Disclaimer: The following chapter is the non-edited draft of what was written during NaNoWriMo 2018. My apologies in advance for plot holes and other inconsistencies. I know they're there.

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Lincoln stood up and raced to the door but then paused. He returned to the terminal and printed a couple of hardcopies of surrounding area maps. Since they had to leave immediately, he had least wanted some idea of what was around them.

He collected the papers as the spit out of the printer and then raced back down the garage, slamming the door to the garage wide open as he burst through it.

"Marie, Marie," he shouted, "We've got to go."

Marie's head appeared from inside a door towards the back of the garage.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"We don't have three hours to get ready anymore," Lincoln said in between breaths as he bent over and rested his hands on his knees. "There was a message on the terminal from the commander of the convoy. They'll be here in twenty minutes."

Marie's eyes grew and she grabbed Lincoln's shoulder. "Twenty minutes? How? Why?"

"Something about an approaching storm moved up their schedule. Come on, we've got to go." Lincoln walked over to the vehicle and jumped into the driver's seat. He stuffed the maps into a slot into the mid-console as Marie climbed in the passenger side. "Is there enough back there?" he said and nodded towards the supplies in the back of the vehicle.

"It'll have to be, won't it? I found some more gear that may be suitable for outside but otherwise, it's pretty well stocked."

"Alright, we better get going then," Lincoln said and turned the key. The engine roared back to life and as he reached for the gear shifter to put the car in gear, he froze. "The garage door," he said, frantically scanning the dashboard for any kind of indication of a button to open the outside door. "I don't see it, Marie, I don't see it."

"How about this one?" Marie reached and tapped a small button just above the rear-view mirror. The motors that opened the garage door came to life with a whine and the door in front of them began to open. Swirling dust immediately entered the garage as a gray landscape appeared in front of them. The sun shone down on them through an orange layer of dust in the atmosphere, creating an eerie atmosphere.

"Ok, let's go, Lincoln," Marie said and tapped him on the arm. "We're running out of time."

"Marie, can you see if this thing has a nav system? I printed out some map copies but I'd rather not have to rely on paper."

Marie nodded and started to fiddle with the large touchscreen display in the center console. Meanwhile, as the doors had opened all the way, Lincoln pressed the accelerator and the truck jumped forward, throwing both him and Marie backward into their seats.

"Take it easy, ok?" Marie said with a sideways look. "It can't be that different from Earth, can it?"

Lincoln chuckled at her mention of her timeline as Earth. As the truck rolled out into the swirling sand, he couldn't help but wonder if it wouldn't be appropriate to call this planet hell.

He pulled out one of the maps from the center console as he rolled away from the garage, trying to get his bearings. The compass on the dash showed that due north was to his right. That meant west was straight ahead. He traced a line with his finger due west on the map from the facility.

Mountains and deserts. Great.

"All right, here we go," he mumbled and eased the foot onto the accelerator again. The truck picked up speed and it didn't take long before the landing facility had disappeared in a cloud of dust behind them.

A beep from the center console and a little shriek from Marie told Lincoln that the nav system was up and running. Marie gestured towards the center console with a smile. "Tada!"

"Fantastic. Now, let's put some distance between the landing facility and ourselves. I'd like to be as far away as possible when Colonel Hastings and his people arrive."

"Good idea. I'll try to make out an alternate route back to base." Marie returned her attention to the nav system while Lincoln sped through the orange landscape ahead of them. The storm appeared to be approaching from the east, which meant that the facility they just left would be enveloped before they did. Hopefully, that would trap Colonel Hastings and give them a head start. Maybe they could outrun the storm too.

As he glanced in his rearview mirror, he had a feeling that wasn't going to happen. The sky looked dark and gloomy, clouds reaching as high as he could see across all of the visible horizon behind them.

"Marie, change of plans. We need to find shelter somewhere, ASAP. This storm, it's looking pretty bad."

Marie turned and looked out the rear window and Lincoln could see her face turn visibly paler.

"Ok, um, so the nav unit has the locations of the cities that used to exist around here. In fact, we should be coming up to an old highway here soon. It looks like it leads to a smaller city. We may be able to find shelter there."

