There he stood next to the vehicle while she laid against the passenger window, soaking up the last remaining minutes of sleep she were allowed before her turn at the wheel.
As he gave her more time, moving to the rear of the vehicle to open and remove one of the remaining plastic 10-gallon gasoline containers from the blanketed trunk and use it to top off the gas tank which has fallen to half-full since the last stop taken to rest the car and to empty bowels.
She's awake, smoking one of her last remaining cigarettes, standing next to him as he stretches his hamstrings on the shoulder of the road, she complaining to no end about her level of energy and him having to maintain all levels of awareness and tidiness since their departure for the both of them, for the most part, as a look of disgust crosses his map as he faces opposite to her in order to stretch his lower back, the pain of which has no desire to depart.
As he worries about what may happen having her behind the wheel as he tries to sleep off a 12-hour long straight drive, going over what could be very dangerous scenarios involving him the sleeping passenger and her the soft, potential victim to whomever decides to make her one.
Deciding instead to instruct her to sleep some more, appearing as the noble gentleman looking for a place to stop so 'we can both get some quality rest together in the tent,' as he contemplate what challenges lie ahead in the grey, unpromising future heading towards the mountains of the northwest.
Not totally understanding the events leading to the packing of the thirty-aught-six, whatever food possible, clothing, blankets and gasoline for a trip out west, other than something about the Straight of Hormuz, oil price linked to the American Dollar and what he heard to be called the inevitable collapse of the world economy.
A lot of friends have died because of recent world events that he didn't fully understand.
And yet here she sleeps, unshaken and still acting entitled as if this were all just a slight hiccup in her destiny of leisure and critiquing leisure.
As he watched his former love oversleep, and his faith in love boil away and bubble over into something more resembling a total desire to prove his survivability.
Rendering that which he controlled, the vehicle and their futures, to turn down a side road in order to find a place suitable for the vehicle and them to rest, out of sight from the larger roads in case some sort of marauding crew decides to pirate their gas and food.
New lives of which they have had no contact or knowledge of the events in the outside world for the last 6 days, spent in hiatus at the cabin waiting for his family which never showed, worrying about complacency, and deciding to round up the post-apoc materials gathered there the previous year by his veteran father, a wonderful man of outdoor nature who had no fear of coming death and taught his children the same, taking the goods that at the time had more worth than any offshore account, strapping into the vehicle and riding off west almost exactly 13 hours ago, heading for a land with an even more sporadic population density than that of the lonely Minnesota cabin frequented by his aging father in previously known peaceful home front years.
As he took another turn, off the side road, onto a gravel crop-access road formerly used by farmers, the kind with the two dirt paths for tires with grass in the middle, finding a quiet spot hidden among a jut of trees seemingly planted years ago to separate the farmer's fields and turning off the vehicle, awakening her.
As she immediately opened the door to smoke another cigarette, probably assuming they had driven for another few hours instead of twenty minutes.
And he, deciding then and there that he could most certainly drive another two or maybe at least 4 hours away from where he was going to leave this nuisance, here on the ground, increasing his share of the remaining food supply by two, having no concrete plan but at least having conviction, like a cold front that's already here, moving about the trees pretending as if he was looking for something useful as she succumbed to her own laziness yet again and sat on the hood of the car finishing her cigarette and remaining silent, as he presents from the brush of the jut of trees with one thick branch, approaching the car, keeping his head down to maintain the notion of tiredness, raising his head slowly to ask her if she could reach in the vehicle and grab a lighter out of his jacket, waiting for her to do so and positioning himself opposite the passenger side car door which she was using to enter the vehicle, she turning around with a lighter in her hand as he timed the swing of the tree branch perfectly, striking her head with a precision that will have to be counted as damn good timing and luck, most likely hard to come by in these post-whatever times, hearing simultaneously a thud and a cracking sound, as she flop to the ground next to the vehicle, which was now clicking as it cooled off, as he brought the branch up and down upon her head several more times, feeling both rage and compassion, wanting her dead quickly to limit any chance for pain, or confusion and hatred towards him, her former lover, feeling burned, feeling hate, wondering what America really was, or is, as the money in his wallet began to take on its previous value from the week prior and his lights came back on at home.
