Blatant LOPE Ripoff (Where is Everybody?) Eight.

June first. Tuesday. It's once again Tuesday, and officially over a week since we've been transported minutes to hours into the future except Sweet Stuff and the Hadley's, who will soon follow this time tomorrow or by mid week. I don't know how much longer keeping the date will be relevant, but I want to keep it such as best I can. It'll keep me from going insane, even if it makes me neurotic, if that makes any sense.

I have finally had a stress free day, or a light workload day, thanks to our agreement. It also got dark when the lights went out. We've found no more people anywhere, but we have found the first form of animal life we have seen since we have arrived: A pooch. Perhaps I should probably explain what went on.

I resolved in agreement with the guys, the mares and the humanoid chicks we should do the search in shifts. I woke up this morning feeling like I had lifted a weight off of my shoulder. I then rubbed my shoulder against the bedpost. There was a beam of sunlight on my cheeks, almost at my eye. Turning my head away, I put a foot/hoof out of bed and placed it on the floor, expecting the "Click/Clack" I always get whenever I put one on the floor. I have long since abandoned shoes of any kind unless they are metal, preferably silver or chrome. Even though the technically dead tissue under my feet suffices for walking on grass and soiled ground, rough cement terrain wears them down. I have found that much like my nails, they do grow back, but not fast enough to compensate substantial enough damage to them. Took one step, and then the next one, and then the next. I am used to it by now. I still hope I can escape this, but I don't think it so bad. I am quite adaptive. I just need steel or silver shoes. We all will eventually.

As I left the room, I felt the garden call to me again. I tried to shut off that feeling between me legs, but it wouldn't go away. As I might not have expected, Sweet Stuff was there, but I could detect her aura well before my eyes caught onto her. I came to her to find she hadn't actually used it so much as stood there as if waiting for me.

"Hello, Alex. " "Sweet."

"You ready for a first day out on your own?" "But I'm not on my own, I'm going with Angie. Plus, the others are going their own separate directions where we shall meet them again at another point, then we'll come back in a two vehicle procession. I see no reason to be so worried. You've done this numerous times before you met me." "But I haven't done it after days of being useless, no offense. I haven't gone out without some form of experienced personnel. Someone who knows the layout of this and several other cities like the back of his own hand. As the phrase goes." "I find spending some alone time with the only other mare here will be mutually beneficial to us both." "Wait a minute... you're going alone with Angela? Nobody else? I don't like that. You should have me with you in that case, so you'd have two of us for you. Or.." "You are staying here. You need the day off." "...Or, have Pickering, Samantha, and Vinnie, as they have forms with hands and therefore have adjusted better than alien horses like us. If one of those three isn't with you, there should be two of us horse creatures with you." "There hasn't been an animal to be found since I showed up. Who or what could possibly do me harm?" I hate when people say things like that, I thought. It's like painting a red mark on your back or throwing something red all over you. "Alright. I can't stop you. I just want you to know, I have grown quite fond of you in the last three days. I think I shall be hurt and/or disappointed if something awful happened to you." "I should get to know just how deserted this world or city actually is. Would you deny me that?" "No. But I would like to be there. Or have Monica and Sherman with you." "Alex, I highly appreciate what you'd like to do for me, and I'd like to go out with you, but that time will come soon enough. Now's the time to go with Angie."

She then left the pit but not before she handed (our vocabularies really have loads of phrases with the word "hand" in them, do they not?) me my funnel and strapped it on for me. She had to do most of it with her teeth, which is no easy feat. If anyone in the future is trying this, I hope it has become second nature for you if you haven't grown up doing this. I emptied my bladder and followed her inside to find the others all ready to go or to straiten the place up, if it needed any straitening. Several possessions have been smashed for firewood or sacrificed for scrap metal for Vinnie's sake, one of me cars included. Not to worry, I have no sentimental ties with any of it. Just heaps of steel and hardened plant matter that are going to a good cause. My disassembly of one of the cars in the driveway went to a good cause and is now going to feed and sustain one of my sweet friends. I was never one to worship friendship, but the potential lonesomeness can drive you to madness. It would take me much longer than the average individual, but I am just as much in need of social contact as anyone else.

Vinnie then told me she was going to try to stock us up on the liquor, and offer me most of it, and try some herself, preferably away from the house or any other wooden or metal structures. Preferably in an empty warehouse or a public park where there is nothing but the bottles to damage. In the meantime, she will continue to indulge herself in ale, beer and wine in the safety of my place, but only out of doors and near the curb or the patio. Preferably where there's plants. "I have a suspicion about my alcohol tolerance. I don't trust being around fabrics, wood or metal objects in such large abundance when I take it, nor do I feel safe having it in a closed room that is small and tight." She then escorted Pickering, Sam, Angie and Sweet Stuff out of the room and onto the yard. We all waved and said good luck and come back safely.

