The Last Moron On Earth

Everything happens for a reason.

Following some bizarre trend since becoming a horse, I woke up before the sunrise. First prize seemed to come with feeling cold, tired, and hungry as hell. Wonder if Rocky felt *that*. I fished through my pack for something to eat.

The meal consisted of a bunch of crumbled granola bars and a few hydrocodone pills washed down with a couple shots of whiskey. It was a far cry from a revitalizing meal, and undeserving of the title 'breakfast', but, as the saying goes, you learn to make do with the dumb cards you've stolen from the pharmacy. I already miss those overpriced iced coffees. Those were the best.

Stifling a yawn with my bad hoof, I looked down the other side of the hill towards town. In the distance I could make out the empty parking lot which lead to the home depot. Downhill is always easier, but my stiff limbs ached at the prospect of more walking.

The journey of a thousand miles....

* * *

For the second time, I was rolling through the hardware store, train of carts trailing behind me noisily. I had zero goals in mind, so there were zero filters; if it looked cool it was dropped in the cart. I didn't even know what half of these things were for; 'better to have it' and all that...

After what felt like an hour of scavenging, I'd filled the three cart train and went to load it in the Cuddle Shuttle mk.II. I'd decided a more subtle coloring of 'red apple' gloss would help me perform better than the un-witnessed silver.

Setting off with no plans in mind generally ended in disaster, so I had two simple goals: get some better tasting supplies, and more of them, and maybe go see if anyone I know actually has made it.

It's been almost a week, I should probably not have simply assumed I'd have to get through the disappearance of mankind without knowing. I didn't have too many friends who weren't off across the country for Uni, but the few still here in SoCal I figured might have sought me out if they had been left behind. So, best case scenario, I find my friends camping out at their house, worse case scenario I get some of their cool shit. Win either way.

* * * * *

I'm glad I had taken to raiding pharmacies and hardware stores this entire time, because the interior of an actual grocery store was miserable. The produce on display had come a long way in the few days without power; without the climate control, they baked and decayed in the California heat, filling the entire store with a putrid odor.

With a gag and bile in my throat, I made quick work of the canned food aisle, and made a brief stop by the dry pastas. I finished my trip off with a bunch of spices, a few bottles of vegetable oil, and three incredibly heavy packs of bottled water. Who needs 36 bottles all at once? That's insane.

I brought my haul to the glistening red truck, and loaded it all in the bed. Using water from several bottles, I'd filled an orange bucket and began to wash myself as best I could. It wasn't very good, but my face didn't feel sticky and gross anymore, and the tepid water actually felt rather pleasant on my bad hoof.

I dumped the dirty water, tossed the bucket in the bed, and climbed into the truck.

* * *

There was a thick, smokey smell hanging in the air, evidence of my presence in the next town continuing to rage endlessly against empty homes.

I'd driven down to the Heights and searched for my friends. Contrary to what I'd thought back in the parking lot, I didn't actually feel up to stealing anything of theirs, aside from a few cans of assorted goods and a small bag of tortilla chips. I was upset that none of the relatively few people I knew made it with me to the Happening, but also relieved; had they been with me, they would have talked me out of a lot of fun. Speaking of fun...

With the search finished, and finally back in my old prowling grounds, I eagerly began looking for the right house. After some time I was successful, and parked outside. It was a home like many in the area; a cozy little two-story home overlooking a rather wide lawn. A few shrubs and a small tree lining the driveway, in which sat several luxury cars.

I needed to be good and senseless for this, so I drank what was left of my bottle of whiskey. I tried to slam down the next bottle, but didn't get very far along with that before being taken by a coughing fit. It, however, soon met the fate of its twin after a few minutes.

Letsdodis.

As usual, I had to kick the door in to gain access, but I was getting better at that. I entered, observing the various photos on the wall; the usual beaming faces at the camera, a few holiday gathering photos, and a few of a sole, lanky figure. I made my way to their room, observing all the various nick-knacks scattered about.

I raised absolute hell in that room

If it wasn't nailed down, it was thrown across the room or brought crashing to the floor. A laptop was flung into the flat-screen mounted on the wall. Kicking the door of its hinges, the destruction eventually extended to the rest of the house. My rear leg caught in a hole kicked through the plaster wall, but some wiggling saw its freedom, as well as further chaos. Hanging pictures were thrown across the room, glass panes and wood frames shattering upon impact.

Some time had passed, the mess grew, and I was left unsatisfied.

I grabbed some towels off a rack in the bathroom and made my way back to the truck. I shakily poured gas from the cans into the empty whiskey bottles, taking care not to get any on myself, but uncaring of the mess being poured into the street. Fitting strips from each towel down their respective necks, I soaked them too and set them alight.

With a grin, I flung one towards the house. It sailed through the air and bounced off a window, flame sputtering slightly as its contents slowly trickled out of the constricted opening.

I walked closer with the second burning bottle, and tried rearing up to toss it like I would a human. It slipped from my grasp, and shattered somewhere behind me on the cement path leading up to the house. Whoops. Eventually, I settled on just pouring the remaining fuel from the gascan over a couch and tossing a blowtorch on that. Same difference in the long run.

"Cheatin' bitch..."

With that, I staggered back to the truck, and slowly made my way...away. I didn't have anywhere else to go.

I couldn't find myself caring.

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I had been driving through the city aimlessly for a few hours. I could see the thick black smoke of a raging inferno peeking over a distant ridge and grinned; admittedly this was far from uncommon here in the dry desert of SoCal, and my friends and I often joked that we couldn't wait for a fire to finally reach far south enough that we could panic in its presence. Musings of a better time. Clearing a hill, the radio suddenly squawked to life. I guess it had been on, but with nothing transmitting until then.

"-epeating, this is Aine Vasuman, broadcasting to anyone that's listening." The woman on the radio was coming in through a harsh static, but there was a noticeable tremble to her voice. "I'm, ah, I'm in a ratty ol' camper in Hellman Park, up in Whittier. My husband and I were out...err, stargazin', last night, and when I woke up this morning he was gone, and I...well, uh...whats important is he's gone missing, and he had the keys. I tried my cell but, funnily enough, there's no signal. To anyone who can hear me, both roadways are blocked off by fire, and its closing in. God, I hope some o-"

I shut the radio off with a huff. I didn't have the heart to hear the rest of that message. Human population I've encountered could be counted on my hooves, and I've gone and abandoned one, and outright killed the other.

"Well, that fucking sucks," I remarked to nobody.

Given the roads up to the park were on the other side of the hill, it would have taken some time to even reach it, let alone find her caravan in the burning park.

Too much time. Er, not enough time?

I pulled over and sat in the car for a while, trying to make sense of the transmission regardless.

On the one hand, most everyone was gone. The only few I'd encountered thus far seem to have been those of us transformed and left behind. It wouldn't make sense for someone to be in a position of danger at my hands, unless they'd been camped out for...like a week, which was, admittedly, a likely enough scenario, but not for this area; the 'park' was really just a really big hill with some dirt roads where we didn't pave over and build houses.

On the other, missing time is a recurring theme among alleged alien abductees. If aliens were actually involved, they do have a track record of keeping people. I guess it would make some sense for them to just appear out of the blue and in a possible position of danger. So its possible that someone wasn't camped out for a week on a hill and unwilling to escape the oncoming flames, but was dropped in a position of peril by a bunch of douche-bag aliens.

Given I'd spent a week as a horse, that was plausible enough.

I drove forward, gazing up through the windshield to the darkening skies above. The blurred, shining stars twinkled in response.