Waking world

  Elmore awoke groggily, blinking at the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. The smell of fresh coffee lingered in the air, and he felt stiff from days of deep, exhausted sleep. He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, which made the leather creak under his weight, realizing belatedly that his clothes were clean, the room was tidied up, and a blanket had been draped over him.

  "About time you woke up," Ash's voice chimed from the kitchen, a teasing smile tugging at her lips. She set down a plate of eggs and toast on the table, leaning against the counter. "You’ve been out for two days. I had to drag you to the couch after you passed out at the dinner table. And then..." she trailed off, laughing softly, "you wet yourself like a baby. So I had two little ones to take care of for a while your lucky I love your big ass."

  Elmore flushed with embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about that, Ash. I didn’t mean to—"

  Ash waved her hand dismissively, still smiling. "Don’t worry about it. You’ve been working yourself to death. Honestly, I’m just glad you got some sleep. You needed it. I expected you to come home a little roughed up but not that bad"as she runs her hand along his arm pulling it one of the bandages where a hole down to bone was not 2 days ago is now scabbed and puckered as though it's months old.

  He chuckled sheepishly. "I guess I did. I’ll clean up the couch in a bit. And, uh… thanks for handling everything while I was out. I love and appreciate you"

  After finishing a quick breakfast, Elmore took a long, hot shower. The water felt like heaven against his sore muscles, and as he washed off the grime of the last few days, he thought about how lucky he was. Ash had taken care of everything, and the fact that the power was back on was a welcome surprise. The warm water was a godsend.After getting dressed, he tidied up the mess from his unintended hibernation.

  Ash was busy with Edward so after a good hour or two of family time, Elmore decided to tend to the garden. As he walked outside, he was amazed by how rapidly everything was growing. The crops were coming in faster than expected, and the weeds were sparse more spares than they had been the last few times he pulled weeds, as if his crops were getting the chance to fight back. Kneeling down, Elmore inspected the rows of vegetables, running his fingers through the soft dirt. Seeing roots from nearby tomato plants reaching above the soil and strangling a bundle of dandelions that have since died.

  "At this rate," he muttered to himself, "we’ll be self-sufficient in no time. Maybe another month at most. Nowwe just need animals to raise"

  The fruit trees in the backyard were even more astonishing. The branches were heavy with ripening fruit, and Elmore realized he could already harvest a decent amount. He grabbed a laundry basket and began picking, moving between trees, filling it with apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, and pawpaws. By the time he was done, the basket was half full with six different types of fruit, their vibrant colors shining under the sun.

  Elmore walked back inside, setting the basket on the kitchen counter. "Ash, look at this," he said with a grin. "I was thinking… we could start selling some of this fruit. If the garden keeps going like it is, we’ll have more than enough for us. Could make a bit of extra money on the side."

  Ash glanced at the overflowing basket, nodding in approval. "That’s a great idea. Tomorrow, we can head into town and see what we can get for them. But today..." she paused, her eyes sparkling. "You’ve got that truck to rebuild, don’t you?"

  Elmore smiled, knowing what was next on his to-do list she had lovingly stuck to the fridge. He and his dad hadn’t worked on the old truck in a few years, and now was the perfect time to finish what they started. Before everything had gone haywire, his father had gone under for surgery and was staying with Elmore’s grandma up in town. They were doing fine and planned to move back into his dad’s house together soon since he was all healed up and ready to go home. But for now, the truck sat waiting in his father’s yard. “ I'll go get pops and see about gettin’er fixed up”

  After riding up town and loading up his father into the passenger seat only to complain about the car being dirtier than he would want it, saying Elmore just drove home back to the mountain. the two men made their way up the dirt and Reddog* driveway leading to the front yard and to the old truck. To the right over There against the bank, nestled in the cover of trees and brush like a sleeping beast, was their old black Ford. It was a sight to behold—a relic from an era when vehicles were built to last. The truck's body was a solid rusty black iron, an unyielding testament to an age before crumple zones and modern “safety features”. Its rounded long frame glowed in the green light passing through the forest hanging overhead, a hulking, stubborn mass that seemed to defy time itself.

