Harry cracked a childlike grin when he stepped on to the hard shoulder, catching a whiff of rubber in the warm evening air as he stared at fourteen lanes of nothing. Turning back gave a vista over the west side of the Vegas strip. The giant casinos’ rear video screens usually enticed visitors arriving from California with ads for their latest shows and restaurants. But tonight they were either dark, or said stuff like Casino closed – We wish our guests the best of health and a safe journey home. Most of the casino lights were off, but some rooms had lights on inside, and Harry got a tingle, imagining lonely souls who hadn’t got home before the airport closed.

Velcro ripped as Harry pulled his Nikon out of the pack. The controls felt clumsy through gloves and his mask made it hard to get the viewfinder close to his eye. He photographed the rows of casino signs, then jogged to the central reservation, where he switched the camera into low-light mode and took several shots down the empty freeway.

The roar of a military truck sandwiched between a pair of cop cars blew up from behind an overpass, blue and reds flashing, but no need for sirens. Harry was out of practice with the camera, but he kept low, set a slow exposure and rested the camera on the central barrier so that the skimming cars turned into streaks of light.

He viewed the image. It wasn’t great, but having a few shots on the memory card would help the photographer argument if he got busted. The ideal outcome was to not get busted at all, so Harry crossed the rest of the freeway, hurdled a low fence and found himself in an overgrown patch at the back of a souvenir store wrapped in bright yellow signage.

Don’t pay crazy strip prices! Fridge magnets $3 for 4, smartphone cases $4, tees from $6 or 4 for $20.

There were some makeshift shelters in the overgrown scrub between the freeway and the back of the store. The tangle of plants would easily hide a flaked-out zombie and while Harry’s virus mask filtered smells, hundreds of buzzing flies were a sure indicator of filth. It was a relief to reach the rear of the souvenir store without anything squelching underfoot.

‘Down on the ground,’ someone shouted.

Harry jolted and glanced both ways, before realising it came from the front of the store and wasn’t meant for him. When he peeked round the side of the building, Harry saw the headlights of a Vegas Metro police car and a military truck with slatted sides, like the one he’d seen on the freeway.