The Populace by Aaron M. Patterson

Author:Aaron M. Patterson [Patterson, Aaron M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic
Published: 2018-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 20

Motor Odor

I can’t honestly remember if I dreamed that night. I may have, but it was forgotten. There was certainly sleep, and I am unsure as to how I slept on that tiny slicky slide. I did somehow. But that didn’t matter now, because my world upon waking was starkly different.

Clearly, Gene had found me and brought me to his car. I arose from the backseat while the car remained fast in motion. I saw that indeed Gene was my captor, thankfully. I smiled.

“Thank you,” I said.

But he didn’t smile. He didn’t even bother to look in the mirror at me.

“Gene?”

Silence. I was receiving the silent treatment. No doubt that he was mad. He drove faster, in fact. And the car had a terrible smell inside, something beyond rancid.

“Say something to me, Gene. Please?”

Pure silence. I asked every few minutes as he continued to drive. While irritated by it, I was actually incredibly delighted to be back in his company, talking to another person without the Ire. Yes, it still was not there. It was fairly apparent it would not return between us.

My stomach seemed full, which was curious. I should be starved. Still, no answers, or even just a word, would emerge from Gene’s mouth. After four hours of driving we finally stopped to relieve ourselves by a once-used roadside park with trees and everything. Gene went to a berm behind the badly broken building and sat on his butt away from my direction. I sat beside him, hoping he would speak.

“Wallace,” he said after five numb minutes.

“Well there you are.”

“I should speak, you need to shut your mouth. Is that understood?”

I nodded hesitantly.

“For two days I searched for you, Wallace. I realized what I had done, kind of making you eat Evans with me. It wasn’t direct, but if not for me you would have never tried it. I didn’t see it before you left, but you left and it made me see it.”

For such a sincere speech, Gene could have formed a stronger vocabulary. He was typically stronger in words than that.

“I needed to apologize to you, but I feared I would never see you again. I don’t know this land. You don’t know this land. I was just lucky in finding you in that church.”

“Wait. Church?”

“I asked you not to talk, Wallace, and you agreed. Hold up on your part of the bargain. Things will get answered soon.”

“But Gene—”

“Shut up!”

I obeyed, slightly fearfully too.

“I had driven around so many roads in this area. I traced my routes on this map.”

Gene handed me the map to show pen tracks heavily re-traced in many of the roads around us. He was a determined man.

“I’d gone by the old rotten church a couple times already and I should have gone in when I saw it the day you left. Could have saved me a lot of grief.”

I wasn’t in there, Gene. No dice.

“I didn’t sleep well that first night. I just hoped you had returned when I woke up.

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