Bill pulled the strap tight with a couple of experienced tugs, then flicking the strap it gave off a sharp twang sound.
“Perfect, they’re not going anywhere,” he said, then climbed down off the side of the 469, now outside in the afternoon sun.
Applejack looked up, using her hoof in aid with the brim of her hat to peer at the strapped in cargo. “If’in’ yer sure, Sugarcube. My brother’s said that many a time, ‘nd it always ended ‘n disaster.”
“Well for your information, Jackie, I have these two amazing inventions called hands, and I may not have your pony strength, but I do have the ease of manipulating objects with them.”
Applejack raised a brow at him, which was becoming a habit, and lightly shook her head. “A’right.”
Bill opened the passenger door as he walked past, allowing Applejack to jump in and close the door herself. Bill entered the driver's seat, and quickly started the little truck up.
“So,” Applejack began, then began opening the map for inspection, “we need to go there, marked ‘GAS’?”
“Yes. Hopefully in a timely manner, this thing is already down to about half a tank itself,” Bill tapped a finger on one of the round gauges, checking to see its accuracy.
“Welp, no roads ‘re obvious, so let's just start goin’ thatta way.” Applejack pointed a hoof towards the rotten fence.
“Sure, here we go.”
Placing the 469 into first gear, they began creeping along the solid road surface for what was an incredibly short amount of time, then hitting dirt. Placing the vehicle into neutral, Bill engaged the four wheel drive, back into first, and continued along a dirt two track.
Meanwhile, Applejack kept shifting her attention from the map that tracked their location, to the outside, looking through the thicket of trees for any sort of pathways they could take. Before too long, they’d need to turn and head North.
“I don’t see a road, but there seems to be some open plains ahead,” Bill said.
Placing her hooves on the dash, Applejack stood to get a better sight. “Hm. I dunno, with how muddy it is, I’d bet my right hind leg that that there land is water logged like no other.”
“What if we stick to the edge, follow along the trees?”
Returning to her seat, Applejack tapped her chin. “Yeah, might be okay. Trees’ll soak up most of the water, so the ground might be a tad more solid.”
Looking ahead, the road seemed to continue straight, and then get lost in more woods.
“Although, this road could keep going and curve eventually, take us where we need to go.”
Applejack looked at the map, noticing how where they went, anything that was within sight distance of roughly 100 feet was also revealed. Currently, this bit of information did little to help their decision making.
“Well, I think we should continue on this here road fer a bit longer. Might get lucky.”
“Agreed. I’d rather not get stuck again so soon.”
“That too.”
So the duo continued ahead, Applejack looking out her window across the open plains. Nothing could be seen too easily far out, but there might have been a structure way out there.
—-------
The two track they drove on abruptly turned to the right, which was good.
It also was a muck pit, which was bad.
“Thoughts?” Bill asked.
“It looks only fifty feet ‘r so. Worst case I can pull it.”
Nodding, Bill placed the 469 into low range, in addition to the four wheel drive, and began crawling forward.
Even if she couldn’t see directly in front of them, the moment they hit the mud was evident when it began flinging against the side of the vehicle. Bill continued to creep forward, only giving slight revs of the engine when they seemed to slow down just a hair.
It was a marvel to watch the human work, changing gears, pressing pedals with his feet, and throughout it all, he had on a grin.
“I kinda wish we had some music to listen to,” Bill said abruptly.
Applejack laughed. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
They hit a small dip, which dropped the front end into a puddle, splashing muddy water at the windshield. Bill fiddled with a couple of knobs, until one activated two little arms with blades on them, and began to (mostly) clear the mess.
And then he began to hum.
Applejack didn’t immediately recognize the tune, but it felt familiar. Not the song itself, but what it meant. Before too long, Applejack started to hum along when she noticed the repeating parts.
They hit another dip, this one to their right side, which caused Applejack to smack into her door, but thankfully not hurt herself. Bill was barely in his seat, but moving the wheel around he managed to straighten them up. Applejack’s entire window was covered in mud, so she simply released the latch, dropping the window out and open so it allowed Bill more vision.
Smiling, the humming continued. Another dip, another splash of mud, and now Applejack found herself smiling too. In a strange way, as slow as they were going, as messy and muddy as the little truck was getting, they were still making progress. They were still moving, and it was actually inspirational in a sense.
“Almost heaven, West Virginia…”
Bill’s humming stopped, and now he began to actually sing. A song about home, about the birthplace of life itself. About traveling down a country road which leads them there.
All too quickly, Applejack found herself singing along, even though she’d never heard the song before.
