Kismet Read Free Page B

a nice treat. I pull out the food heaters and toss them into my backpack. If a little water is added to the heat packages and put in the main meal, the water interacts with chemicals to heat the food. Those heater bags make great little bombs, though they’re more noise than anything when the contents of the chemical are poured into a plastic bottle. And sometimes a little noise is a great distraction.
    Mmm, tonight I have spaghetti with meat sauce. I have been eating these for a long time now, even though I read somewhere a person is only supposed to eat them for twenty-one days. Guess I went slightly over on that timetable. I got my present rations from a survivalist group in Utah a few months ago when I kept their arsenal from exploding.
    I sit with my back against the rear tire eating my food and sipping some water. I can’t help but feel restless, and I hate that feeling. It’s a useless, frustrating feeling, and I always seem to get it at the most inappropriate times, like now, when I need to get some sleep. I have been driving for days through the New Mexico and Arizona deserts with temperatures around 116 in a four-wheeler that has no air-conditioner. To say I am tired is beyond an understatement.
    But this feeling that’s nagging at me, that has been bothering me for quite some time, wipes away my appetite. I give up on my food and pack it away and take one last sip of water before strolling the perimeter of the broken rest stop. The moon is high and clear, the stars coming out more and more as night falls deeper. There is the occasional howl of a coyote or wolf somewhere in the far distance followed by the answering call of its mate.
    Perhaps my edginess stems from knowing I am about to enter a war zone on the morrow. I’ve never been to Southern California, but I’ve come close, and the reports left me hoping I’d never set foot in the torn-asunder region.
    After the virus ran amok, the entire Western seaboard got hit with an earthquake. But not any old earthquake. It was “the Big One,” the one that scientists and doomsayers had been predicting for ages. What little had been spared became hopeless because there simply wasn’t anyone left to help.
    Now unfortunately, due to my gift, I am heading right for that nightmare. Los Angeles is a place ruled by gangs, absolute lawlessness roaming free. If it was anyone else but Seek and Galloway, if it were at all possible, I would turn myself around and hightail it right back into the desert. But something bad is going happen to them.
    I try not to think of the dream, the one where I’ve been shown their deaths. But like heartburn, it keeps rising up to make me sick. For days now I’ve been gripped with urgency and an odd sense that time is running out.
    Perhaps I should jog around to burn off this brittleness I feel.
    Perhaps I should just get my rocks off.
    I clean up my site, think about setting up my tent before discarding the idea, and wiggle my way into my sleeping bag, shoes and all. You never know when you’ll have to wake up in the middle of the night with guns blazing, and believe me, then is not the time to regret the decision to have removed your boots for comfort.
    At first I just lie there and gaze at the dark sky above me, letting my mind wander freely. There are so many stars in the heavens there’d be no way to count them all. It’s times like this I wish I knew how to find the astrological sign constellations, because I just know they’re there. But unless it’s Orion the Hunter or the Big Dipper, I’m clueless.
    Seek and Galloway come to mind. Where are they now? What are they doing? Staring at the same sky as I am, wondering? Wondering what? Do they dream of someone to love, someone to hold? It’s moments like this that I feel the emptiness of my traveling, of being so alone. I like helping people; I feel blessed to have the ability I have. But I miss companionship. I miss having love.
    My stomach clenches as I imagine both men being