[Just Fiction] Sun Goes Out

sun goes out

you'll be standing

you'll be standing

all alone

Jeff brought the horses as promised;  I'm on Candy, leading Abby with an empty saddle.

Logan was just standing there with a pile of water tanks.  Not actual tanks like a normal person would have--no, these were the upside-down water tanks used in office watercoolers.  Jeff really wanted to make a joke and ask what office Logan has stolen them from, but he was entirely too afraid that Logan's answer would be real.

Logan was dressed in his typical all-black one-man-army uniform.  His bright-tan ten gallon hat looked pretty ridiculous, but it was keeping the sun off his eyes.  Logen tilted the hat down--sun was creeping lower--but he glanced up at Jeff and nodded.

"Your horses need water?"  Logan asked.  Jeff shook his head.  There's really not a lot to say after a time like that.

Jeff's little pussy rifle was hanging inches from his hands.  Logan flexed his back an inch and felt his backsword.  Niether one moved until they heard Jessica.

Jessica arrived in a dustball, her engine purring quietly.  The all-wheel drive STI was not made for carefully navigating back country ruts, and she'd kept her RPMs down the whole trip.  Logan watched the brake lights flash at the car rolled to a stop.  The driver door opened.  Jeff's sister stood up;  Kaylee had never looked more beautiful to Logan, her sillouette showing offer her boots and her curves and the ruffles of her jacket, but he couldn't stare much because the red sun was behind her.

"She's all ready for you," said Kaylee.  Kaylee mounted Abby while Logan loaded whatever water he could fit in the trunk.  Jeff didn't offer to help.  Kaylee looked over the flat expanse in the direction of the setting sun.  "That's an awfully big desert."

"You know what's on the other side?"  asked Logan.

"No idea.  You need a map?"

"I'll be alright.  Ten million men crossed that desert.  And they didn't have a car that could do it before sunup."

Jeff snorted his disbelief.

"Awfully quick goodbye there, partner," say Kaylee.  "That was some magnificent events."  Kaylee and Logan exchanged a glance.  If Jeff only knew what she was really talking about.

Logan closed the trunk.  A rear-mounted license laser winked its little red light at him.  Looked like most of the damaged had buffed out.

"Goodbye, Logan."  Kaylee turned Abby around and headed the horse back along her own tracks.

Logan tossed the hat as he got inside the car.  A red thong was hanging from the steering column--one of the strap ends had been threaded through his key ring.

Logan coasted Jessica most of the way down to the rock-hard alkaline surface of the desert floor.  Then he stopped.  Jeff was probably watching him, impatient to see that he left, but Logan lived by rules, one of them was that when you have miles of flat surface with no obstructions, you take your time to enjoy it.

Jessica was at a dead stop.  Logan punched the throttle, and just as the tach needle cross 4500 RPM he let the clutch fly in.  Jessica launched.  Logan held the throttle down to maintain, feeling the pull of the turbo like he was inside a rocket.  The car redlined.  He shifted.  It redlined again and he shifted, again and again, his heartbeat quickening with every shift.

The last thing anyone in that town would have seen was a black speck, shrinking inside the glare of the setting sun's sinking corona.