They’d cut it close, but Jerry and Martha O’Connell had been packing all night, and were able to get on the road just ahead of the panicking herd that blocked the roads behind them. They drove all day, staying off the major highways to avoid the traffic jams, speeding through deserted small towns, pressing onwards towards the mountains and the prospect of high ground and a defensible refuge. At first they listened to the reports on the radio, but one by one they fell silent. Martha tried to tell herself that they had just driven out of range, but there were no new stations to take their place.

Late in the afternoon, they came to another abandoned hamlet and pulled up at the gas station. Jerry yawned and unfolded the road map.

“Okay babe, we started here -” he pointed “- and now we’re here, about five miles away from the turn up into the mountains. If we can get to that turn before they do, I think we can make it.”

Martha looked at her husband, eyes wide with a quarry’s terror, but she managed a smile. “Let’s gas up and get going.”

***

The pumps had been switched off, so Jerry smashed the glass door of the convenience store with one of the shotguns and went inside to turn them back on. Under the circumstances, he figured no one was likely to come back and complain. He was just topping off the tank when another car roared up from the direction Jerry and Martha were headed and pulled into the gas station with a scream of burnt rubber.

Mad Max climbed out, a wild figure with a beaten-up motorcycle jacket on his back, an assortment of weapons tucked in his belt, and a fresh wound oozing through a bandage on his cheek. He wasted no time with pleasantries.

“You planning on taking the mountain road? You’re too late, there’s already a swarm of them headed up there, and there are more of them chasing me. They’re a couple miles away, and they’re coming fast. Figure twenty minutes at most before they get here. How do things look down that way?”

Jerry shook his head. “We’ve been on the road all day. Haven’t seen anything since we left, but we’ve been listening to the radio stations drop off, you know? We drive back that way, sooner or later we’re going to run right into them.”

Max spat a stream of tobacco juice. “Here’s what we’ll do then. We’ll hold the fort here and take out the group that’s following me – there’s about ten or so, we should be able to manage them. That’ll buy us a bit of time to figure out a way to get up into the hills with our brains intact. Can either of you shoot?”

Martha opened her jacket and displayed a pair of Berettas.

“Good. You stand guard out here while we see what we can find in here.”

“Hold it,” said Jerry. “What happened to your face?”

Max grinned. “Just a scratch. Not a bite, anyway. You’ve got nothing to worry about from me.”

“Get busy then,” said Martha as she picked up her shotgun. “And try not to take too long.”

***

Ten minutes later, the three companions – husband, wife and stranger - stood ready with an arsenal of gasoline bombs and plenty of throw-away lighters. The guns would provide backup if fire didn’t work, but for now Max wanted to conserve their ammunition. Three minutes after that, company arrived.

There were twelve of them, running down the road at a steady, inexorable pace. They were still fresh and more or less intact, not falling apart like the ones on the news the night before. Martha wondered if any of them were not yet beyond help. Jerry wondered what it would feel like if one of them managed to bite him. Max calmly lit a bomb and lobbed it towards the approaching zombies.

The bottle shattered at the feet of the first undead creature, and a fireball engulfed the group. Jerry and Martha threw bottles of their own, and Max flipped on the nearest pump and added a stream of fresh fuel to the conflagration. One persistent zombie emerged from the inferno, body ablaze and mouth open in a silent scream. Martha’s shotgun put it out of its misery, and the headless body collapsed in a smoldering ruin.

“Twelve down, who knows how many million to go?” said Jerry.

“We’re off to a great start,” said Max.

I work the night shift at a self-serve gas station. I have seen everything from rich folks slumming it who don’t know how to pump gas to the woman who came in stark naked to fill her car. Believe me I have seen it all, or at least I thought I had....

Through the early morning I read a book to stay awake, but I almost always hear the cars come in, but the tap on the window startled me enough to make me drop my book. I looked up to see a short, slender woman staring at me through the glass. She was blond with the biggest eyes that I had ever seen.

"Is this where you dispense liquid hydrocarbons?" She asked in a weird flutey voice. "C8H18? Is this where I procure it in its liquid state?

"What?" I replied, "What is see-ate aitchteen?”

“Liquid fuel.” She said, beginning to get angry. "I buy liquid fuel here?”

"You mean gas?” I asked.

"No, liquid. I am not equipped to take on gaseous fuel.”

