Angry Bird

by Thadius0

June 5th - 28 pills left

Wake up, have breakfast, load up the van. It was starting to become routine. I told Skippy to take care of Grace while I was out, and the mutt nearly tried to follow me, but I firmly told him to stay and watch Grace. It took a few times, but he eventually got that he wasn't coming with me on this trip.

It took me an hour driving at highway speeds to get back to the outskirts of the Springs, where I knew one farming supplies store was. Big R it was called, and once I pulled up and opened up the doors, I found that there was an entire section dealing with seeds. That I took.

Hey, I had a van, it would be a shame if I didn't fill it. Plus they had things that I could use to make it easier on myself for the planting. Took those too. Though I don't know how much good a trowel and spade are going to be, or things like that.

After that, I decided a small visit back to the actual city was in order. Who knew, maybe I would find somebody, or signs of somebody. The white van I had loaded up with gardening slash farming supplies from Big R pulled into the Springs proper, though it did display an important fact to me.

Namely, it wasn’t the most fuel-efficient of vehicles. That, or it had just been too long since I last refilled, as I was already half-empty from the drive down here. I would need to fill up again before making the trip back up to Denver if I wanted to make it without coasting on fumes.

“Now where is a gas station around here?” I mused aloud as I looked around. “Suppose I shoulda visited more often so that I knew what the city looked like before checking to see if anybody else was around...I can’t tell what’s meant to be this way.”

That was about when I heard a sound in this depopulated city. It sounded a bit like a song I had heard once or twice, though I couldn’t place it at first. The beat quickly got me bobbing my head along and I turned to follow the sound as well as I could. By the time I had roughly located where the sound had been coming from, or its general direction at least, the sound developed into a proper song.

“We all came out to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline, to make records with a mobile, we didn't have much time.”

I had to be getting closer. That, or whoever was playing was deliberately turning the song up. Or getting closer themselves. Hopefully it was the getting closer one.

“Frank Zappa and the Mothers, were at the best place around, but some stupid with a flare gun, burned the place to the ground.”

It was when the song reached its chorus that I finally turned the right corner and saw the set-up of the ones playing music at the almost-end of the world.

“Smoke on the water, fire in the sky. Smoke on the water…”

It looked like an RV towing one of those U-haul storage pods behind it, but the pod itself had been decked out in speakers. It was just my luck that I had showed up behind the set-up, but I saw that they’d turned...and turned again at one of the next streets.

Ah, that would explain the song. And their patterns for driving. They were actively looking for people. Well, who would I be to deny them finding somebody? I pulled a quick U-turn before driving down the street, then moving to intercept their RV. Or at the very least, show up in front of them.

I managed to pull up in front of them just before the song reached its second chorus and stopped my van, deciding to leave the shotgun in it for now. Though I did still carry my small bag and the handgun within it around my neck, just in case.

Hey, for all I knew, they could be crazy just as easily as they could be sane. The fact that they were looking for people was a good sign, and I’d leave one weapon behind, but I didn’t want to go out totally unarmed. Just in case.

Once they caught sight of me, the song cut out, and a...well, it wasn’t a pegasus, but it did still have wings. Of a bat-like quality. Anyway, that pony stepped out of the RV, and I could swear I felt my head tilting as I considered the life-form I had been presented with. It was either the mismash of the anatomy of something other than myself that had caught my attention...or the goggles.

Might have been the goggles.

"Wow, you look cool. I think you may have gotten one of the better draws in this little event,” the pony said.

“And I’m trying to place a name for you, but failing horribly,” I returned. “Sorry, that came off as more rude than I intended. My name’s Henry.” I walked forward a little more and stuck out one clawed forelimb in a position to shake...before I realized that the pony had hooves and likely wouldn’t be able to.

The bat pony sinkered for a second before holding out their hoof. "I find that a 'fist bump' works well. As for my name, that’s pending. You can just call me ‘LF’ for now if you have to."

“LF,” I returned, balling up my clawed hand and bumping the hoof. “So, it’s just you in that thing? Driving through my old hometown looking for other survivors?”

"I like good questions! To answer, no I am not currently alone. As for looking for survivors, I do that in every town. That said, three other people are also heading here to meet us. We plan on setting up shop." I couldn’t see whoever this pony was with, but I had no reason to doubt them.

“Good plan,” I said, before jerking my- what used to be my thumb over my shoulder at my van. “Had a similar idea myself, came back for supplies for the long haul. Figured I might need the ability to grow things to eat that didn’t walk around, considering the industry for that probably collapsed overnight. Came back here to see if anybody was walking around, and ran into you.”

The bat pony was silent for a moment. Like they were considering their next words. "Hmm, well our plan is to set up in Fort Carson. You would be more than welcome to join us in that plan. The more hands the better after all."

“Kinda got a good set up in Denver at the moment,” I replied. “Got solar installed and everything...but if things go pear-shaped, I'll load up what I can and head south.” It’d be annoying to leave that much solar panels behind, especially after I had lugged them all the way up to the roof. But if it came down to it, at least now I had an option.

"The base had three to four large solar arrays hooked into it already. So it’s got that covered. On top of that it would have a ton of rations. On top of THAT when we have extra hands we would be happy to help you move stuff to the base. We didn't choose Springs for no reason." LF seemed to be quite sure in what they were saying, and I couldn’t blame them. Those sounded like very good reasons indeed.