And so as they crawled along in the mud, singing and smiling. The tree’s around them waved along, ushering them with instrumentals of branches swaying and leaves chittering, but to human and pony, it was music all the same.
They still had several yards of heavy mud and water to trudge through, but the duo shared a look, smiling with tears in their eyes, and continued singing.
“Country roads, take me home…”
—-------
With the 469 in the lowest gear setting possible, they finally crawled out of the heavily mudded trail, and rolled to a stop as Bill put the vehicle into neutral and held the brake.
Both occupants were wiping the tears from their eyes, clearing their throats and trying to regain their composure.
“Wow, Bill, that song…” Applejack began, but stopped when Bill held up his hand.
“Don’t, just… I hate that song.”
Shocked, Applejack looked at her companion with a confused look.
“How can that be?”
“Bad memories. I… I don’t know why I started humming it, or singing it, or… how in the Hell did you know the lyrics!?”
Applejack shrugged. “We ponies are in tune with Harmony, and one ‘o tha easiest ways fer that is music. Harmony simply fills in what we dun know, and usually magic happens.”
Bill stared at the mare like she was talking nonsense, then slammed his forehead on the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry if that song struck a nerve, but it were beautiful all tha same.”
“Yeah. Just… let’s try to avoid that again, okay? It was weird, and I’m still feeling all…”
“Tingly, excited, sad, some more emotion’s ya can’t rightly explain?”
Bill nodded into the steering wheel.
“That’s Harmony, Bill. We ponies go through it jus’ bout every day, some multiple times a day.”
“Well, I’m not a pony, and we humans don’t go through such things. I just…”
Suddenly, Bill pulled the parking brake lever, and opening the door stepped out of the vehicle.
“Bill?” Applejack called.
“Just a minute.”
Carefully, Applejack moved from her seat to Bill’s, so she could watch him closer.
He had walked away several feet, and was now bent over, hands on his knees, dry heaving.
“Bill? Ya’ll a’right?”
He simply waved his hand at her, and continued to dry heave.
“Gosh,” Applejack whispered to herself, “ if that’s tha effect Harmony has on a human, I’d hate to see what Pinkie would do to one.”
A few more moments, and Bill slowly made his way back to the vehicle, in which Applejack returned to her seat. Stepping inside and closing the door, Bill placed both hands on the wheel, straightened his arms so his back was pressed into the seat, and then let out a deep breath.
Applejack reached behind them, grabbing one of the vodka bottles turned water bottle and hoofed it to him, which he took and drank greedily from.
“Better?” Applejack asked.
Bill handed the open bottle to the mare, and as she drank her share he wiped the excess water from his chin.
“No, but I’ll manage. I still don’t know how to feel, but we need to keep moving. Can’t sulk all day.”
“Ya ain’t sulkin’, yer just overwhelmed. I remember bein’ a little filly ‘nd the first time I experienced Harmony. Right made me sick to mah stomach, but I pulled through it. Ya will too.”
With a slight smile, Bill reached over and patted Applejack on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Jackie. I’m still unsure about all this, but well… I guess worse things could happen.”
“That’s the spirit. Now come on, accordin’ to this here map, we’re almost to that gas station.
“Great.”
—-------
The rest of the drive was smooth, just normal dirt two track with a couple muddy spots, but nothing that required low range, just careful rev control and shifting from Bill, while Applejack called out his steering movements through her open window.
Before too long, a building came into view, with a large tank on its right side, and parked out front was a truck with a tank on its back. The building and large storage tank looked abandoned, but whole. The truck, however, looked terrible.
“Same front end as that one at that house we found,” Applejack said.
“Yeah, but it has a tank instead of… actually, I never pulled the tarp off, so I don’t even know what was on the back of that other one.”
“Regardless, that’s gonna take some work ta fix I reckon.”
“Yeah, but hopefully we don’t need it.”
The mare simply nodded, then continued to look around as they drew closer to the building. Bill parked next to the tank, and placing the parking brake on he turned the vehicle off.
“Okay, let's take a look,” Bill said as he opened his door to step out.
Applejack was close behind him, opening her own door and jumping out to stretch her legs.
“Hopefully we find some useful stuff, and we fill these… oh what the fuck.”
Stopping mid stretch, Applejack looked back towards the 469, and barked a laugh.
Both cans were gone, the straps dangling uselessly on the sides of the back doors.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Bill stared at the roof rack, like he expected the cans to suddenly appear.
Applejack, as much as she wanted to cry instead, continued to laugh as she rolled on the ground, the dry dirt doing nothing to bother her.
“It’s not funny! Now we gotta go back and find those cans!” Bill yelled.