"Gas, is a liquid, lady." I was starting to get angry.

She took a deep breath.

"I want petroleum distillate. Is this where it is dispensed?"

“Oh, you want gasoline." She must be British I thought. I was relieved to have her pegged finally. "We call it gas here.”

"Gasoline, yes. I want to procure some.”

“Ok, I will turn on the pump. Just follow the directions.”

She followed my pointing finger and walked back to her coal black Corvette. At least I think it was a ‘Vette, though I couldn’t place the year. She stood by her car and stared at the instructions on the pump. ‘Blonds’ I thought and went out, locking the door behind me. I wasn’t supposed to leave the building, but sometimes it was just plain easier to break the rules and show people how to use the pump.

“Look," I said, “You pick up the nozzle, select your grade and squeeze the handle to pump the gas into your tank.” I handed her the nozzle, but she still just stared at it.

"Where is your tank?" I sighed. The would-be-blonde looked blankly at me. "Where do you want me to dispense the fuel?”

Her eyes lit up and she tapped the roof of her car. An opening appeared the exact size of the nozzle. I put the nozzle in the opening and squeezed, feeling the chill as the gas was pumped into what I hoped was the gas tank.

Another car pulled in, and I signaled the British lady to take the nozzle.

After I explained to the new customer that it wasn’t a full serve station, he pumped and paid for his gas and drove off with squeal of tires. I sat and watched her in disbelief. She had put more that $100 into that car and she was still pumping. Another customer came and went, she was still pumping.

Finally the pump clicked off. The register showed a total of $498.31. Once again she stood and stared at the pump. I went back outside.

"That will be 498.31, Miss.”

"Four hundred and ninety eight, thirty one what?”

My heart sunk. Even the Brits pay for their gas.

"You procure gas. You pay for gas.”

"Exchange for services." She said, and nodded her head.

She reached into her bag and brought out a handful of stones. My brother in law is a jeweler so I know a little bit about gemstones. I was willing to bet $498.31 that those stones were real. I held my hand out and she poured them into my hand. For the first time I felt her skin. It was cold and the texture was wrong. It felt more like vinyl than leather if you get me.

Somehow she slid into her car and it moved away silently. I half expected to see it lift off and fly away. But she just drove to the corner and signaled a left turn. I shook my head and pocketed the stones.

I walked back to the building feeling less the sophisticated urbanite and more and more the country rube.

Two things convinced me I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing, The stone in my pocket which my brother in law told me were worth enough for me to retire on. And that I had to clean lipstick off the gas nozzle, just as if she had taken a drink of gas like a kid drinking from a garden hose.

I witnessed my first birth and my last death at the gas station. The birth was mine. The death happened a bit after.

* * *

Sounds like there’s a story there, don’t it? Ain’t really, though. I was about to come into this world, weren’t no two ways about it. Ma was timin’ her breathin’, Daddy was rushin’ down Route 72 tryin’ to get to the hospital. When he saw that Old Betty was runnin’ low, he pulled over to Al’s Gas-n-Snack to fill ‘er up.

I never was one to make things easy on my folks, and that was the way it was from the very beginning. Daddy’d rushed on in to find Al, and it was just Ma and Old Betty. By the time Daddy come back, there was Ma, Old Betty and me.

That’s the legend, anyhow. Always reckoned it probably took a bit longer, but what do I know?

Through the years, time passed and eventually so did my folks. I got to know ‘em until I was just this side of twenty. When I was just that side of twenty, I met The Girl. You know how people’ll tell ya that when you meet the right person, you just know? Well, I’m cynical enough not to believe all that, but then it happened. Don’t expect you'll believe me now, but it’s absolutely true: you just know.

Right before we became husband and wife, I brought her on down to the place of my birth. Hadn’t been there in over twenty years, and the world had been kind neither to Al or Al’s. Run down and tired, the man and the station were about to be closed for good.

Now I can’t fully explain this next part. Weren’t like there was a chorus of angels, a parting of clouds, nothin’ like that. But somehow, that old station called out to me. Reckon everyone there felt it too, ‘cause when I ran over to The Girl, she was already talkin’ to Al about how much we’d have to give ‘im for it to be ours. "Reasonable and fair" is how I’d describe the man who probably had a hand in bringin’ me into this world. Last time I ever saw him.

