The Last Moron On Earth

I was cold.

I know we Californians complain a lot when the temperature drops below 70 degrees, but even in the warm night I was freezing.

The soft rhythmic thumping in my chest was a constant reminder of just how lucky I was after a stunt like that.

I bet that looked hella sick though.

A soft chuckle turned into a sickly hacking, sending wave after wave of stabbing pain through my chest.

For the moment, I was content to just sit back in my seat, head hanging limp on the door panel.

The biting cold grew softer, and I sighed happily.

"You know how they say you see a light before you die?"

I could feel the world around me spinning wildly.

"They're wrong. I didn't see a fuckin' thing..."

I snapped an eye open, and promptly threw up.

What the hell am I doing? Glancing around, I took stock of my situation.

One eye was swollen shut, and my face was throbbing in pain. My lower legs were sore and throbbing as well, and I felt a deep chill coming from my right fore-leg...hoof...thing. Also, I was covered in my own sick.

The truck was listing to the left, and the roof had rumpled slightly downward. The windshield was cracked, webs of destruction gathering towards a focal point directly above the steering wheel. Only one of the roof lights was on, bathing the wall in front of me a deep, dark blue. Over the struggling thumps of a single working generator, I could hear the blaze of the tanker raging in the intersection behind me. Inside the cab, however, I couldn't see jack shit.

I leaned over to the side, trying to reach my bag from the floor below the passenger seat. I braced my left hoof on the dashboard, and was greeted by searing pain. Lights flashed in my vision, and I screamed. I blinked the tears away, and brought the limb up to my face; midway down my leg the hoof simply hung down at an unnatural angle. Great.

I slowly and painfully retrieved the heavy bag from the floor, and tried digging through it in the dark. After a few frantic seconds of searching, I found another short road-flare.

With the cap in my mouth, I twisted the red stick and pulled, a light pop filling the cab with a wavering red glow.

The cab itself was in pretty decent shape, but the driver side door was askew in its frame. A glance revealed a dark shadow on the rubber floor liner below me. A touch with a hoof felt wet.

I had to get out of the car.

I scrambled at the door latch, but despite my fumbling efforts the door would not budge. In a panic, I tried kicking at the door, but only succeeded in bringing myself even more pain.

With tears tears down my face, I tried the window. The laminated glass surprisingly gave in with only a kick or two. I flung first the flare, then my pack through the frame, and crawled through. The jagged shards scraped lightly with my passage, but the cool air of freedom was well worth the pain.

Unfortunately, halfway through the hole, I slid down the door, and landed on my wobbly limb with a sickening snap. A solid wall of white flashed in my good eye before disappearing in an instant; Blazing tendrils of pain ran through my leg, and I howled out into the night.

My weak cries eventually died into even weaker coughs, and I slowly pulled myself with a hoof away from the smoking wreck. Before long, I reached the curb and rolled off it into the street. My vision blurred with each weak pull, and I only managed to get myself halfway across the street before everything finally went black.

I slowly awoke to the foul mixture of piss, sick, and gasoline in the air. I was also laying in the middle of the road. I lifted my head to survey my surroundings, and found I could only open my right eye. Regardless, my monocular vision showed me that the Cuddle Shuttle would never drive again, and that I was lucky to be alive. Some time during the night, a lamp-post I'd skirted collapsed, crushing the roof underneath it. Driver's side.... Lucky, lucky, lucky.

I didn't feel lucky. Everything was numb, and yet there was this all-encompassing pain throughout my body.

I checked my hoof, expecting various bones protruding from the skin, but was lucky in that regard as well. I was hopeful that I would only have to deal with a dislocated...hoof wrist thing...rather than a 'simple' fracture of the bone underneath, but the lack of equine/general medical knowledge left me at a disadvantage here. The site was swollen slightly, and in a lot of pain. If I can recall from past searches correctly, WebMD would have said it was definitely cancer.

Regardless, I would have to move sooner rather than later, at least so I could die painfully in a comfortable bed. With a few shots of liquid encouragement from my pack (that sweet, sweet *Tennessee Honey...) I went to bite the bullet. Setting my leg as straight as I could through the pain, I wrapped the *fuck out of it with duct tape. I fished one of the shorter boots I'd made and set it over the injured appendage.

It hurt like hell, and I was going to assume that walking on it would be impossible, but it'll keep it relatively straight while I sort myself out.

With several minutes of screaming, sweat, and tears, I finally hefted myself up onto my three good-ish legs. I slung the heavy pack onto my shoulders, and looked towards the intersection I'd cleared.

Small fires still raged across the burned out husks of the tanker truck, though for the most part it had died down. Thin wisps of white smoke danced into the early morning sky, a far cry from the thick black smoke the night before. Beyond that lay the massive hill I'd rolled down; somewhere on beyond lay the home depot I'd already looted.

I figured I could either try looking for another vehicle, or make my way to where there was surely another rental truck waiting.

A bird in the hand, I guess....

***

I hadn't even made it halfway up the damn hill, and already the sun was hanging clear in the sky. Sweat ran in fat drops from my body, sizzling on the boiling sidewalk below. I'd had to stop several times for a drink, my lone bottle of water dangerously low.

Hills suck.

***

The moon was beginning its proud ascent in the sky when I finally crested the fuckhuge mountain hill. Despite my entire everything crying in pain, I couldn't help but chuckle. I cheered. I'd done it. "Rocky ain't got shit on me!" I shouted to the world.

Without warning, the ground came forward to meet my face.

I couldn't complain.