Freedom

A Second Betty

"Chubs how far are we from this place?" This was probably the fourth time I had asked him this. 

"We should be seeing it shortly. Don't hold your breath Ruby." Chubs was probably getting annoyed by our constant questioning of his sense of direction. We kept walking for a while until in the distance we saw a billboard. Chuck's Auto Shop 

"Is this the place?" I looked around, the area looked as it was described on the map. Chubs does have a way with maps.

"Yep, let's start looking for a Betty." Liam was never going to let Betty go. It was kinda funny, she was a part of the family; bullet holes and all. 

"Not to burst your bubble, but I don't see any cars. Anywhere." I spoke with hesitation as not to ruin Liam's upbeat mood.

Liam retorted with the same enthusiasm as before, "Maybe not here exactly, but we can look around the shop." We split up, looking through the abandoned town. The country side was still a ghost town, you would have thought the economy would have put itself together again quicker and people would have moved back to the country side. Lucky for us it was still shockingly empty. 

Hours of Searching Later

I called out in frustration to the rest of our group, "Liam I really don't think there's any cars here."  Liam dropped a log on the ground that was blocking the entrance to the back of the shop. He looked frustrated as he spoke,

"Well we're just gonna have to keep looking tomorrow. Help me get into this place." I walked over to the rusted door and helped him pull it open. Inside was a surprisingly clean break room. Filled with posters and magazines from decades before. A couch probably about twenty years old faced opposite of the door. In the other corner was multiple couch cushions from different couches. "Let settle here for the night. There's no other doors that lead to here; it should be fine." I set my backpack down in the middle of the room and called for Chubs and Zu to come in. I started to figure out how to arrange the pillows and cushions on the floor. 

"Chubs, is there any other car place around here? I really don't want to have to head into the city." Liam sat down on the couch and relaxed for the first time today. Zu came up to him and sat in his lap. Zu was always great at cheering us up, she just had this happy demeanor that was highly infectious.

I turned the Chubs, "Chubs let's go for a walk, maybe we can find something." I was determined to find a stupid car, if just to get us all out of this slump of not knowing what to do next. 

"You're really trying to get me to walk MORE?" Chubs retorted and looked at me in confusion. I looked at him trying to communicate with our eyeballs. He got the message and got up with me to go looking. We started walking into the dimming Virginia sunlight.

"How you doin Chubs"

"Fine and dandy, aside from the fact that we've been hopping from place to place with no where in particular to go."

We entered the forested area and kept our eyes peeled as we conversed. 

"Is there any place we can go?"

"Not that I know of, Im not omniscient."

"Well thats a shame because I am." I laughed and looked at Chubs.

"Well smart ass, tell us where to find the van of our dreams." He stopped and held his arms out as to receive my sentient knowledge.

"Hmm. I predict on our left, one hundred steps from us will be a beautiful car."

"Yeah right." Chubs chuckled and fixed his glasses. Chubs started walking to the left and counting.

"You're actually trusting my suggestions?" I looked at him walking a "perfect" step size, and looking like a duck that learned to count.

"We've got nothing better to do." I followed him and we kept conversing about stupid unmemorable topics.

"98, 99, 100. Well not only are we now in the middle of a forrest, there's no car here. Ugh let's head back." Chubs started back in the direction we came. I spotted something in the distance.

"Chubs." I tried to tap his shoulder but he didn't give me his attention. "Chubs!" I called out louder.

"What's your orange ass yelling about?" He turned to look at me and saw what I was saw.

"You seeing that?" I started towards the object.

"I guess you are sentient" The object in our horizon was a black camper van. We started running towards the car. We were able to open the doors and checked out the inside. There were two seats int he front and the back was hollowed out.

"Oh my god the keys are still here" I squealed in excitement and picked up the keychain and tried starting the car. There was almost no gas in this thing, but we decided we needed to get this back to the auto center, or at least as close as we could get it. 

"Do you still remember how to drive?" Chubs got in the passenger seat, afraid I would kill him with my horrible driving.

"Someone told me it was like riding a bike. So let's see." I started up the car and tried to reverse out of a pile of foliage. I managed to maneuver it out of the rut it was stuck in and onto the path Chubs and I once walked on. Many stressful minutes later, we were back at the auto center. 

"Liam, Zu! You're gonna want to see this!" I turned off the van and got out to go get Liam and Zu. They walked out and looked out Chub's and my discovery in amazement. Liam ran over to Chubs and bro hugged him.

"Where did you find this? How did you find this?" Liam stuttered as he admired the van.

"Ruby's omniscient now. We were just walking and she unknowingly led us right to it." Chubs smiled genuinely and patted my shoulder. Liam ran over to me and hugged me tightly, picking me off the ground in the process.

"You're welcome, now don't squash me." I wheezed out the words as Liam let me go. "We have keys, which is amazing. But it needs to be checked out and we definitely need to stock up on gas. All of us started to check out the inside of the van. The hollowed out inside would make it easy for us to transform it into a suitable living space for the four of us. 

"I'm going to check the auto center for gas before the sun goes down." Liam's enthusiasm was back once again. Zu, Chubs and I watched him speedily walk off to the other side of the auto center. 

Chubs and I started to teach Zu about car maintenance and checked out the van to make sure everything was up to par. Liam eventually came back with three big jugs of what we assumed were gas. I said to him in a startled manner, "Jesus Liam, where did you get all of this?" His engaged arms set down the jugs and responded out of breath,

"A lot of siphoning later, and we have gas." I walked over to the gas and started to help him fill up the car's tank. "You guys want to stay in the car tonight, we can start decking it out." Nothing made Liam happier than working on cars. I think he once told me about the times his dad would let him help fixing up old cars. 

I walked over to the side door and put my hand on it as I spoke, "First, we need a name for this beauty." 

Chubs answered first, "Well we can't name it Betty."

"I like B names, since it is another black car." Liam responded the Chubs' statement.

"I have an idea" I started towards our backpacks and found a notebook and pen. "Zu, why don't you pick the name. You picked Betty, and that was a good name." She took the notebook and started brain storming names. She decided on one and circled it

Bianca

Liam spoke, "Bianca? I like it." He patted Zu's head. 

Chubs and I agreed and so the van was named. Bianca, the successor of Betty. Finally we had a car, now we needed some direction.