Me and The Girl got married on that spot not one week later.

The name stayed Al’s for almost ten years. After that, it only made sense to start callin’ it Pop’s. By the time my first was born, me and The Girl had built a little house close as we could to the station. Then the kid was there, we added a porch swing, and that house was a home.

The years wore on like they do, two more little ones rounded out the family, grew bigger and moved away. Years after that, couple of ‘em come back with families of their own, and we eventually added some paint to call it Pop & Son’s Gas-n-Snack. Sounds perfect if I say so myself.

The Girl left her body and me many years later. Didn’t seem right to look for another. Didn’t seem right to do much of anything, truth be told.

My eyes didn’t work like they used to, but I could still hear our regulars comin’ from half a mile away. I’d sit on a stool, half in the shade and half out, and those folks’d come by and we’d talk small. It became expected. That always felt nice and good.

One day, I felt a bit too tired to get up on that stool. Stayed in bed that day, and a few days after. ‘Bout a week later, I did get back up on that stool, talked to some folks. End of the day, my boy watched the sunset with me. I felt the warmth turn to cold.

And that’s it. That’s the story where there ain’t really a story. Everyone’s got one; most ain’t special, ‘cept to those involved. Mine had a gas station.

Maybe someday you’ll be drivin’ down Route 72, and you’ll see Pop & Son’s Gas-n-Snack. Maybe you’ll pull in and start talkin’ small to the man inside. He’s a good kid, that man. Maybe he’ll invite you to a nearby house, and you’ll talk on a porch swing for hours.

Maybe that gas station’ll share some of your joys and some of your sorrows, but probably not. What’s the chances of that, after all?

* * *

I witnessed my first birth and my last death at the gas station. The death was mine. The birth happened a bit before.

The sign on the highway warns LAST GAS FOR 115 MILES and he pulls in, even though the fuel gauge says he still has half a tank left. Better safe than sorry, that was the motto he believed in for most of the 38 years of his life.

The gas station is busy but not crowded as he drives the ruby red Honda Civic up to the nearest unoccupied pump. He turns off the motor and steps out of the car, making sure to take his keys with him.

As he stands in front of the pump, he takes a black leather wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and automatically pulls out the credit card that offers points for every purchase. It doesn’t occur to him how silly this is until he swipes the card through the reader, and then he chuckles softly. Points wouldn’t be doing him much good any more.

He presses the button for regular unleaded, grabs the pump nozzle and slips it into the gas tank, flipping the little lever on the underside of the nozzle so that it keeps dispensing gas while he washes the windshield. After removing as much bug splatter as possible, he returns the battered squeegee to a bucket of blue water next to the pump and notices that most of the other vehicles fueling up are RVs or campers hitched to shiny new pick-up trucks. Fellow travelers, he thinks, and he wonders if they all have destinations in mind or if some are just wandering the open roads. The thought passes as his gaze settles on the digital readout of the pump, counting off the dollars being guzzled.

At it hits $19.93, he remembers the year he moved away from home. He was two years out of college, employed but still living at home (although, to be fair, he did pay his parents rent). His company relocated to another state that year and offered to pay if he’d come along. It was an offer too good to refuse, so he went, starting a new life and meeting new friends. He was so consumed by the experience that contact with his family became less frequent until it was nothing more than phone calls on Mother’s Day and greeting cards at Christmas.

At $20.02, he recalls the year he married a woman he’d known and loved for six years. They drove across country that summer to try out life on the west coast and stopped in Vegas along the way to make things official. In a few short years, they became a typical middle-class American family with two kids, a cat and a big fat mortgage. He was so wrapped up in his new role as family provider that contact with his old friends gradually trickled down to nothing.

He waits for the numbers to stop at $20.07 but, of course, they do not. Real life is not a story, full of obvious symbolism and rich with irony. Real life is messy and chaotic, a place where every decision has unintended consequences and what is clearly right to one person is blatantly wrong to another.

The pump clicks shut at $21.64. He takes the nozzle partially out of the gas tank, gives it a couple of shakes to make sure he spills no precious fuel onto the ground and returns it to the pump, which asks if he wants a receipt. He presses the NO button and it occurs to him that he’d better find an ATM soon; using cash would make him a lot harder to track, if anyone decided he was still worth tracking.

