Earth's Survivors Settlement Earth

Most days he didn't think of his old life, but when he did it wasn't with regrets. The hardest thing of all had been shooting Nikki. When she had said she had killed April, he had remembered that a body had been found the day before. He just hadn't connected the two things. And it would've made no connection in his head anyway. He hadn't known April Evans. Nikki Moore had become April Evans to him. He would never have known the difference.What he had known was that she had not been...
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Most days he didn't think of his old life, but when he did it wasn't with regrets. The hardest thing of all had been shooting Nikki. When she had said she had killed April, he had remembered that a body had been found the day before. He just hadn't connected the two things. And it would've made no connection in his head anyway. He hadn't known April Evans. Nikki Moore had become April Evans to him. He would never have known the difference.What he had known was that she had not been entirely honest with him. He had caught her more than once doing things that were stupid, outright dangerous when they had been on the run. And she would play stupid when he would catch her. You can't be stupid one minute and smart the next. He had stopped trusting her the second she had insisted on trying to make the deal even though their faces had been on TV, and the next morning when he had seen the paper and compared the faces he wondered. She looked so different. Again she laughed it off: Said it was an old junior high school picture.She had left the car to use the ladies room and he had checked the guns. He knew then that something was wrong. She had them parked in an enclosed area: There would be no place to run if something went wrong, and one of the guns had an empty clip. They were the same model, one chrome one blued-steel. The clips mounted exactly the same. So he'd switched the clips. It made the gun with the full clip heavier, but he doubted that she would notice. She knew which gun she had put the empty clip into.She had already been talking about calling the cop, and he couldn't reason it. He didn't feel like giving up, and he didn't care what the radio said about him he wouldn't give up, and he didn't believe she would either. He had been hoping she'd simply screwed up with the guns, but when she had looked at them both before she handed him the one that had been empty, he had known then she either meant to kill him or have him killed.He didn't feel guilty about it at the time, only sad: Now he didn't even feel sad, only grateful that her plans had fallen through.Doug had a small fishing boat. They went out most days and fished, selling their catch in Poza Rica. Life couldn't be better or more laid back: The house on the beach. The way time seemed to stand still, even so he was going, but the word had come to him late last night that La Policía were looking for him, and not the local Policía, these guys were rumored to be dressed in military garb and carrying automatic weapons. The Federales: All kinds of bad; especially for an American in the country illegally.He had been expecting it, just hoping it would hold off a while longer. He had briefly wondered what had led them to him, but in the end it hadn't mattered. He had purchased an old truck in town. Rolled a thirty gallon drum into the bed and chained it down. He had filled it with gasoline and once the sun set he would be on his way through the desert. California... Texas if that didn't work out: Or maybe he'd work his way up the west coast and head for Alaska. There were a million places there to disappear."Second thoughts?" Dougie asked. He wore a funny little half smile on his face."No, I was just thinking about how lucky I've been... Hope it holds out." The sun was right on the edge of setting and he wanted to be a far way into the great nothing before the moon came up.He left the deck and walked across the sand to the old truck. It would be a wonder if it didn't leave him stranded somewhere in the desert. He raised one hand to Dougie and Mayte as he started the truck. They waved back and a few seconds later he dropped the old truck and gear and lumbered off into the desert.