Keep Walking – FFftPP#13

What follows is a piece inspired by the prompt over at Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. The key elements were the photo below, the phrase “a blinding light,” and no more than 200 words. 

**I did cheat just a bit this week by switching the phrase from “a blinding light” to “the blinding light”–sorry!

http://publicdomainarchive.com/highway-night-blurred-lights-lens-flare-guard-rail/

Keep Walking – 200 words

My stomach lurched when I saw the blinding light of the flare.

Fiona had told me I should stay a mile or so behind her. “No need to risk us both. If there’s trouble, I’ll send up a flare.”

We’d walked this 90-mile route from Kalamazoo to Michigan City more than I could count in the year after the blast. Fi was certain her husband and daughter would look for her along that route, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Early on, I-94 was filled with cars as people tried to get somewhere safe. Now that it was clear there were no more safe places, the highway was a reminder of what once was, an artery connected to a heart that no longer pumped.

We’d been watching a curl of smoke in the sky for two days. Fi believed people wouldn’t light a fire if they didn’t want visitors. I remembered the family whose crumpled bodies we’d found in a ditch the month before.

As Fi headed toward the faint light of the fire in the distance, she looked back over her shoulder at me. “Gotta keep walking,” she said, and then melted into the night.