He opens the driver’s door and pauses as he looks down the highway, back in the direction from which he came. He knows it’s not too late to go back. She might even forgive him. He considers this and ultimately shakes his head before slipping into the worn grey upholstered bucket seat.

As he slams the door shut, he catches a glimpse of something poking out from under the passenger’s seat. He picks it up. It’s one of his daughter’s pacifiers, the one with Winnie the Pooh characters painted on the mouth guard that was given up for lost a month ago. He starts the car and his finger reaches for the button to roll down the power window, so that he can toss the pacifier into a nearby garbage bin.

He hesitates. A moment later, he pops the glove compartment open and tosses the pacifier inside. Then the car pulls out of the gas station and he is back on the highway, picking up speed and driving further away from who he was and everything he’d done, on his way toward something new... whatever that may be.

The row of cars sat silently in the shadows, watching the scurry of activity at the gas pumps as they waited for the coming day. Although the pumps were open all night, the garage was closed until morning, when the mechanics would begin their tender ministrations to the cars. But for now, this side of the station was quiet except for the occasional person who ventured around the side to use the restrooms.

The black car at the end looked like all of the others, a metal hunk patiently waiting its turn. An observant person may have noticed that the headrest on the driver’s side was slightly asymmetrical and a little more rounded than the other headrests. A perceptive person might have recognized that strange shape as a human head. But most people only saw the line of cars biding time until morning.

That was the way Bobby liked it. The owners didn’t spend a lot of money lighting this area of the gas station. One dim bulb high on the wall gave enough illumination to read the words “Men” and “Women” painted on each of the two doors, which was all anybody needed. When a door swung open, bright light cast its visitor in silhouette, outlining curves and shapes that were normally hidden. Bobby liked the women best, especially the angels. He couldn’t see their faces, but they had beautiful yellow halos around their heads. Some of them had reddish-orange halos. These were his demons, and he shuddered whenever he saw one. They hadn’t noticed him yet, and he hoped they never would.

Bobby loved the gas station. It was the only place where his angels appeared. He saw his first one by accident. He’d dropped his car off for service and was partway home when he remembered that he'd left behind his clean uniform. It had been dark by the time he’d walked back to the station. He had just grabbed his uniform when the door marked "Women" had opened. She was dressed entirely in black and looked like a goddess. And there, on top of her head, was a golden halo. The dim light reflected off its surface, giving it the appearance of spun gold. When she shook her head, the sparkles ran down her back like a river of light. She walked to the edge of the building and vanished.

He came back every night to watch his angels. Some nights he only saw one or two, but it was worth the wait. His angels made him feel…special. When he saw one, the whispers in his mind stopped and his world was at peace.

But the peace didn’t last. The angel would disappear and the voices would come back, angry at having been silenced for even a short period of time. What he needed was his own angel, one who could stay with him forever. She would keep them quiet.

At first he was scared. How did you catch an angel? How could you keep an angel from running away? He was lost until he watched a small child catch a butterfly.

It had taken some preparation, but he was finally ready. He waited in his car, knowing that this would be the last night of his desperate vigil. It seemed like an eternity before the first angel showed up, but she was worth the wait. He could see the gold flickering down her back. Then the door closed behind her.

He was waiting for her when she came out. She stumbled as he threw the large net over her body, thrown off-balance by its weight. Unlike the butterfly, she started to make noise. Her scream scared him so much that he almost let go. Then he remembered what it was like when the voices were still and knew that he couldn’t stop. He needed his angel. He had to have his angel.

Bobby grabbed her throat and squeezed until she was quiet. When she went stopped fighting, he lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to his car. She was so pretty, quietly sleeping on his back seat. She would be even prettier in the lovely cage he had built.

Nobody noticed the old black car pull out of line. Careful not to jostle his precious cargo, he left the gas station for the final time. He wouldn’t need to come back tomorrow - he had finally captured his own angel.

Twenty five solar collectors to the south of the Phil Coyle's gas station shifted in unison to track the rising of the desert sun. Along the shimmering road a parachute-like kite appeared over the horizon dragging behind it a squat, streamlined two-seater car at a steady twenty miles per hour. Five minutes later as the night's winds faded, the cable reeled in and the vehicle drifted under the sagging, disused power cables and coasted to the single pump. The driver, a scruffy youth in his late teens, gathered the material into his arms and stuffed it into the passenger seat before wiping the dust from the pump's digital display. “No gas.” flashed across the top. “Current level: 25psi. Estimated time to civilian sales: 37 hours.”

