Nano Z by Brad Knight

followed. And another. The explosions were getting closer, fast. “Faster!”
    You got to be shitting me. Someone is bombing the town? The hits just keep on coming. Mack pressed all the way down on the gas pedal. He ignored the road and cut through a backyard, in the opposite direction of the oncoming explosions.
    The commandeered black SUV bucked up and down as the tires and suspension dealt with the off road conditions. But Mack didn’t care. It could all fall apart or break down as long as it delivered Amber and him from the bombs.
    Amber and Mack both felt each explosion. Blast waves ran through their bodies. Their chests and heads registered the extreme pressure changes. Mack wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep driving. Only his desire to stay alive kept him going.
    “Faster Mack!”
    “I’m going as fast as this thing can.” Mack stayed calm. Yelling at a teenage girl wouldn’t do either of them favors.
    As Mack drove, Amber watched the fireworks behind them. Each dropped explosive was closer than the last. When she looked the other way, out the front windshield, she saw that they were almost out of Wydell. Then she turned back as the loud roar of an airplane passed over them.
    The last bomb landed on the last house Mack and Amber passed. It was close enough that the blast wave shattered the back windshield into thousands of nasty little projectiles. Amber’s face was peppered with the shards. One piece hit her in the left eye.
    Immediately, she screamed out in pain. It wasn’t just the injury to her eye and face that caused her to cry out, but the vision in her left eye went black. All the meat puppets in the world could throw at her wouldn’t conjure up the same amount of fear she had while facing the real possibility of being partially blind and disfigured.
    “My eye!” cried Amber as she slumped down in the passenger seat.
    “Find something to put pressure on it,” suggested Mack. His words fell on deaf ears. Amber was too busy freaking out.
    Mack let his foot off the accelerator a bit. Then he tried to scrummage around in the back seat. There was still reason to watch where he was going. Even though he was in the middle of a field, he couldn’t afford to hit or run over the wrong thing. They needed that SUV.
    Blindly feeling around the back, Mack’s hand felt something that Amber could use. It was a black long sleeve tee shirt. He gave it to the injured girl in the seat next to him.
    “Hold it on your eye. We’ll find somewhere to stop and I’ll take a look at it.” As soon as he handed off the shirt, Mack turned his attention back to what was in front of him.
    Not too far in the distance, he spotted the highway. His vision adjusted to the dark, allowing him to spot the obvious gap in the seemingly endless fields of Northern Texas. He turned the stubborn steering wheel towards the road.
    The bumpy uneven terrain beneath the SUV was detrimental to Amber’s injuries. Every little static wave of soil made her inadvertently push harder on her left eye. All the way to the highway, she winced and moaned. That made Mack feel horrible and guilty, even though he did nothing wrong.
    “How you holding up girlie girl?” asked Mack after they reached the highway. They were heading north towards the Texas/Oklahoma border.
    Amber didn’t answer. She just grumbled and looked out the window with her good eye.
    “As soon as we find someplace safe, we’ll stop.” Mack didn’t want to stop until he put some distance between them and the flaming remains of Wydell, Texas.
    ***
    Twenty minutes from Wydell was a gas station with a small convenience store. It was bigger than the one Amber and Mack fought their way out of back in Dallas. Difference was, the one off the highway was deserted and isolated. There were no buildings within sight, only cattle raising country.
    The little bell above the front door dinged as Mack pushed it open with one arm. His other was around Amber helping her into the store. He had