Getting Gas Sucks

A blinding light flooded in through the now open cellar door. Eddy squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as he nervously trembled.

"Well, I think that's enough for today. Let's go back down-." He attempted to turn around, but I angrily beeped at him. "Alright, I'll take a look, but don't expect me to go far." After setting me down on the ground, he put his hand above his eyes to act as a visor and scanned his surroundings...

Everything was sand as far as the eye could see, even the piece of crap farm house that was above our cellar was buried up to its bottom story windows. The Nebraska cornfields that once covered the landscape just three weeks ago had seemingly transformed into a dry desert wasteland.

Well this sucks.

"What the heck is that!" Eddy abruptly darted forward in a panic.

I didn't have the slightest clue what he was going on about. As far as I could see, there was nothing around.

"I think there's a ghost chasing me!" He ran around in circles, apparently being chased by some kind of invisible apparition.

After several minutes of watching him waste more time, I noticed something...

Is he afraid of his shadow?

While he finished another lap in my direction, I casually scooted in his path, causing him to trip over me and fall on his face.

"Rom be carefu-..."

I sat in the exact spot his shadow was currently being cast.

Of all the humans on this planet, I get stuck with the most useless one.

Eddy let out a bashful laugh. "Oh... I haven't been outside in so long, I forgot what my shadow looked like." He got up and brushed the sand off of his security blanket, then glanced around again. "It doesn't look like there's any gas out here... Well, we tried our best, but we should probably head back insi-."

I rammed myself into his shin to shut him up. Of course there wasn't going to be anything around here, our shelter was in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, I had a wifi connectivity feature, and just before our Internet access had gone down, I managed to download a map of the entire state of Nebraska into my mind. If we just walked about seven miles west, we'd come to the nearest gas station.

I let out a singular beep and began rolling in the direction of town. Seeming conflicted, Eddy looked back and forth between the open cellar door and me. "Wait, where are you going?"

I ignored him and kept on moving.

"Rom?..."

Nope, I'm not stopping, dumbass.

A gust of wind suddenly blew, causing the cellar door to blow shut behind Eddy’s back with a loud crack.

The sound caused him to jump out of fear. "Wait, don't leave me here alone!" He ran after me.

I knew you'd eventually see things my way.

With him tagging along behind me, we began our trek to get gas.

🌞🌞🌞

After walking (or rolling in my case) for at least two hours, we crossed over one last sand dune, where the gas station finally came into view.

Dripping with sweat, Eddy dropped to his knees to catch his breath. "How the heck did you know this was here?"

Considering you've lived in this area your entire life, how the heck didn't you know this was here?

He let out a cough. "I wish I brought a bottle of water."

Disregarding his petty whining, I descended the dune. Immediately, it was apparent that the gas station was abandoned. The pumps were buried in at least two feet of sand and the 11/7 convenience store had all of its doors and windows boarded up.

"I wondered where all this sand came from?"

I had to admit, I was thinking the same thing. Nebraska was primarily farm fields.

For all the soil to turn into loose dry sand within such a short period of time, would have meant all the moisture in the ground completely evaporated.

It was incredibly quiet, not another person in sight. A single abandoned white Bord F-160 pick-up truck sat in front of one of the six gas pumps. At least it appeared to be abandoned...

I went in front of one of the gas pumps and let out a beep. Eddy followed behind me, but stopped roughly six feet from the pump, refusing to take another step forward.

"I can't touch that..." He set down the gas canister he had been carrying. "What if gas spills out and splashes on me, then a spark of static electricity ignites it and causes me to combust into flames?"

I think you'd have a better chance at playing the lottery.

Not about to let this trip be for nothing, I prodded at the pump hose, which happened to hang just low enough for me to reach. Eventually, I was able to knock the nozzle out of its slot. I pushed it across the sand toward Eddy.

"I'm sorry, Rom, but I can't do it."

His logic didn't make sense. Back in the cellar, he had no issues filling up the generator. Gas could have easily spilled onto him then, so why now when it was essentially life or death did he insist on being difficult?

Once again, not having arms sucks.

In order to coerce him to do what I wanted, I was going to have to revert to more “old fashioned” tactics... bullying and peer pressure. Relentlessly, I began to ram myself into his shins, while repeatedly letting out loud chirps.

"Quit it!"

The more he whined, the more aggressive I became. Eventually, when he was to the point of being curled up in a ball on the ground on the verge of tears, he finally caved.

"Alright!... I'll fill the canister. Just stop it."

I knew you'd eventually see things my way.

Nervously picking up the gas nozzle from the ground, he stuck it into the canister and squeezed the handle... Nothing.

"Did I do it wrong?" He attempted to do it again, but unfortunately still nothing came out.

Suddenly it dawned on me. The fuel pumps were electric. Since the power grid was down, there was no way we could get gas out of it.

Son of a bitc-!

A series of high pitched growls suddenly rang out from the inside of the 11/7. Out of a small hole in the plywood that covered its door, a chihuahua's small head emerged. Its teeth were snarled as it stared us down, while it crawled through the opening.

Eddy's eyes went wide, looking like he was about to pee his pants. "We gotta get out of here, Rom! That thing probably has rabbis."

It's a tiny dog. What could it possibly do-?

About a dozen more chihuahuas emerged from the 11/7. All of which looked unhappy that we had encroached on their territory.

An object in the sand caught Eddy's eye. "Is that a sk-skull!?"

Sure enough half buried was what appeared to be a skeletal corpse, which looked to have been picked bone dry.

Oh... Maybe I spoke too soon.

With us now surrounded, one final dog emerged from the building. Just like the others, it too was a Chihuahua. This one, however, was absolutely shredded. The muscles in its front legs pulsed with every step it took. It was like a roided out bodybuilder was crossed with a rat sized dog.

"Oh God, we're going to die!" In a panic, he snatched me up and practically levitated, as he leapt into the bed of the nearby F-160.

The Jacked one let out a loud high pitched howl, as the other dogs jumped up at the truck, nipping at the air. Luckily, we were high enough off the ground where their stubby legs couldn't reach.

"Well, Rom, I think this is the end. I know we've only known each other for a handful of hours, but you're probably the first and best friend I've ever had." Eddy sincerely tipped his head forward.

I don't think I can say the same about you, considering you're the reason we ran out of gas in the first place. If I wasn't completely dependent on you, I'd have already left you for dead to these man-eating Chihuahuas.

I noticed the back window to the pickup truck was slightly cracked open. I nudged Eddy, who was now curled up in the fetal position.

"Nice thinking, Rom." He picked me up and crawled through it and into the driver's seat. He set me down beside him in the front passenger seat. By some stroke of luck, the keys were in the ignition. I assumed that most likely this truck belonged to that skeleton in the sand.

One man's misfortune is another man's fortune.

Eddy sat, confused as he stared at the steering wheel. "Uh... You don't happen to know how to drive do you?"

You're a 27 year old man. How the heck don't you know how to drive?

If I had hands, I would have either face palmed or backhanded him across the face…or possibly both. It seemed like I, a vacuum, was going to have to give this grown-ass man a crash course on driving a car. I was down to fifty percent of my battery life, so if we didn't get out of here soon and find some other solution for fuel, Eddy would be on his own and more importantly, my battery would be dead.