He pushed his vehicle to one side, aligning the solar panel on the roof to the south, and walked into the store's dim, dusty interior. Behind the counter, beyond the bare shelves, a bearded older man was sleeping upright in a chair. The youth rang the bell.

“Shop!” He yelled.

Suddenly awake, Phil leaped to his feet.

“Hi Dad,” grinned the youth mischievously.

The old man's expression changed from annoyance to joy.

“Paul!” He said. “I thought you were in the city!”

Paul shrugged. “The troubles got too much – too many people and not enough of anything. They closed the university.”

Phil nodded. “A big civil defense convoy headed that way yesterday. They must have cleaned out every gas station for a hundred miles. How did you get through?”

“I electrolyzed my own during the day and the night-time winds ran in the right direction for the kite. Even after they tried to commandeer my fuel I made the journey in 3 days.”

“But what about water?” He demanded suspiciously.

Paul shrugged. “I reclaimed it through the radiator.”

“That's illegal,” chided his father.

“Because it avoids the tax on distilled water? How do they expect to tax hydrogen fuel when everyone can make their own?”

“Not legally in large quantities,” corrected Phil. “Those laws you dismiss so readily have paid for your education and made us a living out of long-distance traffic.”

Paul looked at his father sadly and nodded towards the pump outside. “Really Dad? You're required to hold sixty psi in reserve for the military and sell it to them in bankrupted dollars at a subsidized price. It looks like they leave little enough for you to sell to those who are prepared to pay.”

Phil sagged back into the chair. “I know,” he said, “I only have 48 hours to make up the reserve before they take away my license. The way things are going I'll probably only get two or three days to sell on the open market before the next convoy comes through.”

He shook his head sadly. “I don't know how we're going to make it.”

Paul walked around the counter and placed his hand on his father's shoulder.

“Let them take it, Dad. The centralized model's finished. Pack up your panels and leave this worthless piece of dirt.”

Phil waved his hand dismissively. “It can't be done,” he said. “The station's federally-bonded – if I were to sell up they wouldn't pay a fraction of it's value.”

Paul looked at him with increased intensity. “We can go outlaw, Dad, in the original sense of the word. We take what we can and head for a place I know. It used to be an agri-business area before transportation costs made it unviable. Now there's a group setting themselves up there. Plenty of clean water, solar and hydro-power and trading for hard commodities instead of a state I-O-U.”

“What commodities do we have?” Snorted his father. “Everything I ever owned has been sunk into this 'worthless piece of dirt' as you call it.”

“There's those big, efficient panels you have out there and there's these...” Paul reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick, sealed package. “Seeds – the old kind that grow without chemical fertilizers. A contact in the biology department illegally retro-engineered them from GM stock - there's enough here to get ourselves started and to trade.”

“If we stole the panels the government would put a massive bounty on our heads,” his father pointed out.

“In dollars!” Laughed Paul. “They really don't understand how much things have changed. All of their strength is going into holding the cities when they're already done for. Even if this weren't their last gasp, they have far more important things than devoting resources to a couple of fugitives.”

He looked into his father's eyes. “Dad – you know I'm right.”

Phil rose resolutely from the chair. “Let's get the truck ready,” he said. “We'll load up the panels after dark and cut across country before dawn.”

Every decision you make, in everyday life, has consequences. Many of these decisions you don’t take much time to think about before you come to a conclusion. For example, you don’t stop to think what the consequences of having decaffeinated coffee instead of regular coffee, or how many sugars you should have in that coffee. I may be the only person in the world to take time, sometimes hours, over decisions such as these. Last week it was the coffee scenario (three hours of thought), yesterday it was whether I should have a shower or a bath (forty-five minutes of pondering) and today I have to go to the gas station to fill up the tank. I hate this.

As I pull up in my light red Saab, I must choose what queue to wait in. Now many people say that no matter what queue you choose, the other one will always move faster. Obviously this is not true, but even if it was, there would need to be an exception to prove the rule. Could this be that exception? Now the queue on the right only has three cars in it, but the one on the left has five. However, with a Bentley and a Mercedes in the right hand queue perhaps the left hand queue would be better. I’ll just wait for a few minutes and then make up my mind.

