The Beginning

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With no warning light
engine ticking ever louder
waning power
something wasn’t right 

Feeling around for the lever, I tugged. The hood thunked. Stepping out, my sole sunk into sand.

“I thought Japan made good cars …” My words evaporated in the desert, alone.

By the light of my phone, the motor looked fine, just hot. Hotter than normal? That road twisted, so dark under a thin Moon.

I sighed, gazing back. What did humanity expect, everything would turn out peachy? For almost a century, we’d burned the candle at both ends: empathy on one side, dinosaurs aflame on the other, teetering on atomic warheads, hoping for no earthquakes. I’d bought the hype, too. But ingenuity and ego can’t hold when luck runs out.

Headlights approached.

The passenger door latch offered no release. My keys glimmered from the seat. I raced around to the driver’s side and grabbed the fob: pressing, mashing, lights flashing — locked, open, locked — trunk. It held the rifle …

But the pickup pulled over right behind me.

“Shit!” I fumbled in the glove box. The pink pepper spray wasn’t much, but it was something. My purse? I scrambled its contents with my hand. No, that was my prescription bottle. There, found it!

Just one inside the truck, he stepped out. “You all right?” A deep voice.

I slid into darkness.

“Ma’am, just coming back from town.” He inched nearer. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

The spray nozzle — which way’s forward? I stayed in the shadow.

He stopped. “I can help. Where you headed?”

“Denver, I hope.”

“You’ve got California plates,” he said. “I’ve seen a few already.”

“You’ll see more.”

“Is it that bad?”

“I threw stuff in the trunk and just drove.”

He stepped into the light. “Sorry to hear that.” He was tall, striking, blond.

With a tug, my scarf loosened, my hair tumbled. I eased closer, pepper spray behind my back.

His face dropped in shock. “Sorry, miss, I don’t mean to stare it’s just — you look like you’re on TV.”

“I am on TV”—my eyes dipped—"was.”

He smiled.

That first smile was the last time I could read his face and know what he truly felt: longing.

He was so charming after that smile — at first.

If only I’d known what he was, then, and who he would become: Milly’s father.

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