“Hmm,” I said, thinking about it. “A thought occurs to me regarding water. I mean, yeah, we’ve got a lot of reservoirs hanging around, which is why I chose where I did in Denver for my base of operations. Do you know what Fort Carson does for their water needs?”

"The logistics of the choice were done by my group’s city planner, Qesun. I'm kinda sure he thought of water and how to maintain it in the area. That said, personally? I don't have a clue. Though I do have a good amount of faith in the people I work with."

“Fair enough,” I chuckled. “And hey, it wouldn’t be too hard to find a lake or the like. I know of at least two up in the Denver area. Plus there’s this river that runs through the state somewhere. We’ve got options for water.” I turned to look at my van, before looking at the bat-winged pony. “How about this, I’ll promise to think on it and, if things turn out to not be too tenable for me up there, I’ll come along. There is that whole Zoo in the area that I might not wanna live next to for too long…”

The bat pony gave a few nods. "Hm, okay that sounds fair. Well at least you will know where we are, and us you. If anything comes up you can come our way."

“Yup,” I nodded as well. “So, I was just going to tool around and look for people, like you. Maybe hit up a gas station for a quick top off afterwards before driving north again.”

"Sounds good, I'm going to do a few more passes throughout the city then go set up shop in the base. By safe out there."

I barely held back a snort as I nodded again and walked back to my van before starting it up and getting it out of their way. Who needs safe when you have a shotgun?

After tooling around the city and listening to more Smoke on the Water, I decided to take my leave and mentally wished the bat-like pony the best of luck. I had a few places to visit still, after all.

Going back up north, I decided to revisit the AFA and the weapons they had there, because I wanted something. One tiny little thing.

Grenades. Because you never know when you're going to want the ability to make things go boom.

After that, I passed by my home again, before sighing and continuing onwards. No signs of life in the neighborhood.

By the time I pulled into Denver, it was already getting late again. I drove into the parking lot for the museum, and Skippy greeted me eagerly. Grace...not so much. It took going into the museum before I found her.

And when I did, she wasn't in the best of states. I could tell by the empty bottles of beer on the floor that Grace had been drinking. I didn't know where she got them from, but she'd emptied the bottles of their contents.

And when I looked around for her, I heard the sound of her hoofsteps coming from the kitchen. Going there showed me that she was definitely wobbling around and walking unsteadily on her four legs.

Yup, Grace had taken the chance with me out of town to either raid an apartment of their booze, or drink her own. I walked over to her and tried to steer her towards her set-up in the Space exhibit, but she was having none of that.

"An' you!" she said, pointing one of her forehooves at me. "You mister high-and-mighty, with a body that can drive easily and digits! Where in the hell have you been today?"

"Grace, you're drunk," I tried to reason with her. Which was my first mistake. Reason doesn't necessarily work on the inebriated.

"I know I'm drunk!" she snapped at me. "I've lost my family, my friends, my body. Only person I got is you and you're not even like me! And you ran off to do who knows what today. Did you think I wouldn't?"

Then something both amazing and weird started happening. Her wings started flapping. I didn't even know she could control them, much less when she was drunk. Slowly, they started picking up speed, and she actually started to get some lift.

"I oughta...I oughta sock you one for that," she muttered. And then she was airborne. Which was a bad idea, flying while drunk.

Because immediately afterwards, she covered her mouth with her forehooves and fell back on the ground, sitting on her rump and turning a pleasant shade of green in her face. I didn't manage to get her to a bathroom in time, leaving a puddle of vomit on the ground just in front of the restroom.

I washed her up as well as I could and stuck her on my back before carrying her back to her set-up in the Space section of the museum. I'm still there now, actually. I should probably send out a message tonight before I knock off.

"To those in the Denver area, you are not alone. I'm Henry, here with Grace. She can't come to the radio today, she had a little too much to drink. For those of you that ended up with a pony like body, yes, the answer is your new selves can get drunk. To those that are willing to help...I am willing to take you in."

Author's Note:

A good...60% of this chapter is a crossover with Lightfox Lowell and his story Stacked Deck.
Nearly forgot to upload it as well. I really need to hold myself to higher standards regarding my update schedule.

Comments

[Krazyfan1]

and thus he finds out that flight is possible...
i wonder if he can train enough to at least glide in the mean time, using those claws of his to scale buildings ala Griff?

[Starscribe]

Neat crossover, I've been wondering when these characters would meet up!

One thing seemed strange to me, and that was the narrative use of "they" to describe LF. Being respectful of someone's preferred pronouns is one thing, but in a third-person limited story the narrator typically has access to a similar amount of information to the character. As a result, this came off strange, since LF never actually said that they wanted to be referred to this way, but the narrator somehow knew anyway. Given the way gendered terms have always been used for other characters, this struck me as a little jarring.

Not a big deal or anything, but it does seem a little inconsistent to suddenly deviate and use a nontypical pronoun before being told a person prefers it that way.

[Jake Witt]

6572690 I want to make a Spider-Man parody using "Griffon Guy," but I keep thinking of Peter Griffon. My brain then derailed into Grace and Peter drinking together.