Okay, a third queue has formed; I didn’t even realize that there was a third pump. Right, I need to make a choice as I am blocking the entrance, and exit as it happens. Okay, the right hand queue it is...I think. The right queue is closer to the road, and therefore I’d be more likely to hit by an out of control car. There is a trucker in the left hand and newly formed queue that looks like he might spark up a cigarette, which is a fire hazard. I’ll just drive up to the middle queue and see where that takes me.

*

Card or cash? There is a coffee machine in the corner of the store, but I don’t really want to go down that road again, I look like a big enough idiot already with the queue business. If I pay with cash I’ll need to get money out the bank. Now the chances of me getting robbed in broad daylight re slim, but it could happen. What if the bank machine eats my card and then I can’t pay for the gas at all? I should have taken more time deciding whether or not to bring my cheque book with me.

If I pay with my card the cashier could quite easily steal all my details, I have seen shows on television about how easy it can be done. He’s black too, now I’m not a racist don’t get me wrong, but the statistics don’t work in his favour. I’m going to have to take my chances though, because the bank is too dangerous.

I haven’t always been like this, taking hours to do anything. It happened about three months ago. Three months ago on Tuesday to be exact. I was standing in front of an elderly man in line at a hotdog stand in town, when I noticed a quarter on the ground. My lucky day I thought, and I was right. I bent down to pick it up and let the old man in front of me, which I thought was a nice thing to do. As the man stepped in front of me in the queue and muttered a polite thank you a biker accidentally drove up on the sidewalk and knocked the elderly man down. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and that could have been me if I hadn’t have decided to pick up that measly quarter that made no difference to my life what so ever.

*

Right, I need to pay for the gas with my card. That’s simple enough but the tempting treats at the counter could kill me. I’ve learned my lesson from the hotdog situation. Oreos, that’s a strange food to put by the counter. I should ignore them, but I can’t see any harm in buying a packet. So I do. The cashier is looking at me; maybe I should have gone across to the bank machine across the road.

Back in the car and I have a full tank of gas, which is a nice feeling, but now I need to get to work. Do I go on the freeway or do I avoid it? The chances are another big earthquake will hit Los Angles soon. Although...

October 14th, 2007
It's coming up now. I can't see it yet, but I know it's there. A mile up the road, maybe two, three at the most. It seems almost unbelievable that the cars all around me will pass it by without a glance, without a second thought. That to them, it's nothing more than a little gas station. That until five years ago, I passed it every day and barely even registered it.

I wish I could still just drive past like that. I only ever pass by here once a year now, planning my routes to avoid this road. But my family still live up there, and once a year on my father's birthday I have to make the journey up to visit them. Every year I hope that this will be the year I let it go. That the gas station will fade from my memory to be nothing more than a gas station once again. That I will be able to drive straight past without even noticing it, and once I've arrived at the family house I will realise that I've finally left it behind. I still cherished that faint, foolish hope as I left this morning, but by now I know that this is not that year. Every fibre of my being is concentrated on the knowledge that just up there, just round that corner at the top of the hill and between two big trees on the side of the road, is the place where everything fell apart.

I still remember, though it was years ago now. My whole body clenches, and I am inwardly groaning, racked with the pain of the memory. But it is too late - I am cursed with a mind that once it has latched onto a thought, will not let go, and I am deeply immersed once more in those events.

I was fifteen years old when it happened. Strange, that there should be only five years between the awkward child I was then and the independent woman I am now. I suppose some things have a way of making you grow up fast.

I hadn't seen my mother for seven years, since the divorce. The call came a few days after my fifteenth birthday. It didn't last long; she was calling from a phone box and running out of change. She was nearby, she said, and wanted to meet me alone. It was me who suggested the gas station; it was near where she was and I could get there easily, as I passed it every day on my way to school.
I couldn't believe the way my mother looked at that meeting. Had she not seen me first, I doubt I would have recognised her. She was thinner, her face drawn, and looked as if she had aged by far more than the seven years that had passed since our last meeting. As she leant in to talk to me, I smelt the unmistakeable stench of alcohol on her breath. Frightened by what my mother had become, barely aware of what I was doing, I turned and ran. I felt that I shouldn't have come, that if I just ran away now I could pretend nothing had changed. I ran across the road towards the hedges on the other side, blindly unaware of the traffic. If I hadn't heard the noise I would have kept running, but the thump followed by the squeal of brakes told me what had happened before I even turned around and saw my mother's broken body lying across the truck windshield.

