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Could Be Worse

Whitetrash Willy Really Ruelz

By James DonahuePublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
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QTWT Willy Rules

Willy pumped the brakes too quickly on his cherried-out 1979 pickup with a hydraulic suspension system on rims from a newer Chevy Nova. It needed a part they don’t make anymore . The 1979 F100 front disk brakes were about to fail completely so the rear drums, all to often, had to work twice as hard. Sometimes the rear wheels would lock up and skid mid way through the second brake-pump and sometimes it took 5. Good old Willy never knew many pumps it would take. It was a rough ride.

When it finally caught this time poor Garbage girl would have been flung to the floorboards to wallow in old beer and dirt again, but the seatbelt held. The original NHTSA approved replacement seat belt installed by the original owner to accommodate his 600 lbs had been removed by the second owner to supposedly make room for the very last gun rack ever delivered by Amazon.

Willy was not going to let this kind of accident happen to his girl again, so he knew he had to make it safer. He did so with two of his outsized leather belts fastened down with new bungee cords that were less than 10 years old on one side and nailed to the seat frame with concrete nails on the other. You’ll be thanking me for that since it will have to be real tight," he said upon the unveiling. All there is is this lap belt, and you don’t want to go to the floor like last time and get your pretty dress filthy.”

“Now, you might be worried, he continued, that this is somehow unsafe since it’s partly made of tired elastic,” he explained when seeing the worry on his companion’s face, "But let me assure you, it is not unsafe. The top belt is of a fine Corinthian letter and the bottom one is really high quality canvas. The belts are nailed to the outside of the seat with some heavy nails we had left over from when we put in the hot tub, right before the zombies. And I welded a couple of steel loops on the inside of the belt so as to be adjustable with the bungees.”

“I thought it was a water feature,” she suggested.

“Whatever,” he snapped.

“I really liked my Korean car.”

“Well I’ve lost 40 pounds, and if we stay near the skunk cabbages we hardly see any of those mangy brain-eaters, anymore. We have a pizza franchise in the middle of an enormous strip mall as our home. The creek is clear enough to swim, and it even has fish. I realize that we’ve lost everybody that meant anything to us, but all in all I think we came out of it all right considering that, so far, that makes five good things are only one bad one. I know you liked that little rice burner but without any rice to power the fuel converter that thing is pretty much useless. Those damned zombies really put one over on humanity with that converter invention. And we thought they were dumb,” Willy spat.

“But they were just normal door-to-door salesman,” Willy sang in a mocking and childish tone.

“Look,” she was getting irratated and it showed in her tone, “Everything I’ve ever bought from a traveling salesman has worked great, so you can shut up about the that right now. And these were were just regular people selling this one. Besides, the zombies seemed nice at the time, and I had to get it for the planet. How was I supposed to know the supply chains would break down during the crucial window of opportunity?”

“I don’t know. 2025 was does seem like a long time ago, but really it’s only been a couple of years, right.”

“It’s been 6,” she snarled. But you’re right. It seems like an eternity of you telling the same shitty stories.”

Willy rubbed his scalp.

“Here we go again,” they muttered in unison.

“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t get me started about the block chain. All the art I bought off the internet, which also worked great, f.y.i., is gone too. “

“Hey. Take it easy, Verletta.”

“Sorry, but you hurt my feeling there. The salesman were just normal door-to-door people trying to make a buck. How was I supposed to know these slime balls would take jobs from the zombies?”

"Remember? The zombies were all acting reformed at the time. There were only a handful of slayings before they made a public apology and started pretending to work for the good of humanity.

"And when everything was going to shit, we would have had it made it to the islad in that little rice burner too, and it was a super-easy conversion, and the thing worked great. The U.S. had actually stopped importing and Petroleum and had cut their own production by 50%. Things were actually looking up for the human race in general.”

“In Victoria the remaining humans live like royalty in the zombie-free utopia," he said. But you know they won’t let this rig on the ferry and now the island is closed to boat traffic.” “I’ll never figure out why the human race didn’t catch on to the trap when the zombies started buying up all the rice distributing facilities."

As the old Ford shuddered to a stop a sigh escaped from Garbage Girl that was intended to sound like contented joy but instead reminded him of when they were packing to go to her sister-in-law’s funeral many years ago. Nothing gets by the sensitive Willy who actually fought back tears, but that too was pretty obvious. Garbage Girl thought fast and apologized for the sound blaming it on gassiness from the leftover Big Chester’s pizza. That much was not a lie as their acre of solar panels were only able to provide enough auxiliary power to charge the batteries to fire up the oven once a week for 8 hours and this was day 5.

When they finally came to a stop Willy jumped out, stooped down, and picked up a golden locket lying on the side of the road.

He brought it over to Garbage Girl, and she squealed with joy.

“O.M.G.! You found it! My hero!”

Verletta only used acronyms like that when she was genuinely excited, so old Willy knew he struck the jackpot.

Sci Fi
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About the Creator

James Donahue

Started for a contest I couldn't send on time. After a few minor additions and changes I entered the story in another contest. How can you say it's not the best first chapter ever written until we see the rest of the book?

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