38 is fully loaded and ready to go, I hop out of the cab and head back to the cargo. From the medical kit, I take out a packet of Jameson’s Antibodies, a QwikSet wound patch and some burn cream. I don’t know if it’ll be enough. But it’s better than the vultures. Halfway back to the cab, I return into the cargo to get a few syringes of morphine. Worst comes to worst, I can send her off into the next life real easy. The sun hangs above the empty highway, about to start its descent. By the time it’s dark, I need to be off the road—clearly there are marauders around here in droves. And since I can’t exactly roll up to this FEMA camp and introduce myself as an ambivalent, non-threatening third party, I’ll have to come up with another solution.