I am awoken from my reverie by the achingly familiar sight of the two tall trees by the side of the road, just ahead. Without warning, before I can consciously decide to do anything, my foot is pushing on the brake and my hands are twisting the steering wheel and I am parked on the forecourt of the gas station, shaking in my seat. I get out of my car and wander around, looking at everything I know so well. The same petrol pumps are in place, the same tarmac, the same little shop where I had bought a Mars Bar while waiting for my mother to show up. I walk across the road, heart pounding. This was where it happened. As I stand on the edge of the road, almost in the hedge, I feel a strange sensation which stays with me as I walk back to my car. On that day five years ago, I left the gas station. Nobody had seen me; I turned and ran, and everyone assumed she had been on her way to visit us when she was hit. I moved away the moment I was old enough and only returned to this part of the country once a year. Now, finally, I feel that I have truly left the gas station behind. I have let it go.

My mother died five years ago today.

The scientists had been mucking with a ‘time-space vortex’ again, despite repeated warnings, and as usual bad things happened. It was not mutant creatures intent on devouring humanity though, we should be so lucky. It was something worse, far worse. It was...

-+-+-+-+-

I needed a fill-up, so my wife and I pulled into a gas station next to a government complex. There seemed to be a lot going on over there, but we only intended to get gas, and be on our way to the shore.

The gas station had a sign, ‘Under New Management!’, which was typical, third time this year. But it also had a new sign which was almost unheard of in this day and age: ‘Full Service’.

I looked over the signs for the usual 75 cent price difference, but no, the price was unchanged, and all the pumps were Full Service. “Well this is different,” I thought, having no idea how different it was going to be. I heard a tap at my window, but didn’t see anybody. I opened the window, and standing there was a dwarf, around two feet tall.

“What grade did you want sir?” it asked.

“Regular will do,” I said.

Two other dwarves were on the hood of my car, cleaning of my windshield with squeegees, and drying the windshield with their beards. In the meantime, my wife is tapping me on my shoulder.
“I think you should have specified regular ‘what’,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the dwarf is filling up your gas tank with a garden hose.”

I hopped out of the car. “See here! What are you doing?”

“Filling you up with regular, just like you asked,” replied the dwarf.

“I meant gas you idiot! GAAH!” I said involuntarily, as a dwarf wheeled out from under my car.

“There is a problem here sir. You have water in your gas lines.”

“That is because that idiot has been putting it there!” I screamed.

“Mistakes do happen. Well we will need to keep it overnight to dry it out.”

“Fat chance of that,” I said, and got back in the car. “We are leaving.”

I got in the car, and turned the ignision key. Nothing. No sound, no starter, nothing. I did hear a hissing coming from underneath the hood. I got out of my car. “What happened to my ENGINE?” I screamed.

“It was eaten by snakes,” a dwarf volunteered.

“Nonsense”, I said, and popped open the hood. Sure enough there were two huge snakes under it, one of which looked well fed. “GAAH!” I said again. I seemed to be overusing that phrase today.

One of the dwarves lowered the hood, as another went after the snakes with a 2x4.

“Did you want me to check your oil sir?” a dwarf asked.

“What? Oh, right. I would love to see how you are going to do that without an engine. Are you going to measure the snake?”

The dwarf circled on behind me with the dipstick.

“No, NO, forget it! Don’t check the oil!” I said, pretty sure of what was going to happen with that dipstick.

“Very well sir,” the dwarf said, somewhat crestfallen.

A dwarf strode up with a clipboard. “I am afraid we will need to keep your car through the weekend to repair it.” he said.

“Fine. Will there be any charge for it, considering the damage is all your fault to start with?”

“We would have to determine that,” replied the dwarf. “The good news is that we do have a courtesy shuttle that can take you home.”

“Is it driven by a dwarf?” I asked.

“No sir.”

“Then we will take it, thanks.”

A minivan weaved its way towards us, and came to a screeching halt. A leprauchon lowered the window, and between gulps of a pint of beer asked if we were the party of two to be driven.

I was about to say no, when my wife tugged at my sleeve. “Please honey, it can’t be any less safe then staying here."

