The woman shrieked. I opened my eyes and pulled on the steering wheel. The tires drew ruts in the gravel, the car zigzagged and found the road, barely. My heart pulsed all the way to the tips of my fingers. A moment longer and we would have crashed into the ditch.
I turned my head towards the woman. I’m sorry. She offered me a cigarette, telling me to smoke. That it would keep me awake. Trying to hide the tremors that shook my hands, I tried to convince myself that my reflexes had saved our lives.
I was thirsty. I thought about the beers I drank the previous night. They helped me feel better, despite everything that had happened. I was ready for another round. I concentrated on the road. Night spread out before us. My pupils dilated to the point of bursting out of my eyes but the fog remained, impassable. It seemed like my headlights were dimming, little by little. I looked straight ahead, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth. I was thirsty.
We passed under the dark streetlights of a small riverside town. I tried to hold myself together, but my body was heavy. Numb. Subterranean. The weight of kilometres crushing me. I thought of my father, prisoner of his amnesia, of old age, and of the darkness of his village. I feared that the panic caused by the power outage stopped him from knowing what was real and what wasn’t. That he had fled somewhere. Or barricaded himself in his house. I feared he might be suspicious of me, that he might not recognize me. We hadn’t seen each other in more than ten years. And I couldn’t tell anymore whether I was dragging my past behind or being chased by it.
The woman offered to take the wheel once again. I repeated that everything was fine, that I was steady, that we were almost there. And then a light winked on my dashboard.
We needed to find gas. Fast.
KILOMETRE 4668
I stopped at the first house we saw. I told the woman we shouldn’t make any noise. It was past midnight. There were two cars in the yard, but we couldn’t know how many people were sleeping under the roof, if any.
Knowing I’d need to covertly siphon gas was enough to revive me. As I got ready to pump gas out of one of the vehicles, the woman brought me a jerry can. As she reached me, I sucked through the tube three times, hard, and the canister slowly began to fill. We kneeled in the gravel and spoke softly. The woman pointed out that there was a thin trickle of smoke coming from the chimney. The house occupants had probably prepared their supper on the wood stove.
I said we could go and knock on the door. Ask for help. We would have done just that if things were as they used to be. But the woman replied immediately that things were definitely not as they used to be. That if someone came to knock on my door in the middle of the night, I would probably welcome him with the barrel of a gun.
The jerry can was full now. Stillness around us. We could hear waves crash against the sea wall, on the other side of the road. Deeper in the interior, through the mountains, I could hear the echoes of coyotes patrolling the forest. The woman told me I was wrong, that it was simply the whistling of wind through tree branches. I answered that just because we couldn’t hear them wail didn’t mean they weren’t there.
I got up and began dragging the canister towards my car. It was heavy. I asked the woman to help me. I’m tired, I told her. She said she knew. Then she asked me whether we would have enough gas to make it to my father’s. I thought so.
Before leaving, we both sat on the hood of the car. The night was cool, but under us, the hood was warm. Not far away, the sea churned, enshrouded in thick fog.
I listened closely, thinking I heard a car coming in the other direction. A few moments later, two headlights pierced the humid canvas of the night, heading straight for us. Suddenly, the woman grabbed me and pulled me into the hedge, ordering me to not make a move. Crouching under the branches, I realized I was so tired I could barely think. A car passed in front of us without slowing down. Coming out from under our hiding place, the woman said that circumstances often favoured those who remained circumspect.
It had started to rain. My body burned with weariness, and I shivered uncontrollably. I had the impression that the rain evaporated as soon as it touched me. I tried to wake myself up by jumping up and down, but the weight of my legs and arms was a clear enough sign that I couldn’t manage another night of driving. The woman told me we’d better go before the house’s inhabitants noticed us. I told her we should give it another minute. A gust of wind caressed the treetops and raised spindrift from the waves. A light drizzle fell. When I finally decided to make my way to the car, the woman quickly opened the door for me. On the passenger side.
KILOMETRE 4712
Long tears of rain drew furrows on the windshield. The back-and-forth of the wipers reminded me that everything could disappear in a moment. I slowly sank into the seat, losing sight of the washed-out landscape. I was soaked. My hair lay limply against my face and my clothes clung to my body.
As we travelled through the dark and seeping night, I let myself be driven, feeling like a stranger in my own car. I leaned towards the woman and told her to be careful. It was an old car, and capricious, but I liked it. And even if I had noticed that the woman seemed to know intimately the particularities of the old gearbox, I still kept a close eye on her.
She told me that everything would be okay, and insisted I relax. She suggested that I look under the seat. I slipped my hands under it as if scared to get bitten, and my fingers touched something. I pulled out a bottle of clear and flammable liquid. She told me she’d stolen it from the bar while no one was looking, the bar where we’d left the man behind. That it was a present for the last few kilometres. A small gift. And that alcohol would calm me. At least a little.
My lips met the bottle, and I felt the path of the alcohol as it made its way to my stomach and into my veins.