Next to me was Val, and he sensed my concern. "You are concerned about something, aren't you, Torrez?" I flinched, then remembered his ability. "What makes you say that?" I quickly asked. He then grinned. "You can't hide your feelings from me, Torrez. What or who is it about?" I didn't need to hide anything. "Sweet Stuff is going out there with only Angie. I don't like that. I have grown closer to her on the first day we found her than everybody else, and I don't agree with the most recent newcomer going out with only a readjusting mare like herself. Two ponies or one of the hand possessing beings would be best."

The others had gone in, and I find being alone with the beetle more comforting than I thought, and my worries were rapidly fading. So were my thoughts of what to do for the rest of the day. It was an active effort not the get drowsy and fall asleep, and I now know the cause. When I nearly fell, he caught me, and I suddenly snapped wide awake. He then told me he can control himself, but if it gets out of hand, his feeling siphoning takes on its own mind. With a shrug, I went in and started on a jigsaw puzzle.

I haven't done one of these in years, and I find it sort of comforting. Monica said it keeps his mind sharp. He then got up and took to his radio to get in touch with the others. As I thought, the one with Samantha was at the county line at this moment, while Angie and Sweet were six or seven miles south of us. No sign of anybody. I then decided to find my feather duster and dust the place.

I never thought how much my place could use it until I'd burned or eaten (or allowed) most of it to be expendable. I still spared everything that contained info save newspapers and magazines. Electronics, books, photographs, and the like were kept much like the furnishings. In case you were wondering, no it wasn't all that cold, but the meat had to be cooked one way or another, and neither Pickering, Sam, nor anyone else wanted to go all the way to the grocery or what have you to get coal. The gas went out that morning, so not much was burned yet. But there was a pile of it. I also had several glass containers full of wax I intended to heat up with propane when we get it so I can make candles, something I had done many times before, but now out of need. We always ate our vegetables raw, me after everybody else had theirs, and no one got ill. The meat is another matter, it needs cooking.

I came to the freezer and looked inside. I placed my duster on top and peeked into it. In there were no edible possessions but a few pieces of pork and chicken I got from the market before the freezers there would go out. It was all I could do not to write off animal flesh altogether, but once it spoiled, and there'd be no fresh deliveries to the market, and nothing to hunt, there would be no more meat. I picked up an instant chicken pie and popped it in the microwave. While it was heating, I asked Will if he wanted to be my guinea pig. He said sure real quick like it pleased him. I scratched my head wondering if he were up to a trick. We stepped into the kitchen and watched the timer expire, to which I abruptly pressed the button to unlock the door and slap the pie on a tin tray held in my mouth. He knew what I wanted him to do, for he ate the whole thing in less than five minutes, given the first minute to cool.

He suffered no ill effects, but I would wait before I pressed my luck. I came outside to pick some dandelions to fill my gut with, and spent the rest of the afternoon doing little else. I came in later to find Will knocked out on the couch. I thought he had the right idea, but I didn't feel remotely drowsy. I spent the better part of it resting wide awake wondering what was going to happen to the world at large, and if we would find somebody. In a way, that would soon be answered.

My sensitive ears picked up a sound and caught the noise of a humming engine and a roaring one. Stretching my legs, I got up, nudged Will, told him to alert the rest which he did after a groan, and we all came onto the porch. The first one out of the car was Pickering with what appeared to be a furry heap in her arms. I couldn't quite make it out. But my attention was on the cart, which had both mares in it like before. They were no worse off for the ware. "HI! SWEET STUFF! YOU ALRIGHT?" I ran cross the yard and nearly knocked her out of the cart in a tight embrace. Then Angie pried me off, and Sweet shoved me away. "Yes, I'm fine, Alex. We didn't find what we were looking for, but we did find something or body. An animal, to be more precise." She then pointed to Pickering who was nuzzling the furball. Upon closer inspection, a Pekingese bitch was cradled in her right arm and was giving a short hum, a moan. The first animal I have had the luxury of laying eyes on since this event. The last indication was only a toppled garbage bin where we've been putting wood shavings into for kindling, and punctured the base for oxygen. Samantha said, "We found this cutie half starved in an old, decrepit house covered in dust. She barely had the energy to get up and trod to us. The window was cracked, but barred." Vinnie: "The poor dear is just as much without her family as we are!"

We took her inside and gathered around the den playing with this cutie. It was at this moment that the lights went out. The fuse hadn't blown; the power lines failed and were down. Anthony and I were the ones who checked. We finally got to the point where we need the gasoline to fuel the house. This will totally help our search for survivors and make our lives more comfortable and stable. I really need to connect those solar panels. And get some.

Oh, well. And then there were twelve. Now I know that there are animals for a fact to reassure me former humans aren't the only beings left here biological and mobile.

Until tomorrow, this is Alex Chance Torrez signing off.