  *Reddog is a type of coal waste usually either exposed to Great heat from a coal vein burning underground or a naturally existing type of stone that forms near coal. The stone is usually red and mining towns predominantly use it to replace normal gray gravel for their roads in parts of Appalachia meaning the dirt roads that are still old and intact are all red. The stone was never used for anything other than this purpose it did have the downside of eating tires very quickly and was extremely flammable underground and could burn for decades making the entire air smell like sulfur

  The old truck sure has some character. Its black paint, though chipped and faded in places, still gave off a deep, mat sheen. The white interior, surprisingly well-preserved, still a gleaming White, while looking clean and inviting inside, with one of those old scratchy wool bench seats that were as comfortable as they were spacious. There was no air conditioning, no power steering—just raw, old-school engineering. The kind of truck you could feel in your bones when you drove it, as if it was more muscle than machine.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Elmore ran a hand over the hood, feeling the cool metal beneath his fingers. The truck didn’t have the luxuries of modern vehicles, no heat or AC. No inside lights or glove box, and roll down windows, but it had something better—durability. And Elmore had put quite nice speakers in it so the radio was at least nice and loud. This was a truck that had been built before the concept of “planned obsolescence” had entered the conversation, everything built from solid wrought iron and forged steel. It didn’t bend to the whims of progress; it simply existed, a mechanical brute that refused to die.

  "Well, old girl," Elmore said quietly, smiling to himself. "We plan to get you running again right pops." Who grumbled at Elmore a little “don't go loony talking to your truck boy. Let's git’er done

  With that, they rolled the truck down to his father's two Bay garage that he uses for his mechanics business. Sliding the bay doors up and rolling the truck in, eventually putting the lift arms underneath the truck and mounting it to the frame, they grabbed their tools, and got to work. The day stretched on before them, but Elmore didn’t mind he got to spend some more time with his dad and finally got to fix the old truck together, even if the old man was a grumpy bastard. There was something almost meditative about working on the truck together—each bolt he turned, each part he cleaned and replaced felt like a small victory, a step toward reviving a piece of history, and cementing a memory of his own with his father. Conversation moved from topic to topic as his father complained about the only thing old people hate most, change.

  Old iron

  As Elmore and his dad worked on the old black Ford, he marveled at how much easier everything seemed this time around. The parts that had once felt impossibly heavy were now manageable, like they were lifting themselves he was just helping. He remembered every detail from the countless hours spent in the garage with his father, struggling to breathe new life into the truck. Back then, they’d hit roadblocks—sometimes because parts were too hard to find, or because his father lacked the know-how for specific repairs, like welding aluminum.

  Elmore paused for a moment, thinking back to that time. His father had stared at the truck with frustration etched into his face. They had tried their best but had to stop when they reached the aluminum welding job so they can mount the radiator. It had been a surprisingly major setback, and sadly I set back that after almost 10 years they never got around to overcoming.

  Now, though, Elmore felt something different stirring within him. With brute force and ingenuity, they didn’t bother with welding the aluminum; instead, he crafted replacements from the scraps that littered the junkyard his family had called home for nearly 150 years. Old parts lay scattered about, some half-buried under dirt and brush, others still part of cars. stacked one on top of the other overgrown with vines and trees bursting through broken windows and around the smashed cars on top of them.. His dad had always joked with him about how their home was built on top of a rusted gold mine. Today, though, Elmore saw how much truth was in that statement and he couldn't have imagined how much of an understatement that will be in the far far future.

  Elmore rummaged through the mountain of wreckage that sits all around his father's property. mountains of cars buried into the woods underground and not. cars on top of others arranged in Long tall piles forming an ad hoc maze now looking like the most Ruinpunk vertical farms he could imagine, scrambling up and down pulling out bits and pieces that he knew they could shape into usable parts, replacing the ones that had been a problem in the past. It was almost as if his hands moved with a knowledge that wasn’t entirely his own but he realized was just what happens when all his knowledge is perfectly applied, making complicated modifications simple getting into and out of cramped crushed cars and holes in the ground with equal ease, solving problems as if they were puzzles he already knew the answers to and had completed 1000 times. He just wasn't very fast as the large man he is.

