“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “They’ll have a landline there. Or some other way to call for help.”

We were hurrying toward that beautiful piece of civilization that would offer a way to reach the outside world. And a toilet! I could pee in a toilet rather than squatting in the woods. “Never again!” I shouted to which Charlie glanced over at me in alarm. I laughed and squeezed his arm again.

A quarter mile felt like twenty as we limped toward our destination, turning onto the paved entryway to the lone gas station. With each step, however, my hope diminished. “It looks closed,” Charlie said.

Tuck was already walking slowly, and we caught up to him, all moving at the same pace now. “Maybe the power outage extends all the way here,” Tuck murmured. “There could still be people inside. The lights might just be off.”

There was a vehicle sitting in the middle of the road, and Tuck leaned over to look in the window and then stood straight, his head turning toward another car sitting to the side of the road.

“Why are they just sitting there?” I asked, as Charlie and I came to stand next to him, shading my eyes as I looked farther down the road where I could see another car seemingly abandoned near the center as well. It was like all the vehicles that had been traveling on this road had just…stopped. So where were the people? Why hadn’t they been towed? It was eerie.

“I don’t know,” Tuck muttered. “But it makes me think the station might not be open if these cars are just sitting here like this.”

“Wouldn’t a gas station have a generator though?” I asked. “I mean, usually businesses, especially crucial ones like gas stations, have generators, right?” Charlie looked at me and nodded hopefully. Honestly though? I had no idea who had generators or even how they worked. But it…sounded right.

“Let’s just stop guessing and wait and see,” Tuck said before he started walking again.

We all stepped into the lot and came to a stop as we looked around. There was an ice machine out front of the tiny store, and a lotto sign in the window that was obviously meant to be lit—but was as dark as the rest of the place.

Tuck started walking first, moving slowly and cautiously as he glanced around like we might be ambushed at any moment. We walked past the singular gas pump and came to stand in front of the store. The sound of the door of the ice machine opening broke the silence and made me startle. I looked over at Charlie, who smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. “The ice is gone and what’s left is mostly melted,” he said.

There was a handwritten sign on the door of the store that said, “Sold Out.”