Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

in English?”
    “It could mean someone who puts things in cans, I guess,” said Peter.   “But obviously that’s not what I mean when I say it.”
    “I was chust wondering.   I like it.   It sounds more normal den zombies.   Dey are not undead, after all.”
    “As far as I’m concerned they are,” I said bitterly.   “They’re going to ruin our world … what’s left of it, anyway.   They’re ghouls.”
    “Maybe someone will stop dem,” suggested Bodo.   “Like dee army or something.”
    “There is no army left.”
    “Yes, but dare is army eqvipment left.   And veapons … I mean, weapons .”
    “With our luck it’ll be the canners that get to that stuff first.”   I shivered, considering the ramifications.   “I don’t even want to think about it, really.   Can we move on to other topics?”
    “How about food?” suggested Bodo.   “My favorite American food besides da Pringkles is peanut butter.”
    I laughed.   “You and every kid under the age of nine.”
    “Really?   It’s a food for da little kids?”
    “No.   I like peanut butter, too,” said Peter.   “It’s not just for kids.   But lots of people feed their kids peanut butter and jelly when they’re little, so we kind of get hooked on it.”
    “In my country it was Nutella.   I used to have it on toast in da morning when I wass a little boy.”
    “We have that here now, too.”
    “I know.   But it’s old newss for me.   I prefer da peanut butter.   Dat is my dream now, to find a peanut butter factory where I can take a hundret jars of it.”
    “We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Peter.  
    I looked over at him to catch him rolling his eyes.
    “What food do you like da most, Bryn?”
    “Hmmm, that’s a tough one.   I think … I miss Doritos most.”
    “Oh, dat’s a good choice.   I like dem too.   Da ones dat make your fingers orangch.”
    “Yeah, that’s my favorite flavor, too,” said Peter.   “But the food I miss the most is pizza.”
    “Oh, yeah, pizza.   I forgot about that.   Put pizza on my list,” I said.   I shook my head to get it out of pizza land.   “We have to stop talking about this stuff.   I’m getting seriously hungry and it’s not time to stop and eat yet.”
    “What I want to know is when you are going to teach us your moofs.   I need to get very tricky da way dat you are, so if someone tries to come in and take our stuff, I can show him who is da boss and break some of hiss bones maybe.”
    “Maybe when we get to our new place, we can get lessons from Bryn,” said Peter.   “I wouldn’t mind that either.”
    “We’ll be like dose Special Forccess guys, jah? … I mean, yes?”
    I shook my head.   “I don’t know if I’ll be a very good teacher, but I will try.”
    We kept riding along, but I noticed a change in the looks of the cars we were passing.   It was kind of spooky in a way.
    “Do you guys notice anything different around here?”
    “Yeah,” said Peter.  
    “No, not really,” said Bodo.
    “What do you see, Peter?”
    “Well, some of the glass on the cars is broken.   And look!   That car over there looks like it was burned.”
    “Yeah.   The cars farther north were all normal.   I mean, they had doors and windows open, but none of this vandalism I’m seeing here.”
    The sun was now fully up.   I looked at my watch.   “It’s almost ten o’clock.   Maybe we should stop now.”   I looked off the side of the highway and saw a group of short trees in the distance. “Are those orange trees?”  
    “Yes, dey are.”
    “Are you thinking we should sleep there?” asked Peter.
    “Yeah.   We can hide the bikes and ourselves pretty easily, and maybe there’ll be some fruit.
    Bodo headed for the edge of the road and we followed him.  
    Buster woke up when I went over the bumpy grass.   I decided to get off and walk the bike.   I didn’t need some big thorn getting pushed into the tire with my heavy weight on it.   I had very little in the way of spare tubes and patch kits.
    “Wait up, guys!” I called out.   “I need to walk the bike.”
    Peter and Bodo got off and waited for me to catch up.   We crossed over a shallow canal and walked across a wide open field before reaching the orange grove ten minutes later, all of us sweating after battling patches of sand that the bikes liked to get bogged down in, especially Peter’s.   His bike had the thinnest tires of the three.
    “So where to now?” asked