Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

In the early morning, three thirty, Wayne woke her for the second watch which Jackie spent sitting close to the fire, died to a heap of embers, wrapped in her sleeping bag, because the night had turned colder than she’d expected, colder than any recently (forecast of an early winter?), the rifle whose name she had meant to ask Wayne, to satisfy her curiosity, on the ground beside her; although every fifteen minutes or so she’d pick it up and sweep the end of the Bridge with the telescopic sight, Wayne’s rope trap jumping into focus, but all she saw were the couple of cars beyond the trap on the Bridge, whose lights continued their climb up and down the spectrum, blue to red to blue again-she checked