September 13, 2005

I chew on a piece of jerky slowly, the midday sun shining brightly on the road that stretches out endlessly in each direction.

This has been harder than I thought. That shouldn't be surprising to me, and I suppose ultimately it's not, but I've been on the road for more than a week and I've just officially left Illinois.

"Officially" because even though I'd get into Indiana, I spent a lot of time twisting and turning and avoiding places and getting turned around and backtracking. Today is the first day that I've spent more than a couple of hours in the state and I feel like I'm making a bit of progress.

My goal initially had been to take the path I usually take when driving to and from DC, and that included following a lot of the shoreline around Chicago and into Michigan, then following Michigan's state line. That was entirely shot to hell the first day when I couldn't bring myself to get close to driving into Chicago. It never occurred to me when I started out that areas near the shore might be more crowded than others, at least comparatively. Why wouldn't anyone who'd survived want to live near a source of water? Still, that means I spent a lot of time circling less populated areas of the state, crisscrossing the Indiana border frequently. I have lots of road maps—I pick up the local ones every time I stop at a gas station to try the pumps—but they're not always helpful when you're on the back roads that, according to a map, don't exist.

Some naïve part of me really believed, way deep down, that I was doing all this planning "just in case." I really let myself believe that it was only going to take me a few days—a week tops—to make this trip. I figured I'd drive a little slower than usual to make sure I could avoid any potholes or animals and that I'd arrive in DC safe and sound. I let myself truly believe that everything would be fine when I got home, that Josh would be pacing around his office, wondering where I'd been for all this time before yelling at me to get back to work and the worst that would come of it would that I'd have some extra canned goods and blankets.

I truly am an idiot.

I've been lucky to have been able to find usable gas pumps for the most part. I don't know how long that'll last, but I've had more luck in the little mom-and-pop stops than the big stations on the highways. I would guess because they use less technology, but I also couldn't care less as to why as long as I can keep fueling up.

I pulled off into a used car lot maybe half an hour ago when I felt highway hypnosis start to set in and knew I needed a break. This particular stretch of road has been mostly easy to traverse, but very, very bleak. Last I knew, I was somewhere outside of a town called Carmel. At this point, I don't know how close or how far away it is or if it'll be someplace I can stop for the night, but it's my current goal. I've been trying to set very small goals for myself. After realizing that I wasn't going to make the trip in a few days, the only thing that kept me kind of sane in the moment was making short-term goals so I could feel like I accomplished something. I'll find a town on the map and tell myself it's my destination for the day. A couple of times I've managed to make it to the town within a couple of hours and have been able to give myself another goal, but most of the time, I'm lucky if I make it there before the sun starts to go down which, I've noticed, feels like is happening earlier and earlier each day. More so than the normal shift of seasons.

I thought I was well stocked on food when I left and even though I've been conservative with my food rations, my supplies are dwindling rapidly. I've been trying to eat just enough so that I can focus on driving, but I've still had to cut that in half the last few days. Maybe I'll find another Walmart or grocery store that'll have a few supplies left. I almost wish I knew how to hunt; I don't think I'm that far off from being okay with eating a rabbit or a squirrel.

I feel a shudder wash over me. Then again, maybe not.

I finish my piece of jerky and stretch, my body tight not only from so much driving, but the sheer tension of it all. I'm on high alert. I've hardly slept since I left Madison. Just another thing I didn't think through entirely, obviously. I'd been so focused on getting back to DC that I never considered that I'd be out here for this long, or that I'd suddenly become terrified of my own shadow. I've been parking the SUV in mall and shopping center parking lots at night, anywhere I can find that has a few cars and hopefully anyone looking won't notice a new one. The first couple of nights were really the worst because I was absolutely terrified that someone would pass by and look in the windows and find me curled up in the back. After that, I found window tint film in an Auto Zone and put it all over the car windows. It's not at all well done, but it's nearly impossible to see inside now, so it's eased my mind a little. I think the longest I've slept at a stretch is half an hour so I usually only wind up with two or three hours total all night. I would have thought working insane hours for Josh for the last six years would have prepared me for functioning on very little sleep, but this is a whole different ball game.

To add to the anxiety of it all, I've run into people over the last few days.

Fortunately, they haven't been close encounters, but there have been a few times when I've been able to see other cars or people off in the distance, traveling in a different direction, and it's scared the hell out of me. Every time that happens, I pull off the road as soon as I can and find somewhere that either has a lot of abandoned cars or where I can make the SUV look like another junker on the side of the road. Then I hide in the back and pull out a pair of binoculars and scan the horizon. If I can find the people or cars I saw, I watch them until they're nothing but specs; then I keep watching them to make sure they're really gone. When I can't find what I'm looking for is when I really get nervous. I know it really means they took a road that lead in another direction and I'd have no way of spotting them, but it makes me panic nonetheless. Either way, I hide out in my car for an hour or two just to make sure no one is coming my way—by accident or design—sweating buckets with all the windows rolled up. The first couple of times that happened, I realized I absolutely couldn't afford to become dehydrated. I don't have enough extra water to come back from that, and it's not like I can go to a hospital if it gets really bad. I managed to find a few small battery-operated fans at a sporting goods store around Bloomington that I've only let myself use for that purpose. Any time I can find more batteries I add them to my supply, but if I'm still out here when it turns cold, the fans won't be an issue.

I really don't want to be stuck in the middle of the country when winter hits. I want to believe that my long journey up until now is only the result of my initial jitters and once I start to feel more confident with what I'm doing, I'll be able to make real progress and maybe even make it home by October. That's three weeks away. As long as I keep my pace slow and am able to find working gas pumps, I don't think it's an unrealistic expectation.

Then again…I'm now in Indiana. I haven't had the best luck with getting out of Indiana in the past. Of course, this time I don't have Josh and Toby to bungle things.

My stomach twists painfully at the thought of Josh and Toby, and how much I'd give to have either of them here with me right now. At least I'd have company. At least I wouldn't feel like I was the last person on earth, which is ridiculous because I've seen actual people wandering around. I know I'm not the only one. It still feels incredibly lonely, and all I can do is question why I was spared. Why me? Why didn't I get sick? I was in my parents' house with them when they both fell ill and I've had no health problems since. It doesn't make any sense. And why have I only seen a handful of people since then? How many of us are actually left?

I shake my head, pulling myself from those thoughts. It's too dangerous a road to go down. I've done it before—many times before, actually—and nothing good ever comes from it. I just go into a downward spiral, and it's been enough to make me go nearly catatonic at times. I've lost hours, and sometimes days, trying to figure out why I'm alive right now, and what was it that wiped out so much of the world.

I stretch one more time and get back into the car. I make sure I'm as oriented as I can be with the map and head toward Carmel. If I'm not mistaken, I'm just a few miles outside of town. If I'm extraordinarily lucky, I'll make it there within the hour. There's a place called Kokomo just thirty or so miles on the other side of Carmel, and that feels like a goal I can manage.


If there's anyone out there invested in this story, I apologize for not posting anything for such a long time. I haven't actually opened up my laptop in months. I keep thinking I'm just going to drop this story but I've been working on it in some capacity for two years now and I can't let it go. I constantly have ideas for it running through my head. So, I shall continue to plug away at it, hoping I can find a way to finish it. Because I really like this story; my brain just doesn't usually like me, so it makes for an effed up kind of life.