I relented, we got in, and we immediately buckled up. The ride, all things considered, was not that bad - at least for us. Oncoming traffic probably had different thoughts on the subject. A police car passed us, and I thought it would pull us over until I noticed it was driven by leprauchons also. Along with the beer, they had split a dozen jelly donuts between them.

We got home, I had just sat down, and was looking at the news, when my wife called from the bathroom. “Honey, the toilet is stopped up. Should I call a plumber?”

I decided today would be a good day to take up plumbing repair myself.

The case was high publicity and top priority. As the police chief had said, kids go missing every day, but not Senators' kids. The $3 million ransom demand hadn't helped matters, either - there was no way Senator Reilly could afford that kind of cash. Whatever the reason, the case had sky rocketed until the whole country was talking about little Lucy Reilly: where she was, who had taken her and just what exactly the police were doing to try and get her back. Every available law enforcement officer had been drafted into the search for Lucy.

Achieving a hitherto unheard of level of national notoriety had not been part of Rick's plan. It had seemed pretty straightforward: kidnap the kid of someone rich enough to pay the ransom comfortably but not rich enough to kick up a huge fuss, send a few threatening notes and wait for the cash to roll in. Unfortunately, due to a few unforeseeable problems - Rick's severe overestimation of a Senator's pay check when deciding on the ransom amount, Reilly's popularity, the cuteness of little Lucy - things had blown up out of all proportion, and now Rick was speeding down the highway in a beat-up BMW with a drugged kid in the boot and a bemused 200 pound man in the passenger seat.

The confused giant was Pete Murphy, Rick's associate and quite possibly the dumbest man on the planet. Rick had brought Pete on board on the grounds of him being strong enough to carry Lucy to the getaway car, and too dim to panic about the chance of getting caught - plus, if somebody did see him, he was expendable. The promise of a cut of the ransom had lured Pete on board, but Rick was already regretting the decision. Already, the oaf had tried to load the girl into the wrong car, almost driven off without Rick and spelt "ransom" wrong on the note.

A flashing light on the dashboard drew Rick's attention to yet another flaw in his seemingly perfect plan. He had filled up the car before starting but the kidnap attempt had been a week ago now, and they'd been on the road ever since- stopping at seedy diners for food, sleeping in the car and feeding Lucy whenever she woke up before giving her another dose of chloroform. Rick's plan had been to drive straight to the hiding place and lie low, but the unexpected fame of the kidnap had made it necessary to double back several times to ensure the police were not following them. As a result, the fuel was running dangerously close to empty.
"Pete?"
"Uh huh?"
"We're running low on gas. I'm gonna need to pull over and refill."
"But, Rick…"
"What?"
"What about the kid in the back there?" Pete seemed extremely proud of himself for spotting this problem all on his own.
"What about her? We ain't got much choice, have we? Tank's practically empty already"

Having found a suitably nondescript gas station, with staff who seemed so uninterested in their customers that they would be unlikely to notice if Rick and Pete dragged Lucy's limp body into the pay station with them, Rick gave his strict orders to Pete.
"Now listen, right? I'm gonna fill up the car and then I'm gonna go in there to pay. I'll be five minutes, tops. You stay here, don't get out no matter what, and make sure the kid don't escape. If she wakes, keep her quiet somehow, I don't care how, so long as she's alive when I get back. And don't let anyone suspect anything. Just act natural".
Pete's face instantly contorted into an expression that Rick could only assume was intended to look natural. Sighing, Rick hastily filled the car up with gas and headed into the dingy little shop.

The cashier told him the charge, and he was digging around for the necessary bills in his wallet when he heard a familiar slow, deep voice behind him.
"Rick! Rick, I wanna get a candy bar. Can I get a candy bar?"
Rick whirled around, coming face to face with Pete. He threw a handful of bills over the counter and without waiting for the change hustled Pete outside. Rick raced over to the car and, wrenching the boot open, realised that the rolled up blanket no longer contained a small girl.

In an impressively short space of time, he had weighed up his options and decided that the advantages of getting the heck out of there far outweighed those of sticking around looking for Lucy. He and Pete leapt into the car, and were flying off without a second glance.

Already at the pay phone round the back of the shop, little Lucy Reilly dialled 911. "Hello, police? My name is Lucy Reilly and I'd like to report a kidnapping. The license plate of the car is WCE…"