  When it came time to rebuild the engine, Elmore expected to need the cherry picker, a tool they'd always relied on for lifting heavy engines, in their case was just three giant steel pipes 12 ft long with a chain driven come-along to do the actual lifting. But as he gripped the old engine, he realized he didn’t need it at all. So after unbolting it from the motor mounts, He moved into position so he could lift it by himself, muscles straining slightly but not enough to stop him. With a grunt of effort, he pulled the old engine out and set it aside. His father chiming in ”you're going to hurt yourself doing crazy dumb shit like that.” He said as he rolled over the diesel engine they had prepped for the truck, modifying it for rougher fuels in case they couldn’t get anything better in the future.

  In just three hours, the entire engine swap was done—a task that should have taken them most of the day, if not longer but in a shocking spell of good luck there were no complications. Watching his dad turn the key and hear the Beast rumble to life, in the enclosed garage it sounded like a dragon's heart. Black smoke billowed out of its exhaust for a moment in the process knocking dirt and plants off of the underside. and the rhythmic thump thump thump, and with a firm press of the accelerator that heart beat became the bellowing roar of a sleeping beast arising . Elmore stepped back and admired their work, wiping the sweat from his brow. The truck was one step closer to being roadworthy again. But he wasn’t done yet.

  He walked back to his house giving his dad a wave for a lunch brake—a short five-minute trek—and grabbed a quick lunch with Ash. She had made sandwiches and filled him in on Edward’s antics while he’d been gone. After a brief meal, Elmore returned to the garage, ready to start on the next project.

  He gathered a few steel drums from the junkyard, cleaned them out, and set up a makeshift fuel-processing station in the corner of the garage. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it would work. He knew they had five 50-gallon drums of old engine oil lying around, and with some effort, he could refine it into diesel fuel. Setting That took up the rest of the day, and by the time the sun was setting, Elmore and his dad was exhausted.

  After thanking his dad who just shrugged it off with a wave to go get himself a bear. Elmore trudged back home, his legs feeling like lead with each step. When he finally stepped onto the porch, Ash was waiting for him. "You look like you’ve been through a war," she teased, handing him a towel as he walked inside.

  "Feels like it too," Elmore muttered, his voice tired but satisfied. He took a long, hot shower, scrubbing the grime off and letting the heat soothe his aching muscles.

  At dinner, he sat down with a deep sigh of relief. Ash placed a plate of food in front of him, and he dug in gratefully. Between bites, he filled her in on what he’d done that day. "The truck’s coming together faster than I expected. Got the diesel engine in, and I set up a station for processing fuel. With the oil drums we have lying around, we should be set on fuel for a while, even if we can’t get gas and we can turn animal fat or other stuff into fuel so we can keep something running, plus was talking with dad he is getting low on booze and wants to set up a still."

  Ash smiled at him, her eyes filled with admiration. "That’s incredible. You’ve been working so hard. I’m really proud of you. But where is he going to get the equipment for a still now a days we don't get mail very often anymore."

  He chuckled, a tired grin on his face. "Well, now we’ve got a backup plan for when gas is impossible to come by. It’s not perfect, but it’ll work, and most importantly run.but I think he has a plan with all the scrap hoses and drums he has laying around we will just have to watch out for the old man trying to steal our corn haha"

  They spent the next few minutes in comfortable conversation, talking about plans for the garden and how well Edward was doing, and how his dad and grandma was moving back to the mountain .The mood was light, a sense of accomplishment hanging in the air. Everything felt like it was finally falling into place, like they were ready for whatever came next.

  Then, the mood shifted.

  The television, which had been playing in the background, suddenly flashed with breaking news. Ash picked up the remote and turned up the volume. Elmore paused, his fork hovering above his plate as they both turned their attention to the screen.

  "It’s starting," he murmured quietly, the words hanging ominously in the air.