The rain fell harder now, a muted din on the roof. We drifted away from the coast, and soon enough would be committing ourselves to a long thin corridor made of wild beasts and forest. Drops of water exploded on the asphalt like glass marbles on a slate floor. So many twinkling bursts of light like a clear night sky. But I’d never known how to find my path through a field of stars. When I watched a clear sky, at night, I never saw constellations. Only countless, nameless, tiny sparkling dots.
My eyelids felt heavy but I couldn’t close them. There was no point, now, anyway. I counted the kilometres of the journey like the cars of a train longer than the breadth of my knowing. As I lit a cigarette, the woman grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a long swallow. The car was aimed at its destination like an arrow, the wheels barely touching the road now, shooting water from either side. I could hear the metal vibrating. I was surprised that my old car, like an unkillable old mare, was holding its own, barely a whimper heard.
The woman suggested that I sleep. I said that I couldn’t. That we were almost there. She told me to tell her a story. Or hum something. Anything. That it would go faster. But I had neither the desire nor the energy.
We were moving as fast as the car could handle. In a forest. In the middle of the night. The engine’s roar cradled me. And my body curved in on itself to the rhythm of the shaking of the road.
I was sleeping, then I wasn’t. I observed, for a time, the alcohol making waves in its glass prison. I slept, I hadn’t.
I had to hold on. We were almost there. Fifteen minutes maybe. Not much more than that. Maybe thirty minutes. To close my eyes. No. Another mouthful. I could barely taste it. Like water.
I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t. My mother had her accident on this stretch of road. I drank more. This is where she died, I thought. I didn’t know anymore.
I was running on fumes. Dead tired.
KILOMETRE 4728
The horn shrieked like a child whose imagination is playing tricks on him.
I raised my head and loosened my eyelids.
In front of me, two golden eyes watched the car come closer.
I turned my head towards the woman.<
br />
She stepped on the brakes with all her strength.
The scream of wheels on asphalt like a dream, slaughtered.
We were projected forwards.
She pulled on the wheel.
Water on the road.
Sideways now.
Antlers. No, two hands raised skywards.
A muted impact.
A silhouette knocked over.
White hair, rain boots, and a checkered shirt.
Cracks in the windshield.
Blood.
The car barrelling.
The bottle exploding.
My tools thrown inside the car like a sheet of metal rain.
The ditch. Bushes.
Metal folding with a shriek, the crying of felled trees.
The steering wheel like a punch in the stomach.
Airbags, too late.
Glass bursting.
My clothes torn. My head. My legs.
Then the pain of stillness.
The crackling of fire under the rain.
The car whistling, upside down, on the tall grass.
And silence circling in like a scavenger.
IX. ARIADNE’S THREAD
The golden fingers of dawn stretch over the labyrinth while, in the depths of the maze, the dust is only now settling. The young mercenary roams the corridors and galleries murmuring to himself: I killed the beast, I killed the beast. He is exhausted, but doesn’t understand why there is no blood on his weapon or his hands. The only red objects around him are pieces of the woollen thread, slit by the sharp bronze of his sword and dispersed by his frantic chase.
Each time he raises his head, he believes he’s found his path, suddenly knows how to uncover the hidden exit. This reassures him even if, in truth, he’s doing no more than wandering a labyrinth that is slowly closing in on him.
PART THREE
KILOMETRE 4728
Under my spine, I felt the curvature of the earth, pieces of plastic and shards of wood.
Around me, rain pattered in the forest. Like applause after an intoxicating performance.
I wanted to stand and clap my hands in turn, but the car had bowled over my legs and the rest of my body was driven into the ground among the roots and dirt.
Water flowed onto my face and into my half-open mouth. After each breath, I had to either spit it out or swallow it.
The immensity of night slowly faded away and all that was left was a drab sky, needlepointed by the spiny arms of trees.
I heard voices and sounds approaching. In the deep grey obscurity, I saw lightning that didn’t exist. The beams of flashlights coming closer. I would have liked to make a sign, a sound, but I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. They’d see my car’s carcass sooner or later. Or mine.
KILOMETRE 4736
Behind my closed eyes, I could still hear my car’s reassuring rumbling. I wanted to see my father. I had less than an hour left to go. Probably thirty minutes at most. But I was still thirsty. I wouldn’t mind a drink of that clear liquid that strengthened my voice.
I slowly came to my senses. I opened my eyes. I wasn’t at the wheel of my car. I was in bed, in a small room lit by a flickering oil lamp. I wondered where I was. And when. Time expanded in me like a hemorrhage. I had to leave. Return to the road. Find my father.
I eventually succeeded in raising my head. My legs were dressed in thick blood-soaked cloth. When I tried to move my toes, my body shuddered. I was in pain. An unbearable tingling. I tried to move and realized that my wrists were handcuffed to the bedframe.
There was a window in the room. But it had been covered by old planks. I waited. I had no choice. I saw a bunch of coats, hanging on the walls. Stacked boxes in a corner. Luggage. A pile of shoes and rain boots. Plastic covering. Rope. A chainsaw. And boxes of tools.
My tools.
Suddenly, through the wheezing of my breath, I heard voices in nearby rooms. I tried to concentrate and pick out a few words. But a fit of coughing overtook me and battered the fragile walls of my chest.
