A Moonlit Drive

   The old '92 sedan limped along the roadside, coated in bird s**t, dirt and a heavy coating of a filmy, brown-red dust. All the windows of the vehicle were long gone and part of the vehicles roof was torn away, like the opening of a can. Heavy fumes belched forth from the exhaust pipe and engine rumbled weakly, a series of sputters and cough-sounds. The car was in no good shape. And neither was it's surroundings. For mile all 'round were dilapidated ruins, the skeletons of cars and buildings, long since picked clean by rust and time and scavengers. The earth itself was no better; barren and cracked in places, completely torn in others. A few dessicated corpses of cows, the remainder of intestines strewn about them, lay about the dirt "road" (if it could be called a road), also long since picked clean of scavengers.
   Yvonne kept the car cruising at a comfortable forty miles an hour. Edison, in the passenger seat, had his feet kicked up onto the dash and was strumming a rotted wooden guitar. Despite the disheveled appearance of his person and the guitar, Edison's fingers danced about the frets and strings, producing a melody of lilting, melancholic tune. Yvonne, seated right next to the guitarist, acted as if she heard nothing but the rumbling of the car.
   The two were complete opposites in every respect. Yvonne was a healthy sized lump of a woman, with black hair, cut short to prevent having the trouble of washing it frequently. She wore blue lipstick. Edison, on the other hand, was a hairy twig. Yvonne wore clothes too many sizes too small and Edison wore comfortably baggy clothes.
   "Don't know why you packed all your s**t up and picked this car off the road," Edison said, briefly pausing is guitar playing, peering out from behind the broken lenses of his sunglasses. "Ain't nothing here. Ain't nothing anywhere."
   "There's got to be something," Yvonne snapped. "You done playing that wooden twanger?"
    "Yeah," and he put the guitar down between his legs.
    "There has to be something," she repeated.
    "There isn't. The Bang took care of nigh everything. You'll find only this," Edison waved his arm around. "Ruins and dust. Maybe a few stragglers here and there. We might be the only two people left, for all we know! Know what that means?"
    "What?"
    "We'll need to repopulate the earth."
    Yvonne turned and stared flatly at him.
    "F**k no."
    She swerved left to avoid a swollen tumor of cow carcass and then brought the car to a halt. Before them rose a large wooden post, fashioned in the shape of a crude cross, atop which numerous birds sat, watching them with pea eyes. At the base of the cross, lower to the ground, was affixed a wooden sign with worn lettering:
    Turn back, all ye who enter here.
    Higher up on the cross, arms spread and shackled, was what remained of a torn corpse of a man, naked and bare, sun blackened. The birds avoided the thing and simply sat atop the cross. A small circlet of flowers was tied about the body's head, covering the eyes.
    "That ain't good," Edison said, swearing under his breath.
    "Means people are near. He didn't get up here by himself. You scared?"
    "Yeah."
    "Good."
    And she prodded the gas pedal and the piece-of-s**t sedan lurched forward again and they rode off in the tangerine sunset.