Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

that we had to bend down to avoid hitting our heads, I said, “So.   What do you think?”
    “Well, he doesn’t seem crazy.   Just funny.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
    “Okay, then, I guess we let him stay.   But at the first sign of something being off, we cut him loose,” said Peter.
    I smiled.   “Well that’s not a good criteria.”
    “Criterium.”
    “Whatever.   I mean, you’re off all the time, but I don’t cut you out.”
    Peter shoved me.   “Get away from me, you rude beast.”
    “Come on.   Let’s go eat dinner and then we’ll go to bed.   We’ll make him sleep away from us the first night.”   I pointed my finger at Peter.   “And no cuddling, you hear me?”
    Peter ignored me, instead going to the trailer to find some of the dried military meals.   He quickly whipped up a meal and invited Bodo to join us for dinner.  
    Bodo ate his own stuff, but was generous enough to give us each two of his precious ‘Pringkles’.   It felt like a picnic, and I decided after Bodo’s third ridiculous story of his horrible mishaps he’d endured trying to find travel partners, that he was going to fit in just fine.   As long as he didn’t try to kill us or steal from us while we slept.

CHAPTER FIVE

    I WOKE UP TO THE beeping of the alarm on my watch.   It was three thirty in the morning and time to get on the road.   The first thing that came to mind was the fact that Bodo was really going to slow us down until we found him a bike.
    I sat up and nudged Peter awake.   “Time to get up, sleepy head.”   I looked down to where Bodo had gone to sleep and saw nothing.   He was gone.   I shoved Peter harder and then got on my feet.   “Get up, Peter.   Bodo’s gone.”
    “What’d you say?” mumbled Peter, rolling over onto his back.   “Oh, God, this ground is so friggin hard.”   He paused for a couple seconds and then sat up all of a sudden.   “Did you say Bodo’s gone?”   Peter looked down to where Bodo had been sleeping.   “Crap.   That’s weird.”
    I had a small panic attack when I thought about our supplies.   I rushed over to the trailer and lifted up the tarp.   My eyes scanned the contents, taking in our backpacks that still looked full, the tools, the square of plastic, the bucket.   All of our food seemed to be there, too.   I pulled the last item I noticed out of the trailer and held it up.
    “What do you suppose this means?”
    Peter squinted his eyes and then they opened wider.   “He left us his Pringles?”
    “Yes, he left us his ‘Pringkles’.   And he didn’t take anything else that I can see.”
    “You still have your gun?”
    “Yeah.   Do you?”
    “Yeah.   What about the bullets?” asked Peter.
    I grabbed the bottom of the backpack where we kept the bullets and shook the boxes that I felt there.   They sounded full.   “Still here.”
    “What should we do?   Wait for him?   Maybe he’s … doing his business or something.”
    “Yeah, but why would he take his backpack if he was doodling?”
    “God, I wish you’d stop saying that,” said Peter, standing up and scrubbing his face a few times.   “I’m going to go pee.   I’ll be back with better answers.”
    Buster and I went to go pee behind a bush, and we got back after Peter, who was drinking some water and eating a chip.   We sat around for a few minutes, but then decided to just leave.
    “For whatever reason, he’s gone, but we can’t wait around anymore.   We have to get to the Everglades.”
    “Did we ever tell him yesterday what our plans are?” asked Peter.
    “No.   I didn’t.   And I don’t remember you telling him.   Why?   Are you worried about him ratting us out?”
    “No.   Actually, I was hoping maybe he could eventually catch up with us.   But I know that’s not very realistic, since the Everglades is kind of huge and we don’t even know exactly where we’re going.”
    “Well, I’m not going to worry about it.   Maybe we’ll see him again some day.   It was nice of him to leave us his Pringkles though.”
    “You can stop calling them Pringkles now,” laughed Peter.
    “I kind of prefer it that way, actually.   Pringkles.   It has a nice ring to it.”
    “Come on,” said Peter, grabbing the handlebars of his bike and wrestling it down the slope.   “We need to get fifty miles today at least.”
    I had a hell of a time getting my bike down the hill without crashing it and mangling the trailer,