Day 1,590

As far as workplaces go, there are far worse ones than a gas station perched between farmland, forests and a fairly busy highway. We were rarely short of customers during the day but the night shift crawled like a half-dead badger, trailing the seconds like entrails behind it.

I'll never forget what the old manager taught me on my first day there. In fact, everything she's ever said has kept me alive and my pockets full of little favours to trade when the worse parts of humanity come driving through treating the pitstop like their personal lawless town.

There were three things she told me to never forget, three things I was made to memorise.

1. When they stumble out of the forest, eyes yellow and weepy and hands blistered to the bone - just let them fill their gas canisters and don't ask questions. If they ask for you to pick out a random pack of cigarettes stating that "Anything'll do" - always go mid-shelf. anything lower's an insult and anything higher's tricking them out of their money.

If you get this right, expect to never run out of small change in your purse.

2. Always put roadkill out of their misery, even if their eyes beg you not to and especially if their beg you with your own mother's voice. They're just testing your capacity for violence and they need to know that you can fight for yourself against them and all that follows.

Keep killing them and you'll find your own enemies quietly disappearing.

3. Don't try to look for the crows at night - just don't.

She never explained that one to me... she'd just clench her prosthetic hands.