"Which direction?"

For the next ten minutes, Marie guided Lincoln across crusted old fields and dirt roads until they arrived at a six-lane highway that once had been an important traffic artery for the area. Lincoln navigated around rusted guardrails and empty shells of what once had been cars, now settled as stationary testimonies of an era long gone. The ride became much smoother as they picked up speed on the dust-covered pavement. Marie kept an eye on the map while Lincoln kept an eye on the road and the storm behind them.

The storm was approaching them at an alarming speed. Lincoln knew that at this point, the landing facility would already be overrun and completely enveloped in the storm. They didn't have much time.

"How much longer? We're running out of time."

"Take the next exit. It leads to the outskirts of the closest city. We should be able to find something there we can take shelter in."

About a minute later, Lincoln exited the highway and followed a smaller, two-lane county road towards what once had been a bustling suburb. He kept an eye on the storm in the rearview mirrors and his foot on the pedal, driving the truck as quickly as he dared.

Within five minutes, old abandoned buildings began to appear on both sides of the road. Some were residential homes, others a variety of businesses from strip malls to gas stations and convenience stores.

"There, let's try over there," Marie said and pointed towards a subdivision on the left side of the road, all the while she threw glances at the storm behind them. "It's almost on top of us."

"Ok, ok. What are we looking for?"

"Any home with a garage."

Lincoln turned into the entrance to the Mountain Heights subdivision and sped down a two-lane divided roadway. They passed a security booth and a set of speed bumps, then took an immediate right onto the closest side road. It ended in a cul-de-sac that had a variety of homes on both sides of the street. Most of them were mere shells of their former glory. Collapsed roofs and walls and black holes where windows once had been were the evidence of the cycle of decay. Although every home had a garage, most of them were unusable and Lincoln thanked his lucky star that the at least one was intact. Lincoln pulled into the driveway, next to the rusty remains of an SUV abandoned in the driveway. He pulled up directly in front of the garage door.

"I'll be right back," he shouted to Marie as he exited the truck and ran to the side of the garage. The man door was closed and locked. Lincoln backed up a few steps and kicked the door as hard as he could right next to the door handle. It flew open with a crash, wood splinters flying everywhere. The garage was empty, just as he had suspected. As he entered, the dust began swirling around him so he hurried over to the emergency release and yanked it hard. He found the handle to manually open the garage door.

At first, it wouldn't budge but then, as he pulled as hard as he could, the door finally gave way and opened with a jerk. He pushed it open and shielded his eyes against the dust that came rushing in. Marie, realizing what he was doing, had slipped over into the driver's seat. As soon as the door was open, she pulled the truck into the garage as far as she could while Lincoln closed the door again. He then proceeded to jam the man door shut and pushed a box stacked against the wall against it to prevent it from opening.

"That was close," Marie said as she exited the cab.

"Yeah," Lincoln said and wiped the dust off the window next to the man door. The house next door was no longer visible through the storm. "Let's go check out the house."

The door into the home was unlocked and they found themselves in a hallway. The kitchen was on the right, the dining room straight ahead and the living room beyond that. The windows had been boarded up long ago, which likely explain why they had survived as long as they had.

Everything inside was covered in a thick layer of dust. Lincoln was surprised that the home was in such good shape. He knew from his time in Marie's timeline that building materials had improved a lot and homes were built to last not decades but centuries in order to conserve resources. He just never expected some of them to last this long.

"It's not perfect but it'll protect us from the worst of it. We can get some rest and figure out what our next step should be."

"How long do you think this storm will last?" Marie said and opened a door on the other side of the living room. The dust-covered remains of a bed and other pieces of furniture was all that remained of what once had been someone's bedroom. "Nothing useful in here."

"We may need to camp out in the truck," Lincoln said. "I bet the whole house is like this."

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

They returned to the truck and after Lincoln checked the conditions outside, they both made themselves comfortable as they settled in to wait out the storm. It wasn't long before they both were lulled to sleep by the storm outside.

~~~

Lincoln and Marie have escaped Colonel Hastings and found shelter from the storm. The question is: have they really managed to get away? What do you think?