Untitled, Unfinished Short Horrific Story....at least for now 6/17, 6/20

There is a tiny town along Route 7, and placed along the Ohio-West Virginia border, in Ohio, called Clarington. And somewhere, about a mile into on the eastern side, the side closest to the Ohio River-which ever since 1830 has been as black and opaque as soot, this is a rest stop and a small, nondescript plaza housing only a motel. The sky was black (as it always was these days; at night and during the day) when Jacob Golden pulled his scavenged dull-gray 1986 Buick Century off of the asphalted rod of Route 7 and into the Brockaway's Motel's squarish parking lot. Of course, as all things were now, it was deserted. Some snow began to fall, but it just as dull-gray as the paint on the Buick-but there was nothing outlandish about that; that was quite commonplace. Inside the faded burgundy interior of the Buick, Jake, a tall, balding, stoop-shouldered man in his late forties, sat smoking an ancient, stale cigarette and flicking on his headlights and torn rubbery wipers sequentially. Although the windows of the Buick were rolled down, the interior of the car was redolent with the sickening, yellowish scent of stale tobacco and nearly befogged with grayish cigarette smoke. This was the last cigarette of the last pack that Jake had......which, incidentally was also the last cigarette in the world, or at least continental America. And he should've known, too, for ever since that day, two years ago, Jake had scoured the U.S. looking for more-and there were none. And no more were ever going to be made-not ever. The oddest thing about his two-year trek, not all of which had been in the Buick; only about half of that journey had been done with this particular vehicle: the original had been a flesh-colored, wood-paneled 1979 Chrysler Lebaron Town and Country Station Wagon which had actually been his car, for the Buick wasn't his, had never been, but it felt like it was "his" now after a year of travel with it; still, the oddest thing about this quest whose only goal seemed to be the finding of (more) cigarettes, was the fact that for most of his life, he had been a staunch, patent nonsmoker.....but that had been before. Now, there was only this car, this one, lone, last smoldering cigarette, and the cold certainty that he was one of the last people in America. He knew that he wasn't the only survivor and inhabitant left, but he was the only sane, good, normal one-of that he was sure. His travels crisscrossing America had more than confirmed that to him. No; America had become a vast, mostly deserted wasteland, and all the cities and towns, from California to New York and Maine to Florida and all points between, while technically still intact, were in ruins. He didn't know about those municipalities and metropolises in Alaska and Hawaii, however-he had never been to them. Not even before. Besides, he hated Canada and was afraid of the ocean. Not all water and bodies of it thereof mind you; no, just and only oceanic bodies.....so, he had been summarily confined to the contiguous 48 states. Not that he minded; for no, he didn't. There were millions of miles, tens of thousands of towns and cities-most deserted-for him to explore. Plus, endless miles of terrain-for America was nothing if not vast; vast enough for him, for any one person. He knew that in 200 years, let alone 2 he wouldn't ever see it all, but now, in this new world of which he was practically the sole inhabitant, he must perforce be nomadic, constantly moving, even in the winter. But though it was nearly winter now, he tarried in Clarington, a town on the border with West Virginia, which he had lately departed. In fact, in the east, behind him, some vast brownish, forested hills loomed like great mountains, and they were clearly West Virginian. All the area around him, in front of him, was vast and flat and hairy with once-green grass-and there was, naturally, nothing remotely tonsorial about these plains: they were gray or white or yellow, blank, cold, decumbent, disheveled, dead. But, with the exception of the gray Ohio grasslands, that was all before him. One that hadn't changed that he always basked in, remembering it wistfully from his boyhood, was the purplish tint that ever and anon suffused the sky and lay over the land at dusk, at twilight and it was quickly nearing that time now. As the car slowly rolled into and began to sluggishly traverse the parking lot, headed for the squat brown wing of the motel, Jake looked forward up and beyond, at the purple light beginning to distill and disseminate itself in the mostly black sky...but during the day is was more like a gray or perhaps it was dun-colored. Another odd thing, a thing that, like the purplishness, should have changed but didn't, hadn't, was the fact that, somehow, all the electricity was still active, still flowing, still brightening the devoid cities of America. Thus, all of Clarington, or most if it anyway, was lit up and sparkling-even the neon sign of the oddly named Brockaway's Motel was on, spilling it's pinkish, waxen light onto the swiftly darkening parking lot. The Buick rumbled along, finally halting it's traversal in a slanted perpendicular space directly in front of the simple, sparse brownish facade of the dormitory-like motel wing. Jake sat, contemplatively smoking the rancid cigarette and scanning the motel through the smoky glass of the Buick's windshield, listening to the roar of the gusty wind outside-and the roaring heater, blasting heat on the inside......................