Once he’d hung up with Lewis he took a few more minutes to steady his breathing, then lifted his phone again and dialed Matt’s number.
“Hey. You make it to Aspen Hill?” his friend asked when he answered.
“No, still in the dorm’s parking lot.
“Wow really? You said goodbye over two hours ago.”
“Yeah, I was a bit delayed. Hey could you come out here? I’ve got something I want you to have before I go.”
“Sure, I can cut my lunch break short. Be right there.”
Trev shoved the phone into his pocket and leaned back against his car, straightening every few moments to look around in all directions. He didn’t exactly expect Nelson to come back and try anything else, and he couldn’t see why anyone else would be a specific threat to him, but after having a gun pointed at his head it was impossible not to be a bit jumpy. Especially when he’d had so little sleep on top of a tense night and now adrenaline was pumping through him.
After what seemed like half an hour Matt finally showed up. Trev hurried over to meet him halfway. “Don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about going home?” he asked. “That offer to ride down with me is still on the table.”
Matt gave him a patient look. “I’ve already made my choice. Besides, I’m not ditching my car even if I don’t ever use it.”
Trev wasn’t surprised his friend was sticking to his guns. Speaking of which… he pulled out Nelson’s 9mm, ignoring the way Matt jumped in alarm at the sight of it, and offered it grip-first, careful not to muzzle himself as he did so.
His friend’s dark brown eyes stared at the weapon cautiously, but he didn’t reach out to take it. “What is this?”
“This is a Glock 17,” Trev answered evenly. “It belonged to Nelson DeWitt, who just tried to rob me with it.”
“What?” Matt demanded in shock. He started looking around frantically. “Are you okay? Where is he? What did you do to him? Have you called the police?”
“I kicked him in the stomach hard enough to make him rethink his life choices. He’s probably whimpering in a corner somewhere. I didn’t call the police about it because they already have enough to deal with and I didn’t want to waste any more time up here. Although I suppose you could spread word around the dorm about what he did in case he tries to rob someone else.” Trev shook the gun slightly. “Come on, I’d feel better knowing you had this in case you need to protect yourself.”
His friend still wouldn’t take the gun. “Is it loaded?”
Trev started to answer, then hesitated. He’d only assumed there wasn’t a chamber in the round. Flipping it back around to hold pointed at the pavement, he ejected the magazine and quickly did a mag and chamber check. To his relief there wasn’t a chamber in the round, which would’ve made his heroics against Nelson much more horrifying after the fact. He offered the gun and the full magazine separately to his friend. “Nope. Come on, man, don’t act like it’s made of acid. You’ve gone to the range with me and Lewis plenty of times to shoot, and with your dad too.”
“I know,” Matt said, abruptly taking the gun and mag and shoving them into different pockets, staring down at them as if wondering how they’d got there. “It’s just that having a gun down in a small place like Aspen Hill feels different than carrying one around the university dorm.”
They stood awkwardly for a few seconds, then Trev offered his hand to shake again. “Well, Lewis is climbing the walls waiting for me to get down there. He had to listen to my entire standoff with Nelson. Take care and be safe, man. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”
Matt shook his hand absently, still staring down at the gun in his pocket. “Yeah. Uh, thanks for this.”
Trev nodded and climbed into his car. Then, finally, he started the engine and turned himself in the direction of home, leaving Matt waving in his rearview mirror.
Chapter Three
Mistakes
Trev was finally on his way, although that meant he was immediately bogged down by traffic once more. He wanted to shout at these idiots to get off the road and stop wasting gas, but then again he was one of them.
Although he supposed the streets couldn’t stay this congested for long since eventually each and every one of these vehicles would run out of gas and have no way to refuel. Which wouldn’t matter much to him because he’d already be long gone.
As he drove he turned on his radio, something he hadn’t done for a long time since he preferred to plug in his phone and listen to playlists. Unsurprisingly all the stations were broadcasting news or talk show host commentary or rebroadcasting the President’s speech, with music few and far between. Trev flipped around a bit looking for something he was interested in.
For the moment all the news was either grim discussion about the Gulf refineries attack and speculation on who’d carried it out, or hopeful stories about people all over the nation calling in to express their love of their country and commit to helping out their communities any way they could.
Trev appreciated the sentiment, but none of what he heard sounded very practical. He was far more interested in one talk show host commenting on the run on gas stations from east to west coast, although he could’ve done without the man’s mockery of morons waiting at closed pumps after the President had already claimed that fuel for more important government purposes.
As he left the populated areas behind and made his way up Spanish Fork Canyon the traffic faded until he was one of the only people on the road: apparently the business that had people flooding the streets in their vehicles was centered around town. The smartest thing they could’ve done would be to get in those cars and drive as far away from any population centers as they could on the gas left in their tanks, but Trev supposed they were still too invested in their houses and lives for such drastic action.
He hoped they didn’t come to regret that decision in a few weeks when they were starving and the city around them was being torn to the ground by rioters.
After the tenseness of his departure the drive was almost disappointingly routine. He’d gone between college and Aspen Hill dozens of times in the last few years visiting family, spending time with Lewis fishing up in the Manti-La Sal mountains or building the shelter together, or just unwinding on school breaks.
To get to Aspen Hill he just had to follow Spanish Fork Canyon and then continue along Highway 6 towards Price, turning west fifteen or so miles north of the city onto a smaller road for the last several miles to get to the greener valley Aspen Hill nestled in between a few hills and the foothills leading up to the Manti-La Sal range farther to the west. Trev had followed the scenic route route through the canyon often enough he practically could’ve driven it in his sleep, although he always enjoyed driving it this time of year with the hillsides taking fire as the autumn trees turned.
He’d gone about a third of the way home and had not too long ago passed where Highway 89 split off from 6 in a long winding road down into the valley below. Now he was nearly to a point where the route ahead reached a downhill series of curves and switchbacks, but unfortunately at the last part of the uphill climb leading to it his engine started sputtering in a way that suggested his hopes for the limitless capacity of his gas tank were in vain.
Trev stared at the the fuel gauge in shock: he hadn’t expected this. Maybe he really would’ve been better off just leaving immediately.
Without much choice but to squint his eyes, ease off the gas to try to make it last as far as possible without losing momentum on the upward slope, and pray he could make it, Trev listened to the sputtering get worse and worse. About ten feet short of the top of the slope with his car slowed almost to a stop his engine died, sputtered back to life, and started making horrible noises as it struggled to burn the last few wisps of fumes still in the tank.