The Long Haul

The world outside the riot van's grated windows was a monotonous, scrolling canvas of brown and gray. The skeletal remains of burned-out cities had given way to a desolate, rural landscape. Dead fields stretched for miles, their crops withered and untended. Farmhouses stood silent and dark, their porches empty, their screen doors swinging on broken hinges in the wind. The apocalypse was quieter here, but no less absolute.

Three days. It had been three days since they had escaped the fiery ruin of New Havenburg. The initial, shocked relief of survival had hardened into the grim reality of the long haul. Life was now measured in gallons of fuel, bottles of water, and hours of sleep.