Still on her back, Applejack wiped her eyes with a foreleg, then looked towards the building, her vision upside down. Taking a couple calming breaths, she then pointed her limb towards the building.
“Well, maybe we can use some of them cans there?”
Bill, walking around their truck, stopped to look where Applejack was pointing, and spotted two fuel cans sitting between the large tank and building.
“Huh. Okay, so that’s convenient,” Bill frowned.
“What’s the matter?” Applejack asked, rolling herself to sit on her haunches.
“I don’t know.”
Applejack watched Bill walk towards the cans, inspecting them. Standing to shake the dirt and dust off of her coat, Applejack walked over to join the human.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I thought it was a weird coincidence, but now I know something’s up. Look at these.”
Bill nudged one of the cans with his boot. Applejack watched it rock back and forth quickly, then settle.
“I don’t get it. What do you see?”
“They’re the same!”
Still staring at the cans, Applejack tilted her head.
“I mean, like, identical to one another, and I shit you not, the two cans we’ve lost.”
Applejack drew her face in closer to examine the cans, and as crazy as her human companion might sound…
“Woah, yeah, lookit this here rust spot on the bottom,” Applejack pointed her hoof.
“See!? This is too weird. There’s no way that’s a coincidence.”
“A’right, but what does it mean then?” Applejack asked, looking to Bill.
“I don’t know. It just unsettles me, that’s all.”
Giving the cans one last look, Applejack shook her head. “No sense in worryin’ ‘bout it now. We got other things to focus on.” She reached and grabbed one of the steel can’s handle in her teeth, then carried it to a steel box that sat in front of the tank.
Bill quickly grabbed the other can, and joined her.
Opening the cabinet, they found an electric pump with a meter, the later reading 8,063 gallons pumped.
“Huh, this looks like it only holds a thousand gallons at best, so they must not have reset the meter since filling it. Looks just like the metering system when I fill my propane tanks,” Bill noted, looking over the piping and meter. “Strange, no way to even reset it. That makes no sense.”
Applejack, looking over the control system for the pump, noticed an unsettling, yet familiar looking, box placed near what she’d assume to be the on/off switch.
“Bill, look.”
“What? Oh, no way.”
The box was the same kind of screen looking contraption which they’d used to unlock their rooms.
“So, what does that mean then?” Bill asked himself quietly.
With a shrug, Applejack placed her hoof on the screen. Sure enough, the screen turned amber, the mysterious rune like figures dancing on the screen, and then it flashed green.
Suddenly, the mechanical meter started spinning backwards slowly, then progressively getting faster and faster, causing it to rattle and shake the plumbing it was attached to.
Both Bill and Applejack stepped back, alarmed.
The meter hit 8,000, then 7,500, 6,500, 5,000… faster and faster, until it got to about 100 gallons and slowed down exceptionally.
80.
30.
20.
14.
8.
4.
2.
1.
The meter’s violent vibrations stopped, and with a final groan it struck 0.
Pony and human gulped, then looked at each other.
“If’n that implies what I dare think it implies…” Applejack began, but stopped.
Bill rubbed the top of his head. “They went through a lot of fuel.”
He then turned to look at the damaged refueling truck, and back to Applejack.
“We might need to consider getting that fixed,” Bill added.
As much as she wanted to argue the point, say they had more important things to focus on, she could already see the sense in what he said.
If the previous occupants of this place had gone through so much fuel, it was safe to figure they too might go through a similar quantity. The drive to this station as it was took them nearly thirty minutes, and having to drive back and forth with a few small cans would certainly take more time than having a movable source of fuel, even considering the time it might take to fix the vehicle.
“I’m gonna fill these cans, then the 469. After that, let’s check out the building, see if there’s something worth while in there, and before we leave I’ll look over the fuel truck to see if it’s even repairable here, or if we gotta somehow drag it back to the garage.”
“A’right. Anything I can do to help with the fuel?”
Bill grabbed the fueling nozzle, looking it over curiously. “Not like the car pumps from home, but I’m also not sure your hooves could use this thing.”
“Then I’ll go ‘nd check the station quick like, save some time.”
“Okay, just, be careful. Something still unsettles me about the fact that they needed guns, let alone making them hoof friendly.”
The thought of quickly grabbing the shotgun from the vehicle crossed the mare’s mind, but surely Bill was just being overly cautious.
“All good, Sugarcube. Best get ‘r done, I’ll be out quick.”
Bill let out a small laugh. “Yeah, okay. I’ll find you if I finish first.”
Applejack snorted a laugh herself, then began walking towards the front door of the station building. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but anything of general use would be appreciated.