KILOMETRE 4736
The door squealed. A man walked towards the bed before bending over me. He had a beard and his clothes were speckled with mud. We looked at each other for a moment, without saying a word, then he quickly left. The room was like a desert road after the rain. My gaze settled on the floor, pooling and spreading out like a puddle of dirty water made cloudy from the unexpected passage of a car.
The light of the oil lamp faded. Everything became dark in the room and the mess on the floor only made the shadows denser. And yet, when I closed my eyes – white light where memories should be – a blank slate. I knew I’d been driving for days. And nothing else. I knew that I’d been driving for so long that I thought I’d been flying. I knew that fatigue had ravaged me like a wild beast. And nothing. Nothing, except for this room and daggers of pain in my legs.
Two men came into the room and leaned their hunting rifles against the wall. They came nearer, asking me how I felt. Blinded by their flashlights, I had nothing to say. A shudder of fear was my answer. I tried to get back up to a sitting position in my bed, but the handcuffs didn’t leave me much room to move. The elder of the two ordered the other to go and get food and water. Then he inspected my injuries, his jaw tight.
Where am I? Don’t worry about that, you’re safe. Why am I handcuffed? You were agitated, we didn’t know what to do, you were making your injuries worse. Who are you? What happened? One of our patrols found you unconscious on the side of the road and brought you back here, three days ago. I wasn’t on patrol, but they told me you’d been in an accident. There are no doctors here, I take care of the sick and injured. You lost a lot of blood, but you’ll pull through. Your knees are in pretty rough shape though, we’ll see whether you can walk again. First, your fractures need time to heal. It should be okay though, or we’ll figure out some other solution.
The man kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. Looking at his lips moving, I tried to understand what had happened. The accident. The accident? What accident?
Then I cut him off, searching avidly for his eyes. My father. My father. A phone. I need to make a phone call. It’s important. He has to know I’m almost there. That I’m nearby. I need to call him. He’ll come and get me.
The man looked me over, suspicious. As if he was afraid I’d attack him. Outside, it was still raining. I could hear water beating on the roof and running along the walls. It made me think of the oil that dripped out of my car.
I need to speak to my father! Where were you coming from, fleeing the city like all the rest? No, I need to make a phone call. Come now, you need to rest, we’ll speak later. I can’t, I won’t get there in time. Calm down, you’re confused, you’re lucky that my men didn’t leave you to rot under your car. Wait! Shut up.
And he closed the door solidly behind him while I vainly pulled on my chains.
KILOMETRE 4736
I woke to the sound of jingling metal. A man about my age was undoing my handcuffs. He brought me water, a piece of bread, and a can of tuna. He told me it was time to eat and he stayed there, against the far wall, watching me, a revolver tucked in his belt. As I stared at the drab meal, rubbing my wrists, he began asking questions.
You came from far away? Did you get into the city? What’s happening there? Why are you here? There’s nothing here. How did you get into that accident? Was that the old mechanic who forced you off the road? When we found you, you looked as dead as the other guy, but you were still breathing. I don’t know why, but your face reminded me of someone. I convinced the others to bring you back to camp.
I tried to get my thoughts in order. My father. The power outage. The road. The woman. The woman!
Where’s the woman who was with me?
The woman? What woman? There was no woman. There was no one on the passenger side when we pulled you ou
t of your car. We would have noticed if there’d been anyone else. Not the first time we’ve seen bodies. We only found the body of the old town mechanic, a bit farther away. A stubborn old bastard. We let him go a few days ago because no one could reason with him anymore. God, he was more trouble than he was worth. He kept saying he was looking for his wife. But his wife died a long time ago. A car accident. Everyone in town knew he was alone, that he was losing his memory, inventing stories. He had a son, but he’s been gone for years. Anyway, he died instantly, the old man. We buried him near the site of the accident. Or we’d have coyotes roaming around for weeks. He isn’t the first one to have lost his mind these days. Even if the power comes back on, nothing will ever be the same. We hear it’s chaos in the city. That gangs took advantage of the disorder, looted, and created panic. Here things are a bit better, but it isn’t easy. Survival forces us to go against certain people’s sensibilities. You’re not eating. You need to keep your strength up. You know, the more I look at you, the more you make me think of someone. Your face, I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere. Go on, eat, it isn’t as if we have endless supplies. We need to go scavenging for food, after all. I know, didn’t we go to elementary school together maybe? No matter. Everything’s changed so much. Everything that’s happened since the power outage destroyed whatever life we had before. We barely have a past now. But you can’t be afraid. Here we might not know our past so well, but we’re surviving. It’s what we’ve always done. Anyway, come now, what’s your name? Tell me your name.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
In Running on Fumes we witness a timeless tale, a myth both ancient and contemporary. The original French version, Le fil des kilomètres by Christian Guay-Poliquin, retells the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the present tense, a particularly francophone approach to storytelling. For my translation, I chose the past tense to describe the travels of our narrator, emboldened by despair, as he journeys across an increasingly strange post-apocalyptic landscape. We see a country recognizable in its physical architecture but changed and traumatized by an unnamed catastrophe of epic – in